I received a number of e-mails this morn from serial buffs who take me to task for suggesting that thirty chapters of Superman serial is anything less than thirty glorious viewing experiences...assuming one has the good sense to watch but one per day. Okay, fine, whatever. They're right that this material wasn't meant to be watched all at once. That's one of the problems of DVD sets.
I also wouldn't suggest watching the three films on the new Laurel and Hardy set back-to-back. As noted here, Stan and Ollie made six films for Twentieth-Century Fox in the forties after leaving their home at the Hal Roach Studios. Some are better than others and all have moments that remind you how brilliant they could be...but when I think of their great movies, none of these come to mind.
A-Haunting We Will Go, despite its title, contains no ghosts or haunting. It has a silly gangster plot and a showy guest role by the famous magician, Dante. There's nothing really wrong with it except that there's nothing really right with it. The Dancing Masters doesn't make a lot of sense and Stan was getting a little old to be parading around in a ballerina costume. The Bullfighters is, I think, the worst movie they ever made. It's actually the only Laurel and Hardy movie in which they're the villains and it has a contrived plot and an ugly, inane end gag. In it, Stan is mistaken for a world famous matador and forced to parade about in stock footage, wearing a matador suit.
Laurel and Hardy fans may argue over my ranking of best-to-worst but few would insist this is the kind of work that made Stan and Ollie perhaps the most beloved screen comedians of all time. Nevertheless, I have ordered this new DVD. Why? Because even weak Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy. In addition, the DVD set also has commentary tracks by Randy Skretvedt and Scott MacGillivray, two learned scholars of The Boys, plus there are bonus featurettes and trailers and other goodies. If you'd like to order one, here's a link to get it from Amazon. And while you're clicking that mouse of yours, here's a link to get the earlier set with the other three Fox films.
Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy also made two very weak films for M.G.M. in the forties — Air Raid Wardens and Nothing But Trouble. These are due out in November on a low-priced DVD you can order here. Again, weak Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy...but these movies make it a wee bit harder to believe that statement.
The best Laurel and Hardy work is only slowly making it to DVD with releases like this one that came out last April. More have been rumored but nothing's been announced yet. What we're really waiting for is something deluxe and complete like the set that came out in 2004 in Great Britain, which is unfortunately unplayable on most U.S. DVD machines. Here's a link to the Amazon UK page where you can see what they got over there. It sent American Laurel and Hardy fans into spasms of Brit envy...and out to buy region-free DVD players.
This article in The New Republic says that our military has been mismanaged, both in terms of manpower and equipment, to the point where it's unable to do its job properly. When neo-cons say that we need to send more troops into Iraq or send troops into some other sinkhole of a country, someone oughta ask them just which "more troops" they have in mind.
I have to get this post up before I go to bed. Otherwise, I'll get up in the morning and find seven thousand messages in my inbox saying what ten or eleven have so far: "Hey, Evanier! Don't you know that Warner Home Video is bringing out a DVD of the two Kirk Alyn Superman serials on November 28?"
No, I didn't know...and when I searched Amazon earlier to see if it was out on DVD, I somehow missed the relevant page. Here's a link to it in case you'd like to get in an advance order. Before you click, just remember: Between the two serials, you'll be getting thirty chapters that run a total of 518 minutes. There's some wonderful material in there, especially in the interplay 'twixt Alyn and Noel "Lois Lane" Neill...but it's 518 minutes. That's more than eight and a half hours of Superman serial.
If I were Warner Home Video, I'd make it like one of those restaurant deals where they serve you a twelve pound hamburger and it's free if you can eat the whole thing in one sitting.
Jerry Beck, co-Brewmaster of Cartoon Brew, informs me that Turner Classic Movies will be running the Kirk Alyn Superman serial in a few weeks. It's fifteen chapters long and they'll be running five on Saturday, October 28, five more on the following Saturday and the last five on the Saturday after that. I'll try and remember to remind you when we get closer to the date.
Matthew Yglesias discusses the torture that is now being committed on our behalf. He makes an interesting point. This administration has blamed a number of wrong moves on faulty intelligence. A lot of that faulty intelligence was obtained by torture.
Here's the history on this one: The Marx Brothers made their Broadway debut in a 1924 revue called I'll Say She Is. The show was never filmed or recorded and much about it is lost. In fact, I'm not even sure anyone alive can explain the title. (In interviews, even when he was lucid, Groucho couldn't.) One of the big comedy scenes was the opener, which involved the four brothers going to a talent agent to audition. The sketch had rhymed dialogue and in it, each of them did an impression of Joe Frisco, a famous stuttering comedian of the day who was also known for his distinctive style of dancing. (The entire script for I'll Say She Is has been pieced together from various sources and is available on this website.)
Got all that? Good. Now, flash forward to 1931 when the Brothers Marx were making movies for Paramount and the studio was staging a big publicity campaign to promote its wares. This involved producing a documentary called The House That Shadows Built, detailing the (then) brief history of the studio and showing clips from upcoming films. It was considered desirable to include a preview of the next Marx movie, Monkey Business. Problem: Filming had not yet commenced on Monkey Business so there was no clip. Solution: Make one.
Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo went onto a Paramount soundstage one day and filmed a scene that could be passed off as an excerpt from their upcoming feature. It was the talent agent sketch from I'll Say She Is with a couple of modifications. One was that since Joe Frisco was not a major Paramount star and Maurice Chevalier was, the impressions were changed from Frisco to Frenchman. In doing this, they created the only recorded remnant, such as it is, from I'll Say She Is. Take a look...
The filmed bit was included in the infomercial, then discarded. Neither the footage nor the routine was used in Monkey Business, although — perhaps to justify the bogus preview scene — there was a point in the storyline where the brothers all did Chevalier impressions in order to get past a customs agent. We'll discuss that scene here tomorrow.
Washington Monthly, which is a pretty Liberal magazine, is featuring articles by several prominent Conservatives in its new issue. They're in there, of course, because they think George W. Bush is a disaster for their political label and/or America and are willing to say so. It's one thing for Democrats and known Liberals to criticize this administration. The swing votes in this country can dismiss them as Democrats and known Liberals. What's amazing is that you could now put together a pretty damning critique of Bush-Cheney just by quoting established Conservative pundits and elected Republicans.
September 14, 2006
