Here’s a completely obscure, not to say befuddling, piece of footage showing us Jean Harlow in conversation with her ‘vocal coach’ Samuel Kayzer. (It somehow makes sense that this footage is entirely silent). Who shot it? For what purpose? It doesn’t look professionally done so was it some kind of
Try this one on for size in the bad-luck show-biz department. You’re a successful Broadway actor in the 1920s. The movie business comes calling. You land roles of increasing prominence. The talkies arrive and it’s found that your voice is more than adequate for leading man status (at a time
Given the hugeness of their talent, the above title is ludicrous and reductive to say the least. Lets kick off this early 2024 week with the terrific ‘Jumpin’ Jive’ number from ‘Stormy Weather’. You have to sit through a minute and a half of Cab Calloway (not an easy task)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twBwZz1GXKM ‘Woman Haters’ (1934) is the first of 190 short comedies made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, March 27 through Friday, March 30 1934 and was released on Saturday, May 5th of that year (the 125th day of the Gregorian calendar and the
Yesterday I posted ‘Putting Pants On Phillip’ (1927),, the first film in which Laurel and Hardy are paired as a team even though they play characters unassociated with each other prior to their on-screen meeting. Today’s silent L&H, ‘Do Detectives Think?’ (also 1927) is their following film and the first
‘Putting Pants On Phillip’ (1927) is the first official teaming of Laurel and Hardy, though they had appeared in a handful of films together prior to this (but not as a team). They’re not really a team here either which makes this silent comedy a real curiosity. Laurel plays a
‘Double Whoopee’ (1929) is, for my money, the best of the L&H silent shorts. Though not as iconic as ‘Liberty’, ‘Two Tars’ or ‘Big Business’, the film has a motor that never quits–a very jazz-age, syncopated almost out-of-control rhythmic thrust that I find irresistible. The art deco hotel lobby setting
Sorry to have skipped a day, but not doing stuff is what Boxing Day is all about, right? Anyway, here’s a 1928 Laurel & Hardy silent called ‘The Finishing Touch’. The plot is beyond simple. L&H have inexplicably been hired to build a house. A cop and a woman who
‘That’s My Wife’ (1929), a late silent L&H short, traffics not only in cross-dressing but also in simulated male on she-male sex and some hard-core early punk dance grooves. I can’t explain it any further. Watch and enjoy an immaculately restored print of this wildly inappropriate outing as we continue
To see us through the holidays and to celebrate the joyous occasion of saying goodbye to this bizarre year, I will be posting a silent Laurel and Hardy comedy every day through January 1. I’ve loved L&H since I was a child but never took much interest in the silents