Capitol Records film

[gregbogantz]

This came up as kind of an aside on another TMF thread today, but I think it deserves its own thread. I had not seen this film before and it's kinda interesting. It was just posted on YouTube in June, so it's probably pretty new to the blogosphere. It has Mel Blanc leading a "record customer" played by Billy May thru the process of making a Capitol record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxkSRvkKF9k

It was apparently put together as an internal company biz promotion sometime around 1951. See the poster's comments about this film on the YouTube page. The first part of it has Mel doing some schtick with Mays and sounding like Bugs Bunny which is kinda cornball, but the rest of the film is pretty informative. Some inside jokes to be seen, including a swipe at Victor early in the film where Mel takes Mays' hat and plops it on Nipper's head in a record shop (actually owned by one of Capitol's founders Glenn Wallichs) next to a poster offering "Dog records" for 4 cents each. Jay Livingston, president of Capitol at the time has a cameo, as do several other Capitol artists and celebrities including Les Paul and Mary Ford. Color film quality is good - this must have been a little-played long-lost copy stored in a vault for years.

There is no mention of the Hollywood Capitol record plant, so I guess it hadn't been built yet when this film was made. But it came online within just a few years because I remember seeing it listed on the back of Capitol LP jackets in the late 1950s. The Capitol Tower was built in 1956, so the studios that are visited in the film are in a different building. The record plant tour is kinda mixed up as they show both shellac production of 78s and vinyl 45s all smooshed together in the dialog. They also show 45s with the 1.5 inch centers partially "dinked" out as was commonly done in Europe, but I don't remember this being done for US product. Record album book production for 78s and box production for the early 45rpm album boxes is also shown which I have not seen depicted on film before. It's interesting to me that there is no mention of wax masters, so evidently lacquers had fully replaced wax by 1951. Capitol was evidently doing copper laminated with nickel metal parts at the time. I know that RCA was using copper during the 78rpm years, but we migrated over to fully using nickel by the time I got there in 1973. I don't know if this copper/nickel laminate process was industry standard in the 1950s or not. Seems kinda wasteful to me as it makes it difficult to separate and recycle the metals after production. But this is an informative film covering record production in a period in the early 1950s that seems to be scarcely documented from what I've seen.

Greg Bogantz

[Lucius1958]

Fascinating!

And, best of all, it's "Bozo Approved"!

Bill

[Wolfe]

The recording studio shown is the studio on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Which Capitol quit after the Tower was built.

Many classic records by the likes of Sinatra and others were at Melrose.

Fascinating movie.

[Henry]

The Capitol plant building in Scranton is extant; it's been on the market for several years now. I drove by it a couple of years ago; you can still see "Capitol Records" in fading paint on the west side of the building. It looks much the same as in the film. Scranton is right handy to mounds of anthracite coal fines for use as filler in 78 rpm records, a possibility discussed here recently In fact, coal deposits underlie the entire Lackawanna Valley, where Scranton is located in n.e. Pennsylvania. Looks like they're pressing 33 vinyls in this film.

[Wolfe]

It's interesting to me that there is no mention of wax masters, so evidently lacquers had fully replaced wax by 1951.

Were there still companies plating wax to make 78 pressing parts in that time frame?

I would have assumed a big money outfit like Capitol would have used lacquer exclusively. Right from the time Capitol started in 1942 they were cutting takes to 33 rpm lacquer session discs (pre tape.) So it seems strange they wouldn't use lacquer right down the line.