On May 30, 1908, Mel Blanc came into the world. He brought with him Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Barney Rubble, Jack Benny's Maxwell automobile—The list is seemingly endless.
There are plenty of videos out there celebrating Blanc or unreeling his characters, but this one was one of the most detailed and one of the longest. The recording quality isn't great, but the content makes up for it. What amazes me is how quickly Blanc can go completely into voice character. We know he can do all those voices, but look how effortless it seems.
Happy birthday, Mel!
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Happy Birthday, Bob Hope
May 29, 1903, was the day Leslie Townes Hope was born in Eltham, England. His family moved to Cleveland about five years later. Young Bob started as a street performer at age 12, eventually branching out into vaudeville, legitimate theater, radio, movies, television, and armed forces venues around the world.
His signature theme song was "Thanks for the Memory." He introduced it in "The Big Broadcast of 1938" as half of a formerly married couple who run into each other and reminisce fondly. It should be seen in its original incarnation as a reminder of what a great song it is. No wonder Hope hung on to it for the rest of his life!
Of course, all those years prior to Hollywood doing whatever the audiences wanted made him more than just an actor. In "The Seven Little Foys," he and another former song-and-dance man get to show their stuff.
There's plenty more to Bob Hope, but perhaps the most important thing he did was his shows for the troops. And perhaps that is what he is best remembered for.
His signature theme song was "Thanks for the Memory." He introduced it in "The Big Broadcast of 1938" as half of a formerly married couple who run into each other and reminisce fondly. It should be seen in its original incarnation as a reminder of what a great song it is. No wonder Hope hung on to it for the rest of his life!
Of course, all those years prior to Hollywood doing whatever the audiences wanted made him more than just an actor. In "The Seven Little Foys," he and another former song-and-dance man get to show their stuff.
There's plenty more to Bob Hope, but perhaps the most important thing he did was his shows for the troops. And perhaps that is what he is best remembered for.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
"Fleming. Ian Fleming."
Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908. An intelligence officer in WWII, he introduced James Bond to the world in Casino Royale in 1953. Bond, like his creator, was also in the intelligence business, but unlike his creator, he had a license to kill, denoted by the double 0s in his code number, 007. But, of course, you know all that already.
The Bond books had a slow start in the US. It took a recommendation from then President John Kennedy to make the books bestsellers in the States. Around that time the first Bond film, Dr. No, came out, starting a series that continues to this day (Sony has recently signed up for the next installment).
There's an abundance of Fleming/Bond material on the internet. There's an offical site for Fleming that is as good a place as any to start feasting on all that material, from films to tv shows to books to rumors to parodies to you-name-it. I wish there was more Fleming video, though. This little teaser below really convinces me that, if he were an actor, he could have played the Bond part as well as anyone. And he was right not to go with Peregrine Corruthers!
The Bond books had a slow start in the US. It took a recommendation from then President John Kennedy to make the books bestsellers in the States. Around that time the first Bond film, Dr. No, came out, starting a series that continues to this day (Sony has recently signed up for the next installment).
There's an abundance of Fleming/Bond material on the internet. There's an offical site for Fleming that is as good a place as any to start feasting on all that material, from films to tv shows to books to rumors to parodies to you-name-it. I wish there was more Fleming video, though. This little teaser below really convinces me that, if he were an actor, he could have played the Bond part as well as anyone. And he was right not to go with Peregrine Corruthers!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Dashiell Hammett
"I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of."
The great hardboiled author, a former Pinkerton himself, was born on May 27, 1894. His glory days were the '20s and '30s; his last novel, The Thin Man, was published in 1934, although he lived until 1961, often in poor health. There's a lot of myth surrounding Hammett, especially his relationship with Lillian Hellman. And he refused to name names in the red-hunting 1950s, and spent time in jail for it. What survives is the books, and the wonderful characters. You can get a full biography of Hammett at Thrilling Detective.
Hammett only wrote the one Thin Man novel, but it was the basis for a successful film series and, later, a television series. Word is that Johnny Depp is going to take on the role of Nick in an upcoming remake; no Nora has yet been cast.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison was born on May 26, 1907. The Duke was playing secondary roles and doing low-budget work when his role as The Ringo Kid in John Ford's Stagecoach made him a star in 1939. How can you tell a star is born? Just look at this on-screen entrance (from a French clip of the film).
For many people, especially the cineasts of the 60s and 70s, the definitive John Wayne picture is The Searchers. The ending is absolutely iconic, with the lone character of Ethan framed in the doorway as all about him go off to their families. (He's holding his elbow in his hand that way to echo the stance of his old friend Harry Carey).
There's something about Wayne's simple presence that does the job by the time The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence came along. Even evil old Lee Marvin is wary of taking him on.
