The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I dunno, maybe it's not filmed in real-time. If that's the case, I have a real problem with that. Total disregard for authenticity!

De Soto Frank wrote:

bbphonoguy wrote: Also, I do not see what the single male characters like about Lady Mary, unless they're really into self-centered snobs with a bad attitude.

I would equate the phenomenon with the "pretty, sweet High-school girl who only goes out with hulking, Neanderthal athletic types who don't treat her well, and constantly has her heart broken ( or worse )"...


Having myself pined after real women not unlike Lady Mary, I cannot deny that people have these strange attractions, though it usually ends in tears...

Now that I've thought about it a little; I guess the fact that she's an heiress may help some people to overlook her shortcomings.

Well to get back on topic...I too exclaimed "Crap-o-phone!" out loud at a Downton party on Sunday. I was shocked but not completely suprised. When they used an HMV with oak horn in season 2, one of the behind the scenes videos as well as a book published stated that they were very careful to hire the same machine again for season 4 when it makes another couple of appearances. The machine showed up so well and was filmed in closeups in season 2 as the character of Matthew Crawley plays a new tune (Look for the Silver Lining) in 1919 which he explains is one of his favorites even if the show "Zip Goes a Million" was a flop - All correct except for the fact that the record playing was the Marion Harris recording from 1920. I can easily excuse that small error especially when they even show the correct Columbia blue label English pressing that would have been seen in 1919 - the wrong label shows up so very often in films. It was so integral in that heart-felt scene where the show's score takes over from the record playing and then returns to it. The only small favor from this final episode is that the crappy machine's only closeup was inside the horn and every other view is from quite a distance!

....and yes of course candles would still be used on the majority of Christmas trees in the early 1920s, even if electric light sets in series were readily available (no mini-lights of course!) and the Landers, Frary & Clark "Univeral" mixer seen in season 4 would have had matching enameled steel bowls and the small shelf clock that is observed for the Armistice in season 2 chiming on a table in the grand hall observance of silence had only one winding socket which meant that it actually had no bell at all while there is a a large grandfather clock just behind that remains silent...those are items to tease those of us that pay overly-close attention....