Take a look (and read the accompanying explanation) at yesterday’s blog entry. It’s a World War 2 pilot training film ”Learn and Live With Joe Instructor’, absolutely one of the most entertaining war movies ever made. To my dismay, the film ended rather abruptly, halting just as a plane was
Years ago I remember my father recounting to me a training film he and his fellow flight school students were asked (forced) to watch in which Guy Kibbee played an angel who admitted dead student pilots to a special place in heaven/hell, without knowing why. The flight instructor showed up
Filmed in February 1929, when sound was well on its way in, ‘Double Whoopee’ was a defiantly silent entry and one of the best of all Stan and Ollie non-talkies. The hotel setting, characters and costumes are wonderfully evocative of the 20s, complete with ‘The Prince’, a Von Stroheim-esque character
‘Their Purple Moment’ (1928) is a fine (if not brilliant) example of the L&H silent era which showcases more slapstick than wit but which gives us a nice taste of the times it was made in. The restaurant/club set is a very 20s affair, and the chic and sexy Anita
By the late 1920s, Hal Roach had struck a lucrative distribution deal with MGM, resulting in expanded theatrical exposure, better music soundtracks and a lion roaring silently in the opening credit sequence. (Actually this version of the MGM lion is a rather sullen one, who seems to be grumbling about
I’ve always loved this blessed last week of the year. It’s a week free of the calendar–no day has any significance since almost everything but basic services is closed, nobody’s at work and it’s not even a holiday. Truly a lost week–a wonderful, liberating and rare occurrence. For several years
On Monday I posted a British Pathe newsreel showing the local side of glamorous Rome in 1967. Although the twitty English announcers narration was a tad on the condescending side (more than a tad actually) the lovely color photography made the whole thing a delight to watch. Today we have
What have we here? It’s a 1967 British Pathe newsreel (really? they were still making newsreels in Britain?) showing us ‘The Real Rome’. The quality of the color photography is excellent and the musical score is quite perfect. And then there’s the narration which is an astonishingly stupid and snide
Recorded on May 26, 1927, just five days after Lindbergh’s arrival in Paris, ‘Lucky Lindy’ (posted below) was a major hit record and one that Lindbergh apparently loathed. He was more than a little surprised at the world-wide hoopla that greeted him upon landing and regarded much of it with
There;’s a saying in aviation that ‘taking off is optional but landing is mandatory. Yesterday I posted Charles Lindberghs take off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island for his historic Atlantic crossing. Today, above, we see his landing in France. It’s not the most graceful three-point landing you’ll ever see–the