In the mid-sixties a company called Color-Sonics developed a visual jukebox that provided what were, in essence, the first music videos. Mini-films were made to accompany pop songs of the day and people could watch as well as listen to their favorite new tunes. The machine was loaded with 16mm
Here’s the trailer for Robert Altman’s first film, the independently produced 1955 teen hoodlum flick ‘The Delinquents’ (released in 1957). It was shot in Kansas City where Altman was then based, making industrial films and directing semi-amateur theatrical productions. The film apparently starred Tom ‘Billy Jack’ Laughlin (he’s not credited
Without reservation I can say that I find ‘A Plumbing We Will Go’ easily the best Three Stooges short ever made. But I’ll go further. I’ll go on record right now (yes, on record) and say that this is on par with Laurel & Hardy’s ‘Helpmates’ and ‘The Music Box’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbAx6oznWKw Why, you may ask, are we watching a women’s prison musical number called ‘The Lockstep’ featuring an act known as ‘The Dodge Twins’ photographed in two-strip Technicolor on a lavishly vertical set (if one can refer to a prison as ‘lavish’) accompanied by dozens of imprisoned chorus girls all
Here’s a neat little five minute interview promo for the 1957 film ‘Fire Down Below’, starring Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon. Ed Sullivan seems to have schlepped down to the films Trinidad location and filmed this little pre-EPK segment for broadcast on his show–it can’t be live, can
I freely admit to never having had any specific interest in Elvis. He’s been part of the wallpaper of pop culture in my mind ever since I was a kid–always identifiable, sometimes fun, more often than not a subject of ridicule or pity. Now, in light of Baz Luhrmann’s towering
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
‘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’
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).
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