Tuesday, June 3, 2014
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]Monday, June 2, 2014
British Columbia professor Douglas Edward Fraser is a pen pal of mine. His new book sounds like my cup of frontier whiskey. It’s available in a Kindle version today. Get it here. Fi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:46PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 1, 2014
Today is the birthday of Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962). A post here on Marilyn’s comic oeuvre is inevitable, but in the meantime, we can’t the obvious Marxfest connection. Grouch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:04PM[SHARE] Adapted from a talk given May 10, 2014 at the Greater Astoria Historical Society as part of Marxfest. By the late 1920s, the Marx Brothers had already been in show business (vaudevi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:30PM[SHARE]Adapted from a talk given at the Coney Island Museum on May 2, 2014 as part of Marxfest and the Congress of Curious Peoples Never in their lives, even in childhood, were the Marx Brothers ev…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:58AM[SHARE] Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Keystone short The Fatal Mallet. In this outdoor comedy, no less than three self-styled suitors vie for Mabel Normand…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:49AM[SHARE] Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the 1929 Laurel and Hardy short Berth Marks. Trouble on a train. That's really all it is. The boys play two vaudevillians on th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:30AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 31, 2014
I meant to post this piece early in the month — and here’s the month flown by! Most of us first encounter the Marx Brothers in our youths, when we’re not yet seasoned c…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 04:57PM[SHARE]Adapted from a talk given at the New York Public Library on May 29, 2014 and published in the May 2014 edition of Zelda. This May marked the 100th anniversary of Julius, Leonard, Adolphe …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:45AM[SHARE]In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:30AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Jim Hutton (1934-1979), a fitting time to talk about a favorite show of mine from the 1975-76 television season Ellery Queen. It’s astounding to me that thi…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:04AM[SHARE]Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy short Hog Wild (1930), directed by James Parrott. This is a perfect comedy: perfectly written, performed shot a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:29AM[SHARE]Friday, May 30, 2014
Today is the birthday of the great producer and director (and screenwriter)Â Howard Hawks. It’s inevitable that I’ll do several additional blogposts on the topic on Hawks, espe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:45PM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of the Boy Genius, legendary MGM production head Irving J. Thalberg (1899-1936). How fitting that it falls within the month of Marxfest! The name Thalberg looms large i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:06PM[SHARE]Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: burlesque, Champagne Riot, Dandy Wellington, Gelber and Manning
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:46AM[SHARE]In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:07AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 29, 2014
 Today is the birthday of the great humorist, broadcast personality and harmonic player Herb Shriner (1918-1970). I first became aware of him, quite naturally, because of his son t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:55AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of Josef Von Sternberg (1894-1969). In light of the current book I’m hawking with all its incipient Chaplin-mania, we have the perfect angle on Von Sternberg to t…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:29AM[SHARE]Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the Harold Lloyd short Among Those Present (1921). The plot begins with a daughter (Mildred Davis) who, like her  father (James T. Ke…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:39AM[SHARE]In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will taking a look at a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, we w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:13AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 28, 2014
In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:07AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the terrific all-star Paramount comedy International House (1933), directed by Eddie Sutherland. I’ve probably seen this one two d…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:51AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of the terrific Cilla Black (1943). Americans ought to know her better than they do. Baby boomers will remember her British Invasion hits, but she had much greate…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:58AM[SHARE]Today is the birthday of silent screen star Dustin Farnum (1874-1929). A second generation stage performer, he got his theatrical start in childhood, and by age 15 had formed a vaudeville ac…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:34AM[SHARE] Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy Police (1916). Police was Chaplin’s last short for Essanay Studios. Rather spitefully they later i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:04AM[SHARE]In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:23AM[SHARE]Monday, May 26, 2014
In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:08AM[SHARE]Sunday, May 25, 2014
In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:55AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 24, 2014
In celebration of Marxfest, every day this month we will be paying tribute to a different Marx Brothers film. While there are only 13 extant cinematic features including the entire team, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:17AM[SHARE]Friday, May 23, 2014
 Today is the birthday of silent screen comedian Max Davidson (1875-1950). Davidson was an interesting transitional figure in the evolution of an ethnic stereotype in the cinema. Fo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:35PM[SHARE]Last night was one of the happiest nights of my life. Why? It was just the sheer pleasure of hearing 2 or 3 hundred people laugh at the Marx Brothers. Hearing that many people be that deligh…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
