My father Frank De Felitta (1921-2016) was a pilot who served with the Army Air Corps during the Second World War. To honor him on this special day I thought I’d post a couple of clips specifically about the plane he flew. The C-47 was a troop and equipment carrier
It’s humbling to realize that the films considered the best acheivemernts of the year and celebrated at the legendary awards evening known as the ‘Oscars’ may well turn into utterly unwatchable obscurities in a quick ninety to one-hundred years. (Actually it’s more likely that a couple of decades is enough
Here’s a nice trip to the not-as-recent-as-you-might-think past. We’re in 1986 (back when we were young and happy) and it’s midnight in New York City. ‘The Honeymooners’ has just ended–it aired from 11:30-midnight, following the 11PM ‘Odd Couple’ rerun. I’m lying in bed, watching commercials and probably still reasonably high
With the election of the mayor of New York City just hours away, I thought it might be instructive to flashback to a very different city and time. This is a short news clip that aired on WPIX in the early-to-mid 70s in which New Yorkers are asked what they
Here’s a little reel featuring the opening credits of the Friday night network TV show line-up in the fall/winter of 1957–and what a load of crap it turns out to have been! Far from making us misty-eyed for the golden age of television, we are instead rendered inert with boredom
I’ve always loved the cumbersome nature of old film and recording technology. At the same time, though, I’ve never been able to truly grasp it. Nowhere is this more true than with the above fascinating reel showing the method by which sound and film are recorded in the early 1930s
Yesterday we looked at two examples of the ‘upper berth as comedic set-piece’ genre. As far as I know, the first extended example of this routine is in Laurel & Hardy’s ‘Berth Marks’ (1929), their second sound film. To be honest, that statement is based on no research whatsoever on
Do trains still have sleeper cars? If so, do they still have upper and lower berths? Perhaps the bigger questions is: do people still sleep on trains other than falling asleep in their uncomfortable seat, jammed next to somebody with a service dog. (This happened to me on a long
It’s astonishing that World War 2 was somehow fought without the use of computers, cell phones and the internet. In fact, only the lowly Fax (‘Fascimile’) machine provided any true up-to-date technology. Somehow vast projects were organized and immaculately executed in record time–planes were designed as trainers to teach squads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24XNg4DQTr8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98TETzMWjTg It’s hard to pick a favorite Howard Hawks films given the diverse amount of genres he worked in and always at such a high level. “To Have and Have Not’, ‘Bringing Up Baby’, ‘Rio Bravo’, ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘Red River’–Jesus, what an absurd list of genres to have conquered.