The Watch List For 8/29/12

THE HANGMAN (1959) --- Bounty-motivated lawdog Robert Taylor in merciless quest of may-be innocent Jack Lord, as Tina Louise, in and out of clothes, seems to assist, mostly interferes. Fess Parker is ineffectual both at sheriffing and holding his own in scenes with Bob. Watch them and know why Fess never made a meaningful jump from TV to features. Here's a studio western when the species was getting tired. I kept expecting the Cartwrights to ride up on Paramount's western street. Still, it's Taylor's show and he's excellent. Mike Curtiz directs as if he has nothing left to prove. Indeed, with all his great ones playing TV by then, he didn't. Tina Louise flirts with nudity in tub and pond scenes. Wonder if they shot alternate footage of her for Euro prints. A good story I didn't get bored with. Nice Olive Blu-Ray.

HOEDOWN (1950) --- Country-swinging Eddy Arnold "stars," but it's more about timid cowboy Jock Mahoney who fakes his way into series western stardom with assist of Gene Autry's singing voice. Didn't enjoy this because Jocko is abused throughout by unappealing support players. Songs are good if limited. I may want an Eddy Arnold CD to rinse sour aftertaste of Hoedown. Jock's cowboy character personal-appears at a small-town theatre and nobody shows up. Did that ever happen to real-life B west stars? Too much cruelty in what's supposed to be a comedy. I kept wanting Mahoney's worm to turn and it only fitfully does. Another fine quality Columbia DVD, but I'd have left this one to nitrate's tender mercies.

PYGMY ISLAND (1950) --- Jungle Jim thwarts evildoing 'ginst white pygmy tribe led by Billy Curtis, who's as wilderness-bred as a Dead End Kid, likely as not to take out a cigar and light it. Jim's safari duds are drenched every time he dives after rubber gators, yet he's bone-dry moments later, as though Africa air itself held dry-cleaning properties. I love that sort of effrontery to logic. The Jims used near-studio lakes and glades to pleasing effect. Johnny recites dialogue while pondering business ventures he'd put salary toward (an eventual swimming pool line). TCM shows these on Saturday mornings, and I'm there with popcorn to watch. Never bothered with Jim as a kid --- too sophisticated --- not now!

RETURN OF PETER GRIMM (1935) --- Slow and set-bound RKO wherein Lionel Barrymore comes back from beyond to correct family matters he bungled. Long and frustrating scenes where LB tries to communicate with the living, but can't. I got bored and sped up the final third. Things worked out and Barrymore stays dead. Nineteenth-century's David Belasco wrote the based-upon play, so even old Lionel might have called it antique. Among supernatural forays not played for chills. Maybe that was reason for the drag this was. Some nice moments though, and Edward (Thin Man) Ellis has probably his best role.

THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN (1934) --- Lionel Barrymore again with family troubles, these more engaging thanks to director William K. Howard swish-panning like he did in The Trial Of Vivienne Ware two years before. I enjoyed this better than Peter Grimm, being it's MGM with variety in settings and cast. Lionel is snookered by embezzling partner Edwin Maxwell, so obviously a crook and always type-cast as such that you wonder how they business-teamed in the first place. Mae Clarke and still-with-us Mary Carlisle (turned 100 this year!) are Barrymore daughters, Fay Bainter the wife. 30's casts are a comfort, even when the movie's nothing special. I'm beginning to notice how doggedly Lionel Barrymore played selfless fathers (but not always --- check out his harsh Dad in Sweepings). On TCM.

