Back in 2019: Silent Movie Innovators Bowers & Blaché

Good news for silent movie aficionados: a new Blu-ray set spotlights stop-motion animation innovator Charley Bowers, while a new documentary now in movie theaters covers the career of filmmaking pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché. There is also a new DVD collecting the few existing films starring World War I era comedians Eddie Lyons & Lee Moran.



The Extraordinary World Of Charley Bowers isn't the first Charley Bowers collection; that was a 2-DVD set issued back in the 1990's.



The Extraordinary World Of Charley Bowers is, however, the first collection on Blu-ray and includes newly found titles not on the previous DVD release.



First heard about this Bowers Blu-ray when the collection was announced in 2014 and am happy to see it officially out!



The animation and sight gag-packed Bowers Comedies get the restoration treatment on Blu-ray from Lobster Films, distributed by Flicker Alley.



The films of Bowers, the indescribable comic, animator and illustrator, who blended live-action silent era comedy with innovative stop-motion techniques akin to what Willis "King Kong" O Brien and Ladislaw Starewicz were doing, are more akin to the way-out visionary ideas of Ernie Kovacs than to any of his 1920's contemporaries.



The Charley Bowers Blu-ray is available for pre-order and will be officially released on June 25.



For more on the films of Charley Bowers, check out author Imogen Sara Smith's outstanding and scholarly article on the animator/comedian in Bright Lights Film Journal.


Courtesy of Be Natural Productions


Another extraordinary visionary, high atop the short list of the most important and groundbreaking figures in the history of movies, who was there blazing new trails with the Lumiere brothers at the very beginning: producer-director-writer-cinematographer and head of Solax Studios, Alice Guy-Blaché.



In Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, one of the very first filmmakers (arguably, the first narrative filmmaker), the cinema's first mogul gets her due.



The new film by Pamela B. Green tells the Alice Guy-Blaché story via a host of recently discovered photos and historic footage.



The following trailer for Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché reveals that, rather astonishingly, a fair number of movie stars, filmmakers, producers and directors had never heard of Alice Guy Blaché.



Frankly, that causes us at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog to shake our heads in disbelief.



We were thrilled and delighted to devote a post to the original Kickstarter which raised the initial funds to get the ball rolling on its production.



As Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy Blaché was in production, a few more of Mademoiselle Blaché's long lost films - it's been estimated that she made over a thousand - turned up. Some are on the Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers Blu-ray and the Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology collection from Flicker Alley.




While it's true that very little was said about her in film history courses 40 years ago - her entire cinematic legacy was lost back then - Alice Guy Blaché's legacy as a female moviemaking powerhouse before the rise of Mary Pickford as producer-star, before the word "filmmaker" existed, has received much long overdue acclaim, including several books, theatrical showings of the aforementioned Kino Lorber collection Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, and a comprehensive Whitney Museum exhibit, over the past decade.



Those who saw her films on Turner Classic Movies in 2013, as well as on the big screen as part of a presentation by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival a few years ago, certainly are well aware of Alice Guy-Blaché.



Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is the first documentary about Blaché in quite a few years to hit the film festival circuit and receive a theatrical release, but not the first documentary about Alice Guy Blaché.



With the research of historians Anthony Slide and Alison McMahan, who have championed her work for decades, The National Film Board of Canada produced The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché, which included interview footage of Alice from the 1950's, in 1995.



For more info on Alice Guy-Blaché, see:

Women Film Pioneers Project

Auteur! Auteur!: 'Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché'

Alice Guy-Blaché, Forgotten Film Pioneer

A four book series, The Life and Work of Alice Guy-Blaché by Janelle Dietrick:



Alice & Eiffel: A New History of Early Cinema and the Love Story Kept Secret for a Century

Illuminating Moments: The Films of Alice Guy-Blaché

La Fée Aux Choux: Alice Guy's Garden of Dreams

Mademoiselle Alice: A Novel




Two books by Alison McMahan

Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema

The Solax Films of Alice Guy Blaché



Completing today's post on silent film rarities, a limited edition DVD collects the few surviving films of the prolific comedians Eddie Lyons & Lee Moran.



Lyons & Moran were very talented and funny comic actors, at first part of a troupe directed by Al Christie that made the Nestor Comedies series.



