This week we’ve been looking at Bix Beiderbecke on film. Now let’s listen to his friend and collaborator Hoagy Carmichael for a few minutes discussing Bix. I don’t know when this radio interview is from nor who the English chap is conducting it. But he manages to get the normally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmD7jeIEkfg (NOTE: HIT ABOVE ‘PLAY ON YOUTUBE’ BUTTON TO WATCH VIDEO. THE GUY WHO POSTED IT APPARENTLY THINKS HE OWNS IT). When I was a kid in the early 70s getting into jazz and old movies, two great revivals were taking place. One was The Marx Brothers revival, which began
With the introduction of Safety Film in 1925, the home movie craze began. Safety was a non-flammable alternative to the highly inflammatory nitrate stock which all movies previously were shot on. Smaller gauge cameras–16mm arrived two years prior in 1923–were easier to use and didn’t require much in the way
What kind of crap foods were people eating half a century ago? Consult the nifty little reel of commercials posted above to find out. Pizza rolls? Rice a Roni? Jello cheesecake anyone? Don’t mind if I do! The weird inclusion of a shaving cream ad at the end of the
The above short (eight minute) film was made to be shown at General Motors 1956 Motorama show. it purports to show how the future of driving will look twenty years hence and, while it makes the usual inaccurate assumptions about a future that never comes (a la H.G. Welles ‘Things
Here’s some outstanding colorized footage of New York City in 1948-49. (The dates are approximate based on the cars of the period). The YouTube artist known as NASS posted this a few days ago and as always I’m sharing it with you. It’s a remarkable moment of time travel, thanks
Here’s a nice little reel of beverage commercials the late 1950s to mid 60s. If nothing else, this grouping of ads shows us how poor the ideas and execution of commercials were before they got jazzed up in the middle-60s, as well as how poor the public’s taste was in
Tonight there’s a screening of my 2010 movie ‘City Island’ at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, New York. I’ll be there with co-star Julianna Marguilies to do a Q&A after the screening. Since you’re receiving this at roughly the same time the screening is taking place–and since I doubt many of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l-09_fAUSk (NOTE: CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH TODAY’S LINK ON YOUTUBE). Yesterday’s clip featured the lovely 1934 recording of ‘The Very Thought Of You’ by the Ray Noble orchestra with vocal by Al Bowly. I gave you a little info on Bowly but didn’t expect to find any actual film of
I’m not usually one for YouTube music/film mash-ups but I stumbled across this one and found it so evocative and lovely that I’ve decided to share it with you. It consists of clips from the 1934 version of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”, starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis,