https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2e9acreKmQ Behold the first six minutes of Bob Fosse’s 1979 ‘All That Jazz’, a paean to musical theater, dance, creativity, life and death. To my eyes, the film looks better and better over time but nothing beats the above sequence. Edited within an inch of its life, it tells in
Dig this crazy/cool Fosse dance sequence from ‘Sweet Charity’. Set to the go-go-ized strains of ‘Big Spender, the dance known as ‘The Aloof’ is a masterful creation, Fosse at his most crypto-sexual and controlled, with a centerpiece dancer who is nothing short of phenomenal. (Who is she? Is she out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_2Jw8S_uEghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCiiWOSa9pA Above are two exceedingly obscure and quite fascinating glimpses of Cyd Charisse in the early 1940s prior to being discovered by Arthur Freed and Robert Alton at MGM. The first is a ‘soundie’–a short musical film made to be watched in a special Jukebox that showed film reels of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aILHK6iHKghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2_w-QCWpS0 Apropos of yesterday’s post featuring two clips from the 1979 ‘The In-Laws’, here is the theatrical trailer followed by the ‘serpentine’ scene which still knocks me on my ass whenever I watch it. Remember going to movie theaters to see movies like this? I saw this at a theater
My sense is that very few people would disagree with the statement that ‘The In-Laws’ (1979) is one of the funniest talking comedies ever made. (I refer of course to the original, not the ill-advised 2003 Michael Douglas/Albert Brooks remake). The movie, written by Andrew Bergman, directed by Arthur Hiller
‘The Ghost Talks’ (1949) is the 113th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, August 26th through Friday, August 29th 1947 and released on Thursday, February 3rd, 1949. It’s a fine Shemp outing with a strange inner-flashback depicting the ghost as a
To close out this week’s obsessive pursuit of the movie and event known as ‘Riot On Sunset Strip’ here’s the excellent opening credit sequence featuring The Standells singing the theme. Given that it’s the mid-60s, they sound admirably ahead of their time, performing with a kind of proto-punk vibe. See
Per yesterday’s post in which I discussed and summarized the Sunset Strip riots of late 1966, above is the trailer for ‘Riot On Sunset Strip’, the movie that was hustled into existence in order to capitalize on the riots national coverage. Since the first (main) ‘riot’ occurred on November 12,
Here’s a fascinating few minutes of documentary footage of the Sunset Strip riots of 1966. The footage is lifted from a longer documentary called ‘The Forbidden’ (which I’ll discuss in the coming days). In addition to the value of seeing the Strip in its heyday (complete with Dean Martin’s caricature
Why do Worlds Fair’s dismantle the extraordinary buildings, pavilions, statues and parks that they create? Only the Eiffel Tower remains of the Paris 1889 Worlds Fair and look at what an enduring masterpiece that is! The New York 1939 Worlds Fair was filled with Streamline Moderne (and some Art-Deco) architecture