Sneak preview at Mount Pony

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: September 3, 2008

A hush of expectation fell over a crowd of local dignitaries assembled in the posh Mount Pony Theater Wednesday afternoon as the lights on the Art Deco-style chandeliers dimmed to dark in dramatic slow motion.

Rose-colored curtains parted to reveal the big screen and on it, “The Beau Brummels” — a black-and-white comedy short from 1928 — played as crisp and as clear as if it were made in 2008.

Wednesday’s open house at The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audiovisual Conservation marked the inaugural public showing in the facility’s 208-seat theater, which offered a cool and cushioned reprieve from the day’s 90-degree heat.

About 115 local government, community and business leaders toured the vast structure throughout the afternoon, marveling at its architecture, collections and the possibilities that it brings to once-sleepy Culpeper.

“Relief,” said Mike Mashon, head of the moving images section, of how it felt to finally open the facility to the public. “We never wanted people to believe we were that imposing fortress on the hill that they couldn’t come into like when it was the Federal Reserve,” he said of the facility’s former life.

Down the hall, nitrate film specialist Larry Smith talked about and showed off pieces of the Library’s immense collection of movie materials, including the original nitrate camera negative of Thomas Edison’s, “The Great Train Robbery” from 1903.

“All history is relevant,” he said. “We need to make sure it all survives.”

Culpeper County Librarian Susan Keller was impressed with the collection, to say the least.

“Absolutely fascinating, just amazing,” she said, standing in between bookshelves outfitted with volumes about movies. “I’m kind of speechless.”

Culpeper County Supervisor Chairman Bill Chase agreed.

“Very, very impressive,” he said of his impression of the place, remembering when it was a Federal Reserve Bank and they had lead shades over the windows. “It wasn’t like this then.”

Down another hall, nitrate film specialist Irwin Rosenfeld, a Brooklyn native who worked 32 years for Columbia Pictures, inspected an old reel of “It’s a Dog’s Life” from 1955.

More than anything, Rosenfeld — who moved to Culpeper a year ago from Dayton, Ohio — loved the view from Mount Pony, considering his old job with Columbia had him inspecting films out of a converted bowling alley with no windows.

“The town is below us, the mountains are out there,” he said of the panoramic view surrounding the old Civil War signal station at Mount Pony. “Can you believe what I’m seeing?”

Mayor Pranas Rimeikis, standing on a balcony overlooking the scene, envisioned huge benefits for Culpeper from the LOC Audiovisual Conservation Center — a working facility dedicated to preserving and storing the nation’s collection of millions of audio and video items.

“It’s phenomenal. It puts Culpeper on the map for culture and the arts,” he said of the year-round, free, weekly film showings premiering to the public tonight with ‘The Maltese Falcon.’

“It’s going to have an incredible draw.”

Though Thursday and Friday’s back-to-back showings of the Humphrey Bogart classic are “sold out,” the public will have plenty more opportunities to catch the classics on Mount Pony; movies will play every Tuesday and Friday nights and on Saturdays at 2 p.m.

Old film meets state-of-the-art technology in the Mount Pony Theater and the meeting, as evidenced Wednesday, makes one sit up straight.

“You will not see a better projected image anywhere outside of Los Angeles,” said Greg Lukow, chief of the library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. “And now, let the show begin.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or