We met at Mario’s Pizzeria in Orange on Saturday, June 16 for a Shenandoah membership meeting and dinner. After dinner, Keith and Jeanne Welty led us on a drive through the scenic countryside of Orange, Madison, and Culpeper counties. Six of the eight Porsches were Boxsters or Cabriolets with the tops down to soak up the maximum scenery. Tours just before sunset can be especially scenic because the light is mellow, not the harsh glare of the noonday sun. Our destination was Library of Congress–Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (map), just east of Culpeper. Prior to 1998, this facility, a.k.a. Mount Pony, contained a secret bunker for Federal Reserve senior officials and a massive vault with pallets of cash that would be used to replenish the money supply in the aftermath of World War III.

Now this state-of-the-art facility is where the Library of Congress “acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of films, television programs, radio broadcasts, and sound recordings”. We went into the recreated movie theater from the silent era, complete with an organ on the stage that could be lowered during the movie just enough that the organ didn’t block the screen but the organist was visible to the audience. We saw two shorts and then the main feature “Bare Knees,” a 1928 romantic comedy from the Flapper era. The live organ accompanyment greatly added to the experience of watching a silent movie. After the movie, most of the audience left, but we stayed behind for a special presentation on the history of the facility, the efforts being made to preserve old movies (some of which are on highly flammable nitrate-based film that must be stored in concrete vaults because it is so dangerous), and a demonstration of the Wurlitzer theater organ. Such organs are designed to mimic a full orchestra, and they also contain a “toy box” of sound effects such as sirens and foghorns.

This film center and theater is one of the area’s hidden gems. If you haven’t been there, check it out and go sometime. You will like it.