tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post6891987629272937386..comments2024-01-07T20:03:49.027+01:00Comments on All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!: New York Nights (1929)Jonas Nordinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06065342609209811314noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-18048740388610950052015-12-06T04:43:38.221+01:002015-12-06T04:43:38.221+01:00My wife and I just watched New York Nights on yout...My wife and I just watched New York Nights on youtube. We very much enjoyed it. To me it's a lovely early talkie that is full of film history, and portrays something about the era. The film begins with the camera looking out the front of an ambulance rushing along a street with its siren on. There is a single powerful light beam illuminating the road ahead. It really does appear to have been shot from a moving vehicle at night. There is a wonderful song written by Al Jolson and associates, introduced in a delightful scene near the beginning of the picture. I am very impressed by this solidly constructed early talkie, made in 1929. While we were watching it, I did not know it had been cut. That is a great pity, of course, but the cut version is cohesive, and did not seem to be missing anything, at least on first viewing.Ralph Dratmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426433134164984467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-62601333485699967852009-10-09T12:54:30.272+02:002009-10-09T12:54:30.272+02:00By the way, that song was just lovely. It's st...By the way, that song was just lovely. It's stuck in my head already. And even though the sound quality is terrible, as you say, I'm surprised at how good the picture quality is! Is there some restoration involved?<br />Norma Talmadge was a real darling!Lolita of the Classicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03596876234508882958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-44805444200125867062009-10-09T12:47:22.281+02:002009-10-09T12:47:22.281+02:00Interesting post! I think that film sounds really ...Interesting post! I think that film sounds really interesting, I can't understand why it would have been a box-office failure. So unfortunate.Lolita of the Classicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03596876234508882958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-22872868340637003452009-09-28T12:59:49.819+02:002009-09-28T12:59:49.819+02:00Raquelle,
The chopping up of movies was mainly don...Raquelle,<br />The chopping up of movies was mainly done for two reasons. Silent movies were cut differently in different countries for both artistic and "political" reasons. Sometimes a movie was considered too long and was simply shortened with no respect for the artistic work. This was for instance the case with Metropolis (UFA 1927) which had a running time of about three hours on its initial German premiere. UFA ordered it to be cut down almost immediately and then cut again for its international release later the same year. The international prints were then cut at will by the foreign distributors. This was the case with almost all silent movies at the time and the reason they now resurface in many different versions. <br /><br />The case with the early talkies is somewhat different and often a question of censorship. Many pre-1934 productions were cut in compliance with the 1934 production code, often ending up a lot lamer compared to what they first looked like. Many of the pre-code productions was altered forever and the original version was rarely saved. <br /><br />Most of the 1929-30 talkies included quite a lot of musical numbers that were cut when the public grew tired of musicals in mid 1930. This is one reason so many surviving prints from this year today have a surprisingly short running time of about 60-70 minutes. <br /><br />Sometimes even movie versions of Broadway Musicals were severely cut like the case with 50 million Frenchmen 1931, a successful stage musical that had all its musical numbers omitted and turned into bland comedy before it was allowed to hit the market.Jonas Nordinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06065342609209811314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-45126312776148714582009-09-26T20:38:27.097+02:002009-09-26T20:38:27.097+02:00Great review as always and it's indeed so unfo...Great review as always and it's indeed so unfortunate, when films gets scenes cut. <br /><br />I really like Lilyan Tashman and she was so ideal for Pre-Code, though she often had a tendency to overact. Lucky for her, that often fitted the parts she played.Classic Maidenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06452165665779363139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891927412771509295.post-40047073825064781972009-09-26T13:58:23.125+02:002009-09-26T13:58:23.125+02:00Great post again Jonas! Why are there so many diff...Great post again Jonas! Why are there so many different versions of silents and early talkies? Why did the studios find the need to chop them up like that? Hmmm....Raquel Stecherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02687110907002450794noreply@blogger.com