Sunday, June 15, 2014
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin film Sunnyside (1919). Sunnyside is a sort of bucolic idyll, or a parody of one, with a rural setting we associ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 14, 2014
As you’ve heard me crow for months, we are in the centennial year of Charlie Chaplin’s motion picture debut. New York’s Anthology Film Archives is acknowledging that benchm…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:55AM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1925 Mack Sennett comedy Super Hooper Dyne Lizzies, directed by Del Lord, and written by Frank Capra, Felix Adler, et al. Though a come…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:52AM[SHARE]Friday, June 13, 2014
Just got word that Carla Laemmle passed away yesterday. Her passing severs one of the last links to a great age. Born in 1909, she was the niece of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemm…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:56PM[SHARE]Filed under: PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Governor's Island, Jazz Age Lawn Party
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:14PM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Hal Roach comedy Long Fliv the King (1926). Directed by Leo McCarey and starring Charley Chase, the film is essentially a remake of …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04AM[SHARE] Today is the anniversary of the release of the Douglas Fairbanks adventure comedy The Mollycoddle (1920). Directed by Victor Fleming, this is one of the better of Doug’s pre…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:22AM[SHARE]Â Today is the birthday of Lady Duff-Gordon (Lucy Christiana Sutherland, 1863-1935).The fact that she put together an act for vaudeville is probably one of the less important details of he…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:01AM[SHARE] Today is the 100th anniversary of the release of the all-star Keystone comedy Mabel’s Busy Day. This is one of those shorts that, rather annoyingly, nowadays gets marketed and …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:22AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 12, 2014
Filed under: EXHIBITIONS & LECTURES, PLUGS, VISUAL ART Tagged: Brooklyn Public Library, Making the Mundane Marvelous, Marlene Weisman
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:16AM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Fireman (1916). Sometimes even a brilliant comedian will get an otherwise great idea that just somehow is…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:49AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1943 Laurel and Hardy feature Jitterbugs, directed by Mal St. Clair. Any way I describe this movie will make it sound better than it is. L…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:18PM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the uncharacteristically crazy Douglas Fairbanks comedy The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916). While Fairbanks was primarily a light co…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:59AM[SHARE] Today is the anniversary of the release date of the all-star Keystone comedy The Knockout (1914), directed by Mack Sennett.  The Knockout is one of the premiere boxing co…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:43AM[SHARE]Monday, June 9, 2014
MONEY, LOVE, AND SHAME! (“Gelt, Libe, Un Shande”) Sex! Alcoholism! Corruption! Sickness and Death! Weddings! On the night before she is to take her immigrant wido…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:42AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 8, 2014
Stumbled on this one on TCM the other day, and my jaw dropped. Battle Circus (1952) is not just one of the few Korean War films ever made of by Hollywood, but it is one of the even few…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:46AM[SHARE]Tomorrow morning at 10am on Turner Movie Classics, the Marx Brothers in A Day the Races (1937). For many of us, A Day at the Races represents the “beginning of the end&#…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:05AM[SHARE]Tonight (tomorrow actually) at 12:30 a.m. Turner Movie Classics will be showing the notorious 1925 Larry Semon silent version of The Wizard of Oz. This was actually the second screen v…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:11AM[SHARE] Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Ben Turpin comedy Yukon Jane (1924). Directed by Del Lord, later responsible for many a Three Stooges short, this mov…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:16AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of that divine pistol Joan Rivers (born 1933) (for my piece on the 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, go here.) I am writing today to plug a crazy artifact …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:44AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 7, 2014
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1925 comedy What Price Goofy? starring Charley Chase and directed by an uncredited Leo McCarey. The title is of course a play on the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:57AM[SHARE] Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1935 comedy The Nitwits, starring Wheeler and Woolsey and directed by George Stevens. In this middling caper comedy, the boys work…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:22AM[SHARE]Friday, June 6, 2014
Today is the anniversary of the 1926 feature Ella Cinders, starring Colleen Moore. The film was based on the comic strip, a sort of Americanization of Cinderella, which had been launch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:45AM[SHARE]Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, a fitting time say I to memorialize Hollywood’s greatest D-Day testament pre-Private Ryan, 1962′s The Longest Day. I had never heard…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:50AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 5, 2014
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Coney Island, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Burlesque at the Beac, Cabaret Exotica, Coney Island USA
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:33AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Having now written about every other principal in my favorite movie The Wizard of Oz (I really have, just use the search feature at right to find them, it’s way too many names to…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:05AM[SHARE]Here’s one that’s been rapping on the back door of my consciousness for a long time screaming to get out. I first saw this ABC tv movie when it premiered in 1972, and then a few …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:59AM[SHARE]Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin-Mabel Normand short Her Friend the Bandit. It is a testament to the popularity of Chaplin that this is the only o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:56AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 3, 2014
June is Russian Heritage Month;Â if you don’t believe me just check out RussianAmericanFoundation.org. This must be a trying time to be a Russian-American. It shouldn’t be the …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:00PM[SHARE]Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Bushwick Burlesque, Revival, Sideshow of Moral Woe
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:22AM[SHARE]I’ve long held that the best writers make the best critics. In addition to aesthetic insight, the job calls for  descriptive powers both sufficient to engage the reader in art he ha…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:19AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