Probably the only time you'll see John Wayne cry? Watch him accept his Academy Award for True Grit. What a class act!
For many people, especially the cineasts of the 60s and 70s, the definitive John Wayne picture is The Searchers. The ending is absolutely iconic, with the lone character of Ethan framed in the doorway as all about him go off to their families. (He's holding his elbow in his hand that way to echo the stance of his old friend Harry Carey).
There's something about Wayne's simple presence that does the job by the time The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence came along. Even evil old Lee Marvin is wary of taking him on.
Probably the only time you'll see John Wayne cry? Watch him accept his Academy Award for True Grit. What a class act!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Bill Robinson
AKA Bill Bojangles Robinson, born on May 25, 1878. First, a deleted scene [sigh] which shows him as he is best remembered: suave, sophisticated, and amazingly musical. But old Hollywood was hardly a racially enlightened environment, and most of the preserved clips of Robinson show him as anything but urbane and cool. But the cool cuts to the core, and it shows even when he's working with his most popular partner, Shirley Temple. She's cute, but he's astounding. In the solo section he is all over those stairs, and note that he makes all the music himself.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Star Tours, Episode Two
If you're a part of the Disneysphere on the internet, or part of the Star Wars universe, you are well aware of where these two intersect, at the Star Tours ride at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The fans have been holding their breath for months waiting for the update. For everyone else, you've probably heard mumblings about it off in the corner. Whereas the old ride, built in 1987 (yeah, it's that old), had one trip, the new ride mixes and matches possibilities, so you never know where you'll end up. Early fan response has been strong (except, I gather, when riders run into Jar Jar Binks).
Anthony Daniels, the host for the ride in his role as 3-CPO, explains in the L.A. Times:
"It is beyond inventive,” Daniels said. “You’re going to much love it, and you’re going to much love it 54 times. You may never see all of it. It’s completely random. So you may see the same thing three times or you may have three different [ride sequences]. So there’s this extraordinary sort of slot machine effect, isn’t there? You don’t know what’s going to come up in the rows in those windows. It could be triple cherry. Each ride is gorgeous within in its own light. You will go back more than once.”
There's a great slide show, and good background, in Star Tours: Disneyland brings the Force.
Anthony Daniels, the host for the ride in his role as 3-CPO, explains in the L.A. Times:
"It is beyond inventive,” Daniels said. “You’re going to much love it, and you’re going to much love it 54 times. You may never see all of it. It’s completely random. So you may see the same thing three times or you may have three different [ride sequences]. So there’s this extraordinary sort of slot machine effect, isn’t there? You don’t know what’s going to come up in the rows in those windows. It could be triple cherry. Each ride is gorgeous within in its own light. You will go back more than once.”
There's a great slide show, and good background, in Star Tours: Disneyland brings the Force.
"The King of Hollywood"
That's what he was, in the silent era. His wife Mary Pickford was the queen.
The Mark of Zorro was the movie that made birthday celebrant Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883) into a superstar. The clip below captures not only his famous athleticism—he famously did his own stunts—but also his humor. It's all there on the screen; what's also there is the sort of action that still rules on a Saturday afternoon, provided the popcorn is fresh. Movies have gotten more technologically sophisticated, but they haven't changed much at the core.
For a real trove of Fairbanks material, check out The Douglas Fairbanks Museum.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Woody's women
Woody Allen has been making movies for a long time. And as Lynn Hirschberg explains in W Magazine, there's almost always a similar element:
"In nearly every Woody Allen movie, from Bananas to Midnight in Paris, which opened this year’s Cannes film festival, there is a central male character who’s a facsimile of Woody Allen (neurotic, brainy, urban). And, like a sun encircled by planets, Allen surrounds his cinematic twins with a constellation of fascinating, beautiful, and unique women. While the Allen men are consistent and familiar, his female characters are surprising—they defy the industry standard of one-dimensional moms, babes, or best friends."
And what a list of characters it is. Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Mia Farrow, to name a few. Learn how Allen chooses his actresses, and how he deals with them, in Woody’s Women.
Happy Birthday, Jimmy Stewart
Just for the heck of it, I thought it might be fun to start the day by noting famous birthdays. May 20, 1908 was the date of James Maitland Stewart's birth. This tribute from TCM is a little old—Stewart died in 1997—but it does capture the man.
Watch the video.
Watch the video.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
To Kill a Mockingbird
There's been a lot of talk on the internet recently about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, especially whether or not she cooperated in an upcoming biography. She says she didn't. Whatever. What we do know is that the book, published in 1960, is still around, and for most people, still as powerful as ever. A new documentary, Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, attests to that (check out the preview).
