Today I was working on a short musical reel that had no credits and a multitude of broken sprockets. Unable to view the film to hear the song, I had only the visual clues. My fellow coworkers and I were able to come up with the description that the film notably had Cab Calloway in a top hat. Using just "Cab Calloway Top Hat" I was able to find information to identify the film. With the title of the piece, I was able to find a clip of the film on Daily Motion:
Thanks to keywords, within minutes I was able to locate the name of Cab Calloway's 1945 film, Blowtop Blues.
Google Books also has a copy of the Billboard that lists the films it was released with:
I have much respect for early film archivists who did not have archival resources available at the touch of a button and I am very appreciative of all the digitized materials out there.
-Trisha Lendo
1 comments:
That's fantastic. It's a soundie!
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