From Those Were the Days:

1957 - Funnyman Stan Freberg debuted a new weekly comedy program on CBS Radio beginning this night. Freberg was a late entry into the radio program race, though he was well known for many famous radio commercials over the years. The Freberg show only lasted a short time and that newfangled contraption, television, was blamed for the show’s quick demise.
10:28:31 AM    comment []  trackback []  

Odds and ends

I have no idea what was going on at the motel last night, but we were très, très busy. One of the guests mentioned something about a Ranger Ball (I jokingly refer to it as the Ranger Cotillion); it appears that she had a falling-out with her date and wanted to audition me for a small part in her budding psychodrama by getting me to let her into the room so she could get her stuff. (Hey, I let her in—what can I say? I’m a people person.)

I got a few DVDs in the mail yesterday, including Fancy Pants (1950) with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball (which I like, although I'll readily admit it can’t hold a candle to the 1935 original, Ruggles of Red Gap). Some time back, when Universal was releasing those Bob Hope double features I wondered why they couldn’t have paired their Sorrowful Jones (1949) release with Fancy (what they ended up doing was using The Paleface as the second feature—which I had already bought on DVD) and I guess my question has been answered since Fancy is a Paramount Home Video release. I also scored copies of The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) (for some unknown reason, this is one of those rare movies that I’ll sit and watch the entire thing if I happen upon it while flipping channels), The Tin Star (1957) and The President’s Analyst (1967).

Got the latest issue of SPERDVAC’s Radiogram in the mail; it’s the usually top-notch product, with articles on Ronald Reagan’s radio career and a one-time producer for Fibber McGee & Molly. Return With Us Now, the newsletter from RHAC, also arrived as well—with an article on the history of the NBC Chimes.

Speaking of OTR—and I’m kind of embarrassed about this, but the First Generation Radio Archives’ Premier Collection offering this month is a 10-CD set of Birds’ Eye Open House programs, a popular NBC variety show in the 1940s starring Dinah Shore. I would have mentioned it sooner, but I haven’t gotten around to ordering a copy yet—but fear not, because the liner notes—as composed by historian Elizabeth McLeod and FGRA’s own Harlan Zinck—indicate that this set is a keeper (and I’m glad that this collection is available for the entire month, because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to order one in time).

I also wanted to tout a book that I’m currently enjoying—The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties, written by Sam Kashner and Jennifer McNair. When I read author James (L.A. Confidential) Ellroy’s comment that the book was “a City of Nets for hipsters and low-lifes” I knew I had to have a copy—City of Nets, by Otto Friedrich, is one of my all-time favorite books on the movies. I’ve only just started Bad, but what I have read so far is primo stuff.

Finally, a small rant. Yes, I am ecstatic that both Universal and Warner Home Video have taken the initiative to start releasing some of their classic film noirs to DVD—what I’d like to know is, why can’t 20th Century-Fox follow suit? Fox is sitting on some great stuff—Nightmare Alley (1947), Call Northside 777 (1948), Thieves’ Highway (1949), Night and the City (1950)—and I think it’s high time they got with the program.

But just to prove that democracy is not dead, Warner Home Video is conducting another poll, asking movie fans to choose from a list of twenty films as to which five films should be the next to receive the treatment on DVD. The last time they did this, you could only vote if you had AOL (which probably explains why only one of my choices got tabbed, The Postman Always Rings Twice), so I’m pleased that they’ve opened the polling up and have posted it at the Turner Classics Movies website. Vote early and often, as we say in West Virginia (although I’m sure it’s heard in other places as well).
10:26:48 AM    comment []  trackback []