No Dimes Needed! This Sunday, the Panoram Is Rolling at MoMI–And I’ll Be There for the Q & A

Last month I wrote about the Museum of the Moving Image, their new Panoram machine, and the Soundies screening exhibition “Coin-Operated Treasures: Black-Cast Soundies from the Astoria Studio.

The Panoram came with an 8-film reel of Soundies. And not even the MoMI folks have seen them all yet.

This Sunday, July 21, at 1 p.m., the full 8-film reel will screen on the Panoram–exactly the way people watched Soundies in the 1940s. At 3 minutes apiece, the whole program should take about 25 minutes or so.

I’ll be on hand with MoMI curator Barbara Miller for a post-Panoram conversation and audience Q & A. And an impromptu book signing for Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time.

We don’t know for sure that the reel will include one of Dorothy Dandridge’s Soundies, seen here in A Zoot Suit (1941). But I certainly hope so.

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