The Gay Nineties
Cast & Crew
Harry Armstrong
Paul Dresser
Richard H. Gerard
Jack Goldberg
Film Details
Synopsis
A written foreword introduces this documentary, which traces the history of motion pictures from the 1890s through the early 1920s. After a master-of-ceremonies announces the sequences that will follow, clips of early motion pictures are shown. Included in the clips are newsreels of the inaugurations of Presidents William McKinley, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Next follows a traditional melodrama called The Fatal Glass of Beer . Then, pictures of the 1906 Joe Gans--Battle Nelson boxing match are shown, followed by portions of a French romantic drama. The film ends with shots of film stars of the 1910s and 1920s, including Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford, William S. Hart and Rudolph Valentino. Valentino is shown off-screen, as well as in a clip from his 1921 film The Sheik . During the course of the documentary, several old songs are included as "community sing" projects, including "Sweet Adeline," and "My Gal Sal."
Crew
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
A news item in Hollywood Reporter on August 13, 1938 mentioning that the film The Gay Nineties would open at the Loew's Poli theater in Bridgeport, CT on August 20, 1938, noted that the film was unrelated to a proposed Warner Bros. feature of the same title announced a few days previously. The Warner Bros. film was to be based on a scenario about a popular New York cabaret called "The Gay Nineties." No reviews have been located for the film, and no information on additional exhibition of the picture has been located. Information in the file on the film in the MPAA/PCA collection in the AMPAS Library notes that the picture was first rejected for a Purity Seal on July 18, 1938, but that certification was granted to Jack Goldberg of International Road Shows, Inc. on July 28, 1938. The certificate was issued for the picture after an objectionable historical clip was removed from all prints. The objectionable material was a portion of an early film identified in the file as The Curse of Dope or Ruined-The Tragedy of a Morphine Fiend. The picture was rejected by the New York State censor board in 1938 when, according to information in the PCA file, the film clips had been re-inserted. Other information in the file indicates that Goldberg considered re-releasing the film in March 1945 through his new company, Hollywood Pictures Corp.
