The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, the WCFTR holds over three hundred collections from motion picture, television, and theater writers, producers, actors, designers, directors, and production companies. These collections include business records, personal papers, scripts, photographs, promotional graphics, and some twenty thousand films and videotapes of motion picture and television productions.
The WCFTR is regularly visited by researchers from around the world.[1]
History
In 1955 the Wisconsin Historical Society established the Mass Communications History Center to document the importance of journalism, broadcasting, advertising, and public relations in the United States.[2] Recognizing that initiative's value, the University of Wisconsin's Speech and Theater Department formed the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research in 1960. Today the WCFTR is part of the university's Communication Arts Department and is operated in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society.[3]
Film
The film collection contains a variety of American and international cinema with rich holdings of Hollywood films from the 1930s to the 1960s, independent films from the 1960s to the 1980s, post-World War II Soviet films from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Taiwanese films from the late 1970s to the 1990s.
Highlights of the film collection include
2,000 16mm reference prints of Warner Brothers, RKO and Monogram Pictures films—nearly every feature released between 1931 and 1949
1500 Vitaphone short subjects
300 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons from 1926 to 1949
Complementing the films are paper records usually organized by the donor's name. Prominent examples include these collections:[5][6]
Dalton Trumbo: Papers of a motion picture scriptwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned following the 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, documenting his work and his blacklisting. Screenplays include those written for the black market including The Brave One (1956)—for which he won an Academy Award under the pseudonym Robert Rich—Exodus (1960), Lonely Are the Brave (1962), The Young Philadelphians (1959), and Spartacus (1960).
Paddy Chayefsky: Papers of a writer for stage, screen, radio, and television, whose work in the early years of American television led to his winning three Academy Awards for films. The collection includes titles produced in both television and film notably The Bachelor Party and Marty, originally presented on NBC's Philco Television Playhouse and then made into motion pictures by United Artists.
Boston Blackie (played by Kent Taylor), Mary Wesley (Lois Collier), and Inspector Faraday (Frank Orth), the cast of Boston Blackie, pose with Whitey the Dog in a 1951 promotional photograph for Ziv Television Programs. WCFTR Television Title Collection
The largest of the WCFTR television collections consists of 3500 shows produced by Ziv Television Programs, the most successful producer of action/adventure programming filmed for first run syndication from 1948-1962. The Ziv library includes viewing copies and printing elements for every episode of The Cisco Kid, Boston Blackie, I Led Three Lives, Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Ripcord, Bat Masterson, and thirty one other series. Scripts, production, and promotional materials for these and additional Ziv series can also be examined at the WCFTR.
Ed Sullivan: The collection of the writer and television host includes scripts, production files, clippings, and correspondence for the long-running Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971) with 16mm film of 48 entire programs and 29 additional reels of excerpts.
Rod Serling: The collection of the writer and producer contains paper records from every phase of his career in radio, television, and film, but the largest portion covers the television series he wrote or produced including synopses, outlines, scripts, revisions, press releases, and correspondence for The Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre, Climax, The Hallmark Hall of Fame, Kraft Theatre, The Loner, Lux Video Theatre, Motorola Television Hour, Playhouse 90, Rod Serlings's Wonderful World of..., Studio One, The Twilight Zone, and The United States Steel Hour.
Nat Hiken: The collection of the writer and producer includes films of many episodes of The Phil Silvers Show (Sergeant Bilko) and scripts and films for Car 54, Where Are You?, along with material from other programs such as the Martha Ray Show.
Hal Kanter: The collection of the writer, producer, and director contains scripts, production files, correspondence, and fan mail for All in the Family, Bob Hope's Chrysler Theatre, Chico and the Man, Julia, and numerous specials and Academy Award presentations.
Sy Salkowitz: The collection of the writer and producer with production notes and scripts for Ironside, It Takes a Thief, M*A*S*H, Naked City, The Paper Chase, Perry Mason, Police Story, and The Virginian, among others.
Sidney Sheldon: The collection of the writer and producer includes scripts and other production materials for The Patty Duke Show,I Dream of Jeannie, and Nancy.
The Center also holds the papers of the Playwrights' Company, a production company founded by Maxwell Anderson, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert Sherwood, and S. N. Behrman. The behind-the-scene realities of Broadway theater of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s are documented in collections of producers and directors such as Kermit Bloomgarden, Hillard Elkins, Herman Levin, David Merrick, and Dwight Deere Wiman.[10]
Scene still from a Mack Sennett Comedy, probably "Those Athletic Girls" of 1918. Louise Fazenda does a Russian dance and left of her is Phyllis Haver holding a curling iron. WCFTR Film Title Collection.
The WCFTR has millions of still photographs, photographic negatives, posters, pressbooks, playbills, clippings, and scrapbooks, organized into four major groups to provide pictorial documentation of the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures, television broadcasts, and theatrical plays.[12][13]
The Film Title Collection contains promotional graphics from over 40,000 domestic and foreign motion pictures from the 1890s to the present. Major U.S. studios are represented, with extensive coverage of publicity for the films released by United Artists, MGM, Warner Brothers, Universal, and Monogram studios from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The Television Title Collection consists of stills and ephemera from over 1,700 American television productions. Programs from the pre-videotape era, the late 1940s through the early 1960s, are most thoroughly documented.
The Theater Title Collection contains pictorial documentation of the American stage from the 1860s until today. More than 2,888 plays are represented of productions from the local repertory stage to Broadway.
The Name Collection consists of publicity and personal photographs, clipping files, and other ephemera related to more than 14,000 individual motion picture, television, and theater performers, as well as a limited number of producers, directors, writers, and studio executives.
A selection of photographs of Broadway and silent film productions and actors, mostly from the 1890s to 1922 can be viewed online at the Wisconsin Historical Images section of the Wisconsin Historical Society website.[14] Color lithographed posters for touring theatrical productions from the 1870s to the 1910s, such as the poster for "Don't Lie to Your Wife" shown above, are also available there.[15]
The Media Digital History Library seeks to digitize historic film industry trade papers and fan magazines that are now in the public domain. Sources for original copies (rather than microfilmed or microfiched copies) included the Museum of Modern Art Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library, and private collectors. The scans are hosted on the Internet Archive. The library's catalog search and citation platform is called Lantern. The project was first created by David Pierce in 2009.
^Elvehjem Museum of Art and Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. 1987. Hollywood glamour, 1924-1956. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin System, xii.
