The astoundingly beautiful super-sonic aircraft known as the Concorde had its first commercial flight in 1976 and was retired in 2003. Why? Because of high operating costs, expensive travel prices and debris on a runway that resulted in a fatal crash killing all on board in 2003. (It wasn’t the
Before the Production Code came along in 1933 and imposed strict moral policing on all matters, homosexuality was often to be found in movies. The Pre-Code era generally preferred to offer up the ‘pansy’ or ‘sissy’ in a playful, caricature-ish way. Somehow this doesn’t seem now to be patronizing–at least
The only thing better than docs about old airplanes are old docs about old airplanes…or in this case ‘airships’, the fancy word for ‘Dirigibles’ which was the longer word for ‘blimps’. I haven’t watched this yet so can make no great claims for it, but I can’t imagine it isn’t
Hard to believe, but one-hundred years ago the future of air travel was thought to be found in what was known as the “Airship’, the fancy word for clumsy word ‘Dirigible’. We now know these bizarre aeronautical devices as ‘blimps’ and what we know of them is usually confined to
Here’s part two of the British-Pathe short film that I posted yesterday, showing us London in all its glory in 1950. But is it really showing us the whole story? My friend Marc Myers, Wall Street Journal columnist and author of the excellent, long-running JazzWax blog, pointed out to me
Here’s a lovely look at post-war London–1950 to be exact–as pictured in a British-Pathe travelogue, narrated by Rex Harrison, who I suspect was between divorces at the time and needed the easy money. I was last in London a year ago and was surprised how very much like London it
The Ferris wheel was the invention of a man named, well, George Washington Ferris. Come on, what did you think his name was going to be. Gustave Eiffel? It was designed for the 1893 Chicago Worlds Exposition, the first such exposition since the one in Paris five years earlier which
I’ve always hated everything Disney. Hated Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Hated Snow White and Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty. Hated the song ‘It’s A Small World After All’ and especially hated the score to ‘Mary Poppins.’ Worst of all was Disneyland, a theme park I was subjected to several times
One of the distressing things about nerding-out on vintage airplane videos are the soundtracks one has to endure. Either the person who posted the footage of the lovely old planes plasters ‘Top Gun’ style junk-rock over the images or they err in the other direction, maintaining the ‘purity’ of the
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