THE COCKEYED FAMILY (1928) --- Did it damage Ben Turpin's eyes to keep them crossed so much? That always bothered me, worrying that the poor man would go blind in service to his art. This was for the Weiss Brothers, budget practitioners of silent comedy during late-20's twilight. In this one, Ben's wife is "cockeyed" too, the effect less funny than frightful. There's chaos on a camping trip when baby Billy Barty brings home a skunk by the tail. I'd have refused scenes with polecats no matter assurance of de-odorizing same. The things always look ready enough to let go with spray, like Harold Lloyd's bomb that didn't turn out to be a harmless prop. You wonder how many silent comics got business ends of skunks not altogether fumigated. Turpin's eyes made his face seem inexpressive to me, like a store dummy thrown constantly in mud. Print quality on these Weiss shorts are amazing, all from camera negs and available on DVD from VCI. Fine audio commentary by Richard M. Roberts.

13 RUE MADELEINE (1947) --- Jim Cagney leads espionage agents into occupied France just ahead of the invasion. March Of Time's Louis De Rochemont produced, so Rue's authentic till it hurts. Must have been refreshing in 1947 to have Cagney back in action for a big studio. He's slimmed down, does judo falls, some good hand-to-hand with enemy combatants. I can watch something like this every few years, having forgot story details, and it all seems fresh again. Rue had then-benefit of Now It Can Be Told, being among first screen distilling of spy work done by our side vs. Axis baddies. It works for being less tired war movie stuff and more Trust No One intriguing that would dominate once Iron Curtains descended. This played as a "free" On-Demand movie in HD via Dish Network, but didn't look so hot.

THE NICKEL-HOPPER (1926) --- Mabel Normand on the downgrade for Hal Roach. He was for getting what value was left in her celebrated name. Mabel had been luckless since a decade's beginning, from addiction issues to peripheral link with William Desmond Taylor's offing. A comedienne still much beloved, she looked sickly now, and Roach cameras, let alone dupey prints we're left with, were/are cruel. The Nickel-Hopper was a "special," another word for too long, but Mabel troupes nobly, plays a meltdown straight (drama she could flat do when needed). We don't wish much slapstick on her for condition she's clearly in. One of those comedies where you spend the whole time feeling sorry for the comedian. Care was taken on The Nickel-Hopper, Normand a major get for Roach. Babe Hardy beats a frenzied drum in club scenes, and glory be, it's Boris Karloff cadging a dance from Mabel. A pity she'd not live to see him triumph as the Frankenstein monster. Got this on DVD from Reel Classics on a disc with Raggedy Rose, also with Mabel Normand. Both have excellent scores by Ben Model.

Just Out: No Traveler Returns: The Lost Years Of Bela Lugosi

Once you're past 50's icons, is there any star more written about than Bela Lugosi? Author Gary Don Rhodes has done four books if you count his White Zombie coverage, which is, of course, Lugosi centered. No Traveler Returns is aptly titled, an exhausted Lugosi on its cover. Indeed, this aged trouper seldom returned to comforts of home from dogged travel to keep groceries at hand and a growing son in military academy. We read about Lugosi and are even inspired by him, because the man never gave up. No matter degrading circumstance, he gave all and never played down to audiences. Boris Karloff, bless him, stayed a little too comfortable to achieve such nobility.

Bela and Lillian Attend UK World Premiere of Scrooge on 11/23/51

Much Lugosi love prevails among survivors that knew him. A friend of mine encountered a guy who met BL on a train and spent thirty minutes chatting it up. Rest assured he came away a committed fan. Rhodes and co-author Bill Kaffenberger cover Lugosi as if they spent each day of "Lost Years" with him. Detail here is astounding. Much of what we presumed about Bela t'aint necessarily so. I was pleased to find he performed in Vegas on my birth date. Many can chart life's opener to respective Lugosi movements by using this book (now that's being a fan!). No Traveler Returns is scrupulous with facts and ignores no Bela-data of focus period.

Lugosi Does Dracula Stage Touring

Rhodes/Kaffenberger make many points I never considered. For instance, Lugosi was mostly out of movies during late 40's, early 50's downturn, but dozens of his oldies played relentless through the country as adjuncts to BL barnstorming in live spook shows. The authors found numerous eyewitnesses to these. Remarkable how each differed from others. "Poor Bela" plied his trade when people thought horror movies junk, or for kids. History would lift him from this to paragon status he now enjoys (or mores the pity, doesn't). I'm a fan of Lugosi, have been going toward fifty years, but this and other Rhodes books put me, and I suspect others, in strictly dabbler class. I'll enter no BL trivia contest against these authors! BearManor published, and No Traveler Returns is loaded with rare illustrations.

