Thelma Todd Paramount Photo

Thelma Todd in a publicity photo for HORSEFEATHERS ( 1932 ). Visible at the right is a vase that can also be seen in a couple of other publicity photos from this period.

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Marx Brothers Marathon Today On TCM

TCM is having a Marx Brothers marathon today. The two movies that Thelma Todd made with them, MONKEY BUSINESS and HORSE FEATHERS, will be run with the rest of the Marx Brothers' movies.



Reblogged from http://www.marx-brothers.org/news.htm

Marx Brothers on TV & Radio

Times given are local time. 24 hour format is used.

14 Aug 2015	05:59	TCM	TCM "Summer under the Stars" series	A whole day dedicated to the Groucho and the Marx Brothers
14 Aug 2015	06:00	TCM	Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937)	A short film featuring Groucho
14 Aug 2015	06:30	TCM	Double Dynamite	Movie featuring Groucho
14 Aug 2015	08:00	TCM	A Girl In Every Port	Movie featuring Groucho
14 Aug 2015	09:30	TCM	Room Service
14 Aug 2015	11:00	TCM	At The Circus
14 Aug 2015	12:30	TCM	Go West
14 Aug 2015	14:00	TCM	The Big Store
14 Aug 2015	15:30	TCM	The Dick Cavett Show: Groucho Marx	Interview with Groucho from 1969
14 Aug 2015	16:30	TCM	The Cocoanuts
14 Aug 2015	18:15	TCM	Animal Crackers
14 Aug 2015	20:00	TCM	Monkey Business
14 Aug 2015	21:30	TCM	Horse Feathers
14 Aug 2015	22:45	TCM	Duck Soup
15 Aug 2015	00:00	TCM	A Night At The Opera
15 Aug 2015	02:00	TCM	A Day At the Races
15 Aug 2015	04:00	TCM	The Story of Mankind	features Chico, Groucho and Harpo, but they never appear in a scene together

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MONKEY BUSINESS:
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/290225%7C86548/Monkey-Business.html


HORSEFEATHERS:
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1054507%7C0/Marx-Brothers-Marathon-1-1.html



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Marion Martin With The Marx Brothers And The Three Stooges

Marion Martin with the Marx Brothers in a publicity photo for GO WEST.

And with the Three Stooges in Stooges in MERRY MAVERICKS. 









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Esther Muir In The Fan Magazines

Esther Muir in the fan magazines of the thirties.


    
                                            HOLLYWOOD FILMOGRAPHY May 27, 1933

At top right there is an item about a radio program with Esther Muir and Harry Langdon. They would later costar in the movie MISBEHAVING HUSBANDS.

                                                                                  HOLLYWOOD March 1937

A picture of Esther Muir and her husband at bottom right. Fawcett published this magazine. 

 

HOLLYWOOD Oct.37

 At right we see a picture of Esther Muir and praise for A DAY AT THE RACES.

 

SILVER SCREEN May-Oct. 38

On the lower right is a picture of Esther Muir and Victor McLaglen in BATTLE OF BROADWAY.


                                                   HOLLYWOOD September 1939

At the lower left is a picture of Esther Muir with Mischa Auer, Dorothy Lamour, and Edgar Bergen, a famous ventriloquist who worked with a dummy named "Charlie McCarthy".

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Marx Brothers With Swaybacked Horse

A publicity photo for A DAY AT THE RACES.

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The Marx Brothers - SCREEN THRILLS ILLUSTRATED #8

SCREEN THRILLS ILLUSTRATED was a Warren Magazine, somewhat similar to FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, only the emphasis was on action and adventure films. But issue #8 had an article about the Marx Brothers which had pictures of them with Esther Muir. Originally published May 1964.

 

 

 

Recently I've seen speculations about the wallpaper scene in A DAY AT THE RACES, based on publicity photos. They said that Esther Muir must have had a bucket dumped on her originally, but it got cut out.  Obviously there were some creative publicity photos that didn't follow the movie exactly, since the top one shows Groucho being wallpapered.  

