The musings of Sean Paul Murphy: Editor, Producer, Screenwriter, Author. Or, Hollywood -- and beyond -- as seen from an odd little corner of northeast Baltimore, Maryland.
Todd called the segment Surviving The Christian Film Industry. I had to smile. It was an extremely accurate description. I have indeed survived the Christian film industry. I only wish we went into why it was so difficult for me to do so!
We'll see if someone asks me that in another interview one day!
Here's the episode. I hope you enjoy it.
But, better yet, subscribe to the podcast. You'll want to hear all of the episodes. Not just the ones I appear on.
Speaking of The Promise, check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, also available on Amazon. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.
An article in Christianity Today reports that LifeWay Christian Bookstores will close all 170 of their brick and mortar locations by the end of 2019.
Wow.
This will be a blow to the small, independent Christian filmmaker. LifeWay was one of the few brick and mortar stores that would stock lower budget faith-based films. In a very real sense, they were our floor. Our firewall. It was the one chain -- after the demise of Family Christian -- where we could hope to be stocked. When last I stepped into my local LifeWay in White Marsh, Maryland, I found eleven out of twelve of my faith-based DVDs on the shelves. That was certainly cool, and a feat I don't ever expect to see repeated elsewhere.
Some of my later films made it to the shelves of the Holy Grail of American retail: Walmart. Obviously, that is a much bigger deal. It puts your film in front of a much larger audience. However, unless your initial sales are very brisk, your stay on the Walmart shelves will be very brief. The great thing about LifeWay is that they stock your film indefinitely. There is certainly something to be said for that. I am genuinely grateful for the platform they gave us.
Revelation Road 1 in Walmart
So what does this mean to the Christian filmmaker?
It means that now, more than ever, we must compete in the mainstream marketplace. We can't count on having safe little spaces where consumers will reward us for our intentions, and not our execution. When I started out, any filmmaker could expect to turn a profit with a modestly budgeted, family-friendly Christian film with a recognizable name or two in the cast. Not anymore.
And maybe that's a good thing.
While I am genuinely saddened by this news, particularly for all the folks who will lose their jobs through no fault of their own, there might be some upside to the fall of LifeWay, The company served as a powerful gatekeeper in the world of faith-based films. When I was making my early films with PureFlix, we lived in terror of not getting a family-approved rating from the Dove Foundation. Without that rating, LifeWay wouldn't carry the film and our path to profitability was put in dire jeopardy.
I remember talking to a Christian filmmaker years ago who made three faith-based films. His first two films were Dove-approved and dutifully stocked by LifeWay. They made money. His third one wasn't approved. It didn't get stocked by LifeWay and it lost money. That filmmaker wasn't going to make that mistake again. He would work within the approved parameters, even if it meant ignoring issues important to him.
I am constantly approached by young faith-based filmmakers chafing at the unwritten but very real restrictions placed on their vision by the many so-called gatekeepers intent on dictating what is appropriate for Christian audiences. Perhaps the fall of LifeWay will loosen those restrictions a bit....
But don't count on it.
There are plenty of other gatekeepers.
In all seriousness, my prayers are with all the people whose lives will be disrupted by the closings. I know how you feel. I work for a company going through a similar transition now. Just remember: When God closes a door, He opens a window. I just always pray that window isn't on the fiftieth floor. (So far so good.)
This segment of the conversation covers the second part of my career in faith-based films, post The Encounter. That period was marked by growing cynicism about the business itself and concern about the overall direction and effectiveness of our newly-minted genre. Trust me, it's hard to be impressed by the wizard after you've seen the man behind the curtain.
That said, I don't mean to be dismissive of everyone in the "business." There are many talented and completely sincere people working in the genre. Plus, every time I get too cynical, I am approached by someone who has been genuinely touched or had their life changed by the one of my films. The opportunity to do good certainly remains, but I wonder if we are positioning ourselves best to do so.
Our conversation about the future of Christian films is coming up.
Until then, you can listen to this episode here:
But, better yet, subscribe to the podcast. You'll want to hear all of the episodes. Not just the ones I appear on.
Speaking of The Promise, check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, also available on Amazon. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.
