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gjohnson

Film critic Manny Farber has died at the age of 91.
He replaced first Otis Ferguson and then James Agee at their respective rags. What I never realized was that all the time he taught and critiqued film he was also an abstract painter.
Although for many those two go hand in hand.
Gary J.

gjohnson

I always get around reading Chris' weekly blog but rarely in a timely manner. I usually let a month or so past and then I scroll down to catch up with everything he has written. The story back in July about the Hollywood Hills home that housed the spider web pool was a great piece of investigative w...

gjohnson

Rob, I believe I have the smallest edition of "The Liveliest Arts." It is a reprint hard cover but it fits in the palm of my hand. Quite convienent for whacking small bugs or annoying visitors who talk while you are watching a silent film. These scholarly tomes were the first books I devoured way ba...

gjohnson

I concur with Gebert's Kerr & Brownlow's picks. A few others I find invaluable are....... The Warner Brothers Cartoons - Will Friedwald/Jerry Beck Detailing cast & credits along with a short synopses of every single cartoon released by Warner Brothers studio starting with "Sinkin' In The Bathtub" - ...

gjohnson

Tavernier lends his voice to quite a few projects that deal with French film history, does he not?

He is quite knowledgeable. I believe he started out as a film critic.

Gary J.

gjohnson

If the filmmakers had taken all of your suggestions to heart they would of ended up with a film longer than the NY phone book.

Gary J.

gjohnson

You've got me beat.

I don't seem to travel beyond my local Scottsdale wateringhole.

Gary J.

gjohnson

How long has Bruce been posting from S. Africa?

Must make it difficult to get to Cinecon every year.

Gary J.

gjohnson

The fact that Columbia didn't own a theater chain probably saved their soup and allowed them to grow at precisely the time they were growing. At the heighth of the depression every major studio outside of MGM were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy because of sound conversion costs, the bank closi...

gjohnson

I think that if you want to see a Norma Talmadge movie, you'd be best off seeing KIKI, a terrific comedy. Bob Irregardless of ones love for "Kiki", considering that it was one of Norma's few and rare comedies I don't think you should push that film to be introduced to Norma Talmedge. That's like sa...

gjohnson

There is no evidence that any of the studio mogels ever let a little anti-semitism stand in the way of them making a profit from any talent. Most of them downplayed their own religion because they didn't want to offend an anti-Semetic America. Outside of the Warner Bros. most of the majors kept film...

gjohnson

It helped that the studio was located in 'poverty row'.
Writing in shorthand is always useful if one is a lazy writer.

But the accepted wisdom is that Columbia was a minor studio during the silents and a major studio from 1933 on when Capra began collecting Oscar nominations.

Gary J.

gjohnson

I find I buy DVD's for the commentaries. Since I'm basically replacing favorites that I once had on video tape I throw the commentaries on and listen for a new insight into a film I know and love. Yeah....the majority of them are silly and some mundane but eventually there will be at least one witty...

gjohnson

But Richard, isn't it sort of like 'preaching to the choir?' If you care at all about Langdon or film comedy or wearing argyll suits (.......uh...skip that last one...) then you already know that the Capra version is a lot of manure. I thought there would be other things to talk about - like how Har...

gjohnson

Is "Long Pants" really called "Long Trousers" in Great Britain?

That's funny. It sounds so elegant. So British.

Gary J.

gjohnson

Let me get this right out in the open........ I think Harry Langdon is very, very funny! .....scratch that! I know Harry Langdon is very, very funny!! But for some time a certain film backlash has been growing great steam amongst this era's film historians. Call it generational retribution, if you w...

gjohnson

You could swing by the corner of Hayes and Laguna to see the building used for McTeague's dentistry office in GREED. Check out John Bengtson's SILENT ECHOES for precise locations of many scenes used for Keaton's DAYDREAMS, and for the beginning of THE NAVIGATOR. I could see Keaton branching out in ...

gjohnson

I got an error message when I sent this but I see it went thru.
Odd......

Gary J.

gjohnson

Goodman Ace was a good friend of Groucho Marx. Their correspondence together can be found throughout "The Groucho Letters." Goodman was a comedy writer who worked in radio & tv. He had to be a comedy writer to be pals with Groucho since, as a rule, they were the only kind of people that he would all...

gjohnson

I'm working on a 20 page thesis on "Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance" - (1896).
Man, could that lady shimmy.....(but I'm running out of adjectives for "shake that jelly")

Gary J.

gjohnson

I feel like this film has been restored every 10 years since the 70's. But irregardless of it's restoration status it is well worth remembering for one of the greatest moments of film musical history when James Mason enters the small jazz club after hours and witnesses Judy Garlands' performance of ...

gjohnson

, The other problem with Cinecon is the remodeled Egyptian. I'm told it's great sound, but who cares? It has the Feng Shui of a cardboard box in a dumpster. Are you telling me I've been watching movies in a dumpster for the past decade? Great.....now how am I going to tell if a movie stinks or not?...

gjohnson

From the sound of this thread I'd have to conclude that there is a Depression going on in this country.

Now pardon me, I'm going out to siphon some gas.

Gary J.

gjohnson

And I'm still working at getting to Slapsticon this year.

.........and now back to working on my planned bank job.

Gary J.

gjohnson

Someone ask him to check the archives for a complete print of "Horsefeathers - (1932)."

Gary J.

gjohnson

Alright.......then you have all convinced me that The American Film Institute does absolutely nothing in the preserving of American film.

I stand corrected.

Gary J.

gjohnson

People!!!..... You are taking these LISTS way to seriously!! I've been reading 'Best Of' lists for near-high 40 years in books and radio and on TV specials and on the Web on AMS and Termite Terrace and Silentcomedians and if I hang around long enough I'm sure one will appear on Nitrateville -- and t...

gjohnson

Gaucho wrote: P.S. Gary - I last time I went to the Phone Company in Glendale was in the early 90s, but I believe it closed.

It was close to our office at the time so it became our after-work watering hole. I didn't think it was still around.

Gary J.

gjohnson

I never read anything where Busby Berkeley ever took credit for this shot that you seem intent on disavowing him for. As I wrote about 2 weeks ago, like Griffith, he merely took a photographic element that was created and made it his own. Florey never did anything with it after "The Cocoanuts" . He ...

gjohnson

I'm confused? Isn't everything in L.A. 'tragically' overpriced? The last couple of years my sisters have followed me out to L.A. for Cinecon - not to attend the movies but to sightsee and gladhand - and I have been pulled (...or yanked!) to such sights as The Magic Castle and Yamashiro's. I love pay...

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Manny Farber Has Ceased To Be........

In The Case Of Harry Langdon.........Capra Is An A-Hole!!!!

Re: San Francisco for the silent film enthusiast...