Movies Til Dawn

In the interests of keeping this blog (such an early 21st century term) from becoming a Laurel and Hardy tribute site, I've posted the above 1979 commercial for Milk. Don't ask why. There doesn't have to be a reason for everything. But I've always admired the drum fill toward the end that takes us into the little coda...   Subscribe in a reader

"They Go Boom" was one of almost a dozen Laurel & Hardy shorts released in the banner year of 1929. This was the year they transitioned to sound (several of the shorts released that year were silent--'Bacon Grabbers', they're greatest silent-in my opinion-was also their last) and the period of adjustment is interesting to watch. For one thing the Marvin Hatley music is missing which lends the film an eerie sort of voyeurism--because the dialogue consists mostly of grunts, threats and moans it's a bit like living next door to a dysfunctional couple whose argument you can't here but whose terrible vibe permeates the building. (Yes, that happened to me once...) The music-free ambience also makes the one-set film feel a little more like a live vaudeville sketch. The film could essentially have been silent--none of the talk is of any importance and in some ways it might have better--the music track would have covered some of the less inventive gags, the cu...

Above is another one of those priceless documentary looks at New York life in the late 20s/early 30s courtesy of the Fox Movietone News camera, an early sound-on-film system that enabled recordings of everyday life and events without having to set up cumbersome equipment which in turn would usually freeze the on-camera participants--these glimpses feature entirely natural behavior of people who are only dimly aware at best that they're being filmed. Here we see a group of children, ages 5-7 roughly, playing in a park on West End Avenue and 106th Street in January of 1930. A teacher leads them in a couple of songs while their mothers sit by on the benches, wearing those funny 1920s Cloche women's hats that so symbolize 20s fashion that to wear one now would be a clear indication that you were on your way to a 1920s themed party. What has this to do with Veterans Day you may ask? As I estimated the children's ages as I did, that would mean they were born somewhere between...

If you were sitting around your house in Los Angeles on the night of April 1st 1974 and had the TV tuned (as it once was said) to KTLA Channel 5, you would have seen the above two minutes of ads. It's the night before the 46th Academy Awards which is pro-moed (I believe the first 20 or so seconds provide a glimpse of it--an accidental tape-over I assume) which is how we know the date. Channel 5 had recently acquired the syndicated rights to Groucho Marx's 'You Bet Your Life' and was to begin airing them that summer. (I remember this because, as a 9 year old Marx Brothers fanatic, I made it a point to pretend to go to sleep at my usual bedtime only to sneak out to the den to watch the show on our black and white Zenith). A promo for this upcoming programming event is part of the clip, along with a a very sexy dance buy a woman advertising skin cream. There's also a promo for the Oscars (did they air on 5? Strange--thought it would be an exclusive network event...) ...

Above I've posted two minutes of excerpts of an interview Orson Welles gave in 1958 after ostensibly seeing "Touch Of Evil" for the first time (at the Belgian World Film Festival no less) since the studio took the film away from him. This is Welles in his pre ''Oja Kodar/swinging 70s/move back to Hollywood to sit at the lunch table at Ma Maison and appear on the Muppets and Merv Griffin' phase, a period which I always preferred to his middle-period 'outcast/Euro-based/hotel-hopping/Don Quixote-making/Countess-marrying/'I don't have the vocation for martyrdom but look at how I'm acting like a martyr anyway' period (above). The later Welles, in spite of all of the same old problems he always suffered (weight, disrespect, lack of completion funds) is somehow lighter in spirit with a twinkle in his eye that is entirely missing in the middle period. Indeed, in the 50s and early 60s Welles was remorseful, proud, touchy and filled with a tiresom...

When I was a young'un growing up in LA in the mid-seventies I was a serious radio-head. I loved all forms of audio entertainment--live radio talk shows, old vintage comedy shows, KJOI (elevator music non-stop) and even the stray TV channel that you could accidentally find on an obscure frequency. (I listened to a San Diego TV station that played old TV sit-coms that for some quirk-of-technology reason you could pick up on the bottom of the FM dial). So it was with great interest that I learned one day in 4th grade from a long-forgotten friend that you could listen to comedy on the phone if you dialed 213-836-5566. The pre-recorded routines emanated from a 'station' called 'ZZZ-ZZZ, the last listing in your telephone directory!' Once dialed, the line was invariably busy but I would persist for what seems in memory to have been hours at a time, occasionally getting through. Once I got a taste of the little radio phone-plays that Z put on, I began taping them. The...

Here's a real weirdie. It's Diana Ross and the Supremes performing a tribute medley to Fats Waller on Ed Sullivan (of course). I'm not sure I've ever seen them in this kind of performance style--they're like a really good, nicely dressed upscale cruise act. Four minutes into this five minute clip they briefly become the Supremes that we know (for a whole ten seconds) before snapping back into Tin Pan Alley/Andrew Sisters/Opening-Act-for-a-Comic-In-Vegas mode. Strangeness aside, it's really quite lovely and interestingly square, especially given the hipness of the act that we know lays underneath. And each one of the ladies was more gorgeous than the next. Indeed, my favorite Supreme is always the last my eyes have fallen upon. Wait, can I say that? Is that allowed? Did I just end my career?   Subscribe in a reader