The long-awaited annual tribute to cinema chiaroscuro, Noir City, returns to San Francisco's palatial Castro Theatre for its 14th edition, starting with some cool Sir Alfred Hitchcock flicks tomorrow night.
This year's theme is The Art Of Darkness and if one spends this existence on Earth as a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker/animator, photographer or painter/illustrator/sculptor, the concept that the act of creation can lead directly to a dangerous, scary place or two (or three) provokes a "yes, indeedy" response.
Eddie Muller, Noir City producer/co-curator, host and Film Arts Foundation head elaborates: "We're expanding the limits of traditional noir to enhance this year's theme. There's always been a dark side to the way The Arts are represented in film, and I thought it would be intriguing to include some unexpected films, like Love Me or Leave Me, The Red Shoes, and Blow-Up, that have trace elements of noir in the way they explore the more treacherous aspects of creativity."
Such famed corrosive noirs as In a Lonely Place and Scarlet Street will be alongside movies from other genres that are characterized by more than a hint of foreboding and dread (and we don't mean natty dread - that's another topic for another post). The festival includes enduring mega-stars Bogie and Stanwyck in The Two Mrs. Carrolls, as well as the ever-versatile actress and future comedy queen Lucille Ball in The Dark Corner.
The Noir City XIV spotlight is on the innovative producer-director-writer Michael Powell, whose highly creative use of color cinematography on the surface differs from the subterranean black & white world of film noir, but whose story choices and themes frequently can be as dark, violent and obsessive as a gun-wielding femme fatale in a Joseph H. Lewis picture.
The last night of the festival will include what this writer considers arguably the single creepiest film ever made - a gritty psychological thriller that makes Hitchcock's movies look like Mary Poppins by comparison - Powell's brilliant, frightening and highly disturbing Peeping Tom.
Who: Host and curator Eddie Muller, a.k.a. The Czar Of Noir
Why: Proceeds benefit the splendid film preservation efforts of The Film Noir Foundation - and the fact that Noir City is by far Your Correspondent's favorite film fest (that he doesn't personally provide footage for)
The museum's Baby Peggy Movie Weekend includes her 1924 starring vehicle Captain January (made 12 years before the version starring Shirley Temple), the 1925 Universal film The Family Secret and a documentary on her career, The Elephant In The Room. Funds raised from the Saturday and Sunday shows will help Ms. Cary out with her basic living expenses.
Besides her exploits on the silver screen, Diana Serra Cary is a prolific author and historian who has penned the following splendid and informative books about Hollywood:
With the passings of Barbara Kent, Mickey Rooney and Our Gang's Jean Darling, Ms. Cary, now 97, is also the last person standing who starred in silent films.
The shows hold forth at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's Edison Theater at 37417 Niles Boulevard, Fremont, CA 94536-2949.
On the heels of the Classic Comedy Festival presented by the Kobe Film Archive last weekend and preceding the Noir City extravaganza later this month comes Saturday's Classic Science Fiction Film Fest at The Rheem Theater on 350 Park Street in Moraga. This year's festival features two of this blogger's favorite films, The Time Machine and When Worlds Collide.
The day of big screen fun will also include classic 1950's time capsules featuring giant bugs and that recurring theme (especially beloved and repeated by Bert I. Gordon) of miniaturization.
The esteemed Lord Blood-Rah will host a program that is sure to be a blast, as well as an opportunity for science fiction and classic movie buffs to hang out. To contact the box office of The Rheem Theater, call (925) 388-0751. Main office: (925) 388-0752.
The last post about pianist Victor "Yes, There Can Be Humor In Music" Borge reminds me that there are all kinds of 20th century comedians - some sophisticated, others not so sophisticated, still more wonderfully lowbrow - who are fundamentally musical. We begin this Saturday cornucopia of clips with. . .
The Wiere Brothers
Victor Borge was not the only performer to combine classical music with comedy. It's often the modus operandi of the trio this writer first read about eons ago in Leonard Maltin's indispensable Movie Comedy Teams book: The Wiere Brothers.
Here they are combining the music of Frederic Chopin with silent comedy on the April 26, 1951 episode of "The Ford Festival."
