Movietone News and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, 1930-1935: A Guide for the Researcher, Teacher, and Student

Abstract

MUCH OF THE FOX MOVIETONE NEWS ARCHIVE is now available to researchers in the Thomas Cooper Library at the University South Carolina. The archives contain not only the newsreels as they were shown in theaters in America but also paperwork showing how selections were made from the raw film sent to the editors from the field. In addition to this paperwork, the archive preserves a vast footage film not used in the newsreels themselves, the outtakes. This article will discuss possible uses historians can make materials this kind with illustrations drawn from the Cooper Library collection. In themselves, the newsreels shown as Fox Movietone News, like other newsfilms, can tell much about their times and can make the past come alive again. However, it is important to ask what the editors who put these together thought about the interests and prejudices their audiences and why they chose to include some things and to omit others. In quite a different way, the outtakes offer a rich record past events which can tell us things about men and events that words alone cannot. Both forms film prove the validity newsfilm historian Paul Smith's comment that Film ... is a fact, which historians can ignore no more than other facts.2 And, as Raymond Fielding put it, once conversant with the medium, the historian asks of film the same kinds questions regarding authenticity, veracity, and documentability as apply to other historical evidence.3