"Two supremely brainless men, totally innocent of heart, and outrageously optimistic -- there is no one as dumb as a dumb guy who thinks he's smart." John McCabe
The availability of rare classic movies is definitely not on the list of less-than-wonderful things about living in the 2020's. The latest vintage celluloid goodness coming to Blu-ray is the earliest Hal Roach Studio films of Laurel & Hardy.
In our book, Laurel & Hardy remain the greatest of all movie comedy teams.
Some of us diehard classic movie buffs and comedy geeks have been watching Laurel & Hardy since their films were run on TV back in the 1960's. Let me repeat: it's true, believe it or not, movies starring comedy kings Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, W.C. Fields and Abbott & Costello were frequently seen on television. Even Charlie Chaplin silents were shown on TV back then!
Amazingly, one of the local movie palaces in my town, WAY back when, presented Robert Youngson's comedy compilations Laurel & Hardy's Laughing 20's and Four Clowns on the big screen, much to the unending delight of this writer - and a decade before VCRs changed home viewing in the late 1970's.
Quite a few of the short subjects on the new Blu-ray, Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents, were produced so early in their tenure at Hal Roach Studios that the teaming is clearly in its embryonic stages.
It includes their first appearance together - not as a team - in the 1921 short subject The Lucky Dog, produced by G.M. Anderson, the "A" in Essanay Studios and star of countless westerns known as "Broncho Billy."
In The Lucky Dog, written and directed by Jess Robbins, Hardy plays a bad guy, not too dissimilar from the menacing heavies he would portray as a stock company member in the Vitagraph slapstick comedies of wacky comics Jimmy Aubrey and Larry Semon.
While a selection of Stan & Babe talkies was released on Blu-ray in 2020 and a few of the L&H silents have found their way to such DVD releases as Kino Video's Slapstick Encyclopedia, this latest Blu-ray is the first sighting on this format of their early Hal Roach Studio films.
In addition to their debut appearance together in The Lucky Dog, the compilation features the first films in which Stan & Babe worked together in the casts at Hal Roach Studios. Both had been working as supporting players, with Hardy having memorable turns in such Charley Chase comedies as Isn't Life Terrible and Fluttering Hearts. Stan also acted as a writer and director, most notably on comedienne Mabel Normand's series during her brief stay at The Lot Of Fun in 1926-1927.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear in these Hal Roach comedies as actors, not as a team, but they would increasingly work together and a partnership gradually emerged as the 1927-1928 season progressed.
L&H support Hal Roach Studios actor Glenn Tryon in 45 Minutes From Hollywood, part of the All-Star series they both appeared in. Babe appeared with former Fox Films star and uber-vamp Theda Bara in Madame Mystery, which was directed by Stan.
Also among the pre-teaming Hal Roach Studio films: With Love & Hisses, Duck Soup and Why Girls Love Sailors. In moments throughout, very early harbingers of the distinctive mannerisms L&H would soon employ as a comedy team can be seen.
What was the first Hal Roach Studios 2-reeler to officially or unofficially feature Stan & Babe as a team? That would be The Second Hundred Years, which debuted in theatres on October 8, 1927.
It's a hilarious prison break comedy in which the boys break out of the big house only to become staggeringly inept painters.
In particular on this set, The Second Hundred Years, The Battle of the Century and Do Detectives Think? come across as Laurel & Hardy films. Stan and Babe start functioning as a comedy team in these very funny short subjects.
The lineup on Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents is The Lucky Dog (1921), 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), Duck Soup (1927), Slipping Wives (1927), Love 'em and Weep (1927), Why Girls Love Sailors (1927), With Love and Hisses (1927), Sugar Daddies (1927), Sailors, Beware! (1927), The Second 100 Years (1927), Call of the Cuckoo (1927), Do Detectives Think? (1927), Putting Pants on Phillip (1927), The Battle of the Century (1927) and Flying Elephants (1928).
