You know who I am, he said

So, I spent the morning in the Manitoba Provincial Archives. And yes, it was as much fun as it sounds. I'm supposed to be doing prelim research for a book on Manitoba film, so the author wanted me to go through all the records of film holding in the archives. Now, if the archives were digital (like everything else in this crazy world) this would be no problemo. But, alas, it's not. I guess they figure "We got old crap - why have computers too?" I can't remember the last time I had to use a card catalogue.. though I suppose the fact that I did use one once upon a time means that I'm getting old.

So there I sat, with three large binders of all the film holdings in the collection a legal pad and a pencil. And are these films exciting lost-gems of cinematic wonderfulness? Maybe you're not paying attention: they really, really suck!

Most of the stuff appears to be home movies of the long deceased or industrial training films from the 1940s. It seems like every club and organization made a short film about themselves at some point. Okay, there were a couple of flicks I thought, "I wouldn't mind checking that out" (like the Bing Crosby/Alfafla short promoting Canadian Victory Bonds) but those were few and far between.

I left there feeling much ill-will towards film and movies in general, so I decided I'd better stop at the UW and glance through their collection film books in the library to cheer me up. For being such a small school, UW has a remarkably good selection of film books. I re-read Richard Dyer's BFI book on Brief Encounter (which I'm using for my thesis) and picked up a book on Star-acting (my current focus) and Christmas and the Movies - as I've figured out a way to write about my favourite holiday film of all time: Brian Desmond Hurst's Scrooge (1951).