12,225 stories from Trav S.D.
Slapstick Alert! Slapstick Alert! Tomorrow morning Turner Classic Movies will be showing two terrific silent comedy shorts set in amusement parks. 7:30am (EST): Coney Island (1917) In this c…
Today is the birthday of stage and screen actor Lee Tracy (1898-1968), best-known for a niche he carved out all for himself in Hollywood’s pre-code years, which was fast-talking and ur…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, Indie Theatre, PLUGS Tagged: Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Connelly Theater
Tonight on TCM at 8pm (EST), one of the most perfect Hollywood movies of all time, the original 1933 version of King Kong. One of the most dream-like of all Hollywood films, an art de…
Tomorrow on Turner Classic Musicals, a Multiplicity of MGM Musicals from the 1950s in honor of birthday boy Howard Keel: 6:00am (EST): Pagan Love Song (1950) Crossed wires in Ta…
 Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release date of Charlie Chaplin’s landmark comedy short The Tramp (1915). Though this was Chaplin’s 38th comedy, this was the …
The word’s just come down to me that that twentieth century Titan, Judith Malina has joined her husbands Julian Beck and Hanon Reznikov…whereever they are. Unavoidably, …
Tomorrow at 12:15pm (EST) on Turner Movie Classics: Footlight Parade (1933). Yet another great Warner Brothers musical from 1933! Incredible Busby Berkley numbers and a cast that inclu…
Amusingly, after a year and a half of hearing me freak out about having too much to do, I am now starting to freak out about having nothing to do. It feels like I am about to fall off …
Today marks the 150th anniversary of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox. We tend to use that date to mark the end of the Civil War, but in reality that wasn’t the end of the …
Listened to the Beatles’ “Hey, Bulldog” four times in a row this morning. I’ve always thought it would make an excellent theme for a spy movie, by virtue of Lennon…
Trav S.D. and Mountebanks present Fragments of  a House Divided Tuesday, April 21 at 7:30pm at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, NYC April, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the en…
Filed under: Burlesk, PLUGS Tagged: Bedford Hall, Broadway Brassy, burlesque
 Today at 1:45pm (EST) on Turner Classic Movies: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) A strong contender for best Hollywood show biz bio-pic all around. James Cagney tears it up as his h…
“I’d walk miles for the hubble, bubble and toil of a good horror movie, or to watch Vincent Price stirring cauldrons of horror, or to observe a well-fanged Christopher Lee on the…
Tonight I’m hosting the entertainment portion of a Gala fundraiser for one of my favorite theatre companies in New York City, the Metropolitan Playhouse. (Just do for a search for …
Tonight is Jane Russell night on Turner Classic Movies. Following an 8pm screening of the 1953 remake of Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes there will be these: 9:45 pm (EST):…
Looking for something vaguely Spring-like or Easterly this morning (without paying much attention), I watched the 1948 movie April Showers. Assuming, I guess, it was something like …
Today is the birthday of the late Kenneth Mars (1935-2011). In a rational world, his name would be much better known. He was one of the funniest and most talented comedy presences on screens…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Drom, Midnight Cabaret
Since we made such noise about it here and here we thought we’d let you know the other shoe has dropped and last night we finally realized one of our life’s ambitions, which was …
Today is the birthday of pioneering movie director Allan Dwan (Joseph Aloysius Dwan, 1885-1981). Much like Frank Capra, Dwan had trained to be an engineer, but found himself much intrigued b…
Originally posted on Vintage Blog:Valda Valkyrien (1895 " 1956) was a Danish prima ballerina and a silent film actress. Born Adele Eleonore Freed in ReykjavÃk, Iceland, under the stage na…
God forbid we should have any (showers, that is) but it is officially April now, and, well, they have a Tin Pan Alley Song for EVERYTHING. Buddy DeSylva and Louis Silvers wrote this song for…
 Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin Esssanay Comedy A Jitney Elopement (1915). This is one of Chaplin’s first movies with a reasonable plo…