Here's another sample chapter of my upcoming book Chapel Street. Keep checking back for more!
Chapter 13
Bad News Betty
When I regained consciousness, I vomited
up what seemed like gallons of the worst imaginable filth into the mouth of a
total stranger while Bob and Mike stood by helpless and confused.
Those first few minutes were a total
blur. My chest ached, and my head throbbed. My mouth roiled under the taste of
waste and pollutants from our large, dirty city’s sewers. I kept gagging at the
thought. I was sure I wouldn’t survive an hour because of all the poisons. A
large crowd of onlookers gathered around, despite the repeated pleas of the
fireman to back away. One question was shouted to me time and time again— “Why’d
you do it?”
“I was trying to rescue that lady,” I replied;
although, even in those first moments of consciousness, I knew there was no
woman.
The mention of another potential
victim led to a flurry of activity. People ran back to the water’s edge to
search for her, while other eyewitnesses shouted there was no woman. They said I
had simply run and jumped into the water. Questions were thrown at me from all
directions. The mood of the crowd quickly changed from exhilaration over my
rescue to anger. The arrival of paramedics thankfully halted the Inquisition. I
was happy to be loaded on the ambulance and taken away.
The paramedics wanted to take me to
nearby Mercy Hospital, but I insisted on being taken to Johns Hopkins. They
relented after I explained I was a hospital employee. Mike rode with me in the
ambulance. Bob followed behind in his car. Amid the preliminary tests, I asked
Mike, “Did you see the woman?”
He shook his head no.
I was admitted into the Emergency
Room for tests. When Bob arrived, he told me that he called my sister Janet. She
was on her way. I groaned audibly. That was the last thing I needed. I reached
for my cellphone to tell her not to bother, but I couldn’t find it. The phone
was probably at the bottom of the Inner Harbor, if indeed there was a bottom. Just
the memory of being pulled down into that abyss was enough to get me shaking
again. I held my hands together to make it less obvious.
The police arrived during the
examination to ask about the other victim. Under their firm questioning, I modified
my initial claim that I saw a woman jump into the water. Instead, I said I thought I saw a woman jump into the
water, which was the truth. That didn’t placate them. They said if there were
any possibility of another victim, they would have to drag the harbor for the
body, which was a time-consuming and expensive process. I stood firm with the
story that I had seen a woman. However, I conceded she probably stepped away
while I was distracted, making me assume she had jumped when I looked back.
The police weren’t satisfied, but I
wouldn’t budge any further. I certainly couldn’t tell them that an evil ghost,
disguised as my late mother, tricked me into jumping in the Inner Harbor with
the intent of drowning me. That would have resulted in my exit from the
Emergency Room and my entry into the Psych Ward upstairs, where my brother had
spent a great deal of time.
When the police left, I called my
supervisor Agnes Wilson on the hospital phone. I tried my best to make light of
the situation. Bob and Mike listened to the exchange quietly, no doubt noting
the subtle differences in my current story from the final version I just told
the police. God only knows what they were thinking, and I wasn’t about to ask. They
were my best friends, but I still couldn’t trust them with the truth. I could
barely handle it myself.
After I finished my tale, Agnes
applauded my misguided heroism and told me to take a few days off. I agreed. When
I hung up the phone, I turned to Bob and Mike who looked at me curiously but
seemed uncertain what to say. You could have cut the tension in the room with a
knife, until I asked,“Who paid the
check?”
They both started laughing. I
raised my hand. Bob gave me the high five as he said, “Free eats.”
I turned to Mike and said, “The
next time, you jump in.”
He gave me the high five, too.
We were still laughing when my
sister Janet arrived. The last time I saw her was about five months earlier at
our cousin Mara’s wedding. Janet, a would-be sculptor who worked as a waitress to
make ends meet, sported short, orange hair with red highlights and wore used,
retro clothing that seemed more appropriate on an art student than a
thirty-one-year-old, adult woman. Her look reinforced my opinion of her:she refused to become an adult and take responsibility
within the family. Bob and Mike greeted Janet before taking off to return to
their normal lives.
“I’m sorry Bob called you,” I said
to her after the guys left. “There was really no need.”
