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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:

Modern taxidermy : mounting the Indian elephant

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 214
Scope and Contents This film opens with footage taken from Jungle Life in India, showing the Indian elephant in his natural habitat and Arthur Stannard Vernay, John Champion Faunthorpe, and Louis Jonas, all members of the Faunthorpe-Vernay Indian Expedition, marching through the jungle with their native staff. Then, in a studio at the AMNH, the mounting of the elephant takes place. This film is an interesting and valuable record of museum methods. Louis Jonas, museum taxidermist and Carl Akeley's student,...
Dates: 1926-1927

Mohammedanism

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 101
Scope and Contents

Walter Ashlin Fairservis, AMNH anthropologist, examines Mohammedanism. The first in a three-part series on Oriental religions, this program traces the beginnings of Mohammedanism to about 600 A.D., when Mohammed preached. The history and role of Mohammedanism in the daily lives of its followers is discussed. Film footage shown includes a pilgrimage to Mecca, produced by the Arabian American Oil Company.

Dates: 1955

Moscow May Day

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 227
Scope and Contents Despite the title given to this film by William James Morden, it was probably made in November of 1928 during the anniversary celebrations of the Bolshevik Revolution, rather than during May Day festivities. Morden went to the Soviet Union in November to obtain permits for the AMNH Morden-Graves North Asiatic Expedition to collect mammals in Turkestan the following year. The first part of the film features historic sites in Leningrad and Moscow. The Leningrad sites include the Central Naval...
Dates: 1928

Mountain climbing

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 52
Scope and Contents William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and Maurice Herzog, author of the best-seller Annapurna (an account of his expedition to the Himalayas), are the celebrated guests of this program. Douglas, an avid mountain climber, wrote several books on his travel experiences including Beyond the High Himalayas, Of Men and Mountains, and Strange Lands and Friendly People. The two men speak of the dangers, rewards, memorable experiences, and the physical equipment...
Dates: 1953

Mountain climbing with native guides

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 112
Scope and Contents A discussion of the need for native guides in mountain climbing expeditions is the subject of this broadcast. Sherpa and Hunza men, for example, greatly aided the German expedition ascending Nanga Parbat, in the Himalayas. Author-lecturer James Ramsey Ullman and Charles Collingwood discuss the two-fold problem of native guides on mountain climbing expeditions, which first involve the actual physical dangers and secondly include cultural fears of gods and demons of the mountains. In film...
Dates: 1955

Mountains of the moon

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 229
Scope and Contents Filmed during the AMNH Ruwenzori-Kivu Expedition, 1926. This film is of the AMNH Ruwenzori-Kivu Expedition to Central Africa, Uganda, and Zaire, the purpose of which was to collect birds and small animals and record the regions visited. The expedition staff consisted of James Paul Chapin, leader and museum ornithologist, DeWitt L. Sage, photographer, and Frank Matthews, ornithologist. The Bambuti pygmies are depicted through group portraits only. Many hippopotomuses are pictured in the river...
Dates: 1926

Mounting buffalo

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 230
Scope and Contents

Robert H. Rockwell, and two assistants, are seen performing several aspects of the mounting procedure in the AMNH Department of Preparation. They insert leg substructures into the loose tanned skin; cover the buffalo model with plaster; fit skin onto the plaster-covered model; insert the legs into sockets; and work the skin into the plaster. The Akeley method of mounting large animals is covered in Mounting The Indian Elephant. This is all that remains of a much longer film.

Dates: [1920?]

Museum centennial

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 231
Scope and Contents Filmed as an episode of the television show New York Illustrated, Museum Centennial focuses on the centennial anniversary of the American Museum of Natural History. Mary Lindsay, wife of the then Mayor of New York, hosts. Shown in the film are a school group at the skeleton of Apatosaurus (then named Brontosaurus) and various museum exhibition halls. Discussions with museum curators provide interesting historical background to several of these. Richard Van Gelder, Department of Mammals,...
Dates: 1969

Musicale of primitive instruments

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 85
Scope and Contents Willard Rhodes, Columbia University anthropologist specializing in musicology, discusses numerous musical instruments from the AMNH collection. Dancers appear on a large keyboard set to illustrate Rhodes's concepts concerning primitive music. A group of musicians give a music performance with a score especially created for this program by Samuel Barber, noted composer and Pulitzer Prize winner, using nose flutes, water gongs, a Congo piano, and other exotic and aboriginal musical instruments...
Dates: 1954

Mutiny on the Bounty ; Otters ; The story of oil

 Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 31
Scope and Contents SEGMENT 1: Mutiny on the Bounty. On April 28, 1789, a mutiny occured on the H.M.S. Bounty, resulting in a unique intermingling of Tahitian and English culture on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. Harry L. Shapiro, AMNH anthropologist, explains the ethnological characteristics of the Pitcairn Islanders, the descendants of English crewmen and Tahitian women. This segment is hosted by Charles Collingwood. SEGMENT 2: Otters. This segment provides the audience with live and filmed views of...
Dates: 1953