When was the last silent movie made for general distribution produced?

March arrives like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Or something like that.

It’s now the third month of 2023 and I have to ask myself … where is the time going so fast? Does it seem to you as if life gets faster and faster the longer it goes on? Or is it just me?

Nah, I don’t think it’s just me.

Regardless, spring starts in just about three weeks, the baseball teams are gathering together to start spring training, and all is right with the world.

And I even have fresh trivia for you!

So settle back and enjoy the approach of trivia … and of spring.

Did you know …

… You can reset your body’s biological clock if you’re having trouble sleeping? Researchers tell us that one week spent camping – without electronics – resets the body’s clock and synchronizes our melatonin hormones with sunrise and sunset (Or you can what I do … take a sleep aid. Either way).

… The “red carpet” is not a modern phenomenon? Traditionally used to mark ceremonial and formal routes of leaders and politicians, as well as celebrities, the first reference to a “red carpet” appears in Agamemnon, written by Aeschylus (524 BC-455 BC) in 458 BC (I’ve never walked a red carpet and probably never will).

… A well-known actor got his start in the circus? Christopher Walken (born 1943) is well known for his roles in movies such as The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, Batman Returns, Catch Me If You Can, and many others. But when he was a teenager, Walken worked for a circus as a lion tamer (“What this lion needs is … more cowbell!”).

… An 1899 invention revolutionized the game of golf? It was on December 12, 1899, that Dr. George F. Grant (1846-1910) patented his invention: The golf tee. Prior to Dr. Grant’s imagination, golfers had to build little mounds of dirt on which they placed their golf balls. Dr. Grant didn’t want to get his hands dirty playing the “game of gentlemen” and invented the little gizmo that revolutionized golf. Additional trivia note: Dr. Grant is not only known for inventing the golf tee. He was also the first African-American professor at Harvard University (Fore!!!).

… The man who designed the Mako Shark Corvette was fooled by his own workers? Larry Shinoda (1930-1997) designed the car for Chevrolet in 1963, and wanted it painted the same color as a mako shark he had mounted in his office. The design team was unable to exactly match the paint colors to the shark, so they did the next best thing – they stole the shark from Shinoda’s office and painted it the color of the car. Shinoda never noticed the difference (Sneaky. Clever, but sneaky).

… The last totally silent movie made for general distribution was in 1930? Sound on film began with The Jazz Singer in 1927, which was partially sound and partially silent. The first all-talking motion picture was Lights of New York in 1928. But some studios stubbornly clung to silent pictures, at least for another couple of years. The last silent feature film was The Poor Millionaire in 1930. Produced by Richard Talmadge (1892-1981), who also starred as both the hero and the villain, the story concerned a young millionaire whose life is turned upside down when his identical twin brother, an escaped convict, begins to impersonate him. Additional trivia note: Some of you are, I’m sure, going to try to say Silent Movie (1976), the great comedy from Mel Brooks (born 1926), was the last silent film. It wasn’t – there was one line spoken in the film. Ironically, the line was spoken by Marcel Marceau (1923-2007), best known as a pantomime artist who normally never spoke in films. Marceau’s single spoken word in Silent Movie was “non,” the French word for “no.”

… A standard Chinese checkers game board has 121 holes for the marbles? Additional trivia note: Despite its name, Chinese checkers was not invented in China, nor is it a variation of the game of checkers. The game was created as Stern-Halma (Star Jump) in Germany in 1892. It was given its current name by the owners of Pressman Games in 1928, after their original name for the game – Hop Ching Checkers – did not catch on (Gee, I wonder why?).

… The first airline was established in 1909? DELAG was set up to carry passengers on Zeppelin airships between cities in Germany. In its first four years, DELAG carried 34,000 people through the skies of pre-World War I Imperial Germany (Wonder if they were the first airline to lose passenger luggage, too?).

… You will experience the one billionth second of your life when you are 31 years old? The actual time is 31 years and 8 1/2 months (By that reckoning, I’ve had two billion seconds and then some!).

… A popular brand of cookie is actually a rip-off? Technically, anyway. Oreo™ cookies are one of the most popular brands in the world, selling in the billions of dollars’ worth each year. But Oreos were not the original chocolate wafer cookie sandwich with cream in the middle. Oreos were introduced by Nabisco in 1912, but the Hydrox™ sandwich cookie (which some say is a rip-off of Oreos) was introduced in 1908 (They’re both great, though, so there’s that).

… More people are attacked annually by cows than by sharks? (How a-moo-sing).

… You may have a couple of extra bones in your body? Scientists have noticed that more and more, humans are developing an extra bone in their knee. Called a fabella, the little bone does nothing, and nobody’s sure why it’s there. But in 2018 it was determined that about 39 percent of humans have 208 bones, not 206, in their bodies (Aliens. Gotta be aliens).

Now … you know!

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