12,228 stories from Trav S.D.
Today is the birthday of silent movie comedian Albert Austin (1882-1953). Austin’s movie career as an actor was confined almost entirely to the films of his fellow Karno alum, Charl…
Just a few words of enthusiasm for Mink Stole’s terrific holiday show, now playing at the Laurie Beechman Theatre through December 14.  OMG! It’s Christmas is a funny, freq…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Living Room, Sweet Soubrette
Today’s earlier post about A Country Hero makes me think today might be a sensible day to post this little survey I’ve been sitting on about important silent comedies that …
Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the Comique film A Country Hero (1917), starring and directed by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and also featuring Buster Keato…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the classic W.C. Fields short The Dentist (1932). Along with The Fatal Glass of Beer and The Golf Specialist this film ranks…
Today is the birthday of silent film actress Carol Dempster (1901-1991). We tend to think of her as D.W. Griffith’s equivalent of Linda McCartney. Griffith fell for her hard, the rest …
Today marks the anniversary of the release date of the classic 1934 Hal Roach spook comedy The Live Ghost starring Laurel and Hardy. The Live Ghost is a classic “haunted shipR…
Tonight (tomorrow morning actually) on Turner Classic Movies, at 1:15am (EST), they will be showing the Mack Sennett feature length comedy Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919). This WWI-e…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy His Prehistoric Past. This was Chaplin’s last film for Keystone, so there’s a melancholy…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harry Langdon comedy Feet of Mud (1924), directed by Harry Edwards. In this much-loved Langdon comedy, Harry plays a benchwarmer on …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of That Royle Girl (1925). This was D.W. Griffith’s second film for Paramount Pictures, and his second to star Carol Dempster. Mid-wa…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Laurel and Hardy comedy Nothing But Trouble (1944), directed by Sam Taylor. This movie is probably my favorite of the team’s p…
Happy Repeal Day! On this day in 1933, the disastrous experiment of Prohibition was overturned. The Keaton and Durante movie What, No Beer? might not be the funniest comedy…
We caught a good hunk of Peter Pan last night — not all of it, but enough to feel justified in expressing an opinion about the show. Let me preface it by saying we heartily appla…
Today is the 100th 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 sta…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Douglas Fairbanks’ second film Double Trouble (1915), directed by Christy Cabanne. Long thought lost, this feature turned up in an…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Rink (1916). The Rink is a gem from Chaplin’s Mutual period, that magical stretch when he could do …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the early Stan Laurel solo comedy The Pest (1922), produced by Broncho Billy Anderson. Stan plays a door-to-door book salesman who is de…
Today is the birthday of Harry Rickards (Henry Benjamin Leete, 1843-1911). A native Londoner, Rickards apprenticed to be an engineer like his father, but took to comic singing in the halls a…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Laurel and Hardy comedy Putting Pants on Philip, directed by Clyde Bruckman (1927). This is the first movie to officially bill the pair…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Harold Lloyd comedy Luke’s Movie Muddle (1916), directed by Hal Roach. “Luke” of course refers to “Lonesome …
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the all-star, multi-director Paramount film If I Had a Million (1932) The framing device (directed by Norman Taurog) is that dying milliona…
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite straight (i.e. non-comedian) screen actors of all time, Warren William (Warren Krech, 1894-1948). The son of a small-town Minnesota newspape…
Today is the birthday of Earle W. (E.W.) Hammons (1882-1962). A Mississippi native, Hammons established Educational Pictures (a.k.a Educational Films Corporation) in 1915 to produce educatio…
