#hal roach studios

[precodesoul]

Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd for Hal Roach Studios, 1930s

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Starship Invasions (1977)

[detrixsta]

Charley Chase  (October 20, 1893 – June 20, 1940) "front-of-house" lobby card for "What Women Did For Me" (1927)

[chaptertwo-thepacnw]

mary ann jackson

[citizenscreen]

The staff at Hal Roach Studios c 1925

[filmicgreyscale]

Ernest Morrison was an actor and vaudeville performer who was born in New Orleans on December 12th, 1912. He performed and was credited under a number of stage names, the most famous of which being Sunshine Sammy Morrison. He was the first African American actor to be signed to a long-term Hollywood contract, specifically to Hal Roach Studios in 1919, where he performed alongside Harold Lloyd in a number of comedy shorts before being the first actor cast in Roach’s Our Gang serials. Morrison eventually left the studio over a payment dispute in 1926, and began to perform on the vaudeville circuit. He returned to film in 1940, when he was cast in The East Side Kids serials, playing a teenager, despite the fact he was almost 30. He was drafted in the American Military late in the war alongside a number of his East Side Kids costars, and was among the lucky few to survive. Upon returning from the war, he was offered a role in the successor series to The East Side Kids, but turned it down. He would not return to acting until 1974, for a bit part in an episode of the American sitcom Good Times. He spent most of his adulthood after the war working as a quality control inspector for an aerospace company. Morrison died of cancer on July 24th, 1989.

images #1 & #2 - Morrison during his time at Hal Roach Studios, image #3 - a promotional image of Morrison and Harold Lloyd in Get Out and Get Under (1920), image #4 - a still of Morrison in one of the East Side Kids films, image #5 - Hal Roach, Morrison, and Morrison’s father signing his contract, image #6 - a promotional image for the Our Gang serials, with Morrison on the far left.

[silentdivasblog]

A Pair of Tights.  Comedy Short Starring Anita Garvin, Marion “Peanuts” Byron.  Refreshing to see two female comedians in lead roles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iw6xb3nrTY&t=629s

[theendofthefilm]

Raggedy Rose

Richard Wallace USA, 1926