Harry (1906-1992), Herbert (1908-1999) and Sylvester Wiere (1909 – 1970) had a five decade career, beginning in vaudeville and then mostly on stage, but occasionally seen onscreen in feature films and periodically on television as well. Their act goes back to the 1920's. Billed as The Continental Trio, here they are, in early acrobatic dancing form, captured in these time capsule clips from The British Pathé Collection.
The team appears in Bob Hope & Bing Crosby flick Road To Rio (the Wieres' dance, starting at 1:50, sets up a sequence involving the spectacle of Bob Hope in drag), as well as the Roy Rogers western Hands Across The Border and the 1967 Elvis Presley vehicle Double Trouble.
The following Wiere Brothers television appearance presents their act, performed hundreds of times over decades. Herbert plays classical music on the violin while Harry and Sylvester muck up his performance by changing the tune and "going hillbilly." Then all three perform acrobatic derring-do involving stringed instruments. Well, hold the mayo and the Stradavarius - one hates to ponder if any bass violins bit the big one while the boys rehearsed this bit!
There was an attempt at a Wiere Brothers TV series in 1962. While this writer has not seen any of the 12 episodes of Oh! Those Bells, one would surmise that,
as producer Jules White did frequently when directing Columbia Shorts Department 2-reelers starring headliners other than The Three Stooges, by casting The Wiere Brothers in slam-bang slapstick, the producers may have missed out entirely on what was wonderful about Herbie, Harry and Sylvester in the first place.
Spike Jones & His City Slickers
Since it remains utterly beyond Your Correspondent's powers as a wordsmith to describe the musical lunacy of Spike Jones & His City Slickers, we'll show you with clips, jam-packed with jokes about sound and music, from the band's appearances on the early 1950's live comedy show All-Star Revue.
The casts of Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour
Nobody, not even Victor Borge, has taken on classical music quite like the ridiculously talented casts of Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour.
One could make a strong argument for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca as the greatest and most versatile pure comic talents to ever headline a television program.
When Imogene left the cast after Your Show Of Shows, her successor was the stalwart musical comedy gal from stage and screen (The Band Wagon) the mighty Nanette Fabray.
Two decades later Ms. Fabray would be a frequent guest star on a variety program modeled to a significant degree on Your Show Of Shows - yep, The Carol Burnett Show.
The Ritz Brothers
Seems like a good idea to follow Sid Caesar with a comedian who clearly influenced him - and his intrepid writer cohort on Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour, the inimitable Mel Brooks - in a big way, the legendary Harry Ritz (in the act, albeit not in the following photo, "the guy in the middle").
While the wacky Ritzes - led by rubber-faced alpha goofball Harry - do not play musical instruments as Harpo and Chico Marx did, their comedy is not about jokes per se, but all about music and dancing.
As is the case with musical comedy guys Ray Bolger and Donald O'Connor, the humor is frequently in how they sing, as well as all about how funny their movements to the music are.
This excellent production number from the Alice Faye vehicle On The Avenue would be this blogger's answer to the question, "just what did people find funny about The Ritz Brothers?" Harry's bravura vocal is followed by a series of skillful and indescribably funny dance moves by the trio - the bit where they mimic penguins is tops!
Besides that amazing He Ain't Got Rhythm number, the best example of Harry, Jimmy and Al Ritz remains the episode of The All Star Revue they hosted on May 17, 1952.
It presents a valuable record of their act, as The Colgate Comedy Hour shows did for many comics (Martin & Lewis and Abbott & Costello as well as the Ritz Brothers, whose Feb. 22, 1953 episode of the series does not exist) - and is also the reason this blogger has been known to utter the phrase "DON'T HOLLA - DON'T HOLLA" for no apparent reason. The Ritzes' anarchic spirit and musical comedy mojo reigns supreme throughout.
Jerry Lewis Both teamed with Dean Martin and as a solo, Jerry Lewis - whether lip-syncing to Mario Lanza's Be My Love on the Colgate Comedy Hour, performing a silent comedy routine to Count Basie & His Orchestra in The Errand Boy, conducting in The Bellboy or dancing up a storm with Sheree North in Living It Up - is fundamentally a musical comedian.
Along with Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis strikes this writer as among the artistic progeny of Harry Ritz. As with The Ritz Brothers, the credo is: sound + music + image = laughs, big laughs.
