https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jIeUm2KAqYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlb7WNwcs_I The transition silent stars had to make to sound movies was a treacherous one, the main problem being not that they sounded funny but that their voices didn’t always match their on-screen personas. This could work in two different ways. On the one hand, the voiceless William Powell was
Last month my son and I made a visit to McMinnville Oregon specifically to visit Howard Hughes’ ‘Spruce Goose’ in a museum constructed specifically to house and display that magnificent aviation folly. My interest in vintage aviation continues to grow. I’ve been collecting old New Yorker Magazines for years but
Between 2018 and 2022 (or so) I hosted my podcast, ‘Movies Til Dawn’, which consisted of me and veteran directors having conversations about…well…lots of different stuff. There was no specific formula to these conversations–I usually told the subject beforehand that we could talk about anything they felt like. Thus my
Last Friday I posted the terrific ‘Running Wild’ sequence from ‘Some Like It Hot’, featuring a wildly sensuous vocal/dance performance by Marilyn and way too many cutaways to Jack Lemmon. In spite of the great praise she received in that incredibly successful film, there appear to have been those who
All week we’ve been looking at some of the extraordinary all-female orchestras of the 20s/30/40s. Let’s finish thing off with a band that never existed, ‘Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters’, from Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamonds masterful comedy ‘Some Like It Hot’. Clearly Wilder and Diamond were inspired by
This past weekend my son and I journeyed to the little town of McMinnville, Oregon, to see what is arguably the ninth wonder of the world; the biggest plane ever built and never flown. Howard Hughes ‘Spruce Goose’ is a flying boat that was intended to be used during the
Yesterday I posted an hour of Muzak called ‘Sounds of the Department Store’. Today we listen to another 90 minutes of this gorgeous old stuff, this time with images largely picturing supermarkets of yore. According to the YouTube poster these are: More great tunes from Bruton and other classic music
Yesterday I was in a restaurant in midtown Manhattan–not a full-tilt restaurant, more like a La Pain Quotidion style joint–and I was having trouble having a conversation over the din of the music that was playing. Was it even music? It’s hard to describe the sounds emanating from the speakers
On Friday I posted a wonderful clip of then 71 year-old Joan Rivers doing an appearance on BBC host Michael Parkinson’s show. Today we roll back the clock thirty five or so years from that interview and watch the Joan that first appeared in front of national audiences. Above is
In 1980, when I was 16, my father bought an apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and we decamped from Los Angeles to spend the summer there. This was where I discovered two things of major importance in my adolescence. 1) A place where I could buy weed