Star-spangled Shorts? Check!
Fireworks and More Fireworks? Check!
Lilian Bond is ready to celebrate Independence Day! How about you?
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Getting ready for the Fourth of July!
U.S. Flags? Check!
Star-spangled Shorts? Check!
Fireworks and More Fireworks? Check!
Lilian Bond is ready to celebrate Independence Day! How about you?
Star-spangled Shorts? Check!
Fireworks and More Fireworks? Check!
Lilian Bond is ready to celebrate Independence Day! How about you?
Monday, July 1, 2019
Musical Monday with Holly Macve
"The Corner of My Mind" is a song with beautiful, haunting lyrics and a visually fascinating video... it's country-western music by way of Yorkshire, England, and brought to us by Holly Macve.
I think even if you don't usually like country-western music, you may like this song. Take a listen!
And here are some pictures of Ms. Macve, because posting pictures are one of things I do around here! (And you can read more about her, here.)
I think even if you don't usually like country-western music, you may like this song. Take a listen!
And here are some pictures of Ms. Macve, because posting pictures are one of things I do around here! (And you can read more about her, here.)
Sunday, June 30, 2019
'Ring Up the Curtain' has Harold Lloyd bringing down the house
Ring Up the Curtain (1919)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, and William Blaisedell
Director: Alf Goulding
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
An incompetent stage hand (Lloyd) gets the hots for a flirtatious leading lady (Daniels) and ruins a performance as a result.
"Ring Up the Curtain" is a fun little tale that demonstrates the importance of having a good backstage crew supporting the performers on stage... because all the complications in this picture arise from the bad choices made by a theatre owner (William Blaisdell) in hiring a bunch of drunks. He compounds his error by firing them all, except for one, as a troupe of vaudevillians are about to put on a performance. His catastrophic mistakes are to our benefit, however, as the chaos Harold the Useless Stagehand is hilarious to watch.
The film isn't perfect, though. After a strong start, featuring the sacking of the drunken stagehands, about a minute is wasted on the theatre owner abusing Harold and some shtick with a bowler hat that drags on for too long. Once Bebe Daniels and the rest of the acting troupe shows up, the film gets back on target.
The good outweighs the bad here, though. The scene were Harold out-and-out sexually harasses Bebe Daniels in the middle of the performance and ends up on stage fighting with her husband (played by Harry Pollard) is already comedy gold, but it's made even funnier by the way Harold forces an actor practicing his lines to hold the rigging ropes in the wing.
But don't just take my word for how fun this little movie is; I've made it easy for you to check it out by embedding it below, via YouTube.
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, and William Blaisedell
Director: Alf Goulding
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
An incompetent stage hand (Lloyd) gets the hots for a flirtatious leading lady (Daniels) and ruins a performance as a result.
"Ring Up the Curtain" is a fun little tale that demonstrates the importance of having a good backstage crew supporting the performers on stage... because all the complications in this picture arise from the bad choices made by a theatre owner (William Blaisdell) in hiring a bunch of drunks. He compounds his error by firing them all, except for one, as a troupe of vaudevillians are about to put on a performance. His catastrophic mistakes are to our benefit, however, as the chaos Harold the Useless Stagehand is hilarious to watch.
The film isn't perfect, though. After a strong start, featuring the sacking of the drunken stagehands, about a minute is wasted on the theatre owner abusing Harold and some shtick with a bowler hat that drags on for too long. Once Bebe Daniels and the rest of the acting troupe shows up, the film gets back on target.
The good outweighs the bad here, though. The scene were Harold out-and-out sexually harasses Bebe Daniels in the middle of the performance and ends up on stage fighting with her husband (played by Harry Pollard) is already comedy gold, but it's made even funnier by the way Harold forces an actor practicing his lines to hold the rigging ropes in the wing.
But don't just take my word for how fun this little movie is; I've made it easy for you to check it out by embedding it below, via YouTube.
Friday, June 28, 2019
'Show Business' is full of funny business
Show Business (1932)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Anita Garvin, Monte Collins, and Otto Fries
Director: Jules White
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A pair of vaudevillians and their singing monkey (Pitts and Todd) get a last minute gig as a replacement act in a touring show. Things start to go wrong even before they set foot on stage, as they end up at odds with the show's ego-maniacal star (Garvin).
