The Movie/TV Thread

Rocky and Bullwinkle was genius.  From Jay Ward Productions, which earlier had done the similar (but not quite as well-developed) "Crusader Rabbit."  I never knew about Dudley being banned in Canada.  Bill Scott, who did the voice of Bullwinkle, also did Dudley.  June Foray, who did Rocky and Natasha, also did Nell Fenwick in those skits.  She was a great raconteur who lived well into her nineties.  I remember seeing an interview with her where she said she was hired by a very drunk Jay Ward and Bill Scott at one of those proverbial three-martini lunches of blessed memory.

Oliver Hardy did indeed have a lilting tenor voice.  I love him singing "In The Blue Ridge Mountains Of Virginia" in "Way Out West."  That film also had the wonderful soft-shoe with Stan and Ollie dancing to a cowboy band.  "Commence To Dancin" might have been the title, they kept repeating that phrase, but it is one of my favorite scenes in any L&H movie.  And yes, "A Chump At Oxford" is another good one, where Stan is conked on the head and becomes a genius who Albert Einstein seeks out for advice.  What's the one where Ollie suffers a nervous breakdown from working in a horn factory?  Also "Block Heads" with the usual domestic Hell for those guys.  We've twice been to Hardy's birthplace in Harlem, GA, near Augusta.  They have a nice little L&H Museum there and have their likenesses painted on the water tower.  Admittedly not a lot to do there; we wound up staying in the town one year when we went to The Masters -- I had no idea it was Ollie's birthplace until then.

I almost mentioned "International House" but I didn't think anybody would remember it.  Yes, I liked it too.  They advertised it as a comedic version of "Grand Hotel" (another of my absolute favorites -- anything with Garbo.)  We lived in Washington DC in 81-82 and went to the American Film Institute about three times a week.  They had outstanding film festivals, mainly showing old or rare films on the big screen.  That's where I first saw "International House."  Before the film, Rose Marie, who did a cringe-worthy song in the movie as Baby Rose Marie, spoke to the audience about the film.  Unfortunately, she said her own part was recorded separately at the Astoria, Queens studio, so she wasn't really interacting with Fields on the set (although she did work with him on stage.)  A lot of risque humor in that movie that never would have made it to the film after the Hays Code came in I think later that year.  Some of that stuff would be raunchy even today.  Let's just say Fields had a line involving a woman and cat she was sitting on.  Another Fields movie, "The Old Fashioned Way", features his amazing juggling skills.  As you know he made his reputation early on as a juggler and all-around legerdemain artist and was considered one of the best in the world.

My favorite pre-film speaker ever at the AFI was Lillian Gish, who spoke before a screening of "Way Down East."  Obviously this crowd of old film buffs was pre-disposed to love her anyway, but she had a beatific presence and the audience was in rapt attention.

I have on DVD 1915 Birth of a Nation... 

Yeah, I guess any movie where the Ku Klux Klan are the good guys has some problems.  But Griffith, who was indisputably a great film-maker, followed it up as supposed atonement with "Intolerance," which is a stunning visual achievement for the infancy of feature films.

Before WPIX-TV would become a full-time station in the late 1950's, they would share NYC Educational Channel programming in the morning until 3PM. They would come on at 3PM, with Oliver and Hardy movies, then have their regular kids programming start afterwards.
I love watching their movies. Also, I enjoyed watching the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello comedy films. WNEW-TV, channel 5 would show the East Side Kids movies on Saturdays. During the week they had excellent kids shows, hight lighted by Sandy Becker show.

Rocky and Bullwinkle was genius.  From Jay Ward Productions, which earlier had done the similar (but not quite as well-developed) "Crusader Rabbit."  I never knew about Dudley being banned in Canada.  Bill Scott, who did the voice of Bullwinkle, also did Dudley.  June Foray, who did Rocky and Natasha, also did Nell Fenwick in those skits.  She was a great raconteur who lived well into her nineties.  I remember seeing an interview with her where she said she was hired by a very drunk Jay Ward and Bill Scott at one of those proverbial three-martini lunches of blessed memory.

Well I think you'd be pretty good at it yourself.  People often ask me that, but I am sure I wouldn't have held up under the lights.  We took my parents to see tapings of "Jeopardy" in the late 90s at the Sony Studios.  They did three episodes in about two hours.  Alex Trebek was flawless -- only once did he stop the shoot for some minor muff that nobody in the audience caught.  They would break for about ten minutes between episodes to change clothes so it didn't look like they were wearing the same thing.  But Alex was very impressive, I must admit.