WPTZ-TV Newsreel Plane

The “WPTZ Television Newsreel Plane.”

If anyone has any information on this plane and why WPTZ owned it, the author of the site would be grateful for further information.

WTVG (WSPD-TV) – The Early Days of 1948

Telecine found online of the early days of WTVG back in the spring and summer of 1948.

Cameraman Edward Guetiein, 1919

News cameraman Edward Guetiein standing by his Moy camera.

Filming at Tule Lake

Cameramen Frank Vail of Pathe News, and Joe Rucker of Paramount Newsreel, photograph boundary markers at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in Newell, California.

Capitol Presser

Newsreel and still photographers photographing a big wig in Washington D. C.

“News is Public Domain”

“News is public domain. A news outfit in quest of a news beat might steal a story from under the opposition’s nose, but they won’t buy it!” – Norman Alley

On September 22, 1927, heavyweight boxer Gene Tunney was scheduled to defend his title against William Dempsey at Chicago’s Soldiers Field. In a foreshadowing of things to come in modern sports, the exclusive rights to photograph the fight was sold to a private interest by the name of Harry Voiler.

This restriction did not sit well with the newsreel crews in Hearst’s Chicago office, who decided come hell or high water, they were going to photograph this fight in the name that “news is public domain.” And they were going to try every trick they knew of to get those shots.

The first scheme they hatched up was to make photographers Allyn Alexander and Hiram Lutz disappear from the face of the earth. Soldiers Field is/was flanked by two huge colonnades overlooking the field, and Alexander and Lutz was to stake out a position on top of them, the view being a commanding location for a shot via a long telephoto lens.

In an effort to escape Voiler’s watch for intruding crews, the Hearst boys decided to setup camp on the colonnades five days before the fight. In the dead of the night, the entire staff helped to move Alexander and Lutz, their cameras and other equipment for their extended camping trip on the roof. And there, they waited until the morning of the fight.

When the eve of September 22 dawned, Voiler and his men went over the stadium with a fine tooth comb, those exclusive pictures were going to be exclusive, and he didn’t trust the competing newsreel men to not to try any shenanigans. As Alexander and Lutz watched them sweep over the fields, bleachers and every nook and cranny, suddenly they saw Voiler point at the colonnades. Foiled! Alexander and Lutz packed their gear up in a hurry and beat a hasty retreat back to the office.

Hearst may have been knocked down, but they weren’t out for the count. Norman Alley had another plan – in the form of ringside tickets to the game and a small stroke of luck. Alley put in a call to the editor in New York, Charlie Mathieu, and requested more crews to come to Chicago. Among those who answered Alley’s call for reinforcements that night were U. K. Whipple, Carl Wallen, Johnny Bockhorst, Eddie Morrison and Ted Rickman.

Security for the fight was put in the hands of the Illinois National Guard under the command of General Roy Keehn – who also just happened to be a member of Hearst’s Chicago general counsel. Orders were given by Keehn to the ushers of the fight that no one bearing boxes, bags or cameras was to be barred from entering as long as they possessed a valid ticket to the fight.

The eve of the fight, the eight Hearst cameramen headed for the stadium, split up and entered separately. They got their shots of the fight from beginning to end from every angle around the ring, and while they were under the jurisdiction of the Illinois National Guard, there was nothing Voiler could do to stop them. As soon as the final bell rang and the fight was over, the Hearst men hustled back to the offices with their film, knowing that Voiler will be hot on their tail as soon as they were out of the national guard’s protection.

Back at the office, the photogs dropped off their film in the darkroom for the operator to soup the film and they headed for home, leaving Alley and a few operators behind to finish editing the reel. Voiler ordered some of his hirelings to Hearst’s offices in an attempt to stop Alley from shipping the reel out. The hirelings attempted to kick the front doors in, while Voiler’s lawyer constantly called non-stop issuing threats to bully Alley into stopping what he was doing. Alley refused to be intimidated and after taunting Voiler’s lawyer on the phone with “call back later. We’re busy getting out a prizefight special,” called a friend of his with the Chicago Police Department. Alley’s CPD friend send over a detail to chase off Voiler’s thugs and to guard the office while Alley finished printing off the reel. The finished reels were escorted to the local movie houses under police protection and the negative was sent to New York via a chartered flight.

