In this new series we look at some interesting appearances by typewriters in old movies.
A few months ago we discussed the specialist Musicwriter which was a typewriter to create musical notation. In the rather good 1939 spy drama Cipher Bureau we see one (or similar anyway) in action! The film deals with a U.S. government department tasked with cracking enemy agent codes (which the film covers in quite interesting detail).
The key part of the film however is when the enemy agents switch to an ingenious new code which uses musical notes, the spy master planning to send his message over the radio in a live concert! The code breakers are onto this though, they listen to the concert and transcribe the music into notation using the Musicwriter (how realistic this is i don't know, i can't play a note!)
Thanks to the Musicwriter the enemy spy ring is foiled, the U.S. is safe and everyone goes home happily for tea. Typewriters save the world, again.
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| Image from movie |
