[Culture] Secret Cinema Tonight: SOUNDIES: ROCK VIDEOS OF THE 1940s

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The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design presents SOUNDIES: ROCK VIDEOS OF THE 1940s Friday, February 20 8:00 pm Admission: $6.00 Moore College of Art and Design 20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia (215) 568-4515, ext. 4099 Before MTV, before rock promo clips, indeed before rock and before video, there were rock videos. Well, not exactly, but beginning in 1941 people could see short visualizations of top performers singing hit pop songs, on small screens across the land. What they were seeing were Soundies -- the 16mm film software that fed an exhibition network of thousands of film jukeboxes, conveniently placed in bars, restaurants and bus terminals. Patrons of these gathering spots would insert a dime into a large cabinet resembling an overgrown record jukebox, but with a glass rear-projection screen. Shortly after, a 16mm projection mechanism inside would rumble to life, and the lucky clientele would see what was probably their first moving image of performers they had previously only heard on the radio. Some of these film clips were straightforward recordings of a visual and audio music performance, showing a band in a nightclub like setting. Others were much more complex and imaginative, using multiple scenes, fantasy story lines, comic relief and sophisticated optical effects -- in other words, exactly like what is seen today on MTV, except shot in black and white and featuring swing and pop music of the World War II era. Tonight -- Friday, February 20 -- the Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design will present SOUNDIES: ROCK VIDEOS OF THE 1940s. While in the past we have presented programs focusing on Scopitones, the Soundies' 1960s film jukebox descendants, this will be our first full program devoted to the original coin-operated music clips. There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00. All Secret Cinema presentations are projected in 16mm film on a giant screen (NOT video, even though we used the word "video" in this program's title). The performers and musical styles featured in our SOUNDIES presentation will include a rich variety, including well-known jazz and swing artists, lesser known dance bands, and forgotten novelty acts. Clips will be shown starring Gene Krupa, The Mills Brothers, Fats Waller, Count Basie, singing actors Yvonne De Carlo, Alan Ladd, and Buddy Rogers, plus The Delta Rhythm Boys, Vincent Lopez & His Orchestra, Tony Pastor & His Band, Borrah Minnevitch & His Harmonica Rascals, Frances Faye, Lani McIntyre & His Aloha Islanders, Tom Emerson's Hillbillies and many more. Preceding the films, Secret Cinema curator Jay Schwartz will give a brief illustrated talk about the history of Soundies. SECRET CINEMA WEBSITE: www.voicenet.com/~jschwart