Last month, as you may recall (but probably don't), we said hello to Balconeer KEITH, the only guy who attends our Friday Night Movies (semi-regularly) who actually boasted of checking this website every week. Turns out that HE then told everybody he knew that he was mentioned here, and his friends all tuned in to read what we'd said about him. So we're thinkin', hey, maybe if we do that kind of thing more often, we might garner more attention 'round here from the right people. So this month's listings are dedicated to our favorite actress, PARKER POSEY. Parker, call me, hon.

Here's the schedule for the next few weeks of our Friday Night Films series. Miss Posey, you're invited, and you can sit down on the couch right next to me, an offer I NEVER made to Keith...

Jan. 6: New Year, Old Movie!

The great Buster Keaton makes a long-overdue return to our program tonight with a film that Your Wacko Webmaster hasn’t seen since he was a kid, but it was his introduction to Keaton, and so has always occupied a fond place in his soft little heart. Interestingly, Keaton thought it was the weakest of his silent features, although hardly anybody agrees with him. In any case, you’ll have the opportunity to judge for yourself.

Buster will inherit $7 million on his 27th birthday, so long as he’s happily married, and the problem is that he doesn’t discover that legacy until the morning of his birthday and has to do a bit of hustling. It’s Seven Chances, directed by Keaton (based on a stage play) and released in the spring of 1925. The film’s been redone several times, notably Brideless Groom with the Three Stooges in 1947 and The Bachelor with Chris O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger (1999).

To accompany this screen classic, we've got our typical outstanding lineup of short subjects (based on our extremely loose definition of "outstanding"). First, a rascally dog terrorizes a cat into getting his dinner in Chow Hound (1951), this week’s animated offering from director Chuck Jones; then, we finally learn how to eat properly without getting shit all over our shirt in Table Manners (1951); and Rex Bennett is back to battle those pesky ol’ Nazis in "Lightning Terror", the eleventh electrifying episode of Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943).

Jan. 13: His Final Bow

By now, you've all seen the new Sherlock Holmes film (I hope you have, ‘cause I can guarantee I haven’t) and are ready for a trip to the past with the screen’s most celebrated resident of 221B Baker Street, Basil Rathbone, and his dim-witted but useful sidekick, Nigel Bruce.

Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson investigate the case of three music boxes whose owners all wind up dead! It’s a melody of murder in the 1946 thriller Dressed to Kill, directed by Roy William Neill. It was the last of the 14 films starring Rathbone & Bruce as Holmes and Watson.

This week's short subjects actually DO look outstanding! Popeye is back and he’s brought his violin in The Spinach Overture (1935, directed by Dave Fleischer); Laurel & Hardy are a pair of street musicians caught in a blizzard in Below Zero (1930, dir. James Parrott), and Rex Bennett attends a "Ceremonial Execution" in the twelfth tense episode of Secret Service in Darkest Africa.

Jan. 20: One Troggy Evening...

Hoo, boy. Where do we start with THIS one? Yep, yep, yep… it’s another one of those "Where do we start with THIS one?" weeks.

Joan Crawford(!) is an anthropologist(!) who discovers a Neanderthal man living in a cave in England, and she tries to give him a little culture whilst Michael Gough has more nefarious plans for the hairy bastard. Yes, it’s the 1970 classic (and BOY, we toss the word "classic" at pretty much ANYTHING, don’t we?) Trog, directed by Freddie Francis. This was Miss Crawford’s swansong in motion pictures, which should tell you all you need to know. When Your Wacko Website Administrator was a kid, he had the Castle Home Video li’l silent abridgement of the film. Oh, to finally see it in color and with sound will truly be a dream come true.

Remember Marc Anthony, the big, mean bulldog whose heart softened when he got a cute, adorable little kitten? Well, even if you don’t, they’re back in Feline Frame-Up (1954, dir. Chuck Jones).

Alfalfa wants to go to college and play football someday, but his grades are too poor. Luckily, he’ll learn a valuable lesson from his Pop in Time Out for Lessons (1939, dir. Edward L. Cahn and Bud Murray. These "lost" Our Gang shorts are going downhill fast; according to Leonard Maltin & Richard Bann in their book The Little Rascals, this film was "better suited for showing in the schoolroom of a reformatory" than in a movie theatre.

