Hello!

Here’s an interesting ‘flashbak’ article by Rob Baker about the English comic Benny Hill, The Rise, Fall, and Lonely Death of Benny Hill. Hill’s Music Hall and TV background is more interesting than he is, but overall it’s a fascinating article, especially parts about the business during the war years.

And correspondent Marshall Crawford has kindly tipped me off that the newly restored version of the 1953 The War of the Worlds is now available, with extras, on iTunes. I’ll hold off a review until a disc surfaces (c’mon Paramount!) but I might just spring for this. The WOTW’53 restoration was premiered at the AMIA’s The Reel Thing last about two months ago; the big news is that the ‘wires’ are no more. It really ought to be circulated on one of those TCM nationwide special screening programs — the movie was incredibly exciting on a big screen, in Technicolor.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson