Easter Briefs

Yesterday I mentioned the Warner Bros. short Movie Memories and how it mentioned Rudolph Schildkraut, father of actor Joseph. Both of them will be appearing tonight at 12:15 AM as part of TCM's Silent Sunday Nights selection, the 1927 Cecil B. DeMille version of The King of Kings. Joseph plays Judas Iscariot, while Rudolph plays Caiaphas in this movie about the life of Jesus. Jesus here is played by HB Warner, a fairly successful silent actor who might also be remembered as one of the "waxworks" who plays bridge along with Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.

I can't recall whether or not I've seen this version of The King of Kings. I'm not particularly one for Biblical epics, but many years back when it was previously an Easter selection for Silent Sunday Nights I recorded it to an old VHS tape. I don't remember whether or not I ever got around to seeing it, or where the VHS tape is, or whether the VCR I've got even works. Like most electronics of that era, it was programmed to start Daylight Savings Time on the last Sunday in March, and go back to Standard Time in October, but eventually the internal battery died so I had to change the time manually anyhow. I know I've seen the silent version of Ben-Hur, and would probably conflate the two movies as well.

For Easter, I wouldn't mind seeing a marathon of zombie movies. If you want to be irreverent about it, you could claim that Jesus rose from the dead to the undead. I suppose you could call it eternal "life" of a sort. (I wonder how Judas Iscariot's brain tasted.)

Another irreverent choice would be Hide-Out, which deserves an Easter airing for the scene in which Mickey Rooney finds out one of his bunnies has become dinner for the family. Run it in a double bill with Night of the Lepus.

I hope I haven't ruined everybody's Easter.