Fractured Flickers

Episode 1

Rose Marie

Thu, Aug 1, 196325 mins

Hans Conried introduces the first episode of "Fractured Flickers" in front of a framed photograph of Theda Bara with a mustache painted over her face. He explains the premise of the show: old silent pictures are condensed, reedited and given wacky new soundtracks. He demonstrates by showing a scene from an old bullfighting picture, Blood and Sand (1922), and then showing it again in a "fractured" version. Next we see a woman with a black veil over her face talking to a man in the park. The fractured soundtrack reveals that the woman is an advertising model sick of being typecast; the man is her agent. "The 39 Stoops" is next, a wacky version of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935). Rose Marie stops in for an interview. Later, Conried informs us that standards in male beauty have changed just as much as standards in female beauty, which explains how a fat Elmo Lincoln came to play the title role in Tarzan of the Apes (1918). The fractured version is "Tarfoot of the Apes," which gives us a giggling Lord of the Jungle; a Jane whose cheap perfume drives men crazy; and a native African tribe that dances the Charleston. A family out for a drive in their rickety horseless carriage provides the material for "Route 56," a parody of the TV series, Route 66 (1960). Finally, Conried quotes the immortal words of Dr. Denton: "That just about buttons it up for tonight."