Tweet My Favorite Hollywood In-Joke

In "Donovan's Reef" the inter-island schooner, on which a character arrives, has the same name as John Ford's yacht. Indeed it may well be his yacht standing in.

It's not really an In-Joke, but in Gold Diggers of 1933 Ned Sparks shouts "Cancel my contract with Warren & Dubin"

[Christopher Jacobs]

It's not really an In-Joke, but in Gold Diggers of 1933 Ned Sparks shouts "Cancel my contract with Warren & Dubin"

I'd say that was an in-joke, as the only people who would find it funny would be those who remembered that Warren & Dubin composed the songs for the film (likely quite a few people when the movie came out, but only film buffs already familiar with WB musicals today).

D. W. Griffith's THE LONEDALE OPERATOR includes a closeup of a telegram signed "G. W. B." -- Billy Bitzer's initials. Whether that is original to the film or part of the reconstruction for the DVD, however, I don't know. In any case, it is rather amusing for those who can make the connection.

In THE EGG AND I, Claudette Colbert has trouble with a stubborn cow named Cleopatra.
In THE STORY OF MANKIND, Vincent Price declares that he knows nothing about Art. In the same film, Alexander Graham Bell is played by Jim Ameche, Don's brother.
In SOME LIKE IT HOT, George Raft sees a hoodlum flipping a coin and sneers "Where'd you learn a cheap trick like that?" (The hood, BTW, is played by Edward G. Robinson Jr.)
In THE APARTMENT, Billy Wilder references his previous Oscar-winning film when a character looks at Jack Lemmon's dishevelled apartment and says, "Talk about a lost weekend!"
In NINOTCHKA, Garbo is asked if she wants to be alone. "No", she replies.
In THE MUSIC MAN, Robert Preston references the famous opera star Madame Rini. Meredith Willson's wife was named Rini.

Some things are in-jokes only in retrospect. Hamilton Macfadden directed the Chan picture THE BLACK CAMEL with Warner Oland in 1931. When it was remade a few years later as Charlie Chan in Rio (with Sidney Toler) Macfadden was in the cast as an actor.

Some things are in-jokes only in retrospect. Hamilton Macfadden directed the Chan picture THE BLACK CAMEL with Warner Oland in 1931. When it was remade a few years later as Charlie Chan in Rio (with Sidney Toler) Macfadden was in the cast as an actor.

The real in-joke/cameo in "The Black Camel" is that the cinematogrpher for the film company is played by cinematographer Dan Clark, who phptographed the film.

Some things are in-jokes only in retrospect. Hamilton Macfadden directed the Chan picture THE BLACK CAMEL with Warner Oland in 1931. When it was remade a few years later as Charlie Chan in Rio (with Sidney Toler) Macfadden was in the cast as an actor.

The real in-joke/cameo in "The Black Camel" is that the cinematogrpher for the film company is played by cinematographer Dan Clark, who phptographed the film.

Hm. Then what did Joe August photograph?

I haven't seen the film in 20 years, but I recall a scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy where George M. Cohan runs into an old friend (possibly Eddie Foy, but I don't recall offhand) who suggests going out for a beer, and Cohan says he'd rather have a Moxie, a reference to the fact that Cohan did endorsements for Moxie in the 1920s, appearing on posters and in ads that showed up in Playbill.

When Bebe Daniels rises from a table at which she's been seated in My Past, reading, while waiting for Ben Lyon to arrive, the camera moves in to focus closely on the book she just laid down: The Maltese Falcon.

It's not really an In-Joke, but in Gold Diggers of 1933 Ned Sparks shouts "Cancel my contract with Warren & Dubin"

And in "Dames", there is a spoken reference to chorus girls "Miss Warren, Miss Dubin".
Alistair

I forgot one. In BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, Mia Farrow is impressed by the photo of Frank Sinatra in Woody Allen's office.

I found it funny in A Chump At Oxford when Ollie announces dinner to the party, "There's everything from soup to nuts." The whole dinner scene/Soup to Nuts remake is one of my favorite parts of that movie.

[silentfilm]

Don't kill me, but I had to watch Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon with my teenage sons tonight. Without seeing his name in the credits, I recognized Leonard Nimoy's voice as "Sentinel Prime". It was even more obvious since Star Trek was playing on a TV early in the film with a scene featuring Spock. Near the end of the film, his "transformer" says the famous line from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

In 1933's "Lady Killer," the characters played by James Cagney and Mae Clarke are in a train terminal deciding where they should skip out to, to dodge the law. The California travel brochure Cagney is reading gives the state's pluses. When he reads out the word "grapefruit," Clarke makes a face. In 1931's "Public Enemy," Cagney's character gets angry and shoves half a grapefruit into Clarke's face as they are eating at a table. The transcript below is from the scene in "Lady Killer."
---
388
00:25:28,366 --> 00:25:30,501
An awful lot of places to go.

389
00:25:30,666 --> 00:25:32,134
-Wanna go to Europe?
-That's out.

390
00:25:32,299 --> 00:25:34,969
You can't get out of this country
without paying your income tax.

391
00:25:35,133 --> 00:25:38,069
Mm. That income tax.
I wish l had a piece of that racket.

392
00:25:38,233 --> 00:25:41,035
-Hey. what about Florida?
-Uh-uh.

393
00:25:41,299 --> 00:25:43,435
Too many hurricanes,
Blow you right out of bed.

394
00:25:43,599 --> 00:25:46,069
Wake up in the morning
and find a boat in your lap.

395
00:25:47,266 --> 00:25:49,735
Ah. California.

396
00:25:49,966 --> 00:25:53,402
"Land of eternal sunshine.
Ideal climate. year round. No fog. No rain."

397
00:25:53,566 --> 00:25:56,902
-Let's go out there and get sunburned.
-Let's see what else they've got.

