Joi Lansing sings "Web Of Love".
A little about these little-known gadgets which presented short musical films.
Panoram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Panoram was the
trademark name of a visual
jukebox that played music accompanied by a synched, filmed image (the effect being the equivalent of today's music videos) popular within the
United States during the 1940s. The device consisted of a jukebox playing a closed-loop
16mm film reel projected onto a glass screen.
The Panoram is now best known for the vast library of short, three minute
music videos that were created for it. Called
soundies, these films featured most of the great musical stars of the period, including
Duke Ellington,
Count Basie, and
Cab Calloway. Many of the filmed interludes survive and are considered a priceless archive.
The Panoram was priced more than $10,000 in 2006 dollars. It was generally seen in bars, cafes, and upscale dancing establishments where they ran as a curiosity. Following
World War II, the device never recovered its previous popularity due to competition from
Television.
The
Soundies were printed backwards (mirror image) so that they would appear in a correct orientation when played in a Panoram machine. A Panoram was the size of a refrigerator and employed a series of mirrors to reflect the image from a projector onto a 27-inch, rear-projection, etched-glass screen in a tight, enclosed cabinet. The popular machines were first produced in 1939 by the
Mills Novelty Company of
Chicago, Illinois, (which also made art-deco, fancy slot machines) and found their way into countless soda shops, taverns, bus and train stations and other public places across the nation. The specially-made 16mm films ran in a continuous loop and stopped when a notch cut in the film allowed a micro switch to engage a step-back relay at the end of a Soundie. The patron then put another dime in the machine to run the series of eight 2- to 3-minute films again. The Panoram mechanics were housed in an Art Deco, high quality wood cabinet, the Soundies being 3½ minute films that typically showed jazz and other musicians of the day, as well as dance troupes and other acts. With the beginning of World War II, production of the Soundies and Panoram machines was drastically reduced due to a wartime raw material shortage and the Mills Panoram's 1940 success quickly faded.
Documentary
In 2007 PBS produced a documentary about the Panoram called Soundies: A Musical History
23.
External links
- [1] Soundies.net, history site with video clips
- [2] A site for information and parts for the Panoram
Scopitone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scopitone is a type of
jukebox featuring a
16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of
music videos. The Italian
Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time.
[1]
Based on
Soundies technology developed during World War II,
[2] color
16 mm film clips with a magnetic
soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox.
Between 1940 and 1946, three-minute musical films called Soundies (produced in
New York City,
Chicago, and
Hollywood) were displayed on a
Panoram, the first coin-operated film jukebox or
machine music. These were set up in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and amusement centers.
The first Scopitones were made in France, by a company called Cameca on Blvd Saint Denis in Courbevoie near Paris, among them
Serge Gainsbourg's
Le poinçonneur des Lilas (filmed in 1958 in the
Porte des Lilas Métro station),
[3] Johnny Hallyday's "Noir c'est noir" (a cover of
Los Bravos' "
Black Is Black") and the "
Hully Gully" showing a dance around the edge of a French swimming pool.
Scopitones spread to
West Germany, where the
Kessler Sisters burst out of twin steamer trunks to sing "Quando Quando" on the dim screen that surmounted the jukebox. Scopitone went on to appear in bars in
England, including a coffee bar in
Swanage where
Telstar was a favourite. By 1964, approximately 500 machines were installed in the USA.
[4]
The biggest musical stars of the 1960s were never released on the Scopitone.
[5] Several well-known acts of the 1960s appear in Scopitone films, however, ranging from the earlier part of the decade
The Exciters ("
Tell Him") and
Neil Sedaka ("Calendar Girl") to
Procol Harum ("
A Whiter Shade of Pale") later on. In one Scopitone recording,
Dionne Warwick lay on a white shag rug with an offstage fan urging her to sing "
Walk On By". Another had
Nancy Sinatra and a troupe of go-go girls shimmy to "
These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". Inspired by
burlesque, blonde bombshell
Joi Lansing performed "Web of Love" and "The Silencer", and
Julie London sang "Daddy" against a backdrop of strippers.
By the end of the 1960s, the popularity of the Scopitone had faded.
[5] The last film for a Scopitone was made at the end of 1978. However, in 2006 the French singer
Mareva Galanter released several videos which mimic the Scopitone style. Galenta's album
Ukuyéyé features several songs in the French
Yé-yé style. She also recently hosted a weekly French television program called "Do you do you Scopitone" on the
Paris Première channel.
[7]
As of the mid-2000s, one of the few Scopitones not in a museum or private collection in the United States was located at the
Belcourt Theatre in
Nashville, Tennessee.
[8] Many Scopitone films have been released on DVD or made available on the internet.
[5]
References
External links
Reels of film inside the Scopitone.
Joi Lansing is pictured on the Scopitone screen as well as elsewhere in these ads.
Joi Lansing and Donna Theodore making a personal appearance to promote the Scopitone.
Joi Lansing sings "The Silencer".
Scopitone reference in Archie comics.
I can remember some of the soundies being run on the PBS series "Matinee at the Bijou", although they were not run in theaters as this might make it seem. Some of them were sold on the home movie market. Today, these musical films can be seen online at sites like youtube and are also available on DVD.
Watch Joi Lansing in TRAPPED IN THE WEB OF LOVE:
Soundies
http://www.soundies.net/
Scopitone:
http://www.loti.com/fifties_jukebox/Scoptione_The_Visual_Jukebox.htm
Scopitone Archive:
http://www.scopitonearchive.com/index.html
Scopitone Blog:
http://scopitones.blogs.com/
Scopitone in Archie Comics:
http://learning2share.blogspot.com/2009/01/scopitones-in-archie-comics-1965.html