As part of the 75th anniversary celebration of the seminal video journalism series The March of Time, Turner Classic Movies will present four hours of classic newsreels on Sept. 5.
TCM's presentation from 8 p.m. to midnight on that Sunday is part of a multiplatform initiative involving HBO Archives and The Museum of Modern Art.
Credited as the originator of documentary newsgathering through the use of reenactments, the award-winning series The March of Time was produced by Time magazine, beginning in 1935. The series appeared in theaters nationwide through 1951, covering a full spectrum of notable events in news, politics and sports. It then switched to television production, which continued through 1967. HBO Archives, which launched in 2002, has been managing and restoring The March of Time documentary programs since 2007.
On Sept. 1, MoMA in New York will launch "The March of Time: 75th Anniversary," consisting of nine screenings programs through Sept. 10. MoMA's opening night celebration will be a program of selected highlights, after which TCM on-air host Robert Osborne will moderate a panel of experts, including Time, Inc. archivist Bill Hooper; Henry Luce biographer Alan Brinkley; Hollywood on the Hudson author Richard Koszarski; and 89-year-old March of Time cinematographer Major Norman Hatch.
TCM's newsreel presentations on Sept. 5 will include Inside Nazi Germany. Created in 1937, The March of Time hired a cinematographer with a hidden camera to shoot in Berlin. The film introduced Adolf Hitler to a then-fiercely isolationist America. David O. Selznick praised the film, which ran at Radio City Music Hall for a record 16 weeks, as "one of the greatest and most important reels in the history of pictures."
Other titles airing on TCM as part of the network's marathon include Dogs for Sale, Dust Bowl, Poland and War, Show Business at War, Youth in Crisis, Palestine Problem, American Beauty, Problem Drinkers and Mid-Century Half Way To Where?
