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Hadn't seen this mentioned here, but the Hollywood history podcast You Must Remember This hosted by Karina Longworth is back with a new series titled Fake News: Fact-Checking Hollywood Babylon, taking stories out of Kenneth Anger's Tinseltown rumour mill recycling bin and re-examining them with an eye on getting as close to the truth of what actually happened as possible.

First two episodes are posted up in Podcastland: one on D.W. Griffith and the Gish sisters, and a second on the death of Olive Thomas, and her marriage to Jack Pickford. The next episode promises a story of Hollywood's second major scandal which had "as cataclysmic an impact on the film industry as anything short of the invention of the talkie." I'm guessing it's Arbuckle, but presumably future episodes will tackle the deaths of Wallace Reid and Thomas Ince as well.

You don't need to do anything for this book but to say it's a work of fiction, the end. She's not always accurate with her facts either.

I listened to it for a time. It was an interesting podcast, well produced, but it got a little depressing at times. She seemed more interested in that bad news than in the good news. I had wished it was more about film history and less about film gossip. Looks like I didn't get my wish...

Why would anyone with disdain for Lon Chaney Jr. do podcasts about Universal horror?

Thad Komorowski wrote:Why would anyone with disdain for Lon Chaney Jr. do podcasts about Universal horror?

I completely agree. That said, I am enjoying this series (the Karloff/Lugosi series was really the only one I didn't like and I REALLY didn't like it). The Manson series in particular was extremely good.

The truth is, that while we all realize that Hollywood Babylon is a work of fiction, it still gets quoted as fact on a regular basis. I'm all for what she's doing here. It's important to note that her audience is largely casual fans of classic cinema, so they are getting a lot of new information.

rodney4130 wrote:

Thad Komorowski wrote:Why would anyone with disdain for Lon Chaney Jr. do podcasts about Universal horror?

I completely agree. That said, I am enjoying this series (the Karloff/Lugosi series was really the only one I didn't like and I REALLY didn't like it). The Manson series in particular was extremely good.

The truth is, that while we all realize that Hollywood Babylon is a work of fiction, it still gets quoted as fact on a regular basis. I'm all for what she's doing here. It's important to note that her audience is largely casual fans of classic cinema, so they are getting a lot of new information.

And that's the problem, casual fans are getting a gross misrepresentation as an introduction—a highly unlikable interpretation of one of the most highly likable subsets of classic film. It's a disservice to impose your half-assed entry-level analysis on people who might not know better. (And LOTS of people listen to this.)

I've checked in on several of these podcasts, and conclude what's the point. I can see her interest in what she deems as salacious or contemptuous material on stars of the Golden era. Most of it is already misinformation from the two books by Ken Anger. So what's the point of using Anger's books as a template for a podcast show? Nothing new added from these podcast and hard to stomach for 40 or 50 minutes.

I saw a news blurb in the past week or so that stated that the podcast is now on hiatus. Apparently, she fulfilled the obligations of her contract and its up in the air whether the series will continue. I am only guessing but I get the feeling that the Kennth Anger series was just her attempt to meet those obligations and be done with it.

sepiatone wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:53 pm

I've checked in on several of these podcasts, and conclude what's the point. I can see her interest in what she deems as salacious or contemptuous material on stars of the Golden era. Most of it is already misinformation from the two books by Ken Anger. So what's the point of using Anger's books as a template for a podcast show? Nothing new added from these podcast and hard to stomach for 40 or 50 minutes.

I also don't get the point of any podcast where somebody is just talking about stuff they have read in old movie books as if it's new information. The whole "podcast" phenomenon to me is, for the most part, the old idiom "in love with the sound of their own voice" come to life on the internet.

Not me! I'm always looking for any excuse to hear less of me in mine, and often cut my questions down, or rerecord them shorter. But I don't think I'm doing it because I wanted a podcast—I do it because I can usually get people I'm interested in to participate here that way.

I'm not a big Pod listener, though I've been blessed to guest on several Pods/Streams.

But it's just a fact, that it's a new form of fan communication/education. And if a lot of folks who haven't had our generation's chance to read all those books, gets info from them this way -

- no harm, no foul?

- Craig

Mike's Nitrateville podcast and Frank Thompson's Commentary Track podcast have guests that are archivists, authors and researchers and they are usually fascinating to anyone interested in film history.

I've been enjoying podcasts for several years, but mostly history and economics rather than film topics.

Mike Duncan's The History of Rome and his Revolutions are great, also Robin Pierson's The History of Byzantium.

They give publicity to the authors, old and new, of books on the chosen topic. Sometimes the early episodes are a little rough, as they find the proper microphone to use, and how they want to present things.

Rick

Sometimes the early episodes are a little rough, as they find the proper microphone to use, and how they want to present things.

Oh, I could write a book on how Skype recording presents a new technical challenge every time.

EVERY. TIME.

I'm on headset #2, too, and am not wild about the mic on #2 and may soon be on #3.

It's something new every time. But there's no other way to do it, so, this is what it is.

Podcasts— by other people for me to listen to in the car, or while doing dishes, or taking long dog walks— have been a huge improvement on what I used to listen to (mainly NPR, sometimes audiobooks) because the subject matter gets so drilled down from what mass media offers. I can listen to things very precisely about what interests me, and even on politics, they tend to get away from the TV show screaming and simpleminded partisanship. At least the better ones do, they dig into subjects in a more thoughtful and thorough way.

There are some I just listen to to have the illusion of other people being around, being witty (long drives). I'm not a big fan of the dramatize-a-story Serial type, like You Must Remember This, but nothing against that type, it's just not so much my thing. It took me a long time to find film podcasts I liked to listen to, and a lot of times it's young people excited to see Notorious for the first time, which is good for them but I can't really relate to that. I do listen to Just the Discs, which is about new disc releases, and just skip around to the releases I'm interested in (not so much 80s horror, I lived through it once and that was enough), same for the same peoples' Pure Cinema Podcast, and Trailers From Hell.

wich2 wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:44 am

I'm not a big Pod listener, though I've been blessed to guest on several Pods/Streams.

But it's just a fact, that it's a new form of fan communication/education. And if a lot of folks who haven't had our generation's chance to read all those books, gets info from them this way -

- no harm, no foul?

- Craig

It's not so much reading out of books so much as reading dated misinformation from those books and introducing that sloppy research to whole new generations. This podcast was regularly guilty of that.

Which points to another reason to do interviews: to be an expert, you have to know enough to be an expert. To be an interviewer, you just have to know enough to ask an expert a question.

(I'm totally just feeding Richard straight lines now, he'd have nothing to post if I didn't keep him supplied with material.)

Mike Gebert wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:54 pm

Which points to another reason to do interviews: to be an expert, you have to know enough to be an expert. To be an interviewer, you just have to know enough to ask an expert a question.

(I'm totally just feeding Richard straight lines now, he'd have nothing to post if I didn't keep him supplied with material.)

That’s why the straight man gets top billing.

Bob

Speaking of podcasts, Fritzi Kramer of Movies Silently (and the recent Kidnapped DVD via Kickstarter) has started one. The first episode is about tinting, with Christopher Bird, who worked on tinting Kidnapped:

http://moviessilently.com/2019/02/26/th ... y-podcast/

I might be the only one here who'll miss "You Must Remember This" . It was inconsistent but sometimes compelling, in particular the Manson sub-series.

I suspect she lost a few of you with her less than adoring take on the Arbuckle scandal, but I do see some of her point: I also agree that most probably Roscoe knew a bit more than he admitted, and that his inconsistent sttements in the courtroom did him no good. Anyhow, we'll never know, even after careful research the case is a compronised mess.