Metro Gone Gangstering --- Part One

Gangsters were an early 30's scourge that lots favored wiping out no matter what it took ... but to what measure should society go? Movies came close to advocating a vigilante system as badge-wearers took increasingly direct route to rid cities of vice, like Walter Huston's team machine-gunning a club full of crime element in Beast Of The City. MGM was keenest on addressing the problem head on, even to point of law enforcers donning masks to conceal identities and remove all inhibition toward cleaned streets. Secret societies, backed by police action, were fact-based from headlines and a natural, The Secret Six zeroing on necessity for drastic action via gunpaly aplenty and stars established or on a rise. The latter is what we note today, but 1931 patronage did not overlook Metro's wider suggestion. Might a young Bob Kane (age fifteen) have seen The Secret Six and developed from there a notion of Batman, with that character's secret-ID'edication to law and order?

For all of public alarm over mayhem in news, there was concern too about Hollywood exploiting gangsterism and effect that might have on youth. Outlaws were, after all, a can-do subculture with novel means of combating Depression a population's balance was mired in. Did crime actually pay, no matter final reel extermination of asphalt-bred vermin? Much local gentry worried that kids might think so and emulate glamour figures toting guns. Even loutish Wallace Beery in The Secret Six gets money and social success for going heeled. Whatever their careful tread, Metro faced a censor force rising surely as vigilantism endorsed by movies the company made.

The sword cut both ways, one territory staying hands-off as another slashed away. Politics and hypocrisy, handmaidens always, played their parts. In Chicago, where Metro held sway thanks to influence of two Hearst dailies, there was détente with local censors. As decision to ban was left in the end to mayor offices, it helped to have press solidly in a distributor's corner, so orders from above let MGM product through netting that would snag rival firms and their often not-as-raw sex and crime stuff. Insiders knew a fix was in and that Metro would have its Chicago way, but what of east coastal Philadelphia and its less safe harbor? That city cut The Secret Six to ribbons as deftly as it would Warners' The Public Enemy, from which thirty minutes was excised, the replacement a crude set of explanatory titles that put locals in an uproar. Show these complete or not at all, said enraged patronage. Word of mouth recipients got the message and stayed away, a black eye to distribs who'd miss fullest potential of Philly's market.

So what, if any, of The Secret Six might we be missing? Metro tinkered with it from filming's inception as others would upon release and after. Who knows what version surviving elements reflect. Agreement to enforce a Production Code was really effort to forestall local vandalism of prints. A steaming potato like The Secret Six was dogged constantly by watch groups and second guessers, this beyond its theme bleeding into pics the competition was fielding. Variety reported in November '30 of Secret Six overlap with content of Warners' just-released Little Caesar, sending Metro scribes back to drawing boards: Similarity of both crime stories is said to be so pronounced that Metro may scrap most of what has already been shot on "Six." With the majors averaging a feature release per week, it was inevitable that one's merchandise would trip over another's, especially where hot topics like organized banditry were concerned.

Toward getting fresh approach, MGM sent ace screenwriter Frances Marion to Chicago to scout for narrative meat. Appropriate then, that she should find a strongest of that in stockyards from whence comes vice lord Wallace Beery, whose intro scene has the brute man smashing a just offscreen steer's skull with a sledge hammer. Marion knew shortest distance to a story's point, for which she was rewarded at rates of $3K per week, said to be a highest rate "in the world" for scenarists. FM also caught Windy City gust of business leaders fed up with rampant crime who'd begun their own crusades, "in cooperation with local authorities," to stamp out local violence, this reported in The Saturday Evening Post among other outlets. And what more appropriate place to set a crime saga than Chicago? Certainly there was realism daily confirmed by headlines, and a public eager to go behind these and see how big-city chiseling worked.

