“How about if I change the story to say the rapists were all conservatives? Or Republicans named Barry? Or better yet, Christians? Or how about if they were all gamers or if they all played football for the Washington Redskins?”
OLD SCROOGE (1913)
Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2014 continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Previously I’ve reviewed the 1910 and 1923 silent film versions of the Dickens classic. This time I’ll take a look at the 1913 adaptation Old Scrooge, which clocks in at just over forty minutes.
Old Scrooge stars Seymour Hicks, the only English-language actor to portray Ebenezer Scrooge in both a silent AND a sound era adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Hicks went on to star in the 1935 version titled Scrooge, a version so cheapjack and rushed it was riff-fodder for Randy and Richard on The Texas 27 Film Vault in the 1980’s. If you’ve seen it you may recall the “pioneering” way that the visit from Marley’s Ghost was presented by having Scrooge talk to an empty chair while Marley’s lines were provided through a voice-over.
The ghost shows Scrooge images from his past.
Getting back to Old Scrooge, though it came out just three years after the Edison Studios version it is light-years ahead of that adaptation in terms of its effectiveness. Long stretches of dialogue and narration lifted straight from the novel fill most of the dialogue boards plus Tiny Tim is NOT edited out like he is in the joyless and soulless 1910 version. Due to the limited time Marley’s Ghost not only gives his usual warnings but takes Scrooge on his visits to Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. No additional locations were used for those visits – the visiting spectre merely projects the images on the rear wall of the office at Scrooge and Marley’s, where Ebenezer spends his nights in this adaptation. Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
LENA DUNHAM’S REAL PARENTS REVEALED!
A BALLADEER’S BLOG EXCLUSIVE SCOOP! SHE MOSTLY RESEMBLES HER FATHER, THOUGH.
COURTESY OF THAT ANCESTRY SITE! FOR MORE PHOTO AND CAPTIONING FUN CLICK HERE: Continue reading
Filed under humor
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL (1949): CAROL-A-THON 2014 CONTINUES
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL (1949) – This relic from the VERY early years of television was a syndicated production. It was also one of THREE productions of the Carol to hit the airwaves in 1949.
This version’s biggest claim to fame is the on-screen presence of a bearded (despite the picture to the right) Vincent Price as the story’s narrator. For my fellow bad movie geeks the one and only Robert Clarke portrays Nephew Fred to Taylor Holmes’ Scrooge. Price is the very best element of the production, which is so haphazard that it repeatedly presents Scrooge’s first name spelled “Ebeneezer” instead of “Ebenezer” like it should be.
All things considered, this is a reasonable (but bland) presentation given its brief 25 1/2 minute running time and technical limitations. With no special effects the tableau of Marley’s Ghost walking through a solid door is accomplished by Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
IF BARACK OBAMA HANDLED PEARL HARBOR
“If any of your loved ones died at Pearl Harbor THEY HAD IT COMING!”
Welcome back to Balladeer’s Blog, the only site on the web that criticizes both Liberals and Conservatives equally. Even for a sleazy Chicago politician Barack Obama has been caught in an unending avalanche of lies from his campaign biography to all the outrageous untruths that have characterized his entire term in office.
This weak, inept and crooked little man has been caught in lie after lie after lie and has outdone even Nixon in terms of scandals and Harding in terms of corruption. Obama’s incompetence has earned him a name as the Worst U.S. President in History. That plus his general “masochism as foreign policy” approach made me decide to run with a Balladeer’s Blog look at how this Democratic version of Richard Nixon might have handled the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
For starters Little Barry would have been too busy with golfing, fundraisers and tentative spin doctoring to even address the nation until sometime around January 24th, 1942. And that’s being optimistic.
