By George Hall

In May of 1929, just six months before the great Stock Market Crash, a California filmmaker named Furniss M. Tisdale came to Prescott to shoot a promotional movie for the Yavapai County Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Elks Theatre. It was titled, "Things you ought to know about PRESCOTT". Grace Sparkes was the head of the Chamber at the time and planned to use the film to promote the virtues of Prescott throughout the country.

This seventeen minute silent movie is the only documentary film of Arizona from the period that is known to exist, and is a remarkable look at Prescott in the Jazz Age. 

Landmarks such as the Granite Dells and the Yavapai County Courthouse were featured along with civic groups such as the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis and the Boy Scouts. Local schools were pictured as was the interior and exterior of the Arizona Bank. The Fire Department posed in front of the very American LeFrance fire engine that is still proudly driven in parades. Businesses such as J.C. Penny's, the Allen Dairy, Ensminger's Drug Store and the Journal-Miner newspaper were included, as well as several car dealerships. This was the time of the introduction of the new Model A Ford, and one of the inner titles says "A few of the Ford owners who are glad they waited". 

Another cute title touted the Allen Dairy with the slogan "Clean Cows ~ Clean Udders ~ Clean Milk". The film shows how milk was cooled, as well as the bottling machine that filled the bottles and the operator putting on the little cardboard caps. A videotape of the film was recently shown at the Pioneer Home and in the audience was Mr. Allen who is in his ninities and was the brother of the owner of the dairy. Mr. Allen recalled operating the bottling machine in the film and cutting his hand on broken glass while washing the returned bottles. He even remembered the names of two of the cows, "Crazy Legs" and "Jazz Baby." 

There is nothing new about development in Prescott which is shown by another title, "Cortez Park, Prescott's beautiful suburban subdivision is being developed by J. M. W. Moore and Son". This subdivision is near the Frontier Days Fairgrounds. 

The number of cars, dealerships and service stations in the film are evidence of how the country had fallen in love with the automobile and was ready to travel. Carleton Street Hill was not paved, but the first Blythe-Ehrenberg Bridge was included to promote interest with the traveler heading to California. 

After being used by the Grace Sparkes and the Chamber, the film somehow ended up in the basement of the Elks Theatre. There it was forgotten until 1973, when it was discovered by the projectionist and local artist, Bruce Fee. The original film was printed on dangerous nitrate stock and theatre owner Claude Cline arranged for it to be transferred to safety film. It was then shown in 1974 and 1975 at the Marina Theatre. At that point the original nitrate print was considered obsolete and sold to Randy Munro, a Phoenix projectionist who later worked at the Elks when it was run by the Harry Nace Company. 

Nearly twenty more years passed and one day Randy remembered the old nitrate print and showed it to film historian, "Professor" George C. Hall. They were doing silent movie shows together using original hand cranked projectors, Ragtime piano music and sound effects. After examining the film, it was run hand-cranked just once, and still frame samples were made of the most interesting scenes in order to research exactly when and where the movie was made. Later, it was transferred to videotape as a precaution, which is what "Professor Hall's Cinema Museum" has been sharing in order to create an interest in preserving Arizona's film heritage. 

Determining the actual date that "Things you ought to know about PRESCOTT" was shot proved to be a real puzzle. The opening scene shows the Elks Theatre with a movie poster of "The Big Noise" with Chester Conklin. That film was released in 1928, but searching newspaper microfilms at the Sharlot Hall Museum found nothing. Then came Parker Anderson to the rescue. He is compiling a list of all the events and films that ever took place at the Elks, which is a daunting task, but he discovered that "The Big Noise" didn't make it to Prescott until more than a year after it was released. Now there were the newspaper articles that filled in the details and proved the date of the shooting as May 4, 1929. 

The restoration of the original 35mm nitrate print was another daunting task. After Professor Hall's Cinema Museum moved from Tucson to Prescott, Randy Munro sold the film, and the time had come for a restoration before it deteriorated beyond being saved. Somewhere along the line, the safety print that Claude Cline made had gone missing, but that had been restored with 1970's technology anyway. The award winning Cinetech Company in California was chosen and the delicate job began, this time with state of the art equipment. But wait, it was not as simple as it would seem. Remember those neat inner titles? Well this was the original and only print that was ever made, so the titles were spliced in rather than the film being made from a single one piece negative. What happened is that the titles had deteriorated differently than the rest of the film. As a result, all 36 titles with 72 splices had to be removed, kept in order and restored separately. Then the restored elements had to be reassembled. Quite a job!  The process took a year and a half, but finally after nearly three quarters of a century, "Things you ought to know about PRESCOTT" will again be shown today at the Elks Theatre's grand reopening.

The festivities will include three short silent films with the author as piano accompanist. The 3:00 pm show is sold out. However, a 7:00 pm show has been added. Tickets for the program are available at the Hassayampa, Vendome, and Sharlot Hall Museum. Call the Museum at 445-3122 to check availability. !

(George Hall is curator of Professor Hall's Cinema Museum) 



Photograph credit: (from film still) 
This still was taken from a 17-minute silent movie that appears to be the only documentary film of Arizona from the late 1920s that is known to exist. This remarkable look at Prescott in the Jazz Age will be shown with other silent films at the newly renovated Elks Theatre on Gurley Street.