I’m somewhat disappointed that the goofy music video I posted the other day didn’t draw more of a response from my three loyal readers, but I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes. Not every entry can be a winner.

Still, I thought the “Trapped in the Web of Love” clip was interesting enough to warrant some googling, to see if I could figure out what the heck that thing was supposed to be and where it came from. It turns out that my campy little curiosity has a pretty interesting history…

The clip is something called a scopitone, produced two decades before anyone had ever heard of MTV and intended to be played back on a machine of the same name. Scopitone machines were essentially video-jukeboxes, designed in France in the mid-50s and licensed to an American manufacturer in the mid-60s. Placed in more upscale locations than the standard jukebox — cocktail lounges, swank restaurants, and hotels, instead of taverns and diners — the Scopitone allowed patrons to select one of 36 short films for a quarter a play. Such a thing would be pretty easy to accomplish these days with DVD or hard-drive technology, but back in the ’60s the scopitone clips were on 16mm film strips, stored on a big drum in the heart of the machine and rear-projected on a plastic screen, similar to the old Moviola gadget my dad used to use for editing our Super-8 home movies.

According to what I’ve been able to find, somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 Scopitone machines were made here in the States, but they were apparently a short-lived fad, their demise hastened by various legal problems (there were accusations of Mob involvement in the company that made American Scopitones) and by the fact that scopitone clips catered to a pretty square demographic. (“Trapped in the Web of Love” was about as hip as they got, it seems, while the exploding popularity of rock ‘n’ roll was almost entirely ignored.) They died out sometime around the Summer of Love, at least in this country.

Not surprisingly, given the rare and unique nature of these machines, there are collectors and enthusiasts out there. A quick search revealed a blog dedicated to these obsolete novelties, and also a detailed history page. I’m sure there are other sites if you’re curious; here is a photograph of one of them. Kind of cool looking, I think; I wouldn’t mind having one in the family room. If I had a family room.

Now, turning to my specific scopitone clip, “Trapped in the Web of Love” was apparently one of the more popular ones, no doubt due to the bikini-clad precursors of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” girls and the lovely (if somewhat bored-looking) singer. Her name was Joi Lansing, and she was a model, singer, and B-movie actress whose biggest success was a recurring role on the old Beverly Hillbillies TV series. Curiously, she was born right here in my home town of Salt Lake City; she passed away young, only 44 years old, in 1972, a victim of breast cancer. Brian’s Drive-In Theater has a nice tribute page for her, featuring lots of photos, all of which are safe for work.

I don’t know, maybe none of you folks out there in InternetLand care about this kitschy stuff, but I like this sort of thing. The scopitone sounds like a pretty interesting gadget, “Web of Love” amuses me, and I think I may be developing a crush on a woman who died when I was three years old. Such is my screwy life…