The Typewriter Routine gets this correspondent laughing every time, as does the very funny sendup/homage by another gifted physical comedian, Martin Short.
The following sequence featuring Jerry as the conductor, demonstrates how Lewis' 1960 feature The Bellboy would make a splendid double bill with the 1957 Chuck Jones WB cartoon Baton Bunny.
Danny Kaye One wonders whose tongue-twisting musical routines were developed first, those of Danny Kaye or Sid Caesar - or if they both got the bits from Harry Ritz.
They appear to be two entirely different performers working along similar artistic lines - in some respects comparable to saxophonists Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane in 1950's jazz. Chronologically, Danny got there first, with a breathtaking linguistic prowess comparable to Sid's.
Jimmy Durante
When he sang and played the piano, the ol' Schnozzola was a remarkable musical comedian and a most endearing one, too.
Unfortunately, there are no film clips of Jimmy as part of the team of Clayton, Jackson and Durante, but we do at least have this bit starring 2/3 of the show-stopping vaudeville trio.
Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams
There was no more creative comic mind than Ernie Kovacs and no more talented musical comedy gal than the Juilliard-trained Edie Adams. Arguably my all-time favorite musical comedy routine - well, maybe tied with the Wagnerian incarnation of Elmer Fudd singing "Kill The Wabbit" in What's Opera, Doc? - remains the sendups of opera performed brilliantly by Edie Adams on The Ernie Kovacs Show.
Perhaps the most wonderfully chaotic finale to a television program is the "topper" from the epic Kovacs On Music special.
Today's post closes with a comedian who wrote music but was mostly silent in movies - but NOT in this clip. Here he is, the guy who started the 20th century's first British Invasion, the greatest dancer on film not named Fred Astaire - and one who Michael Jackson definitely picked up at least a move or two from - the one, the only Charles Spencer Chaplin.
At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we are equally enthusiastic about both B-movies starring giant malevolent irradiated insects and serious music (a.k.a. "culchuh") - and we begin the new year thinking of classically trained musicians who are also howlingly funny comedians. The list - after Bugs Bunny, of course - is short.
That said, Dudley Moore immediately comes to mind.
In this blogger's view, arguably tops on this very short list - as funny as he was a incredible musician - would be pianist Victor Borge, born on January 3, 1909.
There won't be an essay or lengthy meditation on Borge, a virtuoso pianist who largely much of his own material but also hired some pretty darn good scribes - Alan Jay Lerner, Neil Simon and the ever-cantankerous Henry Morgan among them - to write comedy for that he used in his act, both a heartfelt appreciation and gentle spoof of classical music and its conventions. There will be a bunch of clips and we'll start with a great one with Dean Martin - "Dino".
If one finds jokes based on sound howlingly funny, it will not be possible to hear too many of them.
No such thing as too much Borge - for music and comedy lovers.
Claudia Sassen's book is a painstakingly researched answer to the question, "just who was that goofy looking ultra-wacky silent film comic known as Larry Semon?"
The thumbnail sketch is that Larry was a prolific cartoonist and the son of a magician named Zera The Great. After a childhood that involved getting onstage with the magic act, Larry who found his way into filmmaking. He started as a gag writer and director for other comedians at Vitagraph and then began starring in his own inventive, cartoony, lightning-paced and stunt-filled series.
In the WW1 era and early 1920's, Semon would be the primary exponent of the "louder, faster, shorter" school of comedy and the architect of spectacular sight gags on an epic scale.
Larry's frequent co-stars and collaborators at Vitagraph included Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Dick Smith (the director of The Marx Brothers' silent film, Humoresque, as well as numerous comedies starring his wife, slapstick queen Alice Howell). For more, a lot more, read Larry Semon: Daredevil Comedian Of The Silent Screen.
Thelma Todd has been mostly known for her tragic demise, so it's a wonderful thing that someone has at long last penned a book which actually delves into her contributions as a comedienne, Hal Roach Studios stalwart and ace supporting player in movies.
Surprise surprise surprise, Thelma was actually very bright, very talented and particularly winsome in her films with Charley Chase (The Pip From Pittsburg and Looser Than Loose being standouts). Miss Todd deserves her due and finally gets some overdue accolades here.
