Highly recommended!

This Day in Buster… April 21, 1924
“Sherlock Jr” is released. Buster Keaton parodies the advertisements peddling book, disguise, and magnifying glass for just a dollar down payment, made popular by the love of fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.

#oldhollywood #silentfilm

Silent movie accompanist Ben Model celebrates 20 years of live scoring on Long Island | TBR News Media

This article about my 20th year of playing for and co-programming the Cinema Arts Centre’s montly silent film series is making the rounds of several Long Island news sites. The CAC is L.I.’s premier showplace for classic and arthouse cinema.
lnkd.in/eR72z8N8
tbrnewsmedia.com/silent-movie...

Can't argue with that.

Wait...? Or <thinks> can I?

YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, INDEED <Ahem>

No it isn't

A portrait of Harold Lloyd holding a bespectacled dog on his lap

Born on this day, 20th April 1893, we celebrate Slapstick Comedy legend and cheer Hooray for Harold Lloyd 🎊

Probably the only thing he loved more than a pratfall are some of his best friends throughout the years 🐶

#haroldlloyd #slapstickcomedy #dogphotos #blackandwhite #silentfilm

A cardboard standee of a nurse and a treatment station in 1935.

An Emergency First Aid Booth for "nervous patrons” of James Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, which premiered #OTD in 1935.

Movies need this kind of showmanship again. #FilmSky

A photograph of the book Outrageous by Kliph Nesteroff. The cover image (designed by Zach Bokhour) shows a black and white image of a man speaking into a microphone, most of his face obscured by an exploded red tomato.

Really enjoying this jaw-dropping catalogue of incredible anecdotes, asides and rampant, craven foolishness. Even if Nesteroff wasn't a good writer (they are), just the facts and quotes alone as stated are wild. We live in ridiculous times, twas ever thus.

I hope you'll enjoy it!

Would be fascinated to see the original television episode version of this (as The Haunted) before Stefano recut it, added scenes and changed the ending. An extra on the physical media release, for those that have it. But also, the film's ponderous weirdness is an asset for me, not a flaw.

Title card for The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre

A close-up of an old phone, and in the background can be seen an out of focus figure of a man

A beach, with cliffs next to it. A (mi-century?) two story house with large glass windows juts out from the cliffs. On the beach, a figure, dressed in black, looks up towards the house.

A man shot from behind shows him holding a cross that reads Dial Help across the middle

Allegedly shelved as 'too scary for TV, it's ponderous and shows its television scale, but is also frequently excellent, with some proper scares and control of its mood. Shot almost like an art film it's often beautiful. Equally dreamlike and nightmarish, it's recommended for fans of offbeat horror.

Poster for The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre from 1964

Tonight's 📽: Psycho and The Outer Limits writer Joseph Stefano also produced and directed this 1964 pilot film for a sadly never-to-be series about hauntings. At least we have this, as Martin Landau's investigator tries to unravel if a wealthy man is really getting phone calls from his dead mother.

Because I like neat numbers and small targets precisely 4 more pre-orders would make me very happy. (It would mean I've beaten the pre-order total for the last collection, 'Intervals of Darkness'.)

Across the sea and up the drive, I am pleased to announce @pgwodelouse.bsky.social’s collection of short stories has reached the outermost point of the Outer Hebrides. I now look forward to some spooky enjoyment on this especially haunted island.

Monstrosities Mon Amour: Nottingham's Victoria Centre, with Lucy Brouwer #16. John Grindrod meets Nottingham historian and tour guide Lucy Brouwer to discuss a dinosaur of 70s mega-shopping and the Radiohead single time forgot

There's a new episode of Monstrosities Mon Amour! Featuring Lucy Brouwer, the magnificent @notrock.bsky.social, on Nottingham's big beast the Victoria Centre and Radiohead's lost single Pop is Dead open.substack.com/pub/johngrin...

Contemporary cartoon about the Cock Lane Ghost, a vivid court scene with credulity on trial

Etching of Cock Lane in Smithfields

I see Danny Robins is doing an episode about the Cock Lane ghost, which remains one of my favorite stories.

It's a story of mass drunkeness, class warfare and the machinations of the new gutter press.

