1941 - 1942 OFFICERS WALTER WANGER EOWARD ARNOLD JANE MURFIN PRESIDENT ROSALIND RUSSEL.L SECRETARY JOHN O. AALBERG JAMES HILTON NAT W. FINSTON TREASURER GEORGE STEVENS ASSISTANT SECRETARY PETE SMITH VICE·PRESIDENTS DONALD GLEDHILL ASSI STANT TREASURER LOYD WRIGHT EXECUTIVE SECRETARY COUNSEL BOARD OF GOVERNORS JOHN AALBERG HOWARD ESTABROOK ROSALIND RUSSELL EDWARD ARNOLD Y. FRANK FREEMAN DAVID O . SEL2NICK FRANK CAPRA JAMES HILTON RAY WIL.KINSON CHARLES COBURN FRANK LLOYD SAM WOOD FARCIOT EDOUART NORMAN REILLY RAINE DARRYL ZANUCK 1940 - 194J OFFICERS WALTER WANGER FRANK CAPRA MERVYN LEROY PRESIDENT EOWARO ARNOLD SECRETARY JOHN AALBERG DARRYL ZANUCK DONALD GLEDHILL TREASURER JANE MURF I N EXECUTIVE SECRETARY VICE· PRESIDENTS HENRY FONDA LOYD WRIGHT ASSISTANT TREASURER COUNSEL BOARD OF GOVERNORS JOHN AA L BERG Y . FRANK FREEMAN ROSALIND RUSSELL EOWARD ARNOL.D FRANK LLOYD DAVID O . SELZNICK FRANK CAPRA THOMAS T . MOULTON JAMES STEWART FARCIOT EDOUART JANE MURFIN WALTER WANGER HOWARD ESTABROOK ROBERT R ISKIN SAM WOOD Founded May 4. 1927. as a non-profit California corporation. PAST PRESIDENTS Douglas Fairbanks William C. deMille Conrad Nagel M. C. Levee Theodore Reed Frank Lloyd Frank Capra Walter Wanger Bette Davis PUBLICATIONS "Players Directory Bulletin" "Bulletin of Screen Achievement Records" Research Council Technical Bulletins "Motion Picture Sound Engineering" (Van Nostrand. J 939) Academy Library Bulletins THE ACADEMY DURING 1941 Without minimizing the cultural, educational and inter-branch cooperative functions for which it is primarily organized, the outstanding contributions of the Academy during the past year have been in the field of National Defense. Due to the far-sighted leadership of the Research Council, that branch of the Academy was prepared when the occaS10n arose to play the significant part which it is now doing in the production in Hollywood of War De­ partment Training Films for the United States Army. A de­ tailed report is given elsewhere in this publication on the activities of the Council, which are both a channel of patriotic service for the members of the Academy and a source of pride to the organization. The Academy and its membership of 500 leaders 1n all the production branches will continue to cooperate 1n every way possible with the united War efforts of the country, both directly and by continuing to uphold 1n the creative life of Hollywood the highest standards of artis­ tic integrity and regard for the significance of the motion picture as a major medium of communication. The Annual Awards of Merit are of course the Academy activity most widely known to the general public. The Presentation Dinner in 1941 was certainly the most outstanding in the history of the Awards since their be­ ginning in 1927. Recognizing and commending the import­ ance of motion pictures to the nation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the Awards Dinner by radio from the White House, the first time the annual event has been so honored. The Awards conferred in 1941 for outstanding achievements during the preceding year are detailed else- where. Following the same general procedure as heretofore, the active participation of the Screen Actors, Directors and Writers Guilds combined with the Academy membership to make the annual selections widely representative. Nearly 12,000 members of Hollywood's creative personnel took part in the balloting. In the publication field, the Academy's informa­ tion services, the Players Directory Bulletin and the Bulletin of Screen Achievement Records continued as major Page 1 projects. More tllan 1800 actors and actresses are repre­ sented in current issues of the Players Directory, which is maintained as a cooperative service by and for the players and the studios. Supplementing the established branches of the organization, the Music Branch of the Academy was greatly expanded during the year of 1941, to include the sixty re­ cognized leaders in this profession which is so important to the screen. Academy Branches now include Actors, Directors, Producers and Executives, Writers, Music, Short Subjects and Public Relations and in the technical divi­ sion Art Direction, Photographic, Sound, Film Editors, and Equipment. One of the Academy's important educational func­ tions has been to sponsor for its members and guests advance showings of unusual films. Programs d).lring the past year have included: 'War Reporting Films of Canada' ; 'Ni Sangre, Ni Arena' from Mexico; 'British Wartime Shorts'; 'Document­ ary Work of, Joris Ivens'; 'Boy Saint Gyandev', the first talking feature to reach this country from India; 'New U.S. Defense and English War Reporting Documentaries'; and 'Selection of U.S. Army Training Films'. These showings are to be actively continued. In addition the Academy renewed its annual pre­ sentations of film classics by sponsoring a 10-week series of nightly showings in Hollywood of films from the Museum of Modern Art, including: 'Intolerance', 'Son of the Sheik', 'Three Musketeers', 'The Unholy Three', 'The Love Parade', 'Greed', 