Criterion's Broadway Bonus

The big noise for me on Criterion's Lonesome Blu-Ray was not the main attraction, but the Broadway extra that finally gives us access to a historic 1929 musical that Universal, by their account, sunk a million into. For decades, Broadway was thought to have survived only in battered silent prints, but here it is talking and singing to archaic rhythm that so endears many to clompety-clomp revues done when sound was evolving. All I knew about Broadway was what William K. Everson had written in Huff Society notes and his Citadel book, The Detective In Film (it's since been covered admirably by Richard Barrios in definitive A Song In The Dark, his study of early musicals).

Broadway is crime-thrilling in addition to music-making, so pudding is thick and varied. You could say it was a picture with everything, opening in crazy quilt '29 when all-singing-dancing rivals were elbowing each other on and off White Way screens, too many in fact for even an eager public to absorb. Any big picture was a gamble for Universal, their engine run primarily on serials, westerns, action what-nots. To drop a million, or whatever it actually cost, the company would sweat from there to hopeful recovery of investment.

Newspaper Ad for The Original Stage Play of Broadway

The meter had run from purchase of the stage property by Philip Dunning and George Abbot. Universal publicity said the play took place entirely on one set, with night club happenings only referred to by characters. If true, this must have been murder to sit through. From taking screen initiative, U put chief imagineer Dr. Paul Fejos (a real doctor, or researcher, or something) to design and directing. He conjured a night club set to dazzle senses and be a largest such in the short history of talkies so far. Seventy feet high and 340 feet long seems enough to house a dozen working crews. Uni cowboys Hoot, Ken, and big-hat Tom Mix could have done whole seasons with money pumped in here. Broadway's camera captured it all with assist of a tallest ever crane that swooped like Rodan amongst actors it closed in upon.

"Cubistic shapes" dominated. There were twenty box seats with tables up and down walls continually assaulted by the roving camera. Many will say the crane and massive set it traversed was the whole show and sole point of modern interest, but Broadway's story and dialogue, admittedly languid at times, capture Prohibition flavor and high-life as lived just ahead of the Crash. There's enough slang here to generate a dictionary. Talk, dress, and manner among characters would have been stylized even then. Fast-pace New Yorkers really were a different breed of cat, especially to rurals who never experienced so much as a stop signal, and it was this fascination that allowed shows like Broadway to flourish.

Precode moralities are observed. A murder is committed and police excuse it. The cast isn't special to us, but patrons then knew Glenn Tryon from years doing comedy, and Merna Kennedy had been Chaplin's lead lady in The Circus. Evelyn Brent was surest bet for recognition, having come off similar-in-ways Underworld of a couple seasons back. Others in the cast were repeating stage roles, so were sure-footed (the play had sold tickets for nearly two years, plus more on the road). Gangster element is thick, though none claim individual notice as a later Robinson or Cagney would.

Broadway Premieres at Broadway's Globe Theatre

How Universal bally'ed Broadway at its own Broadway open is at least as interesting as the movie we're left with. Modern was a byword and selling focus. The Globe Theatre's lobby was jiggered to a deco polish. You could stand entranced by displays for as long as it took the show inside to unspool. Radio announcers were said to be working entrance areas for a first time in New York. Can't confirm truth of that claim, but Broadway had to be at vanguard of tying a premiere to live broadcast. You could buy piano rolls for "mechanical" keyboards, but also records on 78 RPM that pointed in a future's direction. Unique too was a sold at five-and-dimes "Movie Box"  you'd peek into and turn a crank for flip-viewing of Broadway highlights. It was a cardboard novelty that Universal promised kids would "go wild" for.

Hitting hard at Gotham/Globe open gave Universal impetus to sell Broadway at highest terms for subsequent play, but though it lured multitudes off the street being celebrated, that didn't mean Podunk patronage would similarly respond. You could argue then that Broadway was done as much for prestige and urban recognition as dollars. Certainly it was pictures like this, Showboat, and upcoming All Quiet On The Western Front that made Universal a company to reckon with. Of relics surviving from transitional Hollywood (and Universal), Broadway stands tall as its fabled club set. Visual pay-off alone is breath-taking. Was there anything so audacious in formative years of screen talk? Criterion tenders what is surely best-extant quality. This one plus Lonesome on a same Blu-Ray ticket amounts to the bargain of a so-far summer.

The Watch List for 8/22/12

PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) --- A spot-on classic. Never gets stale. The Movies by Griffith and Mayer had a story in pictures of this (above) that  made me dream through sixth grade of one day seeing it. Public Enemy was probably the gangster show people remembered longest, Scarface and Little Caesar runners-up. Was it the grapefruit? Hoodlums hopped up on Cagney and kin might have gone straight from Bijous to rob a filling station. Were censors right to say these pics were a bad influence? Always startled by how JC falls forward on his face at the end. Was that him or a dummy? Sure looks real. AMC recently ran PE in High Definition ... true HD, not a phony uptick like so-called TCM-HD. It looked great. Didn't mind the commercials and pop-ups so much --- this was Public Enemy in HD, after all. If proof is needed that Bill Wellman was a titan director, show this. Not a wasted frame. As economical a story-telling as there is in movies. How did Jim survive machine-gun bullets they fired into walls he stood behind? Nothing faked then. Oh, and AMC's was the ultra-precode version as opposed to 1954's reissue chop-up.

BODY AND SOUL (1947) --- Pro boxing is gang-dominated and stinks of corrupt $! Like, wow, I never knew that. Writer Polonsky and directing Robert Rossen wields narrative hammers as if no one did (many times) before. John Garfield is trailed by a "conscience" character (and writer stand-in) who dogs him like Jiminy Cricket, only minus the laughs. Guy finally gets his brains beat out, then walks in front of a cab. Wish it had been reels sooner. Garfield's great --- this would be a tougher pill without him. Ring action is saved till the final bout, a good thing. Jimmy Howe was said to have photographed fighters on roller skates, but I didn't see much evidence of it. A movie myth? Lovely on Blu-Ray. Thank you, Olive.

CAROLINA BLUES (1944) --- Kay Kyser and the Gang head down-home to North Carolina, Kay's (on and offscreen) birthplace. He keeps a house and maid there even though he's on the road 364 days a year. The last Kyser band-fest, and it's for Columbia, not RKO. For a first time, Kay himself is bit by a love bug, but instead of Gorgeous Georgia Carroll, it's Ann Miller what wins him. Smooch scenes they do are awkward ... Kay's better yelling "Stoodents!" from the bandstand. Ish, Sully, and the rest lend music and clownish support. They're a big reason Kyser hung on big for so long. Girlfriend Ann's mother saw the group perform during WWII at UNC-Chapel Hill. Wish I'd been there. Excellent DVD from Columbia.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) --- Overwritten about by multitudes, so I'll add little, except --- it's purely great. Never such a sock as now in HD and SuperScope. I drove Kevin McCarthy to and from Greensboro airport when he did one-man Harry Truman at the Community College (1989), also had dinner with him. That's over six hours unfettered access! Stories he told about Merle Oberon (Hotel), Raquel Welch (Kansas City Bomber) were let's just say ... candid. First (and last) occasion I was around a star for so long. He signed my Invasion one-sheet too. How many people would recognize a pod if you brought one into a crowded room? Those were creepy props, especially with bodies forming in them. Some folks in Santa Mira might actually have been happier after giving in. Several offer Miles and Becky a pretty reasoned argument. Maybe the next remake will have populace lining up to become pod people. I'm of the camp that prefers wrap-arounds with Kevin and docs. That moment when Whit Bissell realizes he's on the level always gives me chills and a big lift. Maybe humanity can be saved after all!

