Movies Til Dawn

After a private screening last night of 'Ed Wood' (which is, for my money, the best film ever made about the life of an artist), my son and I spent some time on Youtube finding the original film clips and trying to compare them with the fastidious recreations. What was I thinking? There was already a perfectly accomplished split-screen version of exactly what I was taking way too much time trying to do on my own. So I posted it above. Enjoy nine or so minutes of 'Ed Wood' and...Ed Wood.   Subscribe in a reader

Here's another stupid Korvette's commercial (see yesterday's post for the cheapo Julie Newmar spot) which, if nothing else, provides some nice glimpses of period 1970s stereo receivers and turntables. This commercial is thirty seconds longer than the previously posted commercial and the faux-musical number contained within its structure seems to have actually been prepared, rehearsed and planned. Did they simply spend too much money on this ad and decide to cheese-out when doing the Newmar ad? Or did Julie's presence bust the budget and thus require a serious pullback on production values? I hope it was the later, for Julie's sake. And I hope they provided her with a private car to and from the set to ease the disgrace of having to do the ad at all. Though somehow I think they tried to palm off a bus pass on her...   Subscribe in a reader

Without the long-defunct east coast department store chain Korvettes, it's safe to say we wouldn't have a  Walmarts or a Costco. E. J. Korvette (nee Kerfauf), the founder of this junky suburban bin of trash, brought a number of new ideas to the shopping world, including discounting (then illegal), subscription shopping (a la Costco) and expanding to distant suburbs instead of sticking around the business center of towns. This last innovation proved to be his greatest non-contribution to our country's culture.  Every time you find yourself driving in a somewhat isolated and undeveloped area and then suddenly see a huge, ugly windowless/charm-free building looming on the horizon off the highway, you have Korvette to thank. The business went bankrupt in 1980 after thirty-plus years. Why? I don't know. But the above commercial might offer some clue to the clueless management of the chain. They managed to hire the fiery, leggy and impossible-not-to-be-sexy Julie Newmar to ...

What on earth possessed warm and fuzzy comedian Danny Thomas to build the monstrously large Trousdale Mega-Moorish-Monstrosity in which he and wifey RoseMarie spent their declining years? Usually when the kids move out, a couple downsizes. But not the Thomas's. Above is a tour of their steroidal manse as pictured last year when it was on the market for a ludicrous 135 million dollars. (It wound up selling for a mere 60 million). The sellers were not the Thomas family, who unloaded it in 2000 for a fast 15 million. There's a lot of hating for this place in the Youtube comments section but I have to say that its wildly over-the-topness is somehow refreshing, given that it was built by a warm-hearted (at least his persona was) TV family comedian and not some oil-pushing, arms-dealing, money-laundering scumbag. As retirement villas go, it's wonderfully silly. Groucho Marx, who lived further below in Trousdale (same street though--Hillcrest Rd.) used to complain that Thomas ...

If you type pretty much anything into the Youtube search bar, someone will have posted a video of some sort related to your search. Hence the above five minute clip of a 1967 'Lucy Show' featuring Milton Berle, an actress named Ruta Lee (about whom I know nothing) and a quick and charming cameo by Milton's wife Ruth. What were my keywords? 'Milton Berle Wife'. And why? Click here for my post a couple of days ago featuring a Jack Benny show co-starring a bevy of Beverly Hills show-biz wives, among them the fetching Mrs. Berle. I suppose Gracie Allen qualifies as one of them, but video and information on her are too easy to find. Next up, Mrs. Danny Thomas...   Subscribe in a reader

Here's a bite-size clip of an old Dick Cavett show with Jack Benny and Phil Silvers as guests. The two are obviously fond of each other and, as always when Benny is a guest, you don't get that electric 'who's going to top who?' thing that often happens when multiple comics are on stage. Benny was famous among other comics for being an uncommonly generous audience. Indeed, Silvers does most of the talking as Jack sits by, languidly listening. But look out. When Benny does intrude, it's perfectly timed, unexpected, and winds up getting the big laugh. This stuff was an art for these guys and Benny's true genius was in his 'artlessness'...you didn't see it coming and often there didn't even seem to be anything there until he found it, which often had to do with his sense of timing. Speaking of which, Mel Brooks referred to Benny's timing as 'dangerous'. A perfect way to put it--now when you watch him you'll see how truly, scari...

In the above episode of Jack Benny's TV show--which for some reason has become my highly valued 'it's-four-AM-and-I'm-depressed' antidote--Jack insists on being part of a Beverly Hills charity event to which he's not been invited. The event is being hosted by the wives of Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, Kirk Douglas and Phil Silvers. They all play themselves and they're all real dishes, in a very proper, late-fifties kind of housewife-ish way. Below I've posted thumbnail sketches and ghoulishly included links to their obits. The dead ones, anyway. Eden Marx was forty years younger than Groucho and has the sleek and mysterious vibe of a foreign-film star of the period--though she was born in Utah which, I guess, actually is pretty foreign. She was Groucho's third wife (and his third divorce) and lived only into her early fifties, sucumbing to cancer in Palm Springs in the early 1980s.  Ruth Berle was a mere thirteen years younger than Uncle Miltie an...

Having just directed a baseball movie (okay, it was a year ago but in a director's life a year is just moments ago) I've had my fill of the religiosity that adherents of the game carry around when discussing the sport. The 'poetry' of it all, the history of it, the integrity of it etc. The truth--as you probably don't need me to tell you--is that baseball is played by athletes and athletes, by the very definition of their skills, tend to be mildly demented, overly competitive, under-eduacted and stunted-at-youth-when-daddy-forced-them-to-play-competitively-or-else-pusnishment-would-ensue, assholes. (Major exception: the very cool pro and semi-pro minor league players who acted in my film...most of them anyway). Watch the above video for some of the most delightful examples of lousy sportsmanship in the major leagues. Whether it's a pitcher throwing a broken bat at Mike Piazza or a guy literally stealing candy from a kid (it's at 2:23) you'll see bas...

On April 14, 1931, Wakatsuki Reijiro became the new Prime Minister of Japan and Berlin Police Vice-President Bernhard Weib won a defamation lawsuit against Joseph Goebbels, who was ordered to pay 1500 Reichmarks. Meanwhile, in New York City, Baseball season opened with the New York Yankees playing the Boston Red Sox in a game that began at 3PM and lasted a brisk two hours. (What the hell happened to baseball that added a third of the time to this already tedious game's length?) Ultimately the Yankees beat the Sox 6-3, with Babe Ruth hitting a homer in the seventh (see below video).  The above is sound-on-film footage of pre-game and game activities, captured by the invaluable Fox Movietone sound cameras. You'll see Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the Yankees manager Joe McCarthy (who stayed with the team until 1946). More importantly, you'll see that on that early spring day pretty much everyone wore a hat and tie to the ball game. If you're interested in the box score an...