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El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:17 am
by Rob Farr
Because if he had lived another year or so he almost certainly would have had a nice supporting role in Bob Hope's I'll Take Sweden, which seemingly gave employment to every actor in H'wood who could fake a passable Swedish accent. It just aired on TCM and I need to watch a Road picture as an antidote.

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:34 pm
by Richard Finegan
Rob Farr wrote:Because if he had lived another year or so he almost certainly would have had a nice supporting role in Bob Hope's I'll Take Sweden, which seemingly gave employment to every actor in H'wood who could fake a passable Swedish accent.

Good point, Rob.
I also sometimes wonder why El wasn't given a part somewhere in 1963's IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD. He WAS alive for that one.
Perhaps our resident El expert can offer some insight.

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:22 pm
by Louie Despres
Richard Finegan wrote:Good point, Rob.
I also sometimes wonder why El wasn't given a part somewhere in 1963's IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD. He WAS alive for that one.
Perhaps our resident El expert can offer some insight.


I guess that's directed at me. I'm frazzled from my trip, can't someone else be the Brendel expert now???

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:29 am
by Rob Farr
Louie, when you started down this road, you had to know it would be a lonely one.

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 12:20 pm
by Louie Despres
Rob Farr wrote:Louie, when you started down this road, you had to know it would be a lonely one.


It's true, but an exciting one!!!

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 1:20 am
by Paul F Etcheverry
An El Brendel opus I'd like to see: the Vitaphone 3-strip Tech musical short What, No Men! with Wini "Lullaby Of Broadway" Shaw http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025977/

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:51 am
by Louie Despres
Paul F Etcheverry wrote:An El Brendel opus I'd like to see: the Vitaphone 3-strip Tech musical short What, No Men! with Wini "Lullaby Of Broadway" Shaw http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025977/


It certainly does survive and was restored last year by WB & UCLA to all its Tech glory, according to what I have heard. A clip of an Indian Dance from the short was included in the WB 2-reeler "Musical Movieland" and is available on the "Night and Day" DVD : http://www.amazon.com/Night-Day-Cary-Gr ... B0001WTWXS

Re: El Brendel Died Too Soon

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 4:09 pm
by Paul F Etcheverry
Thanks for the tip! Now, if I can only find Lillian Roth singing "Little Alimony Sal" in Story Conference, another stellar 1934 Vitaphone musical comedy short, on DVD.

I've read about that Cole Porter biopic: alas, written without Algonquin Round Table support (don't know what Dorothy Parker was doing in 1945-1946, but Benchley and Woolcott by then had gone to the expensive restaurant in the hereafter) and filmed without Fred Astaire and Oscar Levant in the cast. Also hear that Arthur Q Bryan and Mel Blanc are contributors, but that there is no scene with Bryan singing "It's All Wight WIth Me"

Wonder if Cary Grant sings as well as Vernon Dent does in Good Morning, Eve - and El does in various films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Av6maPocI