tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54814490505301130322012-02-03T16:21:12.957-08:00Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.comBlogger551125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-42391680629796225502012-02-03T16:19:00.001-08:002012-02-03T16:21:12.969-08:002012-02-03T16:21:12.969-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://silpayamanant.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/statue_tripping.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 275px;" src="http://silpayamanant.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/statue_tripping.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Apparently the editorial department at Warner Brothers prepared a blooper reel every year, most likely for showing at the no doubt drunk and disorderly Christmas party. I rather enjoy the 1949 edition (posted below) for the simple fact that it provides an interesting window on slang and sexual innuendo at the time. A large number of the dropped lines are followed by the exclamation "nuts!" as opposed to the usual "Goddam!" Was this the year of "nuts"? Additionally there are a number of jokes (not really bloopers so much as put-on moments) involving actresses aggressively putting the moves on actors--a new sexually liberated/woman on toppish kind of wind in the air following the spirit of post-war hoopla perhaps? David Niven and the baby is pretty good as is crusty old Lionel Barrymore in a bloop from "Key Largo". And I rather enjoy Danny Kaye's intentional cut-ups--he seems, somewhat like Peter Sellers (see previous post) to need to provoke unplanned laughter in order to get into the mood to provoke planned laughter. More to come...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/V_HWze_mzFs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h596TE8ETUA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4239168062979622550?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/breakdowns-of-1949-f-ups-continue.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-39036380495843034922012-01-28T11:03:00.001-08:002012-01-28T11:08:38.053-08:002012-01-28T11:08:38.053-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/23/43/11415c8a4e3ebb4747b3118c3ddc.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 405px; height: 290px;" src="http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/23/43/11415c8a4e3ebb4747b3118c3ddc.jpeg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />What are bloopers? Mistakes made by performers or public figures which shatter the illusion that they're attempting to create thereby reminding the audience that all acting and most speechmaking is just bullshit. Usually bloopers involve actors simply forgetting their lines (and then muttering "Goddamit"). Sometimes people simply fall down or become frustrated with an uncooperative prop. And sometimes uncontrollable laughter erupts in a performer for no apparent reason. This last is a very specific form of blooping and it's referred to by the English as "corpsing". I'm not quite sure why the reference to a dead body, but I've heard English actors describe it thusly: it's the moment when two actors staring at each other in mid-scene suddenly realize the absurdity of what they're doing--pretending to be other people and sincerely spouting sentiments which have no true meaning to them outside of the scene. <br /><br />Peter Sellers was a master of the "corpse" and in some of his outtakes one gets the feeling that he's actually self-inducing the corpse moment as a way of releasing some tension within himself. Viz:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/30KxQG9YTkQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />And then there are the good old fashioned line screw-ups (followed by the usual expletive). Here's a reel of that genre of blooper, apparently compiled from Universal films of the 1940's. The only performers I recognize are Robert Cummings, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Elisha Cook, Jr. Does anyone else out there recognize the others?<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0R2O4ZLb12E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-3903638049584303492?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/bloopers-festival-of-f.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-12719698553714512662012-01-19T07:47:00.000-08:002012-01-19T08:06:44.196-08:002012-01-19T08:06:44.196-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/thecritic.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 314px; height: 475px;" src="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/thecritic.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />There's "Kane". There's "Bicycle Thief". "Greed" of course (though who the hell has ever really seen it?) "Rules Of the Game", "La Dolce Vita", "Wild Strawberries" and I suppose a few more too famous to mention. On and on--ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Face it, the GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIMES LIST has largely remained the same over the past fifty years. Stuffy, academic and proper as a maiden aunt. So why don't we shake the tree a bit and introduce a few new concepts?<br /><br />Let's begin with the fact that filmed storytelling generally needs to be incredibly functional to be incredibly satisfying. Why this is true is a mystery. The musical play is somewhat the same--fat has no place in this art form, or if it does it's strictly for fatheads. Digressions, diversions, excursions--you can do them, and a few people will appreciate the effort (or pretend to) but in the end we are dealing with<span style="font-style:italic;"> bread and circuses</span>. Hold your audience, surprise and move them, top your best emotional moments and/or gags and you've got a great film. Or at least one that people will enjoy and watch more than once--which, in a gloriously down-and-dirty economically based medium like film, is what truly counts. <br /><br />My vote for the tightest, best executed, most enjoyable demonstration of the above theory follows. Frame by frame, inch by inch, I find this film as satisfying, enjoyable and moving an adventure as any of the above named masterpieces. I hearby go on record and nominate, as an utterly worthy and deserving addition to the pantheon...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-p5XbI6Y4g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /> <br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4mEtfgb0kHE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1271969855371451266?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/greatest-story-ever-told.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-84332323633644489532012-01-13T13:23:00.001-08:002012-01-13T13:24:06.418-08:002012-01-13T13:24:06.418-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eOMlIqkoucs/Tp89IeUTmoI/AAAAAAAAHzQ/hI5NInjXjaA/s1600/bettie-page-pinup-girl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 517px; height: 640px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eOMlIqkoucs/Tp89IeUTmoI/AAAAAAAAHzQ/hI5NInjXjaA/s1600/bettie-page-pinup-girl.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />The notorious Bettie Page, one of the great pin-up/peep-show queens of all times, disappeared from view in 1957. For years her whereabouts were a total mystery. Eventually she was "sighted" but she categorically refused to be photographed or interviewed. Then, for some reason, in 1996 she decided to give an interview (audio only) to Tim Estiloz, a skilled, journeyman broadcaster/critic. Why she decided to finally re-emerge (and why she chose the relatively low-key forum Estiloz offered) remain a mystery. But emerge she did.<br /><br />The interview is a nice summation of the first part of her life but doesn't go into the quite tragic second part of her life--schizophrenia, depression and a murder attempt (she had a violent altercation with her then landlord involving a knife...<span style="font-style:italic;">take that, Irving Klaw!</span>) Page's refusal to be photographed is disappointing at first--but maybe she has a point. "Who wants to see a model when she's old and broken down", rasps the seventy-three year old Bettie. "I hate old age!" Hearing her voice--an oddly accented mid-to-southern growl--quite makes up for it.<br /><br />Here's a good review of<a href="http://beautifulandtragic.tumblr.com/"> Bettie's life and times.</a> Enjoy the interview...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/j0Ynlp7sxZs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8433232363364448953?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/uncovering-bettie-page.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-67208720964182476492012-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:002012-01-11T14:27:00.482-08:002012-01-11T14:27:00.482-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i2.listal.com/image/410704/600full-blaze-starr.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 475px; height: 596px;" src="http://i2.listal.com/image/410704/600full-blaze-starr.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Lets cut it to the bone: Blaze Starr was the goddamdest stripper of them all. She was one hot mama and apparently is still alive and well and working as a gemologist. Why I find this so cool I don't know; it's a little like learning that cigarettes are actually good for you I guess.<br /><br />Starr, in her heyday (or hey-hey-hey-day!) was so smoking that the Governor of Lousiana, Earl Long, carried on a torrid, illicit affiar with her that was public knowlege. (I know that sounds like a contradiction but in the fifties and sixties people were still able to have publicly acknowledged illicit affairs--look at Kennedy and Monroe, for Chrissakes). Long's affair with the buxom Ms. Starr actually landed him in a mental hospital shortly before his death in 1960. He left her fifty grand in his will which she refused to take. Their relationship was dramatized (but not immortalized) in the desultory screen bio "Blaze", starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich,--in my opinion, one of the great lost opportunities of the biopic genre.<br /><br />It's not just Starr's "expansive upper regional domes" --as Charles Chaplin, writing in his autobiography with the unusual title "My Autobiography" referred to Joan Barry's physique (she who landed him in court on a bogus rape charge in the mid forties shortly before his marriage to the underage Oona O'Neil and the ultimate refusal of his Visa for Communistic tendencies etc. etc. enough!) that make Starr so tantalizing a subject. Watch this very nice black and white mid-1950's view of Starr through to the end. Somewhere after the four minute mark (it runs five and change) you'll see what I mean. I won't give it away. Suffice to say that if you believe in reincarnation, you probably will want to come back to life as a piece of furniture once used in a short film of a stripper named Blaze Starr, who in her heyday was so smoking that the Governor of Louisiana...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UzTCEmax06U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-6720872096418247649?