At the center of "Show Business" is a professional lifestyle that was coming to an end by the 1930s--that of a member of a traveling variety show that criss-crossed the nation on any number of theatrical circuits. Muscians, chorus girls, actors, and comedians... all would travel together from engagement to engagement, essentially spending their lives on the road (or, more specifically, on the train tracks). Headliners would often be fixed, but smaller acts would drop in and drop out, which is where our heroines enter the picture
After a weak beginning that should have just been used to set up the monkey and the excuse for later showing viewers Thelma Todd walking around in a hat and her underwear, but which is crippled by Pitts doing some unfunny prop comedy involving a telephone and a half-eaten apple, followed by a just-as-unfunny bit involving a dresser drawer, the film really takes off. From the moment the action changes to the train station, and we're introduced to the film's antagonists, Anita Garvin and her manager Monte Collins, through to the final fade-out, we are treated to hilarious chaos and some fine comedic acting.
In "Show Business", Thelma Todd gets to show off what made her such a fantastic screen actress (and I'm taking about the skimpy outfit she's almost not wearing in the pseudo-catfight at the train station). There are multiple in this picture where her face says everything that's going through the character's mind, and just watching Todd's facial expressions change (as she goes from confused to angry, or self-righteously indignant to embarrassed) provide some of the film's funniest moments.
Anita Garvin also shines in this picture, playing a variant of the shrewish wife she'd portray in several Laurel & Hardy pictures, but here the main target of her ire is her manager played by Monte Collins while Todd and Pitts and their mon inadvertently make both their lives very difficult. It's a common in these kinds of shorts to see self-important characters be humiliated by the bumbling clowns with whom the audience's sympathies rests, and Garvin is so good at playing an obnoxious, self-entitled primadonna that her unraveling is extra satisfying. Meanwhile, Collins occupies an interesting place in the configuration of characters, swinging from threat to our heroines to an almost ally, as he tries to get them settled in the train so he can be spared any more abuse from Garvin.
The only disappointing member of the main cast here is ZaSu Pitts, but I don't think it's her fault. For the most part, she was stuck doing unfunny prop comedy, and her fidgety character seemed out of place surrounded by all the loud, overly theatrical types that occupy the rest of the film. That said, she had a couple shining moments in the part of the film at the train station, as she is trying to convince a police officer (Otto Fries) why it's a bad idea for him to make Thelma take off her coat; and later after she and Thelma wake everybody up on a sleeping car while trying to get into their bunk themselves.
Despite its weak opening, and a couple minor hiccups along the way (there is a point where some time must pass between scenes, but there's no indication of it, so the film feels a bit disorganized for few moments) "Show Business" is a fun entry in the Todd/Pitts series of comedies that benefits both for a strong script and the fact that most of its cast is in parts that let them play to their strengths as performers. (Although it's a shame that we never get to hear the monkey sing.
"Show Business" is one of 17 shorts contained in a two DVD set that features all of the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts made together.
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Anita Garvin, Monte Collins, and Otto Fries
Director: Jules White
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A pair of vaudevillians and their singing monkey (Pitts and Todd) get a last minute gig as a replacement act in a touring show. Things start to go wrong even before they set foot on stage, as they end up at odds with the show's ego-maniacal star (Garvin).
At the center of "Show Business" is a professional lifestyle that was coming to an end by the 1930s--that of a member of a traveling variety show that criss-crossed the nation on any number of theatrical circuits. Muscians, chorus girls, actors, and comedians... all would travel together from engagement to engagement, essentially spending their lives on the road (or, more specifically, on the train tracks). Headliners would often be fixed, but smaller acts would drop in and drop out, which is where our heroines enter the picture
After a weak beginning that should have just been used to set up the monkey and the excuse for later showing viewers Thelma Todd walking around in a hat and her underwear, but which is crippled by Pitts doing some unfunny prop comedy involving a telephone and a half-eaten apple, followed by a just-as-unfunny bit involving a dresser drawer, the film really takes off. From the moment the action changes to the train station, and we're introduced to the film's antagonists, Anita Garvin and her manager Monte Collins, through to the final fade-out, we are treated to hilarious chaos and some fine comedic acting.
In "Show Business", Thelma Todd gets to show off what made her such a fantastic screen actress (and I'm taking about the skimpy outfit she's almost not wearing in the pseudo-catfight at the train station). There are multiple in this picture where her face says everything that's going through the character's mind, and just watching Todd's facial expressions change (as she goes from confused to angry, or self-righteously indignant to embarrassed) provide some of the film's funniest moments.
Anita Garvin also shines in this picture, playing a variant of the shrewish wife she'd portray in several Laurel & Hardy pictures, but here the main target of her ire is her manager played by Monte Collins while Todd and Pitts and their mon inadvertently make both their lives very difficult. It's a common in these kinds of shorts to see self-important characters be humiliated by the bumbling clowns with whom the audience's sympathies rests, and Garvin is so good at playing an obnoxious, self-entitled primadonna that her unraveling is extra satisfying. Meanwhile, Collins occupies an interesting place in the configuration of characters, swinging from threat to our heroines to an almost ally, as he tries to get them settled in the train so he can be spared any more abuse from Garvin.
The only disappointing member of the main cast here is ZaSu Pitts, but I don't think it's her fault. For the most part, she was stuck doing unfunny prop comedy, and her fidgety character seemed out of place surrounded by all the loud, overly theatrical types that occupy the rest of the film. That said, she had a couple shining moments in the part of the film at the train station, as she is trying to convince a police officer (Otto Fries) why it's a bad idea for him to make Thelma take off her coat; and later after she and Thelma wake everybody up on a sleeping car while trying to get into their bunk themselves.
Despite its weak opening, and a couple minor hiccups along the way (there is a point where some time must pass between scenes, but there's no indication of it, so the film feels a bit disorganized for few moments) "Show Business" is a fun entry in the Todd/Pitts series of comedies that benefits both for a strong script and the fact that most of its cast is in parts that let them play to their strengths as performers. (Although it's a shame that we never get to hear the monkey sing.
"Show Business" is one of 17 shorts contained in a two DVD set that features all of the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts made together.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Picture Perfect Special: It's June!
By the 1950s, Lockhart had become a successful television acgtress. She had recurring roles on several series and was a frequent star or supporting actress on episodes of various anthology shows.
As the 1960s arrived, June became one of the most recognizable TV Moms for several generations of Americans, playing the mother on both "Lassie" and "Lost in Space". She also had a recurring as as Dr. Janet Craig during the last three seasons of "Petticoat Junction".
Lockhart has appeared in over 170 movies and TV shows, with her career spanning eight decades. She most recently appeared in the based-on-a-true story comedy "Zombie Hamlet" (2012) and the movie-industry based comedy "The Remake" (2016).
June Lockhart turns 94 today, and we here at Shades of Gray wish her a Happy Birthday!
Monday, June 24, 2019
Musical Monday with whenyoung
Last month, Irish indie-rock trio whenyoung (Aiofe Power, Niall Burns, and Andrew Flood) released their debut album, "Reasons to Dream". I think their song, "Future" is a great tune with which to get your work-week started right.
"Future" is a song about how you should never let darkness and dispair overtake you, but always hold onto the hope that the future will bring better times and strive to reach that future. The fantastic video (directed by Michael Baldwin and starring the very talented child actor Badger Skelton) can be watched below. Enjoy!
"Future" is a song about how you should never let darkness and dispair overtake you, but always hold onto the hope that the future will bring better times and strive to reach that future. The fantastic video (directed by Michael Baldwin and starring the very talented child actor Badger Skelton) can be watched below. Enjoy!
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Move over Romeo & Juliet... because here come Buster & Ginnie!
Neighbors (1920)
Starring: Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, Joe Keaton, and Eddie Cline
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A romantic relationship between two neighbor teens (Keaton and Fox) triggers a feud between their parents, and eventually throws their entire neighborhood chaos.
