The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Francis has recently mentioned the appearance of an appropriately early gramophone in a Sherlock Holmes film. Here are two more examples from the much-admired series with Jeremy Brett as Holmes. One, from 'The Problem of Thor Bridge', shows the office of the American millionaire Neil Gibson, with some kind of cylinder machine (not, I think, Edison or Columbia; is it perhaps a Pathé?), presumably for use as a dictating-machine. (Also in the picture, on a pile of books on the desk, is an Edison Gold Moulded box, which does not entirely fit in.) The other, from 'The Illustrious Client', shows an early ten-inch-turntable machine (Gramophone & Typewriter, I think, complete with Concert sound-box) playing Leporello's 'Catalogue Aria' from Mozart's Don Giovanni as an appropriate background for Count Adalbert Gruner as he pastes a portrait of his latest victim into his infamous scrapbook. The record has an improbable orchestral accompaniment and plays far too long, but I suppose we must not expect miracles.

Several other episodes made after about 1990 also show a gramophone in Holmes's own rooms, but only the horn (black with a brass bell) can be seen.

Oliver Mundy.

Here we have a scene in which an L-door Victrola XVI has been relegated to being stored among other unneeded, unwanted junk in a basement storeroom. Movie is My Dear Miss Aldrich from 1937.

In the Netflix Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities there’s an appearance of a upright phonograph. It’s in what I think is the best episode of the series, The Murmuring.

A husband & wife team of bird watchers are staying on an island doing research circa 1951. One evening they play the house hold phonograph, an upright of non determined brand but the size of a VV-XI. The husband actually opens the horn doors and out comes the sound of an actual acoustic record, Isham Jones orchestra doing Swingin’ Down The Lane.

It’s not so often film makers get phonographs right in modern productions. As for the rest of the series, it was too gooey and gory for my likes.

Hugh Laurie's 2022 production of the Agatha Christie novel, Why Didn't The Ask Evans?, features a phonograph. The novel (and the mini-series) is set in the interwar years, so the table top horn machine which appears to have a Nipper logo is probably an HMV. I do not know enough about these things to hazard a guess at identification.

The phonograph is featured in at least two scenes, maybe three:

Dancing in the garden
and the funeral

It's a flagrant crapophone...

Lah Ca wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:59 pm Hugh Laurie's 2022 production of the Agatha Christie novel, Why Didn't The Ask Evans?, features a phonograph. The novel (and the mini-series) is set in the interwar years, so the table top horn machine which appears to have a Nipper logo is probably an HMV. I do not know enough about these things to hazard a guess at identification.

The phonograph is featured in at least two scenes, maybe three:

Dancing in the garden

2022-11-18 12.56.40 www.britbox.com d1313910df9f.png

and the funeral

2022-11-18 13.02.23 www.britbox.com b9d099fe93dc.png

2022-11-18 13.02.58 www.britbox.com 2afd2f7f7822.png

Ah HMV of India or as we like to call em’ The Crapophone Company”

Inigo wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:31 pm It's a flagrant crapophone...

AmberolaAndy wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:04 pm Ah HMV of India or as we like to call em’ The Crapophone Company”

Thanks. Very interesting and educational.

I have seen decent well-made/assembled antique Indian phonographs here where there is a large Sikh population. I did not previously know about the existence of crapophones.

I cannot find another machine online exactly like the one in the film in all features, but there are many with near identical cases. Most have more elaborate over-the-top horns. Most have different winder handles. All sold through EBay.in, however, have a very large number of one star ratings. One reviewer berates himself for not having listened to more knowledgeable friends who told him they could get him a real vintage machine in good working order for less money than he was paying for the HM Vinda Loo Roll.

Even more interesting/alarming is the large number of vendors who sell these as antiques. The majority, however, seem to sell them as replicas.

Inigo wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:31 pm It's a flagrant crapophone...

Afterthought .... that is probably better than a fragrant crapophone.

The Banshees of Inisherin, a very dark tragic comedy, is set in 1923 at the end of the Irish Civil War.

The character, Colm, has a fairly large external horn phonograph which features, both peripherally and unrealistically, in the film. It appears to have an extremely large sound box/reproducer. While it is actually set in motion with a record on it, the music the soundtrack suggests it produces is definitely not from an acoustic phonograph.

Anyone seen the film?

https://youtu.be/uRu3zLOJN2c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banshees_of_Inisherin

from "Night of the Iguana" - looks like a Victor with aftermarket horn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VNg24LfwG8