The Flicker Alley press release elaborates:Very few of the silent films of Laurel and Hardy's negatives survive, and the available elements scattered throughout the world are always mediocre or unwatchable. It took three years to gather all the surviving prints of these shorts, compare them shot by shot and give them the best digital restoration possible. Today, these invisible films look as young as they did 95 years ago.
A world premiere for all the Laurel and Hardy fans. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy first appeared on film together in 1921, after an initial period in their careers spent apart. The two would formally team up in 1927 and found success by following a simple comic formula that displayed the hilariously ambitious and anarchic qualities of their joint personality.
Laurel & Hardy: Year One, The Newly Restored 1927 Silents, as proudly presented by Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films®, offers fans new and old the rare opportunity to observe the evolving partnership of the comedy team that would reach enormous popularity.
Featuring all new restorations sourced from best available materials contributed by archives and collectors around the world restored by Blackhawk Films® and Lobster Films in Paris, this comprehensive deluxe Blu-ray 2-Disc collection features thirteen extant films produced in 1927 and two additional films from before they were officially a team.
It includes new scores from some of the best silent film composers working today: Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen, and Donald Sosin. It is curated by film historians and Laurel and Hardy specialists; Randy Skretvedt, Dick Bann, Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange, and Ulrich Ruedel.
The 26th San Francisco Silent Film Festival opens on July 12 and extends through July 16!
Having enjoyed a slew of amazing S.F. Silent Film Festival shows at San Francisco's Castro Theatre over the decades, we're more than a tad sad to be missing this year's extravaganza, but happy to plug it nonetheless.
In the sequel to The Three Musketeers (1921), Fairbanks plays D'Artagnan with his customary savoir faire, wit and panache. Accompanying the action classic: The Guenter Buchwald Ensemble, with Buchwald on piano and violin, Masaru Koga on saxophone, and Frank Bockius on percussion. Jeffrey Vance, author of Douglas Fairbanks, will introduce the program.
The SFSFF press release adds: Fairbanks reprised the role for the sequel and oversaw every element of the lavish production. It was his last silent film and a magnificent success — with a little special treat thrown into the mix: In a concession to the new sound craze, the great silent star recorded two sequences in which D'Artagnan speaks directly to the audience.
It was also for all practical purposes the end of Fairbanks' illustrious silver screen career. Fairbanks starred in a few talkies, notably Mr. Robinson Crusoe (1932) and The Private Life Of Don Juan (1934), but would never be that epic, larger-than-life figure onscreen again.
The 2023 San Francisco Silent Film Festival includes, in one of its customary compendiums of silent movie goodness, numerous gems, many produced in the mid to late 1920's.
Along with action hero Douglas Fairbanks in the 2023 San Francisco Silent Film Festival lineup will be great movie comedians, including the always intrepid Buster Keaton in The 3 Ages.
There will also be essential late 1920's slapstick by our favorite comedy team, Laurel & Hardy, and very funny silent films starring character actor supreme (and future Fractured Fairy Tales narrator) Edward Everett Horton. The comedy-crazed silent movie buffs at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog approve!
In 1928, Edward Everett Horton starred in a series of 2-reel comedies produced for Paramount Pictures by Harold Lloyd's company, Hollywood Productions. Not surprisingly, Horton is incredibly funny in these silents. It is easy to imagine the mutterings of Horton's persnickety character, as we know him from such sound films as The Gang's All Here.
The Edward E. Horton Show presents three of Horton's two-reelers, mastered from Library of Congress 35mm prints: No Publicity (1927, d. N.T. Barrows, 22 m.), Horse Shy (1928, d. Jay A. Howe, 22 m.) and Vacation Waves (1928, d. N.T. Barrows, 22 m.)
This release, which led to a 2-DVD set, was the result of a successful Kickstarter, which we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog were delighted to contribute to. The rest of the Edward Everett Horton series can be purchased here.
If you happen to be in the Bay Area next weekend, by all means get to the Castro Theatre for vintage big screen fun.
Today this blogger's fancy and short attention span turns from silent movies (and the great Raymond Griffith) to the world of sketch comedy. July 1 is Dan Aykroyd's birthday, so we shall doff our always battered fedoras to the prolific comedian, actor and screenwriter.
