Sport Slants #1: Weirdly hypnotic vintage athletics

Is this worth your time?

Look, if you like watching grainy footage of men in very high-waisted shorts doing push-ups, you're going to have a blast. If you’re looking for actual entertainment or a cohesive narrative, skip it. It’s basically just a series of vintage newsreels stitched together with some guy named Ted Husing talking over it.

Seriously, who is this for? Mostly people who collect historical oddities or anyone who wants to see how hockey looked before they figured out how to make the puck visible on camera. Everyone else? You’ll probably be bored within thirty seconds.

The wrestling segment is… something. Frank Judson and Clevio Massimo just sort of roll around on the floor in a way that feels like they’re trying to remember the choreography in real time. It lacks the explosive energy of modern stuff, but it has this weird, sleepy charm to it.

Then we get to the hockey bit with the New York Rangers. Watching Lester Patrick coach is interesting if you’re a gearhead for sports history, but the lighting is so dim it looks like they’re practicing in a basement. It makes you realize how far we’ve come in just seeing what’s happening on the ice.

The gymnastics section with Al Jochim and Adelaide Meyers is the only part that actually feels like it has any momentum. They know how to move. It’s graceful, even if the film quality makes them look like flickering ghosts.

Random Observations

• The basketball uniforms in this look like pajamas. I don’t know how they ran in those things.
• Ted Husing’s voice is so clipped and fast, it feels like he’s trying to win a race against the film reel.
• I kept waiting for someone to trip or mess up, but everyone is very, very professional. A little too professional?

It’s not as interesting as something like How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 5: 'the Medium Irons', which actually has a point to make about technique. This is just a montage. It’s essentially the 1930s version of a YouTube compilation, just with more scratchy audio and less color.

Honestly, the whole thing feels like it belongs on a dusty shelf in a library. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s definitely not a movie you watch for fun. It’s a movie you watch to satisfy a weird curiosity about how people used to stretch. 🤸‍♂️

I found myself zoning out during the basketball drills. The sound of the ball hitting the floor is just a repetitive thud-thud-thud that eventually becomes hypnotic. Or maybe I was just tired.