https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al61LQEeB5U Just last week I finally watched ‘Rome Open City’ for the first time. Don’t ask me how I managed to miss this event through what amounts to almost fifty years of classic cinema going. Sometimes ‘great’ films (like ‘great’ books) are so ‘great’ that one avoids delving into them–they’re
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPLhQl9ZLrM The Culver studio was originally created by silent movie pioneer Thomas H. Ince and has operated under a multitude of names: Ince Studio (1918-1925), De Mille Studios (1925–1928), Pathé Studios (1928–1931), RKO-Pathé Studios (1931–1935), Selznick International Pictures (1935–1956), Desilu-Culver Studios (1956–1970), Culver City Studios (1970–1977), and Laird International Studios (1977–1986).Through all these
Here is an extraordinary find. It’s a forty minute silent doc (no music either–just ghostly silence) detailing the inner workings of the MGM studio lot in 1925. We see images of the lot in its silent heyday, with tours of the exterior, views of the interior stages, lots of groupings
In 1970 James Aubrey, the new and much hated head of MGM, ordered an auction to be held of all of Metro’s old props, costumes and souvenirs of former sets. The event was loudly objected to in Hollywood but in the end the objectors didn’t really make any difference; Debbie
Yesterday I posted a doc on the creation of Century City, which rose atop the rubble of the former 20th Century Fox ‘ranch’ portion of the lot, which was sold in the early 60s to developers to cover the cost overruns on the Fox epic ‘Cleopatra’. A few years later,
Here is a 1965 KTLA (Channel Five on the period local LA TV dial) documentary on the building of the then still-in-progress Century City. The ‘development’ (as its referred to in the doc) was built on the site of what had been the Fox Ranch–all studios kept a large amount
This week we’ve seen views of Greenwich Village in the 1940s, early 60s and late 60s verging on the 70s. Now we have a minute of deep 70s village at hand. In some ways this clip is so period-perfect that it doesn’t feel real–more like an expensively re-produced set (complete
Our Greenwich Village history week continues with this very nice one minute clip of color footage of the Village in the 1940s. We are in three locations–Washington Square North, MacDougal Alley and Eighth Street which, as you’ll see in this footage, was once lined with artists peddling their wares. (It’s
This is a real find–a lovely ten or so minute travelogue style journey around Greenwich Village featuring lots of the fashion of the time and plenty of views of streets and buildings that are all pretty much still there. From the look of things I think we’re in 1968–a close
In 1960 a filmmaker named Stewart Wilensky spent the summer shooting footage of New York’s Greenwich Village which he turned into a twelve minute doc called ‘Village Sunday’ which was completed in 1961. If you were watching the film back then then you’d likely see it as a sort of