Adventures in Roku II: Texas Blood Money

The recent acquisition of the Roku in the House of Yesteryear has been both a source of welcome entertainment (for your humble narrator) and amusement (also for your humble narrator, because his mother is now calling it the “Yoko”).  I mentioned in this last post that I am fast becoming a fan of some of…

Where’s That Been? – Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941)

Once again, I apologize (with hat in hand) to the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful for the fallow blog of late; a lot of my copious free time has been sacrificed to Radio Spirits assignments and their blog (not that I’m complaining, mind you—there's money in that gig) and the remainder seems to be taken…

“Possessed of an instinct keener than man, Wolfheart suspects evil doings…”

Last month, as I was entertaining myself with the two-reel comedies on The Sprocket Vault set Thelma Todd & ZaSu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931-33, I spotted one of the blog’s favorite character actors, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, in two of the Thel-Zase entries.  In Catch-As-Catch-Can (1931), Guinn is the lovable lug of a…

Workin’ for the (freeview) weekend

Good news, everyone!  DISH has bestowed upon us a "freeview" weekend of the Epix movie channel...and that's always most welcome here in the House of Yesteryear because while I'll admit their film offerings may suffer from a mild case of same-ol'-same-ol' (we're only getting the free weekend because Epix is promoting a new series entitled…

Encore! Encore!

If you’re a regular visitor to this ‘umble scrap of the blogosphere you’re probably aware that I’d had issues with the DISH people from time to time.  Since the current Rancho Yesteryear the ‘rents and I occupy is located just outside the town limits of Winterville (a.k.a. City of Marigolds) in neighboring Oglethorpe County, we…

Movies I’ve stared at recently on TCM #69

I shall take you into my confidence right now and let you know it’s going to be a busy April.  There’ll be a goodly number of items up on the Radio Spirits blog within the next week or so, and I’m also hard at work writing liner notes for one of their upcoming releases.  In addition, I’m trying to…

Another fabulous Thrilling Days of Yesteryear giveaway!

Mea maxima culpas for being away from the blog for so long but I’m in the homestretch of completing a project for the good people at Radio Spirits…which will open up endless possibilities to invest in a little DVD-age—particularly a new VCI release that’s in the hopper, the 1945 “lost” Columbia serial Brenda Starr, Reporter and a pair…

Let a tune be your guide

Whenever I tune into Encore Westerns I do so mostly to watch the classic television oaters like Gunsmoke and Maverick—but I have to admit I’ve been enjoying another popular offering on the channel: namely, the B-westerns that singing cowboy star Gene Autry made for Republic and Columbia between 1935 and 1953.  These sagebrush sagas have the added benefit of…

Death be not proud

As of this posting, Turner Classic Movies is running a 24-hour cinematic tribute to Tony Curtis, the veteran film star who passed away on September 29 at the age of 85.  Practically every classic movie blogger and his/her brother/sister made notice of “Bernie Schwartz’s” demise, but the only reason why I didn’t get something up is…

It’s a MOD MOD MOD MOD world

Both Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings and 50 Westerns from the 50s have mentioned Sony Pictures’ new “manufactured on demand” website—a place where you can order those elusive classic movie titles the company just can’t seem to justify releasing on DVD the old-fashioned way, much in the manner of the Warner Archive, Universal, Fox/MGM, etc. The titles they have available right now are a…