In Hollywood’s somewhat frantic search during the 1950s to find ways to best television’s increasing appeal, various different cinematic visual innovations were introduced–3D and Cinemascope being the most famous. But there were others that were actually superior to those innovations yet not fully utilized to their best advantage. One of
Here’s an extraordinary reel of film documenting the sights and sounds of Times Square in 1931. It’s filmed with the then-experimental sound-on-film process as pioneered by Fox Movietone News. Thus the sounds of the streets are what you were really hearing, not added later and not professional mic’d. There are
Behold ‘James Ellroy’s Feast Of Death’, a fascinating documentary about Ellroy’s search for the person who murdered his mother in late 1950s Los Angeles, an event that he’s written an entire book about and that obviously shapes his identity in so many ways. Ellroy hired an LAPD detective to re-investigate
‘Putting On The Ritz’ was written by Irving Berlin in May 1927 and first published on December 2, 1929. It was introduced by Harry Richman and chorus in the musical film ‘Putting On The Ritz’ (1930). I’ve posted a clip of that notoriously awful musical performance above–more about that in a minute. According to The
Yesterday I posted a short film from 1935 called ‘Broadway Highlights’. The film was part of a series of short subjects produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935 and 1936. They purported to tell the viewer, newsreel-style, what was happening on the so-called Gay White Way. In this installment, we first
‘Broadway Highlights’–subtitled ‘Intimate News Of The Gay White Way’–was a series of several short subjects produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935 and 1936. They purported to tell the viewer, newsreel-style, what was happening on the Gay White Way (as the street was dubbed in the lyric of ‘Broadway Melody’). Much
Above is an extraordinary find. It’s a short film made in 1932 starring the man who invented the gossip column all by himself, Walter Winchell. Titled ‘I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket’, it features Winchell playing himself as well as offering glimpses of period celebrities such as Ruth Etting, Paul
Here’s a nice little video essay on Leonard Bernstein’s apartment in the Dakota, on Central Park West and 72nd Street. It features mostly stills of the large, tall and crowded rooms (stuffed with furniture and artifacts), though there is also a little doc live-action stuff thrown in. The apartment was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15BAagfdZ8c In our final Glenn Gould post of the week (see previous three if you dare) we find the young piano whiz taking a walk down 57th street in his trademark garb, carry his funny little folded up piano chair that his father made for him and heading for the
Behold an amazing clip of Glenn Gould playing the first portion of Bach’s Piano Concerto 1 (in D Minor, kids) accompanied by the New York Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein conducting. The opening five or so minutes consists of a lecture–very well done–by Lenny discussing the lack of indication in Bach’s