As a kid I would repeatedly attempt to watch ‘It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ every year when it received its annual nighttime network showing. But I always fell asleep at some point as the movies massive length eventually defeated my ability to stay conscious. One thing I always
‘No Census, No Feeling’ (1940) was the fiftieth short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Saturday, May 25th through Wednesday, May 29th, 1940 and was released on Friday, November 4th of that year. The film begins with the inadvertent destruction of a shopkeepers
The above reel shows some of the most beautiful shots ever made of the late, great Penn Station. It was apparently shot (according to the Internet Archive where it was found listed under ‘dailies’ for films–i.e. uncut footage) for a movie called ‘Young Widow’ starring Jane Russell, released in 1946.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Vc3S0X5tA The words ‘restraint’ and ‘Jerry Lewis’ (and I consider his name a word, not a name) don’t usually go together. But one of the most striking things about this famous clip from ‘The Nutty Professor’ is how this dance manages to be out-of-control but in exactly the way that
Here’s a production number from the 1930 version of ‘Good News’, adapted from the hit 1927 Broadway musical of the same name by DeSylva, Brown and Henderson. The lead singer/dancer is Penny Singelton who later played ‘Blondie’ in the Columbia Pictures series of that iconic comic strip. Here she does
Yesterday I posted the extraordinarily strange acrobatic comedy diving-board routine of Larry Griswold. It occurred to me that, beyond the athleticism involved in Griswold’s act, there was a comic style to the movements, all of which were clearly choreographed. I believe that it’s based on the wonderful and long-forgotten art
If you’ve never seen gymnast and co-inventor of the trampoline Larry Griswold’s comedy diving act, drop everything you’re doing for the next four minutes and check it out. Griswold’s act–he plays a somewhat inebriated man who’s standing in for ‘Larry Griswold, Amateur Diving Champion’ who can’t make the show due
‘Micro-Phonies’ (1945) is the 87th short film made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Monday, June 4 through Thursday, June 7th ,1945, and was released on Thursday, November 15th of that year. It was the second Stooge short directed by Edward L. Bernds, though it
The director behind the great dance show ‘Hullabaloo’ (see yesterday’s post) was Steve Binder. After the shows untimely (and unfathomable) cancellation, Binder went on to direct many high profile TV music specials, including Elvis Presley’s famous ‘comeback’ show. In 1968, NBC gave Petulia Clark her own special–she’d been a guest
The dance show ‘Hullabaloo’, which aired on NBC from January 12 1965 to April 11, 1966, was arguably the best show of it’s kind–better than ‘Shindig’ in my humble opinion. If you’ve never seen it watch the above complete twenty-five minute episode which features a mind boggling line-up of guests–Sammy