Editors' Picks: Our Favorite Things From the Week of Oct. 113 of 14
Film Preservationist of the Week
Saving Brinton documents the decades-long effort to save the Brinton film collection. Michael Zahs found the movies at an estate sale in 1981, stashed in a box labeled "Brinton crap." The contents of the box turned out to be a treasure trove, including two George Méliès films long thought to be lost entirely: The Triple-Headed Lady (1901) and The Wonderful Rose Tree (1904).
Frank Brinton was an inventor and entrepreneur who, in 1897, transformed an Iowa opera house into a thriving cinema. He and his wife then went on the road with the Brinton Entertainment Company, traveling from Minnesota to Texas showing films from all over the world. When Brinton died in 1919, the films went into storage, where they stayed until that fateful estate sale.
The collection now resides in a special collection at the University of Iowa. The documentary highlights Zahs' efforts to save this collection and the University's restoration of individual films in the collection, including early masterpieces by the Lumière Brothers (Louis and Auguste), Ferdinand Zecca, and Segundo de Chomón.
The entire Brinton Entertainment Company collection is being digitized, with some films available to watch online at The University of Iowa Libraries website.
Check out these 50 top-rated original streaming documentaries as ranked by IMDb ratings
Saving Brinton documents the decades-long effort to save the Brinton film collection. Michael Zahs found the movies at an estate sale in 1981, stashed in a box labeled "Brinton crap." The contents of the box turned out to be a treasure trove, including two George Méliès films long thought to be lost entirely: The Triple-Headed Lady (1901) and The Wonderful Rose Tree (1904).
Frank Brinton was an inventor and entrepreneur who, in 1897, transformed an Iowa opera house into a thriving cinema. He and his wife then went on the road with the Brinton Entertainment Company, traveling from Minnesota to Texas showing films from all over the world. When Brinton died in 1919, the films went into storage, where they stayed until that fateful estate sale.
The collection now resides in a special collection at the University of Iowa. The documentary highlights Zahs' efforts to save this collection and the University's restoration of individual films in the collection, including early masterpieces by the Lumière Brothers (Louis and Auguste), Ferdinand Zecca, and Segundo de Chomón.
The entire Brinton Entertainment Company collection is being digitized, with some films available to watch online at The University of Iowa Libraries website.
Check out these 50 top-rated original streaming documentaries as ranked by IMDb ratings
TitlesSaving Brinton