The Ernest Pendrell Papers, 1959-1976, consist primarily of material on his production of
documentaries for television and motion pictures, but there is also a small amount on his
plays and a ballad he wrote.
Included in the Theater section are scripts of four plays, 1959-1962, that were produced in
Europe (mainly England) and on Broadway. Arrangement is by copyright date.
The Motion Picture section contains material on two films: scripts for The Guns of August, a documentary about the
outbreak of World War I, and a script of Even For
One produced for the AMA and released by Dynamic Films in 1954, which was awarded
the Golden Reel for the best film of its type for that year.
There is a draft of a ballad he wrote in 1973, “The Ballad of George Williams (The
Tale of a Very Old War).”
Television material, 1962-1973, is arranged in two parts--produced and unproduced.
Contained in this produced section are a script for the Dupont Show the Week, “The Betrayal” (1962), and a
script for a production on British television called The Day the Madonna Sang (1962). There are also transcripts of
some of the extensive interviews Pendrell did as part of his research for a production,
correspondence, scripts, and production materials for documentaries he prepared for ABC's
Scope series, ABC's Directions, and PBS's Feeling Good, as well as half-hour and hour documentaries for
ABC and NBC. These include such outstanding documentaries as the award-winning Terror in Northern Ireland, and Energy Crisis: The Nuclear Alternative.
Arrangement is chronological by air-date and thereunder by production order. Several of his
ABC productions are also represented by films. The films are listed as a seventh series.
The television - unproduced section consists of shooting scripts and scant correspondence
about some of his not yet completed documentaries, 1965-1968.
There is also a Correspondence section containing four folders of correspondence re his
personal affairs, business matters such as network policies and production problems inherent
in producing series of documentaries, a 1972 seminar on American documentary film making
sponsored by the Colombian government, and the establishment of this collection in the
Wisconsin Center for Theater Research.
