Information about the Motion Picture Collection
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library's collection consists of films presented by President Roosevelt, his estate, Eleanor Roosevelt, other members of the Roosevelt family and various individuals and organizations. The Library holds videocassette tapes of television programs about the Roosevelts. Most of these films are black and white; approximately 15 percent are color prints. All 35mm nitrate films have been converted into 16mm safety stock as part of the Library's ongoing preservation program. Eighty-five reels of original color film have been placed in the cold storage vault at the John F. Kennedy Library.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Films
The core of the collection of films on FDR consists of newsreels produced by Movietone News, Paramount, Pathe, Hearst and Universal. These films cover much of Roosevelt's public activities throughout his presidency as well as certain events dating back to his tenure as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York and the presidential campaign of 1920. The newsreels show FDR campaigning, delivering public addresses and "fireside chats," meeting with administration officials and foreign leaders, attending wartime ceremonies and conferences and vacationing at Hyde Park, Warm Springs, Ga. and other locations with family and friends.
The Library has color films on President Roosevelt that were produced by government agencies. The National Youth Administration covered the visit to the United States of King George VI of Great Britain in 1939 and Roosevelt's third inauguration in 1941. The Navy Department filmed the President's wartime inspection trips and overseas conferences, 1940- 1945, including the Allied war leaders at Cairo, Teheran and Yalta. The Signal Corps covered the 1943 Casablanca Conference.
Amateur films in the Library's collection provide informal glimpses of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Those taken by speech writer Samuel I. Rosenman show FDR at Warm Springs, on an Erie Canal barge trip in 1930 and sailing on the yacht, Sequoia, in 1933 and 1934. John Boettiger, the President's son-in-law, filmed in black and white and color scenes from the 1941 and 1945 inaugurals, FDR's trip to Yellowstone Park in September of 1937, his review of the American Naval fleet in July, 1938 and his visit with Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor at Hyde Park in September, 1944. Nancy Cook's movies, which appeared on NBC's television program Chronolog in 1972, show Roosevelt and his family and friends at Campobello, Hyde Park and Warm Springs during the 1930s and 1940s. Other home movies show Mr. Roosevelt dedicating public buildings, vacationing and on political trips. A few contain a small amount of footage showing FDR walking.
The collection also includes commercial motion pictures, television documentaries and news programs. Among these are two Fox Movietone features, reissued by Blackhawk films, entitled President Roosevelt's Message to Congress, December 8, 1941 and The Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 . Additionally, the Library holds the twenty- six part ABC-TV series FDR and Roosevelt, The Man and the Politician and FDR Remembered , two shows produced by CBS-TV which appeared in 1962 and 1965, respectively. Finally, the collection includes a 1975 ABC television movie entitled Eleanor and Franklin as well as CBS's FDR: The Man Who Changed America (1975) and NBC's FDR: The Last Year (1980), which is based on a book written by Jim Bishop.
The Library has worked with Mr. W.H. Utterback, Jr. to reconstruct on film selected public addresses of President Roosevelt. Film footage used in the reconstructions comes mainly from the Universal Collection located at the National Archives. The following speeches have been reconstructed: the State of the Union Address, January 6, 1942; the Navy and Total Defense Day Address, October 27, 1941; and the Address at Chautauqua, New York, August 14, 1936.