Category Archives: Ephemeral

Educational, Ephemeral

It’s a Cat’s Life (1957)

Leave a comment

Watch on Archive.org

Institution: Internet Archive
Collection: Prelinger Archives

Running time: 10m 57s
Source film:  16mm; color; sound
Year: ca. 1957
Director: Emily Benton Frith
Production: Frith Films; Cinesound (sound)
Photography/Camera: Emily Benton Frith
Narration: George Barclay

Let’s face it. Historically, cats have sometimes had a bad rap. Sure, some civilizations have worshipped them – but others have associated them with the devil or witchcraft, shunning them (or worse). Their occasional disinterest in, or independence of humans is bitterly qualified as aloof or detached. As though a pet not constantly concerned with lavishing attention on humans (looking at you, dogs) is kind of a jerk. But if you want to soften any person’s heart towards the feline variety, all you really need to do is give them ten straight minutes of baby kittens frolicking. And It’s a Cat’s Life (1957) does just that.

Continue reading It’s a Cat’s Life (1957) →

Educational, Ephemeral

Maple Sugar Time (1941)

Leave a comment

Watch Now on YouTube

Institution: Library and Archives Canada
Collection: Metropolitan Toronto Library Board fonds, 1987-0337

Other title: Le Temps des Sucres
Running time: 8m 14s
Source film:  16mm; color; sound
Year: 1941
Director: Stanley Hawes
Production: National Film Board of Canada; Northern Electric Recording (sound)
Camera: Michael Spencer
Editor: Donald Fraser
Music: Maurice Blackburn

As a news topic, maple syrup has undergone an odd resurgence in recent years. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers — a Canadian organization dedicated to controlling the province’s output and stabilizing its price — has been criticized in the press due to borderline-draconian treatment of producers it considers delinquents. The price stability has been correlated to increased syrup production in the northeast U.S., thereby decreasing Quebec’s market share over the past several years. Thieves were caught stealing $18 million worth of syrup from a federation warehouse between 2011 and 2012. Last we heard, Jason Segel — of Freaks & Geeks and The Muppets fame — is attached to star in the film about the sticky-sweet heist. You don’t see this sort of press attention for honey (unless it’s related to bee colony collapse disorder).

Continue reading Maple Sugar Time (1941) →

Ephemeral, Instructional

Musical Saw Instruction Video (1995)

Leave a comment

Distributor: Timber Video
Collection: Private Stash

Running time: 77m
Source:  VHS; color; sound
Year: 1995
Production: Art Peterson, John Slattery
Post-Production: Art Peterson, Paul Kealoha Blake at East Bay Media Center
Executive Producer: Charlie Blacklock

Musical Saw: Charlie Blacklock
Accordion, Guitar, Vocals: Art Peterson
Fiddle: Ken Blacklock
Guitar: John Massey
Bass: Sam Morocco
Voice of Ol’ 97: Clark Delozier

Tractors, motorcycles, harmonicas, four children, two monkeys, and a musical saw: this more or less sums up the colorful character that was Charlie Blacklock. Known to many as the “Father of the Musical Saw,” he lived a full 91 years and in that time made an enormous amount of music – much of it from the teeth and blades of both traditional woodsmen saws as well as those purposefully made for musical creation. By the time Charlie died he had engineered and began selling his own variety of musical saws, the Blacklock Saw, which many consider to be the preeminent musical saw on the market to this day.

Continue reading Musical Saw Instruction Video (1995) →

Educational, Ephemeral

Halloween Party (1953)

Leave a comment

Watch on Archive.org

Institution: Internet Archive
Collection: Prelinger Archives

Running Time: 06m12s
Source Film: color; sound
Year: 1953
Production: Encyclopaedia Britannica Films

While the Halloween costumes of today are often clever, shameless, or absurdly referential, their burlap and paper counterparts from last century still hold the crown for creepy (see related links below). The main character in 1953’s HALLOWEEN PARTY brandishes one such mask in a way that inadvertently sets off a chain of events which concludes with him wearing a straw hat and covered in his mother’s lipstick. I should probably explain.

Continue reading Halloween Party (1953) →

Ephemeral, Newsreel

College Professor Talks on Feminine Beauty and Brains-Outtakes (1932)

Leave a comment

Watch Now

Institution: University of South Carolina, Moving Image Research Collection
Collection: Fox Movietone News Collection

Running time: 03m26s
Source film: 35mm; Nitrate; B&W; Negative; 300 feet
Year: 1932
Production: Fox Movietone News
Camera: Jack Painter

For marriage counselor, date palm farmer, and eugenicist Paul Popenoe, the divorce rate in the early 1930s — whatever it may have been — was very likely a ghastly figure. There’s no telling how he would have reacted had he lived in a time where nearly half of all American marriages end in splitsville.

Continue reading College Professor Talks on Feminine Beauty and Brains-Outtakes (1932) →