Synchronized cavern diving

An evening pause: They call this a flash mob, but that’s not accurate. These divers did not mysteriously appear here to move in unison in order to surprise someone. They all planned it together.

Nonetheless where they are and what they do is beautiful. I especially like when they coordinate the pointing of their dive lights.

Hat tip Mike Nelson.

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Paul Robeson – Ol’ Man River

An evening pause: From the 1936 movie adaptation of the Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein Broadway musical Showboat. While some of the visuals are a bit overstated and feel a bit preachy, this is still the best movie version of this song I have seen. Rather than strut about with big visuals, the film focuses on Robeson, who sings the song introspectively, as if it is something he is thinking.

A bit of trivia: The film’s director was James Whale, the man who made the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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Hetty & the Jazzato Band – Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano

An evening pause: The title means “You Want to Be American”. The song was written in 1956, and is “about an Italian who affects a contemporary American lifestyle, drinking whisky and soda, dancing to rock ‘n roll, playing baseball and smoking Camel cigarettes, but who still depends on his parents for money.”

Hat tip Tom Biggar.

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Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers – They Can’t Take That Away From Me

An evening pause: Another movie pause tonight, this time showing the films themselves. This clip includes two performances of this song, from two different Astaire & Rogers films. The first, from Shall We Dance? (1937), has Astaire singing the song, knowing that the Rogers character is leaving him. Of course she ends up not going.

The second clip is from The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), their last film together and done after a split of ten years. They knew then this would be their last film, and now the words have a meaning far greater than the story in the film. When they exit at the end of this song, they know it is pretty much for the last time.

Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.

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