December 27, 2007

Sinatra's The House I Live In added to film registry


The National Film Registry has added 25 more classic films to the national registry. The films are chosen because they are culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. Perhaps most importantly, the films listed in the national registry are almost certain to be preserved. Among the 25 new films is the 1945 Sinatra film The House I Live In. If his support of Ronald Reagan was Sinatra at his most conservative, The House I Live In was certainly his most liberal. Here's a repost of a post I did about the film:

The House I Live In (1945) was a short film written by Albert Maltz and starring Frank Sinatra. It was made to oppose anti-Semitism and prejudice at the end of World War II.
Albert Maltz

Maltz was one of the The Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment by Hollywood movie studios in the 1940s and '50s due to their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected.

Here is the complete film (all ten minutes of it). See and hear Frankie, in full, Columbia-era bloom, performing the title tune and "If You Are But a Dream" (lovely!). The bald gentleman with the pipe at the beginning is Axel Stordahl, Sinatra's arranger and conductor during his Columbia years:

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