"Neighbors" starts with a "Romeo and Juliet" vibe, with two young lovers who just want and then spirals outward outward into total chaos. Within the space of less than 18 minutes, this film moves from being a spoof of a stereotypical melodrama (about young lovers being kept apart by angry parents) into being a wild series of crazy slapstick routines and acrobatic stunts (as Buster alternately tries to circumvent the angry fathers to make time with the love of his life, tries to get back at her father for standing in his way, and then tries to avoid arrest after mistakingly bopping a beat cop on the head), before circling back around to satire by poking fun at the court system and ultimately returning to making fun of melodramas as the star-crossed lovers try to get married.
Like most of the Keaton short films I've watched, "Neighbors" has a dream-like quality about it where life itself seems to be a series of non-sequitors and everyone seems, annoyingly, to be getting in the way of achieving even the simplest of goals, no matter how hard you trying to avoid them and run around them. (Although, maybe, the fact that I consider this to be dream-like may say more about me than it does about the movie...)
"Neighbors" was the first short that Buster Keaton made with Virginia Fox, and for most of her roles during the rest of her career, she would be teamed with him; Fox retired from acting in 1925 after marrying Hollywood Kingpin Darryl F. Zanuck. Fox is a decent performer, but she's no Sybil Seely, who was prettier, more charismatic, and whom Keaton reportedly would have liked to have made more films with if Seely had been available.
But why don't you take a little time out of your day and check out "Neighbors" for yourself? I've embedded the films, via YouTube, so you can enjoy it right here, right now.
Starring: Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, Joe Keaton, and Eddie Cline
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
A romantic relationship between two neighbor teens (Keaton and Fox) triggers a feud between their parents, and eventually throws their entire neighborhood chaos.
"Neighbors" starts with a "Romeo and Juliet" vibe, with two young lovers who just want and then spirals outward outward into total chaos. Within the space of less than 18 minutes, this film moves from being a spoof of a stereotypical melodrama (about young lovers being kept apart by angry parents) into being a wild series of crazy slapstick routines and acrobatic stunts (as Buster alternately tries to circumvent the angry fathers to make time with the love of his life, tries to get back at her father for standing in his way, and then tries to avoid arrest after mistakingly bopping a beat cop on the head), before circling back around to satire by poking fun at the court system and ultimately returning to making fun of melodramas as the star-crossed lovers try to get married.
Like most of the Keaton short films I've watched, "Neighbors" has a dream-like quality about it where life itself seems to be a series of non-sequitors and everyone seems, annoyingly, to be getting in the way of achieving even the simplest of goals, no matter how hard you trying to avoid them and run around them. (Although, maybe, the fact that I consider this to be dream-like may say more about me than it does about the movie...)
"Neighbors" was the first short that Buster Keaton made with Virginia Fox, and for most of her roles during the rest of her career, she would be teamed with him; Fox retired from acting in 1925 after marrying Hollywood Kingpin Darryl F. Zanuck. Fox is a decent performer, but she's no Sybil Seely, who was prettier, more charismatic, and whom Keaton reportedly would have liked to have made more films with if Seely had been available.
But why don't you take a little time out of your day and check out "Neighbors" for yourself? I've embedded the films, via YouTube, so you can enjoy it right here, right now.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Spacegirl Adventures, Part Twenty-one
What Has Gone Before: Cadet Beta, aka Spacegirl, is trapped on Moon Station Delta and is being hunted by the authorities.
SPACEGIRL
By Travis Charest
By Travis Charest
 |
| By Mitch Foust |
Friday, June 21, 2019
... the Honorable Betty Boop presiding!
With the Supreme Court of the United States currently handing down decisions, this seems like a great time to post this fun Betty Boop cartoon that I think we can all relate to: We start our day in a great mood, looking forward to whatever it will bring... but encounters with other people soon make us wish that we were a Hangin' Judge with the authority to mete out punishments to fit the crimes of ruining our day and our good mood! (And in addition to its satisfying plot, this great little cartoon features a catchy song that you may find yourself humming later on.)
Judge for a Day (1935)
Starring: Betty Boop (voiced by Mae Questel)
Director: Dave Fleisher
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars
Thursday, June 20, 2019
A fresh start for the Todd-starring comedies
Beauty and the Bus (1933)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Don Barclay, and Eddie Baker
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
The car that Thelma (Todd) wins in a drawing proves to be bad luck for any driver who shares the road with her on the way home.
