When I was a kid I taught myself to play piano by using the odd, ancient first-digital-music-delivery-system- ever thing known as a piano roll. Simply put, piano rolls are a rolled sheet of paper with cuts in it representing individual notes which, when run through what is known as a
The astoundingly beautiful super-sonic aircraft known as the Concorde had its first commercial flight in 1976 and was retired in 2003. Why? Because of high operating costs, expensive travel prices and debris on a runway that resulted in a fatal crash killing all on board in 2003. (It wasn’t the
During John Huston’s ‘Lord Of The Manor’ Ireland years (mid-1950s to mid-1970s roughly) he was known locally as John Huston, MFH. Those letters stood for ‘Master of the Fox Hunt’, a loathsome tradition that he was happy to help perpetrate. Above is a short (five minute) doc showing the great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxYSVO78Edchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAFLS-jyti4 Yesterday I posted about pre-code portrayals of gay men in the movies and cartoons of the era. The usual characterization was of what was commonly known as a ‘sissy’ or ‘pansy’. Which brings us to the once popular and now utterly obscure bandleader Dick Rich. Above I’ve posted two
Before the Production Code came along in 1933 and imposed strict moral policing on all matters, homosexuality was often to be found in movies. The Pre-Code era generally preferred to offer up the ‘pansy’ or ‘sissy’ in a playful, caricature-ish way. Somehow this doesn’t seem now to be patronizing–at least
‘Alibi’, directed by Roland West and starring Chester Morris, was released on April 8th, 1929 and instantly was recognized as an unusually sophisticated piece of work. I’ve posted the whole film above but unless you’re a serious 20s/Talkies geek you’re likely not to watch more than the first few minutes.
If you grew up watching (and loving) SCTV as I did, you’ll know what I mean when I say that no matter how much I enjoy Martin Short or John Candy in other movie or TV shows, I find myself wishing that I were watching them in an SCTV skit
The only thing better than docs about old airplanes are old docs about old airplanes…or in this case ‘airships’, the fancy word for ‘Dirigibles’ which was the longer word for ‘blimps’. I haven’t watched this yet so can make no great claims for it, but I can’t imagine it isn’t
Hard to believe, but one-hundred years ago the future of air travel was thought to be found in what was known as the “Airship’, the fancy word for clumsy word ‘Dirigible’. We now know these bizarre aeronautical devices as ‘blimps’ and what we know of them is usually confined to
Here’s part two of the British-Pathe short film that I posted yesterday, showing us London in all its glory in 1950. But is it really showing us the whole story? My friend Marc Myers, Wall Street Journal columnist and author of the excellent, long-running JazzWax blog, pointed out to me