Film Homage Embassy Newsreel Theater 1940 Times Square New York City 2008 #1
by David Lee Guss
Title
Film Homage Embassy Newsreel Theater 1940 Times Square New York City 2008 #1
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Newsreels were started by Pathe Freres in 1908 in France. A year later the Daily Bioscope opened in London, devoted to only showing newsreels.
It took another 20 years for the first newsreel theater to be established in the United States when William Fox purchased the Embassy Theater in Times Square, and transformed it into the screening of newsreels.
In 1925 Fox had devised a way of adding optical sound tracks directly on the film. Warner Brothers with their October 1927 release of the part talkie "The Jazz Singer," employed the Vitaphone system, using separate discs synchronized to the film.
Fox's sound on film method was much more reliable. Celebrated Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw graced the Movietone camera in 1928.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=40VegR6uaTI&p=C675B3660FD8B49...
The series Fox Movietone News spanned 1928-1963, closing down shortly after capturing the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. There was no way it could compete with the extensive TV coverage of the tragedy.
Four years later the last newsreel series, Universal, closed shop in the U.S.
Newsreel series began with Pathe News (1910-1956).
Newsreels reached their height of popularity in the pre television days of WW2.
This 1940 photo is of the Embassy Newsreel Theater in Times Square showing footage of Hitler's invasion of Denmark.
The Embassy stopped being a newsreel house in 1949, again because of TV. The 556 seat Embassy opened in 1925 and closed in 1997, and is now operating as the Times Square Visitors Center.
By far the most creative newsreel series was "The March of Time (1935-1951) produced and directed by Louis de Rochemont (1899-1978).
It had begun as a radio program in 1931, using news maker's voices or actor's imitations if real audio was unavailable.
The most controversial "March" episode was 1938's "Inside Nazi Germany."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTvJPLxcwiU
de Rochemont later used his on location filmmaking technique, propelled by a stern narrator, in feature films, including the 1946 film noir "The House on 92nd Street."
NBC launched in February 1948 a 10 minute program, Camel Newsreel Theater with John Cameron Swazee, who voiced over newsreels.
Six months later CBS began Douglas Edwards and The News. Dumont Television had two short lived newsreel series that same year.
But in a short time all the networks shot their own footage.
An Australian fictional feature film about newsreels, "Newsfront," was released in 1978. It is set between 1949 and 1956.
And I would be amiss if not mentioning that Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" summarizes Charles Foster Kane's life brilliantly with a parody of "March of Time" in its fictional newsreel "News on the March;" created with the assistance of RKO Radio's "actual newsreel staff."
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July 28th, 2016
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