...some of these posts of mine might seem a little bit deja vu, and there is a simple explanation for that. I've moved this blog from its old haunts at Blogspot simply because...well, I like this new neighborhood. (Plenty of off-street parking, and the schools are better.) So there may be a few posts that will no doubt seem like repeats; it's just that there was some really good stuff over at the old place and it seemed like a waste not to bring it with me here.

In the Best News I've Heard All Week Department, I found out that Universal is going to be releasing a 2-DVD set, The Best of Abbott & Costello, Volume 1, on February 10, 2004. The discs contain the first eight feature films by the comedy duo: One Night in the Tropics (1940), Buck Privates (1941), In the Navy (1941), Hold That Ghost (1941), Keep 'Em Flying (1942), Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942), Pardon My Sarong (1942), and Who Done It? (1942). Of the eight, only Privates and Navy have been released on DVD before; Image Entertainment leased these two titles along with Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion and Buck Privates Come Home from Universal a good while back--I believe that all four movies are now OOP (out-of-print). A knowledgable friend told me that Universal was not happy with Image because Image slashed the prices on these and similar Universal-leased titles (like the Paramount Marx Brothers films and a couple of Mae West releases), so I'm glad Universal is stepping up to the plate on this one.

With that many movies on that many discs, I'm guessing extras are pretty much out, but I care not one whit. (I've been arguing for years that the studios should release some of their B and minor product in the form of double feature DVDs and forget about all that extras crap.) I truly believe that the early Bud & Lou films are the best--because filmmaking was still pretty new to them at the time, there's a zest and energy to the early movies that is severely lacking in their later films. Hold That Ghost, Pardon My Sarong and Who Done It? easily stand up among the best of their vehicles (The Time of Their Lives, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, etc.).
1:41:02 AM    comment []  trackback []  

"This is Columbia's station for the nation's capital..."

September 21, 1939 is a very important date in the history of old-time radio:

On a September Thursday in 1939, the world's eyes were on Europe, where a long-feared war moved into its fourth week.

Americans' eyes were on Washington, where a joint session of Congress prepared to convene to hear an address from the President to clarify US neutrality policy. The day was clear, the temperatures mild. And in Washington, DC, on the top floor of the Earle Building, located at the corner of Thirteenth and E Streets NW, the staff of radio station WJSV went about the business of just another broadcast day. 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM the following day -- a long succession of programs supplied down the line from New York, Chicago, or Hollywood via the Columbia Broadcasting System, supplemented by a handful of Locally produced features. Announcers Joe King, Hugh Conover, and John Charles Daly went thru their shifts as always -- reading news copy torn directly from a clattering United Press ticker, dropping in spot announcements for Zlotnick the Furrier and Sanitary Food Stores and Bulova Watches and other Local clients, reading canned continuity designed to accompany musical selections from the World Transcription Library -- and standing by, always standing by, to hit that next scheduled station break. "This is Columbia's station for the nation's capital: WJSV, Washington." And as the day rolled on, Local personalities Arthur Godfrey and Jean Abbey and Walter Johnson and Harry McTighe and staff organist John Salb all turned in their usual performances. Chief engineer Clyde Hunt and sales manager Bill Murdock and program director Lloyd Dennis, and general manager A. D. Willard, and station vice president Harry Butcher all went about their regular daily routines. Just another day. Just another broadcast day evaporating into the ether, like all the days that came before and all the days that followed.

Except for one difference.

This one was recorded.

In its entirety.

On thirty-eight 16" double-sided lacquer disks.

The recordings were made after discussions between Harry Butcher of WJSV and R. D. W. Connor of the National Archives, following up on a series of discussions between Connor and John Bradley of the Archives' Division of Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings -- discussions which, in turn, were sparked by conversations between Bradley and WJSV's Special Events Director Ann Gillis nearly a year earlier about the value of preserving radio broadcast recordings. On October 30, 1939, the disks were turned over to the National Archives, and remain in the custody of that institution to the present day.

No restrictions were imposed by CBS or WJSV on the use of the material, and tape transfers of this complete broadcast day began to make their way into Old Time Radio collecting circles in the late 1970s, culminating with the release of a superior-sounding early-generation transfer from the original disks by J. David Goldin of Radio Yesteryear. Subsequent issues of this collection by other dealers and collectors have varied wildly in quality -- and some have been released in edited, truncated form, often omitting the first half hour of the broadcast day preceding Arthur Godfrey's arrival at the microphone and also a rebroadcast from transcriptions of President Roosevelt's speech late in the evening.

I paid $47.50 for this 19 CD-set, which comes out to about $2.50 a pop. Not a bad deal at all, and the sound is simply fantastic. You owe it to yourself to check it out.
1:28:02 AM    comment []  trackback []