The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, is right next door to Eastern Services Studios (now Kaufman Astoria Studios), where many early New York Soundies were shot in 1941. So it’s especially fitting that MoMI has acquired a working Panoram machine, complete with a reel of Soundies.
To celebrate, the museum is presenting “Coin-Operated Treasures: Black-Cast Soundies from the Astoria Studio,” a continuously running program of selected Soundies, shown on big-screen video in the museum’s Amphitheater Gallery.
The lineup includes Soundies by Fats Waller, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and more. And the Panoram will get a workout too, running 16mm Soundies in scheduled presentations.
To celebrate, here’s a Kino Lorber clip of one of the Soundies on the video schedule: The Charioteers (and some fabulous dancers) doing “Swing for Sale” (1941).