‘Learn To Croon’ is a song written by Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston for the movie ‘College Humor’ (1934) and was introduced by Bing Crosby. If anyone remembers the song today though, it’s because of the excruciating rendition given by Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer in ‘Our Gang Follies of 1938’. If
The actor Carl Switzer, popularly known as Alfalfa in the Our Gang comedies of the 1930s, was clearly a tortured man. He was perceived by George ‘Spanky’ McFarland as ‘cocky…a little antsy’ and other cast members recall him causing trouble on the set by creating pranks that hurt other people
I tried–I really tried–to find a non-Warner Brothers cartoon to post this AM. But the sad truth is that as lovingly crafted and artfully achieved any number of vintage cartoons are–and I speak of ‘Tom and Jerry’, ‘Woody Woodpecker’ and everything Disney–they simply can’t hold a candle to the Merrie
To close this little mini-Jerry Lewis/Count Basie festival here’s a clip from the 1977 MDA telethon featuring Jerry sort-of conducting the Count Basie band doing their famous ‘April In Paris’ arrangement. These were, for me, the prime years of the telethon–I regularly ‘stayed up with Jerry to watch the stars
This justifiably famous clip of Jerry ‘lip-syncing’ to Count Basie’s recording ‘Blues In Hoss Flat’ is from ‘The Errand Boy’ (1961) and really is ‘Jerry for people who hate Jerry’. The Youtuber who posted this (who calls themselves TBirdsof1965) went back to the original Basie album, ‘Chairman Of The Board’
What was with Jerry Lewis’s infatuation with Count Basie’s band? Something in the charts spoke to him and drove him to develop probably his best routines–watching Jerry pantomime to Basie’s music is infinitely better than watching Jerry be sentimental with children, right? The above is from ‘Cinderfella’ (directed by Frank
Here’s a clip from another marvelous Dick Cavett show featuring Sir John Gielgud giving a very thoughtful and sincere recounting of his work with Marlon Brando on the film version of ‘Julius Caesar’. There are no histrionics, no bad-temper revelations–in short, no dish. Just a very thoughtful and articulate actor
Enjoy a fat-ass Elmer Fudd and a still-in-development Bugs Bunny in “The Wabbit Who Came To Supper’ from 1942. This one features the opening credit frame with Bugs perched on the WB logo eating a carrot and giving a subtle look of disapproval at the audiences intrusion on his privacy,
Above are excerpts from the BBC Arena program, “The Peter Sellers Story”, a documentary directed by Peter Lydon featuring Seller’s home movies shot with his portable cameras. These excerpts covers the year when Sellers became famous in the US and the time he spent with Stanley Kubrick, making “Lolita” and
Listen to the most charming and amusing guest you can imagine (on TV, at a dinner party, anywhere), the great David Niven, as he recalls the director Edmund Goulding’s funeral. Goulding directed a young Niven (he gives Goulding credit for his first screen test) in the 1938 remake of ‘The