Observations on Film, Music and Imagery of the Pas

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"Crook Talk" & Other Diversions
2007-05-06 03:30:00
"I handed the moll my rod and the ice, and told her to ditch it so that the pointed-toe dick couldn't give me the rap!"So says actor Monte Blue in the late 1929 Warner Bros. crook drama, "Skin Deep." Directed by Ray Enright, the six-reel talkie appears to have long since vanished, although a surviving set of Vitaphone discs for the film's foreign release version allows us some faint notion of the film's mood and pace.Based upon "Lucky Damage," a short story by Marc Edmund Jones, and first filmed by Thomas Ince for a 1922 silent version starring Milton Sills and released by First National, newspapers in May of 1929 carried an item mentioning that Warner Bros. had successfully "acquired the motion picture rights to the property as a vehicle for Monte Blue," a simple deal indeed given the association between First National and Warners at the time.In conjunction with the 1929's film release in Fresno, California, a local newspaper prepared a thumbnail biographical sketch of actor Mo...
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Time Step
2007-05-03 05:30:00
O. O. McIntyre's syndicated newspaper column, "New York Day By Day" pondered a great many topics in the entry for September 14th of 1934. He expressed his fondness for Shirley Temple and Patsy Kelly, and observed that Paul Whiteman's mustache is always under control. He called attention to the fact that there's none spryer than Adolph Zukor, and that Cecil B. DeMille is the most meticulous of dandies. Also, as was typical of this gentle writer, he turned his sentimental and observant eye on slivers of daily New York City life that either often went unobserved and unappreciated, and also those that were missed by their absence from it."I came upon an early hot chestnut vendor today on West 34th Street. These silent street corner salesmen, hovering over their little jet of charcoal, are my favorite metropolitan characters. They suggest the long wintry nights of good reading to come, humblest of all merchants in the brashest of cities. So grateful for the occasional sale. I suspect ...
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Enigmarelle & Co.
2007-04-20 19:58:00
Much to the disappointment of Frank Fay and Ned Sparks fans around the globe, print ads for the Pathe feature "Night Work" hailed Eddie Quillan as "1930's Drollest Comedian." In an uneasy example of enthusiasm grasping for just the right wording, the ad copy continues on..."Eddie Quillan, young master of fun and clean romance who has flashed across the movie horizon like a breath out of entertainment heaven, tickles you in one of the most unusual fun-stories ever written for the screen. A laugh a foot, a sigh every once in a while, chuckles and wet eyes galore! See it -- you'll enjoy it!"Released in mid-1930 and booked into theaters around the country as late as November of 1931, "Night Work" is one of those films which continues to be tagged as "lost" on various internet databases, but which is very much with us.... not perhaps, quite a "breath out of entertainment heaven" but very much a "fun and clean romance."Compared favorably to Quillan's 1929 hit, "The Sophomore," th...
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Then As Now
2007-04-12 05:30:00
No "feature story" for this entry --- instead, a number of diverse items of interest of no particular time and place except the distant past.We start with the vivid poster artwork for "New York Nights," actress Norma Talmadge's first talking film, released just as an exhausted and deflated 1929 stepped aside for the far more serious-minded 1930 to take over.It's always interesting to compare studio-manufactured publicity with actual period reviews, but --- interestingly, "New York Nights" fared just as well in the eyes of imaginary and actual reviewers. And this in spite of the fact that a seemingly unfounded legend has long since attached itself to the film (and Miss Talmadge) that suggests her voice was so tainted by a distinctive Brooklyn accent that the film was all but laughed off the screen by public and critics alike --- accounting for its failure at the box office. Nonsense, apparently.Curiously, studio-prepared newspaper inserts for the film opted for odd wording that sug...
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"Why Bring That Up?"
2007-04-02 05:47:00
The veil of time lifts --- and we behold performer Mr. Edgar Atchison Ely, circa 1897, in character as "The Future Dude." With little effort, we can picture Mr. Ely sitting at a writing desk in a hotel lobby or room --- or perhaps on a train speeding towards his next play date, opening a pasteboard box fresh from Robinson & Roe, Photographers. As would most any entertainer --- then or now --- envisioning their presumed success and audience adulation, he can't resist inscribing the card to an admirer, which he does in a somewhat shaky but elegant hand of the sort simply doesn't exist anymore.Then, perhaps admiring the effect but regretting writing across the image portion of the card --- and also wisely remembering his employers, he inscribes the card again along the bottom --- exhaling in despair as his pen malfunctions midway through.Imagined though this scenario is --- for the card could have been pre-inscribed and then signed again in the presence of a friend or fan who then ...
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Sinners and Saints
2007-03-24 04:47:00
There's something oddly beautiful about this portion of a surviving poster for the 1928 First National silent comedy "Vamping Venus," isn't there? In fact, I can't look at it without feeling that the apparent damage to this fragile artifact (the film itself is believed lost) is somehow perfectly in keeping with the film's primary setting of ancient Greece --- turning this bit of wonderful 1928 artwork into something more akin to a Pompeian wall mural than the original artist could have ever possibly intended or envisioned.Released in mid-1928 and still being booked across the country as late as May of 1929, First National's silent and otherwise un-synchronized "Vamping Venus" was described rather thinly and thus in one contemporary publicity placement:"'Vamping Venus' opens in New York of today and jumps back to ancient Greece, taking the characters in the modern sequences and showing them as mortals and immortals of the olden days. Charlie Murray, who plays a New York politi...
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Temples of Mystery
2007-03-14 03:28:00
Although the image to the left dates from 1909, I suspect many readers of considerably newer vintage will have little trouble in recalling a similar scene from their own childhood.The young boy so intrigued with "Grandmother's Fortunes" --- tentatively placing his fingers on the glass case, or perhaps tapping on it with a coin (just to make sure?) seems to be in the company of his father and, somewhat obscured, two older brothers. Father seems far more interested in the sandwich board sign advertising "Latest Popular" something-or-other and seems anxious to move along, while one brother eyes the glass entombed Grandmother with what I presume would be the worldly and bored air of someone who deems himself too old and wise to be taken in by so dull a mechanical affair. Whether or not little brother mustered up enough interest to drop a coin in the machine --- or if he already did, is something we'll never know.Once the main lure at the entrance to innumerable amusement arcades and p...
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Elixir Vitae
2007-03-04 22:16:00
We'll inaugurate this month's series of posts with the sort I especially enjoy doing --- and you seem to like best --- a series of light and diverse items, of no particular time and place beyond that of originating in our past.At first glance, the rather awesome figure at the left would appear to have surely adorned Coney Island's famed "Dreamland" amusement area, but in fact we're looking at an amusement concession at Buffalo New York's Pan-American Exposition of 1901, a month or so before the ethereal beauty of the event would be forever linked with --- and marred by --- the assassination of President William McKinley.When the image is enlarged (by clicking on it) we see nineteen concession employees dwarfed by the lathe and plaster facade, the surreal elegance of would have lured visitors alone --- although the addition of a string of illuminated globes doubling as a pearl necklace for the figure spells out "Midway Mystery" to further convince the doubtful to buy their entry...
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"Are There Any More At Home Like You?"
2007-02-26 03:53:00
An item in Walter Winchell's column of 23 June 1944:"A Baltimore paper reported an auction sale included a pearl, once owned by a Florodora Girl. The auctioneer stated: 'We are not at liberty to reveal the name, but it is a family that would not care to be listed as part of the Florodora Sextet.' What a story O. Henry could have done on that!"Although this image of New York City's Broadway is simply dated "1920," let's examine it a bit more closely.It appears to be early afternoon, judging by the angle of shadows cast by pedestrians and street lamps, and the theaters and signage places us at the corner of East 38th Street --- looking uptown along Broadway.The Knickerbocker Theater is featuring "Listen Lester," a forgotten musical comedy featuring Gertrude Vanderbilt and Clifton Webb, and the Casino Theater is home to "A Lonely Romeo," an equally obscure production that starred Lew Fields amidst a large cast that included his son, Herbert --- who'd eventually turn from perfor...
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Magic Casements
2007-02-17 19:55:00
As the Christmas holiday season of 1920 swiftly yet almost imperceptibly dissolved into the New Year of 1921, readers of newspapers across the country had been following --- with steadily increasing interest --- a story that had begun with complete absence of attention, on December 13th of 1920 in Rockaway, New York.On the afternoon of December 13th if 1920, an experimental naval balloon arose from the Rockaway Naval Station. Planned as a casual overnight training mission, the 35,000 cubic foot capacity balloon held ten day old stale and impure gas that carried at it's base an open "basket"which carried three men, eight sandwiches, two thermos bottles of coffee and four carrier pigeons.The passengers consisted of Naval Lieutenants Stephen Farrell and Walter Hinton, and Navy Reservist and Lieutenant Louis Kloor, the youngest of the three and affectionately dubbed "the kid" by the elder Farrell and Hinton.A carrier pigeon released from the balloon arrived at the Brooklyn Naval Yard i...
