Home Movies Series at St. Mary’s College, Maryland

The Department of Theater, Film and Media Studies at St. Mary’s College in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, is hosting a weekly series on Mondays in February devoted to home movies.  “Outing the Home Movie: From Backyard to the Big Screen” will include presentations and screenings by filmmakers Michelle Citron, Daniel Reeves and Jenifer Hardacker, as well as home movie scholar Patty Zimmermann and Pam Wintle, archivist at the Human Studies Film Archive.  Screenings will be free and open to the public.

Homemade Hollywood

Recently released is Clive Young’s exhaustively-researched book “Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind the Camera.”  It is the first major look at the genre of the fan film, those backyard homages to adventure, horror and science fiction movies.  The book covers the early years (including a section on our favorite filmmaker Robbins Barstow and his 1936 film “Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge“), the “monster kid” era, and the explosion of Star Wars tributes.  Young has interviewed all of the major (and not so major) players in the field, with looks at the films, as well as the legal issues and wrangling with the studios that provided the inspiration.

More: Clive Young’s website, MySpace, Amazon

Eisenhower’s 1953 Inaugural Parade

8mm film shot by Red Cox

Source: YouTube

“Disneyland Dream” Connection

Susan Dunne of the Hartford Courant reports on a coincidental meeting in Robbins Barstow’s “Disneyland Dream.”

Robbins Barstow of Wethersfield, who last week learned a home movie he made in 1956 has been admitted into the National Film Registry, has gained a new pen pal as a result of the honor.

After the news hit that “Disneyland Dream,” filmed on a family vacation to Anaheim, Calif., had been chosen for preservation, Barstow received an e-mail from actor and comedian Steve Martin.

Martin, a self-described “Disneyland junkie,” wrote (reprinted with permission from Martin): “At age eleven I worked at Disneyland. I sold guidebooks at the park from 1956 to about 1958. I am as positive as one can be that I appear about 20:20 into your film, low in the frame, dressed in a top hat, vest, and striped pink shirt, moving from left to right, holding a guidebook out for sale.”

Source: Hartford Courant