11,836 stories by "Trav S.D."
Tomorrow at 10:15am (EST) Turner Classic Movies will be showing the Raoul Walsh’s Along the Great Divide (1951). In this black and white western Marshall Kirk Douglas and his men…
Today is the birthday of Heywood Broun (1888-1939). Like so many unfortunates, he is today chiefly remembered today for who he sat and ate lunch with, rather than the things he actually did.…
Today marks the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The ripples of that event, large and small, touched millions. In the years of World War Two, millions lost their lives, th…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Keystone comedy Getting Acquainted, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. Though Charlie is at the helm and the titular star of t…
I miss David Rakoff, and his posthumously released The Uncollected David Rakoff just makes me miss him more. I purchased it on the pub. date (late October) — it’s a measure…
Today is the birthday of Grace Moore, “The Tennessee Nightingale” (Mary Willie Grace Moore, 1898-1947). Originally from Knoxville, Moore briefly attended Ward-Belmont College in …
Just a few words of appreciation for the late Robert Loggia, who passed away yesterday at the age of 85.  The first word that popped into my head when I heard he had passed was irrepla…
Sunday, December 6 at 11am at New York’s Film Forum: Harold Lloyd’s classic feature length silent comedy The Freshman (1925). The Freshman is up there with Safety …
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Christmas, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Uncategorized Tagged: burlesque, Christmas Carnivale, The Commons
Today is the birthday of film director Lloyd Bacon (1889-1955). Bacon was second generation show biz; his father was the actor Frank Bacon, today best known for co-authoring and starring in …
Tonight and tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies is turning out some heavy Frank Sinatra rotation. There’s lots I could write about here (Dirty Dingus McGee, anyone?) but I would be re…
We’d say we are excited for our friend Molly Crabapple, but she doesn’t need our excitement. She is now officially an international global force of nature. Some people just tap i…
This may shock you, but so be it. By inclination, I’m not a preservationist, at least not a radical one, really about anything. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that I have a t…
Yes — I am perhaps TOO excited to report that tonight Turner Classic Movies will be showing four “Ma and Pa Kettle” comedies. These rural comedies starring Percy Kilbride a…
Here’s irony for ya — the motive force behind Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008, the major exhibition of Coney Island inspired art now ensconced at the Br…
Today is the birthday of Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain (1835-1910). He’s an important writer for me in many ways, as he is for everybody, though I couldn’t call him my very f…
I’m wishing all YOU Scotsmen a happy St. Andrew’s Day because, well, after a lifetime of thinking myself pretty darn Scottish, I have learned otherwise. The “S” in &#…
Some charming Thanksgiving cartoons by my first cousin thrice removed: Filed under: AMERICANA, HOLIDAYS/ FESTIVALS/ MEMORIALS/ PARADES, Thanksgiving, VISUAL ART Tagged: cartoons…
Filed under: Art Models/ Bathing Beauties/ Beauty Queens/ Burlesque Dancers/ Chorines/ Pin-Ups/ Sexpots/ Vamps, HOLIDAYS/ FESTIVALS/ MEMORIALS/ PARADES, Hollywood (History), Thanksgiving, Wo…
Fear not, Pilgrims. I have a stake in this venerated holiday. By “carve” I don’t mean “hatchet job”. More like a dissection, a picking apart for the purposes of…
As we blogged here yesterday, a new feature length film of the popular web series The Sisters Plotz premieres tonight at Anthology Film Archives, presented by New York Women in Film an…
Nu, I should kvell about Plotz? Well, I predict that I will. A new feature length film of the popular web series The Sisters Plotz premieres tomorrow at Anthology Film Archives, presen…
Just following up on yesterday’s enthusiastic plug for Saints and Strangers to pull back a little. I’ll probably watch part two tonight, but I’m indifferent as to whether I…
Tomorrow is the birthday of the great Boris Karloff. Appropriately, Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the day with a number of his classic gloomy features. 6:00am (EST): The Mask of Fu Ma…
Tonight and tomorrow, the National Geographic Channel will be broadcasting the premier their two part telefilm Saints and Strangers: Surviving Plymouth. This is the first Thanksgiving…
