Yesterday I posted a 1972 interview with songwriting great Harry Warren. Today let’s look backwards forty years from that time to 1933 and watch a Vitaphone “Pepper Pot” short called “Harry Warren; America’s Foremost Composer’. In it, Warren appears at a piano in a beautiful art deco setting, surrounded by
In 1972, Ian Whitcomb–singer, songwriter, music historian and show-biz gadabout–interviewed the great songwriter Harry Warren. Above is fifteen minutes of that video and it’s a real delight. Warren tells stories in his off-the-cuff, gruff Brooklyn manner and plays and sings a few of his songs. At the end, he and
Okay, I took a week’s vacation from posting and now I’m back. I was with family and, much as I love them, I kind of wish I was George Gershwin in the spring of 1937 on vacation with Paulette Goddard. The two of them were discreetly involved in a romance
Here’s a couple of precious minutes showing Judy Garland during a run-through for an appearance on ‘Hollywood Palace’, singing ‘What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love)’. Her listless performance is a hell of a lot more fun than many singers all out, full-blown performances though its hard to
My son and I had a marvelous time at the massive AirVenture 2026 convention–I was too busy and exhausted looking at (and riding on) airplanes to post anything as you may have noticed. I can think of no better way to conclude the experience then by delving into the darkest
Once upon a time, before we all hated getting on the plane to go somewhere we didn’t really want to go to, there was a glamour and fascination associated with all things aeronautical. Between the wars–1918 to 1940 roughly–this was epitomized by the advent of air races. Competitions were held
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rfV3301d2khttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-JBHAq_AxU&list=RDT-JBHAq_AxU&start_radio=1 This is aviation week here in my world and as a result I am going to drag all my readers (both of you) through the AvGeek muck with me. The reason for this is that on Wednesday my son and I will be going to the AirVenture convention in
Here’s a brief, fascinating British Pathe newsreel from 1930 showing us The Handley Page HP–42 (nicknamed the Hannibal), a giant British four-engine biplane airliner designed by Handley Page. Introduced by Imperial Airways in 1931, it was the largest airliner in the world at the time. Built mostly from metal and fabric, it was
Here’s some extraordinary, silent footage of World War 1 fighter planes, formation flyers and various battle-ready airplanes in action. First we see mostly the fast Bristol 2 Seaters which had a rear gunner, a sting in the tail of the ‘Brisfits’, the first successful fighter/bomber combo, a deadly aircraft when
Apropos of yesterday’s post showing the evolution of RKO studio’s logos, here’s a reel of logos from some of the most obscure in-the-gutter strictly-from -hunger low-rent low-budget low-self-esteem studios the movie business ever created. Names like ‘Invincible Pictures’, ‘Mascot Studios’, ‘Chesterfield Pictures’ sound like companies invented by a novelist for