As Elusive as Ever
Update on the lost film footage
Last month you saw the first and only known film clip of Natalie Barney, speaking at home about Mata Hari, the subject of a 1996 British documentary. Since then, my tireless assistant Nikki Grigsby has been on the case to hunt down the source footage. Results: nil. She has queried twelve sources and archives. It was disturbing to learn that five of them (NASA, the Imperial War Museum, the New York Fire Department, the Library of Congress, and ABC Capital Cities Inc.) “were unusable in obtaining any information for us as they either have no film archives or they had no means of contacting them for inquiries.” American Path é News, which seemed among the most promising, has not returned our calls or letters. “BBC Motion Gallery does not share copies of BBC Programs and footage to members of the public for research, education or personal use.” (???)
We’re left with the National Archives, the David Bruce papers in Richmond and two other, slightly promising leads. We all want to see and hear what else was in that interview, but Moonbeam is proving as elusive as ever. Please stand by. And thank you, Nikki.