A leading international supplier of motion picture stock footage for commercial, broadcast, corporate, educational and other purposes since 1979.
The Collection
Thousands of hours of historical and entertainment footage produced from 1894 through the 1980's. All footage has been transferred to videocassettes for reference purposes and is available on all film and videotape formats for use.
The collection encompasses newsreels, silent films, classics, comedies, Hollywood features, historical dramas, documentaries, industrial films, educational films, TV programs, sports films, cartoons, home movie, time-lapse photography and rare music footage - including rock & roll, jazz, folk, big band, swing, blues and country.
Clients
Advertising Agencies, Corporations, Producers of TV Programs, News Broadcasts, Documentaries, Commercials, Industrial Films, Feature Films, Educational and Sport Programs, and more.
Access
A computerized retrieval and catalog system, established by Archive enables its research department and client personnel or their representatives to expediently locate, view and select material from a wide range of subjects, personalities and locales.
Newsreels
Footage on virtually every 20th century development in technology, the arts, politics, leisure-time activities, economics, science, lifestyles. From famous events and infamous personalities to fads, fashions and frenzies, providing a motion picture representation of world history from 1890 to 1965.
Bathing beauties, Buddhists, gypsies, hula-hoops, John Jacob Astor, Cab Calloway, Howard Hughs, Fiorello LaGuardia, Toscanini, Albert Einstein, the Hindenberg zeppelin disaster, Charleston dancing, sports of every land, Hollywood premieres, crazy inventions, the race for space, the Depression, Prohibition, crime, natural disasters, presidents, kings. And much, much more. From the original, theatrically produced productions by "The March of Time," "Universal News," "The Ford Newsreel," Gaumont Newsreel" and freelance 'stringers' who traveled the globe capturing the comic, the tragic, the unique, the newsworthy.
Silent Features and Drama Shorts
A treasure trove dating from the earliest days of filmmaking. Black and white classics including "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Myths, parables, history, epic grandeur, dinosaurs, cavemen, the life of Christ, the fall of Babylon, the American, French, Russian Industrial Revolutions; the opening of the American West, slavery, Little Big Horn, the Civil War, Faust, Tarzan, Dracula, pirates, the early history of filmmaking itself.
Works from pioneering actors and directors including Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, Rudolph Valentino, Lionel Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks.
Over 500 Silent Comedies
Classic scenes such as: pie fights, damsels in distress, banana peel pratfalls, Keystone Cops, cars careening off cliffs, collapsing buildings, eye-popping stunts.
All-time great silent comedians such as Chaplin, Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Ben Turpin, Laurel and Hardy, Mabel Norman, Marie Dressler, Fatty Arbuckle, W.C. Fields, Gloria Swanson. Early studios such as Mack Sennett, Hal Roach, Pathe.
Over 300 Feature Length Sound Films
From major studios such as Fox, Warners, RKO, Columbia, Paramount. From crime and romance to Westerns and horror. Hollywood's Golden Age; famous faces at the peak of their careers: Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, James Stewart, Bella Lugosi, James Cagney, Jimmy Durante, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Crawford, Shirley Temple, John Garfield, Bob Hope, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Jane Russell; and dozens more.
This major portion of Archive's stock footage resources dates form the early 1900's through the mid-1960's. In contrast to the newsreels, each is an in-depth examination of a single subject by an individual filmmaker. Works of renowned documentarians such as Pare Lorentz, John Grierson, Robert Flaherty, Louis de Rochemont (the genius behind The March of Time series).
Including the first visual records of worldwide exploration (including North and South poles); innovations in railroad travel; earliest aviation attempts. Travelogues promoting pleasures of visiting foreign lands provide footage of all major US and world cities, countries, continents. Government films: the workings of such agencies as the FBI, etc. Military activity: North Africa, the Philippines, Russia, Europe. Behind-the-scenes looks at Hollywood productions, film studio tours; a wealth of footage of teams, tournaments, players in every conceivable sport.
Industrial and Educational Films
These provide an overview of the history of 20th century technology and enterpreneurship. Including sponsored films made for business, advertising, special interest groups, schools. Early consumer electronics and household appliances from the telephone to the automobile to the first computers demonstrated and advertised by such companies as Philco, Bell, General Electric.
Fashion and design trends from the '40's and '50's. Social mores and ills (e.g. juvenile delinquency in the '50's). The earliest silent educational films from the 1900's recreate historical events from prior centuries.
Plus:
HOME MOVIES from a variety of individuals
TELEVISION PROGRAMS
TIME LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Stock Photos
Archive also markets a complete range of stock photographs through its Archive Photos division, formed in 1991 by the merger of two well established New York based agencies, Frederic Lewis, Inc., and Pictorial Parade. The combined holdings of these companies span the gamut of stock images including historical photos, movie stills, dated stock photos and new color photos. All are available for advertising, editorial and corporate communication use.
