TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES TO AIR WORLD TELEVISION PREMIERE OF TREASURES FROM AMERICAN FILM ARCHIVES
Press release courtesy of Turner Classic Movies
San Francisco, CA (August 13, 2001)—Forty-seven films from the award-winning Treasures from American Film Archives project will have a collective television premiere on TCM this November. Preserved by 18 of America's premiere archives, these films are presented by the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF), the nonprofit organization created by Congress to save America's film heritage.
The festival showcases the amazing range of American films that survive today thanks to the efforts of the nation's archives. From the first publicly exhibited movie to cutting-edge, avant-garde works, Treasures presents silent-era features, pioneering special effects, landmark independent productions, documentaries, newsreels, animation, political ads, and home movies from across the United States.
The overwhelming majority of the films in Treasures have never been seen by national television audiences. Highlights include the first feature-length SNOW WHITE (1916), Western star William S. Hart in HELL'S HINGES (1916), THE TOLL OF THE SEA (1922) in two-strip Technicolor, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928) by Webber & Watson, ROSE HOBART (1936) by Joseph Cornell, and footage of Orson Welles' 1936 "VOODOO" MACBETH. All films without original soundtracks will be accompanied by newly recorded scores.
Contributing films to Treasures are Academy Film Archive, Alaska Film Archives, Anthology Film Archives, George Eastman House, Japanese American National Museum, Library of Congress, Minnesota Historical Society, Museum of Modern Art, National Archives and Records Administration, National Center for Jewish Film, New York Public Library, Northeast Historic Film, Pacific Film Archive, Smithsonian Institution, UCLA Film and Television Archive, and West Virginia State Archives. The Treasures project, which is available on DVD, was organized by the NFPF and funded through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
"For years, archives have worked to try to save America's film heritage before it disappeared," said Roger Mayer, chairman of the board for the NFPF. "Collaborating through the National Film Preservation Foundation, these organizations are able for the first time to present the results beyond the academic community. We are delighted to share the Treasures films with an even a larger audience through TCM, a network that has promoted film preservation by showing so many of the classic Hollywood features preserved by the entertainment industry."
Turner Classic Movies, currently seen in more than 50 million homes, is a 24-hour cable network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., an AOL Time Warner company. TCM presents the greatest motion pictures of all time from the largest film library in the world, the combined Time Warner and Turner film libraries, from the '20s through the '80s, commercial-free and without interruption. For more information, please visit the TCM Web site at www.turnerclassicmovies.com.
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Justin Pettigrew, ATLANTA
(404-885-4638; justin.pettigrew@turner.com)
Heather Holmes, LOS ANGELES
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Michelle Rosenblatt, NEW YORK
(212-714-5651; michelle.rosenblatt@turner.com)