Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds serving up a midnight feast and also entertaining the customers. Holiday Inn, 1942.
Lazy Christmas Morning in your Hotel Suite…
…after getting shot in the tabloids on Christmas Eve.
One-Take Woody: Behind the Scenes Photos of Classic Movies
Director W.S. Van Dyke had a reputation for getting things right the first time. Two movies he directed in the 1920s were shot on location in Tahiti. For Trader Horn (1931), he spent seven months filming in East Africa. His best known movies, however, are The Thin Man (he also directed three of the sequels), Tarzan the Ape Man (filmed in Hollywood, it used stock footage from Trader Horn), and several Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy films. ClassicMovieHub.com has several behind-the-scenes photos of Van Dyke at work.
W.S. Van Dyke with Myrna Loy & William Powell on the set of After the Thin Man (1936). Source: classicmoviehub.com.
Lost Silent Films
Fritzi Kramer on Why We Should Keeping Searching for Lost Silent Films. More on Mr. and Mrs. Drew, Diplomatic Henry, and the plaid pants at Movies Silently.
The Ancient Greek Inspiration for the Legendary Leg Lamp?
Does the Royal Ontario Museum have the real inspiration for the Leg Lamp from the classic movie A Christmas Story?
The lamp in the movie was allegedly inspired by a Nehi soda advertisement, but the original source must be this Archaic Greek leg vase, on view at the Toronto museum.
For the more recent history of the leg lamp, see A Christmas Story House.
Yes, I post this every December.