Before Saturn

Before Saturn. In this early 1960s NASA film, “Saturn” refers to not the planet, but the then-new series of rockets being created for space travel. Before Saturn, there was a whole history of idea and the practice of rocketry, which the film documents. It’s pretty interesting, actually, and not near as bombastic or MAN-focused as most NASA films of the period. You can’t help but think of the Saturn V, the rocket that would eventually take us to the moon, when they talk about Saturn the rocket series. Lots of historical Interest here.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Assignment - Shoot the Moon

Assignment: Shoot the Moon. What if you had to take a close-up picture of a caramel apple being held by a woman on a spinning carnival ride, while you were moving around on another ride? This is the metaphor shown in this 1967 NASA film for photographing the moon close-up, in order to plan for a landing site for a manned mission. This is less bombastic than most other NASA films, and it’s chock-full of information about the unmanned lunar probes that were sent before Apollo 11 to photograph the moon. It’s mostly pretty straightforward, with some interesting imagery, and lots of historical interest, as it was made just before Apollo 11, so you get an idea of what scientists were thinking on the eve of that historic mission.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Anatomy of a Triumph

Anatomy of a Triumph. It’s MAN again, discovering flight and conquering the skies! Will he never stop in his quest for manliness? This early 70s government film starts off bombastically, then settles down to document the history of flight from Kitty Hawk to Apollo 11. We get to see the usual wacky early films of failed attempts at flight at the beginning, which I always find amusing. Then it’s on to working airplanes, Lindbergh, World Wars I and II, and the first rockets, which were invented by Nazis. But who cares about that? This is about MAN’s conquest of space, by golly! The Russians have launched Sputnik, so now the race is on! We get to see more embarrassing footage of the U.S.’s first failed attempts at space flight, and then the final success of the Apollo II mission. Richard Nixon ends the film with congratulatory messages, the film being blissfully ignorant of his embarrassments to come.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Automatic Elevator System, San Francisco. Newsreel story about the development of automatic elevators, that, amazingly enough, operate with the push of a button, instead of a human operator. Since most of us nowadays don’t even remember elevator operators (they were on their way out when I was just a tot), this is a great piece of history. And I want the scale model elevator system shown in the film for the Film Ephemera Museum of Quirky Devices. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

American Tanks in China. 1920s newsreel about U.S. troops protecting American interests in China during the Chinese civil war. There’s some great footage of old tanks here, as well as footage of Chinese people during the 1920s with lots of historical interest. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Aeronautics and Space Report 1977. OK, it’s the 70s now, and NASA has calmed down quite a bit. (Told you the drugs were just a faze.) It's now in the space shuttle business and even has a pointy-haired boss in charge of finding customers for the shuttle’s payload area. Watch this after America in Space: First Decade to get an idea of what “settling down” looks like if you’re a space agency. No more MAN talk here; they’re even considering hiring women astronauts! Mostly, though, this film is about as interesting as your first real job was. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: **.

America in Space. So it looks like NASA made an earlier film to celebrate 5 years in space. This 1963 film is far more ordinary than the 1969 one. I wonder what happened in between—oh yeah, the 60s. So it must have been the lack of drugs that makes this film farm more coherent than the other one. There’s still a lot of MAN talk—what will MAN find in space, where will HE go, etc.? But since this film is more coherent and lots shorter than the other one, it doesn’t grate as much. For lots of trippy footage to mine, go with the 1969 film. For a little bit of historical interest on the history of the space program, go with this one. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

America in Space: First Decade. This NASA film documents the first decade of American space exploration. Made on the eve of Apollo 11, it tells its story in a somewhat trippy fashion, with an endless montage of images of space and space-age technology, narrated in an annoyingly sexist fashion. It would have us believe that all of humanity is Man (MAN wants to explore space; MAN has figured out that HE can survive in zero-gravity, etc.), and that all the people who worked together to put MEN into space are all MEN wearing white shirts and skinny black ties. But ignore the narration and get off on the great images in this film that stream by in a psychedelic fashion. There’s some good historical interest here and lots of great footage to mine for a video project. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

49th Star: Alaska Statehood, New Flag, Official (available for download on Universal Newsreels.)