She sat down beside me. Her
expression was dour. “You don’t think I need to know when you jump into the
Harbor?”
“It was a stupid misunderstanding,”
I explained.
She studied me for a moment before
she asked, “Did this have anything to do with Gina getting married?”
“No,” I replied, insulted. “Do you think
I was trying to kill myself?”
“Sorry for asking, but in this
family...”
She didn’t have to finish.
I hated confiding in Janet, but I
knew I had to give her something, so I said, “I’m cool with Gina getting
married. He seems like a nice guy. He makes her happy.”
“Yeah,” Janet said, nodding her
head. “That’s what she says.”
Those words surprised me. I wanted
to know how often they talked, but this was definitely not the time or place to
pursue that subject. I had to deflect.
“Actually, I just started dating
someone myself,” I lied. “She’s very nice.”
“What’s her name?”
“Teri.”
“How long have you been dating?”
Saying yesterday would hardly
bolster my point, so I said, “Just a little while, but it’s good. She’s really
nice, and we have a lot in common.”
“That’s great,” she said, smiling
for the first time. “I’d like to meet her.”
“You will, soon,” I said. I forced
a smile, too.
Awkward silence ensued, and then
she leaned closer. “Rick, this isn’t right. We’re all we have left. We should
be closer.”
“Yeah,” I said, and I meant it.
Granted, I harbored resentment
toward her for escaping to college in California, but that was the past. Plus,
if I was honest with myself, I was never there for her either. When I looked back,
I always saw a sad, little girl desperate to tag along with her big brother
after the death of our father. But I was too caught up in my own grief to give
her much thought at all.
“I know we don’t have a lot in
common,” Janet continued. “But I think we should make a commitment to get
together at least once a month for dinner or something. You still go to the
movies, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. I loved going to
the movies, but I hadn’t gone as much since I broke up with Gina. I found it depressing
to go alone.
“Well, that might be a good place
to start.”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I like
real movies, not those stupid mumble core indies you watch.”
“I can stand a Hollywood film every
once in a while,” she said, standing up. “You need a ride home?”
“No,” I replied. “I lost my phone
in the water, but I still have my keys and wallet.”
Janet suddenly leaned over and gave
me a quick kiss on the cheek. I couldn’t remember the last time she did that. Even
at our mother’s funeral, the most we did was hug.
“You scared me, bro,” she said. “Be
careful, okay?”
“I will.”
“Don’t prove Betty right,” she said
under her breath as she left. She said it so quietly that I barely heard it,
but I did, and the name definitely rang a bell.
Betty was a fortune-teller my
mother visited at least monthly, more often when she was freaked out about
something. Betty was supposedly the real deal. She was never wrong. My mother
said Betty accurately predicted the death of both my father and brother—to the
day. That’s why my mother called her Bad News Betty because everything she
predicted was tragic. She only made one happy prediction, as far as my mother
was concerned: that Gina and I would never marry. I wasn’t, however, aware of
any other predictions about me.
Jumping down from the examining
table, I sloshed over to the door. I called to Janet, who was halfway to the
elevators. “Janet, what did you mean about proving Betty right?”
Janet turned to me. Her expression
displayed her concern. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Please,” I said.
She weakened. She took a few steps back
toward me. “Betty told mom that you were going to kill yourself, too.”
I felt the blood drain from my
face. “She never told me that.”
“She was afraid to mention it,”
Janet said, stepping even closer and lowering her voice. “She didn’t want you
to feel predestined.”
“Don’t worry. I plan to make Betty
a liar.”
Then it hit me—Betty.
Betty was short for Elizabeth. Or Elisabetta.
Damn it!It was her—Bad News Betty. I knew it was
true. It resonated through every pore of my body. Who else could it be?
“Do you remember Betty’s last
name?” I asked.
“No,” Janet said. “But I think it
began with a C or a K.”
“Was it Kostek?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Why
do you ask?”
“I saw her grave over at Eternal
Faith.”
Janet spoke as she turned and
headed back toward the elevators. “Good. I’m glad she’s dead.”
“Yeah, me too,” I replied.
I just needed her to be a little
deader, and I was going to make it happen.
While you're waiting for the next chapter of Chapel Street, feel free to read my memoir. It's a story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.
Recently Todd Shaffer, the creative director of Glorious Films, asked me to appear on his brand new podcast about faith-based filmmaking called The Ministry of Motion Pictures. And, you know me, folks, I couldn't refuse. The episode, part one of two, is now available for your listening pleasure.
I have received a lot of requests for interviews lately. I know why. Christian filmmakers have been reaching out to me since I first published my blog Building The Faith Based Ghetto. These filmmakers want to serve the Lord through film, but they don't necessarily want to make the kind films they've been seeing since our work has been codified into a narrow genre. I am one of the few quote/unquote insiders who has been willing to take a step back and publicly ask why we are making the films we make, and whether they are accomplishing the intended goal. It's funny. In a way I am more influential now as a blogger helping filmmakers focus their vision than I was writing three movies a year.
You can listen to the podcast here:
But, better yet, subscribe to the podcast. You'll want to hear all of the episodes. Not just the ones I appear on.
Speaking of The Promise, check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, also available on Amazon. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.
Who doesn't love to laugh? I know I do. I grew up during in a great time, when the television was filled daily with Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy shorts, and there was always a Marx Brothers or W.C. Fields film playing somewhere. And let's not forget Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Ma & Pa Kettle and, of course, Francis The Talking Mule. Comedy was king. As a youth, I started collecting silent comedies on Super 8mm and discovered the comic trinity of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd.
The biggest problem with making a list of comedies is deciding what actually is a comedy. How many laughs are needed to turn a drama into a comedy? What about funny musicals? Or funny horror films? It calls for some very subjective judgments.
I am not going to handcuff myself with as many self-imposed restrictions as I did when I made my lists of horror films. My decision concerning what is a comedy will be decided on the basis of the individual film. However, I will try to restrain myself from flooding a decade with the work of a single comic visionary. For example, I am not going to put six Marx Brothers films on this list. I will only pick one of their films as representative of their work.
Also, I am going to try to rate the films in the context of their times. Therefore, expect to see some films on the lists which would be considered politically incorrect today. I will, however, discuss the controversy concerning some of those films when it seems appropriate.
The 1930s are unquestionably my favorite decade for comedies. The studios turned to comedy to alleviate the despair of the Great Depression. One of the things I enjoy most about the comedies of this period is a sense of anarchy, particularly from in the films from Paramount. Comedians like the Marx Brothers, Mae West and W.C. Fields were capable of anything -- especially pre-Code. The comedies of the 1940s and 1950s seem more staid and family friendly. However, the feature films of the period do not tell the whole story. A lot of the best comedy was being performed in the thriving short subject market. There you will find the best work of Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals and Charley Chase. I will not include shorts on the top ten list, but I will include some representative ones in the honorable mention section.
Mae West plays a circus performer who finds herself wooed by a number of wealthy New Yorkers, including a young Cary Grant.
Classic pre-code Mae West, slinging sexually-charged one-liners left and right. There's nothing shocking about her words today, but at the time she was at the cutting edge. In fact, after the production code started really being enforced, this film was effectively banned for decades. When I first saw this film as a child, most of the naughtiness was over my head. I certainly didn't understand what she meant when she said, "When I'm good, I'm very good. When I'm bad, I'm better." Now I do.
A stern Russian woman, Greta Garbo, in Paris for a trade mission finds herself falling in love with a capitalist, Melvyn Douglas.
Garbo laughs. And so did America. MGM was looking for a comedy to lighten up the image of their serious star. It came in this three sentence idea from Melchior Lengyel: “Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism not so bad, after all." The film was a big hit, but it proved to be Garbo's second to last film. She would retire after 1941's Two-Faced Woman.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Writing, Original Story, and Best Writing, Screenplay.
The success of the film shouldn't be a surprise considering the cumulative number of Academy Award wins and nominations the cast and crew would accumulate throughout their careers. Here's a sampling: Greta Garbo was nominated for three Academy Awards before receiving an honorary one. Lubitsch was also nominated for Best Director three times before getting an honorary Academy Award. Melvyn Douglas won two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor and had one nomination for Best Leading Actor. Charles Bracket won three Oscars and was nominated for another six. He received an honorary one, too! Billy Wilder won six Academy Awards. I'm not going to count the nominations. Walter Reisch was no slouch either. He won one Academy Award and was nominated for three additional ones. Cinematographer William H. Daniels won one Academy Award and was nominated three additional times. I could go on, but you get the picture.
An American dancer in Britain falls in love with a model who mistakens him for his producer.
Fred Astaire, check. Ginger Rogers, check. Edward Everett Horton, check. Let the fun begin. Few films of the period express the general joyfulness of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers pictures. Plenty of singing and dancing and laughs. To me, the plots are more or less interchangeable. However, this one is my favorite. And I'm not alone in that opinion. It was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Song, Original, and Best Dance Direction (an award no longer given.)
In order to attend a convention of their fraternal organization in Chicago without their wives, Laurel & Hardy feign illness and claim they have to go on a long sea cruise for recuperation. Complications arise when the ship they were supposedly on sinks before they get home.
Laurel & Hardy were known primarily for their short films. Producer Hal Roach didn't have much confidence in them as feature performers. I don't know why. Their features were fine. I wrestled between this one and 1937's western spoof Way Out Westas their representative film of the period. Both of them are very funny. Many people would give Way Out West the edge if only for the charming musical numbers, but Sons of the Desert is more representative of their work in general.
A retired detective, Nick Charles, and his socialite wife Nora investigate a murder in this film based on the book by Dashiell Hammett.
I love The Thin Man movies. Sometimes, however, I think I love them more generally than specifically. I love spending time with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the hard-drinking, wise-cracking, crime solving couple. They offer the height of sophisticated thirties wit with an earthy edge. But sometimes the mysteries distract from the fun. This film, the first in the series, gives perhaps more screen time to the mystery itself than the sequels. That's not really a problem, but the film really sparkles when Nick and Nora are on the screen. Here's my theory why -- in addition to the great script and crisp direction: Powell and Loy's performance style is more modern than the other actors in the film. Everyone else acts like they're in a serious stage melodrama. Powell and Loy just breeze their way through it with a smile and a wink. They are fantastic and have great chemistry together.
The first question my agent, the late Stu Robinson of Paradigm, would ask me after he read one of my scripts was: "Who do you see in the lead?" My answer was almost always: "William Powell."
Claudette Colbert plays a runaway heiress hitchhiking across the country, who is helped by a man, Clark Gable, who is actually a reporter. Romance ensues.
This film was one of the most successful screwball romantic comedies ever, but its greatness was not clearly evident in pre-production. No one expected this film to be a monster hit. In fact, Clark Gable was lent from to Columbia by MGM to make this movie as a punishment. The film was such a phenomenon that undershirt sales fell dramatically when the audience discovered that Gable wasn't wearing one.
Although filmmakers complain today that the Academy doesn't honor comedies, it had no problem doing so during this decade. This film was the first one to win all five of the major categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (adapted). The next film to accomplish that feat would be 1975's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Pretty good for a punishment project!
Cary Grant plays a paleontologist seeking a grant whose life is turned upside down when he meets an heiress, Katherine Hepburn, with a pet leopard named Baby.
The 1930s were famous for their screwball comedies. This was the best of them. In this film, screwball heiress Katherine Hepburn disrupts the life of the straight-laced Cary Grant. Director Howard Hawks was a master of the genre. He was an early innovator of fast talk and overlapping dialogue. Strangely, however, this film was not considered a success on its initial release, but its status has grown over the years.
Screenwriter Dudley Nichols was one of the top practitioners of the trade during the Golden Age of Hollywood, which put him in demand with top directors like Howard Hawks and John Ford. He had previously won an Oscar for 1935's The Informer. He was nominated for the award three additional times.
W.C. Fields plays a henpecked husband and shop owner who moves his family West to buy an orange grove.
Fields played two kinds of characters, con men and henpecked husbands. This is easily the best of the henpecked husband roles. The film is an unmitigated joy. Pure Fields through and through. I recently saw the film after not seeing it since childhood, and I laughed all the way through. With the possible exception of The Bank Dick, or his absurdist short The Fatal Glass of Beer, this is the must see Fields film.
