2019-09-12 11:45
Once In A Lifetime (1932) Sticks It To The MoviesDown-and-out vaudevillians figure to scam Hollywood with a voice elocution school now that talkies have swept the industry. At times clever w… Read More
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Classic movie site with rare images (no web grabs!), original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
2019-09-09 17:58
Warners Finds Dignified Way To Sell SeatsWhat would happen if a present-day history instructor played The Story of Louis Pasteur for his/her class to introduce the nineteenth century ch… Read More
2019-09-05 12:51
Popular Local DJ's Often Appeared in Support of AIP ShowsAIP Time For Whatever Turned a Dime ---Part TwoBig $ Poster, More So Than the Movie It SoldHere was criteria for a “good”… Read More
2019-09-02 13:40
Exploitation Brought To a 50's Boil --- Part OneGlenn Erickson (Cine-Savant) recently did an update on whereabouts of AIP horror/sci-fi backlog from the 50’s, a topic dear to narrowing… Read More
2019-08-29 13:46
Theatres As Once They Were: A Night In The Show and Spite MarriageNot a few comedians born in the 19th century dominated a next century’s humor. Better even than stage traditions they… Read More
2019-08-26 11:38
Looney, Merry, Silly ... But Funny?How important were cartoons to exhibitors and their audience? I mean before Mickey Mouse made them meaningful. I realize Felix the Cat was popular, but how… Read More
2019-08-22 16:51
Souvenirs Of Show-Going Long AgoAbove sits Myron Healey at the 1974 Western Film Festival in Memphis. Monte Hale is beside him. Mr. Healey was male support to Phyllis Coates as (the) Pa… Read More
2019-08-19 13:31
Polly Moran Prays for Continuing Opportunities to Dilute Otherwise Creepy Shows Like London After MidnightMelodrama, Meet Comedy --- Comedy, Meet MelodramaBegone, Comic Relief!, Says Erik Th… Read More
2019-08-15 15:31
Once Upon a Time Is a Socko Hollywood Fairy TaleA film by a kindred spirit, made seemingly just for me. I never saw 161 minutes go by so fast. First show, opening day, had sixteen of us at a… Read More
2019-08-12 11:25
A Sock One Then, But Less So NowSo how would Paulette Goddard have played Gone With The Wind had she gotten the part of Scarlett O'Hara? Reap The Wild Wind supplies the answer, at least in p… Read More
2019-08-08 13:13
Bullitt Sets a Lone Cop StandardGot Milk? McQueen Sets a Good Example for Youthful FollowingI'm listening to the CD soundtrack as I write this. Lalo Schiffrin's music could accompany a film… Read More
2019-08-05 14:56
Three Just Out and Just GreatA second volume of Charley Chase is here … fifteen comedies produced at Hal Roach during 1932-33. Most of these haven’t been available for year… Read More
2019-08-01 12:13
The Right and the Wrong South American WayIf you’re flying down to Rio from Hollywood, how many miles would that be? Google says 6,299, as in fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes get… Read More
2019-07-29 08:34
War Of The Worlds and This Island Earth Never Had It So GoodWatched both these as fresh transfers, War on TCM, Earth a new-released Blu-Ray. Neither have looked better … ever. War of… Read More
2019-07-25 13:00
Part Two of It's A Great Feeling (1949)It's A Great Feeling was the first Doris Day vehicle not helmed by her mentor Michael Curtiz. She's a commissary waitress who wants to be a star, if De… Read More
2019-07-22 10:31
It's A Great Feeling Captures WB Feeling Circa 1949 --- Part OneBased on a proposition that what went on behind studio gates was even wackier than fun we got in movies. All the studios gave… Read More
2019-07-18 12:38
Finishing School Is Hot Love's AddressFrisky Ads Promise the Moon, but Does Finishing School Deliver?Interest is there for Finishing School, if lines at Hollywood’s TCM Festival are a… Read More
2019-07-15 12:28
Comedy's Winning Streak Split Wide OpenThe ad at left, from Statesville, NC’s Playhouse Theatre, captures small town policy re Kiss Me, Stupid as it spread through stix during early-to… Read More
2019-07-11 12:38
Making Industry Out Of One Director's ComedyWas Billy Wilder, with United Artists, the only director-distributor to make a franchise out of creative output? I mean product flow that for a wh… Read More
2019-07-08 10:03
Chicago First-Run for MargieMargie (1946) Is Teen Life In The 20'sQuaint era of eighteen-years-before are celebrated in this 1946 reflection on small town 20's roaring. What remarkable chang… Read More
