If you were a non-driver and attempted to learn to drive by watching old movies, you would be dead or at the very least severely injured from the get-go. In old movies, drivers turn to passengers while driving and deliver monologues to their face instead of watching the road. Or
Yesterday we took a drive down Sunset Blvd. in 1952. Let’s leap backwards twenty years and get some color glimpses of L.A. in 1931. This neat little newsreel is essentially an architectural tour–what else really is there to do in L.A. other than drive around looking at houses?–but at the
Dig this nifty video showing filmed driving footage of Sunset Blvd. in 1952 contrasted with a still image of the same street corner today whenever the car in the earlier footage stops at a light. We can date the old footage from early May, 1952–‘Singin’ in the Rain’ & ‘The
‘Hold That Lion’ (1947) is the 100th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, January 28 through Friday, January 31 1947 and was released on Thursday, July 17th of that year (the 198th day on the Gregorian Calendar). The film is notable
The brilliant early ’80s iteration of Second City TV, which aired on Saturday’s at midnight on NBC, was–and continues to be– my favorite comedy sketch show, far outshining the SNL of those years (to say nothing of the dead-on-arrival SNL of today). Here’s one of the best of their TV
Continuing this weeks theme of Escargot-eating, croissant-chowing, Gitagne-puffing, Burgundy-swilling French guys interviewing tough-ass directors (see Monday’s Don Siegel post and yesterday’s Sam Fuller post) here is the great writer-director Richard Brooks discussing his adaptation of Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’. Back in the 1980s, cinema journalists Phillippe Garnier and Claude
Continuing our theme of tough-ass action/noir directors being interviewed by soft, Omelette-making, Napoleon-eating, red-wine guzzling French guys (see yesterday’s Don Siegel interview) here is Sam Fuller describing the making of one of the seminal scenes in his oeuvre–the pickpocketing on the subway moment from ‘Pickup On South Street’ (1953). It’s
The fine director Don Siegel (‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’, ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Escape From Alcatraz’) was a dryly amusing, self-deprecating fellow who was interviewed on camera far less often than he should have been. Here’s a short interview with him from 1984 in which he says he has no style
‘Loose Loot’ (1953/1947) was the 146th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. No production dates are available but the film was released on Thursday, April 2, 1953 (the 92nd day of the year on the Gregorian Calendar). The first half of the film consists of a
Tomorrow, August 3rd, would have been my father Frank De Felitta’s 103rd birthday. (He passed away in 2016, age 94). To honor this milestone of not being alive for eight and a half years, I thought I’d post an exceedingly rare and culturally important documentary he made for CBS television