I’ve been reading Scott Berg’s mammoth biography of Charles Lindbergh, a man whose life was truly a dramatic whirlwind in multiple acts. Yesterday I took the plunge and dove into the dreadful story of the kidnapping and murder of his twenty-month old son, Charles Jr. in 1932 and the ensuing
Good lord! What was John Huston thinking (or drinking?) when he let loose with this rambling, discursive and largely meaningless five minute diatribe on a late-1970s Oscar broadcast? He certainly sounds magnificent and is, as always, beyond charismatic. I met him in 1981 when I was sixteen years old and
‘Their Purple Moment’ (1928) is a fine (if not brilliant) example of the L&H silent era which showcases more slapstick than wit but which gives us a nice taste of the times it was made in. The restaurant/club set is a very 20s affair, and the chic and sexy Anita
What better way to usher in the holiday that celebrates munificence, family, warmth and generosity than with two videos of Woody Allen discussing death and the meaninglessness of life. For somebody who thinks that nothing ultimately matters, Woody has certainly been prodigious in his output. In fact, it could be
With the election of the mayor of New York City just hours away, I thought it might be instructive to flashback to a very different city and time. This is a short news clip that aired on WPIX in the early-to-mid 70s in which New Yorkers are asked what they
It’s no secret that air traffic controllers have a sucko job. Actually, if you ask them, its a very cool and exciting one–just not something that can one can be expected to do ten hours a day, six days a week which is the amount of hours they’re forced to
Here’s a profile of laugh-track maestro/audio engineer Carroll Pratt working his magic on a decidedly unfunny scene from a show called “Webster” in 1983. Pratt added canned laughter to TV shows using a custom ‘laff box’ which he designed and built. He began doing ‘laugh sweetening’ in the late 1950s
Laughter is one of our most precious commodities in life, getting us through (and past) difficult situations and topics and providing a release of joy that every day life for the most part lacks. Nobody doesn’t like to laugh. (Except the current leader of the free world who can only
Yesterday we listenend to excerpts of Max Steiner’s score for ‘The Big Sleep’. I’m rather enjoying divorcing these rich orchestral works from the pictures they were designed to play under so today I’m presenting Miklos Rozsa’s score for ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944). It’s impossible not to visualize the opening shot of
Phineas Newborn, Jr. is on my top-five list of greatest jazz pianists of all time. But his career was spotty, largely it appears due to a severe emotional reaction to criticism that he was all technique and no soul. So what? The technique is phenomenal and the soul is there