Treasures From American Film Archives

By Richard Corliss Sunday, Feb. 11, 2001
    • No hype here: there are nearly 11 hours of buried treasures, most of them from the first half century of movies, all rescued and restored by nonprofit institutions. Among the finds in this handsome four-disc set are footage of Orson Welles' 1936 "Voodoo" Macbeth and Marian Anderson's 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial; a 1901 trick film transferred from paper prints; a 1905 ride on a New York City subway; such avant-garde classics as The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) and Joseph Cornell's Rose Hobart (1936), a work with such power to shock that Salvador Dali, in the first-night audience, kicked over the projector. Modern viewers should jump for joy at this collection--a heroic work of excavation and, at $99.99, an ideal Valentine's Day gift for and from film lovers.