Movies 'Til Dawn BLOG

ALFALFA’S BIRTHDAY WISHES

Today marks my 58th trip around the sun. What better way to wish myself happy birthday than with a clip from Our Gang’s ‘Practical Jokers’? Ah, pineapple…not bad!

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PETER SELLERS FOR TWA

The great Peter Sellers picked up a little bread and butter cash doing a series of ads for TWA in the mid-seventies and the first of the above posted ads, where he plays an Italian ‘Via Veneto or Bust’ swinger, was one of my favorite ads of my childhood. This

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DANCE PARTY VIDEO #5–DEAN MARTIN AND LEE J. COBB?

I’m quite certain this is the only time you will ever see Lee J. Cobb aka Johnny Friendly aka Willy Loman dance. It’s a misbegotten routine from a Dean Martin show that somebody in some writers room thought was a good idea. It features Dino, Cobb, Buddy Ebsen (the only

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SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON

Every frame of ‘Fresh Hare’, an early-ish Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd pairing (1942) is a gem–beautifully rendered and wittily constructed. You can feel how much fun the animators must have been having developing Bugs’ expressions, reactions and mannerisms–almost as if the animated animal anthropomorphically became a performer that was in control

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A CARSON ANNIVERSARY DEBACLE

The tenth anniversary of Johnny Carson’s reign as ‘The Tonight Show’ host was celebrated in 1972 on perhaps the ugliest and most awkward set ever designed for a TV show. The overwhelming green-ness of the carpet, walls etc. makes it look like a bottle of Mountain Dew. Johnny is seated

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‘FAREWELL MY LOVELY’; ROBERT MITCHUM DOES MARLOWE

Behold the trailer of the 1975 remake of Raymond Chandler’s ‘Farewell My Lovely’ starring Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe. Yesterday I posted the trailer for ‘The Long Goodbye’ made two years earlier with the decidedly more eccentric casting of Elliot Gould as Marlowe. I seem to recall seeing this one

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‘WHAT’S UP DOC’: A BOGDANOVICH META-TRAILER

Here’s another wicked-cool trailer for a Peter Bogdanovich movie (see yesterdays ‘Paper Moon’ trailer), this time for ‘What’s Up Doc?’ Once again PB is featured heavily and the general mood and tone gives us the sense of filmmaking actually being a pleasurable and amusing adventure, which in fact it rarely

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‘PAPER MOON’–A PETER BOGDANOVICH TRAILER

Behold this most eccentric of movie trailers. It’s a four minute theatrical trailer for ‘Paper Moon’ which features Ryan O’Neal, Tatum O’Neal and…Peter Bogdanovich. Indeed the wunderkind director is all over this, mugging with the cast, laughing off-camera, playing director with great enthusiasm etc. It reminds us of what a

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‘PAPER MOON’–THE SINGLE TAKE CAR SCENE

This past Saturday the Directors Guild of America gave a memorial tribute (via Zoom) to the late great Peter Bogdanovich. I was the moderator and the guests included Frank Marshall, Bennett Miller, Cybill Shepard, David O. Russell, Chuck Workman, Doug McGrath and –via tape (or whatever we call whatever captures

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SUNDAY MORNING CARTOON

Enjoy ‘Porky’s Cafe’ from 1942 directed by Chuck Jones (who was still young enough to be more stodgily credited as Charles M. Jones). The minimalism here is rather striking–the cafe is done all in shades of grey with nothing hanging on the walls. There is precisely one customer. Porky runs

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