NO HOLDS BARRED (1952) --- Why did it take so long for me to realize what a comic genius Huntz Hall is? I'm chagrined for not watching these when Channel 8 ran them nearly every day. This is one of the best, so experts say. Huntz becomes a wrestle-champ. There's a ritzy party where he masquerades as an English butler and is an absolute panic. Did Huntz ad-lib this brilliant stuff? Give me him over Noel Coward any day. They do one exterior to startling effect, as BB comedies tend to stay indoors. I noticed members other than Gorcey and Hall hardly ever say anything. Were they muzzled by Leo/Huntz? Please TCM, keep showing these, or better yet, Warners, get out DVD box sets.

THE FAMOUS FERGUSON CASE (1932) --- Craven newshounds descend on a small berg when murder happens, Joan Blondell a chief "sob sister" who gets ethical and tears into rotten apple colleagues. Her big speech is a wow --- reminded me of Stanwyck/Davis blow-ups --- was Blondell inspired by these? Enough precode bon-mots to make me wish I'd brought a tape recorder. The rest of us spend lives wishing to be half so clever as these birds. I'd never seen Ferguson, which is to say it's great knowing there are more like it to treasure-hunt, and find.

THE NAUGHTY FLIRT (1931) --- Alice White was a jazz baby that came along after audiences tired of jazz babies. Warners used, then discarded, her in early talkies. The Naughty Flirt is one, doesn't amount to much, but runs brief (56 minutes), a mercy. Scenes with White and supporting Myrna Loy make clear which will achieve lasting stardom. You wait for musical numbers that never come. Were they shot, then removed? Another where a simple misunderstanding eats up reels --- you wish someone would just speak up. Less pre-code than pre-good.

HUNS AND HYPHENS (1918) --- Larry Semon was a silent clown who fell in goo a lot. He came to movies from accomplished (print) cartooning and was another near-miss to slapstick greatness. LS should be remembered better, due to two-reeling that still pack wallops, that word not used inadvisedly, as Larry takes cringe-worthy punishment. Stunts look unreal for amazing stuff human bodies perform, but it's all Larry and superhuman company. Stan Laurel and Babe Hardy individually pulled time on the Semon squad. Huns and Hyphens was among Stan's first. He's in it little, but to good effect. Larry Semon went early (1928) to TB or pneumonia, take your reference pick. His was an oddball face and figure. One could have met Larry in church and pegged him for a silent comic. Huns and Hyphens might have been subtitled Flips and Falls, as both are there in abundance. Part of the excellent Kino Stan Laurel DVD set (Volume Two).

Enterprise, Metro, and Force Of Evil --- Part Two

By September '48, Harry Sherman had taken back studio facilities and Enterprise was down to skeletal staff of fifty to edit/post-produce Force Of Evil and Caught. Improvements to the lot were forfeited to Sherman as hope hung on whatever commercial prospects No Minor Vices/Force Of Evil/Caught had. Enterprise told columnists that a $300K loan would get them back in business, with banks holding out until they see what business the Metro releases will do. For its part, MGM stood loyal despite uncertainty, this reflected by a "Leo Loves Enterprise" ad run in 10-25-48 trades. Garfield and Roberts placed their own boost the same day, positioning Bob Roberts Productions as "an active force in making good pictures." Whatever confidence Metro lacked, the distributor would take charge, fully, of publicity/promotion.

