Category: All Posts

A Little of Annie

Thanks to Annie Little’s Facebook page, I’ve been keeping tabs on her career ever since she appeared in the Amazon commercial for the second-generation Kindle. She was on last week’s episode of </scorpion>, playing a museum director and not, thankfully, a murder victim.

Thanks to YouTube, I haven’t had to do much video capturing and editing for a long time. But I needed to do it for this post, and I must say that the process sure is a heck of a lot easier and faster, with much better resulting quality, than it was ten years ago. One quirk, now that video can be embedded directly with HTML5, instead of relying upon a Flash plugin, is that each Web browser has its own style of player.

No relation to Scott Joplin

Dick Cavett, who I once met, managed to turn the topic of conversation over to himself before taking a break in this excerpt of an interview with Janis Joplin from 7/18/1969 — just one month before Woodstock. No mention is made of Linda Ronstadt, who would soon take the mantle of “leading lady of Rock.” Cavett asks Joplin, “Are there any male groupies?” To which Janis replies, “Not near enough.”

The Horror, The Horror

Mark Gatiss, who plays Mycroft to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, surveys the field of horror films, starting from not quite their beginning.

A couple of things came to mind while watching this. Gatiss was, of course, working within a time limit, but for all of the attention he gave to James Whale, there isn’t even a mention of “The Invisible Man.” It also features the now late Gloria Stuart, who Gatiss interviewed regarding “The Old Dark House.” Stuart talks about the difficulty she had working for Whale, but he liked her enough for a return performance.

Boris Karloff was well-known for his distinctive voice, but for his most famous role he only spoke a few words. Gatiss is right to praise the superb “Bride of Frankenstein.” Universal used Franz Waxman’s outstanding score many times over, most notably in the “Flash Gordon” serials with Buster Crabbe.