Last modified: Friday, September 8, 2006
IU keeps the projectors rolling with support for the Golden Age of Hollywood Movie Series
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Movie buffs can step back in time and enjoy another year of classic films through the popular Golden Age of Hollywood Movie Series, thanks to a new partnership between the Indiana University Office of the Provost, IU's Moveable Feast of the Arts Program and Bloomington's Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The fall film series begins on Tuesday (Sept. 12) at 1:30 pm with the showing of The Pajama Game starring Doris Day. Admission is free.
Created through the support of the Lilly Endowment Inc., the Moveable Feast of the Arts Program was initiated in 2004 to extend IU's cultural performances across Indiana and is now in its second year of funding performances that will grace the state during this academic year. The Golden Age of Hollywood series allows yet another audience to enjoy IU's creative arts.
"Bloomington and surrounding communities benefit from the creative efforts of university faculty, and a local series such as the Golden Age of Hollywood is the type of partnership between the university and community that has enduring effects," said Michael McRobbie, interim provost and vice president for academic afffairs for IU.
The Golden Age of Hollywood Movie Series was developed by Christopher Anderson, a professor of communication and culture at IU Bloomington and his wife, film archivist Rachael Stoeltje, with support from IUB, the Department of Communication and Culture, Bloomington Parks and Recreation, and a number of local businesses and organizations. Their goal was to introduce a unique university resource -- the David Bradley Film Collection -- to members of the Bloomington and south central Indiana communities.
The Bradley Film Collection is one of the most comprehensive film collections ever assembled by an individual. It includes films by D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra and Douglas Fairbanks. Each month's screening features a classic American movie and an introduction by Anderson, who describes the movie's production history or the history of moviegoing in Bloomington. Anderson and Stoeltje typically present a complete program, from newsreels and cartoons to the feature film, so moviegoers can experience what it was like to see movies at the Indiana Theater, now the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, between 1930 and 1960.
For the third anniversary of the Golden Age of Hollywood Movie Series, the theater presented The Wizard of Oz to a packed house with an audience ranging from 6-year-old girls dressed as Glenda the Good Witch to 80-year-old women who had seen the movie in the very same theater when they were just 6 years old. In his introduction of the movie, Anderson told the audience that the movie played at the Indiana Theater in August 1939.
"It says a lot about Bloomington as a community that we are able to show the same movie in the very same theater after all these years," he said. "Considering the thousands of downtown movie theaters that have closed and disappeared across the country over the years, it's really quite extraordinary that we in Bloomington have made a commitment to keep this theater alive and to ensure that it remains central to the life of the community. With new support from the Office of the Provost as well as the Pain Management Center and Bloomington Hospital's Hospitality House, this project has indeed become a success story for what can happen when partnerships are formed."
For more information on the film series, including the schedule, go to the Buskirk-Chumley Theater Web site at https://www.buskirkchumley.org/.
