Watching the 1932 Olympics is like staring into a ghost town

Is this for you?

If you like old newsreels or have a weird itch to see how people wore wool swimsuits while running, you’ll probably find this fascinating. If you need pacing, narrative, or, I don't know, a plot that doesn't involve just watching people walk around a track for twenty minutes, you might want to skip it. It’s definitely a vibe.

It’s weird watching the 1932 games now. Everything feels so... manual. The athletes look like regular people who just happen to be really, really fast, not the lab-grown superhumans we have running today.

Oddly specific moments

There’s this one shot of the crowd that lingers way too long on a guy eating a hot dog. He looks so confused about being filmed. It’s almost as interesting as the actual pole vaulting.

The sound design, if you can call it that, is just this constant, low-level hum of people cheering and what sounds like a thousand typewriters clicking at once. It’s hypnotic. I kind of lost track of time for a second.

The feel of it

The whole thing has this gritty, grainy texture. Sometimes the screen just flickers black for a frame or two. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Felix the Cat Shatters the Sheik, even though they are obviously totally different animals. This is much more grounded, obviously.

There isn't a narrator telling you how to feel, which is honestly a relief. You’re just dropped into 1932. You see the hats. You see the cigarettes. You see the weird, stiff way people stood when they were waiting for their turn to jump.

Final thoughts

• The footage of the diving is genuinely terrifying. How did they not break their necks?
• The stadium looks huge but somehow empty.
• I think I saw someone trip in the background and nobody even looked.
• It’s a weirdly lonely watch.

It's not a movie you sit down to 'enjoy' in the traditional sense. It’s more like finding a box of old photos in an attic. You don't really know who these people are, but you can’t stop looking at their faces. 🎞️