Hart Reviews Outstanding Pictures Made During History Of the Film Foundation---Three Deserve Special Mention

The following is the first of a series of articles written for the Crimson by A. V. Hart '30, secretary of the University Film Foundation, in connection with the coming series of four moving picture productions sponsored by that organization.

In 1928 the University Film Foundation started operating as a non-profit, educational institution, chartered for the purpose of producing motion-picture films of scientific, artistic, and industrial value, in collaboration with the faculty and staff of Harvard University. The studios and laboratory were located at 40 Oxford Street, Cambridge.

The credit for the organizing and starting of the Foundation falls to J. A. Haeseler '23, the present director. Mr. Haeseler, shortly after his graduation from Harvard, traveled through Europe and Africa, making the first of a set of pictures on industry, geography, and living conditions. Of the pictures taken during this period, three deserve special mention for their splendid photographic and educational value. "An Unknown Race", filmed in North Africa, discusses life in a civilization that is older than Rome. The inhabitants of the country, called Berbers, have endured in a secluded mountain district of North Africa in eastern Algeria.

In contrast to working conditions in America, the Berber women do all the heavy labor of grinding meal, churning milk, carrying wood, and making pots by hand, while the husbands content themselves with driving the goats to and from the pasture. "Bedouins of the Sahara," and "Medieval Moderns," which is an intriguing study of the charming simplicity of peasant life on the plains of Hungary, are two other splendid films of this period.

Following this, a series of fine films were made on the subject of land transportation, elementary animals, and rubber. One of the best of these pictures is titled, "Nesting of the Sea Turtle." The film gives an accurate account of this curious creature which makes its home, year in and out, in deep water. In the spring of each year, however, the female turtle comes ashore to lay her eggs. Along the lonely southern beaches, she crawls above tide reach, scoops a deep hole in the sand with her flippers, and lays her ten dozen or more eggs. Finally, she covers them with sand, obliterating all traces of the nest, and drags herself back to the sea. Six to eight weeks later the eggs hatch under the warm sand. The baby turtles dig their way out into the warm sunshine, there to learn the art of using their flippers before trooping off to join the rest of their kind.

Lieutenant Commander N. G. Ricketts, of the United States Coast Guard service, filmed an extremely interesting and instructive picture on the subject of the international ice patrol. The patrol, which was established as a result of the celebrated Titanic disaster, is commissioned to sail up and down the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, charting the location and drift of icebergs. Every spring about three or four hundred of these huge birds come drifting southward from the glaciers of Greenland. It is the duty of the international ice patrol to keep watch and give each vessel passing through the ice areas all information possible concerning the location' and drift of the bergs.

Two Coast Guard cutters are in the service, each relieving the other every two weeks. The film is interesting as an account of a hazardous and exciting service, and is particularly notable for its unparalleled views of icebergs. With the coming of the talking picture the University Film Foundation added a sound proof room and sound apparatus to its equipment. The first talking picture to be made by the foundation was titled. "Three Centuries of Massachusetts." It was made under the direction of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart '80, of the department of History at Harvard, who appears on the screen on several occasions. The film traces the history of the state from its early colonial days--landing and settling of the Pilgrims--down to the present progressive Massachusetts with its large industries, automobiles, and airplanes.

The second talking picture of the University Film Foundation, titled, "Rice's Amazon," is expected to be ready for release in the early part of the spring. A. H. Rice '01, who directed the picture, has spent much of his time in the Amazon region, and is now an authority on living conditions and customs along the Amazon. Starting at the month of the river. Mr. Rice and his party paddled up the Amazon in canoes, taking pictures of natives and the surrounding country. A number of "shots" are taken from airplanes which served as provision carriers during the expedition.

Among the latest releases of the University Film Foundation is a series of films on technique in the arts. The films, produced for the museum of Fine Arts in Boston cover the subjects of sculpture, etching, dry-point, wood-engraving, silversmithing, spinning, and weaving, as well as medal-making. The films were prepared under the supervision of the Museum curators, and have such notable persons demonstrating the arts as Frank Benson, widely-known painter and etcher: Anna Hyatt Huntington sculptress: Timothy Cole, wood-engraver: and A. L. Stone, silversmithing expert.

Mr. Benson who is widely-known as a portrait painter as well as etcher, gives a splendid demonstration of etching a plate.