At the peak (or perhaps the depths) of the 1950s 3-D craze, The Three Stooges made two 3-D shorts. One, ‘Spooks’, took place in a haunted house. The other, ‘Pardon My Backfire’, takes place in a garage. Now, a haunted house movie in 3-D makes perfect (if somewhat predictable) sense.
Did you know that Roberto Benigni played Inspector Clouseau in a Pink Panther movie you most likely never heard of? Or that Roger Moore played Clouseau who, it was explained, had undergone extensive plastic surgery to look like Roger Moore? Or that David Niven was brought back for the first
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Mv9YFkMIo Here’s a quite cool mini-doc (twenty minutes) on the evolution of the ‘Pink Panther’ series. I remember as a kid in the early 70s seeing the second ‘Pink Panther’ movie, ‘A Shot In the Dark’ first and then seeing the first eponymous one and wondering why Inspector Clouseau went
Here’s the one where one persons jacket gets filled with two arms, each belonging to a different person (one of whom is a stooge) creating an unstoppable rotation of physical abuse. As you’ll see this gag served Curly, Shemp and Moe well for at least twenty-five years and is considerably
The Three Stooges made 190 two-reel comedies between 1934 and 1959. With numbers like that they were forced to find routines they could recycle and reuse over time. Indeed the word ‘recycle’ figures heavily into the filmmaking world of the Stooges. Plots were constantly recycled (detectives, haunted houses, fixing things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2L9bOGx4Z8&t=24s Here’s ‘Gents In A Jam’ from 1952, written and directed by Edward Bernds. The best of the Shemp shorts were for the most part Bernds-helmed–his scripts were tighter and the jokes and sight gags better planned and delivered than the increasingly mechanical Jules White films of the period. I
Now this is going to take a little explaining. Yesterday I posted one of Robert Altman’s mid-60s Color-Sonics music ‘videos’ (check it out if you haven’t already–you’ll be glad you did). Here’s another one that he did with the famous ecdysiast Lily St. Cyr called ‘Don’t Call Me’. Except the
In the mid-sixties a company called Color-Sonics developed a visual jukebox that provided what were, in essence, the first music videos. Mini-films were made to accompany pop songs of the day and people could watch as well as listen to their favorite new tunes. The machine was loaded with 16mm
Here’s the trailer for Robert Altman’s first film, the independently produced 1955 teen hoodlum flick ‘The Delinquents’ (released in 1957). It was shot in Kansas City where Altman was then based, making industrial films and directing semi-amateur theatrical productions. The film apparently starred Tom ‘Billy Jack’ Laughlin (he’s not credited
Dig this short but deeply period drive through the Greenwich Village of the 1970s, an era you simply can't make up. #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NewYorkForever #Documentary https://raymonddefelitta.org/the-village-in-the-bell-bottom-era/
Color footage of Greenwich Village in the 1940s is today's offering on our madcap journey through the history of that venerable neighborhood. #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NewYorkForever #Documentary
https://raymonddefelitta.org/greenwich-village-1940s-edition/
Some fab footage of Greenwich Village in the late 60s--back when the FBI raided Village clubs and not Florida bed-and-breakfasts--awaits your avid viewing. #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NewYorkForever #Documentary https://raymonddefelitta.org/a-village-called-greenwich-a-view-from-the-late-60s/
Spend 12 minutes in Greenwich Village #NewYork in the summer of 1960 by watching 'Village Sunday', a doc directed by Stewart Wilensky and narrated by Jean Shepherd. It's a beautiful way to not be in the present day. #NewYorkCity #Documentary #Filmmaking https://raymonddefelitta.org/greenwich-village-sunday/
Happy birthday to legendary film director Nicholas Ray.
