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TCM is finishing up New Year's Day showing "Gasoloons." That's this Sunday at 11:43pm ET. I'm hoping this is the start of their showing the RKO two reelers and wonder if this might answer some questions re:who holds the rights now. Hi Robert! Unfortunately it's doubtful that the Jan. 1st ...

Curly Howard and Duke York (as "Lupe The Wolf Man") do the mirror routine in the 1944 Three Stooges short IDLE ROOMERS. Hello Richard, and thanks for reminding me - Curly's initial reaction to his "reflection" is priceless. It's one of his last strong performances before the ill...

This bit had to had originated on stage. It just screams 'vaudeville routine.' And yet I've never read of any stage comic performing this.... Good God, it goes back to Commedia Del Arte' ! I remember once sitting among a group of historians trying to figure out just how far back one could trace tha...

Ed - the clip of Harold Lloyd doing the mirror routine used in THE THIRD GENIUS is from THE MARATHON ('19), which is at Eastman House. About a year ago I was watching a bunch of Alice Guy Blanche's Solax films and came across the earliest use of the routine that I've seen - 1912's HIS DOUBLE, where...

It's been just the opposite in my experience. I've seen DUCK SOUP several times in packed theatres, from the old Beverly in West Hollywood to the AFI's Silver in Maryland. In every case, audiences roared so loud and so long after the first few seconds, that the lack of music and sound was absolutel...

Louie, I hope you are still working on your El Brendel book...I mean, look at my Magnum Opus - Wheeler & Woolsey, for corn sakes! McFarland published it, and it even returned as a paperback, people generally liked it, even those who dislike W&W's films (or W&W themselves). As Richard sai...

Boy, do I have lots of catching up to do...a few years' back someone from this family reached out to me, inquiring if I could help them secure 16mm prints on certain RKO titles. (I later learned that a certain movie buff, who is not a member of this site, pointed the Saltzmans in my direction.) The ...

Two years on, and I'm still reveling in Brent's Mack Sennett book, I'm just as pleased as that Christmas Day in 2009. I don't believe I've carried a book around with me so often since my ninth birthday when I received THE FILMS OF LAUREL & HARDY, back in '67. Brent, your book is an almost-perman...

I just like the way that McCarey stages both versions with Chase and the Marxes. And he must had to since many of the same shots from SITTING PRETTY are in DUCK SOUP. ) In my experience with audiences, the Marx Brothers version is one of those rare examples where a classic comedy scene plays better...

Speaking of Educational's pick-ups from other producers - were any of the Stan Laurel comedies for Joe Rock issued by Educational with music tracks (soon after Van Bueren reissued the Chaplin Mutuals)? I used to own a beat-up print of HALF A MAN with synchronized 1930's music & effects but it wa...