Preserving Cleveland TV History

BOOM! POP CULTURE CHRONICLES
By Mike Olszewski

Much of our pop culture experience has been lost to time, but I’m happy to report that a treasure trove of memories has not only been found but is being lovingly preserved. 

 Cleveland’s Cinecraft is not only the oldest industrial film producer in the country, but since 1939, also captured scenes of life in Northeast Ohio. Jim Culley is the son of the owners, and he discovered 6,000 cans of film badly in need of preservation. The films were made by his dad, Ray Culley, during his early years in Hollywood.

“He came back to Ohio and worked on another picture about lighting for muni lighting at Nela Park for a company here in Cleveland called Tri-State. Then he started Cinecraft with his soon-to-be wife, Betty, who was his film editor,” the younger Culley explains.

“Eventually, Ray did some pioneering work with three-camera production with film; three cameras shooting simultaneously so you didn’t have to move the camera and redo the action and worry about continuity,” he says. A couple from Hollywood came to look over his operation and it wasn’t long before Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were using a similar technique in “I Love Lucy.”  

As Culley recalls, “I knew we had some interesting things and it was too cool to throw out, so in my 45 years of working here, I just knew that and thought it would be a retirement project. But like most of my career, I was good at delegating so I sort of gave this to wonderful people who are spending the time and the effort and the resources to really capture what’s there.”

He chose the right people: Delaware’s Hagley Museum, which preserves rare films. They sent a team to look over the Culley collection.

“We talked a number of times and they made the commitment to invest in the digital technology, (spending) $100,000 on a film transfer scanner and to put the manpower into documenting what we had and getting that content into a useful form. They’ve done it,” he says.

Boy, did they. Kevin Martin with the Hagley Museum tells me they are still restoring the film, but a good part of it is now online at digital.hagley.org/2019227. 

Cleveland TV Treasures
So, what did they find?  How about Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson and Tim Conway doing Ohio Bell commercials? Linn Sheldon as Uncle Leslie in his pre-Barnaby days, and another kids’ host, Glenn Rowell, Gene Carroll’s former partner, as Captain Glenn in commercials for Leisy’s Beer, Sohio, Fisher Fazio stores and others that will trigger memories for Northeast Ohio natives as soon as you hear the jingles.

You’ll see Doug Adair, Jim Doney and even a film that shows what daily life was like in Cleveland in 1924. Oh, and a performance by an up-and-coming young singer named Merv Griffin in what is likely his first film appearance.  

Looking back at the collection, Culley says, “I had a clue that there was a lot of interesting old stuff there, films that I had heard about but [had] never seen because no prints were available. To take these camera negatives and make a new print would be a very expensive proposition. Nobody really took the time to do that.”

Culley had the foresight to find the people who could and worked with them; all of us are the beneficiaries of his persistence. I urge everyone to visit the Hagley Digital Archives online. This bit of advice: Find a comfortable chair because chances are, you’ll be there for a long time.

Boomer Trivia: Last issue, I asked for the name of a Pete Townshend song that mentions a Cleveland kids’ show host. It’s “After the Fire,” a song on a Roger Daltrey solo album that says,  “…while I was laughing at Dom DeLuise.” DeLuise had a kid’s show during his time in Cleveland. Let’s stick with kids’ TV this time around. Which of the Three Stooges could claim he was a former Clevelander? Answer in the next issue!