A special salute to the 50th anniversary of movies in
Hollywood.
[Mrs. Francis Carey] from Pittsburgh: “I was
the first pianist in the first silent movie theater”
Pittsburgh’s Nickelodeon movie theater
opened in 1905 and changed the way motion pictures were presented to the
public. Hundreds of nickelodeons (literally
“five-cent theaters”) quickly popped up all over the country, usually
presenting vaudeville acts along with short, silent films. Within a few years, small, storefront
nickelodeons would be replaced by larger theaters.
Madame X: “I was Rudolph Valentino’s leading
lady”
Lila Lee was a leading lady of the
silent picture years beginning in 1918, and she somewhat successfully
transitioned to talkies in the 1930s.
She starred with Valentino in Blood
and Sand (1922), one of the most popular pictures of the silent era.
Diverting from the usual format, the panel
screens clips from, and answers trivia questions about, Phantom of the Opera (1925), Blood
and Sand (1922), The Luck of the
Irish (1948) (featuring Jayne Meadows), Marty (1955), From Here to Eternity (1953), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), It Happened One Night (1934), Lost Horizon (1937), Casablanca (1942) and High Noon (1952). In this era before cable television, home
video and streaming services, classic and even current films were not nearly as
readily available as they are today, so this parade of famous scenes was
something of a novelty.
Mike Todd, the producer of Around the
World in 80 Days (1956), appears to plug a television special airing the next
night (October 17) commemorating the first anniversary of his Oscar-winning
film. The special, broadcast live from a
party for 18,000 guests at Madison Square Garden, was called “Around the World
in 90 Minutes,” and would be hosted by Todd and his then-wife Elizabeth Taylor.
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