Addy change

So, I figure since no one has bought it yet, I decided to change the website address from http://elbrendel.blogspot.com/ to www.elbrendel.com. Nothing will change as far as content, so tell all your friends!

Sexy time Saturday #4

Here we go with another installment of Sexy Time Saturday. Enjoy!

Eddie Cantor and Charlotte Greenwood from "Palmy Days" (1931)

2 unknown chorus girls from "Wonder Bar" (1934)

Raquel Torres at the beach

Ava Gardner at the indoor beach

Fifi D'Orsay

Billie Dove

Lillian Roth

Pretty sure this is Dorothy Lee. Why she is in that pose I have no idea.

Written in pencil on the back of this still is the name Mae Marshall. Anyone know anything about her?

Happy Birthday, El!!!

On March 25th, 1891, Elmer Goodfellow Brendel was brought into this world.

Back from Cinefest!

It’s been over a week with no update so here we go! I returned yesterday from Syracuse, New York where I attended my 7th Cinefest film festival. Cinefest may be the BEST classic film festival in the United States for silent and early sound film with a distinct emphasis on rarity. And, oh my, there were TONS of rare films this past weekend including 1929’s “The Desert Song” and the remains of 1929’s “Shopworn Angel” with Gary Cooper.

My favorite’s movies out of the four days were:

“A Bundle of Blues” (1933) with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra featuring a nice rendition of “Stormy Weather” by Ivie Anderson and some amazing dancing by Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill during the jumping “Rocking in Rhythm”.

“Less Than The Dust” (1916) an early Mary Pickford silent with the country of India being the setting. Mary plays the adopted child of and Indian sword maker who does not know she is actually of English blood. Sounds korny but always good to see Mary in a starring feature.

“The Caretaker’s Daughter” (1934) is a Billy Gilbert 2 reeler made for the Hal Roach studio that is a hard title to find and wasn’t run on TCM during their last round of Roach short airings. Lots of fun, with Gilbert and family acting as if they are proprietors of a mansion and when the real owners show up, craziness ensues.

“The Installment Collector” (1929) with a young Fred Allen who works at a small town newspaper and a bill collector he can’t seem to shake.

“The Last Trail” (1933). El Brendel in all his glory as “Killer Olsen” and I think George O’Brien and Claire Trevor were in there too. When El came on the screen I heard some clapping from an audience member, so I think there was another fan there!

“Joan Crawford home movies” (unknown but probably circa late 30’s-early 40’s). Here we see Joan not being the movie star but just being a regular person fishing, hunting, at a birthday party and in one scene, sunbathing nude. Great stuff, mostly shot in stunning Kodachrome.

“Shopworn Angel” (1929). From Paramount, the tale of a soldier who falls in love with a showgirl, starring Gary Cooper and Nancy Carroll. Seeing the 35mm print on the screen was sad though as there are places in the film of much nitrate decomp and is missing the last 20 minutes, but what we have is a great movie and the imperfections should not take that away.

Although not in my top favorites for the weekend, Cinefest did run my print of 1931’s “The Lady Who Dared” with Billie Dove. A neat little 57 minute, Vitaphone production, which shows some limitation of the early sound process. The story seems as if it would have been better suited as a silent crime melodrama and just didn’t translate well into the talkies. Oh well.

Cinefest is loaded with dealers selling old celluloid, DVD’s (I finally got a good copy of “Girls About Town”!!), stills, books, posters, projectors, and just about everything else that has to do with movies. Here are a few of the items I obtained:

This crazy book was made by a religious organization but has TONS of great photos in it!

Wheeler & Woolsey from "Cockeyed Cavaliers"

A very dapper looking Warren William

Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, and Guy Kibbee from the STILL lost "Convention City"


All in all, a GREAT weekend full of fun, film, seeing old friends and meeting some new ones. If anyone is slightly interested in old film, I STRONGLY advise to attend Cinefest next year, if you can. It will be held a little later in March (the 25^th through the 28^th) so come along and join in!!

Forbidden Hollywood Vol.3!

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time will know how much I LOVE the movies that were made during the glorious "pre-code" era and Warner Brothers has done it again by releasing another great set of films in their "Forbidden Hollywood" DVD series, this time focusing on the director William Wellman. Gary Tooze over at the FAN-TAS-TIC DVD Beaver website has an early preivew of the set and it looks terrific!!

The films included are Other Men's Women (1931), The Purchase Price (1932), Frisco Jenny (1933), Midnight Mary (1933), Heroes for Sale (1933), and Wild Boys of the Road ( 1933) as well as period shorts and cartoons. Amazon has the release date as March 24th and mine in already in pre-order (with a good discount, too)! These are screen caps from the films (thank you Gary!):

State of the blog

I have been terribly lax updating this blog lately but my pay job has kept me away from posting and I hope to rectify that soon. When I do have time to devote here, I spend it working on bits and pieces of many different articles and gearing up for Cinefest next week in Syracuse (where they will be showing my print of Billie Dove's 1931 film "The Lady Who Dared").

As a quick preview as to what blogs you'll see in the next few months, I will be posting about the El Brendel movies, "Hot Pepper", "Captain Caution" and "Sunny Side Up" as well as one that will focus on El's vaudville days. I also have a blog that will be out soon on the production and censoring of Wheeler and Woolsey's 1933 Columbia picture, "So This Is Africa", as well as posting more photos of stars I like and continuing the popular "Sexy time Saturday" series.

Stay tuned!

Internet robbery!

It appears that some troll has been visiting this blog and stealing the photos I post to sell on ebay. A seller going by the name of SDA Star Photos has been clipping the pictures here and making their own prints.

Here's some examples (click on the names to take you to the auctions):

Joan Blondell from this blog

Janet Gaynor
Mary Duncan, (who they list as being Janet Gaynor) both from this blog

Glenda Farrell
Glenda Farrell both from this blog

Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell both from this blog

Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford both from this blog (and the only two Pickford pictures they are selling)

Joan Blondell, again, from this blog

Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastain from this blog

Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell from this blog

I MAY be able to say it was all a coincidence, were it not for the uniqueness of some of the photos I post here. I know the internet is a wide open market for some people who want to do these things but I can't help but feel ripped off in some way. Has anyone else had experience with this type of crap??

Stars on postcards!

These cards in this post were usually given out when fans wrote to the film studios and asked for a photo of their favorite actor or actress. Many of these cards featured images with facsimile autographs and if you were lucky, your Hollywood favorite MIGHT send you one with a real signature!

Thanks to Rich Finegan for the use of these cards from his collection.

Margaret Livingston

Ann Pennington

Mona Rico

Clyde Cook

Helen Foster

Alice Gentle

Dorothy Gulliver

Harry Langdon

Pert Kelton

Mildred Davis Lloyd

Katherine McGuire

Esther Ralston

Duane Thompson

Aileen Ray, anyone got any info one her?

Polly Walters

Marjorie White