 

SCREEN THRILLS ILLUSTRATED:
http://monstermagazinegalleries.blogspot.com/2010/03/screen-thrills-illustrated.html




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Marx Brothers Contract

This contract was being offered for sale by RR Auctions, as mentioned in the "Marx Brothers Council of Facebook". It has to do with the movies they made with Thelma Todd, MONKEY BUSINESS and HORSE FEATHERS.

Reblogged from https://www.facebook.com/groups/1389369721281242/1498075890410624/

DS, signed by all four brothers using their full legal signatures, three pages of a four page document, 8.5 x 11, April 6, 1962. Agreement between Groucho, Harpo, Zeppo, and Gummo and Paramount Pictures concerning the release of the estate of Chico Marx from a 1930 contract involving the Marx Brothers and re-releases of Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, as well as a cash payout of a total of $38,500.00 divided between the brothers, Chico’s two wives, and a law firm. Signed on the last two pages, “Julius H. (Groucho) Marx,” “Arthur Harpo Marx,” “Herbert Zeppo Marx,” “Mary DiVitha Marx,” “Betty Marx,” and “Gummo Marx.” Second page missing, mild toning, expected document wear, and uniform fading to typed text, otherwise fine condition. Horse Feathers, in which the brothers satirized the American College system and Prohibition, was one of their most popular films, and landed the brothers on the cover of Time magazine. Chico Marx, the oldest of the five, had passed away on October 11, 1961, last appearing with the Marx Brothers in the 1950 film Love Happy.

 

 

 

 

Michael Hayde If nothing else, this proves Maxine Marx was correct that the

Brothers' Paramount contract (at least this two-picture one) was a participation deal. And I suspect this settlement had little to do with Paramount's original creative accounting, but rather was to legally clear the decks because the films were being (or had been) sold to MCA period.








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The Edgar Kennedy Show

An effort is underway to bring back the original Edgar Kennedy series from RKO in a new format.

 

 

 

Reblogged from http://matineeatthebijou.blogspot.com/

 

The Edgar Kennedy Show is planned as a fresh concept for introducing contemporary audiences to the wonderful world of classic star-driven comedy short subjects produced during the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

The idea is to create a continuing series of half-hour shows programmed for non-commercial broadcast and streaming video that consist of selected short subjects presented in their entirety along with mini-bios to inform audiences  of the specific star or comedy team's place in film history.

Among primary candidates for this "edu-tainment" treatment are comedy legends like Charley Chase, Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Harry Langdon, Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, ZaSu Pitts, Leon Errol, Andy Clyde, Clark & McCullough, Joe McDoakes and many more.  

 

 

 

*                       *                      *

 

 

 

 Edgar Kennedy was a familiar face in classic comedy films. He was in Hal Roach's first attempt to launch a female Laurel and Hardy series, the Anita Garvin and Marion Byron films.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course he worked with Laurel and Hardy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He also worked with Our Gang,

 

 

 

 

 

the Marx Brothers,

 

 

 

 

and Wheeler and Woolsey.

His own series was popular in it's day, but has become somewhat obscure with the passage of time, although a few of the films were run on the PBS series MATINEE AT THE BIJOU.

 

Florence Rice was a frequent costar.

The Edgar Kennedy series was not actually one of my favorites, but I still think there could be an audience for them today.

The Edgar Kennedy Show
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11185808.htm

http://psychotronicpaul.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-edgar-kennedy-restoration-project.html

http://matineeatthebijou.blogspot.com/2013/06/edgar-kennedy-bill-cassara.html



Just Plain Edgar Kennedy:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0448012/

http://caferoxy.blogspot.com/2013/08/meet-edgar-kennedys-un-average-families.html

http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?20571-RARE!-quot-Laurel-amp-Hardy-quot-Old-Time-Radio

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/edgar-kennedy-in-cartoons/



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Thelma Todd Sheet Music

This is a story about sheet music with Thelma Todd on the cover, as sometimes happened in the thirties.