2019-07-04 08:39
Passion Delivers On Its Title PromisePassion Was the German epic that punched Pola Negri’s Hollywood ticket. She’d roar into town like Siegfried the Conqueror. Pola seemed born w… Read More
2019-07-01 12:54
Still Rich Rewards in Random Harvest Given receipts and attendance for criteria, Random Harvest ranks high among 40’s best, but who grades films on basis of how much initial audie… Read More
2019-06-27 12:17
Columbia Treasure Hunts With Below The Sea (1933)Imagine if Ann Darrow took over the Venture and worked her erotic wiles on a whole crew. They'd forget Skull Island soon enough, as demonstra… Read More
2019-06-24 14:20
Another Home Historian Covers Snow White in 1938An Appeal to the many who know more than I do: Name films for which a scrap book was issued, a dedicated album to fill with souvenirs, like th… Read More
2019-06-22 00:35
Central Airport (1933) Dares Death In The SkySpeed was not just a preference in a first third of the 20th century --- it was a religion. Everyone wanted to get there faster because now they… Read More
2019-06-19 15:01
Taken Together, They Tell a Riveting StoryI’ll ask right off if the following is right or wrong: Cecil B. DeMille, and later Frank Capra, were the first major directors to pen a memoir… Read More
2019-06-17 13:51
Poe, Will You Ever Be Avenged?Is it my skewed perception, or were there designer horror films during the late 50/early 60’s? I speak of Hammers, the AIP Poes, much of what Mario Bava d… Read More
2019-06-14 18:52
Jivaro and More On Tap From 3-D Film ArchiveI wonder if anyone suggested to Rhonda Fleming that she was born to be photographed in 3-D. Would she have been flattered if they had? Was a same… Read More
2019-06-12 13:46
George Stevens Goes To The MoviesDirectors knew that what happened after shooting wrapped and prints gone out was not a thing they could control. Maybe George Stevens took that reality harde… Read More
2019-06-09 14:50
When How Much? Was A Patron's Burning QuestionNeed further proof we were mired in deepest Depression circa January 1932? Signal of defeat was often admissions being lowered, as at Denver's P… Read More
2019-06-05 20:57
Filmfax Interview Yields Much Marx LoreA long and happy arm of coincidence: I had just watched A Day At The Races on VUDU-HD, then by chance came upon Filmfax #25 (Feb./March 1991), which fe… Read More
2019-06-03 09:23
Daughter Of The Dragon (1931) Boasts a Once-In-Lifetime EnsembleLamented over disappearance of the Paramount Fu Manchu films nearly thirteen years ago. None surfaced to my notice until TCM l… Read More
2019-06-01 11:45
Where Learning About Film Is FunIt comes down to one’s own relationship with Son of Dracula. How intense is yours? The question is moot for those who never saw it nor intend to. A book… Read More
2019-05-29 09:26
The Westerner a Merge of Fact and FancyGary Cooper and Walter Brennan with Lillian Bond as Lillie LangtrySort of a John Ford western directed by William Wyler, The Westerner is cattlemen v… Read More
2019-05-26 19:42
A Silver River Thread Among NC Collecting GoldI want to tell this while the memory is still intact, because as transcendent moments in collecting go, this was near a top. Road trips with col… Read More
2019-05-22 00:29
Mae Marsh Shows How To ... For Silent Picture PlayersI didn’t know until recently that Mae Marsh wrote a book called Screen Acting back in 1921. Now having read it, I’m put to wo… Read More
2019-05-20 10:24
The Human Comedy a Home Front Of Our DreamsFirstly, what a title. Sounds like would-be majestic literature, importance writ all over it. Suppose someone may have suggested Andy Hardy Deliver… Read More
2019-05-17 14:18
What a 1950 Exhibitor Could Request ... and GetMutiny Revived for 1957 DatesThe best showmen were not averse to risk. Harry Brandt was such a showman, July-August 1950 being instance of his… Read More
2019-05-15 11:58
Fashions Of 1934 Is a New Twist On Old ConsBill Powell has a new racket. He’ll steal dress designs and get knock-offs on the street before legit importers can do the same. Evidently th… Read More
2019-05-13 13:52
Russell Merritt Collars a Bone-Chilling Hound in 1959If challenged to name a healthy addiction, I submit … Sherlock Holmes. Is there another fictional character to demand such fan dev… Read More
