"A LIFETIME OF EXPERIENCE"

Qualification to Teach

DARTMOUTH FILM STUDENTS ARE among the few who can say they have met such stars and scribes of the silver screen as Ring Lardner Jr., Joseph Losey '29, Waldo Salt, Vincent Ganby '45, and Pauline Kael at their professor's house. But then again, Professor Maury Rapf '35 isn't an ivory tower academician. "My qualifications to teach derive solely from a lifetime of experience in movies," says Rapf, who has been a faculty member since 1966. "After all, my only degree is a B.A. from Dartmouth."

For more than a decade, Rapf worked as a screenwriter for Hollywood's major studios; his projects included "Song of the South and "Cinderella." In 1947, when the House Un-American Activities Committee began its work, he was blacklisted as an alleged communist. He moved to the East Coast where he embarked on a successful career making non-fiction films. (One of Rapf's first projects was a recruitment film for the College called "My First Week at Dartmouth." It starred Buck Henry '52.)

Today, as an emeritus faculty member he keeps up a daunting teaching load. "My aim is to keep at it until I drop or it becomes clear that I have lost my marbles," he vows. Rapf is following a tough act. His predecessor in the Film Studies Department, Arthur Mayer, taught until he was 91.

Maury, early in his career.