Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Another set of new-to-me shorts

Coming up early tomorrow (or overnight tonight depending on your point of view) on TCM, you can catch Holland Sailing at 3:35 AM following Tea For Two (1:45 AM, 96 min). Given the date (1956) and the subject (boat racing in the Netherlands), I figured this had to be another of the RKO Sportscopes I've mentioned on the site before. Sure enough, IMDb says that's what it is. Specifically, they say it's #6 from the 1956-57 season, which makes me wonder just how many of these Sportscopes were made. I'm sure there's a complete list somewhere but up until now I haven't bothered to look for it. I just did a cursory search, and couldn't find much.

I was only going to mention two shorts, but I just noticed earlier in the overnight, at about 1:25 AM, there's Mr. Whitney Had a Notion. From the title and date (1949), my first guess was John Nesbitt's Passing Parade, confirmed by looking at IMDb. (Passing Parade No. 71, no less; my goodness a lot of these were made.) But I mention this one about Whitney's invention of the cotton gin because the part of Eli Whitney is played by... a young Lloyd Bridges.

The other short I had planned to mention is For Your Convenience, at 7:34 AM after Speedy at 6:00 AM. The subject here is inventions that presumably make things more convenient, and since it's from 1939, my conclusion was that it's another Pete Smith short. But it's not. It's from Warner Bros. And it's in color. Unfortunately, the one IMDb reviewer claims it's not any good.

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