Limits placed on mention of "rackets" in print advertising did not extend to MGM's preview, so a call went out for John Garfield to on-camera host an explanation of the numbers game and how it worked. Trailer will be shown in theatres one week ahead of (the) regular trailer for (the) film, said Variety. Unfortunately for later generations, MGM's specially prepared glimpse, with Garfield's unique footage, would not see light of day due to Force Of Evil's changing ownership. Since Metro didn't TV-distribute the film, there were no trailers for it printed on 16mm, and search among prior video releases, TCM's website, and You Tube do not reveal it. Of all unaccounted-for previews, this one for Force Of Evil ranks among losses most keenly felt.

MGM warned exhibitors as to "numbers racket" --- "a term you cannot use in theatre exploitation, advertising, or publicity." But there were backdoors. Garfield could be sold as a "numbers king," and "Lucky Number" contests were encouraged. Newspaper plants weren't shy in revealing that a real-life numbers man served as "technical advisor" for the film, his identity a secret to all but Garfield, his producer, and writer/director. Adherence to Code policy in fact saw Force Of Evil merchandisers dancing on heads of promotional pins. Abraham Polonsky complained from the beginning of a wreck censors made of his film, calling the finished product fundamentally a failure. He said the ending, wherein Garfield resolves to assist law enforcement, was imposed on Force Of Evil. In fact, it's not dissimilar to Marlon Brando turning informant at On The Waterfront's wrap. Did this comparison further sour Polonsky's Force Of Evil rearview?

Much of the team, save Polonsky, attended opener events in New York, Garfield in town for the latter half of December to stir interest and prop up Force Of Evil's Christmas Day premiere at Loew's State. Prior to that, he'd gone with Bob Roberts "to twenty key cities where the numbers racket flourishes," according to trades, Force Of Evil being screened before "forces of good" (Parent-Teacher organizations, Better Business Bureaus). Gala was a first several weeks at Loew's State (a "fancy" $44K in its first), biz buttressed by holiday crowds. Trouble was attendance "dipping" after celebratory December, elsewhere receipts doing a skid as well. Reviewers pointed out lack of gangster thrilling expected of Garfield and the theme. Ads saw gats blazing with JG in a siren's embrace, but the latter as embodied by Marie Windsor was there for only a couple of scenes in Force Of Evil.

Polonsky intended Force Of Evil to be a "destructive analysis of the system," a reading far more embraced now than then. Corruption from the bottom up was his Force-ful headline. Small-timer Thomas Gomez gives a speech lamenting crime inherent even in the garage and insurance businesses he used to be in. Again, these were realities known well to go-getters of a precode era --- but characters then worried less about fixes they knew were locked in. Did 1948-49 audiences figure Polonsky for stating what to them was obvious? Anyhow, something was keeping biz away. William Rodgers, chief of Metro's east coast selling, asked why receipts overall were so unsettled, expressing wonder that first-runs, even of films considered to be good, were returning barely enough to cover production costs. MGM features averaged 14,500 bookings as of 1948's end --- Rodgers sought 17,000 for a coming 25th Anniversary year. Toward that, he'd look forward to solid prospect of Command Decision, Words and Music, and The Three Musketeers, all with potential Force Of Evil seemed so far to lack.

Did Metro marketers let Force Of Evil wilt? I found little trade support. This wasn't an MGM production after all. There's no indication of Leo sharing Force's production expense, their pay-off a distribution fee (25-30% of the gross a usual arrangement) plus prints and advertising. Final tallies on Force Of Evil reflected a public's (if not Metro) indifference. There was $948,000 in domestic rentals and $217,000 foreign for a worldwide $1.165 million total. Against the negative cost of $1.15 million, and factoring out MGM's distribution fee, this would have been a tough loss for Enterprise and Bob Roberts Productions. As to a future for Enterprise, there was none. The company struck a January 1949 deal with MGM for a fourth feature the major would release, The Third Secret, to be directed by Lewis Milestone, but by April, that deal was cancelled, owing to monies Milestone/Enterprise couldn't raise and the February release of Caught, which did worse even (a worldwide $776K) than Force Of Evil.

Many Thanks to Dr. Karl Thiede for valuable info on Force Of Evil.