Apr 1, 2016

Orphan Films on the Radio

WBAI-FM New York is a noncommercial radio station, part of the Pacifica Radio Network. Raconteur, music historian, pianist, and on-air personality James Irsay is behind the mic for "Morning Irsay" Fridays from 10am to 12noon EST.

Today the Orphan Film Symposium got generous appreciation from Irsay: 38 minutes of airtime on WBAI-FM  New York.  Teaser at 10:10 in. Then the segment from 57:30 to 1:35:00, in which I he wanted to hear and tell all about orphan films and the collective work that goes into the symposium. Listen to an archived streaming recording at wbai.org.

Films played on the radio in this segment:

from the Library of Congress
  • Walter Damrosch Visits Schenectady and Sees Picture of Sound, 1929 (courtesy of Academy Film Archive), with Irsay's witty appreciation of maestro Damrosch
  • [TV ad for Panasonic Dynamite 8] (1975) with Jimmie Walker (Oddball Film + Video)
  • The Musical Blacksmiths (Edison Kinetophone, 1913) via Library of Congress
  • Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on "Swanee River" (DeForest Phonofilm, 1923)


Name checks in the conversation:
  • RCA Photophone
  • Evan Meaney (USC) Big_Sleep 
  • Rick Prelinger (UC Santa Cruz)
  • Academy Film Archive
  • Joshua Yumibe
  • Film Sound and Color since 1929
  • The Problem of the Soundtrack in Chromogenic Color Printing
  • New Histories of American Radio
  • Short-Wave Broadcasts from Japanese POW Camps
  • U.S. Marine Corps Combat Recordings
  • University of South Carolina, Fox Movietone News
  • Stephanie Sapienza (MITH)
  • Brian DeShazor and Joseph Gallucci (Pacifica Radio Archives)
  • Stephen Parr (Oddball Film + Video)
  • Little Leonie Flugrath (Shirley Mason)
  • Edison Historical National Park
  • NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Film, Cinema Studies
  • Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program
  • Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation
  • Mike Mashon
  • Center for Home Movies
  • Museo del Cine
  • La Reina de las Ondas (1949)
  • Die Verwitterte Melodie (1943)

and this one,

The Immortal Voice (Bray Studios, 1923) with Ben Model piano accompaniment.






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