Yestereels Of 1961

Yestereels of 1961 (volumes for 1941 and 1951 are also available) opens with some top news stories (JFK's inauguration, Yuri Gagarin's legendary space flight, the construction of the Berlin Wall, etc.) which are followed by...more newsreels, separated by cue cards ("Amusing Moments," "Newsmakers," "Styles & Show Biz," and "Sports"). While some of the pieces are interesting (Helen Keller meeting JFK, Hirohito moving into a new house, etc.), the newsreel clips retain both their original corny music and their original corny narration. There also appears to be no governing reason for selection of clips: a bit on an Italian carnival is fun to watch, but the omitted Bay of Pigs incident seems more important to me; a segment on junior boxing is cute, but no mention is made of Floyd Patterson's championship bout against Ingemar Johansson. For that matter, the "Sports" segment features three newsreels on baseball and one on basketball--nary a whisper about the beginning of the Green Bay Packer's dynasty (6 championships in 8 years, beginning in 1961). So, what we have here is a program which features major omissions and has no index (making it useless for reference purposes). Not recommended. (Available from: Threshold Marketing, 8418 Scarsdale Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46256.)