Filed under: arts, culture, history, journalism, nostalgia, vintage | Tags: cosmopolitan; Hearst; nostalgia; 2029; 1929; roaring twenties; old magazines; old books; collecting; antiquities;
With everyone looking back at the year that was, I thought it would be fun to delve a bit into the past to see what our expectations were of where we are today.
Before Cosmo was the modern girl’s bible, it was something of a literary journal published by WR Hearst. As an ardent collector of old magazines (until someone invents the Flux Capacitor, they are the best way to intimately connect with the past) I recently obtained an issue of Cosmopolitan from February 1929 and began the business of perusing the articles when this title jumped out and hit me on the head: “Save This for Your Children’s Children! It is a Forecast of What This World Will Be Like 100 Years From Now.”
Well hey now, I’m the target audience! In less than 48 hours we’ll be 20 years from the issue’s 100th anniversary so I figure, hey, close enough.
Written by the Earl of Birkenhead, a prominent English statesman, some of the predictions are wildly off the mark (i.e., painless childbirths) but for the most part the article is shockingly spot on–a sober and level headed look at what modern society would be like given the sociological trends of the 1920s.
Earl Birkenhead writes: “The child of 2029 looking back on 1929 will consider it as primitive and quaint as 1829 seems to the children of the present day. Our means of travel, our sources of wealth, our medicine and even our ideas will change drastically during the next century as they did in the course of the last.”
His key predictions?
- Babies will be produced by chemists in laboratories
- The entire institution of marriage will be changed
- We will all live to be 150
- No one will need to work more than two hours per day
- Agriculture will be abolished—except as a hobby—and all foodstuffs will be produced synthetically
- Man will have altered the geography and/or climate of the world
- Coal-mining will be an extinct industry
- Sitting in our homes we will see and hear events the world over
On that last bullet point, Birkenhead explains: “During the next hundred years, applied physics will certainly develop wireless telephony and television beyond our present most imaginative expectations. By 2029 it should be possible for any person sitting at home to be “present” at no matter what distant event. Steroscopic television in full natural colours and perfected wireless telephony will enable him to see and hear any event which is broadcast as effectively as if he stood beside the transmitting apparatus.”
Other predictions are more unfortunate. “The abolition of epidemic disease by 2029 is fairly certain, as is the discovery of such scourges as cancer and TB.”
If only he knew.
Filed under: arts, culture, film, nostalgia, preservation, vintage | Tags: Freddie Hubbard, movies; film; classic movies; in memoriam; celebrity; 2008; new year; celebbrity deaths; paul newman; van johnson; cyd charisse; sydney pollack' eartha kitt; heath ledger; harold pinter; suzanne plesh
Another year has passed, and with it has passed some of the brightest talents of the last century. Herein is a list of some of the names that left us in 2008—but only in the flesh. Their legacies will live long into the future. Charisse’s gams, Hubbard’s trumpet, Newman’s bravura, Ledger’s passion; Pollack’s vision and Widmark’s gravitas are a part of our cultural fabric.
- Richard Widmark
- Cyd Charisse
- Paul Scofield
- Charlton Heston
- Sydney Pollack
- Dick Martin
- Harvey Korman
- Brad Renfro
- Suzanne Pleshette
- Heath Ledger
- Bo Diddley
- George Carlin
- Jo Stafford
- Estelle Getty
- Bernie Mac
- Isaac Hayes
- Jerry Reed
- Paul Newman
- Michael Chricton
- Paul Benedict
- Odetta
- Van Johnson
Harold Pinter - George Brecht
- Bettie Page
- Richard Wright
- Freddie Hubbard
- Eartha Kitt
- Paul Newman
Filed under: TV, culture, film | Tags: The Oscars; Academy Awards; Hugh Jackman; sexiest man alive; Bill Condon; award show; awards season;
There was quite a bit of hubub today across the wires following the announcement that Hugh Jackman is to host the 81st Academy Awards in February. That’s right … Mr. Sexiest Man Alive himself. He sings, he dances, he’s a trained theatre professional and a solid actor in his own right … the fact that Mr. Jackman is not a comedian is precisely why a lot of people are hopeful that this decsion might just be a shrewd one. In the post-Billy Crystal era of Oscar emcees, the show has … well … let’s face it, it’s three and half hours of yawn-worthy cheese. Even truly great comedians like Jon Stewart and Ellen deGeneres, although solid in their deliveries, have been unable to lure interest in Hollywood’s venerable biggest night.
