Icy Boxoffice For A Cold War

The Red Danube (1949) Is Ill-Timed Dream Merchandise

Occasional benefit to pic personnel was feeling they were doing something important rather than spit-out of product most associated with H'wood. The Red Danube took serious stock of Vienna and post-war allied breakdown without stepping foot there, other than second units dispatched to sites lately ripped by combat. MGM had resource to mirror most credibly any foreign place, so why dispatch full crew and principals where total control of resources could be had at home? The Red Danube's trailer conveys heft going in, each of stars addressing the camera to say how meaningful this project is to them. Here was dramatization of hottest news on eve of a coldest war the US would fight. Louis Calhern even interrupts his golf game to tab The Red Danube as a must-see. Production manpower is demonstrated by means that would have been unattainable had Metro gone offshore, press boasting of 750 trucks plus 1500 extras for highlight of displaced Russians carted off to parts unknown, this a bigger exodus, said Metro, than departing troops in well-remembered The Big Parade of two decades before. The Lion could stage big in ways rivals could not, wherever the setting, The Red Danube a swap of spectacle for authenticity. MGM had made such devil's bargain before, would do so again, even as its public more and more demanded the real thing.

The Red Danube was proof that romance could be derived off a Cold War, our naïveté about what really went on over there a buffer we could candy-coat with same formulae applied to past wars. How many of an audience, at least of mass audience Metro sought, cared to know truth of Soviets sealing borders and putting their people on boxcars to oblivion? There are uneasy sections in The Red Danube despite its gloss. We're told that innocents by hundreds are being shipped off daily and won't be seen again. To personalize it by making one of them fresh-faced Janet Leigh is Danube's potent point against Red oppressors. The Red Danube is perhaps least known of the postwar Euro lot because, of course, it is the least authentic. Others of the cycle were shot at least in part over there and could claim semi-doc status. MGM's sole nod to reality was second unit footage, good in itself, but used as wallpaper, or better put, a process screen, for players back in Culver to emote against. The Red Danube does capture well the frustration of professional soldiers trying to cope with new kinds of war, Walter Pidgeon a standout of these. Had The Red Danube been less polished, grittier in line with emerging trends, there might have been acclaim for its trying to give needed account of a Europe in troubled transition. Question was how much we wanted of that. The war being won was all most needed to know, and messy clean-up afterward, let alone one that put Allies to disadvantage, was no fun watching now. For whatever reason, The Red Danube earned less in worldwide rentals ($1.8 million) than its negative cost of $1.9 million. Metro would be as luckless with anti-Red themes even where big stars were employed, Conspirator with Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor another that was snake-bit.

Warners' Once In A Lifetime Star Combination

Rio Bravo Packs A 1959 Wallop

Quick recipe for a better Rio Bravo: 90% less of Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez and Estelita Rodriguez, 50% off Angie Dickinson's part, her line "I guess I talk too much" a truest uttered in whole of the film, tablespoons more of Rick Nelson, a biggest asset to Rio Bravo outside of Wayne and Dean Martin, and lastly a lingering shot of Dude, or later one of Burdette's henchmen, with hands deep in the spittoon to which a coin is tossed. Latter mention is me being glib, but what I noted in latest Bravo view was fact of no one actually shown reaching into that spittoon. An ick moment to capture close up to be sure, but I wonder if Hawks chose to omit it, or if he was obliged to do so by a still-in-force PCA (the censor group did demand he trim some of Bravo violence, plus suggestive dialogue at the film's fade). Of course, Dude is interrupted in progress toward the spittoon by John Wayne's Chance kicking it away, redeems his humiliation later where the Burdette man is made to plunge hand for another dollar thrown. We hear coinage being retrieved, but do not see it. Was this ultimate degradation too much for 1959 stomachs to bear? You can see I'm reaching for something fresh to say about Rio Bravo, so much, as in volumes, having been writ by others more eloquent and less drawn to minutiae.