'Grandma's Boy', 'Anna Christie', 'What Price Glory', 'Thief of Bagdad', 'Underworld' and 'Cru.iser Po temk in' . During the year the archival and reference Library of the Academy attained full stature as one of the three most complete collections in this specialized field. The staff was increased to better handle the mounting number of inquiries from the Hollywood studios, corres­ pondents, book and magazine writers, teachers and school and college students in need of historical data, statis­ tics, photographs and production information extending from 1896 to date. Growth of the Library is indicated by the fact that 260 books on motion pictures were added during the year, 250 selected scripts, 90 bound volumes of U. S. and foreign trade magazines and several thousand stills. The Academy Library now includes nearly all the books which Page 2 have ever been published about motion pictures in English and other languages, a file of production information alphabetically arranged by titles of nearly 20,000 motion pictures produced since 1900, a collection of still photo­ graphs based on the 1,000 most important films since 1915 and scripts of the most significant productions since 1925. In addition to reference service in Hollywood the Academy Library answers mail inquiries received direct or referred by the studios. The Advisory Committee includes the li- brarians of the studios and of the city and county of Los Angeles in a cooperative organization to provide informa­ tion about motion pictures on a level of accuracy and scholarship comparable to that for other arts and indus­ tries. A new activity undertaken by the Academy during 1941 was the sponsorship of the First Annual Hollywood Still Photography Exhibit at which the still cameraman of the studios received long overdue recognition. Conducted by the Academy's Public Relations Institute, this proved an outstanding event. More than 600 prints were entered and displayed. The collection was then sent to New York to be hung for a month in the Museum of Modern Art and was subsequently divided into six traveling exhibits which have been continuously displayed in galleries, libraries, universities and by photographic organizations throughout the country. One set is now touring Australia. Plans for a second annual exhibit indicate that this will become one of the regular functions of the Academy. Allied to both the Public Relations Institute and the Library, the Academy has also arranged for numer­ ous special exhibits on various phases of motion pictures for libraries, schools and study groups seriously interest­ ed. Plans for the construction of an Academy Build­ ing, long under consideration and badly needed in Hollywood as a community center, almost came to conclusion during the year. However, after a site had been optioned and architec­ tural plans completed, the entire project had to be tabled for the duration of the War. Development of this Center will undoubtedly be one of the Academy's main activities when peace is restored. WALTER WANGER President Page 3 ACADEMY RESEARCH COUNCIL Du r i n g the pas t yea r , the act i v i tie s 0 f the Academy Research Council have been primarily devoted to the production in Hollywood of War Department Training Films for the United States Army. In addi tion, the Research Council has maintained many of its technical activities and has discharged its primary responsibility for handling, on behalf of the pro­ duction industry, any projects which can be carried to completion through cooperative activity rather than by individual studio effort. At the beginning of the present national emer­ gency, the Motion Picture Committee Cooperating for Nation­ al Defense immediately expressed a willingness to cooper­ ate with the War Department in any way possible. This offer was accepted by the Chief Signal Officer of the Army and the industry was asked to assume a part of the pro­ duction of Army Training Films. Training Films had been produced by the Signal Corps for a number of years, but the vast increase of the armed forces in this country together with the necessity for quickly training this large number of men, made the existing production facilities of the Signal Corps entire­ ly inadequate for this immediate problem. The Research Council was selected for this task, not only because of its long history of technical accom­ plishment, but also because as a part of our cooperative program we had maintained for the past eight years a train- 1ng course in motion picture production for Signal Corps officers. One Signal Corps officer has been trained in Hollywood in studio production each year during that pe­ riod. As a result of this program all of the officers directing the activities of the Signal Corps Photographic Division have received their actual production training in Hollywood under the auspices of the Research Council. Through the Research Council, the entire vast production facilities and creative talent of the American film industry has been made available to the War Department entirely on a non-profit basis.