Film Historians and Enthusiasts
2010a Winter Newsletter
2010 has been a great film year for ACS
It has been a great year for us. We had the great opportunity to show all kinds of films all over Central New York.
Some of the places we’ve projected film include Auburn’s Hoopes Park for the annual very successful summer ‘Music, Movies and More’ in collaboration with the City of Auburn, In Phelps’ Community Park in collaboration with the Phelps Historical Society, in Syracuse’s Armory Square and the Palace Theater in collaboration with the Syracuse International Film Festival and Rome’s historic Capital Theater for the SIFF Festival and the Brew and View Fests.
We also expanded our website at presence www.auburncinefile.com a great deal and now offer up to date film schedules for all Central New York Movie Theaters and monthly up to date information for both film and video.
We’ve lectured on film subjects at Syracuse International Film Festival events and a Syracuse Stage event.
We made short docu-tributes on film veterans David Myers and Ray Hitchcock and posted them on You-tube.
And, we’ve also funded research on past CNY film officials like, Ray Hitchcock, S. H. Adams, Carlyle Blackwell and Theodore and Leopold Wharton.
And 2011 looks even better. Support us as a volunteer or sponsor.
Samuel Hopkins Adams ... A Writer, as it happened
Samuel Hopkins Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York on January 26, 1871. He entered Hamilton College in 1887, later serving as a Trustee who also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 1926 from Hamilton for his investigative work as a journalist. He lived on Owasco Lake for many years.
In October, 1905, he began a series of 11 articles called “The Great American Fraud” in Collier's Weekly. He analyzed the contents of some of the country's most popular medicines and argued that many of the companies producing these medicines were making false claims about their products. He went on to point out that in some cases, the medicines were actually damaging the health of those people using them. “The Great American Fraud” had a tremendous impact on public opinion and resulted in the passing of the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906.
Big medicine struck back in 1911 when the Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition against untruth referred only to the ingredients of the medicine. This meant that medical companies were free to make false claims about their products. Adams returned to the attack in early 1912 with articles in Collier's Weekly such as Fraud Medicines Own Up, Tricks of the Trade, The Law, the Label, and the Liars and Fraud Above the Law, Adams exposed the misleading advertising that companies were using to sell their products.
He soon turned to books and in the 1920s, Adams launched into a prolific period of writing fiction, including hundreds of short stories. More popular ones like “Success” (1921) was followed by his collection of short stories set in New York.
Several of his stories were adapted for the screen. Some of the more popular stories include: “Men in Her Life”, which was made into a film for Colleen Moore and Clara Bow. “Night Bus” was renamed “It Happened One Night” by Columbia Pictures propelling the Studio out of poverty row much to the consternation of Louis Mayer. Frank Capra says in his autobiography that he read the Cosmopolitan short story in a barbershop in Palm Springs and it had the “smell of novelty.” “The Harvey Girls” was also a huge success starring Judy Garland.