Above witness a seemingly interminable four minute marathon of Three Stooges slaps, kicks, pokes etc. culled mainly (for some mysterious reason) from movies made in the 1935-36 window. And when I say interminable, I mean:
Ninety years and two and a half weeks ago, on November 25 1928, a party was given in Paris. It was a strange and lovely event, with tango dancing, a fashion show, a period costume competition, a lovely female vocalist and a movie camera. The last was there to document this bit of long-forgotten Parisian partying via the Fox Movietone Sound-On-Film system, a then-new way of, er, documenting things. This amazing five minute reel was posted by one of my favorite Youtube artists, the indispensible 'Guy Jones' (his real name? A nom de plume, he said Frenchly?) who somehow has access to these wonderful Fox reels and who cleans up the picture and the sound. I've posted quite a few of them (mostly of New York City in the late 20s/early 30s) and they're marvelous time capsules, haunting in their implacable observation of now dead worlds. In the weirdly chilling words of one of the commenters on Youtube: 'Its like watching ghosts.'
Here are excerpts from the 1937 film adaptation of Sidney Kingsley's 'Dead End', directed by William Wyler. This little grouping of scenes has apparently been assembled by an acting coach who uses it to teach his students an old-time New York East Side accent. It's kind of a gas to watch the scenes clumped together this way, without any regard for the story--the language becomes omnipotent and the whole six minute clip compendium feels like a form of 'word-jazz', with the dialogue forming phonic rather than plot-based connections. This accent has more or less disappeared from New York-ese, though traces can be heard of it in eighty-plus year old men occasionally (not women interestingly, at least not in my experience). 'Dead End', for those of you who might not be familiar with the play/movie, is set on a street in the East 50s at a time when the development of luxury apartment buildings facing the East River was a new thing. At six minutes in, the slum kids whose domain the block had formerly been, look up annoyed at a penthouse dance party that's going on, with the orchestra playing Guy Lombardo's 'Boo-Hoo' (I posted the hit recording of it below. Why not?) The building pictured is an obvious mock up of 'River House', located at 435 East 52nd St. and which opened in 1931. I've often wandered this area, where the FDR drive now roars by (it was opened in 1940) and wondered how the topography of the area once worked, with steps leading down to the filthy river where the poor kids hung out, swam, roasted corn over trash-can fires, all of which are depicted in this lovely little reel.
The wonderful and wildly prolific writer Harlan Ellison died this past week at the age of 84 (click here for his fascinating NY Times obit). In 2006 my producing partner David Zellerford and I had the pleasure of interviewing him at his home in the hills above the San Fernando Valley for our documentary 'Tis Autumn; The Search For Jackie Paris'. Harlan was a vivid, wildly amusing and controversial anecdotalist and during our hour plus interview he touched on many things beside his love of jazz and Jackie. Indeed you couldn't really stop Harlan once he got going--he was like a mad wind-up doll filled with opinion, wit, vituperation and story after story. We got to talking about his infamous confrontation with Frank Sinatra at a nightclub called 'The Daisy' in the mid-sixties, an event that was witnessed by writer Gay Talese who then included it in his famous Esquire magazine article 'Frank Sinatra Has A Cold'. With our cameras thankfully turned on, we got the whole story from the horses mouth, told in wonderful and often hilarious detail. In memory of Harlan, I've posted that clip above. RIP Harlan Ellison, a one-of-a-kind writer and human being.
In June 1926 the New York City Subway workers went on strike for higher pay, shutting down the IRT and forcing crowds of New Yorkers to mill about waiting for busses, trolleys and other forms of transportation which were suddenly overloaded with riders who usually used the trains. Strike breakers were brought in and the workers were soon defeated, but not before some enterprising (or bored?) chap shot some great footage of the perplexed crowds. Although summer had officially arrived, it was a rainy day, causing many to wield umbrellas while some optimistic souls decided to keep to their summer wardrobe, wearing straw boaters. Everyone is very well dressed--even the kids visible at 5:06--and when the streetcars do arrive people board in a civil, orderly fashion. Where did the superbly turned-out, decent and calm urban resident go? To the suburbs I imagine. After that, I couldn't tell you...
Having very much enjoyed 'Stan and Ollie', the Laurel and Hardy biopic, I've been immersed for the past few days in gathering up the shards of unseen L&H material that for some reason I've missed over the years. Mostly this consists of their silent films, which I never had any real interest in--what are L&H without their voices? Well, I was wrong. The silents are delightful and I'm plowing through them at a rapid rate. Then there are the lousy Fox films of the early-mid forties of which I've only seen two--'Jitterbugs' and 'The Bullfighters' and which, honestly, I feel it might be better off to avoid. L&H without Hal Roach simply were not themselves--I have a feeling that Stan would have resented hearing that, but Roach provided them with the freedom to work at their best and most comfortable level (and beside, he had that Marvin Hatley music). Then there are the multi language shorts which are interesting to behold, in a limited sort of way. Apparently, L&H shorts in the early 30s were often shot in several different languages simultaneously, with a translator on set to phoenetically teach the lines to Stan and Ollie. Thus there are German, Spanish and French versions of a number of the shorts, often featuring different actors of those nationalities replacing the supporting players in the American version.
But I'm not posting a foreign language version of an L&H film. The reason for all the above blather is to introduce a very cool piece of missing footage from the 1931 short 'Be Big'. The film is generally rated beneath their standards (by Everson, Barr et al) but I disagree. The virtually plotless situation comedy consists almost entirely of Ollie being unable to take off a boot that belongs to Stan which he's mistakenly put on. The relentless monotony of the predicament and lack of any plot beyond it is, for me, precisely what makes it so inanely (and truthfully) funny. Above I've posted the entire short, which is well worth twenty minutes of your day, as well as an excerpt of a very funny gag which was shot for the Spanish version of the film but not used in the American one. Since it contains no dialogue I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why it wouldn't have made it into the US release version unless it was simple sloppiness on the part of a tired editor who was ready to adjourn for the day to a Hal Roach Studios-adjacent watering hole...
Thanks to the Fox Movietone sound-on-film technology, we have documentary views of many strange and interesting habitats with the actual sound captured as well. England, India, the Midwest, Long Beach California--all are pictured in the late 20s/early 30s and are available on Youtube. (By the way, my son just pointed out to me that Wikipedia has its own Wikipedia page. Does that mean that Youtube has its own Youtube channel?) I've posted quite a few of these, mostly ones shot in New York City because, frankly, that's mostly what I give a damn about. The above is terrific. It's daytime views of Times Square from 1929 and nighttime views of the same streets shot in 1931. The ridiculous car horns are wonderful and people really did have a lot of faith in drivers, as they constantly seem to take their lives in their hands dodging cars and the electric trolley cars that roamed the city...
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