I freely admit to never having had any specific interest in Elvis. He’s been part of the wallpaper of pop culture in my mind ever since I was a kid–always identifiable, sometimes fun, more often than not a subject of ridicule or pity. Now, in light of Baz Luhrmann’s towering
There are several things that this morning’s cartoon lacks. 1) Color. 2) Humor. 3) Porky Pig, as we’ve come to know him. This Porky is grossly fat, can barely speak and appears to have no fidelity at all to his poor suffering little train, which manages to win a race
Here’s the (in)famous ballroom dancing match-up between James Cagney and George Raft from ‘Taxi’ (1932) directed by Roy Del Ruth. According to a dance savvy Youtube commenter: ‘Neither Raft nor Cagney are doing the Foxtrot. Mr. Raft is doing the Peabody and Mr. Cagney is mixing the Two Step into
Today I’m posting the last of the three short interview films made in 1931 under the series title ‘Intimate Interviews’ (see previous two posts to catch up on what little history I’ve been able to figure out about the how and why of the existence of these fascinating little oddities).
I’m not sure what this cartoon, possibly the best Daffy Duck directed by Friz Freleng, has to do with ‘Yankee Doodle’ or anything remotely Independence day related but it’s a major hoot. I was always particularly delighted as a kid when this one turned up and got all too familiar
Yesterday I posted a fascinating little oddity of an interview with James Cagney shot in 1931 for a series of shorts called ‘Intimate Interviews’. There were two more of these done, one with Bela Lugosi and the last with Walter Huston. Above I’ve posted the Bela Lugosi, filmed as the
Here’s a new find (at least for me). It’s a 1931 short film called ‘Intimate Interviews’ featuring a journalist named Dorothy West interviewing the new screen sensation James Cagney at his home. There are so many interesting things about this eight minute time capsule that its hard to know where
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkWbTMJNWl4 James Cagney began his career as a ‘hoofer’ in Vaudeville–an admittedly self-taught dancer who picked up steps quickly and was athletic and acrobatic enough to try just about anything, all in the name of putting on a good show. He wended his way to Hollywood in the late 1920s
Spurred on by yesterday’s ritual viewing of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ I went in search of James Cagney interview footage and turned up this 1980 interview with Tom Snyder, shot on Cagney’s farm in upstate New York. The first thing that struck me was how incredibly unlined Cagney’s face was at
I keep meaning to post a cartoon that isn’t a classic Warner Brothers Bugs/Daffy/Elmer/Porky number. But have you seen Tom and Jerry lately? Or, God help you, Andy Panda? (We skip over Disney entirely for the simple reason that nobody ever really wanted to see those cartoons to begin with–they