Yesterday I was in a restaurant in midtown Manhattan–not a full-tilt restaurant, more like a La Pain Quotidion style joint–and I was having trouble having a conversation over the din of the music that was playing. Was it even music? It’s hard to describe the sounds emanating from the speakers
The above 1973 commercial for a Pioneer home stereo system plays more like a current day SNL parody of a 1973 Pioneer home stereo system commercial than the real thing. Yet it’s the real thing. Did we really look, act and talk like that? The early 70s are becoming as
This week we’ve been looking at Bix Beiderbecke on film. Now let’s listen to his friend and collaborator Hoagy Carmichael for a few minutes discussing Bix. I don’t know when this radio interview is from nor who the English chap is conducting it. But he manages to get the normally
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
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
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l-09_fAUSk (NOTE: CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH TODAY’S LINK ON YOUTUBE). Yesterday’s clip featured the lovely 1934 recording of ‘The Very Thought Of You’ by the Ray Noble orchestra with vocal by Al Bowly. I gave you a little info on Bowly but didn’t expect to find any actual film of
I’m not usually one for YouTube music/film mash-ups but I stumbled across this one and found it so evocative and lovely that I’ve decided to share it with you. It consists of clips from the 1934 version of W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage”, starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis,
Behold this gorgeous title sequence for ‘Two For The Seesaw’ (1962), starring Robert Mitchum and Shirley McLaine. We’re are in prime, early 60s New York City watching Robert Mitchum do pretty much nothing but walk around, staring impassively at various views and things and somehow conveying everything you can’t write
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) is on my short–very short–list of movies I can watch at any time. The credit sequence, setting up a hot New York city summer, is masterfully realized and uses very simple footage, much of which I’m guessing was culled from stock. The flavor of the various