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Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story
Not Rated
DocumentaryTV Movie
The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.
02-05-2002
1h 26m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
John Griffin
Writers:
John Griffin, Leonard Maltin
Production:
Peter Jones Productions, Turner Entertainment, Turner Classic Movies
Key Crew
Book:
Leonard Maltin
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon. He quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit soon became a staple of the show. As both a performer and writer, he earned three Primetime Emmy Awards out of five nominations. Chase is also well-known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon's Vacation films, and for his roles in other successful comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Fletch (1985), and ¡Three Amigos! (1986). He has hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988) and briefly had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. He played the character Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC comedy series Community from 2009 to 2014.
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer; February 3, 1927 - May 11, 2023) was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which in particular have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle," and form the basis of Anger's reputation as one of the most influential independent filmmakers in cinema history. His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle." Anger himself has been described as "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner," and his "role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise, is impossible to overestimate." Some of his particularly homoerotic works, such as Fireworks (1947) and Scorpio Rising (1964), were produced prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley, and is a follower of Crowley's religion, Thelema. This influence is evident from films like Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972).
Anger has described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters.He has also been described as having "a profound impact on the work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative." During the 1960s and 70s he associated and worked with a number of different figures in popular culture and the occult, including Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, artist Jean Cocteau, playwright Tennessee Williams and musicians Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Marianne Faithfull. He is also the author of the controversial best seller Hollywood Babylon (1959) and its sequel Hollywood Babylon II (1986), in which he claims to expose many of the rumours and secrets of Hollywood celebrities.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenneth Anger, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sid Caesar (1922—2014) was an American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway (December 15, 1933 - May 14, 2019) was an American comedian and actor, primarily known for his roles in sitcoms, films and television. Conway is best-known for his role as the inept second-in-command officer, Ensign Charles Parker, to Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (played by Ernest Borgnine), in the popular 1960s WWII sitcom McHale's Navy, and for co-starring alongside Carol Burnett on The Carol Burnett Show.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Tim Conway, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Although he reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War, the death of President John F. Kennedy, the death of civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., Watergate, and the Iran Hostage Crisis, he was known for extensive TV coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase "And that's the way it is," followed by the date on which the appearance is aired.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Walter Cronkite, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Richard Goldstone was an American film and television producer known for his work during the mid-20th century. Born in New York City, Goldstone began his career in the film industry as a film editor before transitioning into production. He produced several notable films, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950), a film noir classic directed by John Huston, and The Red Badge of Courage (1951), an adaptation of Stephen Crane's novel. Goldstone also worked in television, producing series such as The Thin Man (1957–1959) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968). His contributions to both film and television showcased his versatility and commitment to quality storytelling.
Jean-Baptiste "Illinois" Jacquet (October 30, 1922 – July 22, 2004) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo.
Although he was a pioneer of the honking tenor saxophone that became a regular feature of jazz playing and a hallmark of early rock and roll, Jacquet was a skilled and melodic improviser, both on up-tempo tunes and ballads. He doubled on the bassoon, one of only a few jazz musicians to use the instrument.
Jacquet's parents were Creoles of color, named Marguerite Trahan and Gilbert Jacquet, When he was an infant, his family moved from Louisiana to Houston, Texas, and he was raised there as one of six siblings. His father was a part-time bandleader. As a child he performed in his father's band, primarily on the alto saxophone. His older brother Russell Jacquet played trumpet and his other brother Linton played drums.
At 15, Jacquet began playing with the Milton Larkin Orchestra, a Houston-area dance band. In 1939, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met Nat King Cole. Jacquet would sit in with the trio on occasion. In 1940, Cole introduced Jacquet to Lionel Hampton who had returned to California and was putting together a big band. Hampton wanted to hire Jacquet, but asked the young Jacquet to switch to tenor saxophone.
In 1942, at age 19, Jacquet soloed on the Hampton Orchestra's recording of "Flying Home", one of the first times a honking tenor sax was heard on record. The record became a hit. The song immediately became the climax for the live shows and Jacquet became exhausted from having to "bring down the house" every night. The solo was built to weave in and out of the arrangement and continued to be played by every saxophone player who followed Jacquet in the band, including Arnett Cobb and Dexter Gordon, who achieved almost as much attention as Jacquet in playing it. It is one of the few jazz solos to have been memorized and played very much the same way by everyone who played the song. He left the Hampton band in 1943 and joined Cab Calloway's Orchestra.
Jacquet appeared with Calloway's band in Lena Horne's movie Stormy Weather (1943). In the earlier years of Jacquet's career, his brother Linton Jacquet managed him on the chitlin circuit Linton's daughter, Brenda Jacquet-Ross, sang in jazz venues in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s to early 2000s, with a band called the Mondo Players.
In 1944, Jacquet returned to California and started a small band with his brother Russell and a young Charles Mingus. It was at this time that he appeared in the Academy Award-nominated short film Jammin' the Blues with Lester Young. He also appeared at the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert. In 1946, he moved to New York City, and joined the Count Basie orchestra, replacing Lester Young.
In 1952, Jacquet co-wrote "Just When We're Falling in Love" (Jacquet (m), Sir Charles Thompson (m), S. K. "Bob" Russell (l)). Jacquet continued to perform (mostly in Europe) in small groups through the 1960s and 1970s. He led the Illinois Jacquet Big Band from 1981 until his death. ...
Source: Article "Illinois Jacquet" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel (born November 29, 1955) is a Canadian stand-up comedian, television host, and actor. He is well known as host of the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. Before his career as a game show host, Mandel was best known for his role on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere. He is also well-known for being the creator and star of the children's cartoon Bobby's World. On June 6, 2009, he hosted the 2009 Game Show Awards on GSN. Mandel became a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent, replacing David Hasselhoff, in the fifth season of the reality talent contest. He was a supporting character in the 2000 film Tribulation, from Cloud Ten Pictures.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Howie Mandel, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Rose Marie Mazetta, known professionally as Rose Marie, was an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie. A veteran of vaudeville, Rose Marie's career included film, records, theater, night clubs and television. Her most famous role was television comedy writer Sally Rogers on the CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show. She later portrayed Myrna Gibbons on The Doris Day Show and was also a frequent panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Rose_Marie, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
World-renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis, born in 1960, has always been a man of numerous musical interests, from jazz, blues and funk to such classical music projects as his Fall 2008 tour with Marsalis Brasilianos. The three-time Grammy winner has continued to exercise and expand his skills as an instrumentalist, a composer, and the head of Marsalis Music, the label he founded in 2002 that has allowed him to produce both his own projects and those of the jazz world’s most promising new and established artists.
George Robert Newhart (September 5, 1929 - July 18, 2024), known professionally as Bob Newhart, was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide bestseller and reached #1 on the Billboard pop music charts—it remains the 20th best-selling album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Again! was also a massive success, and both albums held the Billboard #1 and #2 spots simultaneously, a feat unequaled until the 1991 release of Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II by hard rock band Guns N' Roses.
Newhart later went into acting, starring in two long-running and prize-winning situation comedies, first as psychologist Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show and then as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom Newhart. He also had a third sitcom that was short-lived and initially successful but was soon canceled, named Bob. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. One of his most recent roles is the library head Judson in The Librarian.
Fayard Antonio Nicholas was an American choreographer, dancer and actor. He and his younger brother Harold Nicholas made up the Nicholas Brothers tap dance duo, who starred in the MGM musicals An All-Colored Vaudeville Show, Stormy Weather, The Pirate, and Hard Four. The Nicholas brothers also starred in the 20th Century-Fox musicals Down Argentine Way, Sun Valley Serenade, and Orchestra Wives. In 1932, when he was 18 and his brother was only 11, they became the featured act at Cotton Club in New York City. The brothers earned fame with a unique style of rhythm tap that blended "masterful jazz steps with daredevil athletic moves and an elegance of motion worthy of ballet". They appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway and in London they worked with jazz choreographer Buddy Bradley. The performances led them to a career in film. Nicholas appeared in over 60 films, including the 1943 musical Stormy Weather with their signature staircase dance.
His career was interrupted from 1943 to 1944 when he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Nicholas achieved the rank of Technician fifth grade while in WWII.
After his dance career ended, Nicholas and his wife, Katherine Hopkins Nicholas, embarked on a lecture tour discussing dance. In 2003, Nicholas served as "Festival Legend" at the third "Soul to Sole Tap Festival" in Austin, Texas.
Nicholas was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2001.
Harry Eugene Roach Sr. professionally known as Hal Roach, was an American film and television producer, director, and actor who was active from the 1910s to the 1990s. He is remembered today for producing a number of successes including the Laurel and Hardy franchise, the films of entertainer Charley Chase, and the Our Gang film comedy series.
From Wikipedia
She was born Vola Smith in Buffalo, New York. Vale was educated in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She began her career in amateur theatricals in Rochester, New York. Then she played in stock companies for a while.
Her first movie experience was with Biograph, under the tutelage of the great film director D.W. Griffith. After a month of playing atmosphere parts, Vola was offered a genuine role. She wore a velvet gown with a train and a feathered hat. Soon she was appearing in short reel films for Biograph. Among the actors she was cast with were William S. Hart, Sessue Hayakawa, Tsuru Aoki, William Haines, Harry Carey, Tully Marshall and William Russell.
She was adept in playing Spanish, Italian, French, and Gypsy roles. Aside from Biograph Vola worked for Fox Film, Famous Players-Lasky, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures.