Rio Bravo, like The Searchers, has been ground to powder by over-analysis, but I'm wondering if academics still teach it like they used to. Bravo is gaining on sixty years after all, and must seem mightily old-fashioned to millennials afflicted by it. And there are directors of later accomplishment more fashionable than Howard Hawks. As instructors get younger, there has to be readjustment of directing's pantheon. Name a class that would not respond more favorably to Christopher Nolan or David Fincher than Howard Hawks. Older fans thought Hawks would go forever because he seemed so fresh and modern, but I suspect that time is past. Josef von Sternberg and Stroheim fell off most syllabi years ago, these most sacred of cows back in day when scholars like Herman Weinberg and Everson led the conversation. Are Ford and Capra, for instance, talked about in current film studies? Something tells me --- not. Can someone still active in the field enlighten us? A good by-product of Hawks-neglect would be Rio Bravo going back to the corking western it was in 1959, when everyone crowded in to see favorite movie stars, plus top TV names, plus Ricky Nelson in six-guns and song. That's the Rio Bravo experience I'd give anything to have had.

As told before, I missed Rio Bravo that opener year, but would have seen the trailer, as Bravo was Liberty-booked for the week after The Shaggy Dog, for which I was there. What would my five-year-old reaction have been to Rio Bravo's preview, and its "Once In A Lifetime Combination of Today's Hottest Star Names"? That summer audience would not have come back to study Rio Bravo --- they'd have been there again to revel in it. The trailer must have made an impression even on kindergartner me, what with dynamic tempo, Dimitri Tiomkin custom-scoring those 2:45 minutes and seconds, plus Ricky Nelson making a personal appeal to come see the show. This was marketing at Classic Era twilight. Like with Psycho a year later, there could never be audiences who'd enjoy a movie so much as this one when fresh and new, much of its cast close as a tuning dial at home. First-run of Rio Bravo was indeed that "Once In A Lifetime" when every face on view was known and loved by all in attendance. No associate professor, no would-be revivalist, let alone someone evangelizing for Rio Bravo in cold print, could hope to duplicate that.

Rio Bravo runs 141 minutes. An initial cut was three hours long and evidently previewed, because Dimitri Tiomkin scored whole of it and his cues for the removed footage are still around. Howard Hawks made his later films more lived in by relaxing the tempo and just letting events happen. Late 50's and 60's work from this director seemed to chuck every lesson he or anyone had been taught during an era of structure, pace, and getting it done over three disciplined acts. Hawks had tired of that and realized it wasn't necessarily what audiences wanted in a sit-home-and-watch-television market. He knew it was more about character now and less about action. I'm re-watching everything he made from Rio Bravo to the finish, and note a Zen state that comes of surrender to Hawks' universe. The films being overlong is no impediment, nor are support players (odd assemblage behind John Wayne in Hatari!), or even untried leads (Red Line 7000). Attention can drift between a late-period Hawks and whatever needs doing in the household without loss to viewing pleasure. His people are still at laid-back neutral wherever your focus has gone. I'm finally hep to value of movies like this. They needn't all be taut as banjo strings. Hawks had six left beginning with Rio Bravo, and they are each a pleasure, at least for me, to re-watch.

Hawks observed once that "there are more laughs in Rio Bravo than the comedies I did." To that I'd concur, and add to that list most of other westerns and actioners (certainly ones w/ Bogart) bearing HH signature. Hawks looked for humor in every situation. He'd encourage players to lighten up. The Thing to me is richly funny, and that keeps tension the tauter. Current "dark" interpretation of comic books (an absurdity on its face) could use a Howard Hawks. Oh, for number of times I've sat poised for Stumpy's reaction when the match burns down to his finger, or when Chance kisses him on top of the head, or ... well, let's just say the 141 minutes aren't punitive for me. Again to the context of first-runs --- imagine being a loyal viewer of The Real McCoys, Ozzie and Harriet, Wagon Train, Lawman, and here they all are in one big color western with John Wayne besides. Color alone would have been plenty incentive to come, just as I would later to Munster Go Home. Even Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, trying as can be in Rio Bravo, was known and liked commodity from then-television (a recurring guest to Groucho's You Bet Your Life), and obviously someone John Wayne enjoyed (in for three of his films). It's entirely possible that by next time I watch Rio Bravo, Gonzalez will have become a cherished face among the ensemble, so strike whatever I said earlier about "improving" Rio Bravo.

