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I respect and understand what you are saying, Richard, it's more a matter of preference for me that AN OLD SPANISH CUSTOM keeps Buster front & center nearly all the time. Probably I'd appreciate THE INVADER more if I were watching the original English language release. The wall-to-wall dubbing i...

A side note - the approximately 50-minute American version of this film, AN OLD SPANISH CUSTOM, could be director Adrian Brunel's first cut (minus the deletion requests made by the MPPDA in December 1935). Years later Brunel recalled that when the film was originally completed in 1934, it was consid...

Addendum below -

Thanks Richard for sharing this with us. Chris, regarding your question about a phonetic French version, Lupita Tovar told me in 1992 that only an English-language version of THE INVADER was made, contrary to news reports at the time that a French version was planned to be in the works. Sam Spiegel ...

Beautifully done, thank you, Dave! I imagine this delightful tribute to Roscoe would've left Walter Kerr speechless ;-)

This treasure trove of Bill Everson's lectures is pure gold - it's much like listening to a Richard Roberts commentary track - wonderful, indeed!

Thank you Richard for sharing this, how fortunate we are that these tapes were made, saved, and now available.

Ed

William, I just returned from running some errands and checked Leo Donnelly's credits - he was a stage and vaudeville comedian turned Broadway confidante, and in the sound era did narration for shorts produced by Paramount, Vitaphone, Educational, and United, perhaps others as well. He died in 1935 ...

William Ferry wrote:Is the narrator for this series the same one who did a similar series around the same time for Vitaphone?

Hi William, here's half of the answer - Leo Donnelly is the credited narrator on the Paramount shorts:

This is not, in fact, a "Sweedie" comedy, this is AT THE OLD MAID'S CALL, a split-reeler released by Essanay on December 24, 1913, in which Wally is playing Miss Muchmoney a rich old maid who is advertising for a beau in what may be his first female impersonation for the company. Thanks f...

A slightly longer clip from a 1932 Paramount Screen Souvenirs entry, of an untitled Essanay Sweedie comedy, with Frenchman Leo White wooing the "charming" Sweedie, Wallace Beery:

https://filmlibrary.shermangrinberg.com/?s=file=421885