Nesteroff is a former standup comic and sees it from the inside, weaving the various backstage tales of the wisecracking vaudeville and nightclub denizens (and the mobsters who owned the clubs) into a more expansive overview of 20th century American culture and subculture. For more, listen to the following interviews on
WGN Radio and LA Review Of Books.
Clyde Bruckman is both ubiquitous - worked with Keaton, Lloyd, Fields, Laurel & Hardy and many more - and something of a mystery man of classic comedy. Like Thelma Todd, he worked with just about every comedian in Hollywood not named Charlie Chaplin but is known more for his tragic end (suicide) than for the countless laughs he was responsible for.
The Gag Man: Clyde Bruckman and the Birth of Film Comedy spotlights his many contributions to screen comedy, investigates who Bruckman the man was and how drastic changes in the movie business - including the transition from silents to talkies - affected him. Clyde Bruckman's name was on way too many amazingly funny films to be relegated to a footnote in film history.
There's also the new edition of Randy Skredvedt's Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind The Movies, slated for publication in April 2016 (and plugged here prominently just short of two weeks ago), as well as standout new books about classic movies - albeit not specifically about comedy - that would be worthy additions to anyone's bookshelf. These would include Hollywood Celebrates The Holidays: 1920-1970 by Karie Bible (Location Filming In Los Angeles) and Mary Mallory (Hollywoodland), which received a glowing review on the TCM website, as well as Tracy Goessel's The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks. As the old ad campaign said, reading is fundamental. It's also a fitting way to chase out the old year and ring in the new one.
Here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we are tickled to have made it through another year. Feel very lucky in many ways.
We wish you all the Happiest of Holidays as we traipse, sometimes stumbling, towards the new year. Topping today's post-Christmas post: the finale from Abbott & Costello's Christmas Show on The Colgate Comedy Hour. Take it away, Bud n' Lou!
Don't know who is responsible for this graphic, but it hits the funny bone sweet spot here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog. While I don't recall Dinah Shore ever hosting A Very Existentialist Christmas special, maybe she should have. . .
Here's the last classic movie related fundraiser we will be plugging for 2015.
The following Kickstarter fundraiser is raising much needed dough-re-me for publication costs associated with the long awaited new edition of Laurel on & Hardy The Magic Behind The Movies.
Classic movie and comedy buffs around the world have worn out previous editions of Randy Skredvedt's book, among the definitive tomes on The Boys, to the point where all the pages have unceremoniously fallen out, so the announcement of the fundraiser is most welcome news.
We fez-wearing L&H aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are happy to plug the completely revised, greatly expanded Laurel & Hardy The Magic Behind The Movies - 632 large 8.5 x 11 pages, printed on sturdy, slick paper stock, with over 1,000 photos, most previously unpublished.
The new edition also includes original scripts (including hilarious scenes that never made it to the screen) and quotes from a number of classic comedy luminaries - producer Hal Roach, actresses Anita Garvin and Dorothy Granger, musical director Marvin Hatley, film editors Richard Currier and Bert Jordan.
We wish Randy and Bonaventure Press all the best with this fundraiser, which ends on December 31.
The usual gang of comedy-crazed characters at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog suggest - just in case you happen to be a reader who has forgotten how amazingly funny these guys were - watching the Laurel & Hardy silents You're Darn' Tootin' and Liberty, posted on Hulu.
We add that the intrepid preservationists of UCLA Film & Television Archive launched an ambitious restoration project devoted to Laurel & Hardy awhile back.
To whet a classic comedy buff's appetite further for L&H related stuff, here are some excerpts from Arthur Friedman's August 1957 interview with Stan Laurel. The complete interview has been posted on Ross Owens' Blog.
A great deal more interesting material on the champion of comedy teams can be found on Laurel And Hardy Forum.
The following 1950 "Ship's Reporter" program is among the rare interviews with Oliver Hardy.
We close with a bit of historic footage from the archives of photographer George Mann - and shot on The Lot Of Fun.
Here are Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Slow Burnin' Edgar Kennedy on the set of Should Married Men Come Home, the 2-reeler that culminates in a golf course free-for-all, in March 1928.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has posted this footage before but it's so good we had to do it again!
A pre-order of Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies, to be published in April 2016, unquestionably is a far better holiday gift for the classic comedy buff in your life than "hard boiled eggs and nuts".
