An early digital alarm clock is in this movie (showing revolving block numbers as opposed to the regular minute and hour hands) -- in one of the bedroom scenes on the side table. It gets a cameo role as the minute changes! Very art deco.
share....And just think....According to Wikipedia, it hadn't been invented for another quarter century!
Anybody want to explain this unexplained rip in the space-time continuum?
Or are we just going to accept the fact that sometimes clocks will spontaneously travel back in time 23 years to appear in movies.
TOO MUCH HAIR!! CANNOT SEE!! CANNOT SEEEEE!!!
It is Poelzig's doing!
''I can refute ANY argument !'' -- RexFDR
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I do believe that that is a real clock that was available at the time. It was cutting-edge Deco made by some famous Deco designer and very expensive. Perhaps someone knows who it was by. BTW there is a great article on the making of this film in an issue of American Cinematographer some years back. I think the clock is mentioned.
shareJust for the record, the Dresden State Opera has a similar clock in the main auditorium, built in as early as 1838 (no kidding).
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wiki must have caught up as they mention a patent of 1903.
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Just chiming in here on the clock (yeah; lame pun). I collect vintage art deco/moderne clocks and have a couple of these early digital ones, one identical in styling to the one in the film - still works - only a wood grain case instead of white (could have been painted wood or bakelite in the film). Don't know the manufacturer; it no longer has a label or tag.
There were quite a number of them at the time; you can often find similar ones from various makers (Telechron, Pennwood, etc.) on Ebay. Thought this clock was so cool when I first saw the movie at age 10 (the bedroom furniture ain't bad, either), and hoped to have one someday. Took 45 years, but now I do!
Poe! You are...avenged!
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I saw the movie last night for the first time, and the clock is one of many things that really struck me. I thought it interesting to see a thread about it when I got to IMDB.
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What's interesting is that in the discussion on the Filmsite the digital clock is referred to as a digital dial on a radio that Poelzig adjusts and it begins playing a certain song.
http://www.filmsite.org/blac.html
"Cum Grano Salis"
The only thing digital about the clock is that it displays digits. It is actually an analog clock, very much like round clocks using sweeping hands with gears on the inside. It works exactly in the same way. The only difference here is that is simply displays the time on a dial that rotates differently. I had one of these clocks and when it stopped working I tore it apart. Not an electronic component to be seen.
shareI believe a digital clock would refer to a silicon chip based clock. I would call the type in the movie as either a mechanical numerical, or analog numerical clock. I was always impressed with this type in the 50's-60's with the rotating cylinders. then there appeared the type with flipping cards which were pretty cool also. these clocks often weren't lit up. Digital LED or LCD is what we are used to today.
shareThere is nothing special about silicon chips to preclude a digital clock by other mechanisms. And although the mechanism may have been similar to analog clocks of the period, the display was digital, in that it showed quantized values, not approximate interpolations.
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