I find every second of this thirteen minute clip of Ray Charles rehearsing ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ with an orchestra that he’s clearly never worked with before absolutely mesmerizing. Charles’ clarity and precision with what he wants (needs, really) from the band and his direct and not
Behold Grand National Pictures logo, as fancy and fine an Art Deco logo as you’ll ever see. All this for a low-rent studio that lasted only three years (1936-1939) and went into receivership only to have its assets taken over by the only studio at that time lower on the
The generically named ‘Producers Releasing Corporation’–or, familiarly, PRC–was an ultra low-budget, poverty-row movie studio that existed from 1939 to 1947 and is now primarily known as the studio behind Edgar G. Ulmer’s immortal noir ‘Detour’ (1946). Ulmer made a number of PRC movies–others include ‘Strange Illusion’ with Hedy Lamarr and
Here are six beautiful countdowns complete with some random V.O. (‘Lifeguard’…final mix’…etc.), the requisite flash frame of a pretty 1960s-ish woman and the curious private language found in the world of leader: the letters CF stand for ‘check frame’ and the beeping sound on the number 2 is called a
Take a trip to the dark side of yesterday’s humor with ‘Hollywood Night Court’, a 1930 ‘blue’ record meant for private consumption only at parties. The three minute sketch traffics in stereotypes of gay men and female prostitutes, using low-down double entendre to garner its laughs…if indeed anyone laughed at
Apropos of yesterday’s post here is another short (3 minutes) reel compiled of old film leader. This one is particularly cool as it features all kinds of weird graphics and unusual countdowns that I’d never seen before. There is also a slate used as slug from the movie ‘The Time
Film leader is a length of film attached to the head or tail of a film reel to assist in threading a projector. The leader attached to the head of the reel is called ‘head leader’ (or sometimes simply ‘head’) and a leader attached to the end of the the
Here’s four minutes of the Los Angeles I grew up in, circa 1975. Perhaps the strangest thing here is the lack of SUV’s on the road. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same LA–bland, ugly and weirdly seductive–that it is today, only quite a bit emptier.
The Youtuber bluntly known as ‘Vintage Las Vegas’ has posted a very cool 2 minutes of home movie-ish footage of a long dead Las Vegas. Shot in 1947, this is a lush and low-key Vegas, a western outpost, very much Bugsy Siegel’s frontier town. Does any of this even look
Dig two minutes of home movie footage showing an almost unrecognizable Las Vegas in August of 1960. Or is it actually 1958? I don’t know Vegas well–two of my three trips there were disastrous in multiple ways–but an erudite and Vegas-hip youtube poster–the aptly named ‘Vintage Las Vegas’– offered some