Friday, October 23, 2015
Today is the birthday of Lilyan Tashman (1896-1934). The daughter of Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York she began as a model in high school and broke into vaudeville during her teenage …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 22, 2015
And now, the latest in our month long series about classic horror which we launched here, This post came about because I noticed a little mini subgenre within classic horror — several …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:45AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Filed under: Hollywood (History), Horror (Mostly Gothic), Movies, PLUGS Tagged: Loew's Jersey, werewolf, Wolf Man
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:44AM[SHARE]And now, the latest in our month long series about classic horror we launched here, this one devoted to werewolf films of the classic era. While the core of this post will concern the 1941 U…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:44AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Today is the birthday of high-wire artiste Bird Millman (Jennadean Engleman, 1890-1940). Born in Colorado, she started out with her parents in small circus an act called the Millman Trio. By…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:13PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Hungarian-American actor Bela Lugosi (for my biographical post on Lugosi go here). Since his birthday falls so conveniently during the Halloween season, I thought…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:34AM[SHARE]Monday, October 19, 2015
Today is the birthday of Tor Johnson. Most folks who know him at all are aware that Johnson was a Swedish wrestler who appears in a handful of Ed Wood films and other grade z horror movies. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:28PM[SHARE]And now a post in our month long series about classic horror we launched here, this one concerning giant monsters. We qualify our title with “phase one” for the obvious reason th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:09AM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Paramount film Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934), directed by Norman Taurog. The ostensible star of the film is the stage actre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 18, 2015
Tonight (tomorrow morning) at 1:15am (EST) on Turner Movie Classics: Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s first feature film The Round Up (1920). Arbuckle was one of the firs…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:12PM[SHARE]Today is the day of the NYC Zombie Crawl, a fitting day to do this post about zombies as part of our month long series on classic horror films we launched here. Most modern zombie production…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:12PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 17, 2015
Today is the birthday of the great Irene Ryan. Today she is best remembered for playing Granny on the hit CBS sit com The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), although she had long career in vau…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:38PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Jean Arthur (Gladys Georgianna Greene, 1900-1991). It was only this week that I learned that I am distantly related to her! We are both descended from the early Virg…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:34PM[SHARE]Â Today is the birthday of Spring Byington (1886-1971). I associate her primarily with playing silly old fussbudgets and society women in comedies but a reflection on her career reveals th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:06AM[SHARE]Tonight at 11:30pm (EST) Turner Classic Movies will be showing Vincent Price in The Baron of Arizona (1950). A brief capsule review of the film below, and then, as part of the month…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:14AM[SHARE]Friday, October 16, 2015
Apparently, as of today we are mid-way through something called “Family History Month”. To what extent that holiday designation is merely an advertisement for certain web sites I…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:58PM[SHARE]Tonight on Turner Classic Movies — a slate of movies about very, very bad children. 8:oopm (EST) The Nanny (1965) Who is the one to hate and fear in this Hammer film? The disturbed hel…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:33PM[SHARE]Continuing our month-long series of classic horror posts launched here, today we look at Universal Pictures original Invisible Man series. While the first picture in this series is …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:26AM[SHARE]Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Vaudeville etc. Tagged: BROOKLYN, Cobra Club, Force Majeur, new vaudeville, Tanya Solomon
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 15, 2015
Today this is the birthday of Helen Ware (Helen Remer, 1877-1939). Ware was already a star of Broadway and the silent screen before she made her vaudeville debut at the Palace and the Keith …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:21PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Mervyn LeRoy (1900-1987) . Like most sentient beings I’ve known his name since childhood, as the producer of my favorite movie The Wizard of Oz (1939). I…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:20PM[SHARE]Continuing our month-long series of classic horror posts launched here, today we survey several films from the 1930s and 40s that are centered around mad scientists. Here we will find a cert…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:40AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 14, 2015
As tonight TCM is showing a pair of Jack the Ripper related movies, I thought it would be timely to do this post about sadists and serial killers in classic horror, as part of the month long…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:52PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Bud Flanagan (Chaim Reuben Weintrop, 1896-1968) of the British music hall team of Flanagan and Allen. A few years ago, someone slipped me a couple of CDs of this…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:42AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of William “Red” McKenzie (1899-1948). Â Originally from St. Louis, he became a prominent Jazz Age figure by playing the kazoo and comb-and-tissue paper! …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:21AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 13, 2015
We were excited to attend the premiere performance of friend Stefania de Kennesey’s new opera the other night, her long awaited adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanit…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:21PM[SHARE]Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the W.C. Fields comedy Tillie and Gus (1933). This was his second team-up with worthy foil Alison Skipworth, whom he had paired up…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:13PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Harry Hershfield (1885-1974), known in his day as “the Jewish Will Rogers“. Iowa native Hershfield started out as a teenage cartoonist for Ch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:10PM[SHARE]I think we can all agree that Italians and Italian-Americans rule. I come from Rhode Island, which is the closest thing America has to an Italiocracy. I grew up thinking beauty looked like P…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:04PM[SHARE]Continuing our month-long series of classic horror posts launched here, today we survey several films from the 1930s and 40s that are centered around sinister monsters and villains who schem…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:34AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
