Ferry Blown to Bits as Boiler Explosion Kills 41, Injures 63 (Universal Newsreel, Sep 1932)

Description

The original release sheet reads: 1. FERRY BLOWN TO BITS AS BOILER EXPLOSION KILLS 41, INJURES 63: NEW YORK, NY - Filled to the rails with workmen being ferried across the East River to a construction job near the western end of Long Island Sound, the former excursion steamer Observation is shattered to splinters by an engine-room blast that hurls wreckage and bodies for 200 yards, in the worst harbor holocaust since the General Slocum disaster in 1904. Only the fact that the accident occurs near shore, thus filling the water with debris from the splintered boat to which injured and drowning men can cling, prevents the death toll from mounting to unspeakable heights. Divers and grapplers work in 24-hour shifts to recover the victims, while wrecking craft salvage the fragments of the ill-fated vessel from the river’s muddy bottom. An appalling catastrophe that promises to cause an upheaval in local shipping circles. 2. ASTRONOMY SAVANTS FILM HEAVENS WITH NEW COLOSSAL LENS: SIDMOUTH, ENGLAND - Astounding pictures of celestial bodies are possible with the great camera turret just installed in the Norman Lockyer Observatory at Salcombe Regis in South Devon. It is a veritable astronomical robot that can be set to turn with minute exactitude to follow any star for any length of time. Remarkable views of the Great Bear and of the Orion nebula are obtained by an exposure of five hours, while the elusive Pleiades, and the moon, herself, are accurately caught on the photographic plate with a 23-hour time shot. Another marvel in man’s march along the highroad of Science. 3. RACKETEERS IN PANIC OVER SLOT-MACHINE CLEAN-UP CAMPAIGN: BROOKLYN, NY - In a determined drive against nickel-in-the-slot gambling machines, 10,000 of which have sprung up in drug-stores and other public places and which find a large patronage among the younger generation, the police are confiscating and destroying the plague of crooked devices that have mushroomed up throughout the state. They are carted in by the truck-load, as a corps of strong-armed coppers, with sledge-hammers, make junk out of the shiny $125 mechanical thieves. The opening of school and the fact that so many children carry money for milk and lunches, prompts the authorities to take drastic means of ridding the community of these catch-coin lotteries. An impressive demonstration of police vigilance. 4. FIND HIDDEN LAIR OF AIR PIONEER’S SECRET AFTER 25-YEAR SEARCH: GRASS VALLEY, CA - A real, modern-type, stream-lined cabin monoplane, designed before Prof. Langley and the Wright brothers made their epochal experiments in mechanical flight more than a quarter of a century ago, is discovered in a locked hangar high in the Sierras, where two aged inventors, Lyman and Charles Gilmore, have closely guarded their “flying machine” for almost three decades. Finally persuaded to display their invention, which the Patent Office scoffed at as absurd in 1898, the bearded brothers dust off the ancient craft and disclose its remarkable resemblance to present-day air liners. An amazing page out of the early history of aviation just brought to light. 5. THE TIDE TURNS, PART VII - Production swing pursues upward course as industry continues renewed labor turn-over. PANAMA CITY, FL - Leading manufacturer of Kraft paper products goes on a 24-hour basis with 2000 employees as better business in this country and abroad demands more material for paper cartons, furniture wrappings and paper bags. CHICAGO, IL - Big knitting mill increases its pay-roll by 40 percent and runs day and night to meet growing orders for women’s underwear and sweaters rushed from department stores in all section. COLUMBUS, OH - An outstanding oil-cloth plant speeds up and hires additional workers as the call for coated fabrics for table cloths, wall coverings and sign cloth necessitates a capacity of 81 miles of finished product a day. DETROIT, MI - A great automobile factory puts hundreds on a full-time basis as the result of a jump of 40 percent in August sales; a striking indication that American families are finally junking their old cars and loosening the purse-strings. 6. RECORD ATTENDANCE MARKS RE-OPENING OF NATION’S SCHOOLS The nation’s biggest business, the education of Young America, gets off to a running start as 31,000,000 children and young people start to school for the Fall term. With vacation joys reluctantly forsaken, but with shiny shoes and shining faces, plaits and new hair ribbons or new knickers – as the case may be – the youngsters troop back as 1,500,000 teachers welcome their new charges. A falling birth-rate takes a small toll in the beginners’ classes, but the high schools get an overflow, because of the economic situation, with many post-graduate students, while the back-to-the-farm movement swells the rolls in rural schools. The annual pilgrimage of Youth to the fount of knowledge. 7. REGIME OF VON PAPEN CRUMBLING; PREMIER DEFIED BY HITLERITES: BERLIN, GERMANY - A sudden and surprising coalition of the Nazis and the Reds at the opening of the Reichstag precipitates the long expected flare-up against the Von Hindenburg government. Hectic scenes mark the latest turn of political affairs in the Reich as the Chancellor, now discredited along with other ministers of the aged war lord, is faced with possible reliance upon the machine guns and bayonets of the Reichswehr and the Steel-helmets, to preserve the Vaterland’s present status. His words to the assembled statesmen are an ominous augury of coming events. A world-rocking episode and a crisis in the history of the great Teutonic nation.

Collection

MCA/Universal Pictures Collection

Series

Motion Picture Releases of the Universal Newsreel Library