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/strippers-appreciation-pt-3.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-19885886208557275972012-01-07T12:45:00.001-08:002012-01-07T12:46:38.800-08:002012-01-07T12:46:38.800-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://thepinksmoke.com/images/nicholasray2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 338px;" src="http://thepinksmoke.com/images/nicholasray2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Here's a rare clip of Nicholas Ray (I will not insult anyone's film-telligence by listing credits...such as "Johnny Guitar", "Rebel Without a Cause", "Wind Across the Everglades", "They Live By Night", "On Dangerous Ground", "The Lusty Men", "Flying Lethernecks", "Born To Be Bad", "Run For Cover", :"King Of Kings", "55 Days at Peking"--wait--is that all of them?") discussing the ending of the astonishing 1950 Hollywood noir "In A Lonely Place". He briefly mentions how he was seperated at the time from his wife, the film's co-star Gloria Grahame, but he doesn't mention why.<br /><br />Do you know why?<br /><br />One day soon I'll tell you. Meanwhile:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/032XrDBUWTg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1988588620855727597?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/nick-ray-in-lonely-place.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-15273716083519839702012-01-06T11:04:00.000-08:002012-01-06T12:00:13.865-08:002012-01-06T12:00:13.865-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://pincurlmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/GSouthern2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 391px; height: 473px;" src="http://pincurlmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/GSouthern2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Courtesy of Leonard Edit (a pseudonym, natch) here is a fine artiwiki on th<span style="font-style:italic;">e <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlesque_Hall_of_Fame">Burlesque Hall of Fame</a></span>--a place that actually exists in (where else?) Las Vegas. Burlesque is considered the venue in which the striptease was born and flourished and, on the show-biz food chain it was generally considered to be at the bottom. The term itself implied lewdness, coarseness, a cheap laugh and an even cheaper set of thrills to be had watching a woman almost take off her clothes. Burlesque patrons were generally lowlifes who'd wandered in off the street to get out of the cold, a racing form tucked under their arm, reeking of cheap Gin and Old Golds. One didn't set out to be a Burlesque performer--it was a fate that befell you after a series of bad breaks in better venues. Yesterdays Vaudeville headliner could become today's low Burlesque comic simply due to a few bad breaks (like bombing in Peoria...or giving the Syph to an underage girl who turned out to be the daughter of the mayor of the town you were playing). Strippers, likewise, were girls who probably aspired to the chorus line of a Broadway show but either didn't have the stuff or didn't sleep with the right producer--this being back in the day when the theater was still largely a heterosexual domain. <br /><br />And yet art did flourish within that arid soil. Over the years, the striptease became progressively more sophisticated and gradually crawled out of the Burlesque house and onto the nightclub stage. Gypsy Rose Lee was at the forefront of the transformation of the stripper into the "exotic dancer"--or "Ecdysiast", a word she actually commissioned from H.L Mencken in order to have a more dignified way to refer to her profession. (The etymology of ecdysiast is from "ecdysis"--meaning "to molt". Fine. But what's the etymology of etymology?) And molt they did in increasingly exotic and amusing ways as we'll see below.<br /><br />First stop: for a very entertaining explanation of the art of stripping, here's the "You Gotta Have A Gimmick" number from the unfortunately lousy 1962 movie version of "Gypsy". This clip also provides a probably more accurate than you'd expect look at the backstage manners found in your average crapped-out Burlesque house.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gFRSawe33sA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Next we come to the hysterical Georgia Sothern. Warning: there is nothing--and I mean NOTHING--erotically appealing about this woman's act. But it's weirdly funny and oddly mesmerizing so give it a chance. For more on Georgia--a lot more--<span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://pincurlmag.com/burlesque-arrests-georgia-sothern">dig this link</a>.</span><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/z8GwNNokFZc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Next is the lovely Chinese Burlesque artist Noel Toy and her fan dance. For more on Noel, here's her <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-01-23/bay-area/17409801_1_forbidden-city-mrs-young-chinese-nightclub">quite fascinating obit.</a></span> Hep it, digcats:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2kS0jl1RPhw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1527371608351983970?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/strippers-appreciation-pt-2.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-46681139321986503762012-01-03T11:15:00.000-08:002012-01-03T11:58:33.807-08:002012-01-03T11:58:33.807-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cherry-oh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/70268182_0daa3d05bd.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 396px; height: 500px;" src="http://cherry-oh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/70268182_0daa3d05bd.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Apropos of my previous post, which was last years last post (as if it matters) which managed to feature the combined talents of director Robert Altman, composer/actor/producer/Julie London-marry-er Booby Troup and Striptease icon Lily St. Cry, I thought I'd begin the year's descent into the "eleysian fields of popular entertainment" (a phrase deployed by Albert Lewin writing to Preston Sturges about a script called "Two Bad Hats" which became "The Lady Eve" as quoted in Hendersons "Five Screenplays by Preston Sturges) with a festive celebration of strippers from the past. Jesus, what a train wreck of an opening sentence. Read backwards, it makes more sense than read forwards.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.glamouradvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/40s_sherry_britton.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 372px; height: 500px;" src="http://www.glamouradvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/40s_sherry_britton.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>What would the world do without the stripper? They're usually young, friendly and claim to be studying journalism at Columbia University (at least the ones I've met). The history of the "Strip" is one of the more fascinating sideshow exhibits in the show-biz museum and I'm sorry but I don't have time today to get into it. Instead I'll refer you to my friend, J. Fred Wikipedia, who has provided us with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striptease">marvelous illustrated article on the subject.</a><br /><br />Let's begin the new year with a refreshing look at this often misunderstood art form. I hearby commence the "Festival Of Strippers" with one of the art forms quintessential practitioners, Gypsy Rose Lee and arguably the art forms greatest guest-host, Rita Hayworth. Below are clips of each of them performing the same song, Doris Fischer and Allan Roberts classic jive-tease "Put The Blame On Mame". Gypsy's performance is from a TV appearence in the late fifties and includes a brief glimpse of the great vibraphonist Red Norvo, whose group is accompanying her. What I find truly interesting in this clip is how relatively mild--indeed almost lackadaisical--Gypsy's routine actually is. True, she's older than your usual stripper and this was presumably a cleaned-up version for broadcasting purposes--but is this really what all the fuss was about? As for her voice, let's just say that Natalie Wood's intentionally nervous rendering of Gypsy's debut as a stripper was positively complimentary; Gypsy doesn't really have a voice. Nonetheless, it's the real live Gypsy.<br /><br />And then there's Rita Hayworth, from the 1946 semi-noir "Gilda". This clip will speak for itself. Though Hayworth wasn't a stripper and as far as i know really only ever performed a striptease this once, she managed to understand the art form and its audience in a way that nobody else ever quite did. Enjoy...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FL6vgan5EUg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LZn86sSWtEQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4668113932198650376?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/strippers-appreciation-pt-1.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-40465788405441411912011-12-15T09:26:00.003-08:002011-12-15T12:15:08.360-08:002011-12-15T12:15:08.360-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/robert_altman.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 470px; height: 305px;" src="http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/robert_altman.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In the 1960's, filmmaking great Robert Altman ("Mash", "Nashville", "O.C. and Stiggs"--do I really need to go on?) was going through a rough patch. Though not many of his "Mash" and all-things-forward fans knew it, Altman had been around a long time--and not in a groovy, counter-culture kind of way. His career was that of a jobbing television director--from the late fifties through the sixties, Altman directed scores of episodes of shows like "Bonanza", "Combat", "The Roaring Twenties", "Kraft Mystery Theater" and many too undistinguished to mention (all right--"Hawaiian Eye"). Always looking to make the leap into features--and already being left behind by contemporaries like Sydney Pollack, Elliot Silverstein and Mark Rydell--Altman became increasingly fractious with his employers. Always a sharp-tounged provocateur, his drinking brought out a dark edge that frequently torpedoed friendships and business relationships. Result:fewer television assignments for Altman. Meanwhile, his feature projects were not gaining momentum.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hollywoodpinup.com/pin-ups/image/st.cyr2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 395px; height: 476px;" src="http://www.hollywoodpinup.com/pin-ups/image/st.cyr2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>So what did Altman do? In a sense, he became an independent filmmaker at a time when being such a thing was not a choice--or even really a category. Lou Lombardo, his longtime editor, once remarked that Altman needed to shoot film like others need blood--it allowed him to live. Looking for any opportunity to keep working, Altman somehow hooked up with a video jukebox outfit called Color-Sonics for whom he made a handful of shorts. The films were, essentially, the first music videos--interesting and amusing visuals designed to accompany popular songs, viewable for a couple of quarters by peering into a jukebox equipped with a window that displayed the screen. I have no idea of how these jukes really worked--could there have been projection equipment inside the juke itself?