Groucho tries to get Margaret Dumont into high society by having her support the opera, but makes a mistake when he signs an unknown tenor represented by Chico and Harpo.
Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking: Why not Duck Soup? I love Duck Soup, and I will concede that it has more laughs per minute overall, but this one is nearly as funny but also a better film. It features many classic set-pieces, like the stateroom scene, and their disruption of the opera is the best climax of any of their films. They are still the anarchic Marx Brothers of the Paramount films here, but in a better framework. MGM would soon tame their energy, but this film is a classic. Plus, I don't mind the music.
The Little Tramp tries to raise money to help a blind flower girl get an operation to restore her eye sight.
The industry honchos thought Chaplin was insane to release a silent movie so far into the sound era, but the laugh was on them. The film was a massive hit. That said, it wasn't entirely silent. It had a recorded musical score. City Lights was a perfect blend of slapstick and pathos. The ending is one of the most touching and memorable scenes in the history of cinema. Chaplin would follow this film up with Modern Times in 1936. That film was also essentially silent, with music and sound effects and some spoken words. It was also very funny, but City Lights is better. It was Chaplin's favorite film. It was Orson Welles' favorite, too.
If you only want to see one silent film, make it this one.
FEET FIRST, 1930. Silent film great Harold Lloyd dangles from a skyscraper in this remake of his 1923 classic Safety Last, but it doesn't play as well with sound.LIBELED LADY, 1937. A screwball comedy with my favorite couple William Powell and Myrna Loy? Count me in. A must see, but I already had a film with them on the list. FREE AND EASY, 1930. Silent film genius Buster Keaton failed to transition quickly to sound. His problems were compounded by the insensitive bureaucracy at MGM (and his drinking.) He would never approach his silent glory. THE FRONT PAGE, 1931. This was the first version of the oft-remade film based on a play by the great Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. ALIBI IKE, 1935. Satchel-mouthed comedian Joe E. Brown is known today primarily for his performance in 1959's Some Like It Hot, but he did a wonderful series of films in the thirties which are sadly overlooked today. COCKEYED CAVALIERS, 1934. The comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey is largely forgotten today, but once they rivaled the Marx Brothers. (I have only seen a handful of their films.) THE AWFUL TRUTH, 1937. Leo McCarey directed this Cary Grant/Irene Dunne vehicle about a divorcing couple trying to disrupt their ex's relationships. MY MAN GODFREY, 1936. In this screwball comedy, William Powell is mistakened as a homeless man and hired on a whim as a butler for a nutty, rich family. However, he's really a disillusioned son of a wealthy Boston family. HOLIDAY, 1938. My favorite Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant vehicle, but more of a drama than a comedy. TWENTIETH CENTURY, 1934. A funny John Barrymore/Carole Lombard picture directed by Howard Hawks. In THEODORA GOES WILD, 1937, Irene Dunne plays a racy author trying to hide her occupation from her small town neighbors.
Notable Shorts:
THREE LITTLE BEERS, 1935. The Three Stooges made nearly two hundred sound shorts -- working well into the 1950s. Their films of the 1930s, with Curly, were the best. This film is perhaps my favorite. Read my in depth analysis of The Three Stooges HERE. (I was recently interviewed by the author of an upcoming biography of Shemp Howard. I suppose that makes me an official authority on the team.) TEACHER'S PET, 1930. The Little Rascals series ran between 1923 and 1942 with a revolving cast of children. My favorite period was the transition between their silent and sound films with a cast that included Jackie Cooper, Matthew "Stymie" Beard and Norman "Chubby" Chaney. Chubby is buried not far from my house. THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER, 1933. W.C. Fields didn't make many shorts but this spoof of Yukon dramas was an absurdist tour de force. It was universally panned at the time. NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE, 1936. Baltimore's own Charley Chase is little known today, but he made a great series of comedies at the Hal Roach studios. After his on camera career ended, he also directed some Three Stooges shorts. HELPMATES, 1932. In my opinion, Laurel & Hardy reached their peak with their shorts at the end of the silent era. Although the Academy Award winning film The Music Box, 1932, is regarded as they best sound short, I like this one better.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
