11,914 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the anniversary of the world premiere of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 mixed-up masterpiece The Birth of a Nation. This film a complicated bit of baggage to unpack. Look at that …
Today is the birthday of Christie Comedy star Billy Dooley (1893-1938). Dooley had been partnered in a vaudeville act with Frances Lee when Al Christie recruited them and began starrin…
Today is the birthday of Charles “Charlie” Ruggles (1886-1970). While his brother Wesley had more of a pedigree in silent comedy and eventually became a successful director, Char…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. All of us too young to have been Baby Boomers or older missed a joke in the movie Grease (1978) and i…
Today marks a big benchmark in comedy and film history. It is the centennial of the release of Kid Auto Races at Venice, the film which provided the public with its first glimpse of Charl…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy 1930 comedy Be Big. Stan and Ollie and their wives (Anita Garvin and Isabelle Keith) are preparing to go dow…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harold Lloyd’s The Milky Way (1936). The Milky Way was Lloyd's last independent feature, and a very respectable one (i.e., funn…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. My favorite Husband was Lucille Ball’s radio sit-com precursor to I Love Lucy, which ran on CBS…
Much joyous celebration, crazy talent and carousing with friends at the opening of Carolyn Raship’s “Chorus Girls” exhibition at Dixon Place last night. Not only are Caroly…
All you working people set your DVRs! Today at 1:15pm EST on Turner Classic Movies:Â The Bad Seed. This movie is significant for all sorts of reasons. One, it is based on Maxwell Anderson&…
Today is the birthday of the still-living and still-gorgeous Mamie Van Doren. My usual hierarchical formulation for her is “as Jayne Mansfield is to Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Dor…
Today is Red Buttons’ birthday (see here for my full post on the late rusty-haired comedian.) Most of us below a certain age know Buttons only from film roles in pictures likeÂ…
On this day in 1919 was launched the film studio known as United Artists. This won’t be the least bit surprising to film buffs, who know the story well, but it will be more than int…
Today is the anniversary of the U.S. (and world) premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Released in 1936, it is widely regarded as the last of the silent films, made near…
Unless you’re a rooster you’ll want to set your DVR for this one: tomorrow at 3:30 a.m. EST, Turner Classic Movies will be showing The Jolson Story (1946). While undeniabl…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Today we present the least romantic couple in the world, the Bickersons (Don Ameche and Frances Langford) i…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of Buster Keaton’s The General (1927). Unthinkable as it may be to us today, this film, now regarded as Keaton’s masterpie…
One in our series of old time radio posts in celebration of Valentine’s Day. In this episode of Amos and Andy entitled “The Mean Valentine”, the titular characters of…
Hello and welcome again to Vaudephone, your one stop shopping for all the best contemporary variety acts, just returned from a many-monthed hiatus, andnow at a new location, the Brooklyn …
Today is the birthday of distinctive character actor John Schuck (b. 1940). The emphasis in Schuck’s wiki article appears to be the work of some demented lunatic, leading with his gues…
Today is the birthday of Danish film director Carl Dreyer (1889-1968). We recently watched his 1932 excursion into the horror genre Vampyr, so we thought we would share our impressions here.…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harry Langdon’s first comedy short for Mack Sennett, Picking Peaches (1924). Langdon had made a couple of shorts at a small, obscu…
That’s right; he is dead. Wait, wait, hear me out! A few months ago (back when you could see the grass) we were walking through Green-wood Cemetery (like you do), and, boom, I just …
Not long after moving here in 1988 I answered a tantalizing ad I used to see every week in the Village Voice placed by none other than Dave Van Ronk. Anyone steeped in Dylan lore…
Since it’s Superbowl Sunday, and the only aspect of football that’s remotely interesting to me is halftime, with the exception of Superbowl halftime, I thought I would look into …
