12,225 stories from Trav S.D.
Tonight at 8pm (E.S.T.) Turner Classic Movies will be showing a classic of the western genre, and a high point of Gregory Peck’s acting career, The Gunfighter (1950). Peck pla…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1928 Harry Langdon feature The Chaser. Langdon's second (and second to last) directorial effort, The Chaser seems like an attemp…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Ten Foot Rat Cabaret, Under St. Marks
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Stan Laurel solo comedy When Knights Were Cold (1923), produced and directed by Broncho Billy Anderson. The film is a parody of both Dougl…
We found ourselves very much stimulated by Matthew Freeman’s The Listeners (directed by Michael Gardner) at The Brick last night. An extended meditation on the challenges of comm…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Keystone comedy Mabel and Fatty’s Marrieed Life (not to be confused with Mabel’s Married Life, released 7 months e…
This post has been building for a long time. It came about because as an inevitable by-product of researching my first book No Applause (and for inspiration for my current show Hors…
I feel like an expectant mother whose water is about to break. This week is a climax of sorts, a moment of truth (even as we celebrate artifice). On Friday we begin previews of Horseplay …
Just in time for Black History Month, Stewart F. Lane’s new book Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way comes to market. And guess what? After being available f…
Today marks the anniversary of the release of Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), the film which provided the public with its first glimpse of Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Eddie Cantor comedy If You Knew Susie (1948). This movie is interesting for several reasons. For one, it’s Cantor’s last…
Tomorrow morning on Turner Classic Movies: a welter of Oscar Winning westerns. Warning: I always include spoilers in my notes! 6am: How the West Was Won (1962) This is a movie that I …
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Bushwick, Cobra Club, Force Majeure, Tanya Solomon, vaudeville
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Charlie Chaplin’s landmark feature The Kid (1921). In some ways, The Kid is Chaplin’s most artistically successful film, …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of  Buster Keaton’s 1932 MGM talkie The Passionate Plumber. It was based on the French farce Dans sa candeur naïve by Jac…
Barbara Kahn’s new play Women of the Wind opens tonight at Theater for the New City. It’s about the behind-the-scenes struggles of three women associated with the produc…
Today is the birthday of Peg Entwistle (1908-1932). A moderately successful actress in her time, she is best known for having committee suicide by jumping off the Hollywood sign. As the year…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, Music, PLUGS, Singers Tagged: Apotheke, Broadway Brassy, Maine Attraction
Becca Bernard, clown musician extraordinaire, whom four or five of you may remember from Dead End Dummy last fall, wants you to know about her Singing Telegram service, in anticipation…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the silent Stan Laurel solo comedy short Hustling for Health (1919). Laurel (playing a very clownish character) is about to go on vacati…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Wheeler and Woolsey movie Hips, Hips, Hooray (1934). In this musical comedy (co-written by Kalmar and Ruby) the boys become salesmen…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harry Langdon short Boobs in the Wood (1925), written by Arthur Ripley and directed by Harry Edwards. The setting is the Great N…
Today marks the centennial anniversary of the release date of Charlie Chaplin’s first film for Essanay Studios, His New Job. Having started out in films at Mack Sennett’s K…
Today is the anniversary of the 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor (see last year’s blog post on this subject here). The last thing the world needed was another…
 Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle comedy Fatty’s New Role. This is an interesting film for seeming so much like a …