398
00:25:59,433 --> 00:26:03,170
Aha. "Sunkist oranges. lemons. prunes.
figs. grapefruit--"

[At this point, the character played by Mae Clarke
makes a face.]

399
00:26:03,333 --> 00:26:04,967
Uh-huh. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

400
00:26:06,033 --> 00:26:07,334
I got an idea.

401
00:26:07,500 --> 00:26:09,501
Let's try a little roulette.

402
00:26:23,333 --> 00:26:26,402
"Los Angeles." Ha-ha-ha.

403
00:26:27,033 --> 00:26:28,868
I crown you.

404
00:26:29,633 --> 00:26:31,568
And away we go.

In Yukon Jake, Ben Turpin encounters a sign at the
North Pole that reads North of 36. This sequence
was in a segment of When Comedy Was King.
The narrator of that documentary suggests it was
a plug for the Irvin Willat directed film that was released
the same year, 1924.

In Yukon Jake, Ben Turpin encounters a sign at the
North Pole that reads North of 36. This sequence
was in a segment of When Comedy Was King.
The narrator of that documentary suggests it was
a plug for the Irvin Willat directed film that was released
the same year, 1924.

Why would Sennett be plugging a Paramount film? It's probably a reference to the 1923 source novel by Emerson Hough.

Mine here is a Hollywood in-joke I stumbled across awhile back that's more inside than most. So inside, I may likely be wrong. During the whole of Burning Up, every time Richard Arlen and Mary Brian were in a clinch ready to kiss it was a) in blackness, or b) interrupted. This may have been a nod to Welford Beaton, who detested onscreen kissing (he said he was no prude but his dislike of lip-mashing was strong enough to escape his framing of it as a screen banality). I place my rickety suppositions upon the foundation that Beaton noted Mary Brian (among others) was a prime offender/victim of this, and that Eddie Sutherland was known as a prankster. Sutherland may have been gently razzing and giving Beaton what he wanted simultaneously.

So, let the teardown begin!

In Yukon Jake, Ben Turpin encounters a sign at the
North Pole that reads North of 36. This sequence
was in a segment of When Comedy Was King.
The narrator of that documentary suggests it was
a plug for the Irvin Willat directed film that was released
the same year, 1924.

Why would Sennett be plugging a Paramount film? It's probably a reference to the 1923 source novel by Emerson Hough.

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but I believe the gag shows a sign reading "North of 57", in the shape of a (Heinz) pickle (as in "57 Varieties"), which leads the narrator to say, "What a pickle! And what a plug..."

A favorite Hollywood in-joke of mine is the way Director/Producer Jules White's name is cleverly worked into the opening scene of this comedy short:
(For those who haven't seen it, and those who have but may not have noticed the in-joke, I won't describe it. But see it here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk7oQlP8 ... re=related

In Yukon Jake, Ben Turpin encounters a sign at the
North Pole that reads North of 36. This sequence
was in a segment of When Comedy Was King.
The narrator of that documentary suggests it was
a plug for the Irvin Willat directed film that was released
the same year, 1924.

Why would Sennett be plugging a Paramount film? It's probably a reference to the 1923 source novel by Emerson Hough.

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but I believe the gag shows a sign reading "North of 57", in the shape of a (Heinz) pickle (as in "57 Varieties"), which leads the narrator to say, "What a pickle! And what a plug..."

Thank you for the correction. I saw When Comedy Was King 5 years ago and for some reason North 0f 36 stuck
in my mind.

In BENGAL BRIGADE Rock Hudson's character talks briefly about marrying his sweetheart and then says something along the lines of "No, I can't marry you - for a moment I forgot what I am." Sounds like an in-joke by the writers.

[Christopher Jacobs]

As noted in the Massillon Cinesation thread, there is a very funny in-joke in one of Charley Chase's scenes in KELLY THE SECOND (1936) that refers to a key scene in PRIVATE WORLDS (1935) and makes very little sense to anyone who has not seen that film.

I'm rather partial to Buster's quick hat change after putting on a Porkpie in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. Always gets a laugh from the audience.

As noted in the Massillon Cinesation thread, there is a very funny in-joke in one of Charley Chase's scenes in KELLY THE SECOND (1936) that refers to a key scene in PRIVATE WORLDS (1935) and makes very little sense to anyone who has not seen that film.

Can you please explain it? I'm not likely to see PRIVATE WORLDS any time soon.

Are we allowed to take this outside Hollywood?
In SCAMPOLO, A CHILD OF THE STREETS (1932), Billy Wilder's name appears on a tenants list on a blackboard in a boarding house, a series of check marks publicly indicating that he's mighty far behind on his rent.

In PRIVATE'S PROGRESS, champion goldbricker Richard Attenborough is busted for being AWOL at a screening of his debut film, IN WHICH WE SERVE, which has put him to sleep.

Almost every gag in the Road pictures is an in-joke.

The name Chester Babcock comes up in something years later.

In my country we had a long running show that was on Saturday morning for many years in Melbourne and later went nighttime.

The morning show was full of in-jokes related to the TV station(currently one of two on the point of bankruptcy this week in this city). But as a previous post said you have to be in on it to get it and in my case I knew most of the gags because I was in the business.

Another show of longevity from the same studio had a few in-jokes(a talent show) but a number were below the belt(not sex) and I knew the wife of one person referred to at one time. The facts were correct but it was open to the M.C. being sued. It did not happen but....

Land of eternal sunshine.
Ideal climate. year round. No fog. No rain."

Well he got that one wrong. Can't be LA then? I saw lots of fog, had plane once delayed more than 12 hours because of it. Lots of rain the summer day I took a cab to MGM at Culver City for a private tour and lunch with a couple backroom boys from the 20s then still living(round Feb 1973).