Here’s an astonishing four minute reel of outtakes from ‘Hells Angels’, saved apparently by accident and carefully preserved and lovingly restored. I can’t begin to tell you how rare it is to see outtakes from a film this early–movie outtakes began to be saved in the mid-thirties as a result
Yesterday we began a weeklong look at Howard Hughes’ landmark 1930 World War 1 aerial epic ‘Hells Angels’ by viewing the film’s brilliantly achieved air-born climax. Today we hit the ground with a resounding thud and move from the astoundingly impressive to the astoundingly awful, with a two-part scene set
The saga of Howard Hughes epic World War 1 film ‘Hells Angels’ (1930) has been well documented–if you don’t know it then this Wikipedia entry does a good enough job of giving you the basics. Essentially, the young Texas millionaire/aviator was infatuated with the movies from a young age and
Here are two clips from a Mae West film I’ve never seen called ‘Goin To Town’ (1936). The film is a ‘Post Code’ West and, as you know, she’s really more of a ‘Pre-Code’ kinda gal. All you really need to understand the story of the film are these two
Yesterday I posted Busby Berkeley’s wonderfully choreographed ‘Hopping Dance’, performed by Bobby Van. The dance’s spiritual cousin–or perhaps it’s parent really–was a Berkeley production number from fifteen or so years earlier, ‘Horray For Hollywood’ from ‘Hollywood Hotel’ (1937). It features Benny Goodman and his then wildly successful swing era big
On Tuesday I reminisced a bit about my chance encounter with performer Bobby Van just months before his untimely death at age 51. I was perhaps a bit dismissive of Van’s talents and intend to rectify that today by offering up what is probably his career highlight, the ‘hopping song’
Before ‘The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis’ was a silly TV show, ‘The Affairs Of Dobie GIllis’ was a silly musical movie. (Before that it was a series of silly stories by Max Shulman who was responsible for all the silliness. He must have a made mega-ton of money from
Clearly I’m having a hard time with this being the NFL off-season. So I began today with the above compilation of disastrous football plays of yore and I must admit to feeling much better as a result. (Since it’s the NFL that compiled the clips, they make it unnecessarily hard
This week I’ve posted two examples of the stunning work of forgotten movie musical director/choreographer/designer Dave Gould. Above is one of his best sequences, the ‘Hollywood Party’ number from the 1934 film –er–‘Hollywood Party’. For a brief stretch in the 1930s, Gould was given the resources of major Hollywood studios–RKO,
Here’s an extraordinary piece of musical filmmaking that really should be more celebrated than it is. It’s the big, fat, ultimate dance number from ‘The Gay Divorcee’ (1934), the second film to pair Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the first to be properly considered a starring vehicle for them.