Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

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edisonphonoworks
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by edisonphonoworks »

In the Antique shop in the new Paddington 2 movie is an Edison Gem.

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edisonphonoworks
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by edisonphonoworks »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n2b0NdL6_E


Rule 1 don't go far in the winter to record. This is in Chicago and in the winter, it was -1 degrees F and it took 3 hours to drive from my house in Princeton IL to Chicago, my heat was not working very good in my car, so all the equipment and blanks were very cold at setup. The studio was 62 degrees, at first. Also the recorder was set up for live heavy metal recording with an spl of 105db, not 80db of an acoustical guitar and .008" thick diaphragm was used. It is imperative the room be above 71 for any cylinder recording. If I would have tried to heat the box of blanks with a light in a box, the shock from outside to the box and heat lamp would have cracked them. We recorded the heavy metal cylinder at about 5pm at that time the studio was 75 finally. The heavy metal cylinder will be posted next week and that one came out with normal deep, quiet Edison band record quality. It was still fun, and with over 454,000 views, it did introduce the phonograph to lots of people.

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Henry
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by Henry »

Just watched "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on TCM. In the cellar scene, there's a lovely Victor with wooden spear-point horn. I'm not knowledgeable at all about these external horn machines, but I'm sure that someone on the Forum can identify it precisely. Thank goodness the machine escapes the wrath of Brick's (Paul Newman's character) destructive tantrum!

Sorry if reference to this scene has already been cited here; this is getting to be quite a long topic, and I didn't try to read through all the previous postings!

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EdisonWizard
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by EdisonWizard »

This is probably going to be the weirdest addition to this thread...but the wife was watching a little bit of “trash tv” aka The Bachelor :? and in the episode I was watching with her there is a mahogany Edison opera in the corner of this house in Lake Tahoe all the girls are staying in. Talk about a surprise...I have to say I watched the rest of the episode just to see if I could get a better view lol.
J.F.

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travisgreyfox
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by travisgreyfox »

EdisonWizard wrote:This is probably going to be the weirdest addition to this thread...but the wife was watching a little bit of “trash tv” aka The Bachelor :? and in the episode I was watching with her there is a mahogany Edison opera in the corner of this house in Lake Tahoe all the girls are staying in. Talk about a surprise...I have to say I watched the rest of the episode just to see if I could get a better view lol.

Hats off to for putting yourself through so much torture just for a glimpse of the Edison :lol:

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MikeB
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by MikeB »

Take a look at this trailer for "The Whisperer in Darkness" by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which makes dandy use of a cylinder Ediphone, I think. They've done a couple of recent films based upon H.P. Lovecraft's works. The first movie was "The Call of Cthulhu," which was a silent; (both films presumably took place during the 1920's - 1930's, when Lovecraft was writing these stories). Both incredible films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkos7WTHjg

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Joe Busam
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by Joe Busam »

Back in 2012, a low budget horror film was shot here in Cincinnati entitled 7 BELOW. The story is a bout a family who was murdered by their young son in 1912. Zoom ahead 100 years and a group of 20 somethings descend on the old house where strange things begin to happen. My son happen to be in charge of special effects and as I result when the props were being gathered an old phonograph was listed. I volunteered my 1904 Victor M. I shows up several times in the finished film both in flashback and in present day. Typical low budget horror flick but now my machine has achieved celluloid immortality.

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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by GregVTLA »

One of my favorite shows, Psych, has brought back their favorite type of prop, phonographs. I've seen a few in this show as well as plenty of radios. This one was in the killer's house, and taunted the cop with a rock n' roll song. Not exactly correct, but it's a nice machine.
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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by billybobbojim »

I always wanted a Columbia late AH since I saw the Don Knotts Movie "the ghost and mr chicken in 1966 the AH was in the basement of the Haunted house

Dark Shadows started me on a Edison cylinder Kick and it never Left

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Re: Wind-up Phonographs in Movies

Post by phonogfp »

billybobbojim wrote:I always wanted a Columbia late AH since I saw the Don Knotts Movie "the ghost and mr chicken in 1966 the AH was in the basement of the Haunted house
Me too! :)

I recounted this in an article I wrote on the early AH Graphophone in the March 2007 issue of The Sound Box (now The Antique Phonograph). It's funny how those childhood yearnings sometimes never leave us...

George P.

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