Two Worlds Of Goldilocks

From An Ocean Of Cartoon Fairy Tales ...

I realize now that I was alienated in part from Terrytoons because their "credits" were so stark, with just a title against bland background. You'd not know except from Roman numerals when the cartoon was made, provided such type was legible. Animation was fuller than shorts made for TV, like those of Hanna/Barbera, but who knew what studio backed the Terrys? (turns out it was 20th Fox) Cartoons earned integrity for me by displaying logos, preferably known quantity of WB, MGM, or Universal's Plexiglas globe that ushered in Woody Woodpecker. "The Three Bears" might be anything from anywhere, and that lessened my interest as a 60's TV watcher.

I tried locating The Three Bears on You Tube and found adapt by dozens of the fairy tale, but not this one released in 1939, an issue made cloudier by presence of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, made at MGM and also '39 vintage. By that time, fairy tales were past sincere treatment, rhythm now set to mockery toward narrative that had served well for generations, if not centuries. It was as though everyone agreed that childhood fables were hopelessly square, lampoon a sole approach to hereafter take. That would calcify to cliché of worldly-wise Goldilocks, Red (Hot) Riding Hoods, and boogie-woogie Snow ("So") White. Walt Disney was apparently the last cartoon maker to pour fairy tales straight. He was of that mindset to still regard them as sacred text, but wasn't alone, at least during a silent era.

Being as how FT's could be easily (and endlessly) told in six or so minutes, those who'd pioneer at cartoons lifted them from storybooks unencumbered by copyright and put Goldilocks to voiceless work in primitive reels like one I came across beside Terry's treatment. It too had a replaced title, and I found no reference at IMDB. Could it be that there were so many Goldilocks cartoons as to leave no written record of some? The only way to know they exist is for one to turn up, sort of like program westerns slipping through cracks of historic documentation. This silent one I watched was from Kodak Cinegraph ("New Releases Each Month"), a home movie offering of a previously theatrical subject. LANTERN search revealed a Cinegraph 16mm release in 1933 of "Living Fairy Tale" Goldilocks and The Three Bears, but who produced it originally?

The flash frame of an end title revealed the source: Carpenter-Goldman Productions ... but who were they? Again, IMDB bore no fruit, but there was a Carpenter-Goldman Productions, located in New York, that made physics and science films during the 20/30's, and one of these is at Internet Archives. They'd also make Tommy's Troubles, a cartoon about importance of dental hygiene for children, which is interesting because didn't Walt Disney also do a similar reel near the beginning of his career? Part of fun coming away from subjects so obscure is looking for record of them. I'm to point of guessing there's a Goldilocks cartoon for every grain of sand on the beach.

AIP On The Cusp Of Change

King Karloff For 1965 Holidays

"Dr. Evil" (Phil Morris) Hosted Channel 3 Charlotte's
Long-Running "Horror Theatre" on Friday Nights

Beware: Another of Greenbriar's footie pajama posts where an increasingly distant past is slobbered over, a habit I once disdained in "old men" who attended cowboy cons and waxed nostalgic for Hoot and Hoppy. Now I'm one of them, only it's Boris/Bela/Ghidrah that command my sentiment. So herewith Die, Monster, Die!, one lately released, and glowing, as does its last-act "Monster," on Blu-Ray. I'd rather Boris Karloff not play men with secrets as here because that means he will talk less, me being one who'd listen to BK recite content off pantry shelves. Die, Monster, Die! was my 1965-idea of a class horror movie because Charlotte ran it for nine days at A-level hardtop the Capri, and even our Liberty gave midweek placement to what ordinarily would be half of a Saturday double. Die, Monster, Die! was that year's Christmas present, and though not apparent at the time, among last of old-style AIP amusements for the child in us all. A new year would see quick devolvement to biker, then protest, pics, a flip and ugly side of emerging youth as Nicholson/Arkoff saw them. Die, Monster, Die! was near-last for comforting style led by the Poe adaptations, themselves down for Tomb Of Ligeia count and not to return in Corman-directed format to which we'd been accustomed.