--and I wonder if there are any of these machines lying around somewhere. (Actually there must be a weird convention of people who collect and restore the damn things that meets once a year somewhere in Nebraska...or LA).<br /><br />Anyway, posted below are two of the several Color-Sonics that Altman directed--one featuring singer-actor Bobby Troup, the other starring striptease artists Lily St. Cyr. Many thanks to Marc Myers of<a href="http://www.jazzwax.com/"> Jazz Wax</a> for unearthing the Bobby Troup "Girl Talk" video (for lack of a better word), thus energizing me to search for the Lily St. Cyr. <br /><br />Both films display an admirably free cinematic verve--they are not, simply put, the ordinary work of an unemployed television director of the period (ask yourself: would John Rich or E.W. Swackhammer have shot these in quite this way?) Altman, in a sense, took the opportunity to free himself of the deadening pace and stylistic no-mans-land of his television days to open himself up to the period--these are both shot circa 1965 and straddle early-sixties (which is to say late-fifties) jauntiness of spirit and male-dominated sexual attitude, as well as having a foot planted in the soil of the next generation...(dreadful, Raymond)...anyway, you dig my meaning, no?<br /><br />Altman directed a couple of other self-financed shorts in this period including one called "The Party" which was shot at his house in Mandeville Canyon during an actual party--<a href="http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2007/09/party-at-bob-altmans-house-in-1966.html">I posted about it long ago </a> but alas the youtube account that posted the video is no longer. There's also a marijuana induced short called "Pot Au Feu" (har har) which I've never come across, as well as a birthday present for his wife, Kathryn Reed, that he made one year "when I was broke...and so this was my present to her".That film is called--inexplicably--"The Kathryn Reed Story". If anyone out there has any knowledge of these films whereabouts...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Swlr0m0sT_A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lDcCxaktex4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4046578840544141191?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/12/robert-altmans-shortsuh-yeah_15.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-16127841300944390372011-11-14T10:41:00.000-08:002011-11-14T10:59:36.844-08:002011-11-14T10:59:36.844-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thegeminigeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Battle-Of-The-Bulge-End.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 454px; height: 350px;" src="http://www.thegeminigeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Battle-Of-The-Bulge-End.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Better late than never. Here, in honor of our veterans, is a one-hour 1964 NBC news documentary called "The Battle Of the Bulge". It was directed by my father, Frank De Felitta, himself a veteran of the Second World War and the film remains a stirring and dynamic tribute and explanation of this significant turning point in the bloodiest war the world has ever known. As it was made for the twentieth anniversary of the battle, the film contains priceless footage of many of the significant participants in the war, including interviews with General's Omar Bradley and Anthony McAuliffe--the latter was the general who famously replied "Nuts" when told by the Germans that he had no honorable choice but to surrender to them. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McAuliffe">(Read this tale of the war here)</a>. <br /><br />My father was in the Air Force and was a "troop carrier"--flying planes that dropped parachuting fighters into the battle zones. Indeed, he dropped soliders during this battle. In 1996, at the Deauville Film Festival, I had the opportunity to mention this fact to the mostly French audience. (I was with Peter Gallagher whose father had also fought at Bastogne--he mentioned it too). The next morning both of us received a number of notes under our hotel room doors. They were thank you's that people wished to convey to our fathers from members of the audience who were children at the time and remembered the relief and excitement when the Americans came to liberate their town.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wZNwceYAVGM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OpPGSUQlH6Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-y2AtDOnbdo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mxj18npFWRI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UjOQ02LMtBc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1612784130094439037?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/11/battle-of-bulge-nbc-doc.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-33598996884113880632011-11-01T16:38:00.000-07:002011-11-01T16:40:47.323-07:002011-11-01T16:40:47.323-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/images/siskel.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 560px; height: 389px;" src="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/images/siskel.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Courtesy of Joe Russell, raconteur, wit, man-about-town, filmmaker and provocateur (he's been working with me on my "Booker's Place" documentary), here is Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's 1997 review of "Cafe Society". Where the hell Joe found this I don't know. And perhaps its best that it remain a secret--I like these three minutes of video floating through the ether, penetrating the surface of the viral world just as I've been revisiting the movie for the first time in oh so many years.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fTUfSkBgJ2k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-3359899688411388063?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/11/gene-siskel-and-roger-eberts-review-of.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-22401768515607446582011-10-13T11:50:00.000-07:002011-10-14T08:43:58.293-07:002011-10-14T08:43:58.293-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos.cinematreasures.org/production/photos/189/1306337376/large.jpg?1306337376"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 480px;" src="http://photos.cinematreasures.org/production/photos/189/1306337376/large.jpg?1306337376" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Following the uncertain reception accorded to my first feature "Cafe Society", we returned to New York--somewhat dispirited but still essentially optimistic. After al, Roger Ebert had really liked the movie. Others had too. It was as if nobody wanted to be the first to come out and say that they loved it. I sensed (and believe I was correct in this) that the finishing of the film was partly to blame--it was still overlength and under-scored musically (by which I mean NOT scored--I tried to do with period records only which is a lovely conceit--Woody Allen does it all the time--but wasn't really right for this movie). <br /><br />At that time, Showtime had gotten into the "made of cable" movie business in earnest. One of the ways to do this with some efficiency was to not just make their own movies, but buy already finished movies that had trouble securing domestic distribution. The movies needed to have recognizable cast elements, elegant production values and some sort of "hook" to capture their audience.<br /><br />And boy, did "Cafe Society" fit that bill. Showtime made a handsome offer to debut the film on their channel, promoted it heavily and made the producers happy by at least confirming that they hadn't made a mistake in making the film in the first place. The film was scheduled for showing, a few alterations were made (music was added) and that should have been the end of that.<br /><br />But I was a young man with a mission and my mission had not been to make a film for Showtime. It had been to make a kickass<br />indie film that would be seen in theaters and get me noticed. I say that with just a tinge of embarrassment from this distance. Just a tinge, though. For anyone who goes into the racket has to start with a fairly healthy ego and inflated sense of self worth just to get to the starting gate. I hadn't waited those five years since my short film to make my first feature and have it air a couple of times at 10PM on cable. No. That wouldn't do.<br /><br />It took a couple of years, but in early 1997 I'd made some money writing scripts and decided that, rather than investing in the stock market (as my now wealthy friends did back then) I would spend the money releasing "Cafe Society" in theaters. Or in A theater--one would be all I could afford. I looked around New York (where I lived and where I felt the movie truly belonged) and found a lovely little theater called The Screening Room down on Canal Street and Varick. The theater had a lovely bar/restaurant attached to it and the whole thing had a vibe that felt incredibly correct for my movie. What I didn't know at the time, though, was that you don't just go out and rent a theater. The theater owners need to want to show your movie and believe that there's some profit in them for taking the trouble to do so. A lovely guy named Henry Hersowitz, had opened the theater with his partner. They listened to my proposal, watched the movie and then decided that yes--there was something potentially in it for everyone to open "Cafe Society" in New York. But certain things had to be agreed to. For one thing, I had to agree to pay for a minimum amount of advertising space. And we had to reach gross receipts of a certain number for them to agree to hold the film over past the initial one week run. Nothing deterred me. I assured them I would handle it all and that we'd be in for a long run. <span style="font-style:italic;">Jesus, what happens to our confidence as we grow older?</span><br /><br />I hired a publicist, an art director and made up a rigorous schedule. I reached out to all news outlets with the story I thought would sell--the true story of the Jelke/Ward scandal. Some bit. Others were more interested in the story of me releasing my own movie. I put together a proper premiere using sponsorship from Mercedes Benz and other vendors to cover the costs. (Mercedes delievered a 1957 Mercedes to the front of the theater for the premiere. I remember a very young Gretchen Mol posing on it on our premiere night). John Harny of the New York Daily News <a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/1996-01-14/entertainment/17999367_1_madam-stork-club-heir">wrote the best article--click here to read it.