This newsreel story shows us President Eisenhower signing the bill that made Alaska a state. Then we get to see flag manufacturer’s wrestle with the problem of making a 49-star flag that looks nice and symmetrical. They come up with a solution, one that would almost immediately become obsolete when Hawaii was granted statehood. I bet those flags sell for a lot on Ebay today.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Lady Lifeguards (available for download on Prelinger Archive. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

This newsreel featurette shows us the intensive training female lifeguards received at New York’s Manhattan Beach during the 30s. They were trained in speed and distance swimming, rowing, breaking dangerous holds that drowning victims often subject lifeguards to, and the tedious out-goes-the-bad-air-in-comes-the-good kind of artificial respiration (which the narrator tells us sometimes goes on for hours before the victim is revived). After all this, they are qualified to “assist” the male lifeguards, and must undergo leering “inspections” by the potbellied head lifeguard, while the narrator says such clever things as, “This is a company anybody would love to inspect!” I’m sure they received “assistant” pay as well. The bland sexist assumptions of this film tell us just how far we’ve come in improving our view of women––the narrator seems throughout like he can barely believe that the “girls” can do all that lifesaving stuff. Another good film for an ephemera “ladies night.”

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

American Day Fete Biggest Patriotic Meeting in History (available for download on Universal Newsreels. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

Late 30s newsreel clip showing a huge patriotic rally spurred by the war in Europe. Also featured is a story about a big parade in Atlantic City, and a tribute to George Washington Carver. The soundtrack is very sporadic in this, making it hard to follow, though we do get to hear a bit of Carver’s speech, giving this historical value. And there’s some great scenes of weird balloons in the parade, including a 2-headed cat that has to be seen to be believed.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Empires of Steel (extra on Disc #1 of New York DVD Boxed Set (PBS Home Video, 2004)).

This silent Pathe newsreel featurette, sponsored by U.S. Steel, documents the construction of the Empire State Building in great detail. We get to see scores of workers being dwarfed by huge steel beams and working nonchalantly higher and higher in the air as the building goes up. This has lots of historical value, making it an appropriate archival extra for the New York DVD set.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Bela Lugosi Interview (available for viewing on You Tube).

This early 50s clip features Bela Lugosi being interviewed by reporters upon discharge from a state mental hospital, where he had been treated for his heroin addiction. He looks cheerful here, and claims to be “cured” of his addiction. Sadly, what we know now about both addiction and Lugosi tell us that it was not to be. This interview has quite a bit of historical interest for Lugosi fans, as well as being a rare public glimpse (for the time) into a celebrity’s private struggles with addiction.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: N/A. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Knife-Thrower and Children (available for download on Prelinger Archive).

Can you spell “child endangerment”? I thought you could. In this newsreel featurette, a mom who’s a circus performer throws knives at her two daughters, ages 5 and 2 1/2. Now I know she’s a skilled performer and the point is that she misses, but don’t scare me like that!

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Florida (available for download on Universal Newsreels).

Brief newsreel story about the launching of a communications satellite. A blip from the early space program.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *. Weirdness: *. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: **.

British H-Bomb Fired as Debate on Atom Test Ban Rages (available for download on Universal Newsreels. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

Britain’s first H-bomb blows up real good, leaving spectacular mushroom clouds in this 50s newsreel. Also included are stories on atrocities in Algeria, helicopters in Washington, DC, farming techniques in Israel, and model airplanes in New York City. Basically, this is a typical 50s Cold War newsreel, but if you want mushroom clouds, this film has ‘em.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ***.

Junior Rodeo Daredevils (MST3K Episode #407: The Killer Shrews, Also available on The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 2 (Rhino). Also available on The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 7 (Rhino). Also available for viewing on You Tube).

This film pretends to have a plot about Old-Timer Billy Slater (he's always referred to that way) organizing a Junior Rodeo to keep kids out of trouble, but it's really just an excuse to show some dull footage of a 4-H rodeo. The kiddie matinee Western feel is slightly campy, though, and the msting is great.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ***. Msting: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Johnny at the Fair (MST3K Episode #419: The Rebel Set. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

Little Johnny goes with his parents to the Canadian National Exhibition, but when his folks would rather view some boring old exhibit rather than do the exciting stuff like rides, he wanders off in disgust and has a bunch of adventures of his own. Another boring newsreel featurette about something that's supposed to be fun. The msting is pretty good, though.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ***. Msting: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Fists on Film (film #6 on Who Built America? (Voyager CD-ROM, 1993).

This film documented the championship fight between Gentleman Jim Corbett and Peter Courtney. It's probably the first boxing match ever filmed, making it an interesting historical artifact, but even the narrator couldn't help commenting on Gentleman Jim's revealing shorts. An 1894 Edison film.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Japs Bomb USA (film #9 on WWII V for Victory War Bonds & Rallies Show (Something Weird, 1996)).

The events of December 7, 1941 and immediately afterward are chronicled in this newsreel. Some of the language is mildly racist ("Japs," "Nipponese"), but mostly this is pretty straightforward. The footage of America's reaction to Pearl Harbor in the days immediately following the event is pretty interesting, though.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.