Sunday, July 5, 2015
Today is the 100th anniversary of the Keystone ensemble comedy Court House Crooks (1915), directed by and starring by Ford Sterling. This little comedy has a number of interesting feat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:48AM[SHARE]Tonight on Turner Movie Classics, two of the greatest classic anti-war satires of all time, followed by an exploration of the the Thanhouse Film Company. 8:00 pm (EST): Duck Soup (1933) Duck…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:45AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 4, 2015
Happy 4th of July! Since I had a holiday from work yesterday, I thought I would do a little photo essay illustrating a little known fact…not just little known to Americans, but little …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:14PM[SHARE]Today at 8:00 pm (EST) on Turner Classic Movies: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) A strong contender for best Hollywood show biz bio-pic all around. James Cagney tears it up as his hero…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:58AM[SHARE]Friday, July 3, 2015
This is part five of a five part series. For part one, covering the years of silent comedy, go here.  For part two, on the 30s and 1940s, go here. For part three, covering the 19…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:52PM[SHARE]Tomorrow at 4:30pm at the Museum of Modern Art, as part of their 3D Summer series: the classic John Wayne western Hondo (1953), directed by John Farrow. Warning: we always…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:21PM[SHARE]OK, this card is a little hard to read, so I’ll tell you all you need to know. Our friend Lefty Lucy is presenting this patriotic burlesque show at Coney Island USA tonight at 10pm, fe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:20AM[SHARE]It’s Independence Day weekend! Â I’ve recently uncovered details about several ancestors who fought in the American Revolution. Today seems like the ideal time to share the inf…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:20AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 2, 2015
In July 1879 was born one Szmuel Gelbfisz in Warsaw, Poland. Later to become Samuel Goldfish, finally to become Samuel Goldwyn. Around the turn of the century he came to upstate New York and…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:45PM[SHARE]This is part four of a five part series. For part one, covering the years of silent comedy, go here.  For part two, covering 1930s and 1940s, go here. For part three, covering the 1950…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:15PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Tomorrow morning at 6:00am, Turner Classic Movies will be showing perhaps the most hauntingly effective witchcraft movie ever made. A silent Danish/Swedish co-production from 1922,  Ha…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:58PM[SHARE]Hey, that’s THEIR title – -I didn’t make it up! The theme tonight on Turner Classic Movies is westerns with “White Men Among Native Americans” at their center. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:25PM[SHARE]This is part three of a five part series. For part one, covering the years of silent comedy, go here.  For part two, covering 1930s and 1940s, go here. Punchy Cowpunchers (1950) Sur…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:21PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Occasionally I find my social media statuses growing so elaborate they become blogposts. This is one of them, from yesterday. A question from a guy in one of the (Facebook) movie groups:…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:05PM[SHARE]This is part two of a five part series. For part one, covering the years of silent comedy, go here. The Fighting Parson (1930) A Harry Langdon short for Hal Roach. A western town is expe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PM[SHARE]Filed under: PLUGS, Singers, Women Tagged: Barnum Museum, Bijou Theatre, Jenny Lind, P.T. Barnum
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:58AM[SHARE]Monday, June 29, 2015
This afternoon on Turner Classic Movies, the Gildersleeve comedies. Radio comedian Harold “Hal” Peary (1908-1985) created his popular radio character Throckmorton Gildersleeve on…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:39AM[SHARE]Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934), directed by Jay Sandrich. This is rated one of the team’s best comedi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:39AM[SHARE]The roots of the comedy western genre are surprisingly early.  Casual movie fans are apt to think the genesis might lay with Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West (1937) or, God for…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 28, 2015
 Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe Arbuckle comedy Fatty’s Plucky Pup (1915). This was one in a series of comedies in which Arbuckle co-starred…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:10AM[SHARE]Having done a previous post about 50 Funny Football Films, and planning a similarly epic one about baseball, as a stopgap, here is survey of Hollywood golf comedies through history. Click on…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:10AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 27, 2015
Wow…I can’t believe I Â haven’t gotten around to plugging this book or even rating it on Goodreads (a lapse which I just addressed). I guess I first read this book in the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:45PM[SHARE]With the advent of talking pictures in the late 1920s, there was a rush on for Hollywood studios to sign big New York vaudeville and musical comedy stars. For a brief while they were trying …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:27AM[SHARE]Friday, June 26, 2015
In celebration of Pride Weekend (now upon us) and today’s Supreme Court decision in favor of same sex marriage, a quick mini-post to connect you quickly to posts on Travalanche …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:45AM[SHARE]Originally posted on Once upon a screen...:You can find a wealth of movie history sites in a town near me, places where the movies and movie genres were born and the players who spearheaded …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:45AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 25, 2015
Originally posted on Silver Embers:There is a scene in Sam Fuller's Forty Guns when Barbara Stanwyck sits at the head of a dinner table. She is the only woman; a formidable presence surround…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:28AM[SHARE]We were privileged last night to attend the launch event for the premiere edition of Spaz Comics, brainchild of editor/publisher Rik Sansone. The Mad Marchioness is represented in this volum…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:56AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Well…surely not the last blogpost EVER about bio-pics, but the last in my series that began here, here, here and here. This one covers films made from 1970 on, and like the rest in the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:14PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 23, 2015
As we blogged here over the weekend, Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of W.C. Fields’ debut with the Ziegfeld Follies, where over the course of just over a decade he would explore a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:01PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Lee Moran (1888-1961). Moran got his start performing in vaudeville and musical comedy, breaking into films at the Nestor  company in 1912. After three years on h…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:48AM[SHARE]Monday, June 22, 2015
Today is the birthday of the great Hollywood auteur Billy Wilder (1906-2002). Much like Preston Sturges, some of Wilder’s best work as a screenwriter was written previous to his ascens…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:45AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