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Harlequinade
2007-02-13 06:58:00
At first glance, the Warner Bros. 1932 film "Winner Take All" seems like just another boxing story --- but like almost all the studio's output during this period, even the most familiar or pedestrian of themes is often surrounded by production and story elements that seldom fail to baffle, surprise and delight. No matter that the main character is a secretary, salesman, nurse, doctor, taxi driver or a dairy employee --- presumably people like us, working lugs all, the world they exist in within these films is often as foreign and unreal a territory as the fictitious fairy-tale European cities seen in Paramount's glistening fluff or Metro's chromium and lacquered penthouse suites.If you're an X-ray technician in a 1934 Warners film such as the incredible "Bedside," you'll find yourself treating nymphomaniacs feigning a twisted ankle one moment, and a morphine addict faking an asthma attack in order to get a fix the next. Even the most mundane of professions are rife with danger ...
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"Following the Sun Around"
2007-02-05 03:23:00
On June 10th of 1932, the syndicated newspaper column "New York Day by Day," by O.O. McIntyre, saw fit to lament the fact that the passage of time had, among other things, resulted in the loss of once much beloved elements from daily life in New York City and it's entertainment venues. Among them, "La Belle Titcomb and her white horse," "Cheap burlesque picking at the coverlets," and another reference now barely a living memory, "J. Harold Murray's merry twinkle." The author concludes the item by sadly noting, "But the flea circus goes on forever."Clearly, the New York City of 1932 wasn't the same city as it was in the 1920's when J. Harold Murray's "merry twinkle" so delighted theater patrons and columnists alike --- and in 2007, even the Depression gutted city of 1932 seems as distant as a lost civilization.It came as a surprise, and a reaffirmation of my efforts, to receive a gracious and informative note from Mrs. Linda Murray Berzok, who is the granddaughter of J. Harold M...
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Crook Dramas and Dancing Violinists
2007-02-03 01:55:00
An assortment of diverse items for this entry, beginning with a striking poster design for a 1929 Columbia film no longer with us, "Light Fingers."Jauntily billed as a "100% Talking Crook Drama " in print ads across the country, the film starred Ian Keith as the title character --- "Light Fingers," a brilliant crook who impersonates a magazine writer to work his way into the home of a society family, all the better to get at their jewels. The family's charming young daughter (Dorothy Revier) prompts a change of heart and motive --- and after an entanglement with unsympathetic fellow members of his gang, all ends well for Mr. Fingers and his soon-to-be bride. Fortunately perhaps, the film did not seem to feature a theme song of any sort.Mr. Keith was extraordinarily prolific an actor, appearing in some ninety-odd films from the early 20's through the mid-1950's, that ran the gamut from major studio efforts to entries in the Charlie Chan, East Side Kids and Dick Tracy film series of...
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A Ladder of Roses
2007-01-25 04:31:00
Early talking films, when thought of, discussed, described or written about --- if at all, that is --- are invariably contaminated by notions born of later films and printed industry recollections that, while colorful, forsake truth in favor of a good story. This fictional realm of the early sound film is one populated by grotesquely attired and made-up "flappers" (always clad in beaded gowns, and with a sequined headband from which emerges a single feathered plume) being wooed by suitors who stiffly emote with flailing arms and a pronounced stutter, or a burly hero who speaks with a lisp.These flickering images are then depicted as being thrown upon a small screen, from which the sound that emerges is not only as thin and harsh as Edison's first tin covered cylinder, but (for greater comic effect) running moments ahead or behind the action on the screen --- or, for even greater laughs, the action on the screen is somehow accompanied by the wrong soundtrack entirely. "Oh, those cra...
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"Out For A Racket"
2007-01-20 03:56:00
Quicker than the woman to our left can change the needle on her 1909 Victor phonograph, we'll be changing topics too --- exploring a variety of film, music... and film musical items. She looks as though she's keen on playing "Oh But Could These Freckled Hands Once Again Gather Wheat," so let's take our leave, shall we?A previous post ("Show Folks") contained a poster image for a now lost 1926 silent Fox film, "A Trip to Chinatown," which received no little attention for it's vivid artwork.Although the film title sounded vaguely familiar to me at the time, I somehow failed to connect it with it's incredibly noble heritage, that being an 1891 New York production which held the record for the longest running stage presentation for many years, presumably until "Florodora" arrived at the dawn of the new century.While it's a safe bet that the 1891 musical comedy extravaganza was somewhat altered for it's 1926 film incarnation, a description of the film's narrative (via a Pathe pre...
