What We Treasure, and Why?

The Thief Of Bagdad (1940) Was Someone's Happiest Memory

Name quick a most popular and influential pageant from the 40's, one that set then-youth upon clouds of joy. Ask author Alan Barbour, if he were still here, and the answer would be Korda's The Thief Of Bagdad. Barbour was viewing child of a decade when new sensations were buttressed by returning hits from the 30's. He saw them all, repeatedly, and wrote memoir that was A Thousand and One Delights, just one of a brace of books that walked down his memory lane. If you want first-hand recall of what moviegoing was like in a truest Classic Era, here it is. Trouble for us moderns is no one from back then telling their stories on the internet, being too old, or too departed, to participate in online discussion. Eyewitness testimony from later dims by the day as well. How long before we can't find anyone who saw The Day The Earth Stood Still when new, with exit of those who saw NBC's March 1962 broadcast premiere close behind. What do we achieve for recount of youth but confession of age and sand seeping from hourglass of memory? It's humbling then to read Alan Barbour and know what it was to grow up in a real Garden of Eden. He wrote prolific (fanzines, photo/ad collections, plus the books) until premature passing in 2002. Barbour called The Thief Of Bagdad a supremely high adventure, its Technicolor a summit of the process. He would see the show over and over whenever theatres brought it back, which was evidently often through the 40's. So how come we forgot what a trend setter The Thief Of Bagdad was?

A Whole Line Of Bagdad Dolls --- Collect Them All!

Fashion Tips For 1940 Inspired By The Thief Of Bagdad

There was a book written about The Thief Of Bagdad in 2004. Co-author Malcolm Willits had a memorabilia shop on Hollywood Boulevard. He was born in 1934, so probably rode Korda's magic carpet early on to whatever revivals came his neighborhood's way. Question, then, to all: What single film, if any, would you devote book-length effort to? I could think of fifty titles easier than one, though the doing would require true, if not obsessive, commitment. Was The Thief Of Bagdad better suited to an earlier generation of fans? You could say that about any Classic Era favorite, being it's true of them all, but I don't hear The Thief Of Bagdad being praised at the level of a King Kong or The Adventures Of Robin Hood, two with which it has elements in common, though really, there is nothing else like The Thief Of Bagdad, other than a silent version Douglas Fairbanks did in the twenties. Follow-ups and imitators would be rife, and last right into the sixties. Most immediate trade on The Thief Of Bagdad were the six Maria Montez-Jon Hall adventures, the first of which set a pattern and was hat-tip enough to include Bagdad's Sabu among Universal's contract-starry cast. It wouldn't be long before spoofs led the way, crowds after the war more inclined to laugh at lamps that gave wishes and camels as conveyance (look at A Thousand and One Nights for extreme 1945 example).

Sex was safer-served with all else so divorced from reality. Domestic tilts at Arabian Nights were diminished more than helped by harems heaped with starlets, none invested in the spirit of exotic fantasy as June Duprez was in the 1940 trend-setter, but then, the British wouldn't condescend to exotic content the way we later would. Crudity of Bagdad special-fx can be overlooked in the face of effort so sincere, and what US copy-cat had Conrad Veidt as evilest of viziers? June Duprez was decades-later interviewed by another lifelong devotee of the film, John Kobal, who cherished The Thief Of Bagdad from first seeing it amidst postwar rubble of his English boyhood. Kobal's account is as vivid a picture of filmgoing as I've ever read, as told in preamble to his visit with Duprez in the 1985 book, People Will Talk. He's disappointed when she elects not to recall The Thief Of Bagdad in glowing terms. It was a job from which June Duprez moved on (and not to success in Hollywood, which made Bagdad that much easier to forget). Include Kobal then, among Thief Of Bagdad disciples who would write stirringly of impact the movie had. Like with Alan Barbour and Malcolm Willits, the bloom would not fade with passage of years. Again, are there such films that register so strongly, or permanently, for those of us younger? I tried sampling The Thief Of Bagdad through 40's eyes, advantage mine thanks to HD broadcast on TCM, but what am I saying? --- they got three-strip Technicolor on 35mm nitrate, and imagine what that would have looked like.

1947 Finds Genie Rex Ingram Lured From His Bottle To Help Promote  

Whatever impression The Thief Of Bagdad made when new (there was $1.1 million in domestic rentals) was redoubled when a next generation got hold of it in 1947. Strategy was not unlike Disney's with backlog, every seven years adequate to let a next audience gestate and begin buying tickets. The Thief Of Bagdad was as evergreen as any live action feature, and proved as much with extended runs and 1947 boxoffice to rival whatever was new at the time. Alexander Korda had leased a group of his features to "Film Classics," a thriving postwar reissue mill. The Thief Of Bagdad would pair with The Jungle Book, another Technicolor-ful flight of fantasy. These two, as with The Four Feathers and Drums (US re-title of UK's The Drum) were richer canvasses than the norm, deeply felt by those lucky enough to thrill with them in theatres. Regrettable coda to this was a following year's surrender of the Korda group to television, among first deals made for major features seen at home and for free. Twenty-four titles were leased to New York's WPIX, and they could peddle the lot as well to other stations nationwide ("approximately 13 television areas" were identified as possible customers). Technicolor that had distinguished many of the Kordas was lost to arid B/W on tiny tubes. Showmen would not thereafter want The Thief Of Bagdad or others thanks to Judas act of the Brit producer in letting the enemy have them. Here was where The Thief Of Bagdad began to lose its standing, except in hearts and minds of fan-ship that would become writer/historians. We have The Thief Of Bagdad on a Criterion DVD and various Blu-Rays from Region Two. I haven't looked to see which is best.

An Hour Of Universal Night Life

Night World (1932) Needs To Come Back Into The Light

Sweeping start with a three minute Symphony Of The City as scored by Alfred Newman to quick pace of Gotham, then we're in for less than an hour stay at a cabaret where fates are decided among Universal's notion of an all-star cast. Night World preceded Grand Hotel, so jumped guns on that celