Buy This Book!

Ordered my copy in hardcover and CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT! And can't wait for volume 2!

Thanks for your superlative work, Keith!

Classic Movie And Comedy Fans: Buy This!

Need laughs in a time with Robin Williams and now Joan Rivers gone? HALLELUJAH, there's some new Laurel & Hardy!



WHAT? New Laurel & Hardy? Be still our classic comedy loving hearts, the Blogmeister, indeed, kids you not. This set, Laurel & Hardy On Stage: Rare And Unreleased Performances, recorded during their 1940's public appearances in the U.S. and legendary 1947 European tour, IS A MAJOR FIND!



John Tefteller located and obtained the disc transcriptions from various Laurel & Hardy stage performances that transpired in the U.S.A. and overseas.



The Laurel & Hardy performances in England were a sensation and brought out the young comedy talent residing there, such as Norman Wisdom - all there to see The Boys work their magic in person.



Accompanying the two CDS is a large-format book by L&H experts Randy Skretvedt, author of Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind The Movies, and historian Peter Mikkelsen, authority on their Copenhagen tour.



This splendid book/CD combo, which can be ordered directly from the publisher, demonstrates, that L&H possessed an utter mastery of whimsical verbal humor that complements the visual comedy we know and love them for. To our unending latter-day delight, these performances demonstrate that Laurel & Hardy were capable of giving Abbott & Costello and Hope & Crosby a run for their money in the fast, facile wordplay department.

Just a few of the many goodies included in the set:

• COMPLETE and differing versions of Stan & Babe performing the "Driver's License" sketch before an audience: first time from 1942 in the USA, the second performed in Copenhagen five years later.
• An original script written by Stan Laurel
• An in-depth examination of the team's appearances in Copenhagen
• Accounts of the team's USO tours during WWII
• New and previously unknown interviews with Stan & Babe

And, continuing with the topic of silver screen favorites, there's Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life, now out on paperback and Kindle.



Australian biographer Michelle Vogel has done something unheard of; believe it or not, she actually pays attention to her FILMS and gives Marilyn Monroe's legacy as actress and comedienne some long overdue r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Classic Movie Fans: Buy These Books, Too!

Available now: Steve Rydzewski's highly entertaining book on the dashing, the suave, the debonair, the leading man of leading men. . . Ben Turpin!



Turpin was one of the funniest guys in the history of movies and still makes us laugh more than 100 years after his 1909 screen debut as the cross-eyed cad in Mr. Flip.



Also out now: the awaited tome by film historian and Slapsticon curator/programmer Richard M. Roberts on the Hal Roach studio, Smileage Guaranteed: Past Humor, Present Laughter, his first in a series of books. It's very welcome - Roberts has penned excellent comedy film history articles for Classic Images and other publications for many years.



More fantastic film history books will be out later this year. Available for pre-order and officially out in stores on December 16, Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life by Australian author Michelle Vogel, known for, among many biographies, her book on another great actress-singer-comedienne, Lupe Velez. Since the iconic Marilyn was, in this blogger's opinion, also among the greatest of silver screen comediennes and an under-rated actress, this will finally give her onscreen legacy the respect it deserves.



Officially out in just a few days, on September 16: The Charley Chase Talkies by James L. Neibaur.



Both in front of and behind the cameras, Mr. Chase (A.K.A. Charles Parrott), remains one of the all-time comedy kings. Since Chase's death at 46 in 1940 literally denied the producer/director/writer/comedian the credit he was due for decades, so this study of his starring vehicles in talkies by diehard classic comedy buff, film historian and prolific author Jim Neibaur is long overdue.

Classic Comedy Fans: Buy This Book!

This new release is a must-addition to the Comedy Buff Bookshelf: Lame Brains And Lunatics: The Good, The Bad And The Forgotten Of Silent Comedy by Steve Massa. The classic movie website Nitrateville has posted an interview about the book, an indispensable history of the lesser-known yet rewarding far corners of silver screen humor.



Mr. Massa, as classic film buffs are well aware, programmed the Silent Clowns and Cruel & Unusual Comedy film series at The Museum Of Modern Art in collaboration with historian/accompanist/archivist Ben Model and is the curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Both Steve and Ben have forgotten more about silent film humor and history than most of us will ever know.



In an exceptionally well-researched tome, silent screen headliners Marie Dressler, Max Linder, Al St. John, Alice Howell, Fay Tincher, Marcel Perez, Gale Henry, Max Davidson, stage star turned Vitagraph Pictures comedienne Josie Sadler, Educational Pictures "thrills, spills and chills" specialist Lige Conley, ubiquitous Roach Studio background player George Rowe (A.K.A. the cross-eyed comic not named Ben Turpin) and many more at long last get their due.



The chapters on comedy teams are quite illuminating. A decade before the debut of Laurel & Hardy as a team, Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran made dozens of sophisticated farces with just a hint of slapstick and cartoonish humor for Nestor and Universal.



Also getting their due are some of the most aggressively bizarre and notoriously iconoclastic silent era comedians, including the Mean Misanthrope Of Mean Misanthropes and principal L-KO studio star, Billie Ritchie, A.K.A. "The Man From Nowhere".



The architect of the series: The Dark Lord of nihilistic silent screen humor and former Sennett Studio director, as well as an unrelenting foe of minimal personal safety precautions for film actors, the infamous Henry "Suicide" Lehrman (whose brand name, Lehrman Knock-Out Comedies, also accurately described injuries suffered on the set by too many cast members and extras).



Billie Ritchie has been wrongly (yet repeatedly) identified as a Chaplin imitator for many decades, even though the two only had the derby/shabby suit/cane outfit and Fred Karno Troupe training in common.



While the getup, hairdo and mustache that Ritchie and Charlie Chaplin use are indeed identical, the characterizations and signature mannerisms could not be more different. Ritchie, an ever-confrontational mean bastard, struts, juts, flips off everyone and jumps around like a crazy man in such films as Just A Scandal - and could not be farther stylistically from Chaplin's rowdy yet increasingly balletic approach to 1915-1916 style slapstick.



While on the one hand, the Billie Ritchie m.o. is "lowdown-est slimiest starring character in the history of comedy films", on the other hand, there's something weirdly and savagely funny in the The Man From Nowhere's shameless, brazen and unending pursuit of booze, married dames and ill-gotten gains.



Bear in mind, the year 1915 unleashed a veritable barrage of "sick humor" (not to be seen again until the unapologetic "bad taste" of National Lampoon magazine 55 years later), led in the fullest anal sense by Billie Ritchie's vile nastiness, Kalem's disgusting anti-team of Ham & Bud, the early Rolin Co. knockabout 1-reelers starring an unrecognizable Harold Lloyd as raucous Lonesome Luke and Essanay's appalling yet fascinating "greasepaint meets surrealism" Mishaps Of Musty Suffer series, starring Harry Watson, Jr.



So even the most nose-thumbing, derriere-kicking, brick-heaving early Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay is a far cry from the insanity of these series.



Massa compares the vile and bilious Lehrman comedies anti-protagonist to a controversial comedian/actor from many decades later, the chaos-loving Andy Kaufman, in their shared sense of provoking audience hatred while enjoying spreading unmitigated mayhem (although, frankly, Mr. Kaufman in his most gleefully anarchic "performance art" form seems like quite the sweetheart by comparison to Billie Ritchie's scoundrel characterization - and besides, Andy's Latka/Foreign Man character strikes this correspondent as his personal riff on the post-1929 Harry Langdon).



Now, curiously enough, one of the former Sennett Studio comedy creators who found his way to the historically important yet utterly misbegotten L-KO studio gets the spotlight for his remarkable work as a prolific director of everything from slapstick to genteel farce.



That director would be Charles Parrott, soon to return to performing as Charley Chase and star in some of the very best silent film comedies. The chapter on Parrott's highly varied directorial career in Lame Brains And Lunatics: The Good, The Bad And The Forgotten Of Silent Comedy is in itself worth the price of admission.



After directing a gazillion comedy shorts for every studio around from 1916-1924, Chase began his own starring series at Hal Roach, producing masterpiece after masterpiece - and, unlike most of his contemporaries, carrying that formidable comedy mojo well into the sound era: most notably in several tremendously funny, romantic and charming farces co-starring the most beautiful, talented comedienne whose name was not Carole Lombard, the underrated Thelma Todd. Author James L. Neibaur, who seems to finish a new, crisply written, informative and enjoyable film history book about every 5 minutes, has done it yet again in 2013 with his upcoming study of Charley Chase's sound films.



