Cinema Styles (Free subscription) | 11/02/2008
Although it had quite an impressive cast (Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Sterling Holloway, Nelson Eddy, Robert Benchley and, yes, the Three Stooges) Dancing Lady (1933) is mainly remembered as the film debut of one Fred Astaire, playing himself, a dancer on Broadway, doing a single number with Joan. Less than one month later, he would have a significant supporting role in Flying...
Culture Parody Center (Free subscription) | 10/05/2008
Readers, in the world of animation there has never been anything quite like THE JUNGLE BOOK. When I think of Disney I always have to remind myself that in spite of all his crookedness, if he was capable of cultivatin’ THIS sort of talent, the man has redeemed himself. Every shot in the encounter between the [...]
Premium Hollywood (Free subscription) | 08/02/2008
If you’re a movie buff, you probably smiled when you saw the elbow-in-the-ribs joke of this film’s title, but to illuminate those who don’t know their Hollywood trivia, it’s been said that the success of “Where the North Begins,” which provided a similarly-named canine star (Rin Tin Tin) with his first starring role, was responsible [...]
MousePlanet (Free subscription) | 02/08/2008
Lisa looks the DVD release of this 1970 animated film.
Cinema Blend (Free subscription) | 02/04/2008
Disney has a long history of taking some of the greatest tales and legends and turning them into unforgettable animated films. The usual suspects would be fairy tales or classic literature, but for this particular story the world's most famous animation department turned to an even more elusive, peculiar inspiration: the lonely old lady with a houseful of cats.
Cinema Blend (Free subscription) | 01/30/2008
The Aristocats gets the two-disc Special Edition treatment, and it's about time.
composite drawlings (Free subscription) | 01/04/2008
Your birthday today: Yours is an energetic nature. You like to be doing things and seeing them well done. You have a faculty for making money, are shrewd and have a good business ability. Those to whom you give your confidence will prove constant. Sadly, none are listed in the book, so you will have to give your confidence (in sharing this birthday) to these other famous folk: Everett Dirksen , George...
PlayBill (Free subscription) | 01/04/2008
Today In Theatre History: JANUARY 4and Christopher Reichheld and Anne Bradley 1905 Quivery-voiced actor Sterling Holloway (1905-1992) is born today in Cedartown, GA. He will become a fixture of Broadway's Garrick Gaieties revues of the 1920s and '30s, and will achieve a kind of immortality providing the voice for Disney's Winnie the Pooh in cartoons starting in the 1960s. 1905 Quivery-voiced actor...
Something Old, Nothing New (Free subscription) | 12/07/2007
Still trying to get some more posts up here... but meanwhile, here's a number from Star Spangled Rhythm , Paramount's entry in the "all-star revue movies for the troops with lame linking storyline" sub-genre. Paramount's lineup of stars at this point wasn't as impressive overall as WB or MGM, the other studios that did this kind of movie, but they had more singing/dancing stars than WB (which used...
The Genealogue (Free subscription) | 11/28/2007
No one has taken up my last challenge yet. I'll try not to take it personally. I remember Sterling Holloway from his guest roles on The Andy Griffith Show and Gilligan's Island , but the younger set will know him as the voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh. What was the full name of his maternal grandmother's undertaker?
The mental_floss Blogs (Free subscription) | 11/27/2007
My husband and I went to Disney World for Halloween. Returning to our 9-to-5 lives was a little depressing. So, to get our little fix, we started watching some old-school Disney movies. We had on The Jungle Book and I wasn't paying very close attention (I like to multi-task) when I heard a strangely familiar [...]
Something Old, Nothing New (Free subscription) | 10/10/2007
I agree with Michael Sporn that The Jungle Book is not one of the better Disney movies. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland in that they were adapting stories that weren't truly adaptable, and so the movie became a series of vignettes with very little coherence as a whole. But whereas in Alice the vignettes are truly brilliantly animated and designed, the Xeroxed, corner-cutting look of The Jungle...
Michael Sporn Animation - Splog (Free subscription) | 10/08/2007
- With the release of The Jungle Book dvd, I thought I’d post something for it. To me this film represents the first in the big decline of Disney Animation. The reliance on star voices started here, and the result was not good. They got good voices, but they relied on the voices for the [...]
AM, Then FM (Free subscription) | 09/27/2007
In 1967, the music my dad liked and the music my brother and I liked came together at the same place. Which is a little remarkable, considering Dad was 42, I was 10 and my brother John was 8. That fall, Disney released “The Jungle Book” as an animated feature. My brother and I liked the [...]
Walt at Random (Free subscription) | 08/31/2007
A Walk in the Sun, 1945, b&w, Lewis Milestone (dir.), Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Huntz Hall. 1:57. The walk is from the beach at Salerno to a farmhouse six miles inland; the time, the Allied invasion of Italy in World War II. Quite a good movie, with (as [...]