The plan, according to an LA Times interview with the show’s new producers Bill Condon and Larry Mark, is to give the show a face-lift. They sound like they understand what’s needed: “people don’t tune in to see the host, they tune in to see the show.” They want to bring class and sophistication back to the show, and to make it feel like more of a party. After all, when the show began it was a dinner party at the swanky Roosevelt Hotel where the luminaries had a ball and generally enjoyed themselves. Condon and Mark say that if these were the good old days, they’d be asking Cary Grant or Clark Gable to host–that’s the sort of quality they seen in Jackman. They want the host to be able to say, ‘OK everyone, let’s just have a ball.’
A little known fact too is that Jackman has hosted high-caliber award shows before–even winning an Emmy for his hosting of the 2004 Tony Awards.
He may very well have the right stuff, but can Condon and Mark deliver the right stuff with their production?
We shall see. And for the first time in quite a while … I’m very much looking forward to the telecast.
Filed under: culture, film, nostalgia, preservation, vintage | Tags: classic, film, hollywood, movies
Any blog that designates Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1913) as the image of the week is absolutely begging to be named the Pictorial’s Favorite Website of the Week. Glenn Kenny’s Some Came Running movieblog is movieblog for people starving for a quality movieblog. His delightfully diverse palette bounces from silent film to old Hollywood to current releases with a smattering of you-name-it in between. His energy is apparent in all of his posts and it’s a great place to find out about interesting new releases, revisit a forgotten gem or to just bask in the warm honey glow of cinematic nostalgia.
Keep it up, Glenn!
Filed under: film, nostalgia, vintage | Tags: classic movies, golden age of hollywood, hollywood, memoriam, MGM, van johnson
One of Golden Hollywood’s golden boys, Van Johnson passed away on Friday from natural causes. He was 92. Johnson—charming, good-natured and boyishly handsome—soared to fame during the War at MGM, where he became one of the studio’s most popular leading men. His roles placed him opposite the biggest names in the business: Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor & Judy Garland. Johnson continued to be a major player well into the 50s, loved best as a romantic comedy lead or war hero—A Guy Named Joe, In the Good Old Summertime, Battleground, The Last Time I Saw Paris—but was no stranger to ‘tough guy’ roles such as the excellent The Caine Mutiny.
His passing now, in 2008, is a bittersweet reminder to us that the creativity and wonderment of classic Hollywood edges ever closer, with every year, into an unbridgeable dream remembered, (if I may quote Ms. Mitchell) a civilization gone with the wind. We watch the Academy montage their memory every year with brief momentary glimpses at their careers— and every year we loose more of the men and women who once made the movies something so very magical.
They certainly don’t make ‘em like they used to.
So here’s to you, Van. Thanks for the memories.
Filed under: arts, culture, film, nostalgia, preservation, vintage | Tags: Fox; Murnau; Borzage; silent film; silent movies; boxed set; Christmas gift; expressionist cinema; classic movies; vintage film
The keenly anticipated new box set ‘Murnau, Borzage and Fox’ has arrived and cineastes everywhere are rejoicing. The set features 12 films by pioneering directors F.W. Murnau and Frank Borzage, two men that introduced film as a serious artistic medium, while at Fox studios. The set comes with a documentary and two coffee table books … fixing the price at a steep $179.99. In these lean times perhaps the pricetag is rather unreasonable … but for avid film buffs, especially the silent film fan, the price might just be worth it.
I have to say that I hope the titles will eventually be issued individually, but for right now I’m not complaining in the least as the world will finally, finally, have the long-awaited re-issues and first releases of:
Sunrise and City Girl from Murnau (Sunrise being one of the very best films ever made—period) and from Borzage Lazybones, Seventh Heaven (also one of the silent era’s very best), Street Angel, Lucky Star, They Had to See Paris, Liliom, Song O’ My Heart, Bad Girl (which won a best director oscar for Borzage), After Tomorrow and Young America.