AIP had been for fast-change and market adaptation from beginnings, always ready to fold up a tent and move where crowds led them. Jim/Sam had seen popularity of old horror faces and used them singly or as bunches, thus Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, and Peter Lorre in revolving door that was budget chilling from 1960 success with House Of Usher. These were stalwarts a mainstream industry wanted less, but Jim/Sam knew their value to youngsters who stayed up Friday/Saturdays to see K/P/R/L pull graveyard shift on Shock Theatre. Karloff was pleased at seventy-eight to have a contract for chillers he'd play mostly from seated position, an old, old man that drew young, young patronage. I'd not miss a new Karloff and frankly regarded him over Vincent Price, who was to most crowds and AIP hirers the stronger boxoffice, maybe because Price gave them more the wink like late-night horror hosts.

May-Be a Last Of Great Combos AIP Distributed

Die, Monster, Die! became sort of an event for Castle Of Frankenstein #7 giving it cover treatment plus dispatch of correspondent Michel Parry to Brit location. This was heady stuff for readership that seldom got behind scenes, what with director Daniel Haller and star Nick Adams sitting for interviews and on-set photography allowed. Parry even handed out copies of CoF to an impressed DMD crew. The film was announced as "Karloff's First Dramatic Monster Role In A Horror Film Since 1939!!!!!," which made up with !!!!! what it may have lacked in accuracy. I did not necessarily want to see King Karloff playing a "monster" by 1965, being content with his making the scene intact and not being put to overexertion. CoF's cover glimpse indicated frailty, and we knew these parties couldn't go forever, but what joy to look at Die, Monster, Die! in afternoon theatre setting, then come home where Karloff had guest shots for TV and dominated late night with chillers done thirty years before. The mid-sixties monster boom was there for a reason ... never was so much of what we wanted at such ready access.

Die, Monster, Die! lives again on Blu-Ray, courtesy Shout! Factory. I'll say to at least personal satisfaction that it looks better here than unspooled at the Liberty, where "Colorscope" was by-word for adequate, but never more so. Deep IB Technicolor saturation enriched many of the Hammers, but seldom an AIP (ironically, the latter's trailers, printed on IB stock, were far richer than features they advertised, which were generally processed by Pathe labs). Does superior presentation make Die, Monster, Die! a better film? I'll say yes, forty-nine years having melted to pleasing effect for me, but not I'd hope to extent of Frieda Jackson's face as shown on CoF's cover (why did Cal Beck elect to feature her so prominently rather than Karloff?). Die, Monster, Die! is high-style horror beautifully designed (director Haller's strength) and you'll please never mind if the story doesn't altogether work. That's a letdown we must bear but once, while setting and atmosphere go on forever. This monster expects to see Die, Monster, Die! plenty more times before he die dies.

Lionel Atwill Leads The Parade Of Suspects

A Warner Mystery Programmer: The Firebird (1934)

Another mystery where the killer is evident early on, but that won't lessen pleasure of an ace cast in fun setting of flats and common areas where classes mix and clash. Upper register is Lionel Atwill and Verree Teasdale as parents to coddled Anita Louise, while downstairs matinee idol of the local stage Ricardo Cortez lays in wait to despoil innocence and threaten fidelity. Maybe Cortez was tired of plying his heels straight by late 1934 when this came along, for there's humor to his vain actor that makes us sorry to see him offed so early in, whatever his trepidations. William Dieterle directs, so this is no tossed-to-wind whodunit, The Firebird stylish to fit of this émigré pic-maker. I'd call it a programmer, not a B, $168K having been spent, more than WB would allot to budget work later from Bryan Foy's unit. The Firebird was stage-derived, not a great success there, but striving toward something beyond mere killing and its solution, as does the film. Cortez as cad was main thrust of advertising and the trailer, latter which has cast members addressing viewers direct. Latter-day lure Atwill begins at typical low-key, ratchets up as tension increases and suspicion comes closer to home. This is high-octane Atwill when he still commanded respect from majors and alternated between support in large projects and leads where outlay was smaller. Seen on TCM.