Adrienne Gaffney from Speakeasy interviewed filmmaker Mary Murphy and asked her why this particular book: "If you ask a person, they can tell you where they were and what was happening to them when they read 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Wally Lamb can tell you the color of the lamp in his sister’s room, other people can tell you what the chair felt like when they stayed up all night reading. It’s seared into your memory and I think it has a lot of meaning for people at that age. What is unusual and makes this a phenomenon, I think, is that you can go back to something you loved as an adolescent and, in this case, you can not only love it again, you can find more and more and more to pull out of it. I think that is very rare."
Read the whole interview, The Real Story Behind To Kill a Mockingbird.
Adrienne Gaffney from Speakeasy interviewed filmmaker Mary Murphy and asked her why this particular book: "If you ask a person, they can tell you where they were and what was happening to them when they read 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Wally Lamb can tell you the color of the lamp in his sister’s room, other people can tell you what the chair felt like when they stayed up all night reading. It’s seared into your memory and I think it has a lot of meaning for people at that age. What is unusual and makes this a phenomenon, I think, is that you can go back to something you loved as an adolescent and, in this case, you can not only love it again, you can find more and more and more to pull out of it. I think that is very rare."
Read the whole interview, The Real Story Behind To Kill a Mockingbird.
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Library of Congress's record collection
There is an amazing place in Virginia, an old underground Federal Reserve repository where cash was stashed in case of a nuclear attack (although one wonders how much cash would be worth after being nuked: they should have been storing canned goods, water, and some of those Road Warrior vehicles if you ask me). Nowadays it's the home of six million items in the Library of Congress, specifically music and film. Housing it, maintaining it, and most of all sharing it, is not so easy.
Reporter Randy Lewis of the L.A. Times writes, "The breadth of the library's stock is impossible to summarize. But in addition to copies of every published recording registered for protection in recent decades with the U.S. Copyright Office, the library has acquired personal collections from classical music giants such as Leonard Bernstein, composer Aaron Copland and pianist Wanda Landowska, in some cases including never-released test pressings, as well as every 78 rpm disc recorded by jazz titan Jelly Roll Morton. It possesses tens of thousands of lacquer discs from NBC Radio, including the network's complete archive of World War II coverage; documentarian Tony Schwartz's trove of audio recordings from the streets of New York; and half a million LPs, among which are dozens of surf and hot-rod music-themed discs that Capitol Records issued in the '60s to capitalize on those crazes, including 'Hot Rod Hootenanny' by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos, with cover art and songs co-written by fabled car designer Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth... The question is how many people will have access to it."
Read the whole story at Library of Congress builds the record collection of the century.
Reporter Randy Lewis of the L.A. Times writes, "The breadth of the library's stock is impossible to summarize. But in addition to copies of every published recording registered for protection in recent decades with the U.S. Copyright Office, the library has acquired personal collections from classical music giants such as Leonard Bernstein, composer Aaron Copland and pianist Wanda Landowska, in some cases including never-released test pressings, as well as every 78 rpm disc recorded by jazz titan Jelly Roll Morton. It possesses tens of thousands of lacquer discs from NBC Radio, including the network's complete archive of World War II coverage; documentarian Tony Schwartz's trove of audio recordings from the streets of New York; and half a million LPs, among which are dozens of surf and hot-rod music-themed discs that Capitol Records issued in the '60s to capitalize on those crazes, including 'Hot Rod Hootenanny' by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos, with cover art and songs co-written by fabled car designer Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth... The question is how many people will have access to it."
Read the whole story at Library of Congress builds the record collection of the century.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Celebrities and their moms
Just a simple picture gallery for Mother's Day, courtesy of FlavorWire. (It took me a minute to sort out Divine and his mother, but at least now I know where he got his hair inspiration.)
Hollywood auction
Bring your wallet. The big one. There's an auction next weekend in Beverly Hills. A hoverboard from Back to the Future Part 2 is set to go for a mere $2000-$3000 (but, sadly, it doesn't actually hover). A blaster from Forbidden Planet is expected to go for upwards of $30,000 (and no, it doesn't blast, which seems like a defect at that price). The car from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is fully operational, on the other hand. It probably doesn't fly, but for a minimum bid of a million bucks, it ought to at least get you cruising down Hollywood Boulevard.
Read the full article: ‘Aliens,’ ‘Battlestar Galactica’ items among Hollywood memorabilia going up for auction
Read the full article: ‘Aliens,’ ‘Battlestar Galactica’ items among Hollywood memorabilia going up for auction
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Dick Van Dyke
One day when I was a kid I had never heard of Dick Van Dyke, and the next day there was a television show called "The Dick Van Dyke Show." I never did figure out how he came out of nowhere to get a show named after him, but that didn't seem to stop him. At age 85 he's published an autobiography that makes you think he's probably as personable and down-to-earth as you always imagined. How else could he have pulled off that horrible English accent in Mary Poppins?
