In 1948, Ingrid Bergman starred in the film Joan of Arc which was produced by Walter Wanger. This caricature, of Bergman skiing as Joan of Arc, was a gift to Wanger. The inscription reads: “If I wear my legs to my knees, I must ski – Greetings to Walter! Ingrid” The caption at the bottom reads: “It’s beyond me how…
Welcome to the first post in the Secrets From the Ziv File section of the WCFTR blog. So just what is the Ziv File?
by Mary Huelsbeck While in Amsterdam last week for the Orphans Symposium, I had the chance to visit the Anne Frank House and Museum. Words cannot really describe the experience of visiting the house and seeing firsthand where Anne, her family, and four others hid from the Nazis during World War II.
On Friday, September 27th, Emile de Antonio again found himself in the company of students, experimental artists, marginalized heroes, and non-fiction filmmakers. As part of the 2013 Orphans Midwest Symposium hosted by Indiana University , the WCFTR presented three rarely-seen trailers from the De Antonio Collection: two trailers for Point of Order (one in German) and a trailer for Millhouse…
I grew up in a family that enjoyed vibrant conversation. Our house was near the main runway at JFK airport in New York City and it was precisely the peak landing time when the four of us sat down to dinner. As the planes came closer their engines roared louder. In order to hear each other we too, turned up…
I’m often asked if I have a favorite item in the WCFTR’s collection. I could never single out just one item because I have an ever growing list of favorite items! One of my favorites, and something I usually bring out when we give tours of the WCFTR, is a telegram Joan Crawford sent to Rod Serling after she saw…
Spencer Tracy in Wisconsin by Kathleen Kosiec While refiling at WCFTR one afternoon, I noticed an interesting set of photographs in the Spencer Tracy name file. Unlike many of the other publicity and film images in the rest of the collection, these photographs weren’t from the set of a classic film, but instead capture Tracy as a young college student…
Welcome to “Deep Cuts,” an exploration of the one-of-a-kind artifacts and ephemera at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. This series will reveal the WCFTR’s extensive collections of unique posters, awards, honors, knicks and knacks, and oddities that have found their way to the archives.
The Richard Kaplan Papers, 1905-2010, document the career of Richard Kaplan, a spirited filmmaker/ producer of documentary and feature films. This extensive collection is home to print and pre-print materials for Mr. Kaplan’s documentary projects, as well as records of his educational films and work for television. The papers of Mr. Kaplan are rich in information concerning the nuts and…
Decades past the silent film era’s heyday, the legacy of one of the genre’s most beloved stars is still alive in Hollywood. Jean Dujardin’s lead character in The Artist was loosely based on Douglas Fairbanks, and an homage to the actor is visible with the inclusion of a Zorro scene in the 2011 film. Fairbanks’ films are still shown on…