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 275 Collections and/or Records:
The penetration of the Bellingshausen Sea : Operation Deep Freeze
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 252
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the U.S. Antarctic Research Program's Expedition to the Bellingshausen Sea, 1960. Made by Robert Cushman Murphy and a U.S. Navy cameraman, the film is a record of the U.S. Antarctic Research Program's expedition to the Bellingshausen Sea in Antarctica. Two Navy icebreakers, the Glacier and the Burton Island, and their crews (nearly 600 men) penetrated the sea which had remained unexplored since its discovery in 1821. Murphy, an AMNH ornithologist, traveled on the Glacier under...
Dates:
1960
The Peruvian Eclipse Expedition
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 253
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the Hayden Planetarium-Grace Peruvian Eclipse Expedition, 1937. Charles H. Coles, head of the AMNH photographic department, was the official photographer and seized the opportunity to make this film on his own time. George Clyde Fisher, curator of astronomy at the AMNH-Hayden Planetarium, led the expedition. The film opens with a train traveling up the Peruvian Andes toward the summit camp and views of the Andes. The staff visits the Huancayo market where the natives sell...
Dates:
1937
The Peruvian hall
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 254
Scope and Contents
The AMNH Hall of Men of the Montaña was installed in 1951 and was supposed to be a temporary exhibition. Twenty-two years later it was dismantled, its success due in part to the innovative use of sound effects. In the old AMNH sound booth a technician explains the purpose of the two recordings used in the hall: one emits the sounds one would expect to hear on a rainy day and the other, the sounds heard on a dry day. In the hall an instructor discusses the various sounds with visiting...
Dates:
1951
The Puritan Expedition
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 257
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the Puritan-AMNH Expedition to western Mexico, 1957. Named for the schooner on which the AMNH staff members sailed, the Puritan Expedition's objective was the collection of specimens of the marine and terrestrial faunas of the islands in the vicinity of Baja California and the Tres Marias Islands. Among the members were William K. Emerson, AMNH malacologist and leader of the expedition, Richard George Van Gelder, AMNH mammalogist and photographer, Richard George Zweifel, AMNH...
Dates:
1957
The romance of the soil
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 47
Scope and Contents
An in-depth presentation of the physical and chemical properties of soil and man's dependence on it is made by Richard H. Pough, chairman of the AMNH Department of Conservation and Plant Ecology. One segment of the program shows plant growth through time-lapse photography, with unusual views of underground roots drinking up water from the surrounding earth. This film was made by Irving Milgate and co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The...
Dates:
1953
The saltwater marsh diorama
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 270
Scope and Contents
This film depicts the step-by-step construction of a diorama of the marsh at the Thames Science Center in New London, Connecticut, from the collection of accessories to the completed exhibit. Preparation begins at the Pattagansett salt-water marsh near Niantic, Connecticut. A stereoscopic camera is used to record the sand dunes, tidal estuary, flood plains, and freshwater inlet, which will serve as models for the background painting. Leaf, grass, and plant specimens are collected and...
Dates:
1981
The scientific expedition to the South Pacific in the yacht Zaca
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 160
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the AMNH Templeton Crocker Pacific Expedition, 1934-1935. On this expedition in his yacht, the Zaca, Templeton Crocker was accompanied by AMNH staff members James Paul Chapin, leader and ornithologist, Harry L. Shapiro, anthropologist, and Francis Lee Jacques, preparator and artist, all of whom appear in the film. Other expedition staff members included Toshio Asaeda, artist and photographer, Arthur Pedersen, ship's captain, and George Lyman, ship's surgeon. The expedition's...
Dates:
1934-1935
The sea hunters
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 65
Scope and Contents
This remote broadcast from the Gilgo Beach Marine Laboratory of the AMNH, surveys the techniques of marine hunters. Eugenie Clark, research associate for the museum's Department of Animal Behavior, narrates two films: an underwater sequence that shows a struggle between a moray eel and an octopus and another which includes both a polar bear hunting a seal, and a native spear fisherman battling a shark off the coast of Haiti.
Dates:
1954
The Shalako ceremony at Zuni, New Mexico
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 273
Scope and Contents
The Zuni Shalako ceremony is a dramatic presentation by masked men who impersonate kachinas. Kachinas are mythical ancestors of humans; they visit the earth during the winter, but spend the rest of the year in the spirit world. The film begins with scenes showing the impersonators praying, ritually smoking cigarettes, and making prayer sticks (pahos). These activities are performed both individually and as a group. Ultimately they all kneel at a rock shrine in prayer after removing their...
Dates:
1923
The silent enemy
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 275
Scope and Contents
William Douglas Burden, a trustee of the AMNH, hired professional cinematographer Marcel Le Picard to make this film in an effort to show the Ojibwa people as they were before acculturation changed their ways forever. Chief Yellow Robe explains the purpose of the film in a prologue and expresses gratitude for the opportunity to tell the Indians' story. Titles are used through the rest of the story. The story centers around Baluk, a young brave, and the evil medicine man, Dagwan, both of whom...
Dates:
1930
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192