John Wayne's Chance observes that "it's nice to see a smart kid for a change" after early encounter with Ricky Nelson's "Colorado." I'd guess this was a first time a teen singing idol had been dropped into a mainstream feature to lure youngsters and improve business. It worked for Rio Bravo, how well we shall not know, for what would Rio Bravo have grossed without Ricky Nelson? Wayne was well along as guarantor of a mass audience, entering his fifties as Rio Bravo went before cameras. Nelson was seventeen when shooting began, and I expect most kids who went to see Rio Bravo in 1959 were there for him. Ads bear it out --- note sample above where Ricky is in preferred top left position with reference to three "hit songs" he performs (three? --- I just recall two). No one was closer to reality of selling than showmen on the ground and scratching for sales for that very day their advertising appeared, and on this particular day in summer 1959, Ricky Nelson was Rio Bravo's biggest noise. Wayne had to know his value for teen faves that would recur in The Alamo, North To Alaska, neither Frankie Avalon or Fabian as effective as Nelson. A possible reason? He had Hawks for guidance, and Ricky Nelson was tall. He looked formidable for that in spite of a so-called "baby-face" as promoted in the trailer. A shrimpy kid would have been the collapse of Rio Bravo, what with its uniformly height-plus cast. Noteworthy are trio stills of Wayne, Dean Martin, and Rick, the first two in elevated boot heels, with Nelson wearing comparative flats.

Part of why Howard Hawks leisured with Rio Bravo was his conviction that viewers were done to death with stories they had seen/heard too many hundreds of times. Television had in a 50's meantime ramped that to thrice-fold and overflowing. Westerns were a worse contagion, like having mosquitoes flown through your den nonstop. People had to be sick of them, but they'd watch because it was free. Programmers insisted on more cowboys so long as backlash stayed at bay. Even Disney got pressure to increase westerns on his weekly primetime menu. One truth shone brightest: the stories did not matter. Warners could cycle a same script through all their saddle sores and no one would be the wiser, or care if they did know. Action beyond two guys throwing a punch could be left to stock footage. It was a deep cynicism Hawks confronted when time came to prepare Rio Bravo. He had watched enough TV to realize that what viewers liked was the personalities, a Clint Walker or James Garner or whatever popularly sat a horse. Hawks could make his own "town" western, omit mass action and sprawling movement, so long as people we looked at were engaging and likeable. Rio Bravo then, would combine junior varsity of TV favorites in support of a senior team (Wayne, Dean Martin) we'd expect for having bought a theatre ticket. As pure commercial endeavor and dead-accurate read of public pulse at the time, Rio Bravo may be the most brilliant of any 50's work Hollywood did.

Basil Dazzles In Early Talkie

The Lady Of Scandal (1930) Translates Stage To Screen

Early talk gravitated to properties where maximum chat was so much the better. That meant plays with confined setting, actors stood round furniture and often indistinguishable from it. The Lady Of Scandal and ilk would in hindsight give talkies a bad name, but were critic darlings then because of stage origin and respectability flowed from that. Mordaunt Hall was N.Y. Times defender of legit prerogative and gave but grudging nod to "shadow stories" done from plays. He made exception for The Lady Of Scandal, formerly "The High Road" of Broadway origin, and written by Frederick Lonsdale, whose The Last Of Mrs. Cheyney lent class to a pic industry always on lookout for that intangible. These were teacup marathons that sold inflated tickets at urban opens, but died hard in the hinters, where we knew from nothing, or cared, about Dukes and Earls.