Key in a sophisticated comedy and farce lineage, along with the duo of John Bunny and Flora Finch and the marital comedy stars Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, the witty comic actors were very important in the history of screen humor and among the first to establish the Al Christie studio's situational comedy approach.



Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran co-starred in dozens of sophisticated farces with hints of slapstick and silliness - over 300 films - for Nestor and Universal from 1912-1921.



The Lyons-Moran Comedies' influence continued after the team broke up in 1921. Charley Chase, who, along with future Our Gang diector Robert McGowan, worked as a writer/director on the sophisticated comedies of Mr & Mrs. Carter DeHaven in 1920, began his career making uncredited cameos in Eddie Lyons & Lee Moran Nestor comedies, before joining Mack Sennett's Keystone as a stock company member in 1914. Chase was and eventually would, in collaboration with co-director Leo McCarey at the Hal Roach studio, blend elements of a sophisticated comedy approach with goofy sight gags and judicious moments of outrageous slapstick.



They also wrote and directed a fair number of their own starring vehicles, especially in the last series for Universal, the Lyons-Moran Star Comedies.



Whether the duo were a comedy team in the same sense as Laurel & Hardy remains debatable - this blogger thinks the troupe as a whole, which also featured comediennes Victoria Forde, Edith Roberts, Betty Compson, Billie Rhodes and Charlotte Merriam, constituted the comedy team - at least now it is possible to see a few of the Lyons & Moran films on DVD, thanks to the Library of Congress and the efforts of Rare Silent Films in Portland, OR.



Even more amazing is that the Early Universal Shorts of Lyons & Moran DVD is labeled volume 1; the incredibly low survivability rate on Lyons & Moran films makes one wonder how there could be actually enough existing titles to make a volume 2. Maybe there are. . .

Saturday in Moraga: Mr. Lobo hosts The Psychotronix Film Festival

Horror host Mr. Lobo from Cinema Insomnia will be the master of ceremonies this Saturday for an evening of psychotronic movie fun at the Rheem Theatre! It's Cinema Insomnia LIVE!



Sci Fi Bob Ekman and Scott Moon from the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival will present a program of Scopitones and Soundies, cartoons, B-movie trailers, vintage snack bar ads, clips from monster movies, "educational" films and 1950's commercials.



The Rheem Theatre is located at 350 Park Street in Moraga. To contact the theatre's box office, call (925) 388-0751. Main office phone is (925) 388-0752.

This Weekend at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater: Maltin Fest

Here is a treat for Southern California residents: author, film historian and good guy Leonard Maltin and his intrepid movie buff daughter (and co-host of the most entertaining Maltin On Movies podcast) Jessie, present MaltinFest all weekend at the Egyptian Theatre. Sounds like a weekend of big screen fun to all of us at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!



The three-day festival, which takes place Friday through Sunday at the Egyptian Theatre, presents a selection of movies the Maltins (Leonard, Alice, his wife of 44 years and Jessie) consider hidden gems. These include Big Eyes, Tim Burton's film about painter Margaret Keane starring Amy Adams.



The 1996 film Citizen Ruth, Alexander Payne’s directorial debut, shall receive the spotlight again.



Also on the bill: John Carney's 2016 feature Sing Street



Among the excellent movies on hand: Songcatcher, directed and written by Maggie Greenwald (known for Sophie and the Rising Sun).



Among the not quite excellent films on hand will be the one, the only Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, starring Martin & Lewis imitators Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell.



Tickets range from $50 for a Friday badge to $195 for the weekend pass. Film students and teachers can buy discounted weekend passes for $25, and if you bring your mom on Mother’s Day, she’ll be admitted free. Mother’s Day will also feature such writers as Alicia Malone, Jon Burlingame, Robert Bader and Don Hahn doing book signings.

"Walk like an Egyptian" at the Egyptian Theatre, at 6712 Hollywood Blvd. Their phone number is (323) 461-2020. For more info, check out the following article on MaltinFest by Susan King.

May 2019 means the San Francisco Silent Film Festival - and Maypole dances

This correspondent will not be able to attend the 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival at the Castro Theatre, which opened last night, but shall recommend it strongly to classic movie fans.



In the following interview, San Francisco Silent Film Festival board president Rob Byrne elaborates further about silent movies, the festival and film preservation.



The 2019 festival shall present 25 programs, including an illustrated lecture presentation at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, all with live musical accompaniment.



The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will feature movies from ten different countries — Bali, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United States and the USSR. The cool silent movies shall be accompanied by 40 brilliant musicians from around the world.



This year's festival is bookended by The Cameraman and Our Hospitality, two unbeatable classic films starring Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog favorite Buster Keaton.



Buster's 1928 opus The Cameraman kicked off the festival in style last night.



While a terrific movie and fitting swan song for the silent era, The Cameraman, as A Night At The Opera does for The Marx Brothers, represents the beginning of the end for The Great Stone Face. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To A Blog regard the film with mixed emotions.



Keaton's era as a brilliant director and filmmaking innovator who created such masterpieces as The General came to an end when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, although his genius as a comedian and comic actor remained undimmed right up to his last film appearances. Since The Cameraman was Keaton's first starring feature after signing the contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it fills this writer and Buster fan with a certain amount of foreboding.



As great a feature film as The Cameraman is, all this film buff can think of is MGM's reputation as a notorious comedy-killer with everyone not named William Powell and Myrna Loy.



Nonetheless, go see The Cameraman and Our Hospitality in proper big screen glory. Buster's cinematic brilliance fills a movie palace as powerfully as it did in the 1920's.



The complete San Francisco Silent Film Festival schedule can he found here.



Two writers we follow and think highly of are offering their two cents on on this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Mary Mallory of Hollywood Heritage Museum (and the co-author with Karie Bible of several books), has posted one of her customary thoughtful and well-written reviews, while the writer of one of our favorite classic movie blogs, Silentology, Minnesota film historian Lea Stans, shall review every program!



Silentology, as expected has covered the 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival in detail. This is good, as this correspondent's eyeballs can no longer hold out beyond Day 2 of a massive film festival before saying "no mas, no mas" anymore. So kudos to these writers and everyone involved with this epic film festival.


In addition to documentaries about far-flung topics (including silent movies), all kinds of stuff can be found on YouTube, including . . . merry May pole dancers!



Now, in all honesty, if this writer, never the most coordinated or athletic of individuals, took a stab at May pole dancing, he would run INTO the pole instead of prance around it.



Yes, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has indeed posted clips from the following randy yet cheesy 1932 musical short subject, Over The Counter, directed by future producer and director of big budget MGM features Jack Cummings, before. This 2-reeler, a veritable cheese whiz, screams PRE-CODE from the rooftops and includes scantily clad showgirls doing a May pole dance which is about as subtle as a stainless steel shovel in the face (starting at 6:21). Due to our 3 1/2 degrees of decorum, we won't use the word "climax."



In closing, if you and yours are able to get your classic movie lovin' derrieres to the Bay Area and afford to spend the dough-re-me on the 2019 fest by all means get your movie lovin' derrieres to the Castro Theatre.



Photo by Tommy Lau

Friday Music with Les Paul & Mary Ford

Officially on a big time 20th century music bent on Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, this blogmeister has been binge-listening to the innovative and incomparable guitar-slinger, guitar builder and recording technology innovator Les Paul, the only musician also in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum.







Having made his name first as a country-western guitarist, then as a band member in Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians and ultimately with his own trio, Les was hired by Bing Crosby.



Clearly, Les was extremely adept at accompanying vocalists even early on in his recording career.



After further success as an ace accompanist with The Andrews Sisters and as a last-minute sub for Oscar Moore in the first Jazz At The Philharmonic concert, Les Paul would join forces with talented vocalist, fellow guitar-slinger and wife-to-be Mary Ford.



The duo soon became one of Capitol Records' top selling recording artists. On radio, Les and Mary co-starred in the 15-minute Les Paul Show.



The Les Paul & Mary Ford records, including 16 top 10 hits between 1950-1954, sold millions.



The duo were the biggest recording artists in the business until the emergence of Elvis Presley.



Les, always a builder and tinkerer, figured out how to add more recording heads to tape machines, utilize multiple tape recorders and create multi-track recordings.



Using a makeshift recording studio in their garage, Les Paul and Mary Ford created hit records for Capitol Records in which Les' guitar and Mary's voice became an orchestra.



The musical couple hosted their own syndicated TV show in 1954-1955.





