11,914 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the anniversary of the release of Douglas Fairbanks‘ last out-and-out comedy, appropriately named The Nut (1921). As I wrote in Chain of Fools, the pure distilled swa…
TFiled under: PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS, Sport & Recreation Tagged: boxing, Downtown Donnybrook, Dublin, FDNY
This just in! Â You’re crazy if you’re in the variety arts and don’t apply! Â First of May Award 2014 Bindlestiff Family Cirkus welcomes variety and circus artist to su…
Filed under: Comedy, EXHIBITIONS & LECTURES, Jews/ Show Biz, PLUGS, VISUAL ART Tagged: Drew Friedman, Old Jewish Comedians, Society of Illustrators
Today is the anniversary of the release of the Ben Turpin comedy The Shriek of Araby (1923). Turpin was one of Mack Sennett’s biggest stars during the period between his retentio…
Today is the birthday of one of Hollywood’s greatest screen villains, the ice-cold, lizard-like Henry Daniell (1894-1963). Daniell was an English stage actor who’d been on the bo…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy Any Port in a Storm (1932). In this, the boys are a couple of salts just off a whaling vessel. They c…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Mack Sennett Tri-Stone comedy Wife and Auto Trouble (1916). This was one of just a handful of silent pictures made by Broadway star …
I realize not everyone shares my perverse propensity for rubbernecking at car wrecks, so forgive me if this is the wrong advice. Tomorrow in the wee hours, Turner Classic Movies is showing a…
We stopped by Dixon Place last night to tape a couple of Vaudephones with company members of Bindlestiff Family Cirkus during the exciting preparatory moments before their monthly open mike …
Filed under: PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Mardi Gras, Players Club, The Salon
Filed under: HOLIDAYS, FESTIVALS, MEMORIALS & PARADES, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Jo Andres, Lower East Side Girls Club, Mardi Gras, Steve Buscemi, Two Boots
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Keystone comedy Fatty’s Reckless Fling (1915), starring and directed by Roscoe Arbuckle. The title refers, not to an adulterou…
Yes! Jean Harlow! Before being spotted scouts for Howard Hughes for his film Hell’s Angels and thence becoming Hollywood’s archetypal “Blonde Bombshell”, Jean H…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious W.C. Fields short The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933). Comedy buffs cherish this film to a degree that you can scarcely imagine…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Marx Brothers movie Love Happy (1950). Because life is never simple, Love Happy is one of no less than three “last…
Last weekend I enjoyed a wonderful program at the Ziegfeld Society to promote Carolyn Quinn’s new book Mama Rose’s Turn, the first ever biography of Rose Hovick — that i…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Mack Sennett feature length comedy Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919). This WWI-era patriotic comedy is doubly interesting to us: 1) bec…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the early Harry Langdon comedy Smile, Please (1924). This film is from before the convening of the creative team that would make Langdon fa…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release of the Keystone comedy A Film Johnnie. This was the first of many improvised comedies starring Charlie Chaplin and his cohorts, as they do…
Set your DVRs (or just stay up past the Oscars). Tomorrow at 12:45am (Eastern) Turner Classic Movies will be showing a great forgotten classic, 1935′s Ruggles of Red Gap. (I real…
Today is the birthday of Jack White (Jacob Weiss, 1897-1984). Not a performer himself, he was an important writer, director and producer of comedy shorts during the formative years of the in…
Jenny Lee and Elvira Snow are the two pinheads in the movie Freaks who are not Schlitzie. Billed betimes as “Pip and Zip” or “Pip and Flip” or “Pippo and Zippo&…
In March of 1923, Buster Keaton released The Love Nest, his last silent comedy short (thereafter he moved on to features). The title of the film is misleading. The Love Nest is n…
In March of 1922, Buster Keaton released one of the most perfectly constructed of his short comedies, Cops. In the film, he plays a most unlucky furniture mover who has the misfortune …