Finally, Rex Bennett will take a "Fatal Leap" in chapter 13 of Secret Service in Darkest Africa.

Jan. 27: A Brand New Movie (by our standards)!

Another old movie this week… technically… although by our standards, tonight’s feature attraction is practically brand new! Why, it’s less than 35 years old! It was practically made yesterday!

In the 1920s, Gene Wilder has the movie star bug, and he’s off to Hollywood to be the next Rudolph Valentino – with some assistance from the real thing – in the 1977 comedy The World’s Greatest Lover, written & directed by Mr. Wilder. Carol Kane, Dom DeLuise, and Carl Ballantine lend support. The World’s Greatest Lover was originally scheduled for our show in 2006, but was postponed: for nearly six years, apparently, giving you some idea of how little demand we’ve actually received for this film.

Speedy Gonzalez returns to our program, this time with his cousin, the world’s slowest mouse, in Mexicali Shmoes (1959, dir. Friz Freleng); Sexy Rexy is the "Victim of Villainy" in the penultimate chapter of Secret Service in Darkest Africa.

Feb. 3: Doubling Your Enjoyment, or Trying Your Patience?

Tonight, it's our second annual RKO Double Feature night, with the next installments in the popular series that highlighted last year’s first annual RKO Double Feature night. See how this works?

First, Simon Templar is back in England, hot on the trail of a card shark who turns out to be mixed up with a gang who have set their sets a lot higher than hidden aces! George Sanders stars in The Saint in London, directed by John Paddy Carstairs and released in June, 1939.

Then, Lupe Velez and Donald Woods are back, newlyweds this time, with goofy uncle Leon Errol returning as well in The Mexican Spitfire, directed by Leslie Goodwins and released in January, 1940.

In addition to their own productions, RKO at the time distributed Walt Disney shorts and features, so we’ll have a few classic Disney shorts of the era on hand for the kiddies.

Coming Distractions

In the weeks ahead, we’ll wrap up our current serial and start a new one, plus feature more fun, adventure, chills, and laughs with all your In The Balcony favorites!

The FNF Story...

The very first official Balcony Friday Night Frights (FNF) was held in September, 1986 on Staten Island, New York. Your Balcony Webmaster had just moved from Ohio with his then-wife and two sons, Weasel Gravy (age 7) and Bone Gravy (age 5) and not knowing anybody in town and not having much in the way of entertainment dollars, television and reading were the diversion of choice on most nights. Well, to make a long story short, one Friday night we found ourselves with a trio of cheap video tapes, Creature from the Black Lagoon (from a yard sale, $10), a Looney Tunes compilation (from a Manhattan street fair, $7), and a cheap two-tape set of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (K-Mart, $13). We put together a little show with a cartoon (Robin Hood Daffy), serial chapter, and monster movie, looking to amuse the kids. Little did we know that 23 years later, we’d still be enjoying the show. Over the years, friends and family joined us, and in 1993 we introduced the first FNF Newsletter, a little weekly B&W Xeroxed publication made with a word processor and a glue stick. In 1996, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with congratulatory messages from such FNF celebrities as Kevin "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" McCarthy, Linda "The Tiger Woman" Stirling, Mara "Tarantula" Corday, and Jonathan "Little Shop of Horrors" Haze.

In 1999, we moved across this great country of ours, leaving New York City and settling in Sacramento, where the weather is better and you can turn right on a red light, and we brought FNF with us to entertain a new generation of Trophy Wife, kids, neighbors, friends, and parents. The FNF Newsletter continued, now in full color (computer science improved). Our parties generally include 4-8 kids and 6 grownups (relatively speaking) every week, and we usually serve pizza, popcorn, candy, and a variety of other treats. Traditionally, we open with a cartoon, then a serial episode, a comedy or educational short, a music video and some trailers, and then a feature attraction. The house is decorated with lobby cards and one-sheet posters from the films, too, and there are theme nights throughout the year.

Having established the In The Balcony website in September 2005, we felt it was time to merge these two fine enterprises and begin offering an online version of the FNF Newsletter. And here we are!