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
Yesterday I read a large chunk of Scott Berg’s magnificent biography of Charles Lindbergh (rather appropiately on a plane) and discovered that the actual take-off of ‘The Spirit Of St. Louis’ was captured by newsreel cameras. It’s hard now to grasp, from a centuries distance, how special this event was
I hadn’t seen the Cary Grant Vs. the Crop Duster scene from ‘North By Northwest’ in ages so I looked it up over lunch today and was surprised by how little of it I recalled. The long prelude–six minutes before the plane begins its attack–is Hitch at his methodical best,
A couple of months ago I posted about Howard Hawks 1939 movie ‘Only Angels Have Wings’. The discussion largely centered on the magnificent aerial photography by Elmer Dyer. It turns out that the Criterion Collection has included the film in their august DVD pantheon of classic cinema and provided a
Celebrate the season of the arrival of public domain with Springtime (1929)! This early Walt Disney Silly Symphonies animated short film is a exploration of nature set entirely to classical music. The cartoon features flora and fauna, including charming flowers, busy ladybugs, crawling centipedes, soaring birds, and hopping frogs. Without
This year a slew of entertainment from 1929 has entered the public domain and can now be reused, re-recorded, re-edited and re-enjoyed for free. Songs, movies, books–the world is now awash in uncopyrighted cultural riches, and the family members of the creators of those works are now shit out of
What better way to usher in the holiday that celebrates munificence, family, warmth and generosity than with two videos of Woody Allen discussing death and the meaninglessness of life. For somebody who thinks that nothing ultimately matters, Woody has certainly been prodigious in his output. In fact, it could be