https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0N290zPrbAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbNJHQoFxls Here’s how weirdly tuned-in to each other YouTube and I are. Yesterday I posted a short musical variety film featuring a young Jack Benny as the emcee. It got me to thinking about how different Benny’sl later persona was from the brash, unfunny young man in the film. That
Behold a very rare and significant MGM short film from 1929 called ‘The Song Writer’s Revue’. The film features a half-dozen songwriting legends–including Gus Edwards, Fred Fisher, Arthur Freed, Fred Ahlert and Nacio Herb Brown–sitting glumly at a clutch of grand pianos. Before playing examples of their own work, they’re
Yesterday I posted a 1972 interview with songwriting great Harry Warren. Today let’s look backwards forty years from that time to 1933 and watch a Vitaphone “Pepper Pot” short called “Harry Warren; America’s Foremost Composer’. In it, Warren appears at a piano in a beautiful art deco setting, surrounded by
In 1972, Ian Whitcomb–singer, songwriter, music historian and show-biz gadabout–interviewed the great songwriter Harry Warren. Above is fifteen minutes of that video and it’s a real delight. Warren tells stories in his off-the-cuff, gruff Brooklyn manner and plays and sings a few of his songs. At the end, he and
Okay, I took a week’s vacation from posting and now I’m back. I was with family and, much as I love them, I kind of wish I was George Gershwin in the spring of 1937 on vacation with Paulette Goddard. The two of them were discreetly involved in a romance
Here’s a couple of precious minutes showing Judy Garland during a run-through for an appearance on ‘Hollywood Palace’, singing ‘What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love)’. Her listless performance is a hell of a lot more fun than many singers all out, full-blown performances though its hard to
Aired on April 28, 1966, this one-hour special featuring Tony Bennett at the peak of his (first) career was sponsored by Singer Sewing Machines and NBC and is–in my opinion–the best television musical special ever made. In addition to Tony the starry supporting cast includes Buddy Rich, Paul Horne, Milt
Joe Piscopo may not have left much of a mark on comedy but he did achieve something that cannot be superseded by any other comic; his impression of Jerry Lewis. His Jerry is the Jerry at the late stage of his career–the smarmy telethon host in his tux with shoe-polished
Watching the above reel of TV cigarette commercials from the early 1960s, one might get the impression that the product being peddled wasn’t really a cigarette, but more of a combination of perfume, cold tossed mediterranean salad, herb-infused lemonade and a good massage. Words like ‘flavorful’ and ‘relaxing’ and ‘rich’
Here’s a brief, fascinating British Pathe newsreel from 1930 showing us The Handley Page HP–42 (nicknamed the Hannibal), a giant British four-engine biplane airliner designed by Handley Page. Introduced by Imperial Airways in 1931, it was the largest airliner in the world at the time. Built mostly from metal and fabric, it was