</a><br /><br />And then we opened. The first reviews I read were in the tabs as the New York Times hadn't hit the stands yet. They were both poor. Weirdly they also both used the same "joke" headline: "So Noir Yet So Far". I remember, in those pre-internet days, reading them at the newstand on the corner of sixth avenue and fourth street and going right back to bed. It had been the fastest fifty thousand dollars I'd ever lost.<br /><br />And then I got a call from my publicist, Alicia Goldstein. "Congratulations on your New York Times review", she said. I hadn't<br />even bothered to go back out for it, so convinced was I by the other notices that the whole thing had been a huge miscalculation. But in fact <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=950DEFDE1E38F93BA25754C0A961958260">Stephen Holden's review that Friday morning</a> saved the movie's life. Our opening weekend was actually quite busy--and all of that times review. The following week, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel reviewed it on TV. I wish I had the video of it. It made me cry when I watched it. Good cry, not bad.<br /><br />To sum it up, "Cafe Society" had a life beyond what anyone had thought it was destined to have after its initial showing. Another small releasing company came along and booked the film in art house theaters in Philly, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and DC. I did interviews galore talking the film up and dutifully saved each and every clipping and review we got. (I've since misplaced the folder completely). But the best prize of all--at least for me--came after the New York Times review appeared.<br /><br />I got a call Friday afternoon from Henry Hersovitz saying that the theater had been called by Woody Allen's assistant. He read the review and wanted to see the film. They were thrilled and invited him to come down to the theater and see the film off-hours. No, that wouldn't work the assistant explained. He had his own theater and needed to have a print sent up for him to see it. Unfortunately, we had only one print of the film which made letting it disappear for the day incredibly dangerous--especially on opening weekend. Once this was explained, the Woody camp came back with a solution. If we could deliver the film and have the messenger stand by, Woody would watch the film immediately. Jesus, I thought. He must really want to see this thing. So that's what we did. I never heard weather he liked it or not but a few years later I offered him a part in a movie and the response I got back from his reps was a polite no with an acknowledgement that he liked my work.<br /><br />So that was that. My first film cost me every dime I'd initially earned on it and more. To this day it remains unavailable on DVD and only rarely turns up on cable. You could call this a story of disappointment but somehow--I don't know how--I saw the whole thing as a terribly promising start to things. What the fuck was wrong with me, you ask? Simple. To paraphrase Richard Brooks (see previous previous post), I had decided that I wanted to make movies enough to eat shit unsalted. All things being equal, there was salt on the table at the end of the day.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jGCGHxpetvY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vDNC-4Bxs1A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2240176851560744658?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/10/cafe-society-part-three.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-69559342959521182272011-10-10T07:24:00.003-07:002011-10-10T07:32:42.766-07:002011-10-10T07:32:42.766-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.newvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/itunes_cafesociety.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 800px; height: 1200px;" src="http://www.newvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/itunes_cafesociety.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />"Cafe Society" was photographed across the December/January 1994/1995 holiday season. For reasons that have nothing to do with anything but managerial incompetence, the film was shot mostly at night--perhaps our initial location (the courtroom) was a nights only proposition, thus throwing the rest of the shoot onto an ungodly Six AM to Six PM timetable. In a strange way, though, the off-the-gridness of it all was part of the shoots magic--the odd task of re-creating forgotten Manhattan nightclubs on a bare-bones budget was given an additional otherworldliness by being allowed to happen only after midnight.<br /><br />And how did we accomplish the recreation of a half-dozen or so nightclubs on that flea budget, you ask? By finding an incredible location which in many ways was the real reason the film could be accomplished at all. It was an old "gentleman's club" in the Wall Street area--a five story building that had once housed a series of meeting rooms, restaurants, private club rooms and, on the top floor, a gym complete with squash courts. The building was currently owned by an admitted eccentric who had turned one floor of the place into a luxe apartment for himself and left the other four floors to rot--the remains of old bars, staircases, booths and tables were already there and just waiting for us to dress them up and turn them into nightclubs of the past. The squash courts and gym became our police precinct. The owner's apartment became the "green room" for the cast. We moved into the building for seventy-five percent of the shoot, emerging at the end to move to the one set that we built from scratch--a magnificent rendition of a high-style 1950's penthouse apartment. My production designers, Stuart and Markus Canter, riffed off the idea that we were making a period film about a period story and created an apartment that coud only have existed in a late-forties RKO version of Manhattan, complete with multi-level living room, sunken bar, multiple terraces with Manhattan skyline backdrops etc. <br /><br />I don't think the shoot lasted twenty-five full days and we cut the film fairly rapidly so that it was actually ready to submit for inclusion in the Cannes Film Festival that March. And lo--they took it! My first feature, shot at the age of thirty, was accepted into Director's Fortnight--a feat only equaled by my first short film being nominated for an Oscar a few years earlier. Unfortunately, these youthful feats of accomplishment frequently have a downside. In the case of the Oscars it was the afterparty, which was as dark, unpleasant and uncongneial an event as I've ever attended (remember: four out of five people had just LOST the Oscar...what kind of mood would you expect them to be in?)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://whatthehellz.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cannes-film-festival-sign.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 580px; height: 405px;" src="http://whatthehellz.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cannes-film-festival-sign.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Cannes was a much more delightful experience--at least at first. The sparkling Meditteranean, the absolute adoration and fawning over anyone with the title of "director" (relisateur...), the celebrity filmmakers and actors swarming the Croissette. And then we made our first mistake. Rather than simply premiere the film, we held a "special distributors screening"--I suppose the idea was to let the lucky people who were about to have the chance to buy the movie get a glimpse of it prior to the premiere so as to get there no doubt lucrative deal offers in place. Unfortunately, a room full of distributors is not a friendly room--these guys are really looking for a reason to<span style="font-style:italic;"> not buy a film, </span>not a reason to spend their companies money. And my somber, eccentric and frankly experimental film noir didn't exactly play like gangbusters to the gathered crowd. Still there was some talk that Sony Classics had quite liked the film and was eager to see how it played at its premiere screening.<br /><br />And as I recall the premiere went quite well. Roger Ebert was there and was visibly and audibly impressed with the movie. He had, however a policy (and an honorable one at that) of not reviewing a film that had yet to be acquired by a distributor--a bad review by Ebert having the power to scare off a potential buyer. Unfortunately, Todd McCarthy of Variety didn't share this policy and his review of "Cafe Society", which appeared the morning after our premiere, more or less put the kibosh on any interest we had from Sony Classics. It wasn't a pan exactly--more of a soft, neither-here-nor-there kind of notice. His lack of excitement spread and before we knew it, the movie that we had barely just completed seemed like something that was soon to be completely forgotten.<br /><br />But then we got an offer from Showtime. And then I made some money and should have invested it in Google. But I didn't. Instead I spent it on...well, 'll tell you what I spent it on in the next installment of "So, You Want To Be A Filmmaker"...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/v4LYmBxof_s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/apdisbcLIM8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-6955934295952118227?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com1http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/10/cafe-society-part-deux.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-42148419487062305842011-10-05T15:56:00.000-07:002011-10-05T16:15:27.948-07:002011-10-05T16:15:27.948-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://adrianasassoon.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/cafe-society3.jpg?w=120&h=218"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 218px;" src="http://adrianasassoon.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/cafe-society3.jpg?w=120&h=218" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />"Welcome to 'Cafe Society'," intones Frank Whaley, star of my first feature film, "Cafe Society". "Where the elite meet to eat...(and then, sotto voce)<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">each other.</span>" <br /><br />"Cafe Society" was made in 1995 and has been largely out of circulation since its appearance. Or so it seems to me. Since nobody has a clue who owns it and no one has seen fit to put it on DVD, I've posted it below. Well actually I've posted the first four parts. If you're interested in watching the rest, youtube will perform its magic.