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The Hot Scots (1948)

The Three Stooges (Moe, Larry and Shemp) answer an advertisement placed by Scotland Yard for “yardmen” and they inform the inspector in charge that they are perfect for the job – they are newly minted graduates of the A-1 Correspondence School of Detecting. However, the “yardmen” jobs are for groundskeeper positions, which they grudgingly accept under the belief that they will eventually be promoted to crime solving. Thanks to a note blown from the inspector’s desk into their rubbish clean-up, the trio believe they’ve been assigned to protect the valuables in Scotland’s gloomy Glenheather Castle – which a title card tells us is “on the Bonny Banks of Scotland… but ’tis late, and the bonny banks are closed.”
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The Bootleg Files: The Lord Don’t Play Favorites

BOOTLEG FILES 881: “The Lord Don’t Play Favorites” (1956 television musical starring Kay Starr, Louis Armstrong, Buster Keaton and Robert Stack).

LAST SEEN: On Internet Archive and YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Music clearance issues and a poor quality surviving kinescope.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nope.

One of all-time favorite books is Arthur Shulman and Roger Youman’s “How Sweet it Was,” which chronicles American television from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s. While many of the entries in the book are well-known, there was one photograph that always intrigued me – it was for a 1956 musical called “The Lord Don’t Play Favorites” and it showed Buster Keaton wearing a polka dot clown costume and his trademark flat hat while playing a calliope. Next to Keaton was Kay Starr, a popular singer in the 50s, who had a straw hat and a cane while wearing a striped blouse and a long black skirt. The caption for the photo only said that the show was a musical with a circus setting and co-starred Robert Stack, Dick Haymes and Louis Armstrong. (Yes, that’s the photo at the top of this page.)
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Rabbit of Seville (1950)

Rabbit of Seville (1950)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Emery Hawkins
Music by Carl Stalling

In my humble opinion, the 1950 “Rabbit of Seville” represents the apex of the Bugs Bunny animated shorts. The film is both laugh-out-loud hilarious and an artistic triumph that creates a slapstick masterpiece on the foundation of symphonic greatness – in this case, the overture to Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville.”
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Monkey Business (1931)

While the majority of film scholars will hail “Duck Soup” and “A Night at the Opera” as the best of the Marx Brothers movies, my go-to Marx mayhem is their 1931 “Monkey Business.” Part of my devotion is emotional – this was the first Marx film I saw, back when I was around 10 years old and WNEW-TV Channel 5 in New York City would broadcast the film. And part of my devotion is intellectual – I genuinely believe it is the crazy siblings’ best film.
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The Bootleg Files: The Apocalypse Now Workprint

BOOTLEG FILES 880: “The Apocalypse Now Workprint” (five-hour version of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 classic).

LAST SEEN: On Internet Archive and YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Coppola doesn’t want this to be commercially released.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nope.

I have a confession to make: I never liked “Apocalypse Now.” I’ve seen it several times, and with each new viewing I wished that my indifference to the film would be replaced with a sudden awakening of belated appreciation. I was hopeful that the longer “Apocalypse Now Redux” would trigger a positive response, but I found that more annoying than the original.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bushy Hare (1950)

Bushy Hare (1950)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Animation by Phil De Lara, J.C. Melendez, Charles McKimson, Rod Scribner
Music by Carl Stalling

On several occasions, the Warner Bros. animators placed Bugs Bunny up against one-shot foes designed to plumb humor from politically incorrect stereotypes. In “Bushy Hare,” the antagonist is supposed to be an Aboriginal Australian. However, the Termite Terrace gang obviously knew nothing about Aboriginal Australians and instead created an all-purpose (albeit light tan skinned) wild man in a red loincloth who sports bushy hair and a beard and throws a boomerang and a spear while screaming unintelligibly. No one in America seemed to mind or notice any problems until June 2001 when Cartoon Network pulled it from its “June Bugs” marathon along with other shorts featuring racial and ethnic stereotype characters.
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What’s New, Pussycat? (1965)

During the 1960s, there was a flurry of all-star comedy films that tried too hard to be zany. “What’s New, Pussycat?” stands out in this genre for its freewheeling approach to sex – and while it often fails to maintain its frenetic pace, it has more than a few redeeming features to keep the viewer entertained.
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