When it comes to movie comedy history, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in the midst of a renaissance. This includes Steve's tome, Michael Hayde and Chuck Harter's book on the great Harry Langdon, Anthony Balducci's biography of brilliant silent and early sound era comedian Lloyd Hamilton, studies Trav S.D. has penned about classic movies and vaudeville, PLUS the first volume, Smileage Guaranteed, of what will be an extensive "no available rare footage left unscreened" comedy film history series by Richard M. Roberts and more. Also in the pipeline: Annichen Skaren's biography covering the life, times and films of Al St. John and Mr. Blogmeister's most Psychotronic meditations on multi-genre movie mayhem, That's Not Art!

To order these books - and thus, enroll in an advanced course of study in The College Of Classic Comedy Knowledge:

• Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts: 1920-1923 by James L. Neibaur and Terry Neimi
• Chain Of Fools: Silent Comedy And Its Legacies - From Nickelodeons To YouTube by Trav S.D.
• The Charley Chase Talkies 1929-1940 by James L. Neibaur
• Edgar Kennedy: Master Of The Slow Burn by Bill Cassara
• Eighteen Comedians Of Silent Film by Anthony Balducci
• For Art's Sake: The Biography And Filmography Of Ben Turpin by Steve Rydzewski
• The Funny Parts: A History Of Film Comedy Routines And Gags by Anthony Balducci
• The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia by Annette D'Agostino Lloyd
• Lame Brains And Lunatics: The Good, The Bad And The Forgotten Of Silent Comedy by Steve Massa
• Little Elf: A Celebration Of Harry Langdon by Michael Hayde & Chuck Harter
• Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian Of Silent Cinema by Anthony Balducci
• Mack Sennett's Fun Factory by Brent Walker
• Smileage Guaranteed: Past Humor Present Laughter Musings On The Comedy Film Industry 1910-1945. Volume 1: Hal Roach by Richard M. Roberts
• Vernon Dent: Stooge Heavy by Bill Cassara

There are more worthy books on the topic of silent comedy that are no longer in print, but definitely still available via Kindle.

With respectful tips of the Jimmie Hatlo/Fred Astaire/Jack Buchanan top hat to Sam Gill and Leonard Maltin, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are now going to take a break and watch some cool vintage silent comedies. Cheers!

Photographer Kathy Sloane Tells The Story Of Keystone Korner

"There should be a book about those jazz clubs that have been a vital part of the evolution of the music…with reminiscences by the musicians who played and hung out there.” Nat Hentoff

With Keystone Korner: Portrait Of A Jazz Club, photographer Kathy Sloane has delivered that very book.

It is tough for me to articulate into words how it felt to go to a place like Keystone Korner - where John Coltrane Quintet bandmates McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones played a benefit so the club could afford to buy a liquor license - and not just see fun, enjoyable, entertaining music but be in the presence of GENIUS, night after night. 

Without a doubt, I and the other long-haired youths who hung out at the jazz joint of jazz joints, nestled next to a police station in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, got an unparalleled music education. I personally saw everything from swing legends Mary Lou Williams and Earl "Fatha" Hines (who recorded with Louis Armstrong, the guy who started it all, in 1928) to joyfully hard bopping Art Blakey, George Coleman and Horace Silver to explosive ultra-virtuoso Rahsaan Roland Kirk to the fearlessly eclectic multi-genre Art Ensemble Of Chicago there - and loved it all.

Kathy's book includes 109 photographs, fascinating oral histories from the musicians who made it happen, and a CD of remarkable music recorded there. It will give future generations a reference to see what greatness looks like.

Today, jazz fans around the world mourn the passing of music giant Sam Rivers, who is featured in the book.

Thinking of Sam, it compels me to say that, as 2011 comes to a close, the best thing we could leave for young people today - besides hands-on music and arts education - would be a place where, like Keystone Korner, it was all about the music and miracles could happen. And did.