Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies: Leonard Maltin's Short Film Showcase

Tomorrow, our friends at Turner Classic Movies present Leonard Maltin's Short Film Showcase, three dozen short subjects covering a wide variety of subjects and genres. Roger Fristoe has written about the 36 film collection on the TCM website.



First remember reading about a good many of the 36 films TCM shall present Monday in Leonard's terrific book The Great Movie Shorts: Those Wonderful One- and Two-Reelers of the Thirties and Forties.



Have copies of The Great Movie Shorts, first published in 1972, as well as the 1983 trade paperback reissue, Selected Short Subjects. Combined with Leonard's books Movie Comedy Teams, The Disney Films, The Great Movie Comedians and Of Mice & Magic, these formed, along with William K. Everson's books and Clown Princes & Court Jesters by Kalton C. Lahue & Sam Gill, a terrific foundation of classic film education.



Leonard hosts the Short Film Showcase, which will include quite a few unbeatable classic movies - comedies and musicals - near and dear to the diehard film buffs at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.



Vitaphone cranked out tons of musical short subjects, starting with the Vitaphone Varieties in 1926 and extending through the Melody Masters big band shorts well into the 1940's.




In the 36 movie lineup: two particularly wonderful musical short subjects produced by Vitaphone in the 1930's and featuring outstanding African-American entertainers.

Short Subject Potpourri #1 kicks off with Smash Your Baggage, an exceptional Vitaphone musical short made in 1932. First heard about this from one of the country's top animators and animation historians, who is also a big time classic movie buff and aficionado of musical short subjects. It did not disappoint.



Small's Paradise Entertainers, a super talented troupe of dancers and musicians, were the featured performers at the Harlem nightclub Small's Paradise. In Smash Your Baggage, entertainers whose day jobs are as redcaps and porters in a train station (which looks like Grand Central) give a performance to raise money for an ill member of their group.



There is spectacular singing and dancing throughout the nine minute running time.



In the red-hot Small's Paradise house band: ace trumpeter Roy Eldridge, future Count Basie Orchestra trombonist Dicky Wells and the legendary "Big Sid" Catlett on drums.






Leonard Maltin's Short Film Showcase also includes The Black Network (1936), featuring one of the early silver screen appearances by the incredible Nicholas Brothers. This is just one of many Vitaphone mini-musicals directed by Roy Mack before he started making Soundies in the 1940's.



In The Black Network, the Nicholas Brothers sing "Lucky Number" and show off their near beyond-belief terpsichorean skills. For more info, check out the Fayard Nicholas website and the entry on The Black Network on the Department of Afro American Research, Arts, and Culture.



Vitaphone also made 2-reel comedies in the 1930's - and two are included in Leonard Maltin's Short Film Showcase.



In this writer's opinion, by far the funniest of the "Big V Comedies" are the talkie "comeback" shorts starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.



In Buzzin' Around (1933), the "Prince of Whales" plays a homespun inventor who has developed a substance which keeps china from breaking - at least until a swarm of angry bees and much resultant mayhem intervene. Arbuckle's acrobatic Sennett Comedies and Comique Productions co-star (and nephew) Al St. John and the equally amazing Pete the Pup from Our Gang co-star.



The second Vitaphone comedy short is Ralph Staub's pie-throwing homage to Mack Sennett's silent slapstick comedies, Keystone Hotel (1935). Former Sennett luminaries Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Marie Prevost, Hank Mann, Chester Conklin and the Keystone Kops star. Unfortunately, Keystone Comedies stalwart Mack "Ambrose" Swain passed in August 1935 and Roscoe Arbuckle, who would have fit right in and thrown pies with gusto and precision, passed after finishing shooting the last of his six Vitaphone 2-reelers on June 29, 1933.



Not surprisingly, given Mr. Maltin's writings in The Great Movie Shorts and The Great Movie Comedians, there are many films among the 36 chosen produced by Hal Roach in the Short Film Showcase.




There will be a bunch of films starring the great movie comedian who, in addition to Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, gets the biggest belly laughs from the crew at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, Charley Chase a.k.a Charles Parrott. The lineup will include Whispering Whoopee (1930), Girl Shock (1930), The Pip From Pittsburg (1931), His Silent Racket (1933), Fallen Arches (1933), The Chases of Pimple Street (1934) and Four Parts (1934).