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Kicking A Hole In the Sky
2007-01-15 03:15:00
A moment caught in time.What appears to be at first glance an unremarkable group portrait, is actually a photograph with quite a story to tell. Click on the image to enlarge it, and odd details begin to emerge. What first seemed to be spectacles on the elder and middle boy turns out to instead be carefully applied theatrical make-up. The little fellow is dressed in pseudo Chinese costume, replete with faux braid attached to an ill-fitting skullcap. The costumes on the other two are intentionally shabby, but footwear on the boys --- which shouldn't be mismatched or torn, is.What we're looking at is not so much a portrait but photographic documentation that accompanied a written report by child labor investigator Edward F. Brown, who visited this family on or about June 10th of 1910 at the Victoria Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Notes jotted on the back of the photograph tell us more. "This picture shows 'The Four Novelty Grahams.' The father is 23 years of age. Willie Grah...
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Show Folks
2007-01-10 02:15:00
An eye-catching period film poster is as good a way as any to kick off a post, and in this case we have "Show Folks," a 1928 part-talking Pathe film that seems to have left this earth many decades ago, leaving little behind of itself save for remnants of paper and print... in fact everything except it's original elements of moving image and sound.A pity too, as the film was a serio-comic depiction of vaudeville and it's denizens. To be sure, there were flashes of a "big city" revue, since one figured in the plot-line, but the heart and soul of the film centered around just plain show folk... The Trouper, the Old Timer, The Gold Digger, The Baby Doll, The Vamp, and The Feeder. (Whatever that was!)Not widely distributed, judging by period newspaper accounts, the film did however enjoy a long run (October of 1928 to mid-1929) although largely relegated to second-string bargain and "dime" theaters, providing perhaps the perfect audience for what looked to be an unpretentious and earne...

"Fun in a Chinese Laundry"
2007-01-07 21:09:00
A wide assortment of music (and words) for this edition, so let's go!Although Charlotte Greenwood (pictured left, with her husband Martin Broones) wasn't destined to portray the role of "Mabel" in the 1929 Warner Bros. film version of "The Gold Diggers of Broadway" as was originally announced (see previous post,) the studio had high hopes for the famed Broadway comedienne, signing her to a six picture deal in January of 1929 --- and putting her husband on the payroll too, to write scenarios, dialogue and songs. Greenwood was no musical slouch either, if a newspaper item from mid-1929 is to believed.According to the publicity placement, Greenwood penned the words for a tune slated for inclusion in Marion Davies' film "Marianne," titled "Blue Boy Blues," and for two other tunes in a Sam Wood directed college film (likely "So This Is College"-1929) titled "Campus Capers" and "Gorgeous," both of which apparently never made it into the finished product.Speaking of things not making in...
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Out of the Everywhere
2007-01-04 03:45:00
For the theme of the 20th Annual San Mateo County Fair and Floral Fiesta, the theme "Progressive Living" was chosen. While not exceptionally original, few terms could better sum up America in the post-War boom of the 1950's.A decade of excess, frivolity and self-reward during which the American suburbs exploded seemingly from nowhere, television became the centerpiece of homes, and gracious yet easy living was the order of the day --- barbecues aflame on poolside patios while rock & roll music slowly, almost imperceptibly worked its way onto the dials of portable radios.A lifetime away from the realm of motions pictures in the first years of sound --- films which would soon be finding their way onto small television screens in the wee hours of the morning --- but it's here, in 1954, that we must stop for a moment to witness an odd, unexpected and ultimately touching scene.On the opening night of the San Mateo County Fair and Floral Fiesta, as crowds filled the Fair's Fiesta Bowl ...