Prestige was second to money as Hollywood-desired commodity. It bought good will of audiences who'd otherwise disdain movies, or call them never so good as theatre. Now that screens spoke, it was legit on the rout. Broadway laid mostly eggs as a public chose bargain that was films, a same now as plays, what with talk, plus bigger names performing than B'way could summon. People liked too the democracy of filmgoing, which had variety within programs, dress code less formal, and eats bought, or at least tolerated, if carried in (nut and sweet vendors street-selling in event venues lacked concession choice). The Lady Of Scandal meanwhile gave glimpse of Upper Crust, in England no less, a ruling class we'd be fascinated with, at least till resenting them after the war and suddenly leveled fields. Now such characters are strictly for period dress, present-day aristocracy likelier to invite laughter, if not scorn. The Lady Of Scandal presents wealth as den of snobbery that would turn out would-be wife Ruth Chatterton, though the longer she, and we, stay, the more humanized they become. Author Lonsdale, who had some creative say, wouldn't let his nobility be mere straw men to feed class grudges.

Reason To Catch A Lady Of Scandal Next Time ---
Basil's Tour-De-Force Telephone Scene

Chatterton stood in for common clay, except she has flawless diction, which others of lower birth presumably lack, but who else of cast to fasten interest on or identify with? Chatterton had been a hit the previous year as a talking Madame X, then with Sarah and Son (popular then, unwatchable now). Chatterton shone in some Warner precodes, had film-started mature (her mid-thirties), then got dowdy and quit Hollywood to stage-work exclusive. Notable, of course, is Basil Rathbone, busy himself at Broadway toil and still with one foot firmly on the stage so far as technique and declamation. He'd adjust to the change, get more comfortable with cameras, but what fun to see him enter-exit as if transition from boards to screen was none at all, the erect carriage, clipped speech, and that high, almost prissy giggle that characterized young Rathbone (young? --- he was 38 here). Athleticism that would express itself later via swordplay gets a look-in, Basil swatting ably at lawn tennis in one of precious few exteriors The Lady Of Scandal affords. There isn't a DVD yet, but TCM runs The Lady Of Scandal, usually on Rathbone natal days, a fitting and most enjoyable tribute, even if followed by Hillbillys in a Haunted House.

Early In Annals Of Serial Killing

Follow Me Quietly (1949) Is A Quiet Trend-Setter

What with every movie or TV show today about serial killers, how's for nod to pioneering Follow Me Quietly, an RKO manhunt that got it done in brief (59 minutes) and for $259K in negative cost, yet still lost money (only $325K in worldwide rentals). Set-up was queasy, a killer called "The Judge" who throws victims out high windows or breaks into women's homes to strangle them from behind. I wonder if the Code kept most part embargo on psycho killer yarns, or were fewer of them submitted during the Classic Era? This one, for all of cheapness, has unease to spare. At one point, the killer seats himself at inner sanctum of police precinct, a cheeky and creepy affront to pursuers. Follow Me Quietly reminded me at times of Seven, being procedural that tickles the horror genre. Val Lewton could have done much here, content and killer bringing to mind his The Leopard Man. RKO merchandising saw chiller ties, Terry Turner as head of publicity selling Follow Me Quietly as Eerie!, Creepy!, and Weird! Inspiration for bent murder narratives had to begin somewhere, and writers who'd later take up the concept may well have gotten start seeing Follow Me Quietly on late night TV.

