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Prelinger Archives

Brad Bowers

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,187
Don't know if any of you have run across this website before, but it's fascinating. Best if you have broadband or a lot of time on your hands. It's a lot of advertising and instructional films, mostly from the '40s on up, but neat to watch.

Prelinger Archives Film Subject Index

From the site:

"Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 48,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 4,000 titles on videotape and a smaller collection of film materials acquired subsequent to the Library of Congress transaction. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and some 1,600 (soon to be 2,000) key titles are available here. The collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of ephemeral films between 1927 and 1987, and it may be the most complete and varied collection in existence of films from these poorly preserved genres."

Art and Andykev, you'll like the films from the Bay Area. There's one from the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition.

Enjoy,

Brad Bowers
 

Andykev

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
4,118
Location
The Beautiful Diablo Valley
Thanks

Brad...I just looked at the site..it is quite impressive..they have a LOT of stuff.

Nice archival footage. I ran one taken in SF during the 20's (the auto's had spoked wheels still, like model A's), and it was amazing to see the early skykline to the city.

Short buildings...ships with sails in port, and well dressed folks on the streets.

Gee, it would be nice to live in an area where a car is not necessary. I know many parts of this country (maybe NYC) where cabs, busses, and subway are all you need. Unfortunately, California is the highway capital of the world...so no car, no ride. Our public transportation sucks...but it was great until the 50's when Oil and GM bought the rails and then sold them!
 

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