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Between the Acts
2007-01-02 15:55:00
A bit of fun while the next post is in preparation.As noted in an earlier post ("Divertimento" 6 December 2006), actress and dancer Ann Pennington was a featured dancer at the 1939 New York World's Fair, appearing regularly as part of "George Jessel's Old New York" exhibition at the Fair's amusement area.Here, looking much as she did ten years earlier when performing similar dance routines in "Gold Diggers of Broadway" and "Happy Days," is Ann Pennington --- excerpted from Kodachrome home movie footage taken at the Fair, with a bit of 1930 music attached for effect and added illusion. ###
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The Snows of Yesteryear
2007-01-01 06:07:00
The "snows of yesteryear," however curiously absent of late --- and however lamented and longed for, likely only ever really existed within the apocryphal garden of one's memory.Just as the past grows dimmer with each passing year, it also encases itself --- pearl like, within another layer of solitude that's translucent enough to allow us to barely see, feel and yearn for the contents, yet also murky enough to mask, disguise and cloud the plain truths of an earlier day.First up, a 1930 recording entitled "20th Century Blues," from the Noel Coward stage production "Cavalcade,"which would become the magnificent film that earned the Academy Award for "Best Picture" of 1933. Vastly under appreciated, this sweeping panorama explores the onrush of social and technological change that occurred between 1900 and 1932 as mirrored through the eyes of one British family. Any reader of these pages who hasn't seen the film is urged to do so! (Incredibly, it remains one of the very few "Best P...
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A Yuletide Frolic
2006-12-24 16:37:00
Christmas Day marks the three month anniversary of "Vitaphone Varieties," and I'd like to take a moment to especially thank all of it's readers and many supporters, who have been an incredible source of encouragement and inspiration for the author of these pages.Equal thanks, however, must go to the films, performers, music and recordings explored in these pages --- all which have proven, beyond my wildest expectations, that they still possess the power to intrigue, enlighten and entertain. This, at a time when it seemed they'd been all but forgotten and that all there was to learn about them had already been written.The early Talkies, while resigned to forever lurk in the deep shadows behind the era of the silent film and the product of the 1930's, are still very much with us --- a bit forlorn and tattered perhaps, but patiently waiting to spring to life once again, whenever given the chance to do so.The ultimate credit, then, must go to you --- the readers of this work, for al...
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"Don't Tell Your Right Name!"
2006-12-22 20:37:00
"Don't tell your right name!" cries a helpful voice just as an after-hours entertainment establishment (shall we say) is unexpectedly raided in the opening moments of the 1927 Vitaphone short subject, "The Night Court."Directed by Brian Foy, and filmed on an adjacent Warner Bros. sound stage while "The Jazz Singer" was being lensed and recorded in the Summer of 1927, "The Night Court" has the distinction of being the first sound film set within a courtroom, albeit of the nocturnal variety, a theme and setting that would loom large in the early talkies, featured in such films as "On Trial," "Tenderloin," "Queen of the Night Clubs," and "The Trial of Mary Dugan," and "Madam X," to name but a very few.Make no mistake, despite the title and setting, "The Night Court" is pure musical frivolity --- a befuddled and clueless old Judge, a slick Broadway lawyer (William Demarest,) a free-spirited female jazz singer (Dottie Lewis,) an "exotic" dancer ("Joyzelle," who'd later gain everlasting...
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Of Magnascope and Vocalite
2006-12-22 05:04:00
Those attending the 1930 grand opening of the Strand Theater in Shreveport, Louisiana (transformed from stage to cinema house) would be treated to a film presentation that surely impressed many of those in the audience as being the absolute height of sophisticated cinema technology.If that statement doesn't impress you, then pause to consider that the average forty year old member of that audience would have already experienced, first hand, the rise of cinema from virtually it's inception onwards --- a thirty year span that carried with it such incredibly vast changes and advances in technology, method, style and presentation that it's difficult (if not impossible) to even seek comparisons to the emergence and advance of any entertainment medium (aside from the Internet, of course!) in our own recent past."The Cuckoos" (RKO-1930) offered audiences sound and Technicolor sequences, but the management of the Strand theater (now on the Register of Historic Places, and fully restored)...
More About: Cali , Lite , Scope , Asco , Vocal

The Dancing Masters
2006-12-20 05:25:00
If you've seen at least one or two early musical films from either Metro or Warner Bros., then chances are you've seen the work of choreographers Larry Ceballos and Sammy Lee.If you've seen numerous musical films of the period, then you've probably found yourself smiling, frowning, chuckling or rolling your eyes at the staging, settings and dancing contained within these films --- all reasonable reactions for the modern viewer who, from this distant point in time away from 1929 and 1930, has indeed "seen it all" before --- many times, and in just as many guises.The one element that remains a constant when it comes to early musical films is that of surprise, I believe. While you more or less know what to expect when viewing musicals of the 30's or 40's,there's often no telling what's about to happen when an early musical suddenly shifts into Technicolor footage, an orchestra leader raises his arms, and a shimmering curtain begins to stir, raise, part, spark into flame or be r...
