Live, “two a day” vaudeville was, for almost 50 years, the leading form of American entertainment, in both big cities and small towns (like Sag Harbor)—until talking motion pictures killed it almost overnight. But it was a training ground for movie icons like the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Mae West, Judy Garland, the Nicholas Brothers, and even Cary Grant. Bruce Goldstein, founder of Rialto Pictures and Repertory Artistic Director of New York’s Film Forum, re-creates vaudeville’s golden age with this acclaimed illustrated talk (originally presented at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood) that uses rare film footage of the late 1920s and early 1930s (much of it rediscovered and restored only in the past few years) to create a complete, re-imagined vaudeville show, featuring such headliners as Burns & Allen, W.C. Fields, and Ethel Merman, along with a line-up of once famous acts that have faded into obscurity.
In addition to rare footage of some of the greatest acts in vaudeville history, the program will include two early vaudeville shorts, restored in 35mm by the Library of Congress and UCLA Film & Television Archive:
LAMBCHOPS
With George Burns and Gracie Allen
USA, 1929, 8 mins., in English
THE BEAU BRUMMELS
With Al Shaw and Sam Lee
USA, 1928; 9 mins., in English
35mm Vitaphone shorts courtesy of UCLA and The Library of Congress.