First movie to use the "walking along while neon signs float by in the background"

Cafe Society
1

We’ve all seen this technique before - the main character is walking in place towards the camera, and in the background Neon signs zoom out towards the screen edges.

The character may be in despair, all disheveled as the signs floating by say “Liquor Store”…“All Night Bar”…“Gambling”…etc.

Or they could be having a good time, like in the first Austin Powers movie where all the signs were famous bars.

I can remember an older Frank Sinatra movie where they used this, also a silly 60’s movie with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, (A New Kind of Love, I think), but surely this technique is older than that? Can someone name the first movie to do it?

2

Seems like that technique might have been used in It’s a Wonderful Life (when George walks through the town after it has been overrun with nightclubs and bars). My memory is fuzzy on this.

3

Yep, they used it in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and I’m pretty sure they did it in Lost Weekend, which came out the year before. But I think the technique was used in earlier movies.

Eric