Alas, started this day by accidentally hitting the "delete" button and instantaneously jettisoning this entire post - in the immortal words of motivational speaker Matt Foley, WHOOPS-A-DAISY. Shall now attempt to re-construct the 7-29-2023 post on the fly - and rewrite as we go!
Let's just say that on this day back in 1906, the pride of Lawrence, Kansas, the talented actress Thelma Todd was born.
The vivacious comedienne was also The Pip From Pittsburg!
Her 120+ films included both countless comedies and memorable dramatic parts in the crime thriller Corsair and the first screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, starring Ricardo Cortez as a rather randy, always hot-to-trot Sam Spade. Here, Thelma (as "the college widow") attempts to romance Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers.
Whenever the gang here gets down and in the dumps, we watch a comedy film in which one of the supporting players happens to be Thelma Todd!
Was there ANY comedian in the late silents and early talkies who Thelma did not co-star with?
The answer to that question is Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Roscoe Arbuckle, Lupino Lane, W.C. Fields, Lloyd Hamilton and the certifiable Clark & McCullough.
Thelma appeared as a valuable supporting player in films with all the rest of the funmakers, including the aforementioned Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown and the outstanding movie comedy teams Laurel & Hardy and Wheeler & Woolsey.
Knowing comedy talent when he encountered it, producer Hal Roach signed Thelma as a stock company member at The Lot Of Fun in 1929.
She has striking parts in several entries from the Roach Studio's bizarre (but hilarious) 1929 Harry Langdon series, which this writer reviewed here.
Tops in my book - Thelma's films with comedian Charley Chase!
A less prominent but extremely funny Hal Roach short subject featuring Thelma Todd is Love Fever, from The Boy Friends series.
Author, film historian and Hal Roach Studios expert Leonard Maltin elaborates on this lesser known but hilarious Hal Roach comedy.
At the moment, several entries from The Boy Friends series have been posted as a playlist on Archive.org. Perhaps The Boy Friends comedies will eventually find their way onto Blu-ray or DVD. . .
After Thelma and Charley made a wonderful team and worked beautifully together in The Pip From Pittsburg, Looser Than Loose and other short subjects, producer Hal Roach spun Thelma off into her own series. Roach had been experimenting with female comedy teams for awhile, having teamed comediennes Anita Garvin and Marion "Peanuts" Byron in the silent 2-reelers A Pair Of Tights, Feed 'Em And Weep and Going Ga-Ga. Thelma was teamed with character actress and comedienne ZaSu Pitts.
Hal Roach, who wanted to establish a "female Laurel & Hardy" as soon as it was clear that Stan & Babe were an enormous hit, tried a comedy team of Anita Garvin and Marion "Peanuts" Byron in 1928-1929, then, beginning in 1931, produced a series of 17 Thelma & Zasu comedies.
The first Todd-Pitts short subjects were directed by Marshall "Mickey" Neilan, veteran of numerous silent features and short subjects.
Watch the following, On The Loose, all the way through to see one of the funniest cameos in silver screen comedy history!
Here's an excerpt from one the funniest of the Todd-Pitts and Todd-Kelly comedies, The Bargain Of The Century (1933), which was directed by none other than Charley Chase.
Zasu, with numerous and increasing offers to work in feature films, left the series in 1933. She would be succeeded as Thelma's teammate by the very funny and enjoyably rowdy Patsy Kelly. All 21 Todd-Kelly 2-reelers, thankfully, are available on DVD from Classic Flix, the same company which has produced several terrific sets featuring Our Gang a.k.a. Hal Roach's Rascals.
Our favorite from the Todd-Kelly series? Top Flat (1935)!
Wikipedia elaborates:Todd continued her short-subject series through 1935 and was featured in the full-length Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bohemian Girl. It was her last role before her untimely death at age 29. Although she had completed all of her scenes, producer Roach had them re-shot, fearing negative publicity. He deleted all of Todd's dialogue, and limited her appearance to one musical number.
In closing, important acknowledgments for this and many other Lot Of Fun-centric posts go to Leonard Maltin, Sprocket Vault, Classic Flix, Benny Drinnon and the extremely thorough Dave Lord Heath of the Another Nice Mess website - thanks to all of you! In addition, we note that YouTube poster Anthony Scibelli has covered Thelma Todd's movie career and untimely passing as part of his entertaining and informative Unsung Legends Of Comedy series.
Tony, one of the greats of 20th century music, passed in NYC at 96 earlier today. Here's Tony and Bill Evans on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Since Tony waxed a gazillion recordings over his eight decades in music, can't post all of them. The 1962 Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall album is a good place to start. Tops with this music fan would be the two albums Tony waxed with pianist Bill Evans.
There is a connection between the two of them rarely equalled in popular music.
While Frank Sinatra concerts feature a duo on "One For My Baby and One For The Road" with pianist Bill Miller, and undoubtedly Tony Bennett performances, between swinging uptempo numbers, delivered incredible duos with his pianist/music director Ralph Sharon, on recordings, these Tony Bennett- Bill Evans albums can't be topped.
In closing, Mr. Bennett, of course, has also been intertwined with the city of my birth, San Francisco.
After a San Francisco Giants victory at Oracle Park, a serenade of "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" - usually from the p.a. system, but sometimes from Tony in person - inevitably would be heard, and always sounded beautiful.
"Two supremely brainless men, totally innocent of heart, and outrageously optimistic -- there is no one as dumb as a dumb guy who thinks he's smart." John McCabe
The availability of rare classic movies is definitely not on the list of less-than-wonderful things about living in the 2020's. The latest vintage celluloid goodness coming to Blu-ray is the earliest Hal Roach Studio films of Laurel & Hardy.
In our book, Laurel & Hardy remain the greatest of all movie comedy teams.
Some of us diehard classic movie buffs and comedy geeks have been watching Laurel & Hardy since their films were run on TV back in the 1960's. Let me repeat: it's true, believe it or not, movies starring comedy kings Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, W.C. Fields and Abbott & Costello were frequently seen on television. Even Charlie Chaplin silents were shown on TV back then!
Amazingly, one of the local movie palaces in my town, WAY back when, presented Robert Youngson's comedy compilations Laurel & Hardy's Laughing 20's and Four Clowns on the big screen, much to the unending delight of this writer - and a decade before VCRs changed home viewing in the late 1970's.
Quite a few of the short subjects on the new Blu-ray, Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents, were produced so early in their tenure at Hal Roach Studios that the teaming is clearly in its embryonic stages.
It includes their first appearance together - not as a team - in the 1921 short subject The Lucky Dog, produced by G.M. Anderson, the "A" in Essanay Studios and star of countless westerns known as "Broncho Billy."
In The Lucky Dog, written and directed by Jess Robbins, Hardy plays a bad guy, not too dissimilar from the menacing heavies he would portray as a stock company member in the Vitagraph slapstick comedies of wacky comics Jimmy Aubrey and Larry Semon.
While a selection of Stan & Babe talkies was released on Blu-ray in 2020 and a few of the L&H silents have found their way to such DVD releases as Kino Video's Slapstick Encyclopedia, this latest Blu-ray is the first sighting on this format of their early Hal Roach Studio films.
In addition to their debut appearance together in The Lucky Dog, the compilation features the first films in which Stan & Babe worked together in the casts at Hal Roach Studios. Both had been working as supporting players, with Hardy having memorable turns in such Charley Chase comedies as Isn't Life Terrible and Fluttering Hearts. Stan also acted as a writer and director, most notably on comedienne Mabel Normand's series during her brief stay at The Lot Of Fun in 1926-1927.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear in these Hal Roach comedies as actors, not as a team, but they would increasingly work together and a partnership gradually emerged as the 1927-1928 season progressed.
L&H support Hal Roach Studios actor Glenn Tryon in 45 Minutes From Hollywood, part of the All-Star series they both appeared in. Babe appeared with former Fox Films star and uber-vamp Theda Bara in Madame Mystery, which was directed by Stan.
Also among the pre-teaming Hal Roach Studio films: With Love & Hisses, Duck Soup and Why Girls Love Sailors. In moments throughout, very early harbingers of the distinctive mannerisms L&H would soon employ as a comedy team can be seen.
What was the first Hal Roach Studios 2-reeler to officially or unofficially feature Stan & Babe as a team? That would be The Second Hundred Years, which debuted in theatres on October 8, 1927.
It's a hilarious prison break comedy in which the boys break out of the big house only to become staggeringly inept painters.
In particular on this set, The Second Hundred Years, The Battle of the Century and Do Detectives Think? come across as Laurel & Hardy films. Stan and Babe start functioning as a comedy team in these very funny short subjects.
The lineup on Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents is The Lucky Dog (1921), 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), Duck Soup (1927), Slipping Wives (1927), Love 'em and Weep (1927), Why Girls Love Sailors (1927), With Love and Hisses (1927), Sugar Daddies (1927), Sailors, Beware! (1927), The Second 100 Years (1927), Call of the Cuckoo (1927), Do Detectives Think? (1927), Putting Pants on Phillip (1927), The Battle of the Century (1927) and Flying Elephants (1928).
The Flicker Alley press release elaborates:Very few of the silent films of Laurel and Hardy's negatives survive, and the available elements scattered throughout the world are always mediocre or unwatchable. It took three years to gather all the surviving prints of these shorts, compare them shot by shot and give them the best digital restoration possible. Today, these invisible films look as young as they did 95 years ago.
A world premiere for all the Laurel and Hardy fans. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy first appeared on film together in 1921, after an initial period in their careers spent apart. The two would formally team up in 1927 and found success by following a simple comic formula that displayed the hilariously ambitious and anarchic qualities of their joint personality.
Laurel & Hardy: Year One, The Newly Restored 1927 Silents, as proudly presented by Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films®, offers fans new and old the rare opportunity to observe the evolving partnership of the comedy team that would reach enormous popularity.
Featuring all new restorations sourced from best available materials contributed by archives and collectors around the world restored by Blackhawk Films® and Lobster Films in Paris, this comprehensive deluxe Blu-ray 2-Disc collection features thirteen extant films produced in 1927 and two additional films from before they were officially a team.
It includes new scores from some of the best silent film composers working today: Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen, and Donald Sosin. It is curated by film historians and Laurel and Hardy specialists; Randy Skretvedt, Dick Bann, Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange, and Ulrich Ruedel.
The 26th San Francisco Silent Film Festival opens on July 12 and extends through July 16!
Having enjoyed a slew of amazing S.F. Silent Film Festival shows at San Francisco's Castro Theatre over the decades, we're more than a tad sad to be missing this year's extravaganza, but happy to plug it nonetheless.
In the sequel to The Three Musketeers (1921), Fairbanks plays D'Artagnan with his customary savoir faire, wit and panache. Accompanying the action classic: The Guenter Buchwald Ensemble, with Buchwald on piano and violin, Masaru Koga on saxophone, and Frank Bockius on percussion. Jeffrey Vance, author of Douglas Fairbanks, will introduce the program.
The SFSFF press release adds: Fairbanks reprised the role for the sequel and oversaw every element of the lavish production. It was his last silent film and a magnificent success — with a little special treat thrown into the mix: In a concession to the new sound craze, the great silent star recorded two sequences in which D'Artagnan speaks directly to the audience.
It was also for all practical purposes the end of Fairbanks' illustrious silver screen career. Fairbanks starred in a few talkies, notably Mr. Robinson Crusoe (1932) and The Private Life Of Don Juan (1934), but would never be that epic, larger-than-life figure onscreen again.
The 2023 San Francisco Silent Film Festival includes, in one of its customary compendiums of silent movie goodness, numerous gems, many produced in the mid to late 1920's.
Along with action hero Douglas Fairbanks in the 2023 San Francisco Silent Film Festival lineup will be great movie comedians, including the always intrepid Buster Keaton in The 3 Ages.
There will also be essential late 1920's slapstick by our favorite comedy team, Laurel & Hardy, and very funny silent films starring character actor supreme (and future Fractured Fairy Tales narrator) Edward Everett Horton. The comedy-crazed silent movie buffs at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog approve!
In 1928, Edward Everett Horton starred in a series of 2-reel comedies produced for Paramount Pictures by Harold Lloyd's company, Hollywood Productions. Not surprisingly, Horton is incredibly funny in these silents. It is easy to imagine the mutterings of Horton's persnickety character, as we know him from such sound films as The Gang's All Here.
The Edward E. Horton Show presents three of Horton's two-reelers, mastered from Library of Congress 35mm prints: No Publicity (1927, d. N.T. Barrows, 22 m.), Horse Shy (1928, d. Jay A. Howe, 22 m.) and Vacation Waves (1928, d. N.T. Barrows, 22 m.)
This release, which led to a 2-DVD set, was the result of a successful Kickstarter, which we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog were delighted to contribute to. The rest of the Edward Everett Horton series can be purchased here.
If you happen to be in the Bay Area next weekend, by all means get to the Castro Theatre for vintage big screen fun.