What lent conviction most was fact that a real-life "Secret Six" operated before, during, and after production of the movie based on its exploits, although the nature of said (and well-maintained) secrecy made it necessary for Metro creators to guess at details of said group's operation. The Six had been set up to combat Al Capone's organization after the shooting of a job superintendent at a construction site, this the result of frustrated effort to establish a union closed-shop. A suddenly awakened business community would not stand for gangsters encroaching on orderly trade, and so fronted their under-wraps counter-group with serious dollars amassed from participants. Finally there was enough cash to bring Capone down, plus an incorruptible private force dedicated to doing what a compromised (by inefficiency, lack of funds, and outright corruption) Chicago could not. Individual members of the "Secret Six" never stepped forward to claim credit, but their efforts would begin the unraveling of Al Capone and crime's machinery.

Part Two of The Secret Six HERE.

The Watch List For 12/26/12

THE NARROW CORNER (1932) --- A Warner precode that really stays with you. Maybe it's the cast, good character folk all, or a Somerset Maugham story underlying. Either way, The Narrow Corner covers much ground (and sea) to haul fugitive from murder Doug Fairbanks Jr. into island port and date with destiny. Alfred E. Green directs after rushed but rewarding fashion. WB's continual push upon then-talent surely jangled nerves and put many at verge of breakdown. The Narrow Corner doesn't play like a two-weeks scheduled shoot, but I'd guess that's what it was (at $272K neg cost). Precode audiences were used to taking content in the gut. Tactless at the least Dr. Dudley Digges identifies cancer to a stricken patient as "the best rat poison there is." Such tart dialogue is here by dollops. It must have come second (no, first) nature among writers to think clever. Imagine what lunching with them would have been like. Maugham was adapted lots for the screen, and The Narrow Corner has to be one of the better go's at his stuff.

DANGEROUS MISSION (1954) --- We don't know till way in that Vic Mature is a D.A.'s assistant headed for Glacier Park to rescue murder witness Piper Laurie, who's fled there with mob cannon Vincent Price in pursuit. An RKO meller in color and originally 3D that's a photo-finish on His Kind Of Woman, Second Chance, and others that bore track of Howard Hughes sensibility (honestly, did any other studio head lay such personal stamp on output?). Nice glory of nature stuff captured at the park, pasted to process and match-up on stages back home. Vincent Price was a favorite of Hughes' after comic contribution to His Kind Of Woman. I'd venture he made more money off RKO than any-else work. Mature's a maestro at melodrama for never taking same seriously. Here he clamors up a power pole during a nighttime avalanche to tie down high tension wires as if putting out the cat. Was Vic our first he-man ironist? Piper Laurie might have thought so. She'd later write of rapturous nights the two spent during shoot of Dangerous Mission. Please Warner Archive, make sure and release this in 1.85 when the time comes. I cropped TCM's broadcast to that ratio for result that was dead on.

HEY, POP! (1932) --- Roscoe Arbuckle seems not to have aged a day from his 1921-22 ordeal and outcast status to comeback in this and five other Vitaphone shorts a public was more than ready to embrace, his future bright with most in agreement that he'd got a raw deal earlier. Would there have been character work in features ahead? Undoubtedly yes, Arbuckle's capability for such being proved so far back as The Round-Up in 1920. Now there was addition of his voice, pleasant as fans could hope for, and a kindliness to suggest he'd long forgiven ones who tried at destroying him. Hey, Pop! introduces Roscoe behind credits, an index finger to mouth suggesting he gathered no guile during lost years. Seemed the old favorite had never been away. Familiar routines are back: Fatty cleaning a window that isn't there, kitchen skills to still amaze ... real care is applied to effect the comeback. How much Arbuckle-input figured in? He must have been key to revival of so much that was tried-and-true. The Vita crew goes outdoors to capture Brooklyn backgrounds, a benefit for shooting in the East. Hey, Pop! is essentially Roscoe doing The Kid, a commission he'd surely have got round to a decade sooner had fate spared him. Fatty with youngsters seems a natural. They were his most loyal fans, after all.

