His Hare-Raising Tale (1951)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Virgil Ross
Music by Carl Stalling
One of the relatively few Warner Bros. cartoons that mainly consisted of recycled footage from older shorts, “His Hare-Raising Tale” is an amusing endeavor that pointed to a potential scenario shift that, sadly, was never explored in depth.
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I am trying to recall the last time that I saw a feature-length documentary that invigorated, entertained, provoked and moved me across the full spectrum of emotional responses. To borrow a line from George Harrison – it’s been a long, long, long time. And that is why I am grateful for the arrival of Paris Barclay’s “Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It,” a production of remarkable grace and power that deserves to be considered as the best film of the year.
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Jules White was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the greatest comedy director – but he might have been the resourceful. With the 1956 Three Stooges short “Scheming Schemers,” he created a new film by using stock footage from three different movies while putting forth a work where one of the stars had passed away six weeks earlier.
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BOOTLEG FILES 885: “Around the Beatles” (1964 British television special).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Bits and pieces of the show turned up on home entertainment release.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The full show has been unavailable for years.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
Sixty years ago today, ABC broadcast “Around the Beatles,” an hour-long musical special that was first broadcast on Britain’s ITV on May 6, 1964. This production was notable as the rare television variety special with the Beatles as the starring attraction – for the most part, the Fab Four only showed up as guests on someone else’s small-screen music and comedy revue.
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French Rarebit (1951)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Phil DeLara, Emery Hawkins, Charles McKimson, Rod Scribner
Music by Eugene Poddany; orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
A flatbed truck emerges out of the Arc de Triomphe carrying a large crate marked “Carrots from U.S.A.” The vehicle hits a pothole, causing the crate to fall off and crack open in the street. Bugs Bunny emerges, unaware of his surroundings, though a quick glimpse of the Eiffel Tower and a street sign for the Champs Elysees alerts him to his Parisian location. While strolling the city’s streets, he attracts the attention of rival restaurateurs Louis and Francois – each wants to capture and cook Bugs. Not surprisingly, Bugs quickly outwits his new foes and winds up cooking them.
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This 1971 feature from the American International Pictures fun factory is a work at odds with itself. It wants to be campy, but it is never that funny. It wants to be a horror film, but poor direction dilutes the effectiveness of the chills. And while it succeeds as a Vincent Price vehicle, it fails to bring along the rest of the cast for the ride.
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One of the least credible theories regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper insists the serial killer was Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a practicing physician prior to gaining wider fame as the creator of Sherlock Holmes with the publication of “A Study in Scarlet” in 1887. There is no evidence – not even the most frayed wisp of preposterous circumstance – to place Conan Doyle in Whitechapel at the time of the killings, let alone providing him with a motive for the crimes.