The March of Time
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The March of Time was a newsreel that was shown in movie theaters from 1935 - 1951. It was prepared by Time, Inc. as the idea of executive Roy Edward Larsen. It was launched in over 500 theaters and was an immediate success with audiences, but because of its high production costs (estimated at $50,000 per episode, which were released about one per month), was a money loser. It was ultimately ended when the widespread adoption of television and daily news shows obliviated the newsreel format.
The newsreel included both reporting, on-location shots, and dramatic reenactments.
It was satirized in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane as News on the March.
From 1931 to 1935, The March of Time was presented as a radio show.
[edit] MGM musical
The March of Time was also the title of a planned MGM musical film produced in 1930. Production of this early film, which would have been one of the first musicals filmed in Technicolor, was abandoned, although a number of musical numbers were filmed, some of which later found their way into other pictures. In the 1990s, footage from this unfinished film appeared in That's Entertainment III. Among the performers scheduled to appear in this film was Bing Crosby.
