Posters for cartoon shorts

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The old-timey movie going experience was more elaborate than today's trip to the multiplex (assuming people even bother going to movie theaters in these days of streaming services). It was full night of entertainment, with a feature film, a B film, newsreels and cartoon shorts. 

All were advertised to bring in viewers. Cartoons were a popular part of the package and these are posters of some of the cartoons of the day. These examples, and those after the jump, are from 100 Years of Movie Posters category Cartoon Shorts 1928-1964. There are many more examples at that link. 

Single screen movie theaters

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In the golden age of Hollywood theater chains were important for distributing films. Most of the theaters were single screen. In keeping with the glamor of Hollywood the theaters often had elaborate facades and interiors. As the industry evolved single screen theaters gradually gave way to multiplexes. Many of the old theaters still exist, some in disrepair, some functioning as art houses, and some now serving entirely different purposes.

These pictures, and those after the jump, are from the Library of Congress digital archive.

Bela Lugosi movie posters

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Bela Lugosi is famous for his portrayal of the vampire in Dracula. Aside from that film, his Hungarian accent and eventual morphine addiction greatly limited his roles. He was type cast to play only in horror films, and the quality of his roles greatly diminished over time. Still, he is an icon.

These posters, and those after the break, are from his various films. they are from 100 Years of Movie Posters. There are more of his posters at that site. Enjoy.

Movie posters of old serials

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I didn't realize they advertised serials, but thinking about it -- of course they did. These are posters for some of the series. For the most part the serials, which were played before the B feature were pretty silly (at least I think they were played before instead of after the B feature). If you look around you can find some of the old serials. In moderation they can be entertaining in their goofiness.

These are examples of posters promoting some of the serials. There are more after the jump, and even more at 100 Years of Movie Posters where I got these samples.

Answering a fire alarm in 1920s NY City

This is a video of the procedure NY City fire fighters used in the 1920s. About 2:20 in there are a lot of shots from a camera mounted on the fire truck as it navigates the chaotic traffic. At points they have to drive on sidewalks to make it through the busy streets. It is absolutely hair raising.

Found via Kottke.
  

Important Thanksgiving turkey safety tip

As the above film demonstrates, don't mix drugs with mutated turkey flesh created by a mad scientist or terrible, terrible things are liable to happen. You have been warned!
  

Like a duck to water

Some ducks, which had been kept in captivity and away from water, are introduced to a pond for the first time. They don't like the water at first, but it doesn't take long and soon they're ducks being ducks (source).
  

Berlin hyperlapse

The above film combines time lapse and motion photography. It does it in a very striking and clever way. Normally, in films of this type, the motion component is slow and regular, in this film its creator, b-z00mi, jumps the motion component around quite a bit. The result harmonizes well with the time lapse element, and in the deemphasizes it at the same time. Altogether it is quite a nice effect.
 

Moving in

Above is a rather odd time lapse movie of a fellow moving into his new apartment, which is rather small, and arranging it to his liking. He does a pretty good job of making a bland space interesting and livable.  
 

The end of Western civilization is surely upon us

The above picture is a still from the soon to be released movie Warm Bodies. It is a picture of a zombie sadly shuffling through the rain. But not just any zombie, instead it/he is an emo zombie who's all sensitive and what-not. But wait, it gets worse, from the film's description:

After a zombie becomes involved with the girlfriend of one of his victims, their romance sets in motion a sequence of events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

Oh, good gawd almighty, first tweener girls demolish vampires and now they're going after zombies? Dammit, can't we have a little respect for tradition? Zombies are rotting corpses with no ambition other than to eat the brains of the living, not metrosexual, beta-males who court their damsels with flowers and memorized love poems.

Besides, I don't care how angst filled he is -- if I spot that goober shambling towards me during a zombie apocalypse I'm whacking his head off with a chain saw.
 

Edwardian England

What's striking about these film clips is how interested people are by the camera. In scene after scene people star it it, and in a lot of cases you see people walk closer to it as if they are examining the process and equipment of the filming. 

How different from the street scenes we see today, where if something is going on it seems that every other person holds up their cell phone to shoot a quick video while ignoring all the others who do the same. 
 

Ham Sandwich

HAM SANDWICH from Dave Green on Vimeo.

Highly realistic fight scene from Undefeatable

Here's another ridiculous fight scene to get you over yet another hump day. I'm apologize for the poor video quality, but it has everything -- knife licking, grunting, ludicrous looking simulated slow motion punches, shirt tearing, a girl saving the hero with some towel-fu, eyes getting poked out, meat hooks, snappy dialog and more!
 

Old engine rebuilt to Hall of the Mountain King

Rebuilding the engine would be enough work for most people, This fellow made a time lapse video of disassembling  the engine, cleaning it, putting it back together and dropping it into his car. An amazing amount of the effort must have gone into this.
 

Building a Super Hornet

Dirty Harry has nothing on this guy

I may have ran out of Big Man Japan fights, but that doesn't mean I'm out of ridiculous fight scenes to get you over Hump Day. Above his the most ferocious police inspector known to man. Why, he can even send miscreants all the way from drug infested nightclubs to interrogation rooms with a single, mighty slap!
 

Big Man Japan finale

A final Big Man Japan installment to get you over hump day.The comments to the video said the old guy in the first fight was Big man Japan's grandfather. If so, it is kind of rude of Big man japan to accidentally kick his soul out of his gramp's body.

Who the other super heroes are I have no idea. Nor do I know why they make such a big deal out of tearing off the monster's pants. Very odd.

If you need to hire a crowd

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I found the above image at Ubersuper. It is a crowd of inflatable people that's been hired to fill the bleachers for a movie. They're also used for television shows and commercials. They'll dress them up and put different wigs and hats on them so they don't draw attention as they sit in the background.

There are two main companies that rent out crowds: The Inflatable Crowd Company and Crowd in a Box. Sadly neither site had prices shown. I wonder what a crowd costs these days? By the way, both websites have galleries of more pictures.

Reading about the fake crowds for rent brought to mind Krugman's televised speech at the latest Netroots. As you can see in the picture below (via Gateway Pundit), nobody seems to have attended it. Poor Krugman, if the Netrooters were all going skip his speech the least they could have done is chip in and rent an inflatable crowd to watch his talk.

Big Man Japan yet again

Another Big Man Japan fight scene to get you over hump day. Well, actually there is a lot more talking than fighting, but that doesn't make it any less bizarre.
 

Third fight scene from Big Man Japan

Here's another fight scene from Big Man Japan to get you over hump day. Is it my imagination, or are these things getting weirder? What ever the answer to that, it is best not to dwell on the... uh... symbolism of the first monster in this scene.