Has got to be Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936), surely?
First of all it was the earliest screen appearance of the flat-screen TV in the 1960 ‘The Time Machine’ directed by George Pal. Now, we bring you arguably the first recorded use of the word ‘pixelated’ – the two little old ladies in the courtroom scene in the 1936 Gary Cooper classic ‘Mr Deeds Goes To Town’.
I say ‘arguably’ because of course, the lil’ ol’ dears aren’t really talking about the basic unit of the digital picture. Nope, they’re saying ‘pixie-lated’ and they mean someone who’s ‘away with the fairies’.
But it would be a pity to let the truth spoil such a good soundbite, eh?
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
George Pal’s 1960 film of H.G.Wells’ classic sci-fi story ‘The Time Machine’ has long been a favourite of mine. I’ve watched it dozens of times. But last week, on the train up to London, I spotted something new that I’d not noticed before. There’s a scene where the Time Traveller stops in the year 1966, amazingly, on the very day that the world gets destroyed by atomic war (what are the odds of that?).









