The Soundies

Author : Mark Cantor
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476646422
Total Pages : 2077 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Soundies written by Mark Cantor and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2023-04-19 with total page 2077 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1940s saw a brief audacious experiment in mass entertainment: a jukebox with a screen. Patrons could insert a dime, then listen to and watch such popular entertainers as Nat "King" Cole, Gene Krupa, Cab Calloway or Les Paul. A number of companies offered these tuneful delights, but the most successful was the Mills Novelty Company and its three-minute musical shorts called Soundies. This book is a complete filmography of 1,880 Soundies: the musicians heard and seen on screen, recording and filming dates, arrangers, soloists, dancers, entertainment trade reviews and more. Additional filmographies cover more than 80 subjects produced by other companies. There are 125 photos taken on film sets, along with advertising images and production documents. More than 75 interviews narrate the firsthand experiences and recollections of Soundies directors and participants. Forty years before MTV, the Soundies were there for those who loved the popular music of the 1940s. This was truly "music for the eyes."

Author : Susan Delson
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253058562
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen written by Susan Delson and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1940s, folks at bars and restaurants would gather around a Panoram movie machine to watch three-minute films called Soundies, precursors to today's music videos. This history was all but forgotten until the digital era brought Soundies to phones and computer screens—including a YouTube clip starring a 102-year-old Harlem dancer watching her younger self perform in Soundies. In Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time, Susan Delson takes a deeper look at these fascinating films by focusing on the role of Black performers in this little-known genre. She highlights the women performers, like Dorothy Dandridge, who helped shape Soundies, while offering an intimate look at icons of the age, such as Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. Using previously unknown archival materials—including letters, corporate memos, and courtroom testimony—to trace the precarious path of Soundies, Delson presents an incisive pop-culture snapshot of race relations during and just after World War II. Perfect for readers interested in film, American history, the World War II era, and Black entertainment history, Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen and its companion video website (susandelson.com) bring the important contributions of these Black artists into the spotlight once again.

Author : Andrea J. Kelley
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813586356
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture written by Andrea J. Kelley and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture is the first and only book to position what are called “Soundies” within the broader cultural and technological milieu of the 1940s. From 1940 to 1946, these musical films circulated in everyday venues, including bars, bowling alleys, train stations, hospitals, and even military bases. Viewers would pay a dime to watch them playing on the small screens of the Panoram jukebox. This book expands U.S. film history beyond both Hollywood and institutional film practices. Examining the dynamics between Soundies’ short musical films, the Panoram’s film-jukebox technology, their screening spaces and their popular discourse, Andrea J. Kelley provides an integrative approach to historic media exhibition. She situates the material conditions of Soundies’ screening sites alongside formal considerations of the films and their unique politics of representation to illuminate a formative moment in the history of the small screen.

Author : Susan Delson
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 9780816646548
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dudley Murphy, Hollywood Wild Card written by Susan Delson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follows the life of Hollywood's first independent filmmaker known for "The Emperor Jones" and "Ballet mâecanique."

Author : Susie Trenka
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0861969758
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Jumping the Color Line written by Susie Trenka and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first synchronized sound films of the late 1920s through the end of World War II, African American music and dance styles were ubiquitous in films. Black performers, however, were marginalized, mostly limited to appearing in "specialty acts" and various types of short films, whereas stardom was reserved for Whites. Jumping the Color Line discusses vernacular jazz dance in film as a focal point of American race relations. Looking at intersections of race, gender, and class, the book examines how the racialized and gendered body in film performs, challenges, and negotiates identities and stereotypes. Arguing for the transformative and subversive potential of jazz dance performance onscreen, the six chapters address a variety of films and performers, including many that have received little attention to date. Topics include Hollywood's first Black female star (Nina Mae McKinney), male tap dance "class acts" in Black-cast short films of the early 1930s, the film career of Black tap soloist Jeni LeGon, the role of dance in the Soundies jukebox shorts of the 1940s, cinematic images of the Lindy hop, and a series of teen films from the early 1940s that appealed primarily to young White fans of swing culture. With a majority of examples taken from marginal film forms, such as shorts and B movies, the book highlights their role in disseminating alternative images of racial and gender identities as embodied by dancers – images that were at least partly at odds with those typically found in major Hollywood productions.

Author : Roger Beebe
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822341628
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.2X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Medium Cool written by Roger Beebe and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-26 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medium Cool

Author : Amy Herzog
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 0816660875
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same written by Amy Herzog and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musical spectacles are excessive and abstract, reconfiguring time and space and creating intense bodily responses. Amy Herzog's engaging work examines those instances where music and movement erupt from within more linear narrative frameworks. The representational strategies found in these films are often formulaic, repeating familiar story lines and stereotypical depictions of race, gender, and class. Yet she finds the musical moment contains a powerful disruptive potential. Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same investigates the tension and the fusion of difference and repetition in films to ask, How does the musical moment work? Herzog looks at an eclectic mix of works, including the Soundie and Scopitone jukebox films, the musicals of French director Jacques Demy, the synchronized swimming spectacles of Esther Williams, and an apocalyptic musical by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang. Several refrains circulate among these texts: their reliance on clichés, their rewriting of cultural narratives, and their hallucinatory treatment of memory and history. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze, she explores all of these dissonances as productive forces, and in doing so demonstrates the transformative power of the unexpected.

Author : Daniel Eagan
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 0826429777
Total Pages : 848 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book America's Film Legacy written by Daniel Eagan and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of the five hundred films that have been selected, to date, for preservation by the National Film Preservation Board, and are thereby listed in the National Film Registry.

Author : Frank Foster
Publisher : BookCaps Study Guides
ISBN 13 : 1629173517
Total Pages : 72 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Breaking the Color Barrier written by Frank Foster and published by BookCaps Study Guides. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of sports and race is messy. In baseball Jackie Robinson is universally touted as the first black major league player, which conveniently forgets Moses Fleetwood Walker and other players of color who appeared on 19th century diamonds. Football deals with the messiness a different way. The sport employs the term "modern era" instead. So Kenny Washington is the first black player of the "modern era." James Harris was the first black quarterback to start an NFL game in the "modern era." Art Shell was the first black head coach of the "modern era." The reason football has to append the qualifier to its historical racial milestones is because there was a man who was doing all those things back when the National Football League began. His name was Fritz Pollard, and this is his story.

Author : Frank Foster
Publisher : BookCaps Study Guides
ISBN 13 : 1629173509
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book First written by Frank Foster and published by BookCaps Study Guides. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For change to happen, there has to be someone daring enough to suffer through the negativity of being first. The three players profiled here, beat the odds and changed the game. Profiled in this book: Jackie Robinson — The first African-American baseball player Fritz Pollard — The first African-American coaches in the NFL and one of the first African-American players in the NFL Nathaniel Clifton — One of the first African-American NBA players These biographies may also be purchased separately.