After ZaSu Pitts' contract with the Hal Roach Studio expired, and she moved onto other things, Patty Kelly became Thelma Todd's teammate in Roach's attempt at creating the female equavilent of Laurel & Hardy's box office success. "Beauty and the Bus" was the first of nearly 20 shorts for the new pair, and it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Story-wise, this film is a fast-paced series of interconnected and ever-escalating gags that take the main characters from situations that are bad, to worse, to disastrous. On that front, this is a promising start for what I hope will make the second half of the Year of the Hot Toddy a lot of fun. (In case you just arrived in these parts, I set myself the goal of watching a film featuring Thelma Todd every week of 2019, because I noticed my "To Be Watched" stack had somehow come to contain an abundance of them.)
One of the strengths of this film is that, although the strong and plentiful supporting cast gets to be just as funny as Kelly and Todd (with Eddie Baker as a traffic cop being foremost among them), the main characters remain at the center of the action instead of being crowded out of the story as happened in some of the films with Pitts and Todd. On the other hand, though, as much fun as her energetic performance was to watch, I found Patsy Kelly's character supremely annoying: She's aggressively stupid to the point where you can't help but wonder why anyone--let alone Todd's character who comes across as slightly aloof--would want to be anywhere near her. Kelly is literally the catalyst for everything that goes wrong for Todd in this picture, including taking her into a ticket and escalating a minor fender-bender into a multi-car accident and full-fledged traffic jam.
Ultimately, though, this film is a lot of fun. The dynamic between Todd's character and Kelly's character is very different than that between Todd and Pitts--it seems to me there was almost always a touch of the genteel in them that is completely absent here. Of course, when you have a stereotypical, short-tempered Fighting Irish(wo)man rampaging through the film, there isn't any room to be ladylike. I look forward to seeing how this team develops. (Although I will probably watch a few of the 10 or so Todd/Pitts shorts I've yet to see before I get back to this line-up.)
"Beauty and the Bus" is one of 21 short films included in the Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly DVD collection.
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Don Barclay, and Eddie Baker
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
The car that Thelma (Todd) wins in a drawing proves to be bad luck for any driver who shares the road with her on the way home.
After ZaSu Pitts' contract with the Hal Roach Studio expired, and she moved onto other things, Patty Kelly became Thelma Todd's teammate in Roach's attempt at creating the female equavilent of Laurel & Hardy's box office success. "Beauty and the Bus" was the first of nearly 20 shorts for the new pair, and it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Story-wise, this film is a fast-paced series of interconnected and ever-escalating gags that take the main characters from situations that are bad, to worse, to disastrous. On that front, this is a promising start for what I hope will make the second half of the Year of the Hot Toddy a lot of fun. (In case you just arrived in these parts, I set myself the goal of watching a film featuring Thelma Todd every week of 2019, because I noticed my "To Be Watched" stack had somehow come to contain an abundance of them.)
One of the strengths of this film is that, although the strong and plentiful supporting cast gets to be just as funny as Kelly and Todd (with Eddie Baker as a traffic cop being foremost among them), the main characters remain at the center of the action instead of being crowded out of the story as happened in some of the films with Pitts and Todd. On the other hand, though, as much fun as her energetic performance was to watch, I found Patsy Kelly's character supremely annoying: She's aggressively stupid to the point where you can't help but wonder why anyone--let alone Todd's character who comes across as slightly aloof--would want to be anywhere near her. Kelly is literally the catalyst for everything that goes wrong for Todd in this picture, including taking her into a ticket and escalating a minor fender-bender into a multi-car accident and full-fledged traffic jam.
Ultimately, though, this film is a lot of fun. The dynamic between Todd's character and Kelly's character is very different than that between Todd and Pitts--it seems to me there was almost always a touch of the genteel in them that is completely absent here. Of course, when you have a stereotypical, short-tempered Fighting Irish(wo)man rampaging through the film, there isn't any room to be ladylike. I look forward to seeing how this team develops. (Although I will probably watch a few of the 10 or so Todd/Pitts shorts I've yet to see before I get back to this line-up.)
"Beauty and the Bus" is one of 21 short films included in the Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly DVD collection.
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