D.W. Griffith on location, 1923 October 31. (Library of Congress)
Archive for the ‘movie history’ Category
“America”
Posted in movie history, tagged 1923, america, D.W. Griffith, film history on October 31, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Things To Come
Posted in movie history, Videos, tagged 1936, 2036, British film, decision fatigue, film history, future history, H.G. Wells, science fiction on October 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
"Mr. Wells evolving a cosmic thought" by William H. Cotton, 1935 (Library iof Congress)
Charles Dickens was still alive in September 1866 when H.G. Wells was born in Bromley, County of Kent, England. Wells died in 1946, a year after WWII ended. The technological, scientific and social changes which occurred during his life were huge. He spent his life pondering — and attempting to influence — the future.
While some of Wells’ ideas are shocking and repugnant, the pessimism he expressed in his last book, Mind at the End of its Tether, is well founded.
H.G. Wells, 1905 (Library of Congress)
The current level of technological change has brought a degree of complexity to everyday life that cannot be sustained. People are indeed reaching the end of their tether.
Things to Come (1936) is a movie adaptation, which Wells wrote, of his 1933 novel The Shape of Things To Come, a dystopic view of life from 1936 to 2036 which questions the price of “progress.”
I don’t have time for this!
Posted in movie history, Videos, tagged 1970, Arthur Lowe, Dudley Moore, Harry Secombe, John Antrobus, Marty Feldman, Michael Hordern, Peter Cook, post-apocalyptic fiction, Ralph Richardson, Richard Lester, Spike Milligan on July 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Okay, so I was crawling around in Youtube initially looking at video of the moon landing in July 1969, then discovered a wonderful channel, Shakespeare and More, then another which then brought me to a third which has a movie I’m cuing up to watch later. It looks like hot stuff!
The Bed Sitting Room (1970)
Directed by Richard Lester
Cast: Arthur Lowe, Michael Hordern, Ralph Richardson, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Marty Feldman
Script by John Antrobus, based on a play he wrote with Spike Milligan
John Hodson at From The Cheap Seats describes it this way:
Focusing on a tiny group of survivors following the “nuclear misunderstanding” that was World War 3, all of two minutes and 28 seconds long “including signing the peace treaty”, we find a disparate cross-section of British society muddling through in a radiation ravaged landscape…and slowly mutating into a parrot (Arthur Lowe in full pompous mode), a wardrobe (the ever delightful Mona Washbourne), a dog (get down Dudley Moore!) plus, best of all, the eponymous bed sitting room (the eye-wateringly wonderful Ralph Richardson, as the unfortunate Lord Fortnum of Alamein).
This is the first of nine parts. Go here to watch parts 2 through 9.
“A Short Vision”
Posted in cartoons, Historical Information, movie history, tagged animated films, British Film Institute, Ed Sullivan Show on June 27, 2009| 1 Comment »
Directors: Joan & Peter Foldes
Production Company: British Film Institute Experimental Film Fund
Producers: Joan & Peter Foldes
Written by Joan & Peter Foldes
Music : Mátyás Seiber
Commentator: James McKechnie
(British Film Institute) A Short Vision [1956] became one of the most influential British animated films ever made when it was screened on US television as part of the popular Ed Sullivan Show. Although children were advised to leave the room while it played, it still caused outrage and alarm with its graphic representation of the horrors of nuclear war. But it also caught the mood of the times, since the mid-1950s was the height of both the Cold War and nuclear paranoia, as depicted (sometimes allegorically) in such American films as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).
Thanks to Buphonia for introducing us to the British Film Institute @ Youtube!
New Rules
Posted in God machine, how we live, movie history, Politics Straight Up, tagged atheism, Edmund Kean, Emma Thompson, freedom from religion, Kenneth Branagh, morality, Shakespeare on June 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Political cartoon showing Edmund Kean and Charles Mayne Young, both dressed as Richard III, struggling for Shakespeare, who stands between them. Published by S. Knight, London, 1814.
