About 15 years ago, a student in Ted Ligibel's historic preservation class offered to share an old film that documented the demolition of St. Clair's entire downtown in the mid-1960s to make way for a shopping mall.
Titled "The Impossible Dream," the film became a mainstay of Ligibel's discussions of main streets and downtowns.
But "The Impossible Dream" wasn't the only thing on the tape. There also was a silent movie, a work of fiction that seemed to date back to the 1940s, in which a talent scout comes to town and auditions young women, looking for the next great starlet. One of the subplots follows a young couple planning to get married, and it takes the viewer into each shop in downtown St. Clair.
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FILM DISCOVERY: Ted Ligibel, EMU's director of
historic preservation, poses in front of his office
computer, which shows a photo still of a gas station
from a silent film called "We're in the Movies." The
fictional film depicts downtown St. Clair as it was
in
the early 1940s. Approximately 15 years ago, Joan
Wagner,
one of Ligibel's students discovered the
gem, which
was included on a film reel of another
movie, "The
Impossible Dream," which centered on
the demolition
of St. Clair's downtown in the mid-
1960s. |
"It's the coolest little time warp," said Ligibel, who also shows bits of the 1940s movie to his students. "If you want see what life was like in the early '40s, this is it."
Ligibel, Eastern Michigan University's director of historic preservation, has shared the film with hundreds of students over the years, unknowingly preserving a link that's helped reconnect the town of St. Clair with its past.
Sometime in 2007, St. Clair Society for Historic Preservation President Chris Troy heard about Ligibel's tape through another former EMU student. Troy asked Ligibel for a copy, hoping to spark some sense of history in the downtown development authority as it considers a new development on the now half-empty mall site.
Staff at the St. Clair Historical Museum were as puzzled by the '40s movie as Ligibel was, but something about it struck a chord with one of the older museum staff members. He recalled an old box of film that had been salvaged from the basement of Citizen's First Bank before Fifth Third Bank took it over.
The box was donated to the museum, mainly because it looked old.
They found the box in a back room with a somewhat battered reel of film inside. But the box also held two film tins, their contents still protected by their original metal bands.
After confirming they were indeed originals of the older production, "We're in the Movies," Troy took them to HDStudios in Farmington Hills to be restored. Pat Mathews, film transfer supervisor at HDStudios, confirmed that the movie was made in May 1940, on color film — an uncommon and expensive medium at the time — and that the museum indeed had something pretty rare.
"Film that old a lot of times gets thrown away or stored
in conditions that don't allow it to be preserved," Mathews
said. "So, the fact that it was in very good condition
was definitely a plus. Color film for 16mm probably started
in the 1920s, but (at the time of the film) it probably
wasn't widely available for things like this. People were
more likely to use black and white."
Mathews says he tries to impress upon clients the value
of historic (16mm) footage — how every single
frame is like a tiny time capsule, a moment frozen in time
for 1/24 of a second.
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PICTURE TO THE PAST: This photo still,
captured
from a color film, "We're in
the Movies," shows
the St. Clair Inn as it was
in the 1940s. The
fictional movie, discovered years
ago by one of
EMU Professor Ted Ligibel's students,
depicts
the town in that era. The St. Clair Historical
Commission hosted a re-issue world premiere of
the
silent film at the Riverside East High School
Auditorium
May 30. |
"It was very exciting for me," Mathews said. "I got a big kick out of it. I'm not that familiar with St. Clair, but you learn a lot about it from a historical point of view. You'd view a plumbing truck going by with a phone number on it, and that phone number would be a three-digit number."
Troy, meanwhile, has since watched the film about 30 more times, parsing out the plot and creating dialogue cards that, thanks to the wonders of technology, blend seamlessly with the originals and fill in the mental gaps. The reels found at the museum included about 25 minutes of footage that's not on Ligibel's copy. Troy suspects the film was produced by an outside company as a promotional tool for local businesses. Now, it's a full-color window into the past.
On May 30, the St. Clair Historical Commission hosted a re-issue world premiere of "We're in the Movies" in the Riverside East High School Auditorium, which is featured in the movie, since Riverside East is the former St. Clair High School.
Volunteers identified about 50 St. Clair residents in the movie, some 20 of whom are still living and were invited, with their families, to the premiere. The commission also plans to hold an outdoor screening July 18 as St. Clair celebrates its 150th birthday, and the group also is shooting a documentary on the film and its restoration. Troy has asked Ligibel to be part of the documentary and the summer showing.
"I would never have found the film if it weren't for him," Troy said. "Most of the citizens of St. Clair who would remember that it was even made have now passed on."
Ligibel prefers to deflect credit to Joan Wagner, the
former student who originally gave him a copy of the films;
and to Ruth Mills, the alumna who, while working with Troy
on an unrelated project, mentioned seeing the films in
class at EMU.
"It is a funny series of coincidences that caused this to happen but, in my experience, that's how life is: one big series of funny coincidences," Ligibel said.
