Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:
Whilst watching the 1998 movie The Interview on Netflix, I spotted a Kriesler Radio Company Super-Power Long Range Panoramic 11-71 made in Newtown (Sydney) Australia about
1:11 into the movie (the opening scene.)
More information here: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/kriesler_11_71_117.html
I’d never heard of the Kriesler Radio Company before, probably because they were in Australia. The Super-Power Long Range Panoramic 11-71 was made in the late 50’s is beautiful, and it has interesting bandspread markings.
I agree, Ed! The bandspread/dial on the Kriesler is beautiful. I was not at all familiar with this Australian radio–thank you for sharing!
I’ll add this post to our ever growing archive of radios in film.
Funny you both should mention how beautiful they are – personally, I’ve never much liked the look of most Krieslers of that era & general style, finding them dissonantly weird-looking, but each to their own. Some of the earlier Kriesler grams & tabletops are beautiful though. I’ll also admit that I find most vintage US radios either boring or ugly, so I guess there’s no accounting for taste 😉
I’ve also got a soft spot for the slightly later 41-21 & 41-22 transistor portables – still a bit weird-looking, but my father had a 41-22 as his workbench radio when I was growing up. That one’s long gone, but I’ve been keeping an eye out for one at a decent price…
FWIW, the 11-71 & similar are MW-only sets & don’t have a bandspread dial – what looks like one is in fact separate rows of station IDs for each Australian state. On the pic above you can see the rows for Victoria (VIC) & Western Australia (WA), with the not-quite-readable station IDs being the 2-alpha suffix (e.g. the “KZ” just readable on the VIC row = 3KZ, now 3KKZ on FM). The capital/major city stations are also in a slightly bigger font compared to the rural stations in each state.