The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
JULY 14, 1954
[Original version of the column. Text in red are tagged with <sic> (needs correction); text in purple are tagged with <orig> (needs regularization); and text in blue are tagged names of persons or organizations. View emended version]
HYDE PARK, Tuesday—I was very much interested that the fifth annual David O. Selznick Award for the European film doing the most "to promote mutual understanding and good will between the peoples of the world" was won by an Austro-Yugoslav film called "Die Letzte Brucke."
Both last year and this year, I served on the board which was privileged to choose the winning film in the contest for what is known as the Golden Laurel Award. Last year it was won by "The Cruel Sea," a British film. I think "Die Letzte Brucke" is as high-standard a film and as valuable as was "The Cruel Sea." Both of them made a tremendous impression on all of us, but I think one always has a sense of satisfaction when one finds that one's own judgment is upheld by the majority of the other members of the committee viewing the films.
Golden Laurel Medals for other noteworthy films were voted to "The Conquest of Everest," a British film depicting the heroic struggle to reach the highest mountain peak in the world, and to "La Guerra de Dios," produced in Spain. Under the rules of the contest, a local jury in each of the eight linguistic or national divisions nominates one film. The prints of these films are then sent to New York. A jury there sees them all and then chooses the Golden Laurel Award winner and also nominates the films for the Golden Laurel Medals.
These were presented this year at the Berlin Festival, which was attended by many notables in the motion picture, theatrical and social worlds and by many leading European and American diplomats. The presentation this year was made by Mr. Walter Dowling, the U.S. Deputy High Commissioner for Germany.
Someone who read my recent column about sorting out and disposing of some of my books thought that I was going through my husband's library. So I think I should explain that all of my husband's books are now the property of the Government and are in the Memorial Library at Hyde Park.
We as a family, however, accumulate books very rapidly. I am not a collector of first editions, as my husband was, nor have I any special fields of interest in which I collect either books or other articles but I find that, over the past ten years, I have accumulated a great many books.
As a result, I have no more space on my shelves. And since I can no longer use the shelves in my son's house next door, I find the best thing to do now and then is to part with some books that might be profitably used in the library in the village or perhaps in the high-school library. Occasionally, I have sent books also to a little library in the Ozark Mountains.
But none of these books could be considered of historical interest or value—and none of them belonged to my husband.
E. R.
(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)
Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced
Persons
- Dowling, Walter C. (Walter Cecil), 1905-1977 [ index ]
American diplomat
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata ] - Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 [ index ]
American politician; 32nd President of the United States
[ ERPP bio | LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Selznick, David O., 1902-1965 [ index ]
American playwright and film producer
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
Organizations
Geographic
- [ index ] Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States)
About this document
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 14, 1954
Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007
Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project
Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.
TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.
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