Briefs for April 15, 2015

So the 20th anniversary salute to Robert Osborne last night was moderately interesting. It was more of a This is Your Life-style presentation of Osborne's friends and family. Not that I care all that much about Robert's nieces and cousins, but bringing them out on stage makes for good television, as Ralph Edwards knew 60 years ago. The bloopers were fun, particularly the outtakes of Robert saying he could use a drink. And I would have had trouble pronouncing "La Cienega" as well.

Tonight's Star of the Month salute to Anthony Quinn includes several of his epics, so three movies last almost the entire evenign. Barabbas (8:00 PM) already aired on Easter, while I've always found Lawrence of Arabia (1:15 AM) overrated. In between is The Shoes of the Fisherman (10:30 PM), whish has Quinn playing a Ukrainian priest who becomes Pope. There's probably a post to be made about Anthony Quinn's ethnic roles, the way I did about Edward G. Robinson years ago. Quinn was born in Mexico to a Mexican mother and ethnic Irish father; I can easily think offhand of his having played Ukrainian, Greek, Mexican, and French in addition to all his Americans.

Tomorrow morning sees a couple of silent two-reelers. First, at 7:30 AM, is Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in Coney Island. That's followed up at 8:00 AM by Harold Lloyd in Number, Please. Both of them having been made before 1923 are in the public domain, and that unsurprisingly means both of them have made it quite legally to Youtube: