Hagley Museum and Library will be showing “Silent Panic” at the December film showcase on Friday, December 16, 3 p.m. in the Auditorium of Hagley Soda House.
“Silent Panic,” starring Harpo Marx, is one episode from a two-year series called “The DuPont Show with June Allyson,” which aired from 1959 to 1961. The film showcase is free and open to the public. Use Hagley’s Buck Road entrance off Route 100. Reservations requested 302-658-2400.
“The DuPont Show with June Allyson” was a dramatic anthology that aired on CBS on Monday nights. Miss Allyson, as she was introduced in each show, came on at the beginning and gave a brief introduction of that night’s story. She then also introduced the first commercial, which was for DuPont synthetic fabrics, either Orlon®, Dacron®, or Nylon®. The shows were created for DuPont by Four Star Productions.
The DuPont Show with June Allyson is little remembered today and not readily available for viewing. The Hagley Museum and Library, however, has 51 of the (possibly) 57 episodes in its holdings. They are 16mm, black and white, sound motion picture films.
Many old television shows have been lost. Sponsors usually had rights to only the original broadcast and one rerun. After that, the production company retained rights of distribution. Production companies, however, often went out of business or failed to maintain an archive of their shows. Most of the copies of the show in Hagley’s collection came to us from a private collector.
The Hagley Film Showcase features films from its collection. Most are factual films produced by companies to educate the public to their point of view and many are considered orphan films – made, shown, and filed.