Follow Me Quietly was distinctly a B. All majors increased low-budget output after the war, service for dual bills as necessary as before WWII boom that briefly made cheaper films less a priority. RKO, like Columbia and Universal, had kept with humbler fare for most of release schedules since beginnings --- by late 40's you could count their yearly specials on one hand. Follow Me Quietly came on heels of Howard Hughes as fresh owner of RKO, being the first, said Variety (8-5-48), "to tee off ... (a) program of 10 to 11 pictures which will be made between now and the end of the year." Hughes left small product alone, recalled Richard Fleischer, who wrote colorfully of B directing days for the beeping tower (Just Tell Me When To Cry, published 1993). Fleischer did a string of what we applaud as noir, lower tier it's true, but up-and-up progress culminated in The Narrow Margin, which made his reputation and was eventual route out of quickies. Follow Me Quietly falls in latter category (20 days shooting, said 7-11-49 Variety), Fleischer's concern was that most such pics would not be seen by a meaningful audience, let alone by critics who could pull him out of a budget hole. RKO salary that Fleischer drew peaked at around $750, which gave little cushion against unemployment later on (a family to support, so how much from paychecks could he save?). Fleischer was glad to be associated with sleeper hits like The Narrow Margin and other noirs, but they weren't route to wealth. He got stung too by Howard Hughes dithering once pictures were finished. Hughes liked to inspect work at leisure, and that in some cases left product a year on shelves while "anal erotic" HH (Fleischer's term) tended distractions elsewhere. Follow Me Quietly wrapped in 1948, but wouldn't see release until summer '49, where it backed RKO likes of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Mighty Joe Young, or loaded vaudeville (Chicago's Palace used Quietly behind eight stage acts).

The '27 Victory Of Vitaphone

Revisiting Show Biz History With The Jazz Singer

Another of those landmarks too famous for its own good, The Jazz Singer is met at last on even ground that is Warners' Blu-Ray, a fairest shake for the talking pioneer since Vitaphone discs first spun to nitrate accompany. Revivals of The Jazz Singer since 1927 tended toward re-record of sound, then re-record from re-records, losing for generations fresh impact the revolutionary process had. Accounts from the time confirm that when it worked, Vitaphone had no peer for clarity and amplification. There were snafus, plenty, but audiences understood what these shows could sound like, so were patient as kinks ironed out. All knew a future was upon them, talkies a given, whatever might become of silent traditions. The Jazz Singer would not wipe out an era single-hand; it took a couple more years and many all-talkies to fully achieve that, but ease of reference permitted The Jazz Singer to define transition as overnight, an expediency more manageable than truth. What I note from seeing and hearing The Jazz Singer in High-Def is what an enjoyable experience it now is, memories of 16mm and TV broadcasts purified by cleansing wave that is digital.

There continues to be discussion, ninety years going, on just what electrified crowds at 1927 runs and inspired their coming back. There had been Al Jolson on talking screens the previous year in single reel A Plantation Act, which played as Vitaphone partner to full-length The Better 'Ole, a Sydney Chaplin comedy with music overlay and no dialogue per se. A Plantation Act was Jolson addressing us with three songs, limited patter, then three bows as he withdrew. This priceless short went missing for many decades until WB found the picture portion and a busted-to-pieces Vitaphone record that was miraculously reassembled. So why didn't A Plantation Act create a 1926 sensation? From myriad of reasons, I'd submit one, that being Plantation Al directing his tunes to unseen viewers (us), while The Jazz Singer had him performing songs before an on-screen audience. Their response is enthusiastic, and more important, infectious. The nitery where grown-up "Jack Robin" first sings is filled and noisy. His songs tap into the excitement and we too are engaged, a first time, I'd propose, when shadow viewers could entice live ones to join their applause. Jolson later singing to his mother allows us to react with her, added energy coming of the emotion they and we invested. This had been a commonplace since film began, but never before with talking plus music. A new way of enjoying movies was born with these two at an upright piano, and a new day for intimacy shared with characters on a screen.