DIVE BOMBER (1941) --- Errol Flynn practices naval medicine and develops means by which aircraft can climb higher w/o pilot blackout. Sounds like a two-reel documentary, but Warners actually got 132 Technicolor'ed minutes out of this topic, which really was a pressing concern in lead-up to war. More than a mere preparedness tract, Dive Bomber says outright that we need to arm up and be ready. Flynn's pursuit was sufficiently glamorous to surely inspire many a civilian MD toward enlistment. There hadn't been so much mainstream Hollywood footage spent in a research lab since Paul Muni's Pasteur. Remarkably enough, it stays interesting, at least for me. The cigarette ritual was likewise never so observed as here: engraved cases, lighters, picking tobacco off tips of tongues to steal scenes --- it's all here. Smoking really did ease performing ... gave actors something to do with their hands. Is it a wonder so many got hooked and later died of the habit?

Flight scenes dazzle, what with fluffy clouds as backdrop. Shooting units must have waited hours ... days ... for such ideal weather. Fred MacMurray visits from Paramount to co-star with Flynn, a first for Errol being paired with a male name of near-equal stature. Surgery is made to look a cleanest procedure known to man, then docs light up seconds out of the OR. Flynn plays it all (well) at lower key. He'd been credible before as a medico. Dive Bomber sounds like combat, but no shots are fired, except into arms of flyers being inoculated (a vital learning experience for patronage then --- who knew but what a family member might have a same experience following recruitment?). Dive Bomber was valued instruction then, fascinating history for us now. Saw on Warner DVD, but eager for it to eventually stream in HD.

SATURDAY'S HERO (1951) --- High school grid ace John Derek gulps reality of the sport when he's drafted into a football-as-big-biz college. Hero's as gritty as Hollywood dared be in days when organized sport had longest tentacles. The game as not a game must have kept many a young athlete home after graduation, as Derek does not finish with the big win and attendant laurels here, admirable for a story that might easily have gone fluff-route. Sport pics by the 50's were less rah-rah than reality, and that makes most at least watchable. John Derek was all over Columbia maps at this time, a western here, crime-thrilling there, but somehow the company lacked finesse to develop his career as Universal would on behalf of similars Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, others. The usual fine Columbia quality from TCM broadcast.

THE DOGNAPPER (1934) --- Sometimes Disney artists pulled an action spectacle for Mickey, staging busy and lavish combat for the Mouse and Peg-Leg Pete's eternal struggle. Mickey strikes me as having gone a similar trajectory with live-action counterpart James Cagney. Rough and randy at a beginning, softened by degrees when greater stardom and civic responsibility made better citizenship necessary. As Jim would go over to sides of law in the following year's G-Men, so too would Mickey as investigator after Minnie's purloined pooch, his assist an embryonic Donald Duck not yet given to level of lost temper he'd seize for a trademark. Action here is immense and all the more impressive for being drawn. For such density per frame, I can only imagine labor that went into each, and to think Disney artists were virtual galley rowers in those underpaying Depression days as Walt struggled to keep Hyperion afloat. I don't wonder at Mickey and the Silly Symphony's dominance at cartoons. Theirs were breath takers and probably what most recalled best from a night out to movies. No surprise that Disney's got featured so heavily in theatre ads of the day.

MURDER ON APPROVAL (1956) --- Tired but game gumshoe Tom Conway is UK-bound to investigate counterfeited stamp rarities. Crazed, if not murderous, collectors are always a fun topic, plus there's Conway in final days of starring, poignant in itself, as he's the suave if battered Falcon of old, a lure for the ladies, and blessing to Brit stuntmen who double him. Murder on Approval is indeed what Maltin Reviews called "Humdrum," but snail-pacing and a faded name are frequent handmaidens at Cinema Greenbriar. A title-promised murder doesn't occur till we're half finished, and by then, tedium is locked. Tom was the nicer brother who never got breaks George did. Was Sanders a bigger talent, or just luckier? You'll court exhaustion trying to keep up with what stamps went where, better option to surrender and enjoy slow cab that is Murder on Approval. Second in a proposed group for Conway, this was aimed to spawn a vid series as well, but the latter never took. RKO brought Murder on Approval aboard their own sinking ship for a 1956 stateside release, though I found nary a trade ad heralding it.

