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February 2009

The Towers - 1950's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 21:00
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A color documentary which examines the creation of the Watts Towers and the Italian immigrant and visionary Sabato Rodia who realized them. This film contains intriguing footage of mid-1950's Watts, the neighborhood where greats like Charles Mingus amongst many others grew up.

The Watts Towers or Towers of Simon Rodia in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California, is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato ("Sam" or "Simon") Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is an example of non-traditional vernacular architecture and American Naïve art. The Towers are located near (and visible from) the 103rd Street-Kenneth Hahn Station of the Metro Rail LACMTA Blue Line.

The Watts Towers were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. According to reviewer Robert Koehler in Variety, the documentary film I Build the Tower is "the most complete visual account of self-made architect Simon Rodia and his masterpiece."

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“ I had in mind to do something big and I did it. ”

—Simon Rodia

The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh, coated with mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects, including bed frames, bottles, ceramic tiles, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers Nuestro Pueblo, or "our town." Rodia built them with no special equipment or (so far as is known) predetermined design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer's equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia in hopes they would be added to the project, but the majority of Rodia's material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery, where he worked for many years.

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Lincoln Highway Groundbreaking - 1915

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 20:02
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A promotional film for the Lincoln Highway from 1915, this short reel shows a groundbreaking ceremony for Carl G. Fisher's dream project, the first coast-to-coast automobile highway. Conceived by headlight entrepreneur Fisher, also said to be the first car dealer in US history, the man, like many an American, seems to have become a visionary in the eternal quest of making the almighty buck.

In fact, the Lincoln Highway was the first memorial to Abraham Lincoln, predating the monument in Washington, DC by perhaps more than ten years.

Although Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt were active boosters and financiers of Fishers idea, it is hard to say if these are the two men orating in this film. Hundreds of towns across the US lobbied to have the Lincoln Highway pass through their way with songs, articles and public events dedicated to the new interstate. This appears to be one such film.

Ultimately, the highway would follow a historically American path, stretching from Times Square in New York City, along the Chambersburg Turnpike so associated with Gettysburg, then in tandem with portions of the legendary Pony Express, up and over the dreaded Donner Pass and on to the final destination of Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

Carl G. Fishers Lincoln Highway would go on to become the major influence of Eisenhower's future Interstate System and Germany's Autobahn.

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Photographic Studies in Hypnosis - 1940's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 01:32
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Hypnosis. Subconscious Suggestion. Somnambulism.

In this film Professor LF Beck of University of Oregon conducts a live experiment in hypnosis on an obviously pliant participant.

Upon watching it, one viewer recently called the film sadistic, like some sort of proto-Ludovico Treatment slouching towards Clockwork Orange.

To modern eyes, he could be seen as a latter day Dr. Caligari. However, Beck was known in psychoanalytic academic circles during the 1930s and 40s for his seminal work, Hypnotic Identification of an Amnesia Victim. In it he disputes, "in general, however, the hypnotized person has been depicted as an automaton, and memory disturbances hypnotically induced have been attributed to the instructions the hypnotizer gave."

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Hertz ... Driver's Seat - 1960's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 01:29
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Hertz ... Driver's Seat - 1960's

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Trailer: Bright Road starring Dorothy Dandridge & Harry Belafonte - 1953

Submitted by Roland Faust on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 21:21
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A great new name in entertainment!
Millions have read about this amazing girl ...
Thousands know her as the reigning sensation of smart night clubs ...

BRIGHT ROAD

To see Bright Road will be a delight -
To miss it ... a regret -
Bright Road has everything a great picture needs ...
Beauty of story -
Heart interest -
Splendid performances -
Laughter ... And tears -

Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

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