Fox Rainbow Over The Midway

A 1945 State Fair To Celebrate Peace and Technicolor

NYC Roxy Opens With Stage Strength

The 1945 State Fair is a great State Fair, and notable occasion when one of their musicals beat MGM at a game all but conceded to the Lion. The earlier version with Will Rogers and Janet Gaynor was remembered with affection, and in hindsight must have seemed a natural for musical overlay and enhance with color. It was still good business in the 40's to celebrate heartland values. What 20th did for update was add music by sensations of Oklahoma! and Carousel Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, their only movie score. It was a coup for Fox as all the tunes were memorable and big advance over much of what this or any company had cleffed. Tunes from State Fair would equal popularity of those from Meet Me In St. Louis, another that spun gold off commonplace lives set to music. State Fair would resemble St. Louis more than Fox's studied imitator, Centennial Summer.

The Fair cast sang but for dubbed Jeanne Crain, she approaching a career peak and cause for much of $5.6 million State Fair took in worldwide rentals, success matched by The Dolly Sisters and surpassed only by Leave Her To Heaven on '45 Fox ledgers. Footloose reporter Dana Andrews could pass for one of his noir characters before life went wrong. You'd imagine his happy ending with Crain gone sour after the end title, with Andrews back on the road a la Fallen Angel, latter not so removed a setting from bucolia of State Fair. There's none of a dark side to State Fair, however. You nearly taste hot dogs and cotton candy here, beauty of Technicolor closer to reclaim than most from Fox for which three-strip negs were deep-sixed in the 70's, a corporate blunder of epic dimension. State Fair though, looks happily terrific in HD.

 

Chicago First-Run To 1,535 Seats

And color removes grit of fairground Will Rogers and family attended in 1933, intervening twelve years a salve to showgoer recall of Depression. 1945's State Fair fit ideally an audience revived by wartime prosperity where factory lights stayed lit, with theatre marquees the same. Many a full house for musicals sat as such through dark AM's, result of three-shift work policy and disposable coin in pockets. Every song, it seemed, played to tune of victory imminent by mid-'45. State Fair timed perfect to mere weeks after V-J and fed off a fair held nationwide. World premiere in Des Moines, Iowa (8/29) bought corn belt laurels for Fox and retinue that Variety-termed "farmers and townfolk" could ogle: Dick Haymes, Carole Landis, James Dunn, Peggy Ann Garner, Faye Marlowe, Carroll Dennison, and emcee George Jessel, all contract-bound to 20th and no strangers to personal app grind.

Fox's First Trip To The Fair

The Precode State Fair (1933) Shows Up On TCM

Among biggest talker hits the old Fox Film Corporation had was State Fair, which survives beat-up and code-cut as rescued by onetime 20th archivist Alex Gordon. State Fair ran on TCM last week, a lone chance for seeing it, what with no DVD or streaming option at present. A better version from 1945, and in Technicolor, has played consistently over years, Fox remaking the valued property again in 1962 and for television during the 70's. We think of State Fair as a musical, but origin was a novel and '33 original sans songs. Henry King brought the book to studio attention and said he'd purchase it himself if they wouldn't. In a move disastrous to finished State Fair, King and crew shot "background plates" of 1932's annual Iowa fair and used same for process work in Hollywood. Result was actors stood before a rear-projected event held months before. What seemed a technical advance in 1933 looks fakey beyond hope now.

Lew Ayres and Janet Gaynor Meet Against Process Work Seen Throughout State Fair 

Where a Memorable Grapes Of Wrath Scene
Might Have Got Its Inspiration

Janet Gaynor was first-billed, Will Rogers second. This would be reversed for a reissue after Rogers died. By the time State Fair got in circulation, his stock was rising toward head of industry placement. What a show world we had when Gaynor, Rogers, and Marie Dressler sat at its head. Something about these three obviously touched hard-times emotion. Also there was wider acceptance of rural themes, much more of the country rural-based in the early 30's. To that audience, Gaynor was the girl next-door, with Will Rogers off a neighboring farm. Henry King was right to direct this and other Americana subjects for coming of Virginia roots. He knew smell of manure and wouldn't pretty up pigpens as did State Fair successors. This family's trek to the fair is a dead ringer for the Joads pulling out seven years later in The Grapes Of Wrath, the campground they arrive to like imagery I've seen of Hoovervilles.

