collisionwork | Mrs. Jones? Mrs. JONES?

Still resting.

I have to go to Queens this afternoon to pick up the brochures for the Clown Festival and then deliver them to The Brick, so that's when I'll probably get started on the cleanup/fixup of the space. Then the same thing tomorrow, all day, until the evening, when it looks like we'll be hangin' with friends, which will be nice.

Yesterday, watched some of the first season of Rocky & Bullwinkle, then Powell & Pressburger's The Small Back Room, The Empire Strikes Back, and the special Star Wars episode of Robot Chicken. Fun.

I wish there was still a movie palace in NYC that showed old films - I read yesterday that the Egyptian in L.A. is showing a whole bunch of wonderful, obscure, mostly-not-on-video, pre-1950 films right now, including Olsen and Johnson's followup to their incredible debut film Hellzapoppin', Crazy House.

So that got me looking at some Olsen & Johnson on YouTube. And here it is:

Here's the opening of Crazy House:

And here's the incredible first 11 minutes of Hellzapoppin':

Also from Hellzapoppin', Martha Raye performs "Watch the Birdie":

Some more craziness from the same film:

And finally, one of the greatest damned dance numbers ever put on film, with music by Slim & Slam, featuring the Harlem Congaroo Dancers (aka Whitey's Lindy Hoppers):

Enjoy.