Capra worked for comedy-meisters Hal Roach and Mack Sennett and wrote gags for both the Our Gang series and the highly original, unorthodox comedian Harry Langdon.
Was thrilled and delighted to stay up way past my bedtime to see Capra, along with fellow directors Mel Brooks, Peter Bogdanovich and Robert Altman, on The Dick Cavett Show.
Later, after finding myself the only person in my high school class who did not think It's A Wonderful Life was an unbearably corny, hokey and interminable piece of crap, delved deeply into Capra's cinematic catalog. Fortunately, his best known flicks - Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, You Can't Take It With You, Meet John Doe - were shown frequently on TV way back when.
NOTE: for a fascinating bill, watch It's A Wonderful Life with Hitchcock's Rope or one of the Anthony Mann westerns starring Jimmy Stewart (more akin to the Jimmy from Vertigo than to the Jimmy who starred in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington) - then top it off with Frank Capra's WW2 documentaries from the Why We Fight series.
The Oscar-winning IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, which would now be described as a "rom-com," remains an all-time favorite film of the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog. It is both consistently funny start-to-finish and chock full of hilarious character actors.
By the time the 1980's rolled around, had seen numerous Frank Capra films, including the lesser-known Broadway Bill, thanks to repertory cinema retrospectives.
Also saw Mr. Capra on the NBC version of Late Night With David Letterman, the best show on the cathode ray tube not named Blackadder or SCTV at that time. Could Dave have been a crazed diehard classic movie buff? To paraphrase Gary Cooper in two aforementioned movies, yep.
In the 1990's, David Packard's Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA did this film buff a tremendous favor by presenting extended and absolutely epic Frank Capra retrospectives. Got to see a bunch of the Capra films which weren't seen often on TV - including Lady For A Day, The Bitter Tea Of General Yen, Lost Horizon and others - in vivid big screen glory.
The Bitter Tea Of General Yen is beautifully photographed, features the always intrepid Stanwyck (who made five feature films with Capra) and remains a fascinating and largely successful attempt to deliver cinematic high style a la Josef von Sternberg on a Columbia Pictures budget.
Bear in mind, as gorgeous a classic film as The Bitter Tea Of General Yen is, it definitely strays at times into the WTF category, even while its visual style successfully plunges into terrain only explored by F.W. Murnau and Josef von Sternberg.
The late Robert Osborne elaborates:
Favorite all the lesser known Frank Capra flicks? The Great Depression epic American Madness (1932), which explores themes seen later in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe and It's A Wonderful Life.
No, at least in this case, the term animal magnetism does not refer to the minor-key song by headbanging German hard rockers The Scorpions - or does it?
Your somewhat intrepid correspondent, back from a great time in Northern California co-presenting the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College with Robert Emmett, Mr. Lobo, Sci Fi Bob Ekman and Scott Moon, is now enjoying nice hot coffee in beautiful New York City and thinking about very odd silent movies.
Since this blogger is indeed wearing an official Silent Comedy Watch Party T-shirt (thank you, Marlene Weisman), it's time to watch an excellent presentation titled ANIMAL MAGNETISM: THE SILENT COMEDY MENAGERIE that author, SCWP co-curator and silent comedy expert Steve Massa created for the Silent Laughter festival held in November 2023 at The Cinema Museum, London.
Topic du jour: furry friends who starred in silent movies, with cool film clips accompanied by excellent music by Ethan Uslan and Meg Morley. This highly entertaining presentation features generous excerpts from terrific silent comedies, notably NIP & TUCK (a 1923 Mack Sennett opus featuring Billy Bevan, Harry Gribbon and scene-stealing Cameo the Dog). Steve outlines the various trends, besides not paying human actors, that brought dogs, cats, mules, spider monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutans, lions, bears and even freakin' elephants to the silver screen.
One of our all-time favorite furry friends in movies is Pepper The Cat, here co-starring with the great comedienne "Madcap Mabel" Normand. A cat who took direction? WTF? Watch and see - our mackerel tabby mascot Raymond, whose response is "cats rock and can do everything, while always looking fabulous" heartily approves! Alas, a bunch of dogs, cute but a lot less interesting than Pepper, end up as "the cavalry," rescuing a soon-to-be-lunch bird from the feline antagonist in this 1913 opus from Mack Sennett's Keystone.
And, speaking of Mack Sennett's Keystone Comedies, the mention of Luke recalls Roscoe Arbuckle in Fatty's Plucky Pup (1915).
And then there's the one, the only Pete The Pup, star first of the Buster Brown series (as Tige) and then a mainstay of Hal Roach Studio's Our Gang.
Here, the first Pete co-stars with the very funny acrobatic comedian (and future grizzled sidekick in westerns) Al St. John in Dynamite Doggie, directed by Roscoe Arbuckle and co-starring the second Mrs. Arbuckle, Doris Deane.
Producer Hal Roach, no fool, recruited Pete for Our Gang after seeing him in such films as Dynamite Doggie and the Stern Brothers' Buster Brown series. The following, Dog Heaven (1927) is one of the strangest and darkest Our Gang comedies and more akin to the comic sensibility of Michael "Mr. Mike" O' Donaghue than to any of the Hal Roach Studio gagmeisters.
The second Pete would enliven the talkie Our Gang comedies in such Depression-era favorites as The Pooch and For Pete's Sake.
Having enjoyed viewing a lightweight but funny William Powell flick on the SFO-JFK flight (yes, TCM was available) all this correspondent can think of is the best canine comic not named Cameo, the extraordinary Asta!
Asta was trained by the frequently hilarious comedienne and sometimes writer/producer of silents and early talkies (and frequent co-star of director-writer-comic Charley Chase at the Hal Roach studio) Gale Henry and her husband Henry East.
While the diehard classic movie mavens here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have not yet located any film footage - well, not yet - showing Gale appearing onscreen with one of the exceptionally talented canines she and Henry East trained, that said, it's as good an excuse as any to show more clips of the immortal Asta!
How funny was Gale Henry? Check out her dance in HIS WOODEN WEDDING (1925), which is just one of many memorable supporting roles she contributed to the classic Hal Roach comedies, both in silents and talkies, of comic genius Charley Chase. It's clear why Charley hired and re-hired Gale for comedy heavy lifting in his films; she was a scream!
Gale, the prolific comedienne and character actress who must have been among the key prototypes for the character of Olive Oyl in E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre comic strip, remains one of the most unique talents in the history of movies.
We must respectfully tip our top hat (no doubt worn by some unfortunate mustached comic who got chased around by a lion in a Fox Sunshine comedy produced and directed by Henry "Suicide" Lehrman) to the super-talented Gale Henry, as well as all the many four-legged fur-bearing stars of the silver screen.
Today, we're substantially less than bright-eyed and bushy tailed after mucho big screen fun last night at the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival. It was a blast!
And yes, it's true - yours truly slipped a Scrappy cartoon into the extravaganza. What can we say? Love that crew featuring the brilliant Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus and Art Davis!
Do we love seeing the DC5 followed by Mickey Rooney Jr. singing Beatles hits, those guys with the high voices and skinny neckties (The Newbeats) and 1960's heartthrob Adam Faith, doing the bunny hop dance while singing a tune this music fan associates with John Lee Hooker, on SHINDIG? Yes!
A favorite in the program that yours truly didn't bring was the amazing Howdy Doody Presents A Trip To Funland, a 1953 Castle Films opus, which featured, along with Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and Clarabelle, scenes from the imaginative science fiction stop-motion animated film Kermesse fantastique, directed by József Misik for Joop Geesink's Dollywood studio.
Showed unintentionally hilarious Marlboro and L&M TV commercials in the extravaganza. Do we like cigarette ads too much? Yes.
Here are some additional nicotine-stained goodies filled with fine tobaccos, courtesy of Prelinger Archives.
The classic comedy fans who write this blog want to call attention to a Go Fund Me on behalf of one of our film historian pals, Nelson Hughes. $2000 more and the fundraiser will meet its goal.
Nelson has forgotten more than most of us know about classic comedy films and silent era knockabout and curated numerous wonderful programs for his That Slapstick Show! series in NYC. We especially like his programs of rare American silent comedies from the Library Of Congress (such as The Celebrity Roast Of Charley Chase) at Brooklyn's City Reliquary and Astoria's Q.E.D.
We enthusiastically support Go Fund Me on behalf of a splendid curator and showman who is among the key figures in the 21st century revival of WW1 era and 1920's Universal Pictures comedies.
In programs he curated, Nelson has brought attention to the slapstick comedy pioneer and producer-director-writer for Keystone, L-KO, Fox "Sunshine" and First National comedies Henry Lehrman (1881-1946).
Along with the ultra-wacky cartoonist turned comic Larry Semon (1889-1928), Lehrman (a.k.a. Pathé Lehrman and Suicide Lehrman) proved to be one highly enthusiastic exponent of a bigger, wilder, spectacular and mayhem-filled more-more-more approach to comedy - great for sight gags and visual humor but dangerous for extras. The fast-fast-fast and then faster Lehrman short subjects reflect that he was a comedy genius - and out of his freakin' mind!
Lehrman and Charlie Chaplin could not stand each other, but they did collaborate on Charlie's earliest films, such as his debut, Making A Living.
There's Charlie, in his tramp costume, thumbing his nose at the universe for the first time in Kid Auto Races At Venice.
Not many of Lehrman's Universal, L-KO, Fox and First National productions exist, but one that does is Almost A Scandal (1915), an L-KO (Lehrman Knock Out) comedy starring the up-to-no-good evil doppelganger of Chaplin, fellow Fred Karno troupe star Billie Ritchie. Both comedians wear that outfit but couldn't be more different; Billie's character is a scoundrel who makes Charlie look genteel by comparison!
Another is His Musical Sneeze (1919), produced by Lehrman and directed by Jack White (a.k.a. Preston Black, the future director of hilarious Three Stooges 2-reelers). There's a very goofy Lloyd Hamilton, supported by Virginia Rappe (the girlfriend of Henry Lehrman, seamstress and occasional actress now known as the unfortunate hard luck gal who shouldn't have attended that Labor Day 1921 party hosted by Roscoe Arbuckle at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel) - and a storyline that looks like a prototype for Bugs Bunny cartoons. Did Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett or Chuck Jones see this?
In closing, we encourage our readers to support this Go Fund Me for Nelson Hughes, an excellent curator and one of our colleagues and comrades in classic movies and silent cinema.
