Update, April 20, 2024:
I’ve actually managed to find time to write and publish a new biography-filmography; Sam Flint has just been added to the Character Actors section. Special thanks to James Swan, who did the research legwork that allowed me to put this one together.
From the James Braddock Collection.
This scrapbook entry is something new, being kindly supplied by one of the site’s readers and not by myself (what can I say, things have been crazily busy at my law firm lately). The abovementioned reader, Mr. James Braddock, has very generously shared some striking professionally-colorized serial stills from his collection, which are reproduced below. I find it particularly interesting to see Spy Smasher in his original comic-book colors. The Captain Marvel and Captain America images have been retouched, as well as colorized; Mr. Braddock was experimenting with the idea of giving both characters a slightly closer resemblance to their comic-book counterparts.
Continue readingFour years ago, I posted about film restorationist Eric Grayson’s work on a restored print of the 1929 Mascot serial King of the Kongo, a part-silent/part-sound chapterplay whose sound portions were originally recorded on disc; although no prints with the sound sequences survive, the disc recordings are still extant, and Eric has been working on reuniting them with a print of the serial. He’s just announced the completion of this project, with DVDs projected to become available in March; here’s the link to his Kickstarter page:
Hermitage Hill, which put out some excellent serial DVDs back in the day, but which has been out of action for several years, has returned with a new DVD of The Hurricane Express, the best of John Wayne’s three Mascot serials, from a new 2k film transfer. The link is below:
http://www.hermitagehillmedia.com/hurricane.html/
Hermitage Hill has also made their DVD of Don Winslow of the Navy available again; this is easily the best print of this serial out there:
http://www.hermitagehillmedia.com/winslow.html/
Here is Hermitage Hill’s revived home page, as well:
While using the Australian newspaper archive site Trove to research Rusty Wescoatt’s Australian wrestling tour, I realized that the site would also be a logical resource to retrieve additional information on Australia’s own C. Montague Shaw. A search on Shaw’s real name of Charles Montague Discombe Sparrow produced several interesting clippings pertaining to Shaw’s years as a Shakespearean actor. Continue reading
While researching my recent Rusty Wescoatt biography, I turned up an enormous amount of press clippings concerning Rusty’s wrestling days, as well as his football and swimming exploits, through both Newspapers.com (subscription, Ancestry.com, or Facebook account required for full access), and the free Australian newspaper archive site Trove. I thought I would share some of these through the Elsewhere series. Continue reading
Motion Picture Herald, May-June 1940.
The Film Daily, April-June 1941
Motion Picture Herald, May-June 1943.
Thanks to the researches of James Swan, I’ve been able to update my John Davidson biography with a wealth of new detail. Some of the news clippings turned up by Mr. Swan, relating to Davidson’s non-serial activities, warrant a post of their own. Continue reading
(Like the Frank Shannon piece below, this was originally attached to the subject actor’s bio page).
Charles N. Quigley, son of serial star Charles Quigley, has kindly permitted me to reproduce here several reminiscences concerning his father’s acting career–reminiscences which he originally sent to me via e-mail, and which are too interesting not to share with other serial buffs. All that follows, save my interjections and comments in bold type, are Mr. Quigley’s own words. Continue reading
The Files of Jerry Blake 