Film Record: Proem

Still image from Proem.

Identifier:

• 38300 (Source: Harvard Film Archive)

Date produced: 1949

Filmmaker(s):

Ralph W. Luce

Leonard W. Tregillus

Languages:

English

Duration:

00:11:00

Length:

400 ft

Format:

16mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Optical

Sound:

Sound on film.

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1949 - Honorable Mention

Description:

"The imaginative experiments with animated clay figures begun last year in No Credit have, in this year's Proem, proved out as a suave and wholly integrated art form. The unique and wholly delightful work of Leonard Tregillus and Ralph Luce, jr., has here come handsomely of age — both technically and creatively. Proem, conceived as a preface to the theme of Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, is of far greater filmic stature than its already rented status permits it to be rated." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 470.

Resources:

A print of the film is held by the Harvard Film Archive.

Record of the film on BFI, and the Big Cartoon Database.

Movie Makers (Feb. 1950, 49) reported that Proem was sold to A. F. Films for national distribution. Some catalog records of the film list only A. F. Films as its producer.

Subjects:

•      Fairy tales

Genre:

• Adaptation
• Experimental

Form:

• Animation
• Short

Tags:

Repository:

Harvard Film Archive

Screenings:

• Screened by the Westwood Movie Club in 1949: Westwood, San Francisco, CA
• Screened by the San Jose Movie Club in 1949: San Jose, CA
• Screened as part of the San Francisco Cinematheque's "Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area" series on March 20, 2011: San Francisco, CA

Viewing Notes:

"An allegory in eight scenes, containing both Impressions and abstractions of the themes: "The Eucilidian Rook," "A Quixotic Interlude," "A Catholic Fable," "Sex and Such," "The Great Dictator," "Power Politics," "Mobilization," and "Denouement." Modeling clay is used as the animating medium." Educational Film Guide, 1953 Edition, 813.

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