Continued from…

There are now 325 films on the list, and they're an interesting cross-section of American movie history. Francis says recommendations for each year's inductees come from the general public, film critics, and a panel of 20 representatives of film groups including the Directors Guild and the Motion Picture Association of America. The panel makes a list of 50 nominees, and Billington and Francis whittle it down to 25, sometimes adding obscure but historically significant titles.

"On the whole we follow [the recommendations], but there are some films nobody gets to see," Francis says.

That's why the list includes such rarities as Hell's Hinges, a 1916 western starring prototypical cowboy actor William S. Hart, alongside household names like Bonnie and Clyde and, yes, Star Wars.

It's easy to second-guess the selections–there's Dog Star Man, but where's Dog Day Afternoon?–but mostly on sins of omission. It's hard to argue with the movies that are on the registry, from the dazzling silliness of UPI's Gerald McBoing Boing cartoons to the brooding paranoia of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Francis says the criteria for inclusion are loose, although–as with retired baseball players awaiting hall of fame status–there is a waiting period.

"I think the feeling is you need 10 years minimum for hindsight to really be able to assess something," he says. "But beyond that, there really aren't any other requirements, other than that it has to be an American film. Although if you look at the list, you'll see the definition of 'American' can be pretty broad."

For example, it includes Lawrence of Arabia, a film about an Englishman made by an English director (David Lean) and starring an English actor (Peter O'Toole). But because it was financed and distributed by Hollywood, the Library of Congress says it's eligible, and who's going to disagree? Anything that helps preserve Lean's existential desertscapes can't be bad.

Fading Away

Preservation is the key to the Library's activities. In renewing the film act in 1992, Congress commissioned a full-scale study of the state of American film preservation. The results were disheartening. Researchers reckon 80 percent of the movies made during cinema's first 25 years–1895 to 1920–are lost for good, as are half the movies made before 1950. Where they went is no mystery–unless it's carefully stored, film stock fades and eventually disintegrates. It doesn't take long, either–if you saw the re-released Star Wars, you may have noticed that for all the care that went into the re-release, some of the colors have bleached out beyond repair in just 20 years.

Hence the National Film Registry Tour, an effort to raise awareness, enthusiasm, and funds for the Library's work. Film preservation and restoration is expensive–a recent renovation of Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington took three years and $100,000–and Francis hopes showing audiences how good preserved, remastered films can look will spur more support for the project.

He hopes it will also build an appreciation for the diversity and importance of the nation's film heritage, which he calls the major American art form of the 20th Century.

As for the prints, Francis says they were all brand new when the Tour started and, apart from a few scratches picked up along the way, still look great. So even if you've already seen most of the movies on the schedule, you may not have ever seen them like this.

"So many times," Francis says of video and TV editions, "the film has been cut or edited or reformatted from Cinescope that you're not seeing the feature as created. There are certain films you look at on video where there are characters or dialogue missing or off the screen. You wouldn't do that with any other art form."

So like they say, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. There may not be another one like it.

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