imd(um)b (was Crackpot Film History)

[Rob Farr]

From imdb's entry on Roscoe Arbuckle: Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
He was one of the very first, if not first person to actually own his films. As the studios, at the time, saw no reason to keep movies, since they would only be shown in cinemas once, Roscoe decided to own the films himself. This has subsequently made his heirs very rich.

File under the category, When You Have Nothing to Say, Just Make Shit Up.

[Steve Rydzewski]

You had me believing this, Rob. Now lay of the Crack! ;-)

SteveR

[Richard M Roberts]

Also from imd(um)b's Arbuckle bio:



"Roscoe wrote his own stories first, tried them out and then devised funny twists to generate the laughs."


Have you ever seen such cogent comedy construction commentary?


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Bruce Calvert]

Right now somebody on Wikipedia is using this as their source for an article on Arbuckle...

And right now some student is copying this information into their essay for school...

[Pasquale Ventura]

This part made me laugh:

"Arbuckle went to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone film studio at $40 a week. For the next 3-1/2 years he never starred or even featured, but appeared in hundreds of one-reel comedies. He would play mostly policemen, usually with the Keystone Kops, but he also played different parts. He would work with Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Charles Chaplin, among others, and would learn about the process of making movies from Henry Lehrman, who directed all but two of his pictures. Roscoe was a gentle and genteel man off screen and always believed that Sennett never thought that he was funny."

Here's another bucket of skunk-wad.....

"Arbuckle's acquittal marked the end of his comedic acting career. Unable to return to the screen, he later found work as a comedy director for Al St. John, Buster Keaton and others under the pseudonym "William Goodrich" (he was inspired to use this pseudonym by Keaton, who suggested Arbuckle use the name "Will B. Good"). "

Wasn't Goodrich his fathers name?

[Richard M Roberts]

Another Classic, from the Buster Keaton imd(um)b bio:

"His last film work was The Railrodder (1965), but because it was such a short film it was released before other movies, like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), which had completed filming before "The Railrodder"."

Wrongo.

"His older son was born during his marriage to Natalie Talmadge."


As opposed to his youngest son being born............after?..............his marriage to Natalie Talmadge? Is there a family scandal we do not know about?


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Ed Watz]

Imdb "trivia" about Vernon Dent:

"According to Emil Sitka in various interviews, Dent was completely blind by 1955 brought about by diabetes. Many of his friends and colleagues did not know it until the funeral of Dent's longtime friend Shemp Howard, when they noticed that a man had to lead him over to Shemp's casket."

Emil Sitka told this to a small group of us at Erwin Dumbrille's house. Emil said he had not been aware that Vernon went blind until he saw Dent at Shemp's funeral. Emil didn't mention anyone else, this was his own personal observation about Dent. And as far as I know, this story was recounted in print just once, in the Columbia Comedy Shorts book.

The way that imdb "embellishes" what they call trivia reminds me of the guy who never really listens to you in conversation. Later he'll repeat what he thinks you "might have told him."

[Paul E. Gierucki]

He was one of the very first, if not first person to actually own his films. As the studios, at the time, saw no reason to keep movies, since they would only be shown in cinemas once, Roscoe decided to own the films himself. This has subsequently made his heirs very rich.

Arbuckle claimed that he had a complete library of his own films -- but that
archive never surfaced. At no point did he own the rights to his own films,
save for several small things which he produced on himself - a topic for later
discussion. Too, the bit about the heirs getting rich is, well, rich. Addie had
to fight for the few scraps which were left behind.

As you say, all made up. Total BS.

[Richard M Roberts]

Another bon-mot of wisdom, this time from their Harry Langdon bio:


"Langdon went back on the vaudeville circuit, but in 1929 he was hired by the Hal Roach Studios to make shorts. The talkies were not kind to Langdon, whose voice allegedly was damaged by a quack treating him for a childhood illness. In the talkies he typically spoke in falsetto, but his squeaky voice sometimes would break into a basso profondo on the soundtrack. Langdon's days as a star, already in eclipse, were over. After eight shorts, Roach fired him."



RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

Todays classic comes from the Lila Lee bio:


"Lila's erratic screen career was triggered by severe bouts with what was euphemistically referred to as tuberculosis, but whispered to be the results of acute alcoholism."


Tuberculosis is not a "euphemism" for alcoholism, it's a "euphemism" for tuberculosis, which Lee did suffer bouts of in the early thirties, in fact, she recuperated in one of the TB Sanitariums in Prescott, Arizona during her worst attack of it in late 1930. Having TB was a bigger stigma then than being an alcoholic, and even more deadly, but how can we expect someone unable to grasp film history much less medical history and terminology to get it right, and God Forbid they don't write anything at all.

So imd(um)b is not only printing total bullshit presented as fact, it is also presenting nasty and untrue gossip as fact.


RICHARD M ROBERTS