Continuum Film Blog

a repost for your thanksgiving repast!

 

a little more Stan Freberg for the holiday....

1-03 Pilgrim's Progress_Take an Indian to Lunch

 

happy birthday oh eddie-bey!

I wish I had time to talk all about All-Media Star (stage, radio, screen, television) comedian Eddie Cantor today!  A reoccurring figure in my work who has fascinated me every since high school when I first guiltily giggled through one of his blackface routines--which one was it? When he was rubbed in spa mud to hide from thugs, or after burning an errant champagne cork to hide from heavies or just slathering it on to dance with the Nicholas brothers--when his movies made a rare appearance on TV?  My favorite, the complex, disturbing and funny moment I return to in my videos is in gorgeous, Technicolor "Whoopee", when Henry Williams hides in a gas stove that blows up revealing (and disguising) him as a "black" man.

But in Cantor's early films "black' is only one of myriad examples of racial and ethnic cross-dressing that animate these "anarchic", vaudeville-style musicals. He appears as Indians, Orientals, Latinos, Ladies, Romans and importantly, "Hebrews"! The movies are crazy and for me, a central part of the history of our film culture. But I can't go into all that now. OK, Toots?!

 

Here's a previous post with Eddie Cantor.

some folks call 'em green onions...

A family christmas perennial!

 

Green_Christmas

 

 

Stan Freberg - Christmas Dragnet

 

"let him share our quaker oats, 'cause he's useful when he votes..."

 

a little more Stan Freberg for the holiday....

1-03 Pilgrim's Progress_Take an Indian to Lunch

 

"you discovered us? we discovered you..."

"A satirical revue especially created for records"

I love Stan Freberg! Like like the 60’s era comedies How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Putney Swope, Freberg’s Ad Man world-centric humor is far more revealing and subversive than Mad Men could ever hope to be. Stan helped to make me the person I am today I’m sure, since as a little girl, I overheard his records at home and went on to playing and playing them myself while acting out all of the parts. Of course, I didn't understand a bit of it then but I loved the songs.  Here's a Columbus Day treat from the “foaming comedian” with "sneakers, glasses, (&) fliptop head"!

 

mr. harlem: our friend percy sutton...

Our chic and charming family friend, Tuskeegee Airmen and black media visionary, Percy Sutton has passed.

He had a way with words and was quite prescient and entertaining in this little clip that reminds me of business trips with dad (aka: vacations!) and life amidst black executives/politicians in the 1970s.

Say hello to Ina Sr. for me, Mr. Sutton!