2019-05-10 12:01
Stage Mother (1933) and Cruel Climb To Show Biz TopAlice Brady takes the lead as a hard-bitten climber up vaudeville, and then B'way revues, daughter Maureen O'Sullivan the object of machina… Read More
2019-05-08 13:55
Brits Serve Saucy in Divorce Of Lady X (1939)Fluff from England in easy-on-eyes Technicolor, hues subdued and particularly pleasing for that. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon are the romanc… Read More
2019-05-06 13:08
Night After Night (1932) Boosts George Raft and Welcomes Mae WestRan this down after reading Mae West’s recount in her Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It book. Night After Night was th… Read More
2019-05-03 17:58
Personality Propels The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo (1935)It was understood in the 30's that movies were make-believe. Stagecraft going back to the ancients encouraged a same accep… Read More
2019-05-01 14:45
Bond Bombshells Bursting All OverWhat occasions were new James Bonds! I’m aboard again for 007 as result of generous reader Stephen Sistilli sharing with me a terrific array of Bond ad… Read More
2019-04-29 09:52
The Body Snatcher Back For a 1952 Reissue with I Walked With A ZombieThe Body Snatcher Is Its 1945 Self AgainThe Body Snatcher is out recently on Blu-Ray. I overuse the phrase, but this real… Read More
2019-04-27 00:46
Scope-Wide Explore of The Last Frontier (1956)The fifties Anthony Mann western no one bothers much about, firstly as there aren't stars major enough, secondly because it's admittedly punk be… Read More
2019-04-24 13:12
Trader Horn A Gamble That Paid --- Part TwoTrader Horn’s caravan hauled thirty-five whites, two hundred natives, three sound trucks, and sixteen cameras, a to-then record heft for safa… Read More
2019-04-22 12:16
Trader Horn Rocks The Dark Continent --- Part OneTrader Horn was truly a Roman (or better put, African) Circus of silent-to-talkie leaps. It began voiceless on faraway location (darkest Afri… Read More
2019-04-19 18:41
Union Station (1950) Is Train-Stop Set ThrillsWilliam Holden began reaping reward of Sunset Boulevard with this cop procedural about kidnapping of a blind girl and rush to locate her as pani… Read More
2019-04-17 12:09
Paramount Says --- Sell The Cat and The Canary Either WayIt never mattered how much comic relief you threw at horror films in the 30's. They'd still be scary. I'll bet as many youngsters got… Read More
2019-04-15 10:59
The Fleet's In (1942) Gives a Wartime Audience What It WantsThe Fleet's In was the featured program at the infamous Pomona preview where The Magnificent Ambersons unspooled before a hostile… Read More
2019-04-12 20:28
Castle Management Gives Us What We WantThe best of theatre ads reflected the character of folk that designed them. A manager's philosophy of what a show should be was reflected by how he sol… Read More
2019-04-10 10:44
A Future Historian Who Was ThereWhat film historian names would we place in a 60/70’s honor roll? I mean those who pioneered writing and research for a digital generation that would ha… Read More
2019-04-08 10:56
Should They Have Given Academy Awards For Posing?How to test an actor’s skill and truest commitment: watch them in stills. There is unexplored territory, for how many stills do we see… Read More
2019-04-06 10:05
The Alice Howell Collection Fills A Silent Comedy GapAlice Howell was until now a name in slapstick histories, one you’d see in archival photos but not on film. It was said she pioneer… Read More
2019-04-03 12:41
Three Ways To Do The Prisoner Of ZendaThe legendary NBC special on David Selznick from 1968 began with a pull-back of Ronald Colman (some day I will spell it "Coleman" just to be like everyo… Read More
2019-04-01 11:11
Thanks to Mike (Then Playing) Cline For Sending Me This Wonderful ImageWere Serials The Salvation Of 40's Youth?Now here is why movies once knew a Golden Era. It thrived in part for displays… Read More
2019-03-29 22:41
Brit-Lensed The War Lover (1962) With Yank StarsMade at Shepperton for Columbia release, this was WWII revisited with players too young to have participated in the actual conflict, that in i… Read More
2019-03-27 18:56
Where Variety Went From Cheap To FreeSo vaudeville died, did it. Or did it? I’ll say no for purpose of this meditation, and for having watched acrobats, comics, dog acts, and what not… Read More