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"In Fourteen Massive Reels"
2006-12-18 03:30:00
From a syndicated news item dated February 20th, 1932:"Musical pictures, which became so tiresome a couple of years ago that they almost faded out of notice, are due to stage a comeback this year, studio directors predict.""One indication of the returning popularity of music was the success of a revived 'Rio Rita' in London. Three years old, the picture was modernized a bit, sent to London and drew capacity houses this winter.""'When 'Rio Rita,' as a re-issued picture, can break box-office records in London and musical shows can outdraw any of the dramatic plays on Broadway, it's pretty clear that the public wants musical entertainment' remarked Max Steiner, head of the music department of the RKO studio." "'The screen, in its early vocal days, overplayed the alliance between music and the theater, and abused it. The pendulum swung far away from the musical but now it's coming back to normal.'"The "modernized" version of "Rio Rita" (RKO-1929) that filled cinema houses in L...
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Divertimento
2006-12-14 02:22:00
The young lady depicted to your left in poster artwork for the Warner Bros. All-Technicolor 1929 musical "The Gold Diggers of Broadway" is Ann Pennington. While largely underused in what would be her most important, popular and successful screen appearance, her trademark high-kicks and knack for the "shimmy" dance movement electrified audiences attending the film, just as they did well before 1929 and long after.Although I've not seen enough of her small body of film work to pass absolute or even fair judgement of her versatility as a dancer, (her two key dance scenes in "Gold Diggers" have yet to resurface) it is however interesting to note that her dancing in "Tanned Legs," "Happy Days" and (presumably) "Gold Diggers" is all much the same --- although what she does, and how she does it is undeniably unique. Her screen dance moments are possessed of such apparent ease, abandon and seemingly tremendous enjoyment of the moment that to watch her can't help but be a memorable experie...
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After "After the Show"
2006-12-12 06:01:00
Unfinished business related to the previous post that detailed the Pathe Studio fire.On December 12th of 1929, two days after the tragedy, and amidst funeral services being held across the city and it's boroughs for those killed, John C. Flynn (or "Flinn," it varies in accounts) Vice President and Harry F. Lalley, Business Manager of Pathe Sound Studios, Inc. were arrested on charges of manslaughter.Police had seized 160 containers that was estimated to hold between 50,000 and 100,000 feet of highly inflammable film, a flagrant violation of a city ordinance that prohibited the storage of more than five reels of film in standard buildings such as the one in which the fire occurred.What precisely transpired after the arrest is unclear owing to the story all but completely vanishing from the press, but apparently they were released soon afterwards. The next time the matter would appear across news wires was four months later in April of 1930, when it was announced that two indictments...
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After the Show
2006-12-11 04:23:00
Seventy-seven years ago, on December 10th 1929 --- exactly seventy-seven years ago to this day, a tragic event occurred which would capture the nation's attention for a few days as the story battled for space in newspapers focused upon world events, the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays, and attempts to decipher the ominous chords reverberating through the skyscraper canyons of New York City's financial district that were slowly spreading outwards, upwards and away.In the end, and as it would today, the heartbreaking and frightening front-page story would reduce itself to a paragraph or two of human interest material and then, vanish entirely --- likely going unnoticed by readers eager to escape gloom and doom reports as the ticking of clocks ushered in a new decade that, at least initially, held high promise and expectation as the successor to a decade that had left the country as exhausted as it was exhilarated.In late 1929, as you traveled up Park Avenue --- well beyond ...
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A Moment's Ornament
2006-11-12 03:41:00
Imagine, if you will, a world some eighty odd years hence --- bereft of any visual home entertainment devices. If you can imagine that, then you might also be able to envision a writer of the same dim future pondering whether or not a film of 2012 was seen by audiences in an eyewear-free 3-D holographic format or not.Although admittedly not the best comparison, such is the case with many films of the early sound era that now exist (if at all) in forms that are dramatically different from the ones that audiences first experienced.It's easy to pick up one of the few truly good books on films of the period and learn of a film's plot, who directed it and who could be seen in it. But, in the case of missing films or those which have been visually or aurally altered over the decades, we never seem to quite learn why this has happened. And, more to the point, if we can't possibly see the "XYZ Follies Revue of 1930" today as audiences of 1930 saw it, we're seldom told just what those di...
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