But more interesting was a quote in the “personal life” section that I tracked back to an October 2008 interview in The Australian regarding Ms. Thompson’s views of religion:
“I’m an atheist; I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It’s not enough to say that I don’t believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Koran, and I refute them.”
She knows she’s being controversial, but she believes passionately in what she says, and passionately believes it needs saying.
“I think that the Bible as a system of moral guidance in the 21st century is insufficient, to put it mildly.”
Emma Thompson not only makes great movies, she makes great sense.
The Best of Two Worlds
Posted in movie history, music, Videos, tagged Easy Rider, Jimi Hendrix, music video, Steppenwolf on April 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Jimi Hendrix and Easy Rider
And just because we can … here’s some Steppenwolf from the same film:
And some Smith:
Know Your Crazed Hollywood Directors: Tod Browning
Posted in Historical Information, movie history, tagged 1932, early movies, Tod Browning on April 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Tod Browning, married at the age of 16 to a circus “dancer,” directed, among many other movies, the 1932 Freaks which cast actual carnival performers.
(DeafMovier) When released theatrically in 1932, FREAKS was met with near universal disgust by critics and audiences alike, lasting in theatres for only a short time in the states and banned in England. The film stars Harry Earles as Hans, a suave midget who belongs to the sideshow of a seedy circus and who makes the mistake of falling in love with the beautiful Cleopatra, one of the “normal” circus performers. Learning that Hans is about to inherit a fortune, Cleopatra agrees to marry Hans even though she abhors him, planning to steal his money and get rid of him. When the freaks of the circus, who keep a watchful eye on Cleopatra, discover her scheme, they plan to exact an unforgettable revenge.
The original ending was changed multiple times after audiences and censors were horrified.
Here’s Prince Randian, “the human worm,” lighting a cigarette in a scene from the film:
The entire film is up at Youtube. Watch the first part here:
See also my earlier post about Fritzi Ridgeway.
Know Your Silent Film Stars: Fritzi Ridgeway
Posted in Historical Information, movie history, tagged Bakalainikoff, Bakaleinikoff, Douglas Fairbanks, Fritzi Ridgeway, silent film star, Tod Browning on April 2, 2009| 2 Comments »
Fritzi Ridgeway. April 2, 1924
Fritzi Ridgeway was born in Butte, Montana on April 8, 1898. She died of a heart attack in California on March 29, 1969. Appearing in 54 films between 1916 and 1934, half of her film work was done between 1916 and 1919, before the introduction of sound movies. She appeared in several films by direct Tod Browning who is most well known for the 1931 film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi and the 1932 film Freaks which had a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. Internet archives has Browning’s 1916 film The Leaping Fish in which Coke Ennyday (played by Douglas Fairbanks), the scientific and dope-consuming detective, helps the police combat opium smuggling at an beach inflatable rental business and “the blackmail of a mysterious man.” It’s astonishing.
Ridgeway’s roles were usually supporting, mostly villains. A former trick rider, she starred in a series of Western two-reelers in 1920 with Bob Burns who, like Ridgeway, usually played supporting roles. Oddly, the 1920 two-reelers don’t appear to be listed on Ridgeway’s IMDb page. Burns appeared in 357 films between 1911 and 1957.
She was married for a time to musical director Constantin Bakalainikoff (sometimes written Bakaleinikoff). There is no information available to me as to how long they were married but my guess is that it was not very long.
In May 1930 Ridgeway got into trouble with the City of Los Angeles and had to put up an 8-foot fence around her 2836 Beachwood Drive home to stop her “vicious dog, Volk, an Alaskan male mute” from attacking her neighbors.
After retiring from acting, Fritzi Ridgeway managed the Del Tarquez Hotel in Palm Springs, California. No word whether she brought Volk with her. The Del Tarquez does not appear to still exist.
Unfortunately, Ridgeway’s films do not appear to be available on the intertubes, either in their entirety or as clips, but here’s Spring Night, “an early experimental ballet film, choreographed and danced by David Lichine and the beautiful American dancer Nana Gollner,” produced in 1935, for which Bakalainikoff conducted the music.
Somewhere Else Altogether