History teacher and collector Mike Zahs uncovers a trove of nineteenth-century showreels from one of America's first motion picture impresarios, William Franklin Brinton, who popularized movies in the Midwest. As Zahs sets out to restore Brinton's reels, he creates a portrait of an unlikely folk hero. Saving Brinton offers a meditation on the legacy of illusionist Frank Brinton, as well as the magic of living history.
Kenneth Turan, The LA TimesEndearing. Affectionate. Zealots are plentiful in the film history world, but ones as amiable as Zahs are as rare as the movies he doggedly preserved.