Celebrated by guitarists from Pat Martino to Steve Miller to Jimmy Page: Les Paul's innovations and inventions in building electric guitars.




Les retired from performing in 1964 and dropped out of sight to concentrate on new guitar designs for Gibson.



He ended said retirement by recording two albums with his pal and fellow "string king" Chet Atkins, Guitar Monsters and Chester & Lester.



Les was among the few luminaries from the swing and bop eras to live long enough to carry that blazing musical brilliance into the 21st century. He held forth weekly at New York City's Iridium Club - and look who showed up to pay tribute.









Les Paul & Mary Ford - here's to you!



Thanks a million for the great sounds! For more, see the official Les Paul website.

And This Blog Loves "The Duke Of Earl"

While we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog missed the TCM Classic Film Fest and shall, having found ourselves increasingly and seriously homesick as our March-April CA trip progressed, also miss the epic 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (and drive all the blog's cinephile readers away by covering other totally unrelated 20th century pop culture topics), we never miss a favorite song.



At the top of the list of ridiculously catchy tunes from the halcyon days of 1960's AM radio (KFRC, KYA and KDIA where I grew up), even higher than Mother-In-Law by Ernie K. Doe and Quarter To Three by Gary U.S. Bonds: the one, the only Gene Chandler's 1962 hit The Duke of Earl.



It's a great tune and Gene's snazzy getup tops Bela Lugosi, Liberace and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.



Gene Chandler sang this hit with pleasure for 50+ years!



Amazingly enough, The Duke of Earl made it into the late 20th century.



In 1991, the Latino American hip hop group Cypress Hill sampled it 29 years after The Duke Of Earl topped the charts.



What do the kings of doo-wop and hip-hop have in common? Well. . . in this writer's estimation, a certain goofy, tongue-in-cheek sensibility and humor underlying a strong desire to entertain and give the audience their money's worth, not unlike the aforementioned Screamin' Jay Hawkins.



Lyrically, Cypress Hill's (would-be) macho tough guy anthem Hand On The Pump is more akin to Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting than Gene Chandler's doo-wop masterpiece, even though one suspects neither the glam pop star Englishman nor the very thoroughly 420-ed Cypress Hill in actuality administered "beat-downs" ever.



Few recording artists had the temerity to actually cover The Duke of Earl. One musician who did was Alex Chilton.



Alex Chilton, as he did with many 1960's tunes, rearranged Gene Chandler's classic as a rock n' roll song, gave it his all and had fun in the process!



The fact that Alex Chilton, the uncrowned king of covers throughout his solo career and even in his concerts with Big Star and The Box Tops, tackled The Duke Of Earl should be no big surprise. Alex covered one of this blogger's favorite 1967 hits, Brenton Wood's classic "The Oogum Boogum Song."





As far as this blogger knows, Alex did not cover Brenton Wood's second big 1967 hit, Gimme Little Sign. Possibly he did and it was never recorded; didn't call Alex Chilton the uncrowned king of covers for nothing!



Meanwhile, here's Brenton Wood performing Gimme Little Sign on Top Of The Pops - and sounding great as usual.



While asking just how I might wrap up this post, the notion arises that some readers of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog might want to sing The Duke of Earl at home. Why not? Here are the lyrics - have fun!

Tonight: Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Octet Rocks The House at Savanna Jazz in San Carlos, CA!

At Savanna Jazz in beautiful downtown San Carlos tonight at 7:30: rip-roaring and inventive sounds courtesy of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Octet. In tonight's program, amazing music from the 1930's will be rocking the house in 2019.




The intrepid ensemble - Jeff and Hal Richards on reeds & flutes, Mark Rosengarden on drums, Zachariah Spellman on Tuba, Simon Planting on acoustic bass, Andy Ostwald on piano, Eric Wayne on trumpets, and Randy Johnson on guitar, banjo and vocals - will tackle the epic music of John Kirby & His Sextet, Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton and more.



Today is the birthday of Cartoon Jazz Orchestra composer-in-residence Lenny Carlson, so tonight's repertoire shall include several new original tunes by Mr. Carlson, which sfall be included on the group's upcoming CD release "Nothing Wrong."



There will be eccentric, wonderful and very challenging-to-play songs by American composer Raymond Scott.



