The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • Page Z086

THE BIG PICTURE takes on film Robert Nott 4k Around the Hogan, from one of Sallie Wagner's home movies; NMSRCA Ser. No. 11399, courtesy New Mexico State Records Center and Archives Flicks on Route 66 This lady was driving along Route 66 when she saw a Navajo woman hitchhiking. The driver picked the woman up. There was a package on the seat, and the hitchhiker kept staring at it.

"It's a bottle of wine," the driver said. "I got it for my husband." The Navajo woman thought a moment and then said, "That was a good trade." And that's a good joke, courtesy of the late Sallie Wagner, an author, anthropologist, activist, philanthropist, and filmmaker. The joke has nothing to do with an upcoming screening of some of Wagner's home movies, but I figured it would get your attention, and we can all use a laugh. The New Mexico State Records Center and Archives and the New Mexico Film Museum are screening some of Wagner's films at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Friday, Dec. 15, in the museum's new digs in the old Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Ave. Wagner and her husband, Bill Lippincott (the one she traded the wine for), owned and ran the Wide Ruins Trading Post, west of Gallup, from the late 1930s to the early '50s. Wagner, who was born in 1913, began fiddling around with movie cameras in 1928, and she donated her home movies to the archives in 1973. Wagner died in August at the age of 93 in Santa Fe; she had lived here since 1952.

The movies include scenes of New Mexico in the 1930s, footage of old Fiesta celebrations, shots of dogs and horses and famous people, and sequences depicting the life and work of the Navajo. The archives office screened these films in October 2005 as part of New Mexico Archives Week, but if you missed them or want to see them again, next week's screening is free. Call 476-7948 for information. Dusty's road Santa Fe resident Mark Bankins e-mailed me to tell me his screenplay Dusty was named "screenplay of the month" in November at www.triggerstreet.com, a film-related Web site co-owned by Kevin Spacey. According to Bankins, Dusty is about a disgraced game designer who is stranded in a remote New Mexico town (like so many of us).

She gets a chance to escape by delivering two funeral urns in an old Buick, but fate in the form of the desert and some dangerous thugs interferes. Bankins said he works in props and set decoration on movies filmed in New Mexico. He's been entering Dusty in a number of screenplay competitions and is seeking financing for the project with an eye toward producing it locally. VSvHBHMflH Sallie Wagner riding in If You Should Visit Wide Ruins; NMSRCA Ser. No.

11400, courtesy New Mexico State Records Center and Archives rQBiNNfTKNTNNfc! SBWNnMyMNSB STORE MOVING SALE EVERYTHING MUST GO 75 95 OFF Suggested Retail Mon-Sat 10-6 Sun 12-5 renas Dec 15 86 Dec. 8 14, 2006.