I've seen a lot of reference to what a bombastic over-actor Al Jolson was, but on evidence of The Jazz Singer, I don't buy it. The move from silence to sound affected him as it would a number of players, even though Jolson had no prior experience with the film medium. He certainly would have had plenty as a spectator, however, and must have somehow convinced himself that to talk in pictures was to turn switches full-on. As a voiceless participant in The Jazz Singer, however, Jolson stays on pitch with others of the cast and does not hog scenes. He underplays with Warner Oland (as his father) and makes moving their conflict. When he does speak, Jolson sells the personality and songs, which was, of course, what he was hired for. I realize much got out of hand later when Jolson felt his oats and overestimated a public's lust to see and hear him, and maybe it's my perception that misreads what to others would be a hoke performance in The Jazz Singer, so to scoffers I'd only say, watch it again, but please do so with the Blu-ray or a TCM broadcast in HD.

Earliest musicals caught beautifully the whiff of backstage life, and never mind gritty truth where putting on shows. Most of Hollywood had known that life, Jolson certainly, for he had been at it since childhood. There is a sequence in The Jazz Singer that I would put among his best, despite there being no sound or song. Al is talking (in titles) at his dressing table with May McAvoy. He's focused more on the conversation than application of cork for a blackface number, a process that would by now have been pure reflex for Jolson. How many thousands of times had he blacked up to perform? --- enough to go beyond his calculation, and ours. Watch how he covers every trace of white, including all of both ears, his hands a deft instrument that doesn't need a mirror to know the job's being done right. Here is a lesson in stagecraft long past, and done minus trick or cuts, a highlight of The Jazz Singer overlooked thanks to razzle-dazzle of oncoming sound. Myth attached to The Jazz Singer thanks to Warners appropriating the film as Exhibit A of their courage for having made it. The Great Gamble That Paid made splendid press even if the truth was something different. There was enough accuracy at least to make the difference not matter so much, and certainly the public did not cry foul, even if too few of them actually saw The Jazz Singer with sound.

Hick towns and outliers could but dream of Al Jolson singing from screens. They'd wait, in some cases several years, for talk to be installed in rural houses. In a meantime there were follow-up Jolsons, at least one, The Singing Fool, a bigger hit than The Jazz Singer. Still, the latter had the legend, and whatever of Al's the old-timers saw, they'd invariably recall the experience as The Jazz Singer. It became a generic Jolson title just as Laurel and Hardy's tit-for-tat silent comedies would assume memory's label of The Battle Of The Century. Warners could claim immortality by association with The Jazz Singer, but generating fresh cash from revivals was something else. A re-booking at New York's Warner Theatre for Easter-Passover weeks 1931 (where the film first played) slunk out after five deadly days, the bloom judged permanently off Jolson's rose. Variety's critic took account of picture-making "having changed more in three and a half years since (The) "Jazz Singer" than in 20 since "Birth Of A Nation." The scribe noted 184 titles in The Jazz Singer that took up twenty-three minutes of the film's eighty-eight minute running time, which was decidedly not an endorsement. "The story is sentimental to the saturation point of tear-shedding," said this observer as he noted "less than 150 people" at the Warner Theatre's 3/30/31 evening show.

The Jazz Singer would henceforth be seen mostly in clips, but these were considerable, as each time WB congratulated itself for introducing sound, out would come Jolson kneeling to sing Mammy. The oft-seen highlight was enough to make many imagine they had seen The Jazz Singer in toto. Films out of rival companies nodded to WB's pioneering, The Jazz Singer cited for decades as the one that talked first. Television sale of Warners' pre-49 library made The Jazz Singer available to local stations, this following a theatrical window through Dominant Pictures for some of titles, including The Jazz Singer. There was fresh paper offered to showmen (the one-sheet at right), but so far, I've found no ads for an actual theatre run. Did any venue roll dice on The Jazz Singer in 1956-57? Revival houses steered wide of most things Jolson for the blackface wrinkle, plus fact he was distinctly un-cool except to ancients who'd stay home in front of their TV in any event. The Jazz Singer can be seen better than ever on Blu-ray, but by how many? All of its initial audience is gone or pushing 100 (I'm saying that a lot lately), so we who care can only imagine what impact was felt when Vitaphone saw Jolson performing on his knees for a public brought to theirs by 1927's modern miracle.