What we have for you today, Intelligentsia, is a half-hour episode of This is Your Life from March 10, 1954 which saluted the life 'n' times of Mack Sennett. This is of interest not just because you get a chance to see a bit of the kind of person Sennett was but because they rounded up a lot of his old associates, including Heinie Conklin, Chester Conklin, Vernon Dent, Hank Mann, Andy Clyde, Minta Durfee, Harold Lloyd and even Franklin Pangborn. I don't want to start any rumors but the way Mr. Pangborn acts, you'd almost get the idea that he might possibly have been gay. Which is silly because we all know there were no gay people in the fifties or before.
Some of these This is Your Life shows are a bit hard to take with their rushed and melodramatic narratives but sometimes they provide actual history. And it's always nice to see the opening where the subject is allegedly surprised. I say "allegedly" because there are some where it seems pretty obvious to me that even if the show didn't let the person know they were going to be caught, someone did. Mack Sennett's reaction looks pretty phony to me. Still a fun show, though.