A 1936 Revival Date, But It Wouldn't Be The Intact State Fair 

Norman Foster Won't Come Home Simon-Pure From
The Fair As Did Dick Haymes in The 1945 Remake

Janet Gaynor asks brother Norman Foster if he wouldn't like to "raise hell" at the forthcoming fair, a question we'd not imagine Jeanne Crain putting to Dick Haymes in Fox's first remake amidst  postwar and PCA-policed boom. 1933's is very much a precode State Fair for innocence of Gaynor and Foster under threat. She's courted by been-around Lew Ayres who admits to prior tomcatting, and farm-fresh Foster is seduced by carny-wise Sally Eilers, who expressly says she'll not marry him as they repair to bed. That last business, with dialogue heard as the camera lingers upon discarded lingerie in a darkened room, was yanked from prints in 1936 revival and forever after. That year's reissue came as result of demand for Rogers backlog after his plane crash death of 8/15/35. What started as resistance on Fox's part ("Nix Booking On Old Rogers Pix" headlined Variety) would relax as clamor increased and some of Will's stuff began grossing ahead of first-runs the company was offering.

Tomorrow: The 1945 State Fair.

Here Comes Ben Blue!

Barnyard Humor in Here Comes Flossie (1933)

Had Larry Semon lived, would he have become Ben Blue? Something about the latter's farm duds reminded me of Larry, whose work was Chaplinesque beside much of Ben's. How bad is Blue? That gets into personal taste, naturally, but many accuse him of wrecking Hal Roach's Taxi Boys fleet, those done around a same time as this so-called Big V (as in Vitaphone) comedy. Hayseed Ben is dumber here than a wheelbarrow of rocks. I expected (no, hoped for) one of the cows to speak up and put him wise. It's for Shemp Howard to locate islands of humor. The Brooklyn-built rural set looks like one for Roscoe Arbuckle's Buzzin' Around, also a Big V, which at least got outdoors for part of action, unlike Here Comes Flossie!, a locked-in test of viewer patience. A best means of watching Ben Blue is to ponder, What Was He Thinking?, this after surrender to laughless two-reels (again, a matter of preference --- am I too severe?). Here Comes Flossie! is part of Warner Archive's jewel box of a comedy volume that also includes Arbuckle's Vitaphone shorts, a must-have for clown gatherers filling in gaps.

Let Invasion Commence!

Who Wins When Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)?

Dig Those Rock and Roll Records as a Giveaway!

Aliens arrive this time not to make nice or promote peace, but to knock over Washington landmarks and colonize Earth. Can Hugh Marlowe stop them? A best reason to watch is Ray Harryhausen's saucer models; they do all but dance in mid-air combat with our puny defenses. I wondered to the end how we'd defeat this force, and was frankly not assured we had, judging by crude and truck-transported rays aimed willy-nilly at better-equipped invaders. Kids were right to be shook up by sci-fi, as overcoming of Martians seemed more dumb luck on our part than superior planning/intellect. Are there fewer claimed saucer sightings now than in the 50's, or do we just hear less about them? These aliens might better have stayed aboard ship, as it's a letdown seeing them emerge in outfits more evocative of Columbia serials from the 40's. Still, it's Harryhausen's show, and there's plethora of his stuff, not just doled out highlights as in other and cheaper sci-fi's he worked on. Did big success of It Came From Beneath The Sea put more budget at RH disposal? Earth vs. The Flying Saucers certainly got trade support, ads being varied and plentiful. Domestic rentals would equal It Came From Beneath The Sea with $1.1 million, Earth's invasion being among most lucrative of budget sci-fi's from a latter half of the 50's.