2019-03-25 12:02
The Broadway Melody Looms Large For 1929Jack Cummings Presents Ceremonial Megaphone to Broadway Melody's Director Harry BeaumontDenounced by some as The Worst Movie To Ever Win Best Picture… Read More
2019-03-22 23:32
Greenstreet-Lorre Together For A Last Time in The Verdict (1946)A masterpiece if your thing is Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre framed in gaslight. I'd watch them read table menus for the… Read More
2019-03-20 09:54
Where Gimmicks and Tricks Made Great ActorsGary Cooper Appears As a Friendly Witness Before the House Un-American Activities CommitteeJeff Corey in the Foreground, with Jack Carson, Gary Coo… Read More
2019-03-18 11:08
Dutch Girl Is Out, and It RivetsIt is almost ninety years since Audrey Hepburn was born. Whatever perception you have of her will be utterly changed from what previous books tell thanks to D… Read More
2019-03-16 09:04
From The Schneer School Of Combat Comes Tarawa Beachhead (1958)It's overlooked today how Charles H. Schneer graduated from the Sam Katzman school of ultra-cheapies for any genre that paid, h… Read More
2019-03-13 18:31
It's 12 Angry Men, But Let's Call It TwelveI’ve got a sock new ending for Twelve Angry Men that re-makers may feel free to use. The jurors are coming down the courthouse steps, having… Read More
2019-03-10 22:16
Davis/Flynn Go Hammer/Tong in The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)Old-age Bette Davis regularly spat on this because it had Errol Flynn as Essex rather than her preferred Laurence… Read More
2019-03-08 13:15
Ship Ahoy (1942) Is Smooth Musical SailingA honey of an MGM wartime musical, based on obvious truth that singer/dancer/comics make the best couriers during national emergency. In this c… Read More
2019-03-06 13:51
Never Mind The Billing --- Desert Fury Was All About LancasterName a crueler aspect of the biz than billing. I can’t offhand. A star might assume he's the noise until the picture is ou… Read More
2019-03-04 00:53
A Nerve Test For The Bravest OnlyWould be great if I could write of House On Haunted Hill scaring pants off me at age five, but alas, I wasn’t there when the Liberty played it, though… Read More
2019-03-02 12:21
Strangers In Love (1932) Trades Threat Of Tears For LaughterDug from graveyard that is pre-49 Paramount, most of the apx. 700 lot left still to molder thanks to present-day owner indifferenc… Read More
2019-02-28 14:09
This Freshman Graduated Too Long Ago --- Part TwoSeptember 1950 saw Lloyd still immersed in The Freshman as a reissue prospect. The Motion Picture Sales Corporation, having distributed Movie… Read More
2019-02-25 16:22
A Struggle To Make Silents Speak Again --- Part OneHarold On Criterion's Blu-Ray Cover Tries To Drag 40/50's Showmen Across The Goal LineEvidence suggests that Harold Lloyd considered The Fr… Read More
2019-02-21 14:51
Would We Pay To See Twenty Plus Two 1961 Mystery Unfold?I still don't understand the title, nor much of the picture after watching, though it fascinates at level of a TV mystery blown up to… Read More
2019-02-18 15:57
Boisterous Barrymore Does The Great Profile (1940)John Barrymore a-huffin' and puffin' through tired reprise of 20th Century and more recent All My Children, which was stage celebration of h… Read More
2019-02-14 11:00
The Jungle Princess Is A 1936 Mating CallThis evidently made a big splash when it came out in 1936, status trampled by copies done afterward. Paramountwanted their own jungle fran… Read More
2019-02-11 11:00
The Birds A Mixed Blessing for UniversalThe Birds was a commercial disappointment. Not a flop, but a disappointment. So were 1963 releases Freud and The Ugly American, said a Universal spoke… Read More
2019-02-07 10:28
Pot O' Gold A Product Of 1941 TimeWhich was the deal --- juke boxes servicing movies or movies servicing jukeboxes? At least one Pot O’ Gold venue proposed the answer by putting a nick… Read More
2019-02-04 11:17
Pride Fans Out To Key Cities in August After NY Open in JuneBaseball For The Non-Fan Gets FansToward proof that baseball lives forever comes Heritage auction this month where a Lou Gehrig &l&hell…Read More
2019-02-01 22:17
Funny How Old Drive-In Lots From Above Look Like Remains Of An Ancient City, or Staging Area For Alien AircraftCharlotte Drives In For An All-Hitchcock NightWas there ever in the history of… Read More
