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Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture

Andrea J. Kelley (Author)

9780813586335

Paperback / softback, published 28 June 2018

194 pages, 18 figures
22.9 x 15.2 x 1 cm, 0.254 kg

"[Kelley] admirably succeeds in describing the business methods, aesthetic attributes and social history of the coin-operated "Panoram" machine and its black-and-white 16mm musical shorts, called Soundies."
— CineMontage


"A compelling read from beginning to end, Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small Screen Culture opens up an entirely new way to think about moving images, music and the technologies that made them part of our everyday lives."
— Haidee Wasson, coeditor of Useful Cinema

Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture is the first and only book to position what are called "Soundies" within the broader cultural and technological milieu of the 1940s. From 1940 to 1946, these musical films circulated in everyday venues, including bars, bowling alleys, train stations, hospitals, and even military bases. Viewers would pay a dime to watch them playing on the small screens of the Panoram jukebox. This book expands U.S. film history beyond both Hollywood and institutional film practices. Examining the dynamics between Soundies' short musical films, the Panoram's film-jukebox technology, their screening spaces and their popular discourse, Andrea J. Kelley provides an integrative approach to historic media exhibition. She situates the material conditions of Soundies' screening sites alongside formal considerations of the films and their unique politics of representation to illuminate a formative moment in the history of the small screen.  

Introduction: Soundies Jukebox Films
Part I 
 
 
Small Screen Encounters and Spatial Practices 
 
 
 


 
 
The Look-Listening Machine: The Panoram Jukebox and New Screen Practices 
 
 
 


 
 
The Sites of Soundies: The Dynamics of Space and Screen 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
Mobilizing Space: The Panoram goes to War 
 
 

Part II 
 
 
Short Forms and Enduring Formations 
 
 
 


 
 
Up Close and Personal: The Shifting Aesthetics of the Jukebox Short 
 
 


 
 
"A Swing Half Breed": Soundies' Hybrid Identities and Raced Attractions  
 
 
 


 
 
Post War Screens: Soundies on TV and the Rehash of the Film Jukebox 
 
 

Conclusion: Short and Sweet: Rescaling Screen Culture 
 
 
 

Acknowledgments 

Notes
Bibliography 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Index
 

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