The movies presented this week were "The Admiral Was a Lady" from 1950 with Edmond O'Brien, Wanda Hendrix, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Sands and Steve Brodie - a nearly typical screwball comedy of the era. The plot is absolutely ridiculous but it's fun. :)

The second movie was "Kansas City Confidential" from 1952 with John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam. This one could stand-in for all the film noir susepense/detective pictures that came out in black-and-white from the late 30s to the mid 50s. It's almost like a pattern piece for the genre. A tangled plot, a tortured hero, sharp verbal style, moody lighting and edgy pacint, it's got them all.

The cartoons started with "Minnie the Moocher" from 1932 starring Betty Boop and Cab Calloway. The Boopster had a lot of these mini-musicals and this one is exceptional, wish I had found the better print that I know exists. This was the first of three times Calloway danced and sang for Betty.

Next was a King Features Popeye from the fifties, "Taxi Turvey". It's a Popeye cartoon and the plot is just an excuse for a lot of sight gags and a few double entendres. :) Jack Mercer's distracted but snarky Popeye is always part of the fun. Betty Boop and Olive Oyl have something in common other than poor choices of boyfriends, they were voiced by the same actress in many of their appearances, Mae Questel who also did the voices of Little Audrey and Little Lulu. jackson Beck, Bluto, did the voice for Perry White in the next cartoon.

The Fleisher Studios version of Superman starred in "Electric Earthquake" with the voices of Bud Collyer, Joan Alexander, Jackson Beck, and Julian Noa.

After the first movie, we had Woody Woodpecker in "Pantry Panic" from 1941. Mel Blanc did the voices of Woody and the Cat and Ben Hardaway worked on the script which explains why the whole thing kinda feels like early Bugs Bunny in feather drag. :)

So from that to "The Big Snooze" from 1946, starring the real Bugs Bunny voiced by Mel with Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer Fudd in a hilarious drag sequence, no feathers.

The last cartoon, after the second movie was "The Noisy Silent Movie" from 1965 starring The Three Stooges, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe DeRita and Emil Sitka. Sitka may have done some of Larry's voice work in the cartoon segments and probably did some of the other voices, too. These made-for-tv cartoon/live action shorts were like watered-down Stooging but they aren't bad.

A new program on Calimesa Drive-In TV will appear later in the week featuring more classic movies, cartoons and TV shows. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.