Movie Club of Western Massachusetts, The

Year Founded:

1927

Location:

Spriendfield, Massachusetts, USA

Resources:

"The Movie Club of Western Massachusetts in Springfield hurdled many of the slow motions and uncertainties of organization by a rousing first meeting. An amateur film contest, a two-reel comedy to commence in October and a semi-monthly club dinner are the ambitious features it has mapped out. This recent pioneer will give its elders something to think about." (Gale, 1927, 49)

"The Movie Club of Western Massachusetts, whose headquarters are Springfield, will banquet cinematically October 18, Hiram Percy Maxim, President of the Amateur Cinema League, will bring the greetings of the national body. Gardner Wells, world traveler and Amateur Cinema League member, will lecture on "Travels with a Movie Camera." Several hundred Western Massachusetts amateurs are expected to eat through a menu whose realities have been covered by reel-alities, as every dish is disguised by a cinematographic name." ("News" 48)

"When a bunch of ambitious and ignorant amateur movie fans get together, something is bound to happen. That sentence accounts for "Plenty of Jack," the two-reel comedy production of the Movie Club of Western Massachusetts. This club now boasts an active membership of fifty-five dyed-in-thewool fans. They opened their season's festivities with a banquet; then for several meetings they rather concentrated on viewing amateur comedies and dramas produced by other clubs and groups which generously loaned their films. When this voluntary board of censorship could find no more amateur productions to tear to pieces vocally it was considered appropriate to announce that they could better anything they had seen. They then proceeded to make good on the boast." (Gale, 1928, 390).

References:

"News of the Industry," Amateur Movie Makers 2, no. 11 (1927): 43:58.

Gale, Arthur L. "Amateur Clubs," Amateur Movie Makers 2, no. 11 (1927): 35:36, 49.

Gale, Arthur L. "Amateur Clubs," Movie Makers 3, no. 6 (1928): 390:391, 410:411.

Gale, Arthur L. "Amateur Clubs," Amateur Movie Makers 3, no. 1 (1928): 33:34, 57:59.

Gale, Arthur L. "Amateur Clubs," Amateur Movie Makers 3, no. 3 (1928): 164:165, 201.

Gale, Arthur L. "Amateur Clubs," Amateur Movie Makers 3, no. 5 (1928): 310:312.