<br /><br />The film was based on a true crime story--the sensational 1952 scandal involving one Mickey Jelke, heir to an oleomargerine fortune, who was accused and convicted of heading Manhattan's biggest prostitution ring. Jelke was tabloid fodder for several years, especially when it was revealed that his "main girl"--Patricia Ward--had formerly been his fiancee. Jelke convinced Ward to go to work hooking when his family (who became aware of Mickey's penchant for unsavory characters) cut him off from his trust fund. Pat Ward and Mickey Jelke are names that New Yorkers of a certain age--oh about seventy or eighty at this point--all smile in recognition upon hearing. <br /><br />The scandal fascinated me for a number of years (I was a strange young man) and when I was in my late twenties and starting out in the movie business I pitched the idea of a movie based upon it to HBO. To my astonishment, they promptly bought it. I spent a year or more churning out drafts, eager to get a greenlight to make my first movie. Alas it was the first (though by no means the last) of many disappointments that I've faced in the movie business. HBO put the project in turnaround and it seemed to be dead.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Imported/Movies/7/39425a.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 217px; height: 144px;" src="http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Imported/Movies/7/39425a.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Until a friend of mine--uber-agent Steve Alexander--read the script and convinced me that it would be makeable as an "indie"--this is 1994 now and the Quentin Tarantino of it all was coursing through the veins of all us young bucks. We somehow scraped together a million and a half dollars, went to New York, and in a fit of "can-do" thinking got the sucker made. Frank Whaley played Jelke--its one of my favorite performances in all of film and not because I directed it. Indeed I didn't really have to--Frank understood the arrogance, hurt, pride and pain in this strange young man and brought all those qualities out. The great Peter Gallagher played the vice cop who helped set Jelke up. (More on that in a minute). And the wonderful but now completely seems-to-have-fallen-off-the-face-of-the-earth Lara Flynn Boyle played the noir-ish Pat Ward to the absolute hilt.<br /><br />But back to that vice cop. In doing my research on the case, I came across several cops who--all off the record--hinted that Jelke wasn't guilty of much, that it was an election year stunt that the Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan cooked up to make it look like he was tough on vice. He was right--all were re-elected and the Jelke scandal sold mucho tabloid newsprint. Jelke went away to prison. Years later an article about him depicted him as living in Florida off his inheritance, getting drunk at the beach club everyday, and complaining bitterly about how he was "set-up". He died at the age of sixty of cirhossis of the liver.<br /><br />The appearence of the vice squad and the doubts cast on the veracity of the D.A.'s case, far from taking away from the scandal, showed me where the movie of this story might actually live; in the intersection of moral ambivalence from each side of the fence. Jelke was clearly up to some strange stuff. The D.A. was too. Both collided. Neither was right. The truth was lost along the way and the "villainous" Jelke was made to pay for the acts of a more evil force--the government face of "moral correctness" as portrayed by politicians who willfully wreck people's lives for their own benefit. Nothing changes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.filmsilove.com/vignettesp/frankWhaley/cafesociety.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.filmsilove.com/vignettesp/frankWhaley/cafesociety.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>I tried to write and shoot "Cafe Society" as if it were a noir movie made at the time the actual events occurred. Characters don't speak in naturalistic dialogue but rather in movie vernacular--an Odetsian kind of verbal dazzle that sometimes makes sense and sometimes is just an intentional noir mash-up. This confused some people at the time who weren't sure how to take the film. In retrospect I wish I'd shot (or at least printed the release version) in black and white; that would have put a fine point on what we were trying to do.<br /><br />Check out a few minutes of my unjustly forgotten "firstborn". Next time I'll discuss the making of the film and how it (sort of) got released. One thing is for certain: it was an education in everything you have to go through if you love making films. I recall seeing the late, great (and now strangely marginalized) writer-director Richard Brooks speaking at my alma mater, the AFI, shortly before his death. In loud rasping tones, Brooks exclaimed "If you want to make movies, you'd better be prepared to <span style="font-style:italic;">eat shit unsalted."</span><br /><br />He was right.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QwZDR-06TAE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X1W-1UOS1GA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vfFv0gwBSvU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ezktn7WJjTs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4214841948706230584?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com1http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/10/welcome-to-cafe-society.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-24153189745448635482011-09-20T10:15:00.000-07:002011-09-20T13:04:35.739-07:002011-09-20T13:04:35.739-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.homejane.com/wp-content/uploads/wilshire-terrace2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 553px; height: 411px;" src="http://www.homejane.com/wp-content/uploads/wilshire-terrace2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />No, I'm not talking about Billy Wilder's "The Apartment". I'm talking about his apartment. The one he and Audrey lived in together from 1957 until his death in 2002. (I believe she still lives there). That's what I'm talking about here. Not interested? Then don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out of the Wilshire Terrace.<br /><br />For some reason, the living quarters of Billy Wilder--my personal movie God--always fascinated me. From a young age I knew that he resided in an building on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Beverly Glen known as the Wilshire Terrace. The question is: why?<br /><br />Aren't famed movie directors supposed to live in lavish spreads with guest houses, detatched projection facilities, manicured lawns and unused swimming pools (or in the case of Wilder perhaps one with a dead body floating face down in it?) Isn't the whole idea of having money in LA to spend it on a house that publicly trumpets your taste, personality and I'm-a-success-in-the-movie-business status? What was a public and successful figure like Wilder doing living in an apartment building for all those years?<br /><br />The truth is, I don't know. But I've always enjoyed speculating on the reasons. Money isn't a factor as the Wilshire Terrace has always been a top-dollar real estate attraction that fussily insists on full payment for your condo up front plus a healthy annual<br />maintenance fee. Wilder was always a well-salaried man and over the years amassed one of the country's major art collections which he eventually sold for something north of sixty million dollars. Perhaps it was all that art hanging on his walls that caused him to opt for 24 hour security?<br /><br />There's a clue, though, in a description of Wilder from Maurice Zolotow's book "Billy Wilder in Hollywood". Zolotow describes Wilder as having personal tastes that "veer toward fin de siecle decadence." What does this mean, though? Well, according to my friend J. Fred Wikipedia:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://palstreettours.com/Update%2011-22-06/Painters%20Table%20Japan%20Kavehaz%20c1910-sm.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 369px;" src="http://palstreettours.com/Update%2011-22-06/Painters%20Table%20Japan%20Kavehaz%20c1910-sm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Fin de siècle (French pronunciation: [fɛ̃ də sjɛkl]) is French for "end of the century". The expression fin de siècle usually refers to the end of the 19th century, in Europe, France and/or Paris. It has connotations of decadence, which are seen as typical for the last years of a culturally vibrant period (La Belle Époque at the turn of the 19th century and until World War I), and of anticipative excitement about, or despair facing, impending change, or both, that is generally expected when a century or time period draws to a close. That the expression is in French probably comes from the fact that the fin de siècle is particularly associated with certain late 19th-century French-speaking circles in Paris and Brussels, exemplified by artists like Stéphane Mallarmé and Claude Debussy, movements like Symbolism, and in works like Oscar Wilde's Salomé (originally written in French and premiered in Paris)—which connects the idea of the fin de siècle also to the Aesthetic movement. </span> <br /><br />Well, that explains everything. Actually I see what Zolotow means. What could be more decadent than being a top-of-the-food-chain filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles but who chooses to live in an apartment building? It's as if he was saying: who cares where I am--what does it matter? Who cares what you think of my status? Or what I think of it for that matter? Who has time for gardening--or for paying others to garden? Why bother with public displays of lavishness? Why bother with taking out your own garbage? For a Euro cosmopolite like Wilder--whose interests in life were writing, paintings, collecting object d'art and acquiring masses of Bass Wejuns (a loafer he particularly enjoyed)--apartment life might appear not only attractive but absolutely necessary. The availability of full staff service, the slyness inherent in the modesty of the surroundngs being belied by the fifty-million dollars of art on the walls--all of these things are very Wilderian. Add to that the lack of children (he had a daughter from a previous marriage but no children with Audrey) and you have a lifestyle that feels very Bob Newhart/Suzanne Pleshette. A groovy couple, a groovy apartment. Dinners out at The Bistro or Romanoffs. A swinging couple leading a swinging life in LA in the swinging 50's and 60's (and 70's and for that matter 80's and 90's and...Jesus Wilder lived a long time...)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmtgmkBJca1qz8toyo1_500.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 655px;" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmtgmkBJca1qz8toyo1_500.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />But what kind of apartment did the Wilder's live in? Descriptions are few and far between which always led me to believe that it was <span style="font-style:italic;">small.</span> Then again the Wilshire Terrace appears from the exterior to contain duplexes with double height ceilings.<br /><br />All of this has finally been solved, thank God, with the appearence of a <a href="http://la.curbed.com/archives/2011/07/how_the_1958_wilshire_terrace_building_got_its_socal_glamor.php#wilshireterrace-6">floor plan of Wilshire Terrace apartment</a>. The plan shows what is clearly the Wilder apartment which is quite spacious--but not a duplex. Indeed the two-story effect as perceived from the exterior is precisely that--an effect, and a very mid-century modern one at that. Apparently the terraces are two stories but the apartments are one. On every other floor a smaller apartment--which sits atop one that opens onto the terrace--has rooms that look over the terrace below but which are somehow blocked from seeing down by means of clever sightlines. Read all about it in that very interesting link above. Indeed you'll know more than you ever needed to know about the Wilshire Terrace once you've done so.