Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Ever Popular Douglas Fairbanks

You'll be glad to know that on NCIS tonight, not only was the great Douglas Fairbanks mentioned, but two of the characters, Tony and Ziva, sat down to watch the silent Fairbanks classic The Black Pirate at the end of the show. (Yes, the Monkey occasionally watches something other than movies.)

Perhaps Doug has been courting the writers of NCIS with the same enthusiasm with which he lobbies his case here at the Monkey. Or maybe they, like us, know quality when they see it.

Anyway, why should two fictional characters have all the fun? Pull up a chair and join Anthony DiNozzo, Ziva David and yours truly as we watch this legally-available copy of the Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler classic, The Black Pirate.


9 comments:

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Fairbanks!

Ex-cel-lent ... now I will be checking these comments frequently. :-)

Hey Myth, is there any way to shrink the video dimensions a bit or something to get all of the right side of the film -- right now the screen is only getting about 2/3 with the righthand 1/3 cut off.

In other words, as we travelers like to say at the slightest provocation: Let me speak to your supervisor! I want a refund, a meal, and a voucher! And a hotel!

:-)

Anonymous said...

I cant remember exactly but i remember watching a crime show (there are so many i cant tell them apart) and two guys relaxed from a hard days detecting or whatever they do and watched a Charlie Chaplin Short- A night in the show - (i think) i remember they watched it on an old movie machine.
i wonder if that was NCIS?. or csi or svu. lol.

Mythical Monkey said...

Hey Myth, is there any way to shrink the video dimensions a bit

I'll bet there is -- if I can figure it out, I'll change it ...

watched a Charlie Chaplin Short- A night in the show

I definitely saw that same episode of whatever it was -- I remember people coming into the room, squinting at the screen and saying "Chaplin?" Seems like somebody's (fictional) father or grandfather worked at the same studio with Chaplin. I'd be willing to bet it was NCIS only because they're always talking about movies, but somehow that doesn't seem right ...

That's because it isn't. It was on Criminal Minds, the show with Mandy Patinkin. I had to look that up on Imdb.com (looked up Chaplin's "A Night at the Show" -- you were right -- then clicked the link "movie connections"). What's interesting is that this is the only episode of Criminal Minds I've ever seen and I'll bet it was because I was flipping channels, saw the Chaplin and stopped to watch.

Mythical Monkey said...

You ask, Who, we answer.

Actually, it was pretty simple. I changed from "compose" to "html" mode in the post editor, then went to the "code" for the video and where it said width "640" and height "504," I multiplied each by 66% and entered the new values of 422 and 333. Apparently you have to change the ratios by the same percentage or it will appear squashed or stretched out.

The things you learn because you have to ...

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Yeah, simple except for the figuring it out part.

Thanks a lot Myth; this is great.

Anonymous said...

"That's because it isn't. It was on Criminal Minds"

oh haha yeah that does make more sense because I don't think i have ever seen an episode of NCIS before.
thanks for doing the research, great detective work lol :)

Douglas Fairbanks said...

.

Mythical Monkey said...

.

!

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

.

!

:-)