Movies 'Til Dawn BLOG

ONE NASTY CRASH

Warning: the above video contains a very violent race car crash. It also contains some truly bitchin’ footage shot from inside one of the cars that collided–you get to see and feel what it’s actually like to be in one of these formula racers. Two nights ago (Sunday the 16th–which

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RACE CARS ARE NOT TOYS (DUH)

In 1971 at the Indy 500 a ‘Pace car’ (or safety car) went off the track as soon as the race began and crashed into a stand holding the photographers. Somehow there were no fatalities. The whole event is covered in nice, blurry old color footage in the above video

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SPORTS CATASTROPHES PT.1–‘A DAY AT THE RACES’

Of al the dopey sports that I don’t get, car racing tops the list (or takes the cake, if you prefer). Cars zooming around a track at dangerous speeds. Is this really any fun? Not unless somebody crashes. And then you feel like a heel for enjoying the disaster, for

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BIX ON FILM PT.2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmD7jeIEkfg (NOTE: HIT ABOVE ‘PLAY ON YOUTUBE’ BUTTON TO WATCH VIDEO. THE GUY WHO POSTED IT APPARENTLY THINKS HE OWNS IT). When I was a kid in the early 70s getting into jazz and old movies, two great revivals were taking place. One was The Marx Brothers revival, which began

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JAZZ HIJINKS, 1926 EDITION

With the introduction of Safety Film in 1925, the home movie craze began. Safety was a non-flammable alternative to the highly inflammatory nitrate stock which all movies previously were shot on. Smaller gauge cameras–16mm arrived two years prior in 1923–were easier to use and didn’t require much in the way

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GM MOTORAMA; THE MUSICAL

The above short (eight minute) film was made to be shown at General Motors 1956 Motorama show. it purports to show how the future of driving will look twenty years hence and, while it makes the usual inaccurate assumptions about a future that never comes (a la H.G. Welles ‘Things

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CITYSCAPE; NYC IN THE LATE 40s

Here’s some outstanding colorized footage of New York City in 1948-49. (The dates are approximate based on the cars of the period). The YouTube artist known as NASS posted this a few days ago and as always I’m sharing it with you. It’s a remarkable moment of time travel, thanks

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THE RETURN OF THE FOLLIES OF FOX MOVIETONE

‘Fox Movietone Follies of 1929’–sometimes referred to as ” Movietone Follies of 1929 and The William Fox Movietone Follies of 1929–is a lost film. Or is it? Wildly successful upon its release in the spring of 1929–a year of true American madness, peaking that summer and soon to collapse in the fall–the film

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‘HELLS ANGELS’–PREMIERE NIGHT!

Above I’ve posted actual footage of the premiere of Howard Hughe’s 1930 World War 1 aviation epic ‘Hells Angels’. And below I’ve posted a recreation of the event in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant Hughes biopic ‘The Aviator’ (2004–ish). The real event is shockingly huge in scope—just the lit-up sign advertising the

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‘HELLS ANGELS’ PART 3: RARE OUTTAKES

Here’s an astonishing four minute reel of outtakes from ‘Hells Angels’, saved apparently by accident and carefully preserved and lovingly restored. I can’t begin to tell you how rare it is to see outtakes from a film this early–movie outtakes began to be saved in the mid-thirties as a result

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