Cinema: For the Ages

During the past year a serious-minded committee at the Library of Congress has set some kind of a movie-attendance record. The committee has dutifully sat through 421 features, 422 short subjects, 520 newsreels. Their aim was to pick for preservation in the Library’s new film section (launched by a Rockefeller grant) the films “which faithfully record, in one way or another, the contemporary life and tastes and preferences of the American people.” Last week the Library announced that its first selections for the archives included 45 features, 48 short subjects, 104 newsreels. Among the feature winners: National Velvet, Going My Way, Meet Me in St. Louis, Wilson, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, None But the Lonely Heart, Two Girls and a Sailor.