Here’s the (in)famous ballroom dancing match-up between James Cagney and George Raft from ‘Taxi’ (1932) directed by Roy Del Ruth. According to a dance savvy Youtube commenter: ‘Neither Raft nor Cagney are doing the Foxtrot. Mr. Raft is doing the Peabody and Mr. Cagney is mixing the Two Step into
There is something hypnotic and more than a little melancholy about this three minute silent reel of 8mm film shot in New York City in 1983 (our ‘year of the week’–see previous post). It appears to document a family outing on a warm spring or summer day. Our family appears
It’s easy to mock or criticize the 1980s but I have rose-colored glasses on when it comes to that decade. I turned 16 in 1980 and spent the happiest decade of my life roving around the quirky, edgy and still dirty and crime-laden New York City on display in this
‘Shindig’, a weekly pop music and dance program which aired on ABC from 1964 to 1966, was the inspiration for the somewhat slicker and better remembered ‘Hullabaloo’ which aired on NBC. A number of syndicated dance shows–‘Hollywood A Go Go’ and ‘Shivaree’ most notably–also appeared on the scene, but ‘Shindig’
Tomorrow night–July 12–at 7PM EST I will be the special guest on Will Friedwald’s weekly Zoom-Show ‘Clip Joint’. I’ll be sharing and discussing various clips of TV dance shows from the 1950s and 60s and I’d love you to join if you can. The official invite via Will is below.
Today I’m posting the last of the three short interview films made in 1931 under the series title ‘Intimate Interviews’ (see previous two posts to catch up on what little history I’ve been able to figure out about the how and why of the existence of these fascinating little oddities).
I’m not sure what this cartoon, possibly the best Daffy Duck directed by Friz Freleng, has to do with ‘Yankee Doodle’ or anything remotely Independence day related but it’s a major hoot. I was always particularly delighted as a kid when this one turned up and got all too familiar
Yesterday I posted a fascinating little oddity of an interview with James Cagney shot in 1931 for a series of shorts called ‘Intimate Interviews’. There were two more of these done, one with Bela Lugosi and the last with Walter Huston. Above I’ve posted the Bela Lugosi, filmed as the
Here’s a new find (at least for me). It’s a 1931 short film called ‘Intimate Interviews’ featuring a journalist named Dorothy West interviewing the new screen sensation James Cagney at his home. There are so many interesting things about this eight minute time capsule that its hard to know where
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkWbTMJNWl4 James Cagney began his career as a ‘hoofer’ in Vaudeville–an admittedly self-taught dancer who picked up steps quickly and was athletic and acrobatic enough to try just about anything, all in the name of putting on a good show. He wended his way to Hollywood in the late 1920s