‘Broadway Highlights’–subtitled ‘Intimate News Of The Gay White Way’–was a series of several short subjects produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935 and 1936. They purported to tell the viewer, newsreel-style, what was happening on the Gay White Way (as the street was dubbed in the lyric of ‘Broadway Melody’). Much
Above is an extraordinary find. It’s a short film made in 1932 starring the man who invented the gossip column all by himself, Walter Winchell. Titled ‘I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket’, it features Winchell playing himself as well as offering glimpses of period celebrities such as Ruth Etting, Paul
Here’s a nice little video essay on Leonard Bernstein’s apartment in the Dakota, on Central Park West and 72nd Street. It features mostly stills of the large, tall and crowded rooms (stuffed with furniture and artifacts), though there is also a little doc live-action stuff thrown in. The apartment was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15BAagfdZ8c In our final Glenn Gould post of the week (see previous three if you dare) we find the young piano whiz taking a walk down 57th street in his trademark garb, carry his funny little folded up piano chair that his father made for him and heading for the
Behold an amazing clip of Glenn Gould playing the first portion of Bach’s Piano Concerto 1 (in D Minor, kids) accompanied by the New York Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein conducting. The opening five or so minutes consists of a lecture–very well done–by Lenny discussing the lack of indication in Bach’s
Sorry to have skipped a day, but not doing stuff is what Boxing Day is all about, right? Anyway, here’s a 1928 Laurel & Hardy silent called ‘The Finishing Touch’. The plot is beyond simple. L&H have inexplicably been hired to build a house. A cop and a woman who
‘Pals and Gals’ (1954) is the 155th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It is heavily reliant on footage culled from ‘Out West’ (1947) as well as a Curly entry ‘Goofs And Saddles’ (1937). Thus the only day of photography required to link the various threads
The YouTube artist known as NASS has done it again, giving us another of his superlative restorations of urban footage from the past. His colorization and added sound effects (plus intricate frame rate adjustment) serve to recast documentary footage of the past into the present tense, allowing us to not
This one’s a bit difficult to take. Unlike the previous few posts of Bradley Cooper–er, Leonard Bernstein–tussling with his orchestra, this is a recording of Arturo Toscanini berating his orchestra in such foul, angry, loud and insulting ways that I can’t believe they didn’t just get up and abandon the
Welcome to another clip of Leonard Bernstein in conflict with his orchestral players. This time, during a rehearsal of Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’, he rubs one of the three trumpet players the wrong way when imitating they’re playing in order to describe what he doesn’t like. His imitation is a bit