The Beverlywood section of Los Angeles is a friendly, suburban, hilly and pleasingly landscaped pocket of real estate developed in the post-war era of the 1940s. It runs (roughly) from Robertson Blvd. on the east south of Pico Blvd. and almost reaches Venice Blvd. on the south (thus making it
Here’s a lovely look at Charlie Chaplin and his wife Oona (nee O’Neil as in Eugene O’Neil’s daughter who her dad disowned for marrying Chaplin one month after her eighteenth birthday) at their luscious home in Vevey, Switzerland in 1975. Chaplin is 86, two years away from his passing and
Perhaps it’s because I’m emptying out my late parents home of fifty years (mine too, I guess) but I’ve become acutely aware of how much of my childhood was spent not playing outdoors in the California sunshine but instead huddling indoors staring at the Zenith Television (rabbit ears, black and white etc.).
Here’s a nice little (seven minutes and change) reel of 1974 national commercials. A big part of the pleasure of watching this compendium (at least for me) is observing the gentle yet omnipresent video roll–apparently this was transferred from somebody’s VHS (or Beta?) tape. We see Steve Allen shilling for
I was wrong about Ernest Borgnine’s age while driving his RV in the previously posted clip. He wasn’t 95 when this footage was shot. He was eighty. Well, that makes me feel a hell of a lot better. Not really. I’m still rather stunned that Borgnine piloted this behemoth (while
It’s impossible for me to trace the perambulations of my mind which somehow wound up with me landing on a video of Ernest Borgnine giving a tour of his luxury RV Bus. But here it is and it’s pretty goofy/cool. In this video, Borgnine is 95 and still ‘piloting’ (his
It’s late 1953, early 1954. And somebody with a camera and a professional car mount decided to film a little of Hollywood, USA, for no discernible purpose. (I suppose it could be a background plate for a shot where the camera is in the backseat, focusing on the backs of
Dead On Arrival movies and TV shows have always held a special place in my heart. To see a super-flop is to remind all of us how bold and optimistic we are at the beginning of every enterprise, the best intentions so often leading to ultimate (and somehow pre-destined it
On November 5th, 1930, the third Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. Below is what it looked like. But a seven minute film was made of the ‘event–or at least a restaged tab version of it–possibly for newsreel consumption. It’s as
Once upon a time, a Catholic-baiting/politically liberal/legendary Jewish comedian sat down across from a politics-obsessed/regally contemptuous/possibly anti-Semitic Conservative icon and engaged in a spectacularly uncomfortable one hour of banter. Yes, Groucho Marx and William F. Buckley actually did an episode of Buckley’s ‘Firing Line’, the televised debate show which always