In 1941, a number of animators at the Walt Disney studios walked out on the job, effectively going on strike. At issue was the question of unionization, which some employees demanded as a way to guarantee their rights and fair pay. Disney, who had long propagated the notion of his shop as one big, happy family, was infuriated by the strike, and stubbornly held out for more than a month. By the time the strike ended, the Disney studio lost nearly half its workforce. The artists who ...
Read moreIf you say the name, Jack Kelly, many who follow classic entertainment will raise an eyebrow and say, a bit confused, “Who?” While this man’s name isn’t always instantly recognizable, it really should be since Jack was in front of a camera and on the big and small screens since he was a baby, and for most of his life from then on. Jack Kelly began a career as a model at the age of two under the direction of his stage mother, modeling in a soap print ad. He continued to model thro...
Read moreOne of my treasured childhood television memories involved spending Saturday afternoons watching The Bowery Boys—moviedom’s oldest juvenile delinquents—cavort in their cinematic escapades over Chicago superstition WGN. Leo Gorcey (as Terence Aloysius “Slip” Mahoney) and his sidekick Huntz Hall (as Horace DeBussy “Sach” Jones) would find themselves in various slapstick adventures along the rest of their gang in a series of B-pictures cranked out by Poverty Row king Monogram Studios from 1946 to ...
Read more'How can you watch those old movies?' Film buffs get this from family, friends, and co-workers, but we're mesmerized by the entertainment that our grandparents and great-grandparents enjoyed. Happily, there are films from 60, 70, and 80 years ago that have retained their appeal for a mass contemporary audience. Among them, we have Buster Keaton's masterworks, Laurel and Hardy, Frank Capra's populist comedies, Universal's horror classics, and the cycle of stylish crime dramas from the 40s and ...
Read moreOne national pastime arrives around springtime each year, while another one never goes away. Yes, baseball’s return is a cherished annual ritual, but one might argue the real national pastime is watching television. Baseball and television together is a powerful combination. Here, then, is my All-Star team, by position, of major league players based on their appearances in classic television. We’ll focus on the days before everything was changed by rampant commercialization and ri...
Read moreKay Francis was Hollywood glamour personified, playing strong, modern women while looking fabulous in the highest fashions of the day. Arriving in Hollywood in the late 1920s, just as talkies took over, Kay by all rights should never have been a star. She was beautiful, but sported a mild speech impediment during the years when studios worried over their stars' voices, and she lacked substantial experience -- she had lied her way on stage almost on whim, and had not formally trained as an actres...
Read moreDick Powell was, in my opinion, one of the smartest men ever in the movie business. He kept his career constantly evolving as he aged and times changed, making wise decisions and excelling in turn as a singer, actor, director, and producer. Powell also seems to have been universally admired by his colleagues, not always an easy feat while maintaining a high-powered career in the entertainment industry. Powell was born in Arkansas in 1904. After graduation from Little Rock Coll...
Read moreEvery ten years, British Film Institute magazine Sight & Sound polls filmmakers and critics and compiles a list of “greatest films ever made”; it was this poll that installed Citizen Kane as the so-called greatest a few decades ago and then de-throned it in 2012, when it was replaced by Vertigo. Sight & Sound, asked what “greatest” means, responded, “We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent th...
Read moreBy the summer of 1933, the Fleischer brothers’ self-named animation studio was riding high. Based largely on the success of flapper dream girl Betty Boop, whose risqué series of cartoons became immensely popular in the early 30s, Max and Dave’s studio rivaled that of Walt Disney in popularity. And that July, the Fleischers inked the film debut of a character that would go on to effectively challenge Mickey Mouse for the title of the most popular animated figure in the world. Popey...
Read moreThe Golden Age of Hollywood has always been of great interest to and held enjoyment for me. I love the films that the studio system produced during their glory years. It’s not that they were all great or even good, but they were made by people who loved movies, which is the big difference with the moguls of today. The stars of that era were more mysterious than today. An explanation for this is because the press of the day, particularly the Hollywood columnists, worked hand in hand with the ...
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