Movies 'Til Dawn Blog

UNDRESSING IN VICTORIAN TIMES

It appears that early ‘adult’ cinema included a genre that can only be referred to as ‘Undressing Porn’. But porn isn’t an accurate word in this case because the examples of this genre that I’m finding don’t really go much beyond the outer layer of undergarments. Perhaps it was a

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LGBTQ ON FILM–SILENTLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2U9wMtzcM Here’s a  frustrating but fascinating reel highlighting a number of suggestive and alternative interactions between people from what one-hundred years later came to be known as the LGBTQ community. Aside from referencing some footage from pioneering German sexologistt Magnus Hirshfields scandalous 1927 ‘Laws Of Love’-an early ‘informational’  film on

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ADULTS ONLY FILMS, 1920s-STYLE

From the moment the camera was invented, the desire to photograph erotica of any and all sorts came into being. Pornography in cinema goes back to the turn of the century and while much of the film is lost (but documented orally, so to speak) certain specimens survive that cannot

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THE FOOTBALL FOLLIES?

One of the biggest hits of the 1927 Broadway season was ‘Good News’, a musical that was the quintessential 20s rah-rah football celebration. As an artifact, the 1930 film adaptation is priceless due largely to the poor quality of the filmmaking. As you’ll see above in the show’s most famous

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FOOTBALL: THE ‘BOOLA BOOLA’ YEARS

Behold some fascinating looks at football of the 1920s and 30s and note how incredibly similar this ancient reel of highlights is to a Sunday morning Fox NFL Pre-Game show. Indeed, the entire game seems largely not to have changed much at all from the game we know now, except

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CASUAL FASCISM–HOME MOVIE STYLE

On August 18th and 19th, 1941, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met in Salzburg, Austia, to discuss the progress of the war which the US had yet to officially enter. Hitler’s personal pilot, one Hans Baur, was also an amateur movie photography buff and shot color footage of that Monday

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BERLIN, 1930s/40s

Welcome back to Fascism Week on this blog. Today we present a short reel of color footage of Berlin in the 1930s and 1940s. The city looks beautiful but the preponderance of Nazi flags of course reminds us that things were what they were. The big takeaway here is that

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TRIUMPH OF THE DANCE PARTY

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

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INAUGURATION DAY–1932–IN GERMANY

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

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LAUREL & HARDY SILENT-FEST; ‘BIG BUSINESS’

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

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