Scopitone Model 450 Video Jukebox | Circa 1960 | BMIGaming.com Historical Amusement Series
90Scopitone Model 450 Film Jukebox | Circa 1960 | From the BMIGaming.com Historical Amusement Machine Series.
This clip was shot using a iPhone 4S @ 1080i resolution in low light.
About This Video : Some friends and I attended the multi-million dollar "Millhouse Collection" Auction in Boca Raton, Florida in February 2012, and during our tour of the amazing and very modern two level office building that housed the Millhouse brothers unique collection of vintage cars, music machinery and other rare oddities, we stumbled upon this very "funky" looking jukebox machine that to our utter surprise, also showed video content with the music.. Had we just discovered the precursor to today's modern internet video jukebox machines?
We originally guessed this machine was from the 60's, but after looking at a manual we found on top of the machine, which was copyrighted in 1978, we were surprised that our guess was so off - Until we searched online for Scopitone, and confirmed our original guess (from the 60's) was correct.
Scopitone jukeboxes are the 1960s ancestors of today's modern music video jukebox machines, with music content distributed on color 16mm film with a magnetic soundtrack, The first Scopitones were made in France in 1960, and the Scopitone craze spread throughout Europe (particularly in West Germany and England) before crossing the Atlantic to the United States in mid-1964.
By the end of the 1960s, they were gone.
HISTORICAL ITEMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE
From the Wikipedia entry for "Scopitone" : Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time.
Based on Soundies technology developed during World War II, color 16mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox.
Between 1940 and 1946, three-minute musical films called Soundies (produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood) were displayed on a Panoram, the first coin-operated film jukebox or machine music. These were set up in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and amusement centers.
The first Scopitones were made in France, by a company called Cameca on Blvd Saint Denis in Courbevoie near Paris, among them Serge Gainsbourg's Le poinçonneur des Lilas (filmed in 1958 in the Porte des Lilas Métro station), Johnny Hallyday's "Noir c'est noir" (a cover of Los Bravos' "Black Is Black") and the "Hully Gully" showing a dance around the edge of a French swimming pool.
Scopitones spread to West Germany, where the Kessler Sisters burst out of twin steamer trunks to sing "Quando Quando" on the dim screen that surmounted the jukebox. Scopitone went on to appear in bars in England, including a coffee bar in Swanage where Telstar was a favourite. By 1964, approximately 500 machines were installed in the USA.
Several well-known acts of the 1960s appear in Scopitone films, however, ranging from the earlier part of the decade The Exciters ("Tell Him") and Neil Sedaka ("Calendar Girl") to Procol Harum ("A Whiter Shade of Pale") later on. In one Scopitone recording, Dionne Warwick lay on a white shag rug with an offstage fan urging her to sing "Walk On By". Another had Nancy Sinatra and a troupe of go-go girls shimmy to "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". Inspired by burlesque, blonde bombshell Joi Lansing performed "Web of Love" and "The Silencer", and Julie London sang "Daddy" against a backdrop of strippers. The artifice of such scenes led Susan Sontag to identify Scopitone films as "part of the canon of Camp" in her 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'."
By the end of the 1960s, the popularity of the Scopitone had faded.
The last film for a Scopitone was made at the end of 1978. However, in 2006 the French singer Mareva Galanter released several videos which mimic the Scopitone style. Galenta's album Ukuyéyé features several songs in the French Yé-yé style. She also recently hosted a weekly French television program called "Do you do you Scopitone" on the Paris Première channel.
As of the mid-2000s, one of the few Scopitones not in a museum or private collection in the United States was located at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee. Many Scopitone films have been released on DVD or made available on the internet.
HISTORICAL ITEMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE