On May 4th in the year 2024, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Paul F. Etcheverry, Scott Moon and Robert Emmett will be back at Foothill College!
WHY??? to retroactively celebrate May Day in the lovely Los Altos Hills with yet another KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival!
The all-16mm entertainment extravaganza, jam-packed with celluloid heroes and celluloid zeroes!
The show will feature the usual stuff we - and those who produced Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Cinematic Titanic, Cinema Insomnia and the MADS as well - adore.
That includes retro TV ads!
ESPECIALLY cigarette ads.
B, C, D and Z-movie trailers
The inevitable Soundies and Scopitones!
Incredibly Strange Cartoons, of course, will be on the menu.
Will the show be jam-packed with movie stars, CGI and cool effects? In a word - NO! Will there be anything in Mandarin? We're looking!
Shall we
toss a wide variety of films from different places, genres, techniques or time periods together into quite the kaleidoscopic cinema salad? Yes, definitely.
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. Room 5015, A.K.A. Forum Classroom Foothill College campus 12345 El Monte Road
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 (El Monte exit off of Highway 280)
NOTE: The perpetrators of this festival, this very Monday evening from 6pm tp 7pm PST, shall be on KFJC 89.7 FM to plug it shamelessly with co-founder Robert Emmett on his Thoughtline show.
Be seeing you at Foothill College! For more, see Scott Moon's sensational Psychotronix Film Festival website!
Born on this day in 1902: the "daredevil comedienne", stuntwoman and comic actress Wanda Wiley, star of very funny films for Century Comedies and J.R. Bray Productions. Starting her movie career doing stunt work in westerns, Wanda, a cross between the winsome comedienne and an action hero, made 50 films between 1924 and 1927.
A longer version of this Century Comedy, the wonderfully frantic A SPEEDY MARRIAGE, was featured in episode 78 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party. It's the last film and begins an hour and six minutes into the show. Thanks, Ben Model and Steve Massa!
Way too many silent movie comediennes were entirely ignored for decades and decades, primarily because they did not star in comedies produced by Hal Roach Studios and Mack Sennett or feature films.
The Century Comedies star and stuntlady is in the jaunty heroic mold of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Harold Lloyd, who she shares the 4/20 birthday with.
From San Antonio, Wanda Wiley's sensibility is that of gal next door who happens to be a daredevil, not dissimilar from Madcap Mabel Normand in A Dash Through The Clowds (1912) - and yes, she races cars in FLYING WHEELS!
She is not the traditional comedienne turned leading lady (Billie Rhodes, Bebe Daniels), the glamour girl who sometimes does pratfalls (Marion Davies, Carole Lombard), a feisty "don't you mess with me" firebrand (Fay Tincher) or the "baggy pants comedienne" persona seen from Gale Henry, Louise Fazenda and Alice Howell to Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Possibly Wanda's characterization was modeled on the ever-plucky Constance "Dutch" Talmadge, tied with Mabel Normand as silent cinema's top comedienne in feature films. She does share charisma, spunk and athleticism with Talmadge and Fay Tincher.
As seen in her extant films, WandaVision 1925 is a very cool place!
One of the funniest extant Wanda comedies remains the action-packed A Thrilling Romance. Here is a slightly truncated version.
A more complete version of A Thrilling Romance was featured, in between Jimmie Parrott and Buster Keaton, on episode 16 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party. It's the second film and begins at 39:23.
In 1926, Wanda appears to have been demoted from star of her own series to secondary player in a new series. Why? Who knows? This was not unheard of at Universal, where top comedienne Alice Howell transitioned from headliner to supporting player.
Perhaps the powers that were at Universal feared Wanda would ask for a raise and a promotion. The subsequent What Happened To Jane? series Wanda co-starred in shifts the focus to the male leads.
The much less talented and interesting (a.k.a. dull as dishwater) male leads make Wanda a second banana in the What Happened To Jane? series.
Yes, that's right, Universal and Stern Brothers productions discontinued Wanda Wiley's starring vehicles but, hoping to compete with Hal Roach's Our Gang, launched the successful Buster Brown comedies and then, aspiring to counter Sennett's The Smith Family series, followed it with the Newlyweds & Their Baby series, featuring Sunny Jim McKeen as Snookums. This series of short subjects (and Sunny Jim, the kid with the Ed Grimley hairdo) can be excruciating, and come across more as funny-weird than funny-humorous.
How Wanda Wiley, the personalty plus girl, did not attract the attention of Universal head Carl Laemmle and continue her career into talkies, we'll never know. This brings to mind the question of how many of the LOTS and LOTS of silent film comediennes starred for Universal and who produced these fast-paced, sight gag-filled 2-reelers.
The answer to the former includes Wanda Wiley, Alice Howell, Fay Tincher, Baby Peggy Montgomery, Edna Marion and many more. The answer to the latter would be Julius Stern and Abe Stern, the brother-in-laws of Carl Laemmle and producers of over 900 films, mostly comedies.
The outstanding cinema detective, author and film historian Thomas Reeder has focused two books on the comedy that emerged from Universal in the teens and 1920's - and the second one, Time is Money! The Century, Rainbow, and Stern Brothers Comedies of Julius and Abe Stern, covers their lives and movie career in detail. It would appear from the surviving footage that Wanda Wiley's best films were from the first year of her Universal series produced by the Stern brothers in 1924-1925.
Alas, and unfortunately, Hal Roach, Mack Sennett and Jack White (at Educational Pictures) did not step in at the point in 1927-1928 and hire Wanda to headline a series. Too bad - maybe the unexpected impact of The Jazz Singer was a factor. In a move that got me thinking of Paramount Pictures and the Fleischer brothers, Universal cut ties with the Stern Brothers in 1929.
Wanda made a few more movies, very briefly returned to vaudeville, then married well and gave up showbiz in 1933. There is a mention in Anthony Balducci's superlative book Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema of a severe accident on set in which Wanda was thrown from a horse. The response of famed superhero Captain Obvious would be that perhaps this was the reason Wanda did not continue in motion pictures. As athletic, fearless, intrepid and super-fit as Wanda was, getting thrown from a horse could emphatically influence one to seek a less dangerous line of work.
Additional battered top hat tips go to the April 20, 2023 post about Wanda from Travalanche and to Steve Massa, for writing his Slapstick Divas book about the many super-talented comediennes of silent pictures.
Bravos, kudos and huzzahs to Mr. Reeder, Mr. Massa, Mr. Ross (and The Lost Laugh) and, for much of the footage in today's post, the Library Of Congress. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog applaud the excellent research that has brought the spotlight back to Wanda Wiley, the superb daredevil comedienne. Now we'll watch a slew of super-talented comediennes and character actresses who are still with us in April 2024 get big laughs in the Palm Royale series.
The past year has had at least one prominent thing going for it: the full-fledged return of film festivals after an extended lockdown-related hiatus. The 2024 version of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival opened earlier this week at the Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre, in San Francisco's Marina district. Do we seek a Star Trek teleportation device that would make attending these screenings a breeze? Yes.
The Laurel & Hardy Show - Saturday, April 13 at 10:00 a.m.
Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr - Saturday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m. The Gorilla 1927 version starring Charlie Murray - Sunday, April 14 at 10:00 a.m.
Harold Lloyd in The Kid Brother - Sunday, April 14 at 12:15 p.m. Live music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. Roxy Cinema NYC, 2 Avenue of the Americas (lower level) and Cartoons On Film presents Peculiar Puppets vol. V (16mm) The press release elaborates: Roxy Cinema hereby presents a fifth retrospective screening featuring various peculiar examples of puppet films from the 1920s through the 1950s. Warning: You may find some of the offerings to be rather unsettling, possibly even creepy!
On April 18-21, 2024, TCM Classic Film Festival returns to the Holly-woods. Venues include the Egyptian Theatre, the Chinese Multiplex House 1-6, and, of course, Club TCM at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. It is the 15th edition of this epic festival and features lots and lots of classic movies along with more recent fare which, by this point, April 2024, were definitely long time ago. . . make that a very long time ago. Many special guests, still living movie stars and various favorite scholars and historians we know will be on hand. Still miss Robert Osborne! For way more on past TCM festivals, check out the TCM YouTube channel.
Still thinking of the late, great Joe Flaherty, who did excellent William F. Buckley and Kirk Douglas impersonations and whose fellow SCTV cast members were also incredible mimics, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog now turns to the topic of impressionists. Rang in 2024 on the blog with a January 1 post largely devoted to old school impressionists - John Byner, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr and Australia's best, Keith Scott, included.
Those of us who have long since passed retirement age, such as this "ok, boomer" blogmeister, remember seeing impressionists regularly on TV. Such popular and ubiquitous stand-up comedians of the day - Jack Carter, Shecky Greene, Guy Marks - featured impersonations prominently in their acts.
The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and The Dean Martin Show featured superlative impressionists.
Way back in the 1950s and 1960s, it hadnt been that long since arger-than-life movie stars - Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Jack Benny, Greta Garbo, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, Jimmy Cagney, Groucho Marx, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum - dominated both the silver screen and the cathode ray tube. Many of the aforementioned Hollywood stars were very much still with us then and could either love or despise the impressions. Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett would book the likes of Jack Benny and Groucho Marx on their late-night shows whenever they could.
Along with The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show, it was arguably the last TV variety program to provide mimics a showcase. The late 1970's On Location series by HBO did at least gave impressionists an extended opportunity to do their standup comedy acts.
And, speaking of The Dean Martin Show, how this blogmeister actually forgot to include the aforementioned Guy Marks (1923-1987), one of the very best and funniest of the old school impressionists back in the 1960's, we'll never know! Let's rectify that error now!
Since the demise of the TV variety program and such showcases as The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1970's, the last place where actual impressionists could be found is late night TV: SCTV (a.k.a. Second City Television), Late Night With David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and to a lesser degree Fridays, In Living Color and Mad TV. Frank Caliendo was the impressions guy on Mad TV.
Saturday Night Live has explored that "improv meets impressions" space from John Belushi's Marlon Brando as The Godfather impersonation to Gilda Radner's Lucy to the dead-on mimicry and comedy acting genius of Eddie Murphy, uncrowned and unheralded king of celebrity and politician voices Darrell Hammond - and the "micro-impressions" of the great Dana Carvey.
The Saturday Night Live casts have featured numerous stand-up comedians who do impressions over the decades - the infamous Season 6 featured three, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo and Gilbert Gottfried - and a favorite 21st century SNL stalwart and new school impressionist is Bill Hader.
Sometimes Jimmy Fallon's musical impressions make it into The Tonight Show; we would also occasionally get a glimpse of them, along with very funny music-related sketches, during his SNL stint in the early oughts. He's a musician who happens to be an improv comic and clearly most at home with a guitar in his hand. Jimmy Fallon's impressions of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen are my favorite bits of his.
Fellow SNL alum Melissa Villaseñor is also an amazing new school impressionist.
As is the case with Maya Rudolph, we have the impression that Melissa Villaseñor has many, many more impressions yet to be heard.
Melissa's celebrity impersonations (musical and otherwise) are a highlight of the current version of The Tonight Show, especially the Wheel of Musical Impressions feature. Now, has anyone gotten Melissa and Dolly Parton together?
The current SNL cast features two bonafide impressionists in James Austin Johnson and Chloe Fineman.
While eating a delicious sandwich on National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day and checking Ebay daily for Star Trek teleportation devices in good condition (even knowing it's likely that Bill Shatner and Patrick Stewart have cornered the market on them), the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog also yearn to see more showcases for comedians and comediennes with the gift of mimicry - and the gift of gab.
A key function and reason for being of this blog is to pay tribute to favorite comedians, comediennes and animators from decades gone by; we love the spectacular, the merely great and just occasionally great who take us to "the laughing place." Right now, we're reeling from the passing earlier this week of one of the all-time greats, Second City and SCTV troupe member Joe Flaherty, while also celebrating the natal anniversary of the hilariously funny Grady Sutton (1906-1995).
Could have celebrated the 100th birthday of Grady Sutton, another all-time favorite, especially as a foil to all-time great W.C. Fields, when I started this blog way back in 2006. Why not? I don't know! Shall tip our battered top hat worn by William Claude Dukenfeld to Grady Sutton, born April 5, 1906, today!
Rather amazingly, Grady Sutton, over a 55 year career, both appeared in silent films and played the role of the principal in ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL. That's right - that means he had a show business career that crossed paths with both W.C. Fields and The Ramones. His first claim to fame was a continuing role in the early 1930's Hal Roach Studios series The Boy Friends.
On a YouTube channel devoted to the career of ace movie stuntman Dave Sharpe and, lo and behold, there's The Boy Friends in AIR-TIGHT. Grady was, along with former Our Gang star Mickey Daniels, the top comic in the series, while dapper Dave Sharpe acted as the leading man.
There are two comedy shorts we know of titled THE KNOCKOUT. Most dyed-in-the-wool silent movie buffs have seen the 1914 Keystone Comedy featuring Roscoe Arbuckle and a young Edgar "Slow Burn" Kennedy (with hair!) as pugilists and none other than Charlie Chaplin as the referee. The second is a Hal Roach Studios 2-reeler featuring The Boy Friends; Grady's dancing at 0:54 is a hoot!
Very likely as a direct result of appearing in The Pharmacist, produced by Mack Sennett, Grady Sutton also appeared in the following Mack Sennett Star Comedy - Husbands' Reunion.
When Hal Roach Studios cameraman George Stevens moved on from The Lot Of Fun to RKO Radio Pictures in 1933, he launched a short subjects series, The Blondes & The Redheads, featuring Grady along with cartoon voice artist Carol Tevis (you know her when you hear that high-pitched squeaky voice) and leading ladies June Brewster and Dorothy Granger.
The Blondes & The Redheads comedies are very enjoyable 2-reelers and, having fallen into the public domain, all available on YouTube, in some cases as a playlist.
Grady Sutton is best known to classic movie buffs and comedy fans for his supporting roles in W.C. Fields films.
He is consistently hilarious in the 1939 Fields vehicle You Can't Cheat An Honest Man.
Fields subsequently cast Grady as the unbelievably dense Og Oggilby in THE BANK DICK (1940).
Grady Sutton continued working in TV and movies through the 1970's. As there are so many guest appearances and walk-ons in movies and sitcoms through the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, it is difficult to say where to begin, He was one of the co-stars of The Pruitts Of Southampton a.k.a. The Phyllis Diller Show, featuring standup comedienne Diller, along with a host of talented character actors (including Grady, Reginald Gardiner and the ubiquitous Richard Deacon, post-Dick Van Dyke Show role as subject of scorn Mel Cooley).
While on the topic of comedians who brought the writer of this blog a million laughs, we're saddened to hear that Joe Flaherty, writer, teacher, director, improv expert and cast member in Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's favorite sketch comedy show, SCTV, has passed at the age of 82.
Here, two cast members from that great series, Joe and John Candy, appear on Late Night With David Letterman.
One SCTV character who never fails to crack up the crew here is Guy Caballero!
Another is Count Floyd.
Monster Chiller Horror Theatre's House Of Cats remains a favorite!
Mr. Flaherty, a Pittsburgh-born cornerstone of the Second City troupe and the National Lampoon radio show, brought the comedy-centric gang here a million laughs on SCTV and a slew of other television programs and movies (Freaks & Geeks, Happy Gilmore, Maniac Mansion). . . as well as thrills introducing the superlative Canadian rock band Rush in concert as Count Floyd!
And Grady Sutton, our often befuddled assistant in navigating the distictive world of W.C. Fields in The Pharmacist, The Man On The Flying Trapeze, You Can't Cheat An Honest Man and The Bank Dick did the same, getting big laughs from this comedy fan on everything from pre-code 2-reelers to MGM's Ziegfeld Follies to many TV shows and the latter-day likes of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, Support Your Local Gunfighter and Rock N' Roll High School.
