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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A11EWc2_WJQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qYmFXWtdo8 Yesterday I posted about the amazing George Mann home movie footage of Broadway in the late 1920s. Mann performed in a number of Earl Carroll reviews during that decade and in 1928 he was part of the seventh edition of ‘Earl Carroll’s Vanities’ along with W.C. Fields. Although Fields
Here is some extraordinarily rare and truly one-of-a-kind footage shot from the backstage wings of the 44th Street Theater in January, 1930. It shows us a few moments of a variety show in-progress called ‘Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook’, which starred Eddie Cantor, Patsy Kelly, William Demerest and a dance team called
The YouTube genius NASS (I’ve posted his/her/their videos before) has once again worked his/her/their magic on some old footage of a city from the past, in this case Los Angeles in the 1940s. Much of it appears to me to be stock footage most likely shot by a studio crew
Here’s another Fats Waller short made for jukebox consumption in 1941 (see yesterday’s post for ‘Your Feets Too Big’). ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’, written by Waller, Andy Razaf and J.C.Johnson, is another of his hit novelty numbers and it’s given a rowdy treatment in this dramatization of what a Harlem
Here’s an excerpt of a musical sequence from an obscure 1944 Republic Studios movie called ‘Atlantic City’. The number is ‘Harlem On Parade’ and it’s a more-than-slightly-valuable documentation of three of the prime black entertainers of the 1930s/40s. I refer to the above mentioned performers who all are given a
The above reel shows some of the most beautiful shots ever made of the late, great Penn Station. It was apparently shot (according to the Internet Archive where it was found listed under ‘dailies’ for films–i.e. uncut footage) for a movie called ‘Young Widow’ starring Jane Russell, released in 1946.
This terrific compilation video shows the teaser/intros to an astounding forty-two shows that comprised CBS’s 1962 season line-up. How was it possible that there were so many shows in one season? For one thing prime-time was defined more broadly then than it would be now–7PM to 11:30 PM. Also, most
The Howard Stern of the 1980s was, of course, different from the Howard Stern of today. (I suppose the same could be said of the Raymond De Felitta of the 80s as well but that’s a horse of a different color.) Stern’s personality was that of a defensive underdog peeking
Before the advent of dubbing–replacing the soundtrack recorded on set with another voice and/or actor and/or language in post-production–foreign language versions of movies had to be shot simultaneously with the English language versions. What a pain in the ass! It’s hard enough to shoot one scene correctly but then to