Thomas J. Brandon (1908–1982) was a founding member of the New York
Workers Film and Photo League
The Workers Film and Photo League was an organization of filmmakers, photographers, writers and projectionists in the 1930s, dedicated to using film and photography for social change.
History
Founded in 1930, the WFPL produced documentaries of ...
. He later worked as a film distributor for Garrison Films before founding his own company, Brandon Films in November 1940. During the 1950s, Brandon Films owned the largest collection of 16mm available for general release in the United States.
He was the first president of the New York Film Council, and helped to found the short-lived Film Forum in 1933 with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Sidney Howard
Sidney Coe Howard (June 26, 1891 – August 23, 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for ''Gone with the Wind''. ...
. In 1968, Brandon sold his company to Macmillan; the new entity became known as Audio-Brandon. His work in the 1970s to reclaim and publicize the history of 1930s film activism is an important source for film historians. Brandon's unpublished manuscripts and documents on radical film history are deposited at the New York Museum of Modern Art Film Study Center. Films from his collection were donated to several archives including the Museum of Modern Art and the U.S. Library of Congress, and others.
References
*''Pioneers: An Interview with Tom Brandon'', Fred Sweet, Eugene Rosow, Allan Francovich and Tom Brandon, Film Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Autumn, 1973), pp. 12–24
*Steven J. Ross, ''Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America''
*William Alexander, ''Film on the Left: American Documentary Film From 1931 to 1942''
*Russell Campbell, ''Cinema Strikes Back: Radical Filmmaking in the United States, 1930-42''
*Brad Chisholm, "Film and Photo League exhibition strategies,
MoMA Film Study Center
Film distributors (people)
1908 births
1982 deaths
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