Hello!

You can always count on all-round film expert Jack Theakston for something terrific from his apparently bottomless film collection. Once again, this is a new link only to CineSavant. Want to know what vintage Technicolor really looked like?

Theakston assembled some odds and end remnants from his vault and had them transferred. The little collage of message text cards, animation and short subject clips is quite pretty: 35mm IB Tech Nitrate Clips.

Comedian Chester Conklin (thanks everybody) introduces a line of cowgirls exiting a chuck wagon, from the short subject Fiesta of Santa Barbara. The first to appear is Mary Carlisle; the last is Toby Wing but just before Wing is a very blonde Ida Lupino. (thanks to Irv Lerner for this correction!)

And both Joe Dante and correspondent Jonathan Gluckman have pointed CineSavant to this New York Times article about the now-running Museum of Modern Art series on film restoration: Why Do Some Films Get Restored and Others Languish? — “A MoMA Series Holds Clues.”

It’s a good overview of restoration efforts, although Jonathan notes that the article doesn’t answer the question posed by its title. By the way, I think this link will open the article, even if you’re not a NYT subscriber.

The article mentions the new Invaders from Mars restoration and release, which Scott MacQueen will be talking about later today in conjunction with his restoration of The Devil and Daniel Webster. The lecture-demo is entitled Martians and Devils: Searching for Souls in the Cinema.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson