Yesterday I posted a Fox Movietone newsreel depicting Hitlers inaugural event in 1932. Is it possible to continue the theme of Fascist takeovers (which for some reason seems to be on a least a few people’s minds) but on a less somber note? The answer is yes–sort of. Behold the
If the timing of my posting of this fascinating Fox Movietone newsreel seems heavy-handed, well, we live in awfully heavy-handed times. Watch as Adolf Hitler comes to power, addresses his crowds, cordially greets his new fellow government wonks and listen as the assumption is made that he seems willing ‘to
There are certain movie sets of the past that I yearn to be a visitor on. ‘Kane’, of course. ‘Casablanca’, most definitely. But if I were to choose a silent film to watch being filmed it would without a doubt be ‘Big Business’. The film is probably L&H’s most famous
“Hats Off”, a silent 1927 Laurel and Hardy comedy, is a lost film. It was last seen in Germany in 1930, where it presumably retired itself to the countryside and hopefully didn’t wind up a victim of the coming war. Why the film vanished is a mystery–there are no other
Yesterday I posted five hours of radio programming of a local Washington DC station in 1939. I find these non-dramatic radio broadcasts particularly evocative of the era and the above is no exception. It’s a broadcast from 1943 that aired on Christmas Eve as a Christmas special for those home
This is a pretty nutty find. It’s close to six hours of a normal broadcast day on a local Washington D.C. radio station, WJSV, on September 21, 1939. In other words, if you were a housewife sitting around your house and put your radio on in the background and left
Here is one of the most delightful time-travel videos provided by YouTube artist and film-restoration expert NASS, who finds black and white documentary footage of old urban areas, colorizes them, adds a period sound bed of traffic and pedestrian noises and slows the frame rate down slightly, thus giving it
When the Singer Sewing Machine factory decided to build their own office tower in 1907, they chose to do so with a bang. It was the tallest office building ever constructed and the technology involved in running the place was state-of-the-art early 20th century stuff. Alas, it’s life span was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C51apJhZX4 The Savoy-Plaza, one of New York City’s most elegant and legendary hotels, stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th street, currently the site of the General Motors Building. This fabulously grand Beaux-Arts pile was designed by McKim Meade and White and opened in 1907. Less than 60
As the dreaded day of the impending catastrophe known as the 2024 election approaches, I thought it would be appropriate and sobering to take a brief look back at the Hollywood Ten, a group of filmmakers who were tried, convicted and imprisoned for having been members of the Communist Party