” My fellow Americans, I speak to you today as a special guest on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show. I am addressing you this evening about the Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF AND BOWL RESULTS FROM DECEMBER 6th
* NJCAA CHAMPIONSHIP *
ALL THREE OF EAST MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE’S HELMETS
MISSISSIPPI BOWL – This Bowl was the National Championship Game this year and pitted the number 1 Defending Champions – the EAST MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE LIONS – against the 2nd ranked IOWA WESTERN COLLEGE REIVERS – who happen to be the 2012 NJCAA Champions. This clash of the most recent champions went the Lions’ way from start to finish. East Mississippi led 21-7 by Halftime and kept up the pressure in the 2nd Half, doubling up on the Reivers 34-17 for their 2nd title in a row and their 3rd in the last 4 years! * CONGRATULATIONS TO THE LIONS – THE NJCAA FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS FOR 2014! *
* NAIA PLAYOFFS *
FIRST SEMIFINAL – In a rematch of the 2012 National Championship Game the MARIAN UNIVERSITY KNIGHTS took on the homestanding MORNINGSIDE COLLEGE MUSTANGS. The end result was the same, too, with the Knights coming from behind for the win. Marian trailed 7-0 in the 1st Quarter and 21-14 at Halftime. After the break the Knights shut out the Mustangs while piling up points themselves, ultimately winning in a 41-21 rout. Marian QB Hayden Northern had 2 Touchdowns by air and 1 more on the ground. Continue reading
Filed under college football
PULP HERO G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES: STORIES SEVENTY-SIX TO SEVENTY-EIGHT
Balladeer’s Blog resumes its look at the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This is a story-by- story look at the adventures of this World War One American fighter pilot who – along with his two wingmen the Battle Aces – took on various super- natural and super- scientific menaces thrown at the Allied Powers by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Muslim Turks.
G-8 was created by Robert J Hogan in 1933 when World War One was still being called simply the World War or the Great War. Over the next eleven years Hogan wrote 110 stories featuring the adventures of G-8, the street-smart pug Nippy Weston and the brawny giant Bull Martin. The regular cast was rounded out by our hero’s archenemy Doktor Krueger, by Battle, G-8’s British manservant and by our hero’s girlfriend R-1: an American spy/ nurse whose real name, like G-8’s was never revealed.
76. SKY-GUNS FOR THE MURDER MASTER (January 1940) – Introducing an all-new foe for G-8 – Count Maulwurf! The Count is fondly regarded by World War One geeks like me because he was clearly based on the real life Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, “the Rommel of World War One”.
Lettow- Vorbeck was sort of a “Jungle Fox” to Rommel’s Desert Fox. He was the most effective German General in Africa during the First World War and was still on the loose when the surrender was signed on November 11th, 1918.
In this story his fictional counterpart Count Maulwurf is summoned back to Europe by the Kaiser to see if his African successes can be duplicated against G-8 and the Battle Aces. Maulwurf is outfitted with a super-scientific tunnel-digging machine that can be used for laying massive mines and for tunneling beneath – and ultimately behind – the Allied forces. The machine automatically sealed the tunnels with concrete as it moved along. Continue reading
Filed under Pulp Heroes
MR MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1962)
Balladeer’s Blog’s annual Christmas Carol-A- Thon continues with this little item I’m doing as a reader request. I had thought that Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol was way too mainstream and well-known for me to review but I’ve been told it’s fallen off the radar for most people so here we go!
MR MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1962) – The nearly-blind one-joke cartoon figure called Mr Magoo was voiced by Jim Backus. The schtick in the character’s regular cartoon adventures was that his cosmic-level near-sightedness caused him to mistake a bowling alley for a laundromat or some similar mixup and slapstick hijinx would develop from there. Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
MUSLIM FANATICS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS!
This piece of idiocy comes after the recent Muslim claims that they discovered the Americas and that the Theory of Relativity was based on accounts of Muhammad rising to the heavens in the comedic book called the Koran. I’m a non-believer in any religion but it’s impossible to deny Islam leads this particular period of history in misogyny, homophobia and unscientific gibberish. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
CHRISTMAS SEASON ADVICE FOR AMERICAN LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
Welcome back to Balladeer’s Blog, the only site on the web that equally criticizes those childish fanatics called Liberals and Conservatives. Here’s some Yuletide advice for those two groups of zealots who continue to tear the country apart by putting their respective political party ahead of the nation.
ADVICE FOR LIBERALS – Pretend that these Conservatives you irrationally hate are really Muslim fanatics who treat women like slaves and want all gay people dead. You cowardly hypocrites seem to have no problem refraining from EVER expressing one word of hostility about Muslim homophobes and misogynists, so go through December without saying anything about Christians and/or Conservatives that you would not say about Muslims and/or Islamists. And show their religion the same nauseating deference you gutless wonders show Islam. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