Christmas, Garbo, and Como At Williamsburg

Of many and interminable learning tools applied to us in elementary school, there was but one I'd remember. Williamsburg --- The Story Of A Patriot differed from likes of Bacteria and You for being lavish and Hollywood-produced. How many classroom subjects on 16mm carried a Paramount/VistaVision credit (with sound by Todd-Ao)? The VV startled sixth grade me for overlap with NBC Saturday Night Movies then displaying weekly Para wares and a same "Motion Picture High Fidelity" process. So how did VistaVision make its way onto schoolday schedule? The best we'd done to this point was Jiminy Cricket lecturing on how not to catch a cold (bacteria again!). Williamsburg was 38 minutes of pro filmmaking in rich color, probably 16mm IB Tech on that 1966 occasion, with familiar name George Seaton as director and a music score by Hitchcock's own Bernard Herrmann. For this event at least, it seemed worthwhile coming to school.

Williamsburg --- The Story Of A Patriot was produced in 1956 and premiered at the historic site in 3/57. They customized a pair of theatres for horizontal projection per ideal view of VistaVision. Subsequent to this came smaller-gauge prints to fan out among seats of learning, these supplied by the state (ours from Raleigh's film library). Patriot, to my knowledge, was never shown in theatres, nor on television (please correct me if I'm wrong). It played to visitors at Williamsburg, said numbering thirty million since 1957, making it the longest running movie ever (the historic town's claim --- is it accurate?). We've been to Williamsburg twice this 2012 and my forty-six year wait to re-see Williamsburg --- The Story Of A Patriot came to fruition in a theatre setting unlike any I've been in before. New prints, restored by master hand Robert Harris, unspool all day of every day and there is a DVD available that includes documentary data on Patriot's recovery from faded elements.

Our last Williamsburg visit was this past week. The place till early 30's was a small town like any other with historic underpinnings, colonial buildings being lived in yet by locals. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. transformed the "sleepy Southern town" into a Revolutionary-era duplicate by salvaging the old and reconstructing what time and neglect had let disappear. Phone poles and power lines came down, gas stations were bought, then leveled. One thriving business made dark was the Imperial Theatre. It's a playhouse still, but mostly for stage work, the front having been made congenial to three-cornered hat patronage, not uncommon to present day Williamsburg where even visitors don period headgear to get into 18th century spirit.

The Imperial thrived during a late silent and early talkie period, the site surrendered to restoration crews in March 1934 as the project took over what local businesses were still in operation. The Imperial had served town folk and students at the College Of William and Mary, which was just up Duke Of Gloucester Street where the venue stood. An Imperial photo I found (above) dates from 1928 and on microscopic inspect shows its current attraction to be The Divine Woman, a now lost (or should I say "currently missing") Greta Garbo silent, the only one of her features unaccounted for. Seems somehow appropriate that a town in search of vanished past should host an attraction which would itself evaporate in fumes of nitrate. My imagination leaps toward hope that Laurel and Hardy's single AWOL comedy, Hats Off, may have played a same engagement in support of The Divine Woman. I can sure think of unlikelier scenarios.

Finally, there was pre-trip appetizer of a Perry Como special from 1978, Early American Christmas, got from a dealer in televised rarities. Besides being shot in toto at Williamsburg, Early American Christmas has one of the last appearances by John Wayne, who walks/talks among citizenry and sings with Perry. There are patriotic asides by the venerable star: he seems truly taken by history relived at Williamsburg and I wondered if this was JW's first and only trip there. Wayne makes a point to be gentle and self-effacing among townfolk to whom he cedes spotlight as they exhibit crafts and period ware. He and Como join tavern carolers to evoke not just colonial merry-making, but a gone era when entertainers like Perry Como were as reliable holiday TV fixtures as Christmas itself. I did ask around Williamsburg for recollection, if any, of the Como crew and John Wayne visiting there, but no luck. Even old-timers drew a blank. Was 1978 really so long ago?

