March 10, 1933…2 Earth Shaking Events In 1 Day At W6XAO Los Angeles …
March 10, 1933…2 Earth Shaking Events In 1 Day At W6XAO Los Angeles
No one at Don Lee’s Los Angeles TV station W6XAO had any idea that they would make television history twice in one day, but 84 years ago today…they did!
Although there were less than 100 TV sets in all of Los Angeles, those viewers got an eye full that day! The first historic event came during the regularly scheduled one hour of daily broadcasting, from 6 till 7 each evening, except Sundays.
That night, the first motion picture feature ever shown on television was presented and TV history was made. Amazingly, “The Crooked Circle” was still playing in movie theaters at the time!
Just 6 minutes before the movie rolled from the W6XAO studio at Seventh and Bixel in Los Angeles, the earth began to shake in Long Beach, just south of LA. The 6.4 magnitude quake hit at 5:54, and before it was over, 115 lives were claimed.
That brings us to the second piece of TV history. It is believed that on this same day, W6XAO became the first television station to broadcast film of a news event.
There are conflicting stories as to what happened, but from the research I’ve done, W6XAO appears to have heard the news while “The Crooked Circle” was airing, and decided to stay on the air indefinitely. Shortly after, they were contacted by a Hollywood newsreel cameraman who had been in Long Beach at the time and had film of the event.
After rushing through a negative print, he made his way to the station and using reverse polarity, the film was shown on the air later that same night. Some reports have the first news film airing the day after, but either way…it was a red letter day in TV history!
The photo is believed to be a taken from a playback of the quake film at W6XAO. -Bobby Ellerbee
Scott:
The International House earthquake footage was a fake.
They came clean about it years later.
I wonder who the cameraman was. It might have been Lin Dunn, I know he was in Long Beach and got some footage of the quake, and he worked at RKO at the time and had the ability to get something processed right away. I remember him mentioning that he had shot the quake with his own camera and sold it to somebody. He had a mechanical set that he built from a kit in the thirties to recieve the Don Lee broadcasts, maybe he took it to them.
Bobby, thanks for another truly amazing post! It occurred to me in the wake of the loss of Robert Osborne that there should be a presence on TV dedicated to television in the way that he and TCM were and are dedicated to movies. About the closest I can think of is the Decades channel, and the Pioneers of Television series on PBS. I would think a regular series or even a network…maybe TCTV (Turner ClassicTV), would be quite popular. I can’t think of anyone more suited for a host than you. Have you ever tried to pitch such an idea?
I’ve never heard this story before. (Of course, most mainstream histories of television assume everything of interest happened in and around New York.)
Mechanical system. W6XAO didn’t have electronic TV until 1939.
That’a amazing resolution for 1933! Was this a mechanical or all electronic system?
That 3600rpm disk is scary. Drag racing flywheels have been known to come apart, and they’re a lot smaller than this!
Jim Palmer, here is a page with the film chain http://www.earlytelevision.org/w6xao.html
Film at 11.
The actual moment that the quake hit was captured as the movie “International HOuse” was being filmed at Paramount … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVxF6XcXWTI
Any ideas as to the construction of the film chain? Assume 35mm film.
Where do you find this stuff?? This is fabilous. Thank you. Bobby.