RAIDERS OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Although spending decades of his life making short films about the quirky and the nerdy has been fun for Krulik, it hasn’t exactly been lucrative. He currently ekes out a living by trading on his arcane knowledge of an American treasure hidden in plain sight: The Motion Picture, Sound and Video Research Room of The National Archives. While crowds wait hours to get a glimpse of boring old documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta at Archives I in downtown DC, rows and rows of film and video that once belonged to the CIA, Richard Nixon, and the US Information Agency are collecting dust a few miles away at Archives II. It’s here that you’ll find Krulik sifting through mountains of obliquely-labeled government footage on behalf of clients like Errol Morris (Fog of War) and PBS (History Detectives). In the process of becoming a 12th level wizard of archival footage, Krulik has stumbled upon some of the finest unintentional comedy ever produced with taxpayer money. Reluctantly, Krulik agreed to let VBS in on his nerdy little treasure trove.

“I’m a little secretive and proprietary in this because… I mean, I don’t mind sharing… but I’ve always loved the secret nature of this,” says Krulik. He pulls a binder at random off a shelf and begins to flip through the pages, reading off titles like Nixon in Iran, Creativity and the Negro, and Stay Alert, Stay Alive. “How can you go wrong with these titles? Don’t Shoot My Face? In Japanese?! What could that possibly be about?”

After decoding the hieroglyphics next to each title, Krulik transcribes the numbers to carbonless forms and delivers them to Vernon, a well-fed gentlemen who serves as overlord of the film and video collection. When the clock strikes 2:30, Vernon disappears into the underworld of the archives, eventually returning with a cart containing about 50 percent of Krulik’s requests. Krulik shrugs and says, “It’s not a very user friendly library.”

Donning white gloves, Krulik opens the first can of film and threads it up. Creativity and the Negro is a film produced by the US Information Agency in 1966. The now-defunct agency was operated by the executive branch and tasked with explaining and supporting American culture and foreign policy to overseas audiences. The film opens with images of white folk in their Sunday best making their way into a college auditorium in Rockford, IL for their first glimpse of a real, live, black musician and his electric twanger on the stage. They listen politely, and seem relieved when the bluesman is replaced by a group doing African tribal dances.

“There are people who go into show business, and there are people who go into making government films,” Krulik tells me. “And the results are things like this. ” Krulik then pulls out an old favorite: a collection of melodramatic swine-flu PSAs made in the 1970s at the behest of President Ford. In one, a bald, rascally business executive jumps up from behind his desk and announces, “I’m the healthiest 55-year-old you ever seen. Hey, I play golf every weekend!” 70s horror music kicks in as the film cuts to the old-man shivering in his bed, waiting for the angel of death.

Krulik is proud of this find. And even though it’s in the public domain, he’s extremely defensive about it. “The swine flu thing… that was a real kick in the pants. I found the swine flu PSA a year ago at random. I put it on my YouTube site and forgot about it. Then the recent scare hit, and suddenly the hits on my site skyrocketed.” This gave Krulik a little thrill, but when the videos started turning up on the evening news and a number of other sites without any credit given to the man who painstakingly wrenched them from obscurity, he felt burned. “I didn’t understand that you could download streaming content. I thought I was protected.”

As if the news media appropriating his finds wasn’t bad enough, now Amazon has started to elbow in on Krulik’s turf, selling DVD copies of material from the archives online.

“They are giving away our secrets,” says Krulik. “They are giving away our fun.”

In an attempt to protect and glorify the efforts of those who’ve spent many a bleary-eyed nights sifting through footage, Krulik and a small fraternity of like-minded individuals are launching archivesecrets.com not only to share their finds, but also to stake their claim as the masters of the labyrinthine world of the archives.

Krulik pops in a cassette of Nixon’s trip to Ghana. Krulik scratches his head, “What? Is that MLK with him?” Next we seek Nixon in Iran, presenting the Shah with a beautifully framed portrait of… President Eisenhower. The Shah’s face seems to say, Gee… I didn’t get you anything.

Six hours later, Krulik is still popping in tapes with a childlike excitement. He’s dubbing most of them to his handheld camcorder. In the 1980s Krulik would have to drag his 3/4" video deck to the basement of Archives I, where the collection was originally kept, and his personal archive was severely limited by cost and space. But in the digital age, Krulik exercises little discretion, “It’s a passion bordering on sickness. Because there’s no end in sight. This is a real playground for me. This is all instant documentary.”

Krulik’s obsession with the readymade, and with the theme of obsession itself, informs his own films. The subjects of his found films are themselves forms of found objects. When he compulsively collects hours of footage of interviews with people who compulsively collect something else, he seems to be examining his own lifestyle.

“People like Ralph Wittington, the King of Porn, are kindred spirits. I’m kind of a self-hating documentarian. I’m always recording. I get frustrated because I record so much. I can’t possibly do something with all this stuff.”

And then, Krulik looks over at the screen see John McCain’s little brother Joe at a rally in the 1960s, dressed in POW garb standing alongside people eating apparently repulsive prison rations in solidarity with the maverick. Krulik giggles and presses record.

Bonus Gems from the Krulik home archives:
Jackie Gleason for Nixon


Comedians Don Rowan and Dick Martin along with shots of Herb Alpert, Dan Blocker, Les Brown and band, Carol Burnett, Doris Day, Phyllis Diller, Kirk Dougls, Lorne Greene, Andy Griffith, Charleston Heston, Bob Hope, Don Knotts, Mike Landon, Dean Martin, Barbara McNair, George Peppard and Young Americans all singing Yankee Doodle Dandy, encourage public to buy US Savings Bonds

Krulik’s Nazi dance mash-up