This month the private side of some larger-than-life Hollywood stars will be on view as the Academy Film Archive opens its vaults to share home movie footage of luminaries from Cary Grant and Clark Gable to Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe.  In rarely seen clips, Alfred Hitchcock plays with his baby daughter, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall sail their yawl Santana, and Academy Award®-winning art director (and Oscar statuette designer) Cedric Gibbons and his wife Dolores del Río entertain guests, including Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich, at a backyard party.

Since the 1920s people have delighted in using amateur cameras – first 16mm, then 8mm and Super 8mm – to capture ordinary and special moments in their daily lives.  Film industry professionals were no exception.  They recorded their children’s first steps, family vacations, favorite pastimes, and behind-the-scene activities on the sets of such classic films as ON THE WATERFRONT and THE MISFITS.

In addition to rare glimpses of celebrities at work and play, the evening will feature early home movies of New York Harbor from 1927, a beauty contest parade in Atlantic City from 1935, Times Square in the mid-1950s, and more.

“Hollywood Home Movies” is curated by Academy archivist Lynne Kirste and is presented in conjunction with ongoing 2008 Home Movie Day events around the world .