Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving shorts update

Let's Talk Turkey does not seem to be on the TCM schedule any time soon. It's a bit of a shame, since it's actually a short that would be appropriate for the Thanksgiving holiday, what with the theme of triyng to carve a turkey. Instead, we get a mix of the old, and the new-to-me.

First up is another airing of Mighty Manhattan, New York's Wonder City at around 6:09 PM, or following The Secret Garden (4:30 PM, 92 min). It's mentioned this not-quite-a-Traveltalks short before, a two reeler that looks at Manhattan at about the time On the Town would have been in production: the short was released five months before On the Town and one has to wonder whether the suits at MGM saw an opportunity to get a short out of the location shooting they were doing.

An official Traveltalks that I have not seen, and one of the last, is Copenhagen, City of Towers, at about 12:50 AM, following The Fake (11:30 PM, 71 min). The Fake is one of those British movies that had an Ameircan star to try to make it easier to distribute in the States. TCM's schedule page lists it as a musical, although it's apparently a straight-up crime drama.

Laurel and Hardy teach us how to use wood in the World War II propaganda short The Tree in a Test Tube, at 7:54 AM tomorrow, or after Flipper (6:15 AM, 90 min). This is another one I haven't seen, but because it was produced by the government, it's in the public domain and so shows up on Youtube having been uploaded by several people:



Finally, I haven't seen Little Pioneer, tomorrow morning at 11:05 AM, following The Little Princess (9:30 AM, 93 min). This one is a late-1930s Technicolor short from Vitaphone starring Sybil Jason as a young girl in a South African settler family, who battle family strife and native Africans amidst musical numbers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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