Welcome to SBBN’s new weekly movie serial, Raiders of Ghost City (1944). This fine matinee fare is brought to you by a generous contribution from SBBN partner in crime and official alibi Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Thank you, Ivan! The plan, and there’s always a plan though it often doesn’t…
All posts in 2013
Bathing Beauty Days: Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson: Glamorous star of the cinema or victim of a horrible smear campaign designed to make her seem mortal, adorable and occasionally clad in a swimsuit, just like those harlot Sennett broads? Gloria Swanson clowning around with Phyllis Haver while on the set of The Pullman Bride (1917), absolutely not being a Bathing Beauty…
Elsewhere on the Internet: B-Rolls, Bergman and Bukowski
One of my goals for this year is to read more about art, film, literature, creative people, musicians, anyone fascinating. Instead of posting links only to my own content elsewhere on the web, I’d like to also share some of the more interesting articles I’ve found. I was going to call this feature Things I…
King Kong (1933)
This exhibition print by noted Hollywood still photographer Ernest Bachrach is the best King Kong promotional ever. Another Bachrach exhibition print. Bachrach did a notable series of photos of Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. During his time at RKO, he did a lovely set of close-up stills on Katharine Hepburn for Alice Adams, several…
February Movies to Watch For
Here are some films on Fox Movie Channel, Sundance and TCM for the month of February, 2013 that you might be interested in. Remember, these movies may be edited, time compressed, in the wrong aspect ratio, have commercial interruptions, or be pre-empted for a marathon of Tony Danza shows, the bad ones that only ran…
Bette’s Got It All
After browsing through a few hundred of saved pictures of Bette Davis, as one often does in the wee hours of the morning, I stumbled across this little number labeled “unidentified:” Unidentified? Hardly! It’s a promotional still (in color!) of Bette’s turn in a 1959 episode of “Wagon Train” entitled “The Elizabeth McQueeny Story,” where…
Happy Birthday, Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly Born January 13, 1931 Seen here during rehearsals for the 1964 Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! A plethora of terrific pictures from the production can be found here.
Happy Birthday to Monte Blue!
Monte Blue Born January 11, 1887 See more Monte Blue pictures at my Flickr gallery here Monte is one of my favorite character actors. He doesn’t get mentioned enough around these parts, but I hope to change that soon.
More of What We Need: Una Merkel
Una Merkel is terrific. Una is the savior of many a pre-Code musical and post-Code comedy, her sarcasm as wide as those big doe eyes of hers. Hollywood, especially the Hollywood Una resided in, was obsessed with glamour, and if a movie star wasn’t busy being fabulous they had better be singing or dancing, or,…
Serious Sport and Fair Play: The Footloose Heiress (1937)
A successful movie will necessarily have its imitators, and it would be disingenuous to claim The Footloose Heiress (1937) was anything but a quickie knock-off of the incredibly popular My Man Godfrey released less than six months prior. Yet rather than simply steal from the better, earlier film, Heiress borrows one aspect and essentially riffs…