In Four Parts, Charley plays adult quadruplets - a traffic cop, a bus conductor, a taxi driver and a physician - all living under the same roof. He also sings "Auntie's Got Ants In Her Pantry."



Notable in the mix: our favorite of The Charley Chase Talkies here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, The Pip From Pittsburg (1931), the closest Mr. Chase got to replicating the blazing comedy brilliance of his 1924-1926 work, in collaboration with director Leo McCarey, in sound films.

After Thelma and Charley made a wonderful team and worked beautifully together in The Pip From Pittsburg and other short subjects, producer Hal Roach spun Thelma off into her own series. He had been experimenting with female comedy teams for awhile, having teamed comediennes Anita Garvin and Marion "Peanuts" Byron in the silent 2-reelers A Pair Of Tights, Feed 'Em And Weep and Going Ga-Ga, so Thelma was teamed with character actress and comedienne ZaSu Pitts.



The team headlined 17 short subjects, two of which, Asleep in the Feet (1933) and The Bargain of the Century, get the spotlight in the Thelma Todd & Friends segment. The latter, directed and written by Charley Chase, is a brilliant comedy, spotlighting the relationship between ZaSu and Thelma while expressing the duo's character acting mojo.

Patsy Kelly succeeded ZaSu Pitts as Thelma's teammate and foil in 1933, and they would co-star in 21 comedy shorts. One of the very best in this series, Top Flat (1935), will be on the program.

Lesser known Lot Of Fun series are also represented. The Boyfriends comedies were director George Stevens' teenage variation on "Hal Roach's Rascals," featuring the silent era cornerstones of Our Gang, Mary Kornman and Mickey Daniels, as well as the equally prolific silent movie child actress Gertrude Messinger, the future director of Our Gang comedies and Robin & The 7 Hoods Gordon Douglas, and soon to be super-stuntman David Sharpe. Doing much of the comedy heavy lifting throughout the 1930-1932 series: the wonderfully goofy comedian Grady Sutton, known for his stellar work with W.C. Fields. Four entries from The Boyfriends series Air-Tight, Call A Cop, You're Telling Me and Too Many Women will be seen.

Also on hand will be a cross-section further comedy favorites noted at length in The Great Movie Shorts, including Robert Benchley short subjects (How To Sleep, A Night At The Movies), Pete Smith Specialties (the Oscar-nominated Movie Pests) and the musical comedy Apples To You! starring Billy Gilbert as "Pinsky," a flamboyant burlesque impresario hired to add a bit of excitement to a lackluster production of The Barber of Seville.

Bringing the Short Subjects spotlight into the post-World War II era will be two hilarious examples of the Joe McDoakes series, directed by the one, the only Richard L. Bare for Warner Brothers.



George O'Hanlon, known to comedy and animated cartoon fans as the voice of George Jetson, stars as wiseguy regular guy Joe McDoakes. So You Want To Be a Detective (1948) and So You Want to Play the Piano (1956) demonstrate how the Joe McDoakes one-reelers rank among the most consistently funny of movie shorts.



We thank TCM and Leonard Maltin for doing this! Always enjoy re-visiting the terrific musical shorts and very funny comedies of the 1930's and 1940's. We also extend two respectful tips of a Stan & Babe style brown derby to Dave Lord Heath of the extremely informative Another Nice Mess: The Films Of Laurel & Hardy website. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog much appreciate its many levels of research, reviews and frame grabs regarding all things Hal Roach. Have donated to this worthy website before and shall do it again!

Labor Day Weekend Entertainment

Before COVID-19, Labor Day was an excuse to share brews and BBQ with family and friends - or attend such annual events as the Telluride Film Festival or Cinecon. In 2020, nobody's working, everyone's staying home and on a tight budget, so we'll hit the over-used comfy couch and watch movies.



In this blogger's deep past, Labor Day Weekend meant a trip down to Hollywood for the Cinecon, four days of vintage movies. WAY back, many who contributed to classic silent and early sound movies in front of and behind the cameras were still living among us and turned out to be the Cinecon Classic Film Festival's special guests!

This year there will be a online version of the festival, presented via Zoom. Alas, we're late for the opening, which was last night, but there shall be plenty of classic movie programming on Friday and Saturday, starting at 6:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 p.m. PST. Especially look forward to the SATURDAY NITRATE FEVER program, beginning at 7:54 EST - nitrate prints of Leon Errol in Autobuyography (1934) and Speed In The Gay Nineties (1932) starring Andy Clyde. For more info, go to Cinecon.org.

After Cineconline's cornucopia of classic film rarities, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog shall, after enjoying episode 24 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party (featuring the great Harold Lloyd and a special guest - his grand-daughter Suzanne), not watch the 1978 labor drama Norma Rae, but instead opt for SCTV's wonderfully brutal sendup of it. Andrea Martin, one of the greatest comediennes of her (or any) generation, spoofs everything in sight, including well-meaning and ambitious but cheesy and dated 1970's movies. The then-trendy feature films An Unmarried Woman, Norma Rae, The China Syndrome and Kramer Vs. Kramer get skewered, deservedly, in the same sketch.



With the full understanding that strife-filled Labor Day themed movies covering the complex web spun between labor, management, business and American society must be on the bill, we shall revisit documentaries about labor by Barbara Kopple. In the process of producing/directing Harlan County U.S.A. and American Dream, the activist-turned-filmmaker risked her life by embedding her camera into real life labor-management donnybrooks. She scrounged up the shoestring budget for Harlan County U.S.A. by hook and by crook.



A prolific filmmaker and television series director (Homicide: Life On The Streets and Oz), Barbara Kopple brought the cinéma vérité observational approach, inspired by D.A. Pennebaker, Frederic Wiseman and the Maysles brothers, to a slew of documentaries on varied topics. Kopple's camera has a way of revealing the souls of her subjects.



And now for something completely different, but not that different, we think of Sylvester Stallone, who, while riding high with the success of his Rocky series, also starred in a drama patterned on the story of the beginnings of the labor movement - Jimmy Hoffa and the United Auto Workers - in the 1930's.



That would be the Norman Jewison - Sylvester Stallone - Joe Esterhas labor strife epic F.I.S.T. (acronym for Federation of Inter State Truckers).



While as ambitious and over-the-top as those 1970's movies that got the big time razz in the SCTV My Factory My Self sketch were, this nonetheless offers a "more substance (somewhat) less camp" version of Stallone within its enjoyable Hollywood-ized take on 20th century history.



Watching the larger-than-life 2 1/2 hours long Stallone vehicle on Labor Day Weekend invariably leads, the following night, to a viewing of the equally over-the-top Jack Nicholson as Hoffa. Tough to take your eyes of the screen when Nicholson's in command, supported enthusiastically by Armand Assante, J. T. Walsh, John C. Reilly, Robert Prosky, Kevin Anderson and director Danny DeVito. Over-the-top? Who cares!



One indie filmmaker/screenwriter who produced and directed terrific movies, several about historical events - including one, Eight Men Out, beloved by baseball fans such as this writer - is the novelist and jack of all cinematic trades John Sayles, whose 1987 opus about the coal miners' strike in 1920 in the West Virginia hills that would be known as the Battle of Matewan remains most gripping.



Matewan is distinguished by its strict attention to period detail and a refusal to sugar-coat and/or sanitize the subject matter. Sayles, an original presence in filmmaking (Baby It's You, Lone Star, ‎The Secret of Roan Inish, ‎The Brother from Another Planet, Passion Fish), has frequently spoken about the movie, which, unlike many efforts to blend cinema and history, avoids a simplistic "good guys vs baddies" approach.



Alas, we will NOT finish up the Labor Day Weekend entertainment with a ritual screening of the ultimate Labor Day movie, On The Waterfront, either (although Robert Osborne's TCM interview with Eva Marie Saint might be on the bill).



Instead, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, always comedy-centric, shall finish the Labor Day weekend with SCTV's On The Waterfront Again sketch.

August 29: Astaire's Top Hat and MJ's Birthday

On August 29, 1935, the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical Top Hat, produced by RKO and directed by Mark Sandrich, was released to movie theaters.



