I was surprised to read in Randy Skervedt’s excellent book ‘Laurel & Hardy–The Magic Behind The Movies’ that ‘The Finishing Touch’ (1928) was considered something of a disappointment in its day–Stan Laurel, a notoriously discerning craftsman, apparently felt that it could have been much better. Five years later some of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDZAzkUL5B0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DunNsrvr51A&t=278s Probably the most famous of L&H’s silent films, ‘Liberty’ is an entry into the ‘thrill comedy’ genre as exemplified by the stuntwork of Harold Lloyd’s famous comedy ‘The Freshman’ as well as any number of death-defying stunts performed by Buster Keaton. Part of the machismo of the knockabout comedian
Today’s tour of Culver City in the 1920s also includes the silent L&H classic ‘Big Business’. Shot in 1929, the classic short gives us charming views of the slow-to-be-built Cheviot Hills/Culver City adjacent area, with many empty lots and a few houses under construction that can be seen in the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkZvopfW85Qhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgeHDOtW75k&t=94s My three-way tie for greatest Laurel and Hardy short is ‘Helpmates’, ‘Brats’, ‘Music Box’ and today’s film, ‘Hog Wild’. Notice that I said THREE way tie and then mentioned FOUR films. Now having said that, picture me saying it to Stan and Stan counting the ‘three’ titles on his
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB-MRV0Axb8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AczHhFKw7ns&list=RDCMUCsp_AoKt3DdHb65j4ehrDug&index=1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1a_vcMVE3E&t=10s The delightful week between Christmas and New Years is here, the one in which there is no true clock to adhere to since nobody’s really anywhere or doing anything (unless of course you have a job like a real person). My preference for this cherished week has always been
Apropos of yesterdays animated TV credit sequences, I went searching for the original ‘I Love Lucy’ animated opening credits. I found it–but, as is often the case with YouTube, I found something even more interesting on my way. It turns out that a pilot episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaekCb0HPaEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NyTDmrxhDI&list=PLD8BA093BC69A2754 Here’s a nice peaceful ride down Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills in 1935. This footage was likely shot as rear-projection plates for car driving scenes–studios kept lots of stock footage of this sort on hand as driving scenes were not yet practically done on the road and were instead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVy-7IVPFSYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyndUDxjqLY Yesterday’s post contained some poignant footage of the long-gone Santa Monica Amusement Park ‘Pacific Ocean Park’. The footage appeared to have been shot at the end of the parks short life–it opened in 1959 and closed a scant nine years later–with views of shuttered and abandoned concessions, rides and
The YouTube artist (and I mean artist) known as NASS has posted another of their awesome videos showing old footage of a city cleaned up, remastered, with frame rate adjusted and a creative soundbed added. The result is a virtual time machine, a mesmerizing look into the past using footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjX16FwJezM Here’s another of the George Mann home movie items, this one of W.C. Fields clowning around in front of his house in Great Neck, Long Island. The year is 1928. Though Fields is a Broadway star, his move to California and his eventual international stardom from his movies is