"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - President Ronald Reagan.

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Showing posts with label Our Gang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Our Gang. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Watched "March of the Wooden Soldiers" Last Night

We watched Laurel & Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) over a big bowl of popcorn last night. The DVD contains the original black and white version as well as a colorized version. My roomie wanted to see the colorized version, so we did. I am not fond of colorizing old black and white movies, but I have to admit that the colorists did a good job and it aided in the enjoyment of the movie.
Above, the DVD box art.

We also checked out some of the extras the DVD contained, and there are a lot of them. We watched the (purported) only technicolor film short of Laurel & Hardy called, "Tree In A Test Tube" for the Dept. of Agriculture's Forest Service on materials made from trees and wood products. It was filmed on November 29, 1941, eight days before the Pearl Harbor attack. This short has been posted on YouTube. To see it, go here.

The DVD had trailers on other programs including one of a storybook television show (I vaguely remember this) hosted and starring Shirley Temple, circa 1960. There were also vintage toy commercials from Remco, Hasbro, Ideal and Mattel. I remembered a couple of them.  One was of a drive-in theater toy that had a mini film strip projector inside that I had when I was a kid. It struck me that the toys back then (late-1950s to early-1960s) allowed kids to use their imaginations while playing, something that seems missing today. There was also a Max Fleisher cartoon of "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer." The DVD also contained a Christmas greeting message by the kids of the "Our Gang" comedies and a Christmas greetings message shown in theaters in 1945, following the end of World War II. There were other extras that we didn't get to.

For around $6.00, the March of the Wooden Soldiers DVD was a great buy at Amazon.com.

Until last night, my roomie never saw March of the Wooden Soldiers before. She enjoyed it.


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Hal Roach Studios Stationery

Chuck Harter, one of the authors of a new biography/filmography of comedian Harry Langdon, sent over this sample of movie studio history:



It is stationery from Hal Roach Studios of Culver City, California.  This sample is circa 1931-1932.  The Roach Studios produced the Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Thelma Todd-Zasu Pitts and Charley Chase comedy shorts.

I met Hal Roach back in the 1980s at a Sons of the Desert banquet in Studio City.  He also signed my dinner program.

Thanks to Chuck Harter for sharing this piece of movie studio history!

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