Hollywood Home Movies from the Academy Film Archive (1931–70)

From the 1930s onward, the home movie camera has played a part in many families’ lives, and Hollywood moviemakers are no exception. Over the years, the Academy Film Archive has received dozens of directors’ collections that have included home movies. Sometimes they’re like the ones you’d find in any family—records of weddings, birthday parties, and holidays. But in some cases, the filmmaker took their home movie camera with them to work, either on set or on location. The result is priceless footage of movies being made during Hollywood’s golden era, capturing some of its biggest stars simply being themselves.

In this program hosted and narrated by Academy Film Archive Director Michael Pogorzelski, catch stellar clips from the archive’s home movie collection that feature Marion Davies, Shirley Temple, Douglas Fairbanks, Marlene Dietrich, Cyd Charisse, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Jerry Lewis, Sophia Loren, and Steve McQueen, among other Hollywood stars. You’ll also see rare, behind-the-scenes footage showing the making of classics such as Gunga Din and Gone with the Wind. (71 mins., digital video)

Columbus musician Sue Harshe, cofounder of the seminal band Scrawl, provides live musical accompaniment.

• See the complete Cinema Revival 2020 lineup