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For the nerd in you - Archive.org
Aug. 21st, 2005 07:12 am(Sort of cross-posted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
silentbuster.)
I ran across this site a while ago and forgot about it, then rediscovered it today by chance. http://www.archive.org is an amazing place that preserves all kinds of material in the public domain or that people simply want to make available. It has bits of everything, from very old Edison silents taken from the Library of Congress paper prints, to music concerts, to a library of internet sites and old pages ("The Wayback Machine"), and tons of other materials.
It has hundreds, maybe even thousands, of rare oddities like 1950's "educational" shorts made to teach kiddies how to be socially acceptable by being average and how not to get killed on bicycles or opening cans. There are commercials, newsreels, film student projects, modern films by small filmmakers, and documentation on all kinds of historical matters, some of it very peculiar to modern eyes. Plus, it has downloadable or streamable versions of Buster's "The General" and "The Boat," as well as a number of other silent classics like "Nosferatu," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," animations, and some public domain feature films from the sound era.
I tried downloading the Edison short (four minutes) from 1904, "Dog Factory." No music, but a surprisingly well preserved example of very early fantastic comedy. There are two advertising shorts by Max Fleischer (the genius who created Betty Boop and the earliest Popeye cartoons) explaining how to use telephones, and the brand-new medium of sound movies. If you poke around the Preminger Archives and the feature film section, you can find a lot of weird stuff.
Interesting place to waste far too much time. Just thought I'd pass it on.
Oh, yeah, and lots of Betty Boop, some of her best. Cab Calloway!!
silentbuster.)I ran across this site a while ago and forgot about it, then rediscovered it today by chance. http://www.archive.org is an amazing place that preserves all kinds of material in the public domain or that people simply want to make available. It has bits of everything, from very old Edison silents taken from the Library of Congress paper prints, to music concerts, to a library of internet sites and old pages ("The Wayback Machine"), and tons of other materials.
It has hundreds, maybe even thousands, of rare oddities like 1950's "educational" shorts made to teach kiddies how to be socially acceptable by being average and how not to get killed on bicycles or opening cans. There are commercials, newsreels, film student projects, modern films by small filmmakers, and documentation on all kinds of historical matters, some of it very peculiar to modern eyes. Plus, it has downloadable or streamable versions of Buster's "The General" and "The Boat," as well as a number of other silent classics like "Nosferatu," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," animations, and some public domain feature films from the sound era.
I tried downloading the Edison short (four minutes) from 1904, "Dog Factory." No music, but a surprisingly well preserved example of very early fantastic comedy. There are two advertising shorts by Max Fleischer (the genius who created Betty Boop and the earliest Popeye cartoons) explaining how to use telephones, and the brand-new medium of sound movies. If you poke around the Preminger Archives and the feature film section, you can find a lot of weird stuff.
Interesting place to waste far too much time. Just thought I'd pass it on.
Oh, yeah, and lots of Betty Boop, some of her best. Cab Calloway!!
