Here’s a short but delightful clip of the great Mel talking about working with the great Orson on ‘History Of The World Part 1’. I love Welles answer to Mel’s question as to what he was going to spend his salary on but I don’t believe it for a second;
YouTube is an interesting place to hang out. It enjoys introducing people to material that it houses and makes some curious connections when doing so. For instance, I’ve been posting Fats Waller material for the past few days. When I awoke this AM and logged in I found that they
Here’s another Fats Waller short made for jukebox consumption in 1941 (see yesterday’s post for ‘Your Feets Too Big’). ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’, written by Waller, Andy Razaf and J.C.Johnson, is another of his hit novelty numbers and it’s given a rowdy treatment in this dramatization of what a Harlem
Last Friday I posted about a beautifully restored jukebox that was equipped to show films of the bands performing the songs in the jukebox. These films, known as ‘soundies’, are a great preservation tool as far too little film of performers of the day exist, especially black performers who were
Here’s an excerpt of a musical sequence from an obscure 1944 Republic Studios movie called ‘Atlantic City’. The number is ‘Harlem On Parade’ and it’s a more-than-slightly-valuable documentation of three of the prime black entertainers of the 1930s/40s. I refer to the above mentioned performers who all are given a
‘We Want Our Mummy’ (1939) was the 37th short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, November 1 through Friday, November 4, 1938 and released on Friday, Feb 24, 1939. It’s one of the best, most assured and fastest paced prime Curly-era shorts
A gentleman named Jon Torrence made the above home video of a beautifully restored machine from 1939 called a Mills Company Panoram. This was a period jukebox with a screen that permitted the viewing of soundies–short films of bands and singers performing popular songs of the day. Mr. Torrence is
Here’s the complete ‘Shindig’ from October 7, 1964 which features The Beatles bookending the show. They begin with ‘Kansas City’ which features a rocking (though barely audible) McCartney vocal and then everyone has to wait twenty minutes for their return. Meanwhile another seven performers take the stage, possibly feeling the
Well, no, not exactly. But she did guest on ‘Playboy After Dark’ in 1970 and do this weird and groovy dance in what looks to be her green pajamas. I like digging around the margins of Barrie–everyone knows her as Fred Astaire’s partner, but clearly an appearance like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOmlwDTVxA As a piece of material, ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkens is pretty much indestructible. When I first stumbled upon this clip from a 1969 ‘Hollywood Palace’, featuring a Barrie Chase dance set to the song, I had high hopes. Alas, they seem to