Yesterday I posted a terrific clip of Fred Astaire dancing with the divine Paulette Goddard from the movie ‘Second Chorus’ (1941). The six-degrees of Paulette Goddard takes us now back four years to 1937 when Goddard met and began an affair with George Gershwin, who was in Hollywood writing the
Since last week I’ve been posting Fred Astaire dancing with non-Ginger Rogers partners. Eleanor Powell was probably most impressive. Rita Hayworth was slick and ineffably charming. And now we come to the wildly fetching Paulette Goddard, who was no dancer but who is somehow the most adorable to watch. This
‘Corny Casanovas’ (1952) is the 139th short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia pictures. It was photographed from Monday, December 3 through Wednesday, December 5 1951 and was released on Thursday, May 1, 1952. (Perhaps ‘knocked out’ is a more appropriate term than ‘photographed’). If you don’t like
Apropos of yesterday’s post featuring the 1926 song hit ‘Yiddishe Charleston’, here’s a clip from a Warner Brothers/First National movie from 1932 called ‘Taxi’. In this famous scene, James Cagney speaks fluent Yiddish with a Jewish man who seems to be in some sort of trouble with an Irish cop.
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post which featured a superb Eleanor Powell number from ‘Ship Ahoy’, here’s Eleanor dancing a nifty number with Fred Astaire in ‘Broadway Melody of 1940’. Apparently this was her favorite of her own on-screen dances. That’s all the sparkling dialogue I’ve got for today–I’m late
Eleanor Powell, Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s tap-dancing super-star of the 1930s and early 40s, is now an oddly marginalized figure in the world of dance history. Perhaps it’s because the movies she appeared in–featherweight musical vehicles–are now mostly unwatchable. (I hate it when that happens). One of them, ‘Ship Ahoy’ (1942),
‘Calling All Curs’ (1939) was the forty-first short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Tuesday, December 27th through Friday, December 30th, 1938 and was released on Friday, August 25th, 1939. The film is a top-notch Curly entry from the richest era of their
Here’s a fascinating little fragment of W.C. Fields and director Mitchell Leisen on the set of ‘The Big Broadcast of 1938’. It’s hard to figure out what this was for. The first section is a little mini-routine between Fields and Leisen–they’re wired for sound so clearly this was meant for
Here are two incredibly badass appearances by the Jackson Five on ‘The Flip Wilson Show’. The first, from April 11,1971, is a medley of ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC and ‘The Love You Save’ (the transition between the first and second songs–at the one minute mark–is impressively seamless). The second
Given that TCM is showing all the ‘That’s Entertainment’ movies today, I thought I’d post the L&H magician sequence from MGM’s all-star ‘Hollywood Revue of 1929’. The movie is as creaky and wonderful as its title and while this particular L&H routine isn’t one of their high points, it was