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
Here is one of the most delightful time-travel videos provided by YouTube artist and film-restoration expert NASS, who finds black and white documentary footage of old urban areas, colorizes them, adds a period sound bed of traffic and pedestrian noises and slows the frame rate down slightly, thus giving it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG0rnd-m3CU Here is a fascinating travelogue reel showing Hollywood and environs in 1928 (not 1929 as the YouTube poster has labeled it). I date it as late summer/early winter ’28 as the two movies we see advertised, ‘Four Rooms’ and ‘The Man Who Laughs’, were released in August and November
I often post the videos of the YouTube artist known as NASS, who specializes in colorizing old urban documentary footage, slowing the frame rate down to make them feel more realistic and adding an appropriate bed of sound. Here’s one that I somehow missed–it was posted a year ago. We
Let’s close this autumnal week with some madcap 1920s dancing featuring Joan Crawford. Above and below I’ve posted a few minutes from ‘Our Dancing Daughters’, the 1928 silent vehicle that officially launched Crawford’s career and world wide fame. Actually, calling the film ‘silent’ isn’t quite accurate as it was released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kubz9fYTTc My readership (both of you) has no doubt been wondering where I’ve been the past week. (Or perhaps they’ve been relieved of the task of watching those daily videos that jam up their inbox every night). The answer is: Ireland and London. The reason cannot be divulged at this
Here’s a neat little four minute clip reel of 1920s New York City footage, most of it focusing on Times Square at night. The clip selection is random and a bit wonky but anything about 1920s New York City is catnip to me so I’d thought I’d share it. (Apparently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BJQViP16lAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6fY1wMTd4 Robert Florey is the supreme instance of a professional filmmaker whose dissatisfaction with commercial assignments led him into parallel work as an avant-garde independent. He began his career as a film critic and journalist in the early 1920s and came to some small prominence by making a very cheap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwk0kwETsYIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlMxXrRCMAI Above are two clips depicting Hollywood premieres of the late 1920s. The first is the ‘real thing’–some marvelous, restored black&white newsreel footage of two different premieres, ‘Broadway Melody’ and ‘The Divine Lady’ (both 1929). The second clip is the opening sequence of ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ (1952), which is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTM9TkQ9VAUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLJOROSMxHQ&list=PLKjjIa7cwTkLmfGjn2u46IPYY0onPWUII&index=4 I have a great affinity for 1920s culture–the music and early sound films in particular. Not that the ‘talkies’ (as they were then referred too) are easy to watch anymore–at least not in the way they were intended to be. Early sound film is pre-historic, with acting so unbelievably