It is tough to pick just one favorite from the nine Fred & Ginger RKO flicks, as they are all wonderful.



Top Hat remains a standout and a musical comedy to top all musical comedies.



The combo of wit, sophistication, Irving Berlin music and terpsichore can't be beat.



Everything works, from direction to cinematography to comic relief. Edward Everett Horton, a comic character actor go-to in several Astaire & Rogers vehicles, is particularly hilarious in Top Hat.



Even film critics love Top Hat!



A certain entertainer and avid classic film buff who just happened to be born on August 29, Michael Jackson, was also a fan of dancing in Hollywood movies and applied original spins on ideas from Fred Astaire to Gene Kelly to The Nicholas Brothers to Sammy Davis Jr.



Michael cited James Brown, The Godfather of Soul, as the number one influence on his songs, performances and dancing.



That said, Michael's patented "Moonwalk" brings to mind The Godfather Of Soul, The Nicholas Brothers, Gregory Hines - and a hint of Astaire.



Michael very likely watched Astaire's terpsichore over and over before learning the routines from all his movies step by step.



Realizing that Madame Blogmeister was born on the exact same day as Michael Jackson - and that this blogmeister and she LOVE classic films - today is as good a day as any to ponder the stylistic links between MJ and movie musicals.



One gets the impression that Jackson delved VERY deeply into the world of movie musicals, as deeply as his did to such r&B and pop performers as James Brown and Jackie Wilson. The following excellent compilation shows MJ dance routines alongside slick moves by Astaire, Bill Bailey, Eleanor Powell and John W. Swillett (Bubbles of Buck & Bubbles) - and of course, James Brown. The Astaire-Jackson connection is particularly strong.



MJ made his name as the pint-sized star of Motown Records' 1960's Top 40 juggernaut The Jackson 5. Michael's signature dance moves are already evident in this 1974 Tonight Show appearance.



Right up through their 1984 reunion tour, Michael and his brothers were a terrific entertainment act.

As soon as his solo records, especially the Thriller album, met unprecedented popular success, Jackson found himself an international concert sensation, touring the far corners of the earth.

In many of his videos, Michael Jackson was profoundly influenced by Astaire's choreography, grace and styleHe noted, "Fred Astaire told me things I will never forget. Gene Kelly also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world."



The King of Pop had numerous influences and studied all of them in detail. Universal Horror movies and the cinematic adaptation of West Side Story are obvious ones.





In this writer's opinion, Jackson's very best work was just before the hype, before the innumerable plastic surgeries and before he had experienced years of supersonic stratospheric fame a la Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and The Beatles.

Film director (and Monsieur and Madame Blogmeister favorite) Preston Sturges was also born on August 29, but there is no indication that Michael Jackson was a fan of his (that I know of). MJ never sat down for an interview with Robert Osborne on TCM and talked classic movies.

While Jody Rosen's Michael Jackson obit in Slate discusses how the runaway success of the MJ brand wreaked havoc on his life, the most insightful and incisive look at the corrosive nature of super-duper-stardom remains A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined As a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations by Cintra Wilson.



Brutally honest, sensitive and perceptive, this book examines the venal aspects of American fandom, the twisted worship of pop culture heroes and the symbiotic relationship between Michael Jackson's showbiz existence (including an abuse-filled childhood) and the immolating cult of celebrity. Wilson is a gifted writer and prescient social critic.

There have been some fantastic late 20th century and 21st century bands (including Miles Davis) that have found, in the 10 studio albums of Michael Jackson, which featured killer arrangements by none other than Quincy Jones, a springboard for new ideas.



The Jazz Mafia, an organization that has been offering fresh takes on multiple music genres since the 1990's, played a series of concerts devoted to Michael Jackson. Here's the Jazz Mafia's excellent r&b ensemble Supertaster with a guy who I would have liked to see wax an entire album of songs with Michael - and trade off vocals - Stevie Wonder.



Here's a clip from a Jazz Mafia MJ tribute concert this writer arrived at 10 minutes after it officially sold out. Love hearing it now!