First and foremost, here are a few of Aykroyd's funniest and most original SNL skits.
Of the dozens of Saturday Night Live players, he is among the few who made a relatively seamless transition from TV to movies.
Trading Places, due to the superb and hilarious character acting from Hollywood veterans Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy, lots of lively interplay between Akyroyd and the brilliant Eddie Murphy - and the presence of such SNL stalwarts as Al Franken & Tom Davis - remains my favorite.
Neighbors was an interesting homage to The Twilight Zone TV show. What makes it interesting? The Aykroyd and Belushi roles are reversed, with Dan playing the lunatic and John cast as a meek, mild-mannered nebbish. The excellent character actress Cathy Moriarty and fellow Second City/SNL alum Tim Kazurinsky are added pluses.
Spies Like Us, co-starring fellow SNL cast member Chevy Chase, is - like many movies featuring Saturday Night Live and SCTV cast members - in the flawed but still mostly funny category.
Dan was teamed with Tom Hanks for the 1987 sendup of Dragnet. All of us who watched the entire run of the unintentionally funny Dragnet 1967 TV show got a few laughs from this flick, and especially from Aykroyd's ability to mimic Jack Webb's distinctive walk and verbal delivery.
Last but not least, Dan produced, directed and co-wrote the creepiest and most nightmarishly disturbing of all 20th century horror-comedies, the Razzie Award winner Nothing But Trouble, a hallucinatory Beetlejuice-influenced compendium of Gothic grotesquerie.
The reviews of Nothing But Trouble were brutal, reminiscent of the In Living ColorMen On Film sketches in which David Alan Grier and Damon Wayans say in unison. . . HATED IT!
Described by Vincent Canby in The New York Times as "a charmless feature-length joke about the world's most elaborate speed trap," this haunted house flick presents an intermittently inspired one-of-a-kind fever dream. In the central role as the hideous 106 year old "hanging judge" of Volkenvania, Aykroyd presides as the ringmaster and frequently ventures into unabashed gross-out territory.
Why Warner Brothers released Nothing But Trouble to theatres in February 1991, instead of postponing it in October and specifically marketing the delirious American Gothic piece as a Halloween "monster movie," nobody knows.
Perhaps the suits concluded that Nothing But Trouble, originally pegged as a Christmas 1990 release, cost so much money to produce, it had to get out in the theatres post-haste to have any chance of recouping the investment. That strikes this writer as both a marketing failure and failure of imagination, as it is clearly a haunted house horror-comedy with a Halloween theme, even though David Lynch didn't direct it and the Three Stooges and Bowery Boys are nowhere to be found.
While Nothing But Trouble is a tad too grotesque to get laughs, it succeeds as American Gothic with garish flying colors, reverb-filled echoes of theremins and imagery a la horror-meister Tod Browning's The Devil Doll, Freaks and West Of Zanzibar viewed through a shattered funhouse mirror. . . with a musical number by Digital Underground thrown in for good measure.
We raise a toast of Crystal Head Vodka to Dan and hope he's doing well on his birthday. Cheers - and thanks a million for the laughs!
For diehard classic movie fans, the love of comedy films produced in the silent era remains steadfast, no matter how old one gets. If silent comedy obsession is regarded as a malady, it remains a disease that cannot be cured. This is not lost upon the international fans of The Silent Comedy Watch Party on YouTube!
Silver screen comedy aficionados will be delighted not only by the recent release (on June 13) of two feature films starring the gifted actor-producer-comic Raymond Griffith, but by the success earlier this month of a Kickstarter for a Blu-ray retrospective devoted to the diminutive yet frequently hilarious Italian-born star of American slapstick comedies Monty Banks a.k.a. Mario Bianchi.
One of many things learned watching numerous movies from the silent era is that comic brilliance is not limited to the Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd trifecta, but actually extends to at least four or five tiers of super talented comedians and comediennes active in the World War I era and 1920's.
