06/21/2007

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Benzie Area Historical Museum board member Jerry Heiman, left, and museum director Louis Yock pose with some of the film from Benzie County’s past that is being transferred to DVD. The archived footage shows slices of life from areas including Elberta, Frankfort and the Platte River. The converted footage will be shown on Saturday, June 30, at the Mills Community House at 7 p.m.

Old home movie night in Benzie

Group preserves area's history on DVD

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Benzie Area Historical Museum board member Jerry Heiman poses with some of the film from Benzie County’s past that is being transferred to DVD.

BENZONIA — Films that sat in a stack of lifeless reels for years have finally been freed to move, breathe and tell their stories.

They're movies of life in Benzie County in the 1930s to the '60s. The Benzie Area Historical Museum has put the films on DVD to let the images survive beyond the fragile life expectancy of deteriorating celluloid. The group will show about an hour's worth of highlights to the public on Saturday, June 30.

"We decided we needed to show them to get more people to root around in their closets and see if they have more,” said Jerry Heiman, a member of the Benzie Area Historical Museum board. "I'm sure some people will recognize friends if they're of a certain age.”

Museum director Louis Yock was surprised at the contents.

"I was picturing kids jumping up and down and waving at the camera,” he said. "But it really shows the businesses, the cars and the styles of those days. There's a scene with kids leaving a school. All of the girls are wearing head scarves. They looked young, but they carried themselves like they were in their 30s.”

He hopes viewers will help give names to faces and places in the movies.

"People who have watched it said things like, 'Oh, that's Mr. So-and-so and you could get the best eggs and sausages at that restaurant,'” he added.

Heiman and fellow board member Jeanne Edwards took on the project after the board expressed curiosity about the eight reels of 16-millimeter films, plus one 35-millimeter film, that had sat in a corner of the museum for years.

"The films were getting pretty bad,” Heiman said.

He borrowed a 16-millimeter projector to view them before sending the films to camera shops to have them digitalized on DVD. Edwards did the same with several eight-millimeter films her grandfather had taken in the area.

The Frankfort Rotary Club issued a $600 grant to have the 35-millimeter film put on DVD.

"It turns out it was something the Rotary Club had commissioned in 1942 showing everything about Frankfort at the time,” Heiman said.

The frames show summer scenes of driving along highways and people fishing and the Lake Michigan car ferries to Wisconsin that used to operate out of Elberta. Some feature winter scenes of children sledding and business owners shoveling out of monster snow drifts.

Aside from the Rotary film which has big-band music from the era, the movies are silent. They are all shown without sound on the DVDs.

The public showing of "Benzie History in Film” is scheduled for 7 p.m. June 30 at the Benzonia Library on U.S. 31 in Benzonia. Admission and popcorn are free. Beverages will be available and donations will be accepted to benefit the museum.

For more information, call 882-5539.