This past Saturday the Directors Guild of America gave a memorial tribute (via Zoom) to the late great Peter Bogdanovich. I was the moderator and the guests included Frank Marshall, Bennett Miller, Cybill Shepard, David O. Russell, Chuck Workman, Doug McGrath and –via tape (or whatever we call whatever captures
Enjoy ‘Porky’s Cafe’ from 1942 directed by Chuck Jones (who was still young enough to be more stodgily credited as Charles M. Jones). The minimalism here is rather striking–the cafe is done all in shades of grey with nothing hanging on the walls. There is precisely one customer. Porky runs
‘Learn To Croon’ is a song written by Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston for the movie ‘College Humor’ (1934) and was introduced by Bing Crosby. If anyone remembers the song today though, it’s because of the excruciating rendition given by Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer in ‘Our Gang Follies of 1938’. If
The actor Carl Switzer, popularly known as Alfalfa in the Our Gang comedies of the 1930s, was clearly a tortured man. He was perceived by George ‘Spanky’ McFarland as ‘cocky…a little antsy’ and other cast members recall him causing trouble on the set by creating pranks that hurt other people
I tried–I really tried–to find a non-Warner Brothers cartoon to post this AM. But the sad truth is that as lovingly crafted and artfully achieved any number of vintage cartoons are–and I speak of ‘Tom and Jerry’, ‘Woody Woodpecker’ and everything Disney–they simply can’t hold a candle to the Merrie
What was with Jerry Lewis’s infatuation with Count Basie’s band? Something in the charts spoke to him and drove him to develop probably his best routines–watching Jerry pantomime to Basie’s music is infinitely better than watching Jerry be sentimental with children, right? The above is from ‘Cinderfella’ (directed by Frank
Enjoy a fat-ass Elmer Fudd and a still-in-development Bugs Bunny in “The Wabbit Who Came To Supper’ from 1942. This one features the opening credit frame with Bugs perched on the WB logo eating a carrot and giving a subtle look of disapproval at the audiences intrusion on his privacy,
There really is no reason at all to rank any artists work in terms of which works are the ‘greatest’ (‘worst’ is unquestionably easier to determine). Honestly it’s simply a way to attract attention and provoke discussion/disagreement and thus readership/viewership. But in this case I make an exception. Despite the
Above I’ve posted a brief excerpt of an interview Orson Welles gave in 1958 after ostensibly seeing “Touch Of Evil” for the first time (at the Belgian World Film Festival no less) since the studio took the film away from him. This is Welles in his pre ”Oja Kodar/swinging 70s/move
Enjoy Tex Avery’s brilliant Conga-mad caricature-crazed 1941 ‘Hollywood Steps Out.’ Enough said.