While I found Ray Routhier’s Jan. 31 article (Page M10) about John Ford and the ongoing statewide festival of his films, “John Ford at 125,” informative and well written, I am, with all due respect, compelled to add something of a missing piece to it.

In the fall of 1970, as a new faculty member at the University of Maine at Farmington, I played a minor role in a groundbreaking, large-scale retrospective of the films of Ford, coming at a time when Ford, who’d just turned 76, and his films were somewhat out of fashion, particularly on the political left.

That retrospective – supported by the Maine Commission on the Arts, the Maine Sesquicentennial Commission and the students at what is now the University of Southern Maine – was planned, organized and managed by my friend and colleague, now-retired USM professor Juris Ubans. Forty-two of Ford’s films were shown at five venues in southern and western Maine, UMF being one of them, at times that made it possible for a scholar or an avid Ford fan to screen all 42; a few did.

Professor Ubans published a catalog of the retrospective, copies of which can be found in the film archives of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Ford was scheduled to come to Maine for part of the proceedings but fell, breaking his leg, making a trip from California impossible. In lieu of Ford’s coming to Maine, Professor Ubans traveled, met and interviewed him in Los Angeles. The Ford retrospective of 1970 remains a touchstone in the cultural history of 20th-century Maine, and it deserves to be recognized and remembered.

Professor Ubans continues to add to our state’s cultural legacy with his popular film classes at Osher Lifelong Learning and through the recently made generous gift of his extensive film collection and mentorship to a new generation of cineastes at Kinonick. He deserves thanks all around!

John Scarcelli

retired professor of art, University of Maine at Farmington

Portland

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