Golden Age Movie Magazines & More Archive

[AmateisGal]

Thanks to someone I follow on Twitter, I found this incredible archive of the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. Lots of great stuff here. I'm currently looking through a Photoplay magazine from January 1941. So cool!

http://lantern.mediahist.org/

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a priceless resource. Some of their scans are a bit rough, but in general there's stuff there that's hard to find anywhere outside of a major university library. WHen I think of how I used to have to buy microfilm rolls to review old copies of "Broadcasting," I am very thankful to whoever put this archive together, and I hope the copyright police don't shut them down.

"Photoplay" was the best of the movie fan rags -- in its prime, with James Quirk as editor, it was the house organ for mainstream Hollywood, but Quirk was too persnickety and independent to always follow the industry line and if you read the magazine carefully you can pick up on some of what was really going on behind the scenes. Sometimes Quirk would allow the magazine to be used to ruin personalities who had fallen out of favor but he might also from time to time go against the studios to defend a performer he felt was getting shafted. When Warners set out to ruin Alice White because she had declined to be as sexually pliable as certain executives at the studio desired her to be, Photoplay was one of the only publications to speak up in her defense.

 

[AmateisGal]

That's a priceless resource. Some of their scans are a bit rough, but in general there's stuff there that's hard to find anywhere outside of a major university library. WHen I think of how I used to have to buy microfilm rolls to review old copies of "Broadcasting," I am very thankful to whoever put this archive together, and I hope the copyright police don't shut them down.

"Photoplay" was the best of the movie fan rags -- in its prime, with James Quirk as editor, it was the house organ for mainstream Hollywood, but Quirk was too persnickety and independent to always follow the industry line and if you read the magazine carefully you can pick up on some of what was really going on behind the scenes. Sometimes Quirk would allow the magazine to be used to ruin personalities who had fallen out of favor but he might also from time to time go against the studios to defend a performer he felt was getting shafted. When Warners set out to ruin Alice White because she had declined to be as sexually pliable as certain executives at the studio desired her to be, Photoplay was one of the only publications to speak up in her defense.

Lizzie, I thought you might appreciate this resource! I've collected several magazines from the 1940s, but it's not cheap. So glad someone did this.

 

[Benzadmiral]

This page is particularly cool: https://archive.org/stream/photoplay118phot#page/n103/mode/2up A glimpse of a time when ads for films were sometimes a full page, with exciting artwork and text.

 

[Fading Fast]

This page is particularly cool: https://archive.org/stream/photoplay118phot#page/n103/mode/2up A glimpse of a time when ads for films were sometimes a full page, with exciting artwork and text.

Agreed, very much so. Also, and it's been a long time since I've seen "High Sierra," but in the scene illustrated, I thought he had a rifle not handgun (but again, it's been a long time and I'm usually wrong about these things)?

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lantern appears to be part of a larger archive site we identified a couple of years ago:

http://mediahistoryproject.org/

 

[Benzadmiral]

Agreed, very much so. Also, and it's been a long time since I've seen "High Sierra," but in the scene illustrated, I thought he had a rifle not handgun (but again, it's been a long time and I'm usually wrong about these things)?

I don't recall a shot peering down from above Roy Earle toward the bottom of a canyon, either. I suspect that was the artist's concept of a scene from the novel.

 

[Nobert]

Great Bellowing Kahuna, another online archive of old media free for the perusal. At this rate, I'll be behind even in my screen-based activities, which I normally use to get behind in my real-life activities. Who keeps posting these?

Seriously, though, looks like some terrific stuff. Thanks!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Great Bellowing Kahuna, another online archive of old media free for the perusal. At this rate, I'll be behind even in my screen-based activities, which I normally use to get behind in my real-life activities. Who keeps posting these?

Seriously, though, looks like some terrific stuff. Thanks!

Yes, I spent more time than I should have at "work" yesterday running through the 1938 and 1942 Photoplay issues, and the 1958 and 1961-63 TV and Radio Mirror scans.