'Betty Tells Her Story': Movie from former Quincy teacher added to National Film Registry

Pioneering feminist filmmaker Liane Brandon was a young English teacher at Quincy's Central Junior High School when she borrowed a 16mm camera from the football team to shoot "Anything You Want to Be." 

That was in 1971, and by the time she shot her second movie a year later, Brandon had made friends at MIT and used their fancy cameras to shoot “Betty Tells Her Story,” about how clothing and appearance affect a woman’s identity. The 20-minute documentary, featuring a teacher from Chelmsford telling her story in two long takes, has become one of the most influential films in feminist cinema, continuing to earn accolades 50 years later.  

The latest honor was bestowed Wednesday, Dec. 14, when “Betty” was officially welcomed into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. There, it will forever be preserved among the world’s largest archive of film, TV and sound recordings.

“It’s overwhelming,” Brandon said. “I’m in a very select group.”  

Joining Brandon in the 2022 class are 24 other films, including the superhero blockbuster “Iron Man”; the animated fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”; John Waters’ “Hairspray”; the classic rom-com “When Harry Met Sally”; Brian De Palma’s adaptation of “Carrie”; and the 1950 version of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which made José Ferrer the first Hispanic to win a best-actor Oscar.  

Every year, the Library of Congress selects 25 motion pictures that are at least 10 years old and considered “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. Founded in 1989, the registry now totals 850 films.  

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When Brandon started making movies, she was among only a handful of female directors. Even fewer were dealing specifically with social and political issues specific to women. She said being added to the National Film Registry “feels like some kind of vindication.”  

“It was a boys club back in the day,” she said. “I was like one of three or four women making independent films in the state. I remember being told once that my work would be so much better if I had a male director.”  

In "Betty Tells Her Story," two versions of the same story are told, both true, and both centering on a dress Betty never got to wear. One scenario is told like a “cocktail party anecdote” focusing on spending too much and feeling like a princess, Brandon said. She then asked Betty to retell the story. “The facts are the same but the story is strikingly different, haunting.” 

Getting the movie seen was especially challenging in the early 1970s because it wasn’t about a man or a manly adventure or war story, Brandon said.  “Distributors were not interested in films by and about women because they said the women’s movement wouldn’t last more than a year.”  

So, Brandon took matters into her own hands. In 1971, she co-founded New Day Films with the late Oscar-winning documentarian Julia Reichert, Jim Klein and Amalie Rothschild. The nationally known cooperative pioneered the distribution of feminist and social issue films and videos.

Brandon’s other films ‒ “Anything You Want to Be,” “Once Upon a Choice” and “How to Prevent a Nuclear War” ‒ have been featured on HBO, the Criterion Channel and Cinemax.  

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Upon its release, “Betty” made waves with women’s groups, libraries and colleges. Brandon gave a copy to the Boston Public Library, “a champion of local filmmakers.” One of its librarians took the film to Chicago, where famed movie critic Gene Siskel saw it and wrote a full-page review in the Tribune, calling the movie “a film about human beings ‒ how they talk and feel, hide and reveal and hurt.”  

“Up until then, it was all word of mouth,” Brandon said.  

After teaching English and media studies in Quincy, Brandon became a tenured professor at UMass-Amherst and director of UMass Educational Television, which produced more than 20 original programs from 1994 to 2004, when she retired.  Today, she works mostly in photography, shooting production stills for movies and television, including the PBS series “American Experience.”  

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Other notable titles in the National Film Registry’s Class of 2022 are: the 1898 film “Mardi Gras Carnival,” long thought to be lost but recently discovered in a Dutch museum; Dee Ree’s “Pariah”; the Blaxploitation classic “Super Fly”; Reginald Hudlin’s comedy “House Party”; and Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising.”  

The library collaborates with other archives, movie studios and filmmakers to ensure copies are kept safe and preserved in its vaults at the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation in Virginia. “Betty Tells Her Story” will now be one of 9.2 million items residing there.  

Brandon remained friends with Betty long after the movie was filmed. Betty died in 1991. Brandon remembers Betty mailing her a Christmas card every year.

“It always said, ‘Call me, I’ll tell you another story.’” 

How to watch

At 8 p.m. Dec. 27, Turner Classic Movies will screen a selection of this year’s National Film Registry inductees.

Select titles from 30 years of the National Film Registry are also available to stream for free at the National Screening Room.  

"Betty Tells Her Story" can also be streamed free with a valid public library card on kanopy.com.