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You've found the best spot on the web for fans of classic movies! News, reviews, previews, and lots of other fun stuff! And we've got several sister sites for your amusement and entertainment and edification, including Saturday matinee memories at inthebalcony.com/matinee, suspense serial thrills at inthebalcony.com/cliffhanger, short subject merriment at inthebalcony.com/shorts, movie party fun at inthebalcony.com/FNF, and our annual salute to Poverty Row filmmaking at its finest with inthebalcony.com/monogram.
Our JANUARY Friday Night Films Schedule is up at our sister site, which can be easily accessed merely by clickin' right HERE!
SILENTS in the BALCONY, PLEASE! In the Balcony Spotlight this week, we celebrate some of our favorite Silent Movies. Click HERE but be QUIET!!!! Then go see THE ARTIST!
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AT INTHEBALCONY! Join our FACEBOOK group, too! Film lovers taking over America, one movie screen & one social networking website at a time!
THE 2011 DISC OF THE YEAR AWARDS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED! THEY'RE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, TOO, JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF THE HARD WORK THAT GOES INTO THIS TYPO-LADEN FILM SITE! CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS YEAR'S WINNERS!
Our DVD/Blu-ray Calendar is up now for FEBRUARY, with more film classics, cult oddities, obscure goodies, vintage TV favorites, and whatever else we think that you think might be interesting.
Click ZAAT thing to go to our DVD/BD Calendar, and be forewarned... there are FOUR new Jerry Lewis titles being released this month. You may want to take your anti-skin-crawling medication prior to reading.

MR. LAUREL & MR. HARDY!
The LAUREL & HARDY FUN HOUSE has re-opened!
From the opening day of In The Balcony, we've made it a priority to help keep the flame of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy cackling brightly in the absence of their best work on American DVD (while the rest of the world was enjoying brilliantly restored versions of dozens of short subjects and classic features starring the greatest comedy team in the history of cinema).
We're proud to announce that Vivendi Entertainment has released a boxed set containing ALL of the Hal Roach-produced talkie short subjects and many of the best feature films Stan & Ollie made from 1929-1940, a total of no less than FIFTY EIGHT comedy classics not released in the U.S. since a series of VHS tapes in the early 1980s, sparklingly remastered and looking the best that they have since the 1930s. Easily the best DVD release of the year, and a "must!" for under every Christmas tree in America, although Jewish people, Muslims, and atheists will laugh just as hard.
Click the picture to go to the LAUREL & HARDY FUN HOUSE for an overview of ALL the Laurel-Hardy films and where you can purchase them!

Vernon Dent: Stooge Heavy (BearManor Media, $19.95) My pal Bill Cassara, author of the wonderful bio of slow-burn master Edgar Kennedy, has done it again with a wonderfully funny, charming, and revealing tome on Vernon Dent, whose long career as a comic second-banana stretched from his early days in Hank Mann films of the ‘teens up through notable Columbia 2-reelers of the ‘30s-‘50s. Dent is best remembered, of course, for numerous appearances in Three Stooges films, but Vernon also worked with many other comics, not only in supporting roles but frequently as a writer, director, and singer (he’s got a lovely voice, folks).
Dent (1895-1963) was born in San Jose to a saloonkeeper father who met quite a nasty end (one of the juicier tidbits of the book). Dent moved with his mother to Oakland, but the movies came a-callin’, and by 1923, Vernon – working for the premier comedy producer in the country, Mack Sennett – was teamed with Harry Langdon in a series of popular comedies, with Dent invariably playing the comic "heavy".
After bouncing around in the 1930s in a variety of roles (the 1934 Technicolor short Good Morning, Eve, available from Warner Archives, is a favorite of ours), Dent appeared in a little something called Half-Shot Shooters in 1936 for Columbia Pictures. The film starred the Three Stooges, and Dent would appear with the team in over 50 films over the next 18 years. Eventually, illness and blindness forced him to retire from the screen, but he survived long enough to experience the rebirth of the Stooges as slapstick icons on television; Vernon died of a coronary in November, 1963 and is buried under a marker that reads "Gentle Presence".
In addition to the funny man’s biography, Vernon Dent: Stooge Heavy (which can be ordered HERE) contains an extensive filmography, including lost films and memorable moments from the Stooges films, plus numerous rare and family photographs and a wonderful illustration of Dent with the Stooges by the great Drew Friedman. Highest recommendation, and I for one look forward to Sgt. Cassara’s next book!

Inside the Arkoff Vaults...

How your wacko In The Balcony Webmaster was responsible for some of the worst (and most fun) movies of the 1950s coming to DVD in England is a story more gruesome, horrifying, and gratifying than the actual films themselves! Click on How to Make a Monster for the full story of the American-International Notorious DVD Invasion!