Mel Selfe

@melselfe.bsky.social

447 Followers 826 Following

Lecturer in Cultural Policy at the University of Glasgow. Media history nerd. Likes archives. Not actually Eve Arden.

A baking tray of chard lasagna. Half of it gone.
A haul of farmers market vegetables on a kitchen work top. Lots of green.
Programme for a Oxford University Film Society screening of BOAN held Electra cinema on Queen St on Sunday 24 February 1935. The feature is preceeded by two short French films From 1934 (an animation—Night on Bald Mountain—noted for it’s experimental technique and a factual—The Pacific Problem—noted fir its efficient use of diagrams to communicate complex research). The US short is a 1934 Disney Silly Symphony, Santa’s Workshop, listed with no blurb. The full programme note for BOAN is as below: This picture was a reply to the super spectacle, the Italian ‘Quo Vadis.' It was decided that ' The Birth of a Nation ' was to be the world's greatest film in twelve reels with many thousands of extras. Griffith is important in that he had a central theme round which he built his scenario, using selected types for the various roles, seldom using the same actor again, but rather passing them down to the smaller directors. This picture has no star value and depends on pure cinema for its success, Lilian Gish being at this time comparatively unknown. This policy in cast selection has since been adopted by the most advanced Soviet directors. Griffith was also far in advance of his time in his use of the close-up; till then the influence of the stage had deemed the showing of only a portion of a person on the screen as impossible. An example of the introduction of close-ups of things in order to draw attention was in the shot of the galloping hoofs of the horses cut in with shots of the riders themselves. The theme of this film was based on the result of the enfranchisement of the negro, and much was said, at the time, about it being anti-colour propaganda.
‘Speech stations performed strongly during a quarter dominated by major news stories and live sport. BBC Radio 4 increased quarter-on-quarter to 9.15 million listeners, while the Today programme grew four per cent to 5.79 million listeners.’ From a Radio Today (14/526) report on RAJAR Q1 ratings.
Los Feliz art deco cinema frontage in LA, with a yellow and turquoise taco shop at the bottom left.
Medium close-up of a seated Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce), head thrown back in anguish, psychically experiencing the death of her gestating clone children, having just blown up the installation incubating them. Blake’s 7 (3:7) Children of Auron.
Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (J von Sternberg, Paramount, 1932), on a train, having the most glamorous sneaky fag ever.
Poster for Blonde Venus, B&W, but with the blonde afro wig from Dietrich’s stage costume picked out in yellow.
Full page advert for the Stetson Whoopee number. Behind a generic head and shoulders a man in a hat is a production still, captioned ‘Rehearsing the Stetson number in Whoopee”’, of Berkeley positioning a group of four Goldwyn Girls hats on set.
A circle of dancers in cowgirl attire, shot from overhead, waving their Stetson hats. This is the first Berkeley kaleidoscope shot.
Screenshot from email: On behalf of the 2025 Hollywood Conference Program Committee, I am pleased to inform you that your paper proposal was accepted. Congratulations! Title: Regulation and its Unintended Consequences: the MPPDA Advertising Code and the growth of product placement in 1930s Hollywood