11,728 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of the great character Eugene Pallette (1889-1954). Pallette is very well known to film buffs for his indispensable parts in the ensembles of classic movies like My …
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Stan Laurel short Hickory Hiram (1918). This was one of Laurel’s earliest films, made for Universal’s Nestor brand. …
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of a particular favorite of many New York City loving silent comedy fans, Harold Lloyd’s Speedy (1928). Counterintuitively, g…
 Today is the anniversary of the release of the Buster Keaton feature Spite Marriage (1929), directed by Edward Sedgwick. Spite Marriage is considered Keaton's last silent film, al…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harold Lloyd short A Sammy in Siberia (1919). This film is something of a rarity: a silent comedy set against the backdrop of t…
Today is the birthday of Peter Robinson (1874-1947), best known as the human skeleton in Tod Browning’s movie Freaks (1932). While he was married to a bearded lady in that film, in …
Just a quick note to say we stopped by Barbes last night to catch an installment of Opera on Tap’s developmental series New Brew. We were particularly impressed by the work-in–pr…
 Today is the birthday of Grady Sutton (1906-1995). A native of Chatanoooga, Tennessee, Sutton specialized in mama’s boys, simpering sophomores, whiny sons-in-law, rubes in the big…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harold Lloyd feature For Heaven's Sake (1926). Directed by Sam Taylor, this comedy casts Harold in his callow young rich man mode,…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harold Lloyd‘s  last feature The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (later retitled Mad Wednesday), directed by Preston Sturges.…
 Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin short The Star Boarder, directed by George Nichols. This is a terrific early comedy. Nice strong situatio…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of funny silent comedy short Dog Shy (1926), starring Charley Chase and directed by Leo McCarey. Charley plays a guy who is so terrifi…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy short Laughing Gravy (1931). It's brutally cold outside and snowing. Laurel and Hardy are in bed. Laure…
 Today is the anniversary of the release of Air Raid Wardens (1943), one of Laurel and Hardy’s last and worst features. Made for MGM and directed by Eddie Sedgwick, the fi…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date Charlie Chaplin’s last two-reel short, Pay Day (1922) Pay Day resembles another late Chaplin short A Day’s Pleasure (19…
 Hello and welcome again to Vaudephone, your one stop shopping for all the best contemporary variety acts, viewed through our patented retroscope. Today we feature the Bindlestiff …
 Today is the birthday of Jules Vernon (1867 " 1937). Vernon was an Oxford educated music hall and vaudeville performer who specialized in ventriloquism. His act consisted of him inte…
 Originally posted in 2013 The Hall of Hams is my series on some of my favorite actors who have brought the art of melodramatic acting into the modern era. This is anecdotal, but I think…
Just got the exciting news from the folks at Marxfest that a 23 second fragment of the lost silent Marx Brothers film HUMOR RISK, self-financed by the team in 1921, was discovered earlier th…
 Happy April Fool’s Day! In honor of the day we share Charley Chase’s hilarious 1924 comedy for Hal Roach, April Fool. Joke shop pranks aplenty at the expense of cub re…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of Safety Last. starring Harold Lloyd (1923). Safety Last is the best known of Lloyd's features, by virtue of it containing the ico…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin Esssanay Comedy A Jitney Elopement (1915). This is one of Chaplin’s first movies with a reasonable plot; it …
In case you missed my very loud tweets this weekend, the big news at the moment is that the Divine Miss M plugged my book No Applause in this week’s edition of People Magazine. T…
Today is the birthday of Warren Beatty (b. 1937). In a career full of interesting movies, Beatty’s most outre may be 1965′s Mickey Free. Directed by Arthur Penn, this li…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Stan Laurel solo comedy Pie Eyed (1925). In the decade or so prior to his teaming with Hardy, Laurel had a great deal of diffic…