For full details, visit Fox’s main page.
And, in celebration of this wonderful release, below is a clip from perhaps the most famous film in the series, Murnau’s Sunrise (1927). If you’ve not seen the film, it is truly a masterpiece of craft–an expressionist’s dreamy canvas set to celluloid, in the key of silence. It is not a talkie, but does feature a synchronized musical soundtrack (following in the footsteps of Warner Brother’s 1926 John Barrymore starrer Don Juan) as well as the first recorded human voices on film. In this scene, troubled husband and wife (the inimitable Janet Gaynor and a solid George O’Brien) are at the peak of their ’second honeymoon’ following the husband’s repentence at his callous infidelity. They dance a ‘peasant dance,’ and F.W. Murnau’s film cements itself inin the history books:
Filed under: arts, culture, pop music, rock music | Tags: john lennon; john lennon's murder; the beatles; I Am the Walrus; I Met the Walrus; Josh Raskin; illustration; design; animation;
OK, now this is clever. Cheers to Current and BoingBoing for this one.
Earlier this year, director Josh Raskin was nominated for an Oscar for his animated short film “I Met the Walrus.” Yesterday being the anniversary of John Lennon’s cruel assassination, it is only right to highlight it here on the Pictorial.
This five minute animated video is a beautiful, wildly inventive visual ride set to the soundtrack of an interview with Lennon conducted by a 14 year old beatlefan, Jerry Levitan, in 1969–right smack in the middle of the Beatles breakup as well as John’s bed-in protests. The digital illustrations, as well as pen and ink sketches, are so perfectly suited to match Lennon’s legendary wit that you would think think it to be a Plastic Ono Band original. Many thanks to Raskin and, of course, an eternal thank-you to Lennon himself.
Filed under: film | Tags: French New Wave; cinema; movies; jean-luc godard; godard; traffic jam; alternative cinema
Seven minutes of cinematic chaos. G
odard’s (in)famous traffic jam sequence has been hailed, hated and intensely discussed for over forty years and, therefore, I think it deserves a return visit.
Shameful as it is to admit, I only recently had the chance to see this film for the first time. And in my very humble and very uninvited opinion, Godard has never been better.
Thoughts, anyone?
Filed under: film, nostalgia | Tags: william desmond taylor; silent film; movies; film; nostalgia; unsolved mystery; charlie chaplin; roscoe arbuckle; rudolph valentino; mary miles minter; mabel normand; 1920s; Hollywood
Soul of Youth, 1921, Directed by William Desmond Taylor.
Ok, this site has been around for ages however I feel that it deseves a definite shout-out here on the Pictorial as the site of the week. Taylorology was an online periodical that transcribed newspaper and magazine articles from from the late 1910s through the 1920s that held a focus on the scandalous murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor. But the site also serves as an invaluable source of reference as it contains insights into such legendary luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, Rudy Valentino … oh, you get the idea. 
Unfamiliar with the William Desmond Taylor scandal? Oh, how you are to b
e pitied as it is one of Hollywood’s most infamously enduring unsolved mysteries and a story of everlasting intrigue. It reads like a Dashiell Hammett thriller: body of famous film director found in a swanky area of downtown LA with a fatal shot to the back. A large amout of cash he’d withdrawn was missing. He was found with a 2 carat diamond ring on his finger. Throw in a slew of Hollywood starlets (Mary Miles Minter, Mabel Normand) and a bamboozling personal valet and you’ve got yourself a salivating whodunnit, eh?
Filed under: arts, vintage | Tags: art; shag; disneyland; haunted mansion; nostalgia; kitsch; design;
Talk about a match made in heaven! I simply adore art by Josh Agle, aka “Shag,” and now he has teamed up with Disney to create 13 special pieces of artwork to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Disneyland’s eternal attraction, The Haunted Mansion. Shag has done work for Disney before, once for The Enchanted Tiki Room and the other for the park’s 50th anniversary. His style, mid-century kitsch, nails the nostalgic look Disney is going for with these commemorative commissions and the results are fabulous! Shag will be at Disneyland Park on August 8th for a special signing and reception.