<br /><br />The Wilder apartment, as you'll see on the floorplan, is a three bedroom though one of those bedrooms is a narrow maids room. The public spaces are surprisingly spacious and have an open-floorplan flow that feels more like a hilltop poolside house than an aparment. The two-story terrace must have also provided a rush of drama once it was revealed to visitors. The kitchen is narrow and windowless--but even this kind of works. Would the WIlder's ever be the types to have <span style="font-style:italic;">an eat-in-kitchen? </span>I won't bother answering that question. Just look at the couple pictured above.<br /><br />Billy Wilder and his apartment can be seen together in the below clips from Michel Ciment's 1982 documentary about the director. We are clearly in the den/office which is sighted dead-center in the floorplan--note the funny indoor trellis that Ciment is sitting against (Part 2, 10:45). Much art is visible (part 2, 9:31) and the place is cluttered in a pleasing way. By no means is the house intimidating--it is causal, elegant and filled with expensive stuff. Note also a shot of Billy and Audrey breakfasting on their terrace (Part 1, 3:28). Tres chic. From this film we also learn that he drove a silver Mercedes (Part 2, 9:05) and at that time in his life was smoking cigars (part 1, 3:45). Wilder had been a rabid cigarette smoker most of his life--indeed there are few pictures of Wilder pre-1970 in which he isn't holding a cigarette) but appears to be satisfied here with his Panatelas. Later in life he quit all forms of tobacco and chewed tic-tacs. <br /><br />Wilder also had an office in the Writers and Artist building in Beverly HIlls and a house in Malibu--again rather more modest than you might expect. Both are also visible in the Ciment documentary. In the Malibu section we learn that Wilder was expert at flying a box kite. But we'll discuss that another time...<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bLGlwDUk_iQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/R60mhSztbd8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2415318974544863548?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/09/billy-wilders-apartment.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-3626640186890012762011-09-14T13:07:00.000-07:002011-09-14T13:09:42.589-07:002011-09-14T13:09:42.589-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510w%2BcdacTL._SX500_.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510w%2BcdacTL._SX500_.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Meet Miss Brown, a Pittsburgh public school teacher who, along with a young Italian boy named Dominick, found herself the subject of an NBC news documentary which aired in 1963. The film, "An Experiment In Excellence", was directed by my father Frank De Felitta and it's my pleasure to share it with you below (I've posted the first half--the entire thing will be up over the next few days).<br /><br />Like most of my fathers other NBC documentaries, the film is both a stirring emotional journey as well as a time capsule of the era in which it was made. The films were made between 1962-1968 and thus collectively serve as a record of a very specific era<br />in American history. Whether covering the generation's artists ("The American Image"), the life of a young intern ("Emergency Ward") or the struggles of the south during the civil rights era ("Mississippi: A Self Portrait"), the sense of the times is alive and beautifully rendered in all of them.<br /><br />In this film you get a look at the public school system of a typical American city in the mid-sixties. The films premise is that America has juiced up its educational efforts in a bid to compete with the Russians (Sputnik is referenced in the films opening seconds). In spite of all the new high tech advances that have been made (which appears to be limited to flashcards), the simple excellence of a devoted teacher has been forgotten. Miss Brown is retiring this year. And the film chronicles her devotion to spending extra time and effort teaching one nine year old with learning problems, Dominik.<br /><br />You may find Miss Brown charmless and her teaching methods a tad insensitive (Dominick is forced to demonstrate his lack of reading ability to the class. Miss Brown then compounds this cruelty by making the smart kid--a little jerk named Kirk--read the sentence properly). Nonetheless, she is a good old-fashioned teacher with a real devotion to advancing this boy's opportunities in his new country (his family is from Italy and speaks little or no English at home. This is explained as the reason for Dominicks slowness though to my eyes there's a touch of Asperger's going on as well).<br /><br />It's a lovely film about a forgotten style of "learning" and the simple dignity of Miss Brown and the sadness in the eyes of her<br />nine year old student is unutterably moving. In the words of Orson Welles (describing "Make Way For Tomorrow"): "it could make a stone cry."<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-St-3JOtUg0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-cFjecLdBKc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xKi9R6WvH74" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /> <br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-362664018689001276?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com1http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/09/experiment-in-excellence.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-87453408825240681462011-08-21T10:15:00.001-07:002011-08-21T10:42:09.744-07:002011-08-21T10:42:09.744-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://newdeal.feri.org/images/u79.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 284px;" src="http://newdeal.feri.org/images/u79.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a> <br /> <br />I thought I’d write a summary of Booker’s story to state, in a dramatic fashion, what I see as the spine of our movie. <br /> <br />Booker’s story is that of an illiterate black man born into a life of poverty in the sharecropping world of 1920's Mississippi who managed to pull himself out of that life despite his limitations. He built himself a life “in the city” as a business person, fulfilling his dream of owning his own business--a restaurant called "Booker's Place" in the black part of town. He managed to do this by working nights as a waiter at the legendary "Lusco's Steak House"--a Mississippi landmark in the white part of town (it was segregated, of course). By walking on two sides of the street, as it were--serving the white master in order to be his own master amongst the black citizens--he was able to function in an uncommonly independent way. You could say that, despite the killing workload, he truly had it made. <br /> <br />But people can only remain restrained from revolt for so long; too many years of verbal and physical oppression and deprivation of human rights inevitably results in revolution. When this happened in Greenwood, Booker Wright watched safely from the sidelines but felt something boling up inside him, something that he couldn’t contain. Though nobody remembers him as being vocally supportive of the movement for black freedom, his turn came when NBC News came to Greenwood to see how whites and blacks got along. My father's documentary unit was there to cover the volatile events of the mid-sixties and somebody told them that a black restaurant owner/worker named Booker Wright would be interested in speaking to the camera's. For reasons that are buried with him, Booker chose to unleash a lifetime of pent up frustration and contempt for the white people who he’d spent his life serving—first as the ward of a sharecropping family (where he was deprived of his natural mother due to the machinations of the plantation owner), next as a servant to the planter class and Greenwood white citizenry at the local restaurant where he worked. <br /> <br />By telling the truth of his feelings to a nationwide audience, Booker earned the enmity of the white world in which he’d long served. He had broken free of the last of his “enslavement” but at a price: he was beaten by a white policeman to the point of needing hospitalization, fired from his job and ostracized by his former “friends” in the white community. <br /> <br />Here is a clip of Booker's appearence on my fathers NBC news documentary "Mississippi: A Self-Portrait". His astonishing monologue would have wide-reaching impact on the citizens and politicians of Mississippi. And a few years later it would have a tragic impact on Booker's life. <br /> <br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SoZpn8wZvsA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <br /> <br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8745340882524068146?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/little-history-of-booker-wright.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-1522786630398422442011-08-21T10:13:00.000-07:002011-08-22T08:40:32.692-07:002011-08-22T08:40:32.692-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://newdeal.feri.org/images/u79.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 284px;" src="http://newdeal.feri.org/images/u79.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a> <br /> <br />I thought I’d write a summary of Booker’s story to state, in a dramatic fashion, what I see as the spine of our movie. <br /> <br />Booker’s story is that of an illiterate black man born into a difficult personal life of poverty in the sharecropping world of the 1920[s and 30’s south who pulled himself out of that life and, despite his limitations, built himself a life “in the city” as a business person. He worked as a waiter (the best job available to him) in order to support his very “all-American” dream of being his own boss and running his own place. He most certainly would have been happy with that arrangement for the rest of his life had not history interfered. Once progress came to the south and once blacks were given the right to protest the conditions under which they lived within white society, Booker Wright—like many others around him—was forced to grow. Initially, though, he watched from the sidelines, wanting no trouble, wanting only to maintain the life he’d carefully built for himself on the two sides of town in two very different communities. <br /> <br />But people can only remain restrained from revolt for so long; too many years of verbal and physical oppression and deprivation of human rights inevitably results in revolution. When this happened in Greenwood, Booker Wright continued to watch from the sidelines but felt something boling up inside him, something that he couldn’t contain. Though nobody remembers him as being vocally supportive of the movement for black freedom, his turn came when NBC news came to Greenwood to see how whites and blacks got along. For reasons that are buried with him, Booker chose to unleash a lifetime of pent up frustration and contempt for the white people who he’d spent his life serving—first as the ward of a sharecropping family (where he was deprived of his natural mother due to the machinations of the plantation owner), next as a servant to the planter class and Greenwood white citizenry at the local restaurant where he worked. <br /> <br />By telling the truth of his feelings to a nationwide audience, Booker earned the enmity of the white world in which he’d long served. He had broken free of the last of his “enslavement” but at a price: he was beaten, fired from his job and ostracized by his former “friends” in the white community. <br /> <br />Here is a clip of Booker's appearence on my fathers NBC news documentary "Mississippi: A Self-Portrait". His astonishing monologue would have wide-reaching impact on the citizens and politicians of Mississippi. And a few years later it would have a tragic impact on Booker's life. More on that in a minute... <br /> <br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-152278663039842244?