Movies 'Til Dawn Blog

BENNY HILL MEETS…SONNY AND CHER?

As we began this week with a little Benny Hill from his early, black and white BBC program, let’s end the week with another dose of Benny. (This is a practice known as ‘bookending’. Didn’t know that, did you?) Here is a parody of the then new phenomenon known as

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WEEKEND STOOGEFEST

‘Matri-Phony’ (1942) is the 63rd short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed over a period of three weeks, beginning on Thursday, March 5th and ending on Wednesday, March 25th, 1942, and was released on Thursday, July 2nd of that year (the 183rd day on

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WEEKEND STOOGEFEST

‘Some More Of Samoa’ (1941) is the 59th short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Monday, May 12 through Thursday, May 15 1941 and was released on Thursday, December 4th of that year–the 338th day of the Gregorian Calendar and a scant three

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LAUREL & HARDY SILENTS-FEST: DAY ONE

To see us through the holidays and to celebrate the joyous occasion of saying goodbye to this bizarre year, I will be posting a silent Laurel and Hardy comedy every day through January 1. I’ve loved L&H since I was a child but never took much interest in the silents

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‘NOBODY’S PERFECT’–A BILLY WILDER JOINT

Apropos of the doc about the making of Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond’s ‘Fedora’ (1978) which I posted last Friday, here’s another doc about the making of Wilder’s much more robust and well-known film ‘Some Like It Hot’ (1959) titled “Nobody’s Perfect’. Scholars of Wilder and Marilyn Monroe will hear

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‘SLOWLY I TURN’…(and see Errol Flynn?)

My dogged pursuit of the increasingly obnoxious vaudeville routine known as ‘Niagra Falls’ or ‘Slowly I Turn’ continues with a Colgate Comedy Hour version starring Abbott and Costello featuring Errol Flynn. This is the worst version thus far of the routine–Flynn is miscast, unable to convincingly be broad and over

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‘SLOWLY I TURN’–THE LOU COSTELLO VERSION

This past weekend I posted the Three Stooges movie ‘Gents Without Cents’ which features a classic Vaudeville routine known (incorrectly) as ‘Niagra Falls’. (It’s correct name is ‘Slowly I Turn’). The Stooges were one of many comedians to do a version of the sketch and above we see Lou Costello

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WEEKEND STOOGEFEST

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZstzB7F03E ‘Playing The Ponies’ (1937) is the 26th short film made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Wednesday, May 12 through Wednesday, May 19, 1937 and was released on Friday, October 15th of that year. I present this film to you today in honor of

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A GROUCHO-DUMONT THREE-WAY?

The generally accepted word on the Marx Brothers films is that they constitute a clear case of downhillism, with the first five Paramount films being their supreme achievements, the first MGM (‘A Night At The Opera’) being the most successful yet also signifying the beginning of the end, and a

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RODNEY DANGERFIELD–OR IS HE?

Every move, every twitch, every eye-pop of Rodney Dangerfield’s is a brilliant piece of method acting. Add to that the non-stop jokes and you have one of the truly ‘performative’ comics; he’s a man named Jacob Cohen (his real name) who, under the pseudonym ‘Jack Roy’ (his first stage name)

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