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July 9, 2009
Lost and found films: Will you accept this 'Mission Impractical'?
Editor's Note: The UW Audio Visual Services Materials Library has more than 1,200 reels of film from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, documenting life at the University through telecourses, commercial films and original productions. Some of the short films are easily identifiable, but many more remain mysteries. Who shot these films and why? Can you help answer those questions? Faculty, staff and retirees can log in to UW News+Community using the link at the end of this article to send their ideas. Those outside the University can e-mail filmarc@u.washington.edu.
This week's mystery film opens with a hand lighting a match to a sparkler and also includes a tape recording "self-destructing" in a puff of smoke. If you're old enough to remember the TV series Mission Impossible, you'll recognize this as a takeoff; it's titled Mission Impractical. After the opening, the man looks around an empty stadium and seems to be searching for something. At one point he picks up a folder full of photographs -- a series of portrait shots of men in suits -- and goes through them one by one.
The film was in a collection of films shot by John Snedden, who was employed at the University as a photographer. He is assumed to be the director, but the library would like to confirm that that's true. They'd also like to know why the film was made and how it was used. Who were the men in the photographs? And what is the significance of a fire that appears in the end?
Our clip is just over two minutes long, edited down from an original five minute film. It is silent and was shot on 16 millimeter film in about 1967.
Hannah Palin, film archives specialist with UW Special Collections, didn't get any definite answers about why the penguin in last week's film was on a treadmill (see http://uwnews.org/uweek/article.aspx?id=50586), but she did get some good ideas from readers.
"I haven't had a chance to follow through on the suggestion of identifying the ship, which might give a clue as to who sponsored the experiment, because the ship's markings are hard to read on the videotaped image. So when I have a moment, I'll go back to the original film and see if I can glean anything that way," she said.
Palin said she had gotten a lot of positive feedback about the series in general, including an offer from the director of the retirement center to involve retirees in providing information about the films.
So have a look at Mission Impractical to see if you can provide any clues for Palin. And stay tuned in coming weeks for other "orphan" films.
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Though the film is new to me, it is clearly a "Mission Impossible" takeoff. The lighted fuse (in this case leading to a sparkler),
the tape recorder whose tape self-destructs after playing, and the folder of photos are all part of the typical MI opening sequence. The photos are almost certainly of the high officials of the University of that era: isn't the first one Charles Odegaard? Comparison to glossy prints of the top UW officials of that era would probably identify them all.
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Good observation, Joe. If your hunch about UW officials is correct, we might be able to ID many of these people by looking at the pictures hung up in Gerberding Hall -- there's a bunch of pictures on the ground floor and inside/outside of various conference rooms that show University of Washington officials and UW faculty leaders of that era.
Asking a well-placed retiree may be a lot easier. ;)
It's a complete guess based on nothing, but this film has the appearance of being a well-funded, well-executed joke, perhaps as part of a "roast" or a retirement dinner for one of the pictured men or their colleague(s). The shooting and editing is well done -- someone spent some time and money to make this. If the "joke" theory is correct, it explains the fire at the end of the film: "so-and-so tried his hand at 'Mission Impossible', and only ended up burning down [whatever]."
For those unfamiliar with it, here's a link to the Mission Impossible opening montage -- the original series ran from 1966-1973.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI9KhPJ-utE
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According to Wiki, Mission Impossible ran from September 1966 to March 1973, so that's probably your time frame, which would also correspond to the way people are dressed in the pictures, e.g., the narrow ties, and the hair cut. I agree with the other person that they are probably UW official. So I would look in special collections for a list of all officials during that time frame, and then match them up to photographs from the digital collection and those not in the digital collection. The Odegaard picture in the digital collection would indicate that the first picture could be Odegaard without his glasses. I am thinking that the last picture in the group could be the person in the film. the nose seems similar. Could the shaken picture be John Snedden, whom you said directed the picture? The fire looks controlled. It's low lying, so you can see buildings and terraine in the background. Can you identify the background? I am thinking lower campus west UWMC.
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I hadn't made the connection before this morning, but if I'm not mistaken, that's a picture of Fred MacMurray in the mix of UW execs. Any thoughts as to why on earth Fred MacMurray is part of John Snedden's "Mission Impractical?"
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It's definitely a spoof of the opening sequences of Mission Impossible. Every episode begins with Jim receiving his mission in some convoluted manner--often he finds a tape recorder hidden in a public place, and once he's listened to the message, the tape self-destructs. The joke here is that the self-destructing tape accidentally caused a huge fire.
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I think the previous commenters are all on the right track. The first photo in the folder is definitely Odegaard; the third photo I recognized as Solomon Katz, another prominent administrator from the Odegaard era.
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ONe of the photos is definitely Charles Odegaard. Another is Solomon Katz, who held many offices at the UW, including provost. I thought one of the others looked like Ernie Conrad, who was a vice president, but I'm not sure of that.
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Getting an ID on the one human in this piece (the man with the sparkler in his mouth) would be a big, big part of solving this puzzle.
The UW Daily has a long and distinguished history of spoofing things, but he appears a bit long in years to be a Daily writer or editor.
If the Joke Theory or Roast Theory have any truth to them, I'm guessing that somewhere there is a recorded soundtrack meant to accompany this film -- it could have simply been a tape of the iconic Mission Impossible theme with a presenter talking over it.
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UW retirees to the rescue. The photos of men in black, in order of "appearance," are: Charles Odegaard, Fred Thieme, Sol Katz, George Farwell, Ernie Conrad, Bob Waldo and Al Ulbrickson, all one-time 'luminaries' in UW administration. Thanks to Ruth Bogle for "reeling" off these names. Surely the ID of the man-in-trenchcoat can't be far behind.
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The last year of Charles Odegaard's presidency (1958-1973) apparently coincided with the last year of Mission Impossible. Perhaps the film is part of a retirement roast for the Odegaard administration.
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Thanks so much for help identifying the photos. That's so helpful! ! I just looked at my notes and, if my information is correct, the film stock dates to 1967, which puts it a bit earlier than the end of the television series.That was such a good idea, though. For the record, the film is silent and if there is a sound track, it has sadly been lost over the course of the years. One would assume that the Mission Impossible theme song should be played along with the visuals.
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Hannah, the film stock identifies manufacturing date, not processing date, correct? So it's possible that film sat in around for some years before being shot and developed, right?
Back in the day it was not unusual to buy large amounts of film stock and keep it/freeze it. I imagine this would be particularly true of a big institution like the UW, circa ~1970.
If you want to get super-ambitiously forensic you might show the original film to a chemistry person/film technologist and try to figure out if there is subtle fog or grain effects on the developed film: common on film that sat around for awhile, especially if it was unrefrigerated. You can look at the developed film at the sproket holes, which was sensitized but should never have been exposed to light.
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Ken! That is a little too CSI for me BUT it does make me wonder if the date code was recorded properly the last time we worked on this film. Kodak printed a series of symbols on the very edge of the film stock to indicate when and where it was manufactured, so you've sent me back to the original film once again. (The archivist in me must take this opportunity to say, "Never throw away your film! Transfers and reformatting are great for access, but not for preservation.") I'll let you know what I find out the next time I can take a look at the original materials. Thanks!
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I dragged out my 1967 Tyee, the student annual, and I think that the person in question with the sparkler in his mouth possibly might be John L. King, Presdient of the Board of Regents in 1967. See the photos on p. 100 of the 1967 Tyee.
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