Just to remind you: The folks who run the myth-busting website, Snopes.com, say that it's not true that eating turkey can make you drowsy. I used to think that. Then I realized that it was listening to my relatives at the dinner table that was putting me to sleep.
My pal Jim Brochu is in New York doing his one-guy show as Zero Mostel. I wish I could get back there to see it again and I also wish I'd been present Tuesday evening when, in conjunction with the play, a panel discussion was held about the blacklist. Participating were several individuals who, like Zero, lived through that time. They included Lee Grant, Jules Feiffer and the children of Ring Lardner, Dalton Trumbo and Jack Gilford.
Fortunately, we have Jim's partner Steve Schalchlin, who reports on the evening on his weblog and promises that a video of the entire event will soon be up on YouTube. I will be linking when it is.
By the way: If you hunt around on Steve's blog, you'll be able to read some of the rave reviews that Jim is receiving. The show, Zero Hour, is there until the end of January.
I hadn't meant to spend a lot of blogging room on Top Banana, the Broadway show and movie starring Phil Silvers but the e-mail was just too interesting. Take this one from James H. Burns...
It's fun to note that both Top Banana and Some Like It Hot feature Grace Lee Whitney, who actually made her Broadway debut in the former (and is in the band, in the latter). This is only of interest, perhaps, because folks are always stunned to find out that the actress who played Yeoman Janice Rand on Star Trek had been around that long! Happily, last time I saw her, Grace still looks like a million bucks, and more importantly, is still a swell gal.
Or take this one from Robert Holmen about the 3-D trailer I linked you all to. I got a number of these...
If your red-blue glasses are like almost all red-blue 3-D glasses, you will have to flip them so the red lens is on the right in order to properly view the Top Banana trailer. Whoever did the modern red-blue conversion
got it backwards (1950's 3-D movies were not released in red-blue). There is a certain percentage of the population that won't be able to tell the difference no matter how their glasses are flipped.
And lastly, here's one from Doug Dinger, who's the fellow who posted the video to which I linked...
As a long time reader and fan of your site, it was quite a suprise and thrill to see the trailer I posted to YouTube linked on your blog. Thanks.
A word of background; the trailer for Top Banana was never released in 3-D. They did, however, use the negative from the Left Eye camera. The feature release, however, used the Right Eye negative. Someone more clever than I noticed this, and was able to combine the two into anaglyph 3-D (which is why not every scene in the trailer is in 3-D - I guess they didn't consistently use the Left neg on the trailer.) At any rate, the trailer wouldn't have been Blue/Red 3-D anyway, since all 3-D films were released for polarized glasses.
But I guess we'll take what we can; I'm sure the original 3-D version is sitting in a can somewhere next to London After Midnight and Humorisk.
With Laurel & Hardy's Hats Off as the opening short. By the way, the Three Stooges made two 3-D shorts and you can download one of them from this site. And this Saturday out in Glendale, CA, the Alex Theater is running that same short (plus four 2-D Stooges shorts with Curly) as part of the 12th Annual Three Stooges Big Screen Event. I will not be there. I love the Stooges but (a) I'm not sure I could take five shorts in one sitting, (b) 3-D movies have a hypnotic effect on me that induces slumber and (c) I'm a little afraid of being in a room with that many Stooge fans.
This would conclude our little symposium on Top Banana except that I remembered and must share one anecdote that Phil Silvers told me during the one time I got to meet him. The show toured America and did fairly well everywhere...except opening night in Salt Lake City. Silvers said, "We lost the audience during the opening number. People even started walking out and I didn't understand why until a stage manager explained it during intermission."
There's an old burlesque catch-phrase that was quoted in that opening number. The lyric goes...
You gotta roll your eyes and make a funny face
Then do a take and holler, "This must be da place!"
The problem? It is written that Salt Lake City was founded when Mormon leader Brigham Young came upon the land and announced, "This is the place." The lyric would be changed for the second night and all performances thereafter...but the first-nighters thought Silvers was making fun of their religious heritage.
