1940s
1948 Commercials
What a weird and different era....
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jul 25, 2009 -
Comments (9)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, 1940s
Biblical Re-enactments
Here Peggy Lee plays Salome and Dean Martin plays John the Baptist.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 02, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Celebrities, Food, Religion, 1940s
When You Are A Pedestrian
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jun 23, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category: Death, Motor Vehicles, Documentaries, 1940s
Norman McLaren Animations
These short films of Norman McLaren strike me as pretty weird, especially since they were created by drawing directly upon the film stock.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 17, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category: Music, Cartoons, 1940s
Inventions of Buckminster Fuller, Part 5: Dymaxion Sleep
This was more a concept than an invention. It is also known as polyphasic sleep, meaning sleeping at more than one interval during a day. Although not really invented by Fuller, he did popularize it and gave it a catchy nickname. Bucky claims to have slept only 30 minutes every 6 hours and did not suffer any ill effects. You can read a story about it in Time Magazine's archives.
Posted By: fyshstyxx - Wed Jun 10, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Health, Science, Sleep and Dreams, 1940s, Brain
Food in War and Peace
Two videos for D-Day Anniversary Weekend.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 07, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Anniversary, Food, War, 1940s
Ethel Smith at the Organ
Elton John, Billy Joel and Ben Folds--eat your hearts out!If you wish to see a much crisper version of this clip that forbids embedding, please go here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 04, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Movies, Music, 1940s
Bathing Beauty
Please enjoy this over-the-top water ballet from the Esther Williams film BATHING BEAUTY.For a non-embeddable version of much higher clarity, please go here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 04, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category: Movies, Music, 1940s, Dance
Four Jills in a Jeep
The embedded video at the bottom of this post consists of an entire feature-length film titled Four Jills in A Jeep. It recounts the based-on-truth activities of four female stars on the USO circuit during WWII. You are kindly invited to watch the whole thing if you wish: there's some good singing, and a few laughs amidst the corn. But if you only have three minutes to spare, please do this:1) Allow the whole video to load, with the sound off if you wish. It'll take a little bit, depending on your connection, natch.
2) Push the slider to the one-hour-and-nine-minutes mark. That's when our gals arrive at a North African village.
3) Wait patiently until, at the mark of 1:11:27, Kay Francis says "They brought us in on a camel caravan."
Watching this at home, we almost fell out of our seats, and had to replay the line several times to make sure we had heard right, laughing harder each time. I can guarantee you will not witness a funnier line-reading for a long time.
What makes it better is knowing something about Kay Francis's offscreen life. As we learn from this site:
A combination clotheshorse/workhorse, Kay Francis made 67 films from 1929 to 1946. Her life and career are a splurging record of indulgent consumption and extravagant dissipation....She usually drank a tumbler of gin for breakfast, got bored very easily, and slept around indiscriminately [with both men and women], racking up a high number of abortions... Kear and Rossman's book quotes liberally from Francis' diary, even using pull quotes from it on many of the pages, so that you feel their subject is talking directly to you. Kay repeatedly calls herself a bitch and a slut, proclaims her pooped-out boredom, and runs down her list of conquests. "Had merciless afternoon with Maurice (Chevalier)," she reports. "Four times in two hours." Her taste ran to talented directors too, like Goulding, Mamoulian, Lang, and Preminger. She could be generous: "Had to sleep with her because she wanted me," says one entry.
Four Jills in a Jeep
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 29, 2009 -
Comments (2)
Category: Movies, Music, Sexuality, Sex Symbols, War, 1940s
The Lamp of Memory
Posted By: Paul - Wed May 20, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Movies, Music, Sleep and Dreams, Surrealism, 1940s, Dance
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |