On Monday we began a discussion of the hosts of late night horror movie shows on local television that proliferated in the 1950s-70s (and maybe beyond?). Perhaps the true legend of the genre is Vampira, a local L.A. hostess whose mid-to-late 1950s show was on KABC, the ABC affililiate. Her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfzpay0lqGwhttp://large,%20burled%20maple%20Capeheart%20radio-phonograph%20unit–similar%20to%20the%20one%20in%20Owney’s%20penthouse%20suite—stood%20in%20the%20corner,%20playing%20a%20record–Roger%20Woolf%20Kahn’s%20orchestra’s%20rendition%20of%20‘You’ve%20Got%20Me%20Crying%20Again.’ I’m closing up this week’s look at period Football stuff with a second rendition of the DeSylva/Brown&Henderson’s infectious hit 20s tune ‘Varsity Drag’. It’s performed by Abe Lyman and his orchestra and if you don’t dig 1920s music (and lets face it, few people do–you have to be a
On this Xmas/Hanukah/Kwanza/whatever day, please enjoy “Should Married Men Go Home” (1928), a lovely old L&H silent with some fascinating views of a very different Los Angeles than the one that I am currently in as I write this. More silent L&H comedies as the final week of 2024 grinds
On Friday I posted a colorized look at footage shot in Paris in the 1920s. The same person who restored that footage–their YouTube handle is NASS–also did this look at New York City in 1911 and it is equally evocative and fascinating. We see a city in transition–it still feels
Now, you must understand that i didn’t set out looking for today’s video. Nor did it turn up in my YouTube morning menu based on any recent searches. Still it’s such a curiosity that I had to listen to it and share it with you. This is a recording of
Apparently my posts of the past few days haven’t been going out on their usual nightly basis due to wonky WordPress issues. But that’s all in the past now so instead of posting something new I’ll re-post a few that you may have missed. The theme was a terrific fifteen
In yesterday’s post, mention was made of the disastrous life and death of starlet Barbara Payton, a blonde bombshell who drank herself to death after plowing her way through a pile of men–some husbands, some producers, some tricks–consuming drugs and making a public nuisance of herself and in general alienating
Today’s offering is, I’m sorry to say, a major bummer. And yet, like a good train wreck, it’s perversely enjoyable to watch. Bluntly titled “Golden Age Actors and Singers Who Died In Poverty”, this mini-doc covers the sad endings of a number of stars of the…er…Golden Age. The familiar cases
Yesterday I posted a mini-documentary on the demolition of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, created by a YouTube channel called ‘Old Money Mansions’. Here’s another of their demo docs, this one about the rise and fall of the once magnificent Pennsylvania Station, which met its end in 1963 (though it appears to
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo occupied two different apartments in the brownstone building owned by Fred and Ethel Mertz. The differences are subtle–aside, of course, from the window that the second one has overlooking the street. Above is a lovingly crafted video taking us on a