Name: Yesterday's Witness: A Tribute to the American Newsreel
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 54 min
Cast: Lowell Thomas, Ed Herlihy, Harry von Zell

Now Forgotten Documentary A Real Time Capsule

I am not surprised that this is the first comment for Yesterday's Witness. This pretty much forgotten documentary by the late Christian Blackwood has interviews with the then-living newsreel photographers who filmed the events. The standout is the interview with Norman Alley, the Universal Newsreel cameraman who was on the U.S. gunboat Panay as it was attacked and soon sunk by Japanese warplanes. The Panay was an escort vessel on the Yangtze River that had evacuated civilians from Nanking, then about to be pillaged by Hirohito's army. This interview about the Panay incident is a time capsule.

On July 26, 1987, The New York Times published a letter from Hamilton Darby Perry, who recounted the events, he had interviewed Alley for a book about the Panay incident. When Perry wrote his letter, another U.S. Navy vessel, the USS Stark, was still in the news. On May 17, 1987, during the Iran-Iraq War, an Iraqi Mirage fighter jet sneak attacked and sunk the USS Stark with two Exocet anti-ship missiles. Luckily, the United States government now has moved on, incidents with Iraq are a thing of the past and . . .

I saw the 52 minute long documentary on a Pacific Arts Video laserdisc, made in 1983 according to the back cover. Blackwood apparently did not have the money to restore the archival black and white footage, some looks pretty ragged. The video is not the best either, which shows up on laserdisc. But narrator Lowell Thomas sounds great as usual. As a side note, Pac Arts later had a contract with PBS to release PBS documentaries on video (I have a few on remaindered laserdiscs), a contract that led to a long lawsuit when PBS dumped Pacific Arts in 1993 after the great success of Ken Burns' The Civil War. PBS honchos did not want to share that success with Pacific Arts, but PBS eventually paid Pac Arts owner (and ex-Monkey) Michael Nesmith big money to settle the punitive damages lawsuit Nesmith won in federal court. Burns seems to have had the right connections, he got the corporate funding while outsider Blackwood had to work on a shoestring budget. But Blackwood had the right idea, make a documentary featuring history's eyewitnesses to important events before they passed away, something Burns picked up in making his recent World War II documentary.

--- Information on this documentary from the University of San Diego website: This film is a documentary subtitled "A Tribute to the American Newsreel" that describes the era of the newsreel 1911-1967. Interviews include studio narrators Ed Herlihy and Harry Von Zell, cameramen, musician Jack Shaindlin. Clips are shown from famous newsreels, such as the Hindenburg crash May 6, 1937, with the emotional description made on disc at the time by radio announcer Herb Morrison; the Japanese attack on the Panay Dec. 12, 1937; the Cuban Revoution of 1935, Lindbergh's airplane takeoff May 20, 1927, and Coolidge's welcome home on Lindbergh's return to the U.S.; the Lindbergh kidnapping case of 1932 and the Hauptmann trial of 1935; George Bernard Shaw talking 1927; Fiorella La Guardia smashing slot machines; the airplane crash into the Empire State Building 1945; the death of Lawrence of Arabia; the Tacoma Bridge collapse.

The Big 5 newsreel companies were Fox, Universal, Paramount, Hearst- MGM, Pathe-Warner Bros. (revised 7/23/05 by Steven Schoenherr)

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Yesterday's Witness: A Tribute to the American Newsreel

"Yesterday's Witness: A Tribute to the American Newsreel" is a historic homage to the rise of journalism, media and entertainment news. At the very start of film history the newsreel was a staple of widespread media. Often shown before films in American movie theaters, the short clips would offer the latest reports on World War 2 and the state of the nation. Though these tidbits of information had potential to spur false notions and misinformation, they were some of the firsts ventures into photojournalism and the moving image, industries that continued to grow and improve in decades to come. A collaboration between director Christian Blackwood and his consultant, historian Dr. Raymond Fielding, gives way to a fascinating insight into the lost long medium.

Yesterday's Witness: A Tribute to the American Newsreel (1976)

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Yesterday's Witness: A Tribute to the American Newsreel

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