HARLEM, 1930-ish

By Raymond De Felitta -


Above is a lovely visit to Harlem in the early '30s (very early, maybe even late '29 given the fashions on the women specifically). We see a world of pride, fancy clothing, friendly neighborhood deameanor...and perhaps that's all that British-Pathe, who shot this footage (which includes a very good floor show with Duke Ellington's orchestra) wanted anyone to see. The darker corners of Harlem in that era would have been obscured from the view of the English movie crew with the silly accents.

 Subscribe in a reader

Popular posts from this blog

"TWO FAMILY HOUSE": WHO WAS THE REAL BUDDY VISALO?

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
The main character in the film "Two Family House" (and our new musical "Buddy's Tavern") is a kind of mid-century, outerborough everyman named Buddy Visalo. Oddly, ever since I made the film, people have asked me if I "knew the real Buddy"--as if there was something about him and his story that couldn't have just been made up. And I always answer thusly: yes, I knew Buddy. He was my uncle. His name was Dan (birth name: Donato--meaning Donald, which he apparently didn't like) but always, familiarly, "Buddy". Or, to me, "Uncle Buddy". Buddy was an Italian-American, born in the Bronx and destined for a life of manual labor--my grandfather was a housepainter and early on he hired his second born (age 10? 12?) to be his assistant and helper. Never finishing school, Buddy kept working--doing construction, working in factories, doing woodwork etc. All the while he had an intense need to express himself artistically--in his case it ...
Read more

LUCY AND RICKY: THE NEW YORK YEARS

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
Above is one of the strangest show-biz artifacts I've ever come across. Apparently there is a Lucy/Desi museum in Jamestown New York (birthplace of both Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo). Among the large collection of memorabilia is a full reconstruction of the set of the Ricardo's apartment. Above you'll see a short, shaky but quite delightful look at it. It's in color too, thus giving the much-viewed set a strikingly strange reality. The spinet piano is there, residing in the center of the room under the bay window, as is the fireplace, the couch, the kitchen--the whole sheer. I always loved the way the address of the building changed from episode to episode (though it was always on East 68th Street). I also dug how loopy the floorplan was. The Mertz's building was a brownstone which would have been no more than 20 feet wide, but somehow the three rooms are stretched out over a space that would have to be at least 40 feet wide, with the kitchen incongruously on a...
Read more

TWO CIGARETTES IN THE DARK

By Raymond De Felitta -
Image
An often-used theme in pop tunes of the past was the notion of a man (or woman) coming upon their lover in the arms of somebody else. And why not? It has everything--love, conflict, betrayal, heartbreak...and all stuffed snugly into thirty-two bars (the common length of most older songs--though Cole Porter and Harold Arlen each dared to defy this rule--Porter with "Night and Day" and "Begin the Beguine", Arlen with "That Old Black Magic", "The Man That Got Away" and God knows how many others. Enough!) In any event, it's the "holy shit, my sweetie's doing somebody else!" moment that we're concerned with here and below I've posted the lyrics as well as a Bing Crosby recording of my favorite example of this lost genre. "Two Cigarettes In the Dark", from 1934, was written by Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) and Lew Pollack (music) for a show called "Kill That Story" and was a solid, middle-brow hit in ...
Read more