SMILE WHEN THE RAINDROPS FALL has Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy, Harry Langdon, and the Our Gang Kids as well as Thelma Todd on the cover.

EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU was the song the Marx Brothers all sang to Thelma Todd in the movie HORSE FEATHERS. So not surprisingly, her picture is on the cover of this sheet music.

 

 

 

 

 

This version doesn't have Thelma Todd's picture on it.

 

 

Incidentally, Paramount's use of the name "Famous" for the "Famous Studios" animation studio  is related to their use of the name for their sheet music division.

 

 

 

 

 SITTING PRETTY

 

 

That of course is Ginger Rogers on the cover, although you can see Thelma Todd's name listed at the lower left.

 

 

 

BOTTOMS UP

 

 

Pat Patterson on the cover, Thelma Todd's name also appears at lower right. "Movietone" was Fox, they also had "Movietone news".

 

 

 

 

 Some sheet music for COCKEYED CAVALIERS.

 

 With Wheeler and Woolsey on the cover, and Thelma Todd's name listed at lower right.

 

 

 

 

 

Then there was some sheet music Thelma Todd had in CHICKENS COME HOME.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girl on the cover of this version could be Thelma Todd,

 

 which might seem to be appropriate since it's her sheet music. Although I think this version was made for the film.









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The Old Swaybacked Horse Rides Again

This is the story of the old swaybacked horse that they used to use in old comedy films.



The Three Stooges worked with this horse in one of their western stories.

 

 

THE SAGEBRUSH TROUBADOR

 

Gene Autry's sidekick Frog Millhouse gives the horse it's first screen kiss.

 

 

A DAY AT THE RACES

 

 

The Marx Brothers worked with this horse in this movie as well as Esther Muir.

 

 

The "Our Gang" kids worked with this horse too. And the "Three Hollywood Girls" at Educational, but I don't have any pictures of them with it.

 

 

 

Sagebrush Troubador:

http://tumblingwest.blogspot.com/2011/06/gene-autry-sagebrush-troubadour-1935.html

Alison Loyd

"Alison Loyd" was a stage name Thelma Todd used in the movie CORSAIR, which was made in 1931.

 It wasn't a hit, so she went back to being Thelma Todd again.

Caption from the back of this picture:

But occasionally, you still run across publicity pictures with the name "Alison Loyd" on them.

This one identifies Alison Loyd as Thelma Todd on the back. It also mentions that she's in MONKEY BUSINESS with the Marx Brothers, so they may have been using it to advertise that movie.

With costar Chester Morris, and named only on the back.

Some of these have one name or the other crossed out.

An older photo where they added the new name 

 and later crossed it out and replaced it with the old one.

This one has first one name and then the other crossed out. They evidently had some uncertainty as to which name to use.

Another picture in the same series recieved the same treatment.

Again the first one name crossed out, and then the other.

 This "Alison Loyd" picture appeared in HEBDO in June 1932.

In 1933, this calendar had the same picture of Thelma Todd on it labeled "Alison Loyd".

The name appears at the bottom left of this picture.

 

An enlargement of the place with the name "Alison Loyd" on it.

A couple of years had passed since CORSAIR had been released, so it's unusual to see the name appearing on anything at this time.

But the name would be used for Thelma Todd again.

At Thelma Todd's funeral there were some flowers with the name "Alison" on a ribbon. They were from Roland West. The guy who was responsible for the name change in the first place. It was like he was still insisting that it was a good idea, that he was right, and that it was everybody else who was wrong.

Roland West was like that.

"Alison Loyd" newspaper article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IP1IAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hAINAAAAIBAJ&pg=2851,1623134&dq=thelma-todd&hl=en 

CORSAIR Promotion:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/press/corsair/corsair.pdf

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