Here's what Van Dyke has to say about reality TV: "Yes I do hate it I must say. I know it's inexpensive to do but I don't think it's entertainment. We watched Donald Trump's 'Apprentice,' whatever it is, I've never been so bored in my life! That's not entertainment. Those shows encourage bad behavior."
Read the full interview at PopEater.com.
Here's what Van Dyke has to say about reality TV: "Yes I do hate it I must say. I know it's inexpensive to do but I don't think it's entertainment. We watched Donald Trump's 'Apprentice,' whatever it is, I've never been so bored in my life! That's not entertainment. Those shows encourage bad behavior."
Read the full interview at PopEater.com.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Movies you say you've seen (but you haven't)
Maybe the English just don't get to the movies much, but 4 out of 5 of them admit to lying about seeing movies in order to impress people. I can sort of understand lying about reading someone like, perhaps, Nietzsche, who is impenetrable, self-contradicting and a little nuts. But movies? And for that matter, this particular list of movies? I've seen them all. Really. Trust me on this. Some of them I've seen more than once. The number one and number two on the list, The Godfather and Casablanca, I can recite most of the dialogue!
Have you seen them all? Should I believe you? Check out the list at FemaleFirst.
Peter and the Wolf
How many kids' first introduction to classical music is Peter and the Wolf? It seems as if everyone under the sun has recorded the narration for it, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Sharon Stone to Captain Kangaroo. My favorite version as a kid, narrated by Sterling Holloway, was Walt Disney's. I love this video of the maestro casually banging out all the themes:
The background story of the piece is fascinating. As Sara Fishko writes on NPR.org/music:
"Although the story sparkles with innocence, the times in which Prokofiev wrote it were far from cheerful. It was 1936, and the composer had just decided to move back to Moscow after spending years abroad in New York and Paris. Harlow Robinson, Prokofiev's biographer, says it was an uneasy time, as Stalin's purges and the show trials of the early Bolsheviks were about to begin. The atmosphere was already changing in 1936, and that was something obviously Prokofiev was not counting on or thinking about when he went back."
Read the whole story at 'Peter And The Wolf' Turns 75.
The background story of the piece is fascinating. As Sara Fishko writes on NPR.org/music:
"Although the story sparkles with innocence, the times in which Prokofiev wrote it were far from cheerful. It was 1936, and the composer had just decided to move back to Moscow after spending years abroad in New York and Paris. Harlow Robinson, Prokofiev's biographer, says it was an uneasy time, as Stalin's purges and the show trials of the early Bolsheviks were about to begin. The atmosphere was already changing in 1936, and that was something obviously Prokofiev was not counting on or thinking about when he went back."
Read the whole story at 'Peter And The Wolf' Turns 75.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Where the Wild Things Are: The movie
The NY Times profiles director Spike Jonze this coming Sunday. We've seen the coming attractions of this film of Sendak's classic, and we were intrigued. Reading this piece, we're even more intrigued.
NYT: Most kids’ movies are brightly, mouthwateringly colorful; Jonze favored a mushy-vegetable palate of greens and browns. Most kids’ movies have a clearly defined plot and an unambiguous moral lesson; Jonze’s film has about as much plot as an episode of “Jackass.” Most kids’ movies crackle with one-liners; in “Where the Wild Things Are,” the characters talk over one another and spend a lot of time stumbling over their own words as they try to articulate their feelings. Jonze told me that one of his models for the dialogue was the work of John Cassavetes... More.
NYT: Most kids’ movies are brightly, mouthwateringly colorful; Jonze favored a mushy-vegetable palate of greens and browns. Most kids’ movies have a clearly defined plot and an unambiguous moral lesson; Jonze’s film has about as much plot as an episode of “Jackass.” Most kids’ movies crackle with one-liners; in “Where the Wild Things Are,” the characters talk over one another and spend a lot of time stumbling over their own words as they try to articulate their feelings. Jonze told me that one of his models for the dialogue was the work of John Cassavetes... More.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Love the book, love the movie
Amazon's blogs provide us with a fun list of the best 15 movies made from classic books.
Amazon: Given that 2009 opened with a thrilling Masterpiece Classic line-up including a highly vaunted new production of Little Dorrit, and given that the year is slated to close with Guy Ritchie's highly anticipated new Sherlock Holmes (not to mention looking ahead to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010), I thought I’d take stock of those nineteenth-century stories that have been brought to film over the past century or so.... More.
Amazon: Given that 2009 opened with a thrilling Masterpiece Classic line-up including a highly vaunted new production of Little Dorrit, and given that the year is slated to close with Guy Ritchie's highly anticipated new Sherlock Holmes (not to mention looking ahead to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010), I thought I’d take stock of those nineteenth-century stories that have been brought to film over the past century or so.... More.
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