It was the first chapter I wrote for A Natural History of Ghosts, and got the book commissioned.

A skeleton of a human and a dog sitting at a bar.

A bar with big windows looking out on to the High Street, tables and chairs and a sloping floor.

Haunted pub anyone? Who's stayed in a haunted pub? I've now stayed in a couple. The Golden Fleece in York, The Golden Pheasant in Biggleswade. This week's episode is all about haunted pubs and the next episode is all about the paranormal sleepover I had at the Golden Pheasant! Link to listen below

Manuscripts, treat them gently The Haunted Archive is the first attempt to gather M.R. James’s ghost story manuscripts together in one multi-volume publishing venture. The series begins with 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My L...

The Kickstarter for @crumpledlinenpress.com’s annotated Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad! begins at 5pm.

In this video, co-editor Dr. Mark Jones discusses the value of manuscripts and the changes that reveal the evolution of the story.

Charlie Chaplin (in trousers, waistcoat and hat), Olive Ann Alcorn, Olive Burton, Willie Mae Carson, Helen Kohn (all in white dresses) dancing together

BOTD in 1889, one of cinema's best and personally messiest pioneers

Pro-tip: I avoid rose-tinted 'the best of times' nostalgia for my adolescence in the 90s because I was riven with the otherness and anxiety that still plague me today as, arguably, an adult. Also, the 90s were frequently shit, the greyest of decades.

'Poster' image for Father Was a Loafer, showing Billie Ritchie (moustache and hat) holding two babies and about to be given a third by a nurse, surrounded by a few people. Ritchie looks annoyed.

Dealing with the important questions of the day with this morning's film. Was Billie Ritchie a Chaplin knock-off? Or did Chaplin steal his gig? Does it matter? Would Ritchie be somehow pleased I mildly enjoyed one of his films on Chaplin's birthday? We may never know.

The Curse of Queen Kelly One of the greatest films never finished. One of Hollywood’s most dangerous alliances. One enduring legend.In the late 1920s, at the height of silent cinema’...

To savour every twist and turn of the QUEEN KELLY saga, spanning decades of Hollywood history, buy my lovely book please and thank you stickingplacebooks.com/books/the-cu...

A San Francisco Kinetoscope parlor, c. 1894–95.

Commercial exhibition of motion pictures began #OTD in 1894.

The first Edison Kinetoscope parlor opened in New York City w/ 10 different (very) short films, viewable at individual stations.

Price: 50 cents for all 10 movies — equivalent to about $20 today. #FilmSky

NANCY BY ERNIE BUSHMILLER P1- NANCY: OH, DEAR - - I BETTER GET STARTED ON MY HOMEWORK P2- NANCY IS LISTENING TO THE RADIO AS SHE BEGINS OF DO HER HOMEWORK RADIO ANNOUNCER: ... SCIENTISTS ARE NOW WORKING ON A NEW SUPER-ATOM BOMB 2000 TIMES MORE DESTRUCTIVE - - P3- NANCY IMAGINES AN ATOM BOMB HURDLING TOWARDS THE EARTH P4- NANCY CRINGES AS SHE IMAGINES THE EARTH EXPLODING P5-NANCY : SOMEHOW THAT HOMEWORK DOESN'T SEEM VERY IMPORTANT NANCY THROWS HER HOMEWORK ON THE FLOOR…

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller
April 15,1946

A page of Mickey Mouse comics set in the rain, depicting a noirish story with The Phantom Blot

Mickey points a gun at two villains and demands 'Gimme that money you stole from the orphans or you'll never leave this box car alive!'

Mickey Mouse has been a gun-toting leading mouse in noir stories since the 1930s. The Mouse PI videogame comes out tomorrow but Floyd Gottfredson put Mickey in the centre of dark and rainy adventure and mystery comics almost a hundred years ago. I recommend the Fantagraphics collections.

This was very good, a mix of genuine Hollywood history (from a writer who knows his shit) and occult mystery. Like Ellroy when he still wrote in coherent sentences, before the scatting-lit days.

Lambs prancing - or gamboling - in a field

Worrying signs that the lambs in the fields around here are developing a gamboling addiction

Haha see also Jack Whitehall on SNL

Cursed image accompanying that