Her ambition was to play Madame Butterfly with an actual Japanese company, as well as to act as Lorna Doone. She was most inspired by Hayakawa and hoped to learn to act inside, as he did. With Sessue Hayakawa she made Each To His Kind (1917). Before filming began it was decided that the name Smith was too common to be used by a motion picture star. She changed her professional name to Vola Vale.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Joe DeRita (July 12, 1909 – July 3, 1993), born Joseph Wardell, was an American comedian who is best known as Curly-Joe DeRita, the "sixth" member of the Three Stooges.
DeRita was born into a show-business family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wardell's father was a stage technician, his mother a professional stage dancer, and the three often acted on stage together from his early childhood. Taking his mother's maiden name, DeRita (Portuguese), the actor joined the burlesque circuit during the 1920s, gaining fame as a comedian. During World War II, DeRita joined the USO, performing through Britain and France with such celebrities as Bing Crosby and Randolph Scott.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Joe DeRita, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Edna Mae Durbin (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013), known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born actress and singer, who moved to the USA with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed many styles from popular standards to operatic arias. In 1946, Durbin was the second-highest-paid woman in the United States, just behind Bette Davis; her fan club ranked as the world's largest during her active years.
Durbin was a child actress who made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in Every Sunday (1936), and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. She achieved success as the ideal teenaged daughter in films such as Three Smart Girls (1936), One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), and It Started with Eve (1941). Her work was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy, and led to Durbin being awarded the Academy Juvenile Award in 1938.
As she matured, Durbin grew dissatisfied with the girl-next-door roles assigned to her and attempted to move into sophisticated non-musical roles with film noir Christmas Holiday (1944) and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945). These films, produced by frequent collaborator and second husband Felix Jackson, were not as successful; she continued in musical roles until her retirement. Upon her retirement and divorce from Jackson in 1949, Durbin married producer-director Charles Henri David and moved to a farmhouse near Paris. She withdrew from public life, granting only one interview on her career in 1983.
Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and "The Wizard of Oz". After fifteen years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through concert appearances and later a return to acting.
Through a career, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. She received a juvenile Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award as well as a Grammy Award, and a Special Tony Award. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "A Star is Born" (1954) and Best Supporting Actress for "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961). At forty, she was the youngest recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.
In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American cinema.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oliver Norvell Hardy (born Norvell Hardy, January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1927 to 1951. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film, Outwitting Dad, in 1914. In some of his early works, he was billed as "Babe Hardy".
Oliver Hardy died from cerebral thrombosis on August 7, 1957, at age 65. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 1500 Vine Street, Hollywood, California.
Moses Harry Horwitz, known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades. His distinctive hairstyle came about when he was a boy and cut off his curls with a pair of scissors, producing a ragged shape approximating a helmet or bowl.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, 16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles.
Laurel began his career in music hall, where he developed a number of his standard comic devices, including the bowler hat, the deep comic gravity, and the nonsensical understatement. His performances polished his skills at pantomime and music hall sketches. He was a member of "Fred Karno's Army", where he was Charlie Chaplin's understudy. He and Chaplin arrived in the United States on the same ship from the United Kingdom with the Karno troupe.
Laurel began his film career in 1917 and made his final appearance in 1951. From 1928 onwards he appeared exclusively with Hardy, and Laurel officially retired from the screen following his comedy partner's death in 1957.
In 1961 Laurel was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering work in comedy, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
In 2009, a bronze statue of the Laurel and Hardy duo was unveiled in Laurel's hometown of Ulverston, England.
Harold Lloyd has been called the cinema’s “first man in space.” His comedy wasn’t imported from Vaudeville or the British Music Hall like his contemporaries, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Harold learned to use the camera the way other comics used a bowler hat or a funny walk. In 1917 he shed the comedic clown personas prevalent in comedy for hundreds of years and pioneered romantic comedy by the ordinary guy up on the screen –- a guy with faults, and fears, “the boy next door.” With his young man in horned-rimmed glasses, he created classic films.
Howard Morris (September 4, 1919 – May 21, 2005) was an American comic actor and director who was best known for his role as Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show.
Mack Sennett (born Michael Sinnott; January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian born actor, director, comedian and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'. He produced more than 1,000 silent films and several dozen talkies during a 25-year career. He became a United States citizen in 1932.
Sennett was born and raised in Richmond, Quebec. He moved to Connecticut when he was 17 years old.
In New York City, he took on the stage name Mack Sennett and became an actor, singer, dancer, clown, set designer, and director for the Biograph Company.
He later opened Keystone Studios in Edendale, California, in 1912. Keystone possessed the first fully enclosed film stage, and Sennett became famous as the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films. He also produced short features that displayed his Bathing Beauties, many of whom went on to develop successful acting careers.
Sennett's work in sound movies was less successful, and he was bankrupted in 1933. In 1938 he was presented with an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to film comedy.
Mack Sennett died in Woodland Hills, California in 1960, aged 80.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
