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
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
This is pretty messed up. I’ve been re-reading James Ellroy’s ‘The Black Dahlia’, the first novel in his L.A. Quartet and one that I haven’t revisited in many years. Thus, it’s fair to say that I am fully immersed in the post WW2 L.A. noir of it all. Now, YouTube
See yesterday’s post for some excellent home movie coverage of the Times Square of the 1960s. And see today’s for basically the same thing but colorized. Actually the above home movies focus more on buildings than people–and while the buildings were more interesting to tourists then, it’s the people that
Behold this delightful reel of home movies shot in Times Square on the above date. Theaters are showing Dean Martin as Matt Helm in ‘The Silencers’, Paul Newman as ‘Harper’ and the supposedly worst movie ever made (it isn’t but it’s pretty lousy) ‘The Oscar’ is proudly in its first–and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeCU0uaMURE In addition to booze and cigarettes, Humphrey Bogart’s great passion was sailing his yacht which was named ‘Santana’. Much as city kid James Cagney yearned for the wide open spaces of country life (see yesterday’s post) city kid Bogie yearned for the open air of the sea. Both men
Below is a marvelous short series of clips of Hollywood in the early 1930s as photographed by the then famous (and now forgotten) Burton Holmes, inventor of the ‘travelogue’. Holmes was a moderately successful ‘travel lecturer’ beginning in the late 19th century when this was a particularly exotic profession. He
Here’s a lovely short silent film showing Groucho Marx and family on a typical day in 1933 outside their home at 701 N. Hillcrest Drive in Beverly Hills. These are not ‘home movies’ per se–this was clearly staged, shot and edited so as to make a film in the style
Why do Worlds Fair’s dismantle the extraordinary buildings, pavilions, statues and parks that they create? Only the Eiffel Tower remains of the Paris 1889 Worlds Fair and look at what an enduring masterpiece that is! The New York 1939 Worlds Fair was filled with Streamline Moderne (and some Art-Deco) architecture
I’m finding these old color home movies highly evocative and vivid. Yesterday’s post was a trip from LaGuardia Airport to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Today we’re at the 1939 Worlds Fair in Queens, NY. This footage isn’t about the amazing buildings and exhibits. Instead it documents the Fair’s patrons, the