Behold this delightful reel of home movies shot in Times Square on the above date. Theaters are showing Dean Martin as Matt Helm in ‘The Silencers’, Paul Newman as ‘Harper’ and the supposedly worst movie ever made (it isn’t but it’s pretty lousy) ‘The Oscar’ is proudly in its first–and
‘Idle Roomers’ (1944) is the 80th comedy short-subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Wednesday, November 17th to Saturday, November 20th, 1943 and was released on Saturday, July 15th, 1944 (the 197th day of the Gregorian calendar). It’s a good solid early-later era Curly
I get that Ernie Kovacs isn’t for everyone–he was often referred to as ‘The Olive’, code for ‘acquired taste’. Actually I have a friend whose taste I usually am in agreement with who once said that Kovacs comedy was for him ‘like being told oatmeal is dessert’. Nonetheless I love
On Monday I posted a clip of comedian Ernie Kovacs doing his ‘Percy Dovetonsils, Poet Laureate’ shtick. There are many more Kovacs TV moments that I considered posting but I ran across this very funny and rather atypical Kovacs moment which happened when he was a guest on ‘What’s My
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTM9TkQ9VAUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLJOROSMxHQ&list=PLKjjIa7cwTkLmfGjn2u46IPYY0onPWUII&index=4 I have a great affinity for 1920s culture–the music and early sound films in particular. Not that the ‘talkies’ (as they were then referred too) are easy to watch anymore–at least not in the way they were intended to be. Early sound film is pre-historic, with acting so unbelievably
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj2JzNd7wuE One of television’s greatest comedian/innovators was Ernie Kovacs, and one his most famous characters was poet Percy Dovetonsils. A Youtube commenter refers to Percy as a ‘coded gay character’ but I don’t see what’s terribly coded about it. Percy’s lisp, his mincing expressions, the general aura of louche period-gay
Let’s close this weeks Sinatra-bashing extravaganza with another goofy clip from his shaggy television variety series of the early 1950s, the boringly named ‘The Frank Sinatra Show’. In this clip he introduces the singer/comedienne Dagmar–somebody once said car bumpers were styled after Dagmar’s figure. Sinatra’s intro is embarrassing. He was
On March 7, 1994, Frank Sinatra was performing in Richmond, Virginia to an adoring crowd. Unfortunately in the middle of ‘My Way’ he collapsed on the stage, dehydrated from a combination of a diuretic he was taking and late night drinking in the hotel bar. Here’s local news coverage of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMGASlOu028 Continuing our shallow dive into the slump years of Frank Sinatra’s career (roughly 1949-53) here’s a clip from Sinatra’s TV show that he somehow maintained during the period, the daringly titled ‘The Frank Sinatra Show’. Frank sings ‘These Foolish Things’, one of the loveliest ballads of the era accompanied
In the late 1940s both Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx were in their slump years–the Marx Brothers were essentially over and Groucho’s attempts at movie-star solo work were met mostly with a shrug. He made two movies–‘Copacabana’ and ‘A Girl In Every Port’–that were disappointments and the final Marx Brothers