Here’s a fabulous colorized reel of various views of Broadway in the early 1930s. The YouTube artist known as NASS is responsible for many of these urban re-boot reels, in which he colorizes the footage (with great skill), slows the frame rate down and adds a quite convincing soundbed of
Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, ‘Blackmail’ (1929) was shot in both silent and sound versions, a typical one-foot-in one-foot-out practice at the time. Above is a sound test made, it would seem, to see if the voice of the lead actress Anna Ondra would be suitable for recording. As you
One of my favorite underrated directors of the past is Charles Vidor. Among the top films in his filmography are ‘Cover Girl’ (1944) starring Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth, which is certainly one of the best musicals of its era and the delightfully sensuous and darkly peculiar ‘Gilda’ (1946)–really the
It’s Friday so guess who you get to have a visit with!.Click above and have a fab weekend. And think of me on Sunday as I celebrate my 60th trip around the sun. I’d do the same for you, you know…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnAEHFhxuQIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNbAtTMZXc Yesterday I posted a 1929 art film by Robert Florey called ‘Skyscraper Symphony’. Above is the experimental film he made the year before in collaboration with montage artist and film theorist Slavko Vorkapich called…well, read the title of this post. There’s a good deal to understand about how the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BJQViP16lAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6fY1wMTd4 Robert Florey is the supreme instance of a professional filmmaker whose dissatisfaction with commercial assignments led him into parallel work as an avant-garde independent. He began his career as a film critic and journalist in the early 1920s and came to some small prominence by making a very cheap
‘A Ducking They Did Go’ ( 1939) is the 38th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, November 15th through Friday, November 18th, 1938 and was released on Friday, April 7th 1939 (the 97th day on the Gregorian Calendar as well as
Its Friday so it’s Ernie Kovacs time. Here’s one of his weirdest quasi-music videos–a rendering of a piece of the 1812 Overture which melds the music with some frankly disconcerting images–I’ll let you watch rather than explain them. This is preceded by two of Kovacs beloved blackout sketches one of
Yesterday I posted a recording of Bunny Berigan singing (as well as trumpeting) ‘My Baby Says It’s So’, a lovely 1930s Warren/Dubin ditty. Berigan’s singing is so unusual and super-hip that I began to dig into his discography to find more than just the famous ‘I Can’t Get Started’ hit
I don’t mean to brag (really, I don’t) but I know hundreds–probably thousands–of old songs. It comes from a lifetime of non-stop listening to and playing of the music of the 1920s-50s and watching way too many musicals. So it’s a genuine surprise when I stumble across a song I