Do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog miss seeing live music, hearing the buzz of the reeds, the lip-on-mouthpiece sound of the trumpet and the bite of a Fender Stratocaster in this stay-at-home COVID-19 era? YES! The Jazz Mafia always had a certain sweep and grandeur to their music - and I do miss concerts a great deal.



R.I.P. Fred and Michael - and thanks a million for what you do, Jazz Mafia. Today's post shall with one of the most amazing excerpt from an astonishing August 20, 1983 concert in which Michael Jackson, James Brown and Prince all performed. MJ moonwalks and Prince's original and inspired synthesis of protean elements from Jimi Hendrix, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, James Brown and Mick Jagger is in top form.



Hope we see a brighter day . . .

This Weekend: Niles Museum Spotlights Silent Movie Musicians, The Thanhouser Studio and The Great Train Robbery

Sipping on excellent iced tea in Kingston, New York, thinking of the residents of Santa Cruz County in Northern California (some of whom have been evacuated from their homes due to the still raging wildfires), as well as the friends and family in the Bay Area I cannot see because of the incompetent, ignorant, catastrophic and lethal non-response to COVID-19, I am very much missing the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. Glad to hear the museum is hosting Zoom events on Saturday and Sunday. The links will be available at 12:01am daily.

Saturday, August 22
A Silent Cinema Cover Cavalcade




Tim Lussier presents various artists, some famous and some not, painted portraits of silent film stars that graced the covers of all the major fan magazines during the silent era. This slideshow features dozens of covers from his collection of magazines spanning the 1916-1928 years of silent cinema. Enjoy!



Talk to the Silent Movie Musicians

ZOOM 1:00 pm PDT / 4:00 pm EDT

The museum website adds:
As regular Niles attendees know, silent films were never silent and always had music, and we continue to honor that tradition today. But how do the musicians do it? How do they come up with scores for films? How did they learn to do this? How did they get started? Who inspires them? Learn the answers to these questions and more as Jon Mirsalis moderates a panel of internationally recognized silent film accompanists, Frederick Hodges, Makia Matsumura, Ben Model, Philip Carli, and Andrew Earle Simpson. A lively discussion will be followed by Q&A with the audience.

Sunday August 23rd



All About Thanhouser Studios includes the documentary The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema (2014, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc.) – as seen on TCM and numerous film festivals. There will also be streaming films from the Thanhouser Company, the New Rochelle-based production company,.



The Thanhouser Studio was one of the earliest independents and among those who invented American cinema in the early 20th century, sophisticated in approach and concept. They were making films quite advanced in filmmaking technique for the early teens and stylistically closest to those Alice Guy Blaché at Solax. Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith and Alice Guy Blaché were not the only ones inventing and developing cinema technique in the first decade of the 20th century.



The museum press release elaborates: This multi-award winning documentary recounts the untold story of the rise and fall of this remarkable pioneering motion picture studio during the first decade of the twentieth century. It traces the evolution of one family’s career as it transitioned from producing live theater to establishing one of the most successful independent silent motion picture studios in early cinema. Set against a backdrop of Thomas A. Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Trust companies dominating the industry, the story plays out in New York, Florida and California. It is a compelling story of fame and fortune, twisted by the vagaries of fate and ending on a bittersweet note.

Sunday ZOOM EVENT - 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT

• Q & A with the keeper of the films, Ned Thanhouser himself!





The Thanhouser Studio made 1000 films and was among the cutting edge production companies before the outbreak of World War I. Thanhouser's principal star was Florence La Badie



Sadly, the silver screen career of Florence La Badie was cut short by her passing in an automobile accident in 1917.




Finding a Location for The Great Train Robbery



Sunday August 23 (Links available at 12:01am daily)
Historian and author David Kiehn explains how he used modern technology in his research and detective work to identify one of the locations for this iconic classic shot by Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Studios in the “wilds” of New Jersey.



Gilbert “Broncho Billy” Anderson was featured in three roles in this 12-minute film which gives an extra connection for us as the Edison theater, the home of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA. Highway 80 in New Jersey continues all the way to California and the East Bay near the city of Fremont and the historic district of Niles.

