‘A million minutes of filmed history’ – someone in the communications team of the AP Archive must have been mightily pleased when they came up with that tag line for promoting their release online of the entire British Movietone newsreel archive onto YouTube. For that is what the have done. Apparently every story from everyRead More
This website has had a bit of a redesign, chiefly to make it responsive so that I no longer have to peer at minute print whenever I look at one of the posts on my mobile phone. A few more tweaks are required, but in general I’m pleased with the template and the results. I’veRead More
I live next door to a castle. This is quite a privilege, and though in summer time the leaves of a large tree hide the building from my window, in winter-time I enjoy castle views (as the estate agents like to say around here). Rochester Castle looks very fine from the outside, though it isRead More
I spent three days last week at Il Cinema Ritrovato, the renowned festival of restored and classic films held each year in Bologna, Italy. To my great shame it has been twenty-two years since I last attended the festival (though I was in the vicinity for a talk I gave three years ago). The reasonRead More
The art of Biography Is different from Geography. Geography is about maps, But Biography is about chaps. I thought of E.C. Bentley’s pithy poem while I was attending the What is Cinema History? conference in Glasgow. The conference was organised by the Early Cinema in Scotland project (on whose advisory board I sit), and addressedRead More
I haven’t produced one of these in a while… 315. I remember the Gang Show. 316. I remember Tonto’s Expanding Head Band. 317. I remember The Flashing Blade, with its thinly-defended but endlessly besieged castle and its thrilling theme song (“You’ve got to fight for what you want for all that you believe / It’sRead More
The bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo is upon us, and of the many books, programmes and articles currently published about the event, one of the most novel and fasincating is Brian Cathcart’s history The News from Waterloo. This tells not the story of the battle but of the race to report the news inRead More
One of my favourite items popping up on my feed reader (thank you NetVibes) is the weekly News of the Week feature from the splendidly named The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion blog. The blog is produced by Joe Thompson, a San Franciscan enthusiast for silent film and cable cars. The blog is mostly about passingRead More
I’m just back from Copenhagen, a city that I’ve been to four times now in as many years. No complaints about that – it’s a city of great charm and calm. It’s a place through which to drift on an even tenor. The streets are intriguing, the shops (frequently with basement-level windows) are inviting, theRead More
Back in 2009 I was set an interesting challenge. I was invited on behalf of a group investigating the lives of British women who had worked in silent film to take on the research into one of those about whom nothing much was known. I picked the name Mary Murillo. I knew nothing of her,Read More