I’ve mentioned a few times this week my new favorite podcast ‘The Marx Brothers Council Podcast’ and the episode I listened to this morning, which focused exclusively on Chico Marx, is one of the best and most touching so far. Leonard Marx remained an enigma to most people who knew
Here’s a lovely short silent film showing Groucho Marx and family on a typical day in 1933 outside their home at 701 N. Hillcrest Drive in Beverly Hills. These are not ‘home movies’ per se–this was clearly staged, shot and edited so as to make a film in the style
I’m pretty sure I posted this once before but it’s so extraordinary that it never gets old. It seems that one day on the ‘Animal Crackers’ set, sometime around when they were shooting the opening (which includes ‘Captain Spaulding’ of course), a camera rolled during a rehearsal. For an all
I’ve been re-reading ‘Dino; Living High In The Dirty Business Of Dreams’, Nick Tosches’ majestic biography of Dean Martin. Calling it a bio of Dean, however, is reductive in the extreme; the book is a journey through the dark and relentless birth and progression of the American entertainment industry and
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
I’m finding these old color home movies highly evocative and vivid. Yesterday’s post was a trip from LaGuardia Airport to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Today we’re at the 1939 Worlds Fair in Queens, NY. This footage isn’t about the amazing buildings and exhibits. Instead it documents the Fair’s patrons, the
What are we to make of this delightful little color short film showing the arrival of a person at the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in the mid 1940s? The film is shot quite deliberately–a moving POV of the person entering the cab is technically adventurous though clearly
Apropos of yesterday’s post on television from the late 1940s, here’s a short and deeply primitive clip of a show from 1947 featuring Jinx Falkenberg and Tex McCreary. Stilted and goofy though it is, it proves my point from yesterday that television programming hasn’t really changed much. I mean, aren’t
Here’s an interesting reel of opening credits and set-up sequences of the shows you were likely to see if you were watching TV in the late 1940s. Television had of course been around in various forms and incarnations for almost twenty years by then, but it was in 1947-48 that
'Pardon My Scotch' (1935) is our Three Stooges Saturday offering. Moe's fall at 3:25--not a stunt double--is truly awesome. #comedy #Violence #SlapFighting #TCM #FilmTwitter #comics https://raymonddefelitta.org/saturday-stoogefest-18/
Chico Marx plays championship #Bridge on a very strange 1960 #television show. Thanks to @MarxBrosPodcast for the excellent episode on Chico which inspired me to go in search of this gem. #comedian #TCMParty #cards https://raymonddefelitta.org/blog/
The Groucho Marx's are featured in a short #silent home #movie shot in #BeverlyHills in 1933. A very wistful and lovely glimpse of a #family and neighborhood now gone. #comedian #TCMParty #film https://raymonddefelitta.org/marxiana-pt-4-at-home-with-the-groucho-and-family/
Our Owl came back to Connecticut tonight for the beginning of its occasional spring residency.
The lovely Lillian Roth (not Susan Hayward) sings 'Why Am I So Romantic?' from the Marx Brothers 'Animal Crackers'. It's the only non-Marx musical performance in one of their movies that doesn't piss me off. #movie #comedy #singer #TCMParty #musical https://raymonddefelitta.org/marxiana-pt-3-lillian-roth-sings/
