The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I saw the charming silent film "The Artist" last week, and there was the briefest glimpse of a record being played on a small tabletop machine. As accurate as most of the film seemed to be, set in the late 1920's, the player looked like something from the late-40's or early 50's, playing at what looked to be 33rpm.
The music being played on the movie's trailer is Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing," which post-dates the timeframe of the story.
These are minor quibbles, though, and I think most forum members would enjoy this film. Too bad the dog couldn't be nominated for best supporting actor!
Bob

I saw that one too- a major gaff.

Later when Valentine is pulling the sheets off his furniture there's a horn machine- but it's a Guild Grafonola Ca. 1959-60.

Great movie and some of the scenes are utterly extraordinary but it did have some very odd anachronisms or rather prochronisms, I think is the term. They stuck out all the more because in the main the film is exceptionally good in terms of the props. Although Peppy's 1932 limousine wouldn't have rolled off the assembly line until 1936 or so. And a few of the microphones were a teensy bit ahead of themselves.
And when Valentin lights that pile of film on fire, it is my understanding that the nitrate film stock of those days would have gone off a like a rocket: whooosh!!
JRT

Nitrate is extremely flammable and / or explosive. Sometimes all it took was the heat of the projector lamp to set it off. It's not even legal to run nitrate prints in a public theater anymore.

It seems to me like movies rarely ever get the details right on phonographs or recording studios or anything of that nature that they try to portray.

Yeah, I noticed the phonograph gaffe, but I missed the "Sing, Sing, Sing" thing---shame on me! BTW, did anybody else notice the theft (ahem, "borrowing"), toward the end of the movie, of Bernard Herrmann's music from Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (1959)? This one hit me like the proverbial "ton of bricks." Of course, there was no mention of BH in the end credits (at least, I didn't see any).

I'll see if I can dig around and find a link to the Herrmann theme, and will post it if successful.

OK, found it: the first cut on this list, at http://www.moviemusicnow.com/play/north-by-northwest. First comes the oboe with a version of the melody, then it's restated by the clarinet solo in the form that is used in "The Artist."

Herrmann probably derived the above theme from this one in his score to "Vertigo" (1958), where it's also the love theme: first cut on this page: http://www.moviemusicnow.com/play/vertigo

Earlier in the film there is music that's faintly reminiscent of, and surely indebted to, certain parts of Stravinsky's "Firebird" music. Well, hey, if you're gonna steal something, at least take it from the best!

Speaking of movie sightings, here's some I found in WWII movies, the first 2 are from "The Big Red One", last 2 from "Saving Private Ryan":

Speaking of war time portables, if I recall the classic Peckinpaugh bloodfest "Cross of Iron" has Max Schell's Capt. Stransky playing a portable in his bunker on the Eastern Front...I think it was Horst Wessel Lied. John

AllWoundUp wrote:Speaking of movie sightings

There's already a long thread on the topic...


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