This past Saturday we screened ‘House Of Wax’ (1953) at the Directors Guild theater on West 57th street. I did the historical context intro and briefly discussed (i.e. jammed through) a mini-history of 3-D filmmaking. Some often cite ‘House Of Wax’ as the first 3-D movie released at the dawn
Yesterday I wrote about my fascination with lost films–movies of the 20s and 30s that have vanished into the ether seemingly with no explanation. The truth is that most movies of the time were considered largely disposable after their initial run in theaters and little effort was made to preserve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JzIhWg2R2chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mvN9x_Egc The concept of a ‘lost film’–in other words a film that there is proof of having been made but no known print extant–is a terribly sad one. But the concept of a fragment of a lost film surviving is downright ghostly. Oftentimes these scraps of otherwise vanished films are
From the ridiculous (see yesterdays post about Curly Howard) to the sublime; today we are looking at color(ized) footage of the eternal city in 1940, brought to us by the YouTube artist known as NASS. As always, NASS has taken black and white footage documenting a city from the past,
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