Notes by Becca Bender
One would not expect the film collection of a seminal figure in the history of film technology to go missing…. Which makes it extremely surprising that the home movie collection of Leopold Godowsky Jr., co-inventor of Kodak’s Kodachrome film, was found in the archive of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) in the spring of 2017, with no indication of how it got there.
The Godowsky Jr. collection consists of 150 films, the overwhelming majority of which are silent, color, 16mm rolls. The dates range from the mid-1920s through 1970, with the bulk having been shot in the 1930s. Kodachrome was released in 1935. For the most part, the content is not unlike that which would appear in any family’s home movie collection: feeding the baby, kids playing in the yard, Christmas morning, parties at the house. But the Godowskys were not a typical family, and the players in their films (themselves included) are often extraordinary.
In addition to revolutionizing color film technology with his partner Leopold Mannes, Godowsky Jr. was a professional violinist, and some of the few sound rolls in the collection capture him playing in a quartet. His father, a world-renowned virtuoso pianist and composer, appears in several of the films up until his death in 1938. The wife of Godowsky Jr., Francis “Frankie” Godowsky, was also a musician, as well as an artist, and likewise came from an esteemed musical family; she was the younger sister of George and Ira Gershwin. Given the prominence of the Godowskys, it’s no surprise they traveled in rather rarefied circles, and their home movies also document friendships with twentieth-century luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Arturo Toscanini, and Leon Trotsky.
Returning to the mystery of how this collection found its way to the Lincoln Center archive, it seems that the conduit was a 1988 PBS documentary entitled Celebrating Gershwin, produced by Arthur Whitelaw. A New York Times article about the production of the documentary appeared November 22, 1987.
Mr. Whitelaw recalled how he got the footage for the television show. Mentioning the composer Leopold Godowsky [III], Frances Gershwin Godowsky’s son, he said, ”Leopold and his wife, Elaine, came over for lunch and I said, ‘There must have been a lot of movie film in your house’ and he went over to see Frankie in Westport and came back with three wine crates full; it was like opening King Tut’s tomb.”
Leopold Godowsky III is no longer alive, but Elaine Godowsky has confirmed (to this author) that she and her husband did in fact loan the films to Mr. Whitelaw for use in the Gershwin documentary. Unfortunately, after that, they lost track of the collection.
So here comes the (presumed) connection: Celebrating Gershwin was part of the PBS series Great Performances which is produced by WNET, New York’s public television station. WNET is also the presenting station of the PBS series Live From Lincoln Center, which is produced in house by LCPA. Presumably, someone who was involved with one or both of the series shuttled the materials to the Live From Lincoln Center offices at LCPA at some point in the past three decades… where they sat… in 5 boxes… unknown to anyone in the archive… until they were delivered there quite recently.
With the help of Elaine Godowsky, the heirs of Leopold Godowsky, Jr. are now aware of the rediscovery and are working toward placing the collection with a permanent archival home.
At the opening of the Orphan Film Symposium (April 11, 8pm), a selection of these home movies, scanned only days ago, will be shown along with another newly rediscovered piece of film, (found alongside the Godowsky collection), documenting Albert and Elsa Einstein’s visit to Hollywood in the early 1930s. This reel was a surprising anomaly, a short 35mm nitrate film print, perhaps given to Einstein’s friend, the film collector, Leopold Godowsky, Jr.
