Putnam Arts Lecture Hall

Keene State College opened the Putnam Arts Lecture Hall on May 21, 1988 as a $300,000 gift from the Putham Foundation and the Markem Corporation of Keene. Grand opening on that day contains a film montage developed to demonstrate the capabilities of film in all formats from 16mm to 70mm, and a lecture and slide presentation on art history by Henry Freeman, who was the professor of art. The film portion of the program was narrated by Lawrence Benaquist, professor of film studies at Keene State.

The opening presentation contains the following: The 30-second Thomas Edison short “The Kiss” in 16mm, the early silent film “The Red Magician” with hand colorization in 16mm, a restoration of an eight-minute film on the oldest footage of the city of Keene from 1919 in 16mm, the Laurel & Hardy short “The Rogue Song” in 16mm, the Canadian 3D film “The Mask” in unknown, the James Cagney VistaVision film “Run for Cover” in 35mm, the Howard Hughes film “Son of Sinbad” with SuperScope squeezing process in 35mm, the 1982 Dolby Stereo Category #251 SR-D “Jiffy” Listening Test film in 35mm, the Daffy Duck Looney Tunes cartoon “Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century” in 70mm, and the first few minutes of “The Sound of Music” in 70mm.

I remember seeing “Alien” here in 70mm sometime in the early 90’s. I also remember that before the Putnam theater opened films used to be shown in Drenan Auditorium. I remember seeing the original “To Be or Not To Be” starring Jack Benny there