The talented and beautiful Dorothy Dandridge was born 100 years ago today in Cleveland, Ohio.
Remembering Dorothy Dandridge on Her 100th Birthday
Tag: classic film
Remembering Fred Astaire on His Birthday
The great Fred Astaire was born on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s been gone nearly 35 years, and if you wanted to make a list of the things that are wrong with the world today, the fact that Mr. Astaire no longer walks—nay, glides—among us would be on that list. We’ll be featuring Astaire’s music all day today on Cladrite Radio, so why not tune in now?
10 Things You Should Know About Clarence Kolb
Here are 10 things you should know about Clarence Kolb, born 147 years ago today. After a lengthy career in vaudeville and on the stage, he became an in-demand character actor in pictures.
Remember to Watch ‘Remember the Night’
If you think you’ve seen every classic Christmas picture (and most of them one too many times, at that), you’ll be pleasantly surprised, we hope, to learn of one that’s flown under the radar of many a classic movie buff.
Remember the Night (1940) was the last movie Preston Sturges wrote before moving into the director’s chair with The Great McGinty (1940). Mitchell Leisen directs here, and though Sturges was said to have been disappointed with Leisen’s efforts, it’s hard to imagine why. It’s a terrific picture, one that should be every bit the holiday favorite that pictures such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Shop Around the Corner, and others have become.
Remember the Night features Fred MacMurray as an ambitious assistant D.A. in NYC who finds himself with shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck on his hands because he has asked for a delay in her trial, so as to avoid the jury feeling any holiday-inspired sympathy for her.
It soon comes out that both the D.A. and the dame are Hoosiers, so she accompanies him on a road trip to visit their respective families. Stanwyck’s brief visit with her mother doesn’t go so well, though, so she sticks with MacMurray, whereupon romance and laughs ensue.
Remember the Night is plenty sentimental enough to qualify as a holiday classic, but like It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s got a dark side, too, delivered with gimlet-eyed bite. Apart from a brief appearance by regrettably stereotypical Black valet character, played by Fred Toones, who does his best with what he’s given, it’s well night perfect.
This post was first published in slightly different form on December 6, 2013.
A Salute to Luke the Dog
One of life’s great pleasures is watching dogs in silent comedies, and perhaps the greatest of them all was Luke, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier that belonged to Roscoe Arbuckle and his wife, actress Minta Durfee.
Luke enjoyed a six-year career in pictures—from 1914-1920—working not only with Arbuckle, but also with other comedy stars of the era, such as Mabel Normand, Buster Keaton, Betty Compson and Edgar Kennedy, among others.
Arbuckle and Durfee acquired Luke as a puppy in November 1913 from film director Wilfred Lucas. Some say Lucas gave the pup to Durfee in lieu of “hazard pay” for a dangerous stunt he asked her to perform during the filming of one of his pictures. It’s reported that Luke’s name was inspired by the director’s last name.
It was Arbuckle, though, who trained and taught Luke to perform on command for the camera, and Luke was one game pooch when the call of “Action” was heard. He earned $150 a week when working on a film—approximately $2,000 in today’s money.
Luke’s final performance came in the Buster Keaton short The Scarecrow(1920), and it’s sequences from that film that we’ve edited to create this video tribute (you should watch the entire short—it’s terrific).
Arbuckle and Durfee separated in 1921 and later divorced, and it was Durfee who was awarded custody of Luke, though Arbuckle retained visitation rights. It’s thought that the pair’s parting of the ways is what led to the end of Luke’s acting career.
Luke died, age 13, in 1926. He was a good dog and a wonderful performer.