Movies Til Dawn

The above is pretty fucking absurd. It's footage somebody shot (on a phone of course) of pedestrians in New York who are so clueless that they won't let a fire truck with a blaring siren through. I count at least ten who are on their phones, merrily chatting away or texting as the red-engined beast attempts to get to whatever emergency awaits it. My favorite is the woman at the end crossing with her child. She holds the child's hand in one hand and her cell in the other. She's staring happily at her phone (possibly playing a little Downwell?)  as the Firetruck almost runs them down. Jerks.   Subscribe in a reader

Here's a very interesting Burton Holmes Travelogue of New York in the 1920s, primarily covering Fifth Avenue and the area between 40th and 50th Streets. There are lots of shots of people walking around happily living life in the present, looking at the streets, the buildings and at each other instead of LOOKING AT THEIR FRIGGING PHONES. There's a terrific panning shot of 42nd Street with the sign for the old Lindy's restaurant prominently featured. The year appears to be 1927, as evidenced by the signs for Ziegfield's 'Glorifying the American Girl' (which played that year) as well as a movie theater advertising 'Beau Geste' (also released in '27). Who was Burton Holmes? He was the first guy who coined the term 'travelogue' to describe his innovation, which was to make travel documentaries and go around the country combining the films with his own lectures. In a sense he was the first 'videographer', beginning his career in the 189...

Were you refreshed by yesterday's views of the cell-free zone that was New York in the 1960s? Well, it only gets better. Moving backward to 1900, we see the then-famous (infamous?) Tammany Hall Politician Dick Croker leaving Tammany Hall, at 14th Street and Irving Place, and taking a walk. The portly politician stops for a moment to chat with his companion. A girl wearing a flowered hat walks by with her mother and is a little perplexed by what's going on--is it the camera she's giving that sidelong glance at? (If alive, she would now be 126 years old). The thrillingly suspenseful action concludes with Croker and friend moving on. A fellow walks behind them, looks to the side and doffs his hat. The End. This has been a Thomas Edison Production. Ta-Da. Who was Dick Croker? The internet is strangely, peevishly silent on his career though he seems to turn up a lot in a very curious looking book called 'Thirty Years Of New York Politics Up To Date', by Matthew Patri...

I can't tell you how Goddam sick I am of walking the streets of New York and getting bumped into by people who are staring at their I-phones. Imagine walking around the most beautiful city in the world and staring instead at that little screen with its ugly e-mail graphics. (When will e-mail's look be updated? It's getting so musty that it almost feels period). I often make a practice of counting the number of people on their phones within a given area. The other day I counted seven on one block. My son and I once did this while walking from West 4th Street to Union Square and by the time we were descending into the subway, had passed one-hundred. Amazingly, none of this crap was going on before 2008. I can't remember a world anymore where people weren't glued to their phones, but it really wasn't all that long ago. Back up even further into the above video, which shows 8mm home movies of Manhattan in 1965 (when I was one year old and a resident of the islan...

I can't tell you how Goddam sick I am of walking the streets of New York and getting bumped into by people who are staring at their I-phones. Imagine walking around the most beautiful city in the world and staring instead at that little screen with its ugly e-mail graphics. (When will e-mail's look be updated? It's getting so musty that it almost feels period). I often make a practice of counting the number of people on their phones within a given area. The other day I counted seven on one block. My son and I once did this while walking from West 4th Street to Union Square and by the time we were descending into the subway, had passed one-hundred. Amazingly, none of this crap was going on before 2008. I can't remember a world anymore where people weren't glued to their phones, but it really wasn't all that long ago. Back up even further into the above video, which shows 8mm home movies of Manhattan in 1965 (when I was one year old and a resident of the islan...

In 1894 or 1895 inventor  William K. L. Dickson , working for Thomas Edison, made  The Dickson Experimental Sound Film  at Edison's  Black Maria  movie production studio in  West Orange , New Jersey. This was the first known film with live-recorded sound.  It also appears to be the first motion picture made for the Edison-Dickson  Kinetophone , the first  sound film  system. Why did it not go anywhere? Were people still just getting accustomed to movies in general and the addition of sound seemed to be a bit much? Or was it because of the above-posted movie itself, in which a n0t very good violinist plays a not very interesting riff while two strange men dance with each other? Was this considered normal back then? Or was Edison, always the innovator, predicting the coming of Monty Python?   Subscribe in a reader

Above is a very nice reel of 1960s commercials for the typical products of the time--shaving lotion, cigarettes, booze, cereal, space-related stuff. It runs ten minutes which is a relief--oftentimes the diligent Youtubers who lovingly assemble these retro reels go overboard--hour-plus reels, no matter how promising, simply seem like a burden and they tend to go on my to-watch-one-day list, usually never to be visited again. Some highlights here are a 007 mens luxury cosmetics kit--shaving lotion, cologne etc. that are all somehow Bond inspired (starts at 2:20). (What must this item be worth on E-bay?) This is followed by what is certainly the funniest and most tasteless commercial in the bunch, an Alka-Seltzer ad (of course) that features fat guys who shovel pies in their mouths as some sort of Olympic event. Of further note are a brief glimpse of the tragic Inger Stevens plugging her ABC show 'The Farmers Daughter' (8:50) which is followed by a ludicrous Lucky Strike ad t...

Above is another Laurel and Hardy silent, "Wrong Again". It features a quite literally back-breaking comedy sequence involving a horse that stands on a billiards table that's supported only by Ollie's back (you'll have to watch the film to figure out how they get there). There really isn't any explanation that I can come up with of how this stunt was achieved except to say that Ollie's back may have actually been supporting that weight--there's no visual effect possible and in the long and medium shots the rear of the table is visible so there aren't any grips or wires involved. Even if there were, how the hell would that help? Oliver Hardy had been a football player when young and I suppose he could take it. But Jesus! The comics of the silent era were, I think, involved in a macho contest involving dangerous stunts--Keaton's house collapsing on him but missing him as he stands in the perfectly placed open doorway area, any of Lloyds hangin...

'Duck Soup', made in 1927, is an L&H silent that was thought to have been lost for six decades (apparently a print turned up in Belgium of all places). The title has as little to do with the film as the Marx Brothers 'Duck Soup' has to do with theirs. There the resemblances end. This 'Duck Soup' is rehashed in an L&H talkie from 1930--it's the somewhat labored plot of Stan and Ollie hiding in a house and having to pretend to be the owner (Ollie) and the chambermaid (Stan, natch). As always with the silent L&H's the physical comedy is stressed and the opening of the film has a bicycle/car chase that is nothing but terrific. Done without process shots (except for one, I think), it's by far the highpoint of the film. But the print is mint and the original Vitaphone synchronized music and effects track are delightful. For some reason Ollie wears a heavy beard and Stan--much like Chaplin--actually makes a very attractive woman...   Subscri...