Precode's Defense Of Honor

Seducer Done In For Seducing in Unashamed (1932)

Score One for the "unwritten law," Topic A of this precode declaration that a brother may rightly dispatch whatever bounder soils a sister's honor. Call it William S. Hart in modern dress, issues and resolution a same as when treated in silent westerns by venerable Bill. Some aspects of morality had not changed despite many that had, this courtroom-explained by Lewis Stone as defense counsel for likeable Robert Young, who plugged Monroe Owsley for being, well, Monroe Owsley. Soiled dove is Helen Twelvetrees, she a variation on Norma Shearer rich girls gone trampy in better precodes (A Free Soul, Strangers May Kiss), but even Norma's weren't as blunt to say cads have it coming from gunpoint of aggrieved family (A Free Soul does however let fiancee Leslie Howard kill for Shearer honor). Most of action revolves around a witness chair after the fatal shot is fired, thus action confined to bravura of Lewis Stone and John Miljan as courtroom opponents, their speeches way left of reality's field, but corkers the same for unleash of views widely held re justifiable homicide. Femme lead Twelvetrees was mostly at RKO service; I'd assume Metro borrowed her for this, maybe after Shearer, Crawford et al turned Unashamed down?

Metro On Euro Tour

Italo Setting For Light In The Piazza (1962)

Olivia DeHavilland marries off brain-damaged daughter Yvette Mimieux to a rich Italian family during Euro tour. Obviously a one-and-only of its kind, this was also a last lush vehicle for DeHavilland, who looks plenty good at forty-six, even if I'd have gone other directions with some of hair and wardrobe. Arthur Freed produced for MGM and Guy Green directed. You'd almost swear Vincente Minnelli was mixed in somewhere, being this seems his kind of project, and maybe he was induced at some point, but turned the property down. As is, the story is a grabber. I was enough intrigued in December 1965 to watch Light In The Piazza past bedtime on NBC's Tuesday Night At The Movies.

Here's the gag: Yvette was kicked by a horse when she was ten and recovers, but with forever-after maturity level of a kid. But she's still Yvette Mimieux, and so guileless George Hamilton comes sniffing, which puts DeHavilland on prod. His dad Rossano Brazzi (did it always have to be Rossano Brazzi?) lays Continental charm  on Olivia and he's way more appealing than cold heart of a husband/father Barry Sullivan, who jets in briefly from the family home in Winston-Salem, NC (!!). Guess he flew out of NYC, as neither Greensboro nor Charlotte go direct to Florence, Italy, even today. Piazza was location shot, way more of it lensed outdoors than travel folders 20th Fox circulated in the 50's to celebrate Cinemascope.

Sub Rod Taylor For George Hamilton Here and It Would Look Exactly Like a
Scene From The Time Machine of Two Years Earlier

The picture is not a little dishonest, Mimieux supposedly of child mentality but comporting herself like breath-of-spring ingénue any guy might mistake for normal (or not care otherwise). Imagine her Weena from The Time Machine brought to present-day, and that's near the characterization we get here. Light In The Piazza has suspense for whether Olivia will pull off her marital scheme, and yes, the wrap sort of surprised me, message implicit that Italy is where Yanks go to unload broken toys. After all, don't earthy Euros like their women best at ten-year-old level? (Olivia says as much at the fade) DeHavilland is her customary excellent. A pity there was too little worthwhile work after this. With botoxed mummies perfing into their sixties today, you'd think OdeH could thrive given later birth date. For that matter, at age 97, this actress institution still looks better than a lot of what's out there hustling leads.

Part Two and Conclusion of Billy The Kid Days

1930's Billy The Kid lost money owing to high negative cost. John Mack Brown also got some blame, much as John Wayne would for the failure of The Big Trail. Epic westerns weren't career epochs for these two. Metro cared less to revisit Brown, but they'd not forget Billy's potential for action placement on marquees. The character was a natch to enhance male star standing, and so it was that Robert Taylor came to the role at age 30 for a 1941 Technicolor remake. Bob was starting to develop a wolfish look that would commend him to darkened image adjustment after the war. For now, his Billy sat an uneasy mount between pretty boy Taylor of star-making 30's and edgier countenece that would reveal itself later.

