You are here

[Medical Film, Dr. Edward Archibald, McGill University]

Accession number: 
1920.0008

Producers:

Actors and Participants:

Production Years: 
1920

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Length (feet): 
855 (35mm)
Bibliography: 

Louis Pelletier, "Useful Cinema, Film Genres, and Screen Networks: The Story of Canadian Films Limited (1919-1920)," The Moving Image 11, no. 3 (2011): 80.
"The films produced in 1920 by Canadian Films were generally less ambitious than the first group of films produced by the company over the summer and fall of 1919. In most cases, they were simple jobs contracted and supervised by outside organizations. Canadian Films first produced a series of medical films and lantern slides for Dr. Edward Archibald of McGill University, who was then seeking a cure to pancreatitis. The films and views documented two vivisection operations conducted on a dog and a cat. Archibald was charged $855 for 855 feet of positive film, and $26 for 26 lantern slides – not a bad deal for Canadian Films, which had received commensurate sums for the much more ambitious sponsored films it had produced the preceding year. Tennant subsequently tried to get Archibald interested in a bigger project involving the making of 'a complete film library of different operations.' In spite of Tennant’s claims regarding the film library’s likely 'immense benefit to science as well as . . . to McGill University and ourselves,' the project remained unrealized."