2019-01-30 14:47
How Many Do You Know That Would Recognize A One Of Them?$125 K in 1954? That's Over $1.1 Million TodayA reason I can’t get as good sense of modern films is people in them being strange… Read More
2019-01-27 11:10
The FBI Crunches Down On 20th FoxTawdry to a fault, Pickup on South Street compared itself with The House On 92nd Street and others of a postwar realist school that Fox put signature to, but… Read More
2019-01-25 12:14
Where Carolina Showgoing Had A Glow OnSeems to me that the older generation felt way more intensely about movies than we ever could. Photos like these suggest reasons why. First off, let&rsq&hell…Read More
2019-01-23 08:34
Stand-In (1937) Spoofs The Studio SystemOdd duck of a romantic comedy where Leslie Howard is a buttoned-up efficiency expert sent by Eastern bankers to straighten finances of “Colossal… Read More
2019-01-20 22:34
Selling Between Two Worlds (1944) Is A Life-Or-Death CallIt's stating the obvious that folks in wartime wondered lots more about what happens to us after death. What better time, then, to re… Read More
2019-01-18 12:53
Can We Really Recapture Horror Of Dracula?It is time for me to face up to Horror of Dracula as the dream from youth that cannot be realized again. Several lifelong favorites sit in that draw… Read More
2019-01-16 00:02
Barrymore Blows Kisses and Arliss Hugs BackTwo lions grazing off the Main Stem … that was George Arliss and John Barrymore as each triumphed off a newly vocal screen and tossed brocad… Read More
2019-01-13 20:16
Hi There Sherlock, How's Dr. Watson?No one likes to be teased, let alone someone so accomplished as Basil Rathbone through what should have been a peak of recognition and regard. Teased, unf… Read More
2019-01-10 09:45
Brit Cool Is Novelty Of Air Thrilled No Highway In The Sky (1951)James Stewart is a believable science geek trying to forestall air disaster he knows will occur after quantity of hours flown… Read More
2019-01-07 11:47
The Battle Of The Century Still Not WonThe struggle to see all of The Battle Of The Century went a step further for me this weekend when a fellow pilgrim shared his grab off German TV, broad… Read More
2019-01-03 12:46
Serve Big Business Girl (1931) To Mixed Modern Reaction"Well, I'm a glass of dirty water," says Joan Blondell in last reel highlight of a till-then uneven precode. Players for Warner ran lik… Read More
2018-12-31 06:11
The Time Travelers (1965) Is More Talk Than TravelThis was the sort of thing we'd go see when whatever suggested sci-fi or horror would do. Distributing AIP promised mutants and maidens. The… Read More
2018-12-29 13:40
Rod La Rocque Shows How To Swash as The Fighting Eagle (1927)Talking pics that mocked, or paid "affectionate" tribute, to the silent era, would often re-stage sword duels where under-cranked… Read More
2018-12-27 10:59
The Cincinnati Walnut Tree Is Dropping DollarsShowmen had a confidence back then that's pretty much gone now. For instance: Cincinnati's Walnut Theatre, in this ad dated November 1921, invit… Read More
2018-12-24 11:52
We Solve Lady In The Lake (1947) MurdersLauded in 1947 for its novelty and “advanced cinematics,” Lady In The Lake plays now as valuable lesson hard-learned, as in what gimmicks… Read More
2018-12-20 09:29
Compulsion To Sell Vs. Local ProprietiesHave written about Compulsion before, and delved some into ad art which supported the theatrical release in 1959. Compulsion has since been… Read More
2018-12-17 12:30
Lab Crew Cracks Murders in Kid Glove Killer (1942)Chicago Puts Killer Over Larceny For First-Run Crime PairingA sleeper sprung from B ranks and opportunity for Leo to show off talent incubat… Read More
2018-12-14 08:41
Hell's Horizon (1955) Takes To Low Columbia CeilingSlow build to a Korean air mission where bomber crew will sustain or crack-up according to character they've revealed in Acts One-Two. John… Read More
2018-12-12 05:23
Wilmington, Delaware's V.F.W. Supplies Uniform and Drum Corps For Downtown Bally ParadeThe Big Drive (1932) Is Precode's Censor-Proof BloodbathHell broke loose in December 1932 when indie sh… Read More
2018-12-09 15:05
Two Girls On Broadway (1940) Sets Star-Making To MusicThe two girls on Broadway are Lana Turner and Joan Blondell. Turner was nineteen, Blondell thirty-three. Metro was developing LT as a se… Read More
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