Speed Graphic Film and Video | Hollywood Outtakes: Pennsylvania Station, New York, June 1945 @SpeedGraphicFilmVideo | Uploaded October 2022 | Updated October 2024, 20 hours ago.
Unlike many of the outtakes in the Internet Archive, we not only know when and where this film was taken, but for what movie as well. It was shot on June 12, 1945 in New York's Pennsylvania Station, and the movie it was intended for was YOUNG WIDOW (1946), one of Jane Russell's first films. As far as I can tell, though, none of these scenes actually appear in the movie.
Not much happens in this video--just people waiting for their train. But they're interesting in and of themselves. Lots of men--and a few women--in uniform, as the country is still on full war footing. Everybody dresses well when they travel. Most of the older ones wear hats, but younger men and women sometimes go without.
The other thing to see, of course, is Penn Station itself, one of New York City's great lost landmarks. Its vast interior was one of the city's great indoor spaces. Filled with natural light from the glass ceiling, that light then filtered down to the platform level through circular glass plugs in the floor. Just 18 years later, it would be demolished to make way for the new Madison Square Garden. Its loss would inspire the city's 1965 landmarks preservation law.
The original film is silent, so I've added some music by Leonard Bernstein from the musical ON THE TOWN, which opened in New York just six months earlier.
Oh yes--I can't tell whether the woman in black (3:00-3:45) is an extra or just a passerby, but she is definitely not Jane Russell.
Unlike many of the outtakes in the Internet Archive, we not only know when and where this film was taken, but for what movie as well. It was shot on June 12, 1945 in New York's Pennsylvania Station, and the movie it was intended for was YOUNG WIDOW (1946), one of Jane Russell's first films. As far as I can tell, though, none of these scenes actually appear in the movie.
Not much happens in this video--just people waiting for their train. But they're interesting in and of themselves. Lots of men--and a few women--in uniform, as the country is still on full war footing. Everybody dresses well when they travel. Most of the older ones wear hats, but younger men and women sometimes go without.
The other thing to see, of course, is Penn Station itself, one of New York City's great lost landmarks. Its vast interior was one of the city's great indoor spaces. Filled with natural light from the glass ceiling, that light then filtered down to the platform level through circular glass plugs in the floor. Just 18 years later, it would be demolished to make way for the new Madison Square Garden. Its loss would inspire the city's 1965 landmarks preservation law.
The original film is silent, so I've added some music by Leonard Bernstein from the musical ON THE TOWN, which opened in New York just six months earlier.
Oh yes--I can't tell whether the woman in black (3:00-3:45) is an extra or just a passerby, but she is definitely not Jane Russell.