In spring 2022, wrote a blog post about a fundraiser for a Blu-ray devoted to the classic films of 1920's Paramount star Raymond Griffith. Griffith's essential screen persona is an always indefatigable and unflappable "Mr. Cool."
On the first day of the Kickstarter, the funding goal of $11,500 was surpassed, so the video restoration process commenced and now two of Raymond Griffith's Paramount features, Paths To Paradise (1925) and You'd Be Surprised (1926), are available on Blu-ray.
Undercrank Productions. much celebrated by Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, has done it again with this Raymond Griffith retrospective.
The restorations were sourced from 35mm nitrate and safety preservation materials preserved by the Library of Congress.
Along with the new 2K digital scans of archival 35mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress, the set also contains a 12-minute video essay, Raymond Griffith: Silent Comedy’s Silk-Hatted Secret, by Crystal Kui and Steve Massa.
The Wikipedia entry on Raymond Griffith adds: "His film debut was for the L-KO Kompany. Many of his starring feature films have long since been lost, but probably the best known of his films today is Hands Up! (1926), a Civil War comedy feature directed by Clarence G. Badger, and co-starring Mack Swain, which was entered into the National Film Registry in 2005.
Also considered a classic is Badger's Paths to Paradise, a caper film that is in all circulating prints missing its final reel. Like many silent comedians, he had a traditional costume; his was a top hat, white tie and tails, often augmented by a cape and/or walking stick. The coming of sound ended Griffith's acting career, but he did have one memorable role in a motion picture before retiring from the screen, playing a French soldier killed by Lew Ayres in the 1930 Lewis Milestone film All Quiet on the Western Front. He then segued into a writing/producing career at Twentieth Century Fox."
First learned about Raymond Griffith, ubiquitous stock company member in dozens of L-Ko and Mack Sennett comedies, in Leonard Maltin's outstanding book The Great Movie Comedians. More recently, I much enjoyed reading Matthew Ross' article on "the silk hat comedian," The Sheik Of Silent Comedy, from his comedy-centric classic movie website The Lost Laugh.
The dapper Griffith, always wearing a top hat and cape with unshakable aplomb, is a very funny and unique talent. Much look forward to watching the suave and debonair "silk hat slicker" in Paths To Paradise and You'd Be Surprised.
It's time again for a post devoted to the world of music at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog! Today's topics: trumpet and trombone aces who sing sing sing! Kicking this off, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie (and, at the end, Jackie Gleason, who doesn't sing but lends yet more larger-than-life stage presence to the proceedings) . . . In other words, GREATNESS.
I don't know which musicians dubbed in the parts for Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman in PARIS BLUES, but it is an incredible sequence. Pops, as always, is the man of the hour.
From one of this music aficionado's all-time favorite documentaries, Jazz On A Summer's Day (1958), here are Pops & his frequent bandmate Jack Teagarden singing Ol' Rockin' Chair.
Jack, in between stints with The Jack Teagarden Quintet and Louis Armstrong's All-Stars, appeared in Snader Telescriptions (the made for television Soundies which are now much sought after by film collectors).
Another blazing genius among the riverboat rockers, steeped in the culture and music of New Orleans, disciples of Armstrong and Kid Ory, was the great Henry "Red" Allen (1908-1967).
From big band swing, there was no better trumpeter-singer than the Duke Ellington Orchestra's ace in the hole Ray Nance (1913-1976), an entertainer who also could play the violin and cut a rug expertly.
Another gifted swing trumpeter who doubled as an outstanding vocalist: Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge (1911-1989).
While Roy was a key link between the trumpet styles of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, it's his terrific vocal on Ain't That A Shame that absolutely floors this jazz, blues and r&b fan.
Never to be outdone, Dizzy Gillespie sings On The Sunny Side Of The Street and even induces saxophonist Sonny Stitt to join in the fun.
Among the kings of swing, bluesmen, boppers and crooners in those days, the one who could both sing a ballad like Sinatra and follow it with an absolutely gorgeous trumpet solo was Chet Baker (1929-1988).
Some of Chet's most amazing performances were from his last concerts in the mid and latter 1980's. The soulfulness of his singing is something to behold.
