Film Collection
Subject
Subject Source: Local sources
Scope Note: Distinguishes audiovisual material in the Library that are part of the 1987 Cataloged Film Collection created under the direction of Nina Root.
Found in 292 Collections and/or Records:
East Africa
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 185
Scope and Contents
This film is comprised of bits and pieces that are probably outtakes of Alfred J. Klein's Equatorial Africa: Roosevelt's Hunting Grounds, made in 1923. The film opens with a celebration surrounding the female circumcision ceremony of young Kikuyu girls. The operation (clitoridectomy) itself is filmed but the quality of the film is so rough that the viewer must know beforehand what is being viewed: the woman performing the operation holds a knife; the young Kikuyu initiates wear white...
Dates:
[1923?]
Egypt ; Fish genetics ; Geology of the far north
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 103
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: Egypt. In a remote broadcast from the Brooklyn Museum, the first segment attempts to reconstruct life in Egypt during the time of the Pharoahs, as seen through Egyptian art. John Cooney, curator of egyptology at the Brooklyn Museum, narrates. Film sequences of ruins, pyramids, the Nile, wells, and Thebes were produced by Ancient World Film Series and the Archaeological Institute of America with Ray Gardner. SEGMENT 2: Fish Genetics. The second segment is concerned with fish...
Dates:
1955
Elastic time
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 58
Scope and Contents
Richard H. Pough, chairman of the Department of Conservation and General Ecology at the AMNH, demonstrates new photographic techniques. Man has increased his knowledge through time-lapse photographic and stroboscopic (high-speed) techniques. A year in the life of a field of grain, from seed to maturity, is filmed using time-lapse photography. Charles M. Bogert, museum herpetologist, produced slow-motion films of a rattlesnake's strike. Other footage includes a drone fly, a frog leaping, the...
Dates:
1954
Embryology
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 57
Scope and Contents
Evelyn Shaw, of the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History, introduces the program which opens with film clips of chicks, monkeys, kinkajous, and cocker spaniels and discussions of their beginnings. Charts of human growth in the womb are shown. The development of frog, trout, fish, and chicken embryos is seen through time-lapse photographs. The films were provided by United World Films.
Dates:
1954
Essence of life
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 99
Scope and Contents
William D. Clarke, AMNH curator of invertebrates, reviews the nature and range of life on earth, illustrating how all normal forms of life have five basic properties: responsiveness, the ability to reproduce, growth, metabolism, and movement. A live performance by UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) demonstrates that despite its amazing capabilities, far superior to human clerks, its giant brain falls short of qualifying it as life. A powerful electron microscope is used to show that the...
Dates:
1955
Ethiopia
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 179
Scope and Contents
With the feel and flavor of a travelogue, this film touches briefly on a variety of locations, people, and events throughout this East African country. Places visited include Addis Ababa, the hot springs of Awash, the Blue Nile Gorge, Tisisat Falls, Lake Tsana, Daga Island, Dek Island, Gonder, Lalibela, and Aksum. Ethiopia's diverse cultural make-up is illustrated through glimpses of the daily lives of various groups. One segment of the film focuses on religious ceremonies of the Ethiopian...
Dates:
1971
Evolution of the horse
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 135
Scope and Contents
This broadcast from the Aqueduct Racetrack features horse trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, trainer of the thoroughbred Nashua. The discussion focuses on the characteristics of a fine horse and on the evolution of the horse. Edwin Harris Colbert, curator of paleontology at the AMNH, is also a guest on this program. He traces the modern horse's evolution back 60 million years to the tiny Eophippus. Films are shown of horses in the Wheatley and Greentree Stables. A new colt being born and the...
Dates:
1956
Explorations for science in South America
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 104
Scope and Contents
Ross Allen, owner of the Ross Allen Reptile Farm in Silver Springs, Florida, discusses the role of adventurers and explorers in the cause of science. Allen collects and supplies animals to schools, zoos, and museums. Allen exhibits two deadly reptiles he captured and brought from Brazil, including a fer-delance, a large, extremely venomous pit viper. The poison apparatus of the snakes and a demonstration of "milking" them for venom informs the viewers about potential anti-venoms. The Count...
Dates:
1955
Family of man
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 113
Scope and Contents
This broadcast on the "Family of Man" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art was originally shown on June 19, 1955. The show won an award at the Venice Film Festival and was exhibited at the Edinburgh Film Festival. It is repeated here in its entirety.
Dates:
1955
Family of man
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 110
Scope and Contents
The "Family of Man" exhibition of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art is discussed by Edward Steichen, noted photographer and curator at the Museum of Modern Art, and guests Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Sandburg, and Harry L. Shapiro, AMNH Department of Anthropology. Roosevelt narrates the first segment of the program which tells the basic family story around the world through photographs of mothers, fathers, children, lovers, marriage and birth. Shapiro shows images (of man laboring, tilling...
Dates:
1955
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192