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/little-history-of-booker-wright_21.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-70359429143701486852011-08-17T12:25:00.000-07:002011-08-17T13:14:07.625-07:002011-08-17T13:14:07.625-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://a.abcnews.com/images/WNT/wn_extra_viking_110302_wg.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 637px; height: 358px;" src="http://a.abcnews.com/images/WNT/wn_extra_viking_110302_wg.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> <br /> <br />I am currently working on two documentary films in addition to my feature projects. For the past two years I've been shooting interviews of great performers who came out of cabaret and nightclub backgrounds for a documentary on the history of cabaret. The film--titled "Intimate Nights; The Golden Age of Cabaret"--is based on James Gavin's excellent book of the same title and is just about ready to go out to find a buyer in the form of a sizzle reel showing highlights of the interviews. (I've held off editing any footage until we have a buyer as the rights clearances are bound to be expensive). <br /> <br />But a few months ago I began work on another doc as well. The emergence of this project is directly attributable<a href="http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/04/mississippi-1967.html"> to the posting on this blog of my fathers documentary "Mississippi: A Self-Portrait".</a> My producing partner, David Zellerford, was so taken with the film--and specifically with an amazing piece of footage involving a black restaurant owner/worker named Booker Wright--that he pursued (and urged me to do so as well) Booker's story. Others on the internet also found the piece riveting and soon we were in touch with Yvette Johnson, Booker's granddaughter, who happened to be similarly fascinated in unearthing her late grandfather's controversial story. <br /> <br />So we went to Greenwood Mississippi--the location where my father's film took place--and began digging around for stories and clues involving Booker. We shot a hell of a lot of footage in the seven days we were there. And although we've begun assembling the footage, we're going back in a week to shoot more. And I've decided to blog the making of the film--much as I did with my film "City Island"--taking you through the week-by-week account of theshooting, editing, finishing and marketing of this particular doc. <br /> <br />Working on documentaries is immensely satisfying in a number of ways. For one thing it's a form that can be accomplished without spending millions of dollars. To be fair there is now much work that can be done in narrative features on the same catch-as-catch-can, digital basis. With the advent of high quality camera's and the Final Cut revolution, anybody can make a film for what amounts to pocket change now. But the shooting of a doc is different for a very specific reason: the interviews. <br /> <br />I am continually amazed at the amazing people I encounter in the making of a doc. Simply put, you often find yourself sitting across the table from some extraordinary people who you probably would otherwise have never met. When we shot my first doc, "Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris", we met some of jazz's true giants, people I'd admired all my life. Billy Taylor, Anita O'Day, James Moody, Mark Murphy, George Wein, Howard Rumsey, Ruth Price--these are just a smattering of those who welcomed us into their homes and appeared on camera. The cabaret doc is a similar case of "I can't believe I'm sitting here talking to...": Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters, Orson Bean, Polly Bergan, Carol Burnett and Joan Rivers are just a few of the entertainment worlds giants who have generously made themselves available to us. <br /> <br />This doc, titled "Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story", is a different animal. Most of the people we're interviewing aren't famous. Certainly none are celebrities. What they are are real folks who live in Greenwood Mississippi and who are searching their memories to give us a portrait of the volatile southern town in which they've made their lives. They are certainly no less extraordinary for not being famous and in some ways I find their willingness to open up and be photographed telling their stories even more moving for the fact that they don't make their living appearing on camera. This is a stretch for them as it is a stretch for us to get to know and understand Greenwood and its environs. Greenwood is the place where Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. It was also the center of much of the heated civil rights movement of the 1960's. Booker Wright's story intersects with the rise of black civil rights in the south and he played a part--small but potent--in that history as well. <br /> <br />So join me for the next few months as I devote this blog to documenting the making of a documentary. Yvette is also is keeping a fascinating account of her journey on this cinemaventure on-line.<a href="http://www.bookerwright.com/"> Go here to read the Booker Wright Project.</a> And stay tuned here for more. <br /> <br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SnsBlY4rKwM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-7035942914370148685?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/bookers-place-making-of-documentary.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-88271967996414631602011-07-30T19:42:00.000-07:002011-07-30T20:00:52.186-07:002011-07-30T20:00:52.186-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cb.pbsstatic.com/l/63/6063/9780399116063.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 195px; height: 280px;" src="http://cb.pbsstatic.com/l/63/6063/9780399116063.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Happy 90th birthday, Frank De Felitta. I've posted the front cover of the first edition of your best known work, the 1976 occult thriller "Audrey Rose" (pan left) and I've posted the last three parts of "The World Of The Teenager", your undeservedly forgotten 1965 documentary about pre-Vietnam teenage angst in the town of Lexington, Massachusetts. <br /><br />A lifetime of varied, fascinating, paradoxical and always well-crafted work. I do hope somebody one day studies the many facets of your career. Other than me, natch. <br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oRZVnzBXtX8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Sa2mzmQdjIk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w9vfJMpg7fw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8827196799641463160?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com4http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-bday-frank-world-of-teenager.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-81885640056884997622011-07-25T18:14:00.000-07:002011-07-25T18:17:46.831-07:002011-07-25T18:17:46.831-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/5139287744_3f2eef7fce.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 375px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/5139287744_3f2eef7fce.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Welcome back to "The Films Of Frank De Felitta", a look at the documentary films made by my father for NBC news in the 1960's. Posting these movies has been a real joy and--it turns out--has cost me quite a bit of money; for after posting "Mississippi: A Self Portrait" a few months ago I wound up--largely due to the internet traffic and its subsequent revelations--beginning my own documentary follow-up to that film. More on that later, however.<br /><br />My father is alive, well and truly happy that these films--which were clearly made with love, care and careful deliberation--are having a second life on the internet. NBC never aired them again and as far as I can tell my fathers cherished sixteen millimeter prints are the only evidence of their existence.<br /><br />So: here comes "The World of the Teenager". Shot in Lexington Massachusetts in 1966, the film is a fascinating and by no means square or dated look at a turning point in our culture which may or may not have been evident during the films making; the teenagers depicted are half fifties goody-goods (with a dash of rebel-glam element thrown in) and half sixties renegades in the making--with Beatles haircuts to prove it. Still, we are a year or two shy of what we generally think of now as "sixties youth"--none of these kids is about to burn a draft card, grow their hair too long, journey to Haight-Ashbury or drop acid. Or if they are they are not yet wearing their rebellion proudly for my father's cameras. As a period piece, "The World Of the Teenager" is a fascinating time-capsulized look at the moment before a bubble burst--in this case the bubble of a perfect, happy, all-American existence. Soon the charade was exposed, the kids were cut loose and the towns like Lexington Mass. were nostalgic for the "problems" they had when my father and the news people showed up to document this relatively innocuous time. <br /><br />The volcano hasn't exploded but it's about to. Dig parts one and two of "The World of the Teenager". As always, if you're interested in seeing the film in one big gulp,<a href="http://www.youtube.com/moviestildawn"> go to my youtube channel</a> where it's posted. Enjoy!<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yNpOufjCTbs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aoJq64CDemc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8188564005688499762?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/world-of-teenager.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-1045165578009250402011-07-12T07:05:00.000-07:002011-07-12T07:36:59.009-07:002011-07-12T07:36:59.009-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/HealtrhWealthyDooombTITLE.jpg/220px-HealtrhWealthyDooombTITLE.