In the late 1940s, Robert Altman sold a screenplay to RKO and moved to New York, figuring on a future as a writer. That didn’t go real well, so Altman moved back to Kansas City and got a job making training films -- so-called “industrials” -- for the Calvin Company, a leader in the field. According to a 1989 biography,
No, YouTube doesn’t have EVERYTHING
Altman spiced these films up with “moments” that probably looked exceedingly resourceful at the time: a dream sequence in Modern Football (1951); a story-within-the-story “frame” in King Basketball (1952), in which Altman, impersonating a nattily dressed Hollywood director, comments satirically on cinema sports clichés; cameo appearances, as in Modern Baseball (1953), from the likes of such baseball greats as Ford Frick, Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Lou Boudreau, Smokey Burgess, and Roy Campanella; and vaudeville-type gags in Better Football (1954), with William Frawley providing comedy relief as a pigskin coach who cannot resist the one-liner.
According to the Big W, last year somebody found a print of Modern Football. Which, for all my love of dream sequences, doesn’t interest me a great deal. When you find Modern Baseball, though, please call me immediately.
No, wait. Don’t call me. Call YouTube. They’re running short of content.
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