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Daily News
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An Ancient Student Film
A year after directing Hold ‘Em, Yale, the legendary Cecil B. DeMille found time to help out some fellow filmmakers at the University of Oregon.
Friday, June 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM
By FilmStew Staff
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University of Oregon
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Co-star Bill Hayward
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These days, the notion of high school or college students getting together to put on a movie show seems almost hackneyed. But back in 1929 – yes, 1929 – it wasn’t quite the same sort of daily occurrence.
Shot on 35mm nitrate film by students and faculty at the University of Oregon, Ed’s Co-Ed has somehow remained intact enough to allow for an upcoming July 2nd screening at the Cottage Grove Theater in Cottage Grove, OR. To ensure the authenticity of their tale of a pair of cousins from very different backgrounds attending UO, the filmmakers consulted none other than Cecil B. DeMille, who agreed to send over his chief cameraman to act as an advisor.
“The film certainly does not represent typical lives of real students in 1929,” Lloyd Williams, a member of the Cottage Grove Historical Society, tells KVAL-TV. “But it is a historical snapshot in time. All the old cars, the fashions of the day, the university buildings, the wonderful scenes of the millrace, and footage of [future Oregon track coach] Bill Hayward coaching the track and field squad is just priceless.”
Like many old films, the print for Ed’s Co-Ed was in sad shape when first discovered in Eugene decades after it was made. But the university nonetheless managed to transfer it to safety film and preserve it for future generations in its library collection.
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