On August 16th, The Maestro's Birthday - This Blog Remembers Bill Evans

"Just think truth and beauty." Bill Evans


Watching film noir gems has led this scribe to gems of jazz yet again - and, as fate would have it, jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans was born on this day in 1929.



As fellow pianists and geniuses Bud Powell and Art Tatum did, Bill Evans featured an original blend of protean elements from classical music and improvisational jazz. A cornerstone among many in the 20th century modern compositions of jazz giants and music innovators Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Cecil Taylor, this quality is especially notable with Bill's first trio, which featured bassist Scott LaFaro and percussionist Paul Motian.



Bill periodically worked with vocalists and his albums with Monica Zetterlund and Tony Bennett remain among the most memorable.











Bill usually recorded and performed with his trio, but also periodically expanded his group to quartets and quintets. Here's Bill with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz.



The concert Bill did with Stan Getz at the Montreux Jazz Festival is amazing as well.



Bill led several trios between the 1950s and his passing in 1980, each one of them musically different from the other. All feature an interplay between the upright bass and the piano which is frequently on a telepathic level.











In addition to Sir Duke, Bill Evans is right up there with those jazz composer-pianists (the aforementioned Art Tatum and Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano, Elmo Hope, Herbie Nichols, Andrew Hill) who can send this music aficionado over the moon and back.



Something indescribable about Evans' harmonies and melodies resonates with this listener on a deep and profound level. No matter how many times I hear "Waltz For Debby" and "Emily," the songs tear me up in their own sweet way.



Bill plays on the best selling and arguably the best known jazz record ever waxed, Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis and changed the Davis group's style and approach by his presence.



Almost 40 years after his death, the response to Bill Evans' name around the world remains LOVE - as it does when I listen to his appearance on the following exceptional episode of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz.



In this particularly wonderful Piano Jazz show, the dynamic duo of pianists talk music and, when playing duets, express the "truth and beauty" Bill spoke of to Tony Bennett.

Photo: David Redfern/Redferns

Born on August 8, 1900 - Film Noir Maestro Robert Siodmak

After binge-watching comedies and cartoons for months, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are ready for a deep dive into film noir - and nobody made more uncompromising, gripping and vividly atmospheric noir thrillers than Robert Siodmak (1900-1973).



Robert Siodmak arrived in Hollywood in 1939 and made 23 movies there. Many of them were hard-hitting crime dramas as The Killers, notable for exemplifying the themes and mise en scène of film noir.



That said, it is simplistic to describe him as a director who only excelled at film noir, as brilliant and prolific as Siodmak was at the genre. He worked in all genres, both in America and Europe.



From Robert Siodmak's first U.S. produced opus that dipped an unsuspecting toe into the icy waters of film noir, Phantom Lady, it was clear that the Dresden-born director could adapt the UFA German expressionist visual style to mysteries and crime thrillers with exceptional panache.



Since we can't go out to the movies for big screen fun, here are some trailers from Robert Siodmak masterpieces that positively oooooooooooze the pungent essence of film noir.







The Spiral Staircase is among the most terrifying and paranoid psychological thrillers and more than a tad reminiscent of Robert Wiene's way-out 1920 chiller The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Can't discuss the plot without spoiling this tense and diabolical film!



Robert Siodmak began making films in Germany in 1929, but, after making Brennendes Geheimnis (The Burning Secret) in 1933, found himself on minister of propaganda Josef Goebbels' hit list and attacked for not being a Nazi shit-bag. He immediately high-tailed it to France, where Siodmak would both avoid being a victim of The Night Of The Long Knives and work successfully as an émigré director for the rest of the decade. In Paris, Siodmak was more of a Howard Hawks style "all genres" director than a specialist in thrillers. He even made Dannielle Darrieux musicals!




Over their long careers, Robert Siodmak and his brother Curt, novelist, science fiction author and screenwriter, hit bulls-eyes in many of 20th century pop culture's sweet spots. We wager that one of the main reasons the Siodmak brothers were not fawned over and lauded as great directors and screenwriters was their uncanny skill at genre pictures.



The Siodmaks consistently hit many favorite B-movie genres of the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog - Universal Pictures' signature Gothic horror, science fiction, murder mysteries, crime dramas, film noir - out of the park.