The Watch List For 12/19/12

THE THING (1951) --- The best ones evoke different thought each time we watch. It lately occurred to me that Dr. Carrington really should answer for at least two deaths and the near-loss of his Arctic crew to the titular carrot-monster. Could the Army court-martial a scientist? As to names credited or not, how could anyone other than Hawks have directed The Thing? The science explanation for thinking vegetables seems plausible --- are there such things? Humor throughout is what makes The Thing eternally watchable, that and lines stepping on and over each other that makes this seem a fastest-paced of all sci-fi's. The best movie dialogue often seems ad-libbed. Did any of that go on here? I wonder if Hawks gave Christian Nyby director credit in part to minimize association with a Man From Mars pic. Would he have returned to the genre had same not been so cheapened by exploiters to come? I guess it's enough that Hawks' was the pattern from which they'd all copy.

COW COUNTRY (1953) --- Part of Allied Artists' effort to upgrade program westerns from series level of Johnny Mack Brown, Whip Wilson, others. Cow Country lacks Cinecolor lavished on AA-produced Rod Camerons, but more than tightens slack with involving narrative and reunited frontier faces known over decades of actioning. Tried-true overseer Scott R. Dunlap was veteran of a seeming thousand westerns and knew how to realize max values for a minimum spent, while directing Lesley Selander brought expertise a result of herding horseflesh since silents. These represented a breed of men who'd made B westerns an industry's ongoing (and great) institution. With series cowboys now fazed out, Cow Country and similars would embody outdoor pics to support mainstream bills, or fill Saturday schedules, this enabled by use of names, like Edmond O'Brien here, who'd been associated with a variety of genres and could bring star luster to marquees (talk about range --- Eddie did this the same year he played Casca in MGM's Julius Caesar). A good thing too about such policy was fact it kept former B west participants active in support parts. Even ancient-est of mariners Raymond Hatton got a few day's pay for Cow Country, and there is Barton McLaine, Bob Wilke, others to provide visual shorthand as to their character's evil intent. Allied Artists westerns of the 50's have the happy facility of nearly always turning out better than expected, so I don't miss ones that surface on TCM, or from Warner Archive.

LEST WE FORGET (1937) --- A one-reel MGM tribute to recently departed Will Rogers that borrows talent Gary Cooper and Harry Carey to give testimony of Will's beloved-ness. Effort was applied here --- three directors, one of them Henry Hathaway, plus outdoor greet between Cooper and Carey, whom we're led to believe live on adjoining ranches. What a blow to Hollywood was Will's death (Coop refers to him as "Bill"), especially for Fox where WR vehicles were huge domestic (but not foreign) earners. Clips from these were made available to Metro for the short, Fox mindful no doubt of ongoing reissue value Rogers pics would have. Oklahoma's governor accepts donation of Will Rogers nitrate to store in state archives, making me wonder if the stuff is still there, and what, if any, of the prints might be last survivors. A Robert Taylor speech to the audience tells of the memorial hospital being built for biz folk treatment at Saranac Lake, and a several minute blackout with Auld Lang Syne on the track gives ushers time to go among patronage and collect what must have been first donations to an institution that would endure right to present day.

CRIMINAL COURT (1946) --- Tom Conway mouthpiecing to flamboyant courtroom effect in a "B" assigned to neophyte Robert Wise, this a modest last before he embarked upon Born To Kill, Blood On The Moon, and other RKO's that would establish this fine director. Wonder how many in 1946 saw chief heavy Robert Armstrong and exclaimed, Oh Yeah, the King Kong guy. Was there ever a part to cast such a long shadow over later work? Criminal Court was economy-made even for RKO. There's a night club set I'd guess was built for someone else's "A." Conway always seemed worthy to do bigger things, but then, where would B's have been without him? Talent really did amount to embarrassment of riches in those days, and overrun of it cropped up even in humble circumstance of a Criminal Court, just another that filled lower berths when double-featuring was near across-board policy.

