While I’m on the subject of Columbia shorts…

The above photo is what I have currently as my desktop background on my computer—I like this photo a great deal, particularly since it features my favorite Stooge, Shemp Howard. My father stops by Rancho Yesteryear Friday and hands me a missive he’s dashed off that he wants me to submit to the Shreve group on Yahoo!.com.…

The Great Chase

Some of you who have been reading Thrilling Days of Yesteryear recently may be familiar with a gentleman named Yair Solan, an individual who’s been the architect of The World of Charley Chase (a website dedicated to the legendary silent-sound comedian whose forte was the two-reel comedy) for many, many years now. Yair sent me an e-mail last night asking…

DVR-TiVo-Or whatever recording device strikes your fancy-alert!

If you have the misfortune to subscribe to the now bankrupt CharredHer Cable service, occasionally a small beam of sunlight will manage to waft its way down and illuminate your otherwise dreary cable-watching existence. I’m speaking of, of course, the fact that CharredHer does offer up free movies and shorts on their TCM on Demand…

R.I.P, Jane Randolph

I saw the notice of actress Jane Randolph’s passing at the age of 93 at Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings yesterday and meant to comment on it but became preoccupied working on other things. You should go ahead and read her post, however—Laura mentions a couple of interesting tidbits about Randolph's career, including the fact that she served as a skating model for…

Movies that I’ve stared at recently on TCM #30 (Jungle Jim edition)

In 1948, just after completing Tarzan and the Mermaids (his final contribution to the long-running series based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs), Johnny Weissmuller quickly found another paycheck awaiting him when he signed up with super-cheap film producer Sam Katzman to do a series of programmers based on the popular comic strip Jungle Jim, created…

Of dogs, and book blurbs, and lowcountry boils…

Well, there’s not much of substance to offer up on the ol’ blog today—I spent most of the afternoon watching the Jungle Jim movies TCM scheduled in order to have a post for tomorrow and my morning was preoccupied with accompanying me mudder to Publix for some groceries—but I did have a couple of things I wanted…

“By the way…my name is Nick Charles…”

Edward Copeland was kind enough to ask me to contribute an essay to his blog this week, knowing full well that such a decision could result in a great deal of embarrassment and possible ostracization in the cinematic blogosphere. He also suggested that I could cross-post the entry on both of our blogs, and while that’s a mighty…

As time goes by

Last night while watching television, I found myself confronted with one of thorny decisions that require careful analysis and deliberation…before flipping a coin: should I watch A Walk in the Sun (1945), a favorite war film of mine directed by Lewis Milestone and featuring an all-star cast in Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, and Lloyd Bridges? Or should…

R.I.P, Joan Alexander

I saw a notice on Mark Evanier’s blog this morning (how I missed it yesterday still has me puzzled, since I read it practically every day) that OTR actress Joan Alexander has gone on to her rich reward at the age of 94. Mark points out that her most famous radio role was that of…

Movies that I’ve stared at recently on TCM #29 (Michael Sarrazin edition)

Harry in Your Pocket (1973) – Back in January 2008, I wrote a rather glowing review (which was appropriate, as it was a glowing product) of All Day Entertainment’s DVD box set Harry Langdon: Lost and Found and decided to use the title of this rarely seen film as a clever title for the post as well. Since that time, I…