A brass virtuoso who can croon and give Chet a run for his money is Ray Anderson, who can be found these days rocking the house at The Loft in Stony Brook, NY.
A musician as both gifted and tragic as Baker (and Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro and Sonny Berman and Serge Chaloff and Elmo Hope and Emily Remler, etc.) but also quite brilliant was Frank Rosolino (1926-1978).
A trombonist who mastered the modern sound and played compelling music in international genres was the one, the only Roswell Rudd (1936-2017), here singing and blending his highly original trombone approach with the hard rock of Sonic Youth.
Is there anyone currently who plays brass instruments a la the New Orleans masters and sings? Yes. That would be Trombone Shorty, whose Orleans Avenue band plays a rousing blend of rock, jazz, funk, r&b and ska.
Trombone Shorty and his ensembles remind me of the talented group of San Francisco Bay Area musicians known as the Jazz Mafia, led by trombonist-electric bassist-songwriter-arranger Adam Theis, who recorded "Brass, Bows & Beats" and other excellent albums. Both are steeped in funk and soul.
Pondering all this devastatingly great music over these eight decades, and extending into the 21st century, the jazz aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog say C'EST SI BON! Big thanks and big love to all the singing brass players!
Cartoon Carnival producer Tommy Stathes elaborates: It's officially the beginning of June with Getting Warmer, a selection of vintage cartoon films that take place during spring and summer. Come enjoy outdoorsy frolics at the beach, shenanigans in the park, dust-ups at the picnic, and other assorted gallavants under the sun.
Spanning the 1920s through the ’40s, this assortment showcases classic characters such as Farmer Al Falfa, Cubby Bear, Van Beuren’s human Tom and Jerry, Molly Moo-Cow, Porky Pig, and others.
The 60 minute film program will be followed by a live Q&A session.
Shall follow this with a generous compendium of classic cartoons and ask whether we can find forgotten cartoons we love but have not posted here before in 1200+ posts. Good question. We'll start with one we definitely have posted, featuring the non-forgotten Betty Boop as a mermaid.
Did a double take after seeing a copy of Ted Eshbaugh's Goofy Goat Antics IN COLOR, both on Archive.org and YouTube. Have a soft spot for Ted's animation due to his very enjoyable cartoons The Wizard Of Oz, Sunshine Makers and Japanese Lanterns
This "color" version of Goofy Goat Antics is a fake but a nice try and appears to be the product of someone scanning the B&W version and running it through color filters in Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro.
The following is an example of what a Ted Eshbaugh cartoon that was actually produced in color looks like.
We're also big fans of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, especially the bizarre and weirdly imaginative early talkies produced by Walter Lantz.
We note Tex Avery's name in the credits of the following 1933 Ozzie cartoon.
Then there's Binko The Bear Cub. produced by the short-lived studio of Romer Gray. Supposedly four Binko cartoons were produced before the studio closed in 1931. This one, HOT TOE MOLLIE, is the only Binko opus I've seen. Who worked on Binko for Romer Gray's studio? Among others two of the McKimson brothers, Bob and Tom, both of whom would end up at Warner Brothers animation.
The Charles Mintz Studio, like it or not, is responsible for Scrappy, the king of forgotten misbegotten cartoons, frequently posted here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
Am I as much a fan of pre-Code Scrappy cartoons, loaded with the rubbery, way-out animation of Dick Huemer, as I was when I first started writing about them a gazillion years ago? Yes.
One of the best of the numerous Charles Mintz Studio/Columbia cartoons in the 1930's to spotlight movie star caricatures is Scrappy's Party.
Preceding Scrappy at Mintz: Krazy Kat.
Animator and historian Milton Knight has posted several very good entries from the series on his YouTube Channel.
Closing today's post: a few classic cartoons by the Van Beuren studio!
Are the New York studio's Aesop's Fables and Tom & Jerry/Dick & Larry/Cubby Bear cartoons crude, primitive, goofy, in bad taste and often hilarious? Yes.