Our introduction to Robert Siodmak was the excellent Universal horror movie Son of Dracula, a late-night television Creature Features perennial back in the 1970's and 1980's.



After many viewings, it still lands squarely in our genre picture wheelhouse as does The Wolfman, just one of many classic movies with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak.



Filmmaker Joe Dante elaborates on the inventiveness and stylishness of this very Gothic opus. Have a hunch Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder watched Son of Dracula while planning Young Frankenstein. Robert Siodmak's uber-creepy contribution to the Universal horror genre emphatically illustrates that it is not a good day when a fortune teller informs you that you're destined to marry a corpse!



Some of Robert Siodmak's American films turn tried-and-true genres upside down. In Christmas Holiday, what looks like a small town Americana tale starring Hollywood musical stars Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly turns out to be a thriller, imbued with the leads' most un-prototypical performances. While Gene Kelly periodically played character roles in such films as Inherit The Wind, he portrays a psycho (actually, quite well) here who at no point dances or sings "I Got Rhythm."



The Killers, featuring a script by John Huston, is the feature film debut of Burt Lancaster, who makes the most of his part. This adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway ranks among the masterpieces of film noir.





Another masterpiece of film noir is Criss Cross, a white-hot, delirious, yet also subtle, sensitive and beautifully realized nugget of cinematic genius. Along with Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy, no movie before or since expresses the sex-crossed lovers theme quite like this.



Don't have to see the doomed couple drool all over each other to get the picture - they're hornier than Maurice Chevalier in The Smiling Lieutenant. Throughout, the incendiary performances by Burt Lancaster and femme fatale Yvonne De Carlo are on the money. Want to die anytime soon? No. Want to have as good sex as Lancaster and De Carlo do (offscreen) in this movie? YES!



Founder of the Noir City film festival, author and Czar of Noir Eddie Muller elaborates on this unbeatable classic movie on TCM's Noir Alley.





While many of the great Robert Siodmak films, from Fly By Night to The Suspect to Christmas Holiday to The Strange Case of Uncle Harry to The Dark Mirror to Cry of the City to The File on Thelma Jordon, can be seen in their entirety on YouTube, they lose approximately 95.7% of their dramatic, cinematic and emotional impact on the small screen. That's as diminished as the signature diminished scale riff frequently played by jazz trumpeter Lee "The Sidewinder" Morgan!

Although going out to the movies, unfortunately, remains a non-option for the foreseeable future, don't watch these fantastic and atmospheric classic films on your Iphone any more than you would watch a 70mm print of Lawrence Of Arabia, here in his 1971 "Dirty Larry" incarnation, on a tiny screen.



After his career making memorable American films ended, Siodmak returned to Europe and continued directing films, including noir thrillers, through the end of the 1960's. Particularly notable: The Devil Came At Night (1957), a crime drama about a serial killer on the loose in Nazi Germany.



Robert Siodmak's swan songs as a filmmaker would be westerns, historical dramas and sword-and-sandal epics. In that respect, his career parallel another principal architect of film noir, the great Anthony Mann.







For more info, there's Deborah Lazaroff Alpi's book Robert Siodmak: A Biography, with Critical Analyses of His Film Noirs and a Filmography of All His Works. Buying a copy, as it has been out-of-print for quite awhile, will cost mucho dough, but, if you are lucky enough to live near a interlibrary loan program, check it out! The research, writing and analysis is thorough and impeccable.

Ringing in August with The Silent Comedy Watch Party, Felix, Ozzie and Cartoon Roots!

Ringing out July 2020, not at all happily, with the passings of guitar genius Peter Green, actress, author and scat singer supreme Annie Ross, silver screen legend Olivia DeHavilland and Danish film music composer/pianist Bent Fabricius-Bjerre A.K.A. Bent Fabric - all favorites at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog - leaves one pondering how the heck to ring in August 2020.



Good news? The blogmeister has, with the exception of grocery shopping, stayed home, washed his hands according to Alton Brown's helpful instructions, wore a stylish jet-black face mask whenever leaving the house and, as the new month begins, happily can attest that he's not dead - and here to write the August 1, 2020 blog post!