We shall also hear great tunes by Raymond Scott collaborator (and member of Jazz At The Philharmonic and the mighty Verve Records house band) Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet.




The Date: Thursday April 11, 2019
Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
The Place: Savanna Jazz Club
1189 Laurel Street
San Carlos, CA 94070
RESERVATIONS: (415) 624-4549
Club: (650) 453-3683
E-mail: jazz@savannajazz.com



For more info and musical coolness, see the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website.

Comedy Greats Hawk BOOOOOOOOOZE!

Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, obsessed with vintage print and TV advertisements from the mid-20th century, did a post in August 2017 about celebrities plugging alcoholic beverages, featuring everyone from Lucille Ball to Orson Welles to Dan Duryea. Makes me think of this Red Skelton routine. . .



So, before Pinterest makes searching online for ads either obsolete or expensive, let's kick off this post about comics selling alcoholic beverages with Ernie Kovacs. It comes as no surprise that Ernie Kovacs appeared in this campaign for Hueblein ready-made martinis, although it does surprise me that I could not find even one ad featuring Ernie's martini-lovin' Percy Dovetonsils character.



Hard to think of a better spokesperson for "cocktails in a bottle."



Can one imagine Ernie and Edie Adams performing Spike Jones' Cocktails For Two? Yes!



Far and away, the king of print advertisements featuring comedians plugging BOOOOOOOOOZE would be Smirnoff Vodka, owned by. . . G.F. Heublein & Brothers. None less than the King of Late Night, Johnny Carson of The Tonight Show, appeared with a St. Bernard to promote a Smirnoff + Fresca cocktail. . . to which we say, don't knock it unless you've tried it - and, PLEASE, don't skimp on the vodka.



A frequent guest on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson was comedian Buddy Hackett, who portrayed a fireman with a mission to save dull, boring, floundering parties with plenty of social lubricant Smirnoff vodka in this ad.



Wally Cox, star of Mr. Peepers and Underdog, as well as the comedian who waxed the novelty record There Is A Tavern In The Town, also liked his Smirnoff!



There was a successful campaign plugging the use of Smirnoff Vodka in a cocktail called The Moscow Mule. While the always glamorous Julie Newmar was in many of the ads for The Moscow Mule, quite a few of them featured comedy greats. None other than Woody Allen - see 10 Classic Celebrity Booze Endorsements for more - starred in several "get blasted as Sputnik at a Smirnoff Mule party" print advertisements.



We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog mostly remember The Moscow Mule as a gag (at 2:49) in the classic Tex Avery MGM cartoon Symphony In Slang (1951).



Another celebrity generally not associated with heavy drinking who appeared in ads for alcoholic beverages was Groucho Marx - but, in demand for endorsements, did this one for Smirnoff.



Not to be outdone, Harpo also did Smirnoff ads.



Although Chico would definitely have needed the money and fit nicely in a Smirnoff print ad, he had passed away in 1961. Zeppo and Gummo of The Marx Brothers did not endorse Smirnoff, even if they drank the stuff.



It is rather difficult to believe that were not A LOT more print ads with movie stars and cinematic luminaries of the 1920's and 1930's plugging BOOOOOOOOOZE! W.C. Fields! John Barrymore! Errol Flynn! Joan Crawford! John Ford! Walt Disney and his crew of hard-partying animators at The Mouse Factory! Charley Chase!



Well, at least one ad featured silver screen icon Buster Keaton, who, by the time in his life that appeared in this ad was not guzzling fifths of Smirnoff Vodka daily. . . as he may well have been when he co-starred in What! No Beer? with the shy, retiring and low key Jimmy Durante.



George Burns, the great comedian (and All-Star straight man in Burns & Allen) was headlong into his successful second career as a solo act when he did this ad from Black Velvet Imported Canadian Whisky.



We close today's post with another guy who also headlined print ads for Canadian whiskey. While he's not somebody who would be regarded as a comedian per se, these ads, seen 40 years later, are definitely funny (as are his golden throats record albums). That would be the one, the only Telly Savalas, not only the star of Kojak and the macho action flick The Dirty Dozen, but the unfortunate victim of evil killer doll "Talky Tina" in a memorable, unsettling and creepy episode of The Twilight Zone. "Feel the Velvet, baby!"



For more, see Vintage Ad Browser and Retro Musings.