And Alley finally went home after a long week to get what he considered what was news in the public’s interest instead of a story to be sold exclusively to the highest bidder.

Another Pair of Nomads

This crew, Dick Maedler, camerman, Lew Tappan, soundman, spent two years in the Congo with Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson on the trail of gorillas. It was the first bona-fide sound outfit to operate in the African jungle. During their many safaris into the bush, the explorers use these pygmies for guides and porters. Mrs. Johnson is trying to persuade the pygmy chieftain to say a few kind words for the microphone.

From “Newsreel Man” by Charles Peden

On the Top

A newsreel crew films from the top of an old clipper.

A Contact Man at Work

Correspondent A. A. Brown interviews the former Mrs. James Stillman as she introduces her new husband, Fowler McCormick, from the steps of their honeymoon bungalow at Southampton, Long Island. “Double A” Brown has been responsible for the screen presentation of many socially prominent people and their various activities. Note the compactness of the complete sound-recording and camera equipment of today.

Source: Charles Peden’s Newsreel Man

Covering the Rose Bowl…or not

This incident would have taken place most likely in December of 1934 judging by what years the newsreels do not have footage of the Rose Bowl.

Two things happen every New Year’s Day at Pasadena, California – the celebrated Parade of Roses in the morning, and the East-West football game at the Rose Bowl in the afternoon.

The Rose Parade is a two-hour procession of festive floats (you’ve seen ‘em in the newsreels) while the football game brings together the champions of the Pacific Coast Conference and (theoretically) the most outstanding winning team of the years, coming from east of the Continental Divide.

It was somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s, when the Los Angeles representatives of the big five – Hearst-Metrotone, Fox Movietone, Paramount News, Universal Newsreel and Pathé News – presented themselves, as annually, at the Rose Bowl football headquarters for their usual quota of working-passes, badges and whatnot. Imagine their feelings when they learned that the rights to film the big game had been gobbled up by some local focal firm!

“But,” solaced the football committeeman, “here are your passes, with one proviso. You can make pictures, but you can only use as much as one hundred feet. Agreed?”

Agreed? Where did he get this stuff? However the boys took the passes, said nothing more, and bowed politely out of the office.

Once outside, they ran to the nearest bar and went into a huddle. Three Pasadena fruit punches later, they had their own solution. They marched in a parade of their own and called on the parade committee. The boys forthwith told that august body that insofar as they couldn’t have camera carte blanche at the game, well – they’d just have to forget photographing the parade.

Dynamite in December! The old year was dying, and the parade promoters look as if they too had dates with the undertaker! Judging by the color of their faces, it looked as if Pasadena was about to have its first white New Year’s. They fussed, they fretted, they fumed, they pleaded – but the five photogs were adamant.

Then the parade committee went off on that bromidic “Am I my brother’s keeper?” tack. Oh, come now, cajoled the Pasadenans, surely you wouldn’t do this to us after all the plans we’ve made, because of what the football crowd does?

Wouldn’t we, though? Well, we’ll show you, was the seed the five cinemen planted. And they left, feigning a first-class huff.

As soon as the movie makers had gone, the parade people got into a huddle. They finally concluded with cocksurety that come New Year’s morning, so also would come the newsreel cameramen.

They lived to be very wrong.

The parade wasn’t photographed. Neither was the afternoon game. However, the boys used the passes and watch the game like regular people.

The following December, the rose impresarios sent a love gift of forget-me-nots to each of the five newsreelers. Tucked into the baskets were promises that what had happened the year before would never, never happen again…and oh yes, they also sent along a couple of choice extra tickets for the lensers’ friends.