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 220px; height: 166px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/HealtrhWealthyDooombTITLE.jpg/220px-HealtrhWealthyDooombTITLE.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Here's a Stooge short from their Art Deco period--"Healthy Wealthy and Dumb". The film feels very "My Man Godfrey"/"Nothing<br />Sacred"-esque both in its subject matter (sudden wealth bestowed upon the hoodlum depression-era trio) and in the symbolic trappings of wealth that suddenly surround them (a hotel suite in the "Costa Plenta"). I love the idea that the screenwriters--Elwood Ullman and Serle Kramer (and with those names shouldn't they really have been Pulitzer Prize winning playwright's?)--had probably just seen and soaked up the aforementioned big studio productions and decided to plug the Stooges into the zeitgest of depression era wish-fulfillment cinema. The boys enter their absurd suite wearing top hats and smoking cigars. When Larry takes a bath, balloons are incongruously floating in the water next to him. Buckets of champagne are consumed and the three golddigers next door (natch) have a pet monkey named Darwin (evolution theory anyone?) bizarrely clad in a silk pajama outfit (a reference to the leopard in "Bringing Up Baby"? Or am I off by a year?) <br /><br />It's meaningless to parse these films in any real detail--the randomness of the plotting (Curly wins a radio contest providing the boys with their sudden windfall--but he also appears to be illiterate) and the sudden, inexplicable ending of the film (which feels as if they simply ran out of time while shooting) make anything remotely resembling dramatic criticism null and void. Nonetheless there are formal pleasures to be had: the careful setting up of the Ming Vase which Moe winds up destorying is expected; but it's Moe's mortification at it being his fault and his sullen blaming of Curly for not handing him a "softer board" that gives the joke its humanity. And Curly getting the DT's has an uncomfortable personal air to it for those who prefer their criticism to be of the biographical variety. Del Lord directed with his usual grace given the circumstances. And when the gold-diggers hatch their plan to steal the boys money, they deliver a 1937 bit of slang meaning desertion that I don't think I've heard before. You've heard of leaving them "high and dry", or of "giving them the grand go-bye." But have you ever heard of "giving them <span style="font-style:italic;">the Ozone</span>?" Proof that the most fragrant of flowers can grow in arid soil...<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/iz6JYipetQo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RH3W_S5vOlQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-104516557800925040?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-man-curly-healthy-wealthy-and-dumb.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-62731518267062760172011-07-06T05:43:00.000-07:002011-07-06T05:59:50.413-07:002011-07-06T05:59:50.413-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/keffer/winner.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 233px; height: 350px;" src="http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/keffer/winner.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />After further viewings of "Swinging The Alphabet" (yes, I do have better things to do...but what are you doing reading this, anyway?) I think I have a theory as to why Curly's close up is sung at a faster tempo. It was probably a reshoot. Perhaps after viewing the number without the Curly insertion it was determined that the song was a bit monotomous (which it certainly is...albeit in an addictive kind of way). Since there's only piano accompaniment and since the rest of the song is clearly being performed to playback (i.e. a pre-recording of the song being sung which the on-camera talent moves their mouths too) it would figure that a hasty re-take (and everything about the Stooge movies were hasty--the shooting schedules, the scripts etc.) would dispense with the pre-recording step and simply capture Curly singing "live" with a piano accompaniment behind him. Indeed when you look at the close up you can see that his mouth movements and the singing are too accurate to have been done any other way. So they approximated the tempo, got it wrong, and wound up with a close up of Curly performing at a faster tempo. The background voices for the shot were then minutely sound edited (which you can hear if you listen closely) to keep the two tracks relatively in sync.<br /><br />And then comes the stunning moment when the all girl chorus interrupts him with the immortal "Curly's a dope!" Was this added later as well? If not it explodes the above theory entirely. Since we'll never know, lets leave it as is--and assume that I'm right.<br /><br />Oh. In the TMI department, do you know who wrote "Swinging The Alphabet"? According to Wikipedia, "in 2005, film historian Richard Finegan identified the composer of the song as Septimus Winner (pictured above), who had originally published it in 1875 as "The Spelling Bee"."<br /><br />And who was Septimus Winner? Why only one of the 19th century's most successful composers--he brought us "Ten Little Injuns" and "Listen To the Mockingbird" as well as the lesser known "I Set My Heart Upon Flower" and the delightful "Carry Me Back To Tennessee".<br /><br />While we're at it, let's have the complete lyrics:<br /><br />B-A-bay, B-E-bee, B-I-bicky-bi, B-O bo, bicky-bi bo, B-U bu, bicky bi bo bu.<br />C-A-cay, C-E-cee, C-I-cicky-ci, C-O co, cicky-ci co, C-U cu, cicky ci co cu.<br />D-A-day, D-E-dee, D-I-dicky-di, D-O do, dicky-di do, D-U du, dicky di do du.<br />F-A-fay, F-E-fee, F-I-ficky-fi, F-O fo, Ficky-fi fo, F-U fu, ficky fi fo fu.<br />G-A-gay, G-E-gee, G-I-gicky-gi, G-O go, Gicky-gi go, G-U gu, gicky gi go gu.<br />(Dah-Dah-dah-dah )<br />H-A-hay, H-E-hee, H-I-hicky-hi, H-O ho, hicky-hi ho, H-U hu, hicky hi ho hu.<br />J-A-jay, J-E-jee, J-I-jicky-ji, J-O jo, Jicky-ji jo, J-U ju, jicky ji jo ju.<br />K-A-kay, K-E-kee, K-I-kicky-ki, K-O ko, Kicky-ki ko, K-U ku, kicky ki ko ku.<br />L-A-lay, L-E-lee, L-I-licky-li, L-O lo, Licky-li lo, L-U lu, Curly's a dope<br />M-A-may, M-E-mee, M-I-micky-mi, M-O mo, Micky-mi mo, M-U mu, micky mi mo mu.<br /><br />STOP ME...<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/a_Y6UKMp8Qw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-6273151826706276017?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-than-you-need-to-know-about.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-22049975573420877362011-07-04T07:33:00.001-07:002011-07-04T07:41:58.185-07:002011-07-04T07:41:58.185-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://media.screened.com/uploads/1/14483/479791-violentcurlytitle_large.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 222px;" src="http://media.screened.com/uploads/1/14483/479791-violentcurlytitle_large.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Thanks to the fortuitous interest of my six (soon to be seven) year old son, I've been rediscovering the exuberantly crude joys of the Three Stooges, particularly the rich early-middle to middle Curly period. This runs from roughly 1937-1943--the years prior to '37 (from 1934 when they began their Columbia shorts series) are filled with interesting things but on the whole feel sluggish, spotty and present the Stooges as a not quite on their game comedy team. Having said that, there's something curiously archeological in discovering ancient finds such as "Restless Knights" and "Uncivil Warriors"--both poorly paced but interesting sketches of what the Stooges would soon "blossom" into. But truly the boys kick into gear somewhere in late '36 and peak through the end of the decade and into the early forties.<br /><br />Three directors handled the chores in this period more or less. Del Lord--a former Sennett Keystone Kop stuntman (so the legend goes), Jules White (who headed the shorts department for Colunbia) and the comedian Charley Chase who proved to be a very fine and oddly subtle director for the Stooges. His work with the Stooges can be seen to best effect in the football comedy "Violent Is the Word For Curly", the title a play on the then popular film "Valient Is the Word For Carrie" (Gladys George as a former prostitute trying to reform). The song "Swinging The Alphabet" makes its notorious appearance in the film and as you probably already know is one of those once-heard-never forgotten ditty's that you wind up remembering for most of your life. Note how Curly's "solo" section of it is taken at too quick a tempo--he's lipsyncing so it must have been pre-recorded at this incorrect tempo...but why? How?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hpvf.com/catalog/d8_1_b_1403_1.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 314px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.hpvf.com/catalog/d8_1_b_1403_1.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a>Charley Chase deserves his own post (or two) and I'll get to him in a minute. His career as a comedian/writer/director was primarily conducted for Hal Roach--and a number of comedies hold up remarkably well. They also contain quite a few for then sophisticated gay-inspired jokes and characters which, when taken with the testimony of Billy Gilbert (in Leonard Maltin's "Great Movie Shorts" section on Chase) that the comedian was unhappily married and lived alone at a "gentleman's club" begins to paint a picture of a pained in-the-closet figure doomed to an early alcoholic death (Chase died in 1940 after telling a friend that if he couldn't drink he didn't want to live). <br /><br />Below is his best collaboration with Stooges More on Chase and more on the rich Stooge early-middle period to follow.<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gX-EwwAMA_8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_6gXNFxpidM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2204997557342087736?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/violent-is-word-for-curly-un-film-du.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-29915418928810346352011-07-01T04:58:00.000-07:002011-07-01T05:02:42.440-07:002011-07-01T05:02:42.440-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s_30zQFJp4g/R3cgAnlOyYI/AAAAAAAACSs/Xth0PyZe3HU/s320/Psycho%2Ba%2Bgogo%2BLinda%2B02.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s_30zQFJp4g/R3cgAnlOyYI/AAAAAAAACSs/Xth0PyZe3HU/s320/Psycho%2Ba%2Bgogo%2BLinda%2B02.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />What's with me? I look at the below clip and the fab chick enclosed in glass writhing away her adolescence and can only think: where is she now? Did she have children? How many? And what do they think of mom, now a sixty-something woman somewhere out there in the world?<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Dw6Fjo6VXTg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2991541892881034635?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com0http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/psycho-go-go.html