= VITAPHONE VARIETIES =

In March of 1929, Paramount sought to entice newspaper readers into theaters with the following prepared review of William Wellman's "Chinatown Nights" ---
"There is more mystery on one Chinese standing in a shadowy Chinatown doorway than in all the mystery stories ever written. And in 'Chinatown Nights,' showing at the _______ there are more than five hundred Chinese revealed in all the intriguing and...

Happy Holidays! For this third annual Yuletide Frolic edition of "Vitaphone Varieties," we'll acknowledge the disconcerting notion that the less romantic and fanciful aspects of the late 20's and early 30's might be closer to us than we suspect by entirely...

No, "Vitaphone Varieties" hasn't fallen by the wayside --- nor has this writer!
True enough, recent posts have been scattered and erratic at best, and gone are the days of new additions that appeared with clockwork regularity in years past --- but I owe it to you, to the topic at hand and (I suppose) to myself, to try to maintain...

Seeming as though he wants nothing more than to break free of his creators, we see one of Coney Island's Luna Park lions at what amounts to his birth --- with largely Italian artisan hands forming and shaping the body that would soon become adhered to...