https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A11EWc2_WJQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qYmFXWtdo8 Yesterday I posted about the amazing George Mann home movie footage of Broadway in the late 1920s. Mann performed in a number of Earl Carroll reviews during that decade and in 1928 he was part of the seventh edition of ‘Earl Carroll’s Vanities’ along with W.C. Fields. Although Fields
Here is some extraordinarily rare and truly one-of-a-kind footage shot from the backstage wings of the 44th Street Theater in January, 1930. It shows us a few moments of a variety show in-progress called ‘Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook’, which starred Eddie Cantor, Patsy Kelly, William Demerest and a dance team called
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_sYUQl7xM ‘Oily To Bed, Oily To Rise’ (1939) is the forty-second short film made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Thursday, March 16th through Monday, March 20th, 1939 and released on Monday, October 6th of that year. Make sure to pause and crank up the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjV5U7W8X6E On Wednesday I posted two of Michael Cimino’s mid-1960s commercials which I’d sought out while reading Charles Elton’s fine new biography of Cimino. But it occurred to me that I’d never (except for his ‘Deer Hunter’ Oscar acceptance speech) heard him interviewed. And then I turned up the above,
Here are two mid-1960s Ginger Ale commercial spots, both of which use the same hipster narrator and Heffner-esque ‘Penthouse After Dark’ tone. The campaign line here is ‘one gulp is for thirst, the other gulps are for kicks’. We are deep in groovy mid-century party-land, with sexy chicks wearing striped
Before directing ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Heaven’s Gate’, Michael Cimino was a highly successful director of hip and groovy 1960s television commercials. Although he technically was part of an all-in-one advertising/production house called Madison Pollack and O’Hare (MPO), he apparently was always a step outside of the group, marching to
Here’s a real deep YouTube discovery. It’s a twenty minute chunk of mostly raw footage from a 1970 television doc called ‘Billy Wilder’ showing Wilder in the process of directing a movie. The making of the doc coincided with Wilder’s presence in Europe shooting ‘The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes’,
‘Three Little Sew and Sews’ (1939) was the thirty-sixth short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Monday, March 21st through Thursday, March 24th 1938 and was released on Monday, January 9th 1939. It is a peak Curly Howard-era short featuring some of Curly’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E81cTpcmkYohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op0NY8Fc5GY ‘Love Is All Around’, the much loved theme from ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’, was written by Sonny Curtis who also wrote ‘I Fought The Law’, made famous by Bobby Fuller. If the difference between Mary and Bobby Fuller seems like a stark one then try this on for
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6GmXsUfgA4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWojcHWdDAg&t=0s The justifiably famous and much admired theme music for Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s ‘The Apartment’ began life as a 1949 ‘mood music’ instrumental titled ‘Jealous Lover’, written by an English composer named Charles Williams. He composed many orchestral pieces and marches for his ensembles, which were recorded in