Here’s an absolutely mesmerizing (to these as yet unjaded eyes anyway) Mitchell and Kenyon documentation of Sheffield, South Yorkshire in 1902. The camera appears to have been well concealed on the tram on which it’s been placed which has the refreshing effect of not attracting the attention of the pedestrians
The above ‘Mitchell and Kenyon’ short is a documentation of a country fair in North England, Leeds, shot on a pleasant day in September 1902. Given the fact that most photographs of the era show people standing stiffly and staring sternly at the camera, this goes a tremendously long way
Queen Victoria died on January 22 1901. Exactly one year and seven months after her death–on July 22nd 1902–somebody got a camera, went to Bradford (in West Yorkshire) and filmed what was known as ‘track and field day’. By stabilizing the image and frame rate and adding period sound effects
The views of L.A. freeways in the 50s yesterday now gives way to views of the Sunset Strip in the 40s. It’s a cleaner friendlier looking Strip in most ways, though I find it interesting how many of these buildings have survived. The fact that they have makes the Strip
Recently I posted some outstanding footage of upper Fifth Avenue in the late 1930s, colorized and with added period sound effects. The mesmerizing result of this restoration was the work of NASS, a Youtube artist who has done many of these videos usually featuring simple footage of cities in the
Here’s Don performing at Ronald Reagan’s 2nd inaugural in 1985. The fact that I was surprised while watching it that nobody jumped on stage and slapped him says a lot about where we are in our current comedy culture, which is a very sad place indeed. That Rickles was free
Today marks the forty-sixth anniversary of the first time Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had seen each other in twenty years. It happened on Labor Day, 1976, and was facilitated by Frank Sinatra who, as you’ll see in the above history-making clip, took the opportunity to also throw in his
This video is likely to be the closest thing we’ll ever have to a time machine thanks to a very skillful history buff and Youtube artist who calls themselves NASS. The footage shows three views of Fifth Avenue from the back of a moving vehicle. Each view runs from 60th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBWJzqOTWjc&t=674s Here’s a very good 50 minute doc about Roberto Rossellini, featuring some marvelous color on-set footage of the ‘Stromboli’ shoot (the one he did with Ingrid Bergman after she fled America to take up with the Maestro). The video roll in the first few minutes eventually ceases so don’t
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