Description: B&W , Sound , 7.76 minutes 

New York, New York, United States 

Exterior; day: medium long shot unidentified man and assistants perform city street noise level tests with equipment: "The noise in Times Square deprives us of 42% of our hearing." Medium shot same, demonstrates tonal sounds used to determine level. View of phonograph / equipment. Medium long shot man describes tests. Various scenes NYC strets, traffic, crowds, streetcars, radio shops / radio fair. Note: some emulsion deterioration; scratches; Noise Abatement Commission; newsreel theatre; health; noise pollution; "Strand Theater"; "The Sacred Flame"  Newsfilm Call number: RC 2538 

Title: MVTN 21 906: Round the World Trip Made By Two Girls 

Description: B&W , Sound , 6.31 minutes 

Summary: April 30, 1934 

New York, New York, United States 

Motion picture actress Leila Roosevelt, wife of Armand Denis and cousin of President Franklin Roosevelt ends round the world motor tour. Long shot and closeup Roosevelt and traveling companion, Miss Edna Olmstead standing in front of truck and speaking on trip. Ocean liner in background. Note: exclusive coverage; Leila Roosevelt Denis; TEMPORARY DESCRIPTION; NYC

Newsfilm Call number: RC 2256

Attached is text listing 6 pieces of Fox Movietone News footage held by the University of South Carolina's Newsfilm Library.  I've pasted in the catalogue record for each one, exactly as it appears in the online catalogue available to all.

I tried to pick a diverse group of stories, and to select material we anticipate screening (at least in part) during Orphans '04.  If all goes according to plan, we will also be having these stories preserved by sponsoring labs and printed onto new 35mm show prints for premier at the symposium. We can discuss what form your students' research projects will take.  And I'd still like to have at least one of the students speak on the program in March.

I put 6 different stories on the tape, although I understand you will have 5 pairs of grad student researchers.  It does not matter which story gets omitted.  The Baghdad, Cairo and Jerusalem stories are all going to get screened before the silent feature THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.  The other stories are not for sure yet.  The New York noise story seemed apt for NYU expertise.  The Javanese Dancers footage maybe screened if we are able to show (as we hope to), UCLA's restoration of LEGONG: DANCE OF THE VIRGINS, a film shot in Bali in 1933.  And the Round the World Trip with Leila Roosevelt I have recently put on the list of candidates, both because of the way in which it represents the newsreel's view of "the world" and because Leila Roosevelt and Armand Denis were involved with travelogue documentary for many years after this.

If you want to decide later that another Movietone story is more apropos what you want your students doing, I am happy to send out tapes to do instead of these.

Tomorrow I will mail out to you 5 VHS reference cassettes, each containing all of the footage.  You and your grad students can then use these for study purposes when writing the research reports we have been discussing.  The videotapes will have to be returned when the projects are completed.  (The library will probably send along checkout forms asking the borrowers to verify they will return them by a certain date [May 1, 2004?] and will not copy the footage.)

I am also having the cataloguer, Andrew Murdoch, pull any paper records that accompany these pieces of footage, and will send those along separately.