Wow. Lou Dobbs is considering a Senate run and he's just announced that he's in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens. The guy's been a politician for three days and already, he's pandering for possible votes by reversing his most strongly-held conviction.
I'm impressed. That usually takes most candidates an entire week.
There may be good arguments against the current Democratic Health Care Reform Bill. I still think they pale against the G.O.P. alternative, which seems to be start over, take our time and come up with something after we have full employment, no national debt and flying cars. But I'm open to the idea that some aspects of it could be improved.
One argument that I don't think has any validity — that's just a case of grasping for anything negative they can say about the bill — is how long it is. Sure, it's a big, complex bill. It's a big, complex problem. If the bill works, it doesn't matter how long it is. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter how short it is.
Underscoring this is that there were no complaints about length when the Republicans authored a transportation bill that was only 68 words shorter. Here's a little primer that proves that size doesn't matter.
Paul Castiglia writes to say...well, here. I'll cut 'n' paste and let you read it for yourself...
I'm not one to nitpick your classic comedy posts — you know more about the subject than I could ever hope to learn — but is it accurate to state that Jack Benny's film The Horn Blows at Midnight features "Margaret Dumont in a rare non-Marx appearance" when she also appeared in Kentucky Kernels and High Flyers with Wheeler & Woolsey, The Life of the Party with Joe Penner, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break with W.C. Fields, The Dancing Masters with Laurel & Hardy, Up in Arms with Danny Kaye, Seven Days Ashore with Brown & Carney and Little Giant with Abbott & Costello?
Of course, she made several other movies but my point is that there's always been this idea perpetuated, this misconception people have that Margaret Dumont was not only exclusively a foil for the Marx Brothers but in some folks' minds made nothing but Marx Brothers movies. And I think that gives short-shrift to her because obviously she was deemed worthy enough to co-star with Fields, Kaye, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello and even Wheeler & Woolsey whose names may mean zilch to most people today but as you know, being mega-successful at the box office, they were nothing to sneeze at, either.
I know you didn't mean it intentionally, but my thought is that when it comes to Dumont playing foil to classic comedians she had several opportunities beyond co-starring with the Marxes, so those appearances can't really be called "rare." Just my two cents.
Well, if I were Groucho, I'd probably say, "If you don't like 'rare,' how about 'medium well?' How about 'well-done with a side of gravy?'" But okay, you have a point. The lady did do a little more in her career than act clueless about Marx double entendres.
Here's kind of an interesting thing to think about. Ms. Dumont was so perfect in the role of a high-society dowager that directors and casting folks used to refer to that kind of character as "a Margaret Dumont role." When one turned up in a script, they'd describe it thusly and maybe try to hire her. I'll bet there were other actresses who were known for playing "Margaret Dumont roles" when she either wasn't available or if a director feared it was too obvious to book her. There were a lot of character actors back then who seemed synonymous with a certain on-screen function...like Jack Norton (who always played a drunk) or Fritz Feld (who always played a waiter) or Iris Adrian (who always played someone's cheap, loudmouthed girl friend).
So is there anyone like that today? Anyone who's so identified as a certain "type" that they're the obvious casting — or at least, model — for a certain kind of role? I can't think of anyone.
As I mentioned recently here, some friends of mine and I went to see Lewis Black perform down in Cerritos. He tours constantly and if he gets anywhere near you, go. I've seen him live about five times now. Once, the sound system was so dreadful that I didn't enjoy it all that much...but the other visits were wonderful. Every time, he had new and topical material.
Recently, he did a concert film called Stark Raving Black which I believe included much of what he did down in Cerritos last week. The movie played briefly in theaters and can now be viewed (for $) at an online viewing site called epix. Early in 2010, the film's supposed to be on Comedy Central (probably with lots of bleeps) and there'll be an unbleeped DVD release, we hear. Below is a short trailer...
November 24, 2009