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (1939) --- James Whale had his last big success with this Edward Small-produced costumer, done for comparative pittance, but finessed to look a million by JW's master hand. Long, yes, but I stayed engaged. Nice to finally have this on an excellent DVD. You can smite Small, but if not for guys like him, there might have been no work for late-career Whale. Corners got cut by necessity, which makes admirable lush result achieved. Rescuing musketeers are led by wonderfully (off) cast Warren William as d'Artagnan, a seeming unlikelihood that ends up Iron Mask's brightest bauble. Louis Hayward is twinned on a split-screen, process work otherwise a little crude at times, but therein lies much of fun. This Iron Mask man made a big hit and should have restored James Whale to greatness ($1.6 million in worldwide rentals against neg costs of $652K). Was he wrecked by studio politics and inability (or unwillingness) to gee-haw with industry movers?

BLACK CYCLONE (1925) --- Mighty hoof-prints were left by wild horse king REX, all caps-name spell earned by deeds performed in silent outdoor actioners under Hal Roach banner. Rex needed no one in the saddle to pursue adventure. We don't see a human face until fifteen minutes into Black Cyclone, the second of a lucrative group that totaled four between 1924 and '27. One per annum was the serving, Rex pics thought special by showmen who knew from crowd-pleasing. Black Cyclone was filmed on near 100% location, these co-photographed by starting-out George Stevens. The miracle mount, devil steed, whatever they'd call him, quells mountain lion attack, human villainy, and rival equine for his mate's devotion. Don't know how they staged horse fights here (hope no cruelty), but it's a charge watching them go at one another tooth and hoof. Titles are floridly written and delightful. Got Black Cyclone from Jack Hardy's Grapevine Video in what looks to derive from original Kodascope, with a fine organ score by David Knudston.

DANGEROUS PARADISE (1930) --- Bill Wellman seems to have been innovating right from talkies' get-go. Assistant director Arthur Jacobson said the director broke rules laid down by erstwhile sound "experts" Paramount panic-hired to ramrod first pics that spoke. Bill wasn't long debunking their edicts to get things done his own instinctive way. Dangerous Paradise puts a fluid camera at Wellman's service that smooth-tracks a cast and scotches notion that early talker equipment must all be nailed down. The story travels as well, from sleazy to sleazier port, Catalina a pleaser stand-in for South Sea climes. Nancy Carroll was the sudden sweetheart off 1929's Sweetie and so received top-billing, despite lead man Dick Arlen having come off super-hit Wings. Was Arlen already losing a grip on stardom? Wellman liked the actor, used him often, but Arlen in talkies was less expressive than he'd been voiceless, so it is to Carroll that best impression goes. She'd get parts you wish could be shared with Clara Bow, the latter making do on scraps left after NC and fellow Para upcomer Sylvia Sidney got theirs. Liveliest of inhabitants on this Dangerous Paradise are villains Warner Oland, Gustav Von Seyffertitz, and sniveling Clarence Wilson. Wellman keeps most violence offscreen, but impact is felt. A gun-played disposal of antagonists makes for sock concluding, the whole mess cleaned up in less than an hour's running time.

SEA DEVILS (1937) --- They'd not take Vic McLaglen out of big-lug actioners even after Academy Awarding for two years' previous The Informer, Sea Devils' very title a blind alley for programmers before and after similarly named, thus easily confused. Vic's older but not wiser, has a daughter that raw recruit Preston Foster goes after, both guys a tad mature to re-cycle Flagg/Quirt tropes. Edward Small independently produced for RKO release, result surpassing B level in-house effort would have yielded. Disaster set-pieces at the beginning and end might derive at least partly from stock footage, though I didn't recognize a big-scale shipwreck from elsewhere. There's cute-as-a-bug Ida Lupino at ingénue work prior to neuroses of later Paramount and Warner roles. McLaglen and Foster beat each other senseless to no purpose other than spiking an otherwise languid pace. Catch by all means happy bonus of Dwight Frye as a ship's radio operator given to hysteric outburst. Writer Frank "Spig" Wead, of many and exemplary peacetime service pics, contributes here.