 

I'd left this Billy The Kid alone for being told it was a dud. Wrong again were naysayers, for I enjoyed it, the star and character-laden cast, plus location shooting all over the Southwest US map. There's even chasing across Monument Valley, which I'd suppose was a first occasion anyone shot there in Technicolor. This time however, Billy had to die at the finish, Code enforcement not permitting cold-blooded killers to evade punishment. Musical-chair directors were not unknown at Metro, starting out Frank Borzage being replaced by neophyte David Miller, who then was supervised by vet Norman Taurog. No wonder Billy plays at times like a patched quilt. You take these MGM specials for limitations you know are built in.



On topic of recycling, William S. Hart was summoned again, this time to host Robert Taylor at his ranch and speak to (if not debunk) ongoing legends about Billy The Kid. Bill had good latter life exposure in varied weeklies with his Billy accounts, and MGM got valued publicity for their fresh Kid. You wonder why they'd go to expense of borrowing Lon Chaney, Jr. just to essay a disposable bully part in saloon scenes --- it wasn't for nothing this was tagged a super-western. And what could be homier that Dick Curtis off the B west range as henchman number whatever. There's even former Hal Roach comic support Eddie Dunn as a badman shot down by Billy (thankfully offscreen --- that's not something I'd have wanted to see). There's no romance for Taylor/Billy, but despite its gloss, matte work, and rear projection, I found 1941's Billy The Kid at least as fun as what Fox did for bandit queen Belle Starr the same year.

As to a whole series of Billy The Kid westerns that would follow with Buster Crabbe, I remain silent for inability to round these up. Being PRC-produced, I'd guess prints are dicey. For that matter, Roy Rogers had been a Billy too, and so would Audie Murphy in 1950's The Kid From Texas, also gone from quality access. The one I did forge up was The Left-Handed Gun, Paul Newman's 1958 go at Billy The Kid for first-time feature directing Arthur Penn. You'll hear it's moody, arty, and all the unpromising rest, but stuff like that is at times my venison, depending upon mood of the moment.

Yes, Newman gives it a Method all, salvation coming of thankfully conventional players who temper his excesses. Did Actor's Studio gesticulators realize that it was firm foundation of lower-key colleagues that kept their performing out of absurdity's way? I look at The Left-Handed Gun and give thanks for John Dehner, James Best, and others who came to work, read their lines efficiently, and went home to wait for an agent's next call. Newman's OK, but give me the Dehners for steady diet. The Left-Handed Gun was adapted from a teleplay by Gore Vidal, also featuring Paul Newman. It, and the feature, were considered revisionist in 1958. Warners shrank a bit from Vidal's psycho-sexual detouring, though it was agreed there'd never been a Billy so high-strung and unpredictable as Newman's.

There's no surprise then, to learn of James Dean having been slated to play Billy. I'll bet his interpretation would have come off a near-photo finish to Newman's. After all, didn't PN more or less pick up Dean marbles after 9-30-55? Warners was true to form in selling The Left-Handed Gun as youth in further rebellion, a promoting theme so tired as to make you wonder if they'd ever again stir a beginner's soup outside the Dean pot. For all of effort put forth on behalf of male up-and-comers, it was Paul Newman that came closest to inheriting the Dean mantle, several parts he had at Warners likely to have gone Dean's way had the younger actor lived (think The Young Philadelphians with JD).

One amusing anecdote as passed along by former exhibitor Mike Cline: He drive-in played The Wild Bunch in the early seventies and needed Warner's exchange to send along a co-feature. What he got was The Left-Handed Gun, long in the tooth by that time and in black-and-white besides. Five minutes past starting it, Mike heard engines accelerating from the lot, then a big parade of vehicles exiting his Thunderbird Drive-In. Within minutes, the joint was near-vacant. All three Billys covered here (and in Part One) are available on Warner DVD, the John Mack Brown and Robert Taylor versions from their Archive, with the Paul Newman as part of a set devoted to the actor.