From the late-1920s to the mid-1960s, the American newsreel companies documented all kinds of people, places, and events around the globe.
These newsreels typically appeared twice a week at the local movie theater. They were usually part of the entertainment package that accompanied a cartoon and the featured movie.
These news segments were crucial in an era when television news had not yet been born. Many people relied on cinemas as a primary source of visual news and information.
The Universal Newsreels are shared as a general reference work. They are not intended as a substitute for the independent verification of historical facts.
The Universal Newsreels can trace their beginning all the way back to 1913, when “The Universal Animated Weekly,” was introduced. In 1918, newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst began “The International Newsreel” and released it through Universal. This business relationship continued until 1929.
Universal Pictures then started to produce their own sound newsreel starting in July of that year. After years of success, this newsreel went dark 38 years later in December 1967, a victim of declining theater admissions and the popularity of television news.
This treasure trove of motion picture film is part of the MCA/Universal Pictures Collection, which was gifted to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1970.
As great as it is, the Universal Newsreels collection is not a complete historical record. The newsreels could not cover every event that happened due to limitations in staff and equipment. The management of Universal Newsreels exercised their editorial rights to pick and choose the stories they thought were important or entertaining enough to pass along to their audience.
Conforming to common industry practices at the time, Universal disassembled the film negatives of the individual episodes soon after the release was sent out to theaters.
The narration and music tracks were usually destroyed for silver recovery. Universal kept a couple of complete release prints with the sound track intact for reference purposes, but few of these survive today.
As a result, the Universal Newsreels prior to the mid-1950s are usually silent and missing the original narration of Graham McNamee, and later, Ed Herlihy.
In December, 1978 there was a disastrous fire at the National Archives that destroyed about 73% of the out-takes from the 1930-1950 time period and almost three years of releases.
The surviving newsreels cover most of the key events of the 1930s through the 1960s.
The Universal Newsreel collection is a remarkable visual time capsule, well worth exploring for anyone interested in seeing the history of the 20th century captured as it happened.
Phil Stewart