JUST kicked off August with today's edition of The Silent Comedy Watch Party, which delivered sorely needed LAUGHS!

Silent Comedy Watch Party logo by Marlene Weisman



Today's lineup begins with Pep Up (1929 - Educational Pictures) starring Cliff Bowes.



Then it's on to Love's Young Scream (1928) a very funny 1-reeler produced by Christie Comedies featuring Anne Cornwall and Jack Duffy and episode 20 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party's piece-de-resistance, Fluttering Hearts (1927 - Hal Roach Studio), starring Charley Chase, Oliver Hardy and Martha Sleeper. Thanks a million, Ben Model, Steve Massa and Mana Allen!


We're delighted to hear that Ben is spearheading a Kickstarter for The Everett Edward Horton DVD Project. The fundraiser runs through August 17.

The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are enthusiastic fans of Mr. Horton, from his late 1920's silent comedies produced by Harold Lloyd to his brilliant comedy relief work in Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers pictures, inspired narration of Jay Ward Productions' Fractured Fairy Tales and memorable work in a host of enjoyably silly 1960's sitcoms, including F-Troop. The gang here is happy to contribute to this Kickstarter!




Last Sunday's episode included, as half of a 1913 Keystone split reel, A Little Hero (starting at 50:41 in The Silent Comedy Watch Party ep. 19 program), featuring a cast of intrepid fur-bearing stars, led by Pepper the Cat. LOVED IT!



There are numerous heroic canines, led by Pete the Pup of Our Gang and Luke of the Sennett and Arbuckle Comique short subjects, in silent movies. One of our favorites is Cameo the Dog. Here's a crude video copy of a Mack Sennett comedy featuring canine comedienne Cameo, who clearly gets the best of his human co-stars Billy Bevan and Harry Gribbon.



Pepper the Cat and the blogmeister's intrepid felines at home DEMAND equal time - so here's Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat.





We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, which devoted Memorial Day Weekend 2020 to silent era cartoons, enthusiastically support animation produced from Winsor McCay's heydey through the pre-Code era, but has never devoted any posts to the silent Disneys. . . until now. . McCay, Cohl, Fleischer and Otto Messmer, yes, many times. Walt Disney's pre-Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1920's, covered in depth in Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman's Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney book, no.



Am partial to the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series over Disney's Alice in Cartoonland, partly due to the more advanced animation in the 1927-1928 series. There was even a terrific book by David A. Bossert, J.B. Kaufman (Foreword) and David Gerstein (Archival Support) devoted to the Disney Oswalds.



The Walt Disney Treasures - The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit DVD came out a few years ago, in 2007. It's still available and a tad pricey, but well worth it for those who love animation history, silent cartoons and the evolution of Disney.



For cartoon fans, it's of interest to see the distinctive animation, particularly in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbits made by Disney by 1920's Disney collaborators - those who left when Charles Mintz bought the rights to the character - such as Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Rollin Hamilton and Friz Freleng.

Many of our favorite DVDs and Blu-rays of early animation have been from Tommy Jose Stathes' Cartoon Roots series. We were delighted to be involved in the Kickstarter that got the ball rolling on the Cartoon Roots compilation The Bray Studios: Animation Pioneers back in 2015 and devote a blog post to said fundraiser.



After all, the Fleischer Brothers Studio, Earl Hurd, Paul Terry and Walter Lantz all cranked out cartoons for J.R. Bray during the silent era.



The subsequent Cartoon Roots: Bobby Bumps & Fido Blu-Ray from Tommy and Cartoons on Film ranks high on the Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog list of favorite silent cartoon compilations.







The animation of Earl Hurd broke new ground and the Bobby Bumps series no doubt influenced everything from the Reg'lar Fellers comic strip by Gene Byrnes to the Hal Roach Studio's Our Gang to the sound era cartoons of Walt Disney and Chuck Jones' crew at Warner Brothers Animation.



Alas, COVID-19 is still beating the you-know-what out of the U S of A on 8-1-2020, so it appears we will be staying at home, social distancing and attempting to stay safe for the foreseeable future - who knows, it may be many months into next year - so bring on the classic comedies and cartoons!