Today is the birthday of Shari Lewis (Sonia Phyllis Hurwitz, 1933-1998). This influential puppeteer and ventriloquist was such a ubiquitous and comforting presence on tv when I was growing u…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harold Lloyd’s 1927 feature The Kid Brother. In The Kid Brother, Lloyd stretched somewhat, venturing into what one thinks of as Keato…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Coney Island, Movies, PLUGS Tagged: Bouncing Ball, Coney Island, Museum of Interesting Things
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, Drag and/or LGBT, PLUGS Tagged: Busby Berkley Dreams, Matt Knife, Stephin Merritt, Stonewall Inn
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Hal Roach silent comedy film short Should Tall Men Marry? (1928). The film is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that it…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the silent W.C. Fields comedy feature The Potters (1927), directed by Fred C. Newmeyer. The Potters is one of several lost Fields fe…
Tonight on Turner Classic Movies: A welter of westerns centered on train robberies! Except for this first one, which is an “Eastern”: 8:00pm (EST): The Great Train Robbery (1979)…
When we think of “B movies”, most of us are conditioned to go straight to genre pictures: Â science fiction, horror, murder mysteries, noir, and westerns. (Thanks, French New W…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release date of the silent comedy short Mabel and Fatty’s Wash Day. In this one Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Mabel Normand pl…
On Sunday Anita Ekberg had the bad fortune to pass away as 1.5 million people were filling the streets of Paris. This is my apology (and my excuse) for not getting to this little tribute unt…
Today is the birthday of Kay Francis (Katharine Edwina Gibbs, 1905-1968). Most folks in my set discover her from her role as the vamp in the Marx Brothers first film The Cocoanuts (192…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy short Oliver the Eighth (1934. In this classic, Laurel and Hardy are barbers. Laurel sees an ad i…
Today is the birthday of William “Shorty” Blanche (1875-1931). Described a little unfairly as a “toothless dwarf” by W.C. Fields biographer James Curtis (see photo…
Among the reassuring pleasures of the age has been Dick Cavett’s blog for the New York Times. Reassuring because Cavett is excellent. He’s always deserved a prominent forum from …
I was tickled pink to get the opportunity recently to (almost) complete my Harry Langdon education by seeing the lion’s share of his extant talkies. (I had already seen some of the fea…
Today is the birthday of the great American portraitist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). His 1889 portrait of Dame Ellen Terry as Lady MacBeth seemed an appropriate painting of his to celebr…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Rock Bar, White Elephant Burlesque
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe Arbuckle-Buster Keaton comedy short The Garage (1920). This is the last in their historic series of pairings. After this, Arb…
Today is the anniversary of the first release date (in 1924) of the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle feature-length comedy Leap Year. The release, however, was in France, not the U.…
 Today at 4:oopm (EST) Turner Classic Movies will be showing the late phase John Wayne western Big Jake (1971). A great movie, well constructed and entertaining — yet really …
 Any night I get to have popcorn, hot dogs and soda for dinner is a good night, and the only restaurant I know that serves those all together is the concessionaire at the circus. And amo…
Just learned that Rod Taylor had passed away. I inevitably would have written about him; today seems an appropriate occasion. Taylor was one of the last of the old school leading men, wit…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Vaudeville etc. Tagged: Bushwick, Coba Club, Force Majeure, Sara Valentine, Tanya Solomon, vaudeville
Today is the birthday of Anita Louise (Anita Louise Fremault, 1915-1970). Anita Louise began as a child actress in the early 1920s, briefly on Broadway but also almost immediately in films, …
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Keystone comedy Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916), starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Mabel Normand, and directed by …