11,726 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of Sam Elliott (b. 1944). I won’t apologize for the adolescent tone for the header of this blogpost. Youthful enthusiasm and hero worship are the seed kernels of …
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Bank (1915). Essentially, a much improved revisitation of his earlier The New Janitor, in The Bank …
Most of you have probably heard the news, but I do have some subscribers here who don’t follow social media and it’s quite relevant to our usual beat, so we share the news here o…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1942 comedy A-Haunting We Will Go, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. This is one of my favorite films from the team’s worst …
Today is the birthday of Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer (1927-1959). Switzer’s Alfalfa was one of the most instantly recognizable (and popular) members of the Hal Roach kiddie star…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Cobra Club, Force Majeur, vaudeville
Filed under: Amusement Parks, BROOKLYN, Coney Island, PLUGS
A little-known fact that comes back to me every time this spacey-spazzy writer gets cast in a play or movie (or produces one of his own): acting requires the same kind of focus and physical …
Today is the birthday of the the late Hollywood tough guy Robert Mitchum (1917-1997). Film noir or crime dramas are the first things that spring to mind when we think of Mitchum. His was a p…
It’s the late John Huston’s birthday, and so, a little tribute to his 1972 western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. This is a very interesting artifact, very mu…
Tomorrow is Michael Caine day on TCM, and they’re kicking it off in high style with two pictures he made in the late ’70s with Master of Disaster Irwin Allen. As I’ve writt…
Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, several musical films starring the beloved team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, followed by a few teaming Astaire with other partners. 6:00am (EST)Â F…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Broadway Brasst, Burlesque at Bedford Hall, Maine Attraction
Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Property Man (1914) Something feels original about this film in contrast with most of Chaplin’s …
Tomorrow, August 1 at 2:00pm, as part of its John Ford series, the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria Queens will be screening the 1939 classic Stagecoach. Nowadays Ford i…
Depending on how you measure it and whom you believe, July 2015 may mark the centennial anniversary of that aesthetic troupe of nymphets known as the Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, a gaggle …
It’s an exciting time to be a film geek of a certain order (i.e., me). Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind is expected to see daylight sometime next year and now I lea…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the film The Half-Breed (1916), starring Douglas Fairbanks. Based on a story by western writer Bret Harte, it was adapted for the screen by…
Today is the anniversary of the release of the Stan Laurel solo comedy Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride (1925), co-directed by Joe Rock and Scott Pembroke. This comedy was made two years be…
It’s Lisa Kudrow’s birthday today. A gentleman neither asks nor tells a lady’s age — Google it, if you MUST reduce her to mathematics. It’s been a long term goa…
Today is the 101st birthday of Professor Irwin Corey! He’s still alive! I guess he’s still waiting for Socialism. Corey’s is essentially a vaudeville act, although he in…
Today is the birthday of Joe E. Brown — for more on this comedian’s early career see my full bio here. He’s not to everybody’s tastes. Many people I know and respect …
Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the classic W.C. Fields comedy short The Barber Shop (1933). Based on a sketch Fields had performed in Earl Carroll’s Vanities,…
On the whimiest of whims the Mad Marchioness and I recently spent a couple of days in Salem Massachusetts, a jaunt we’d long discussed but through inertia kept deferring. The city is o…
Today is the birthday of Fleming W. Ackerman (1863-1946), known professionally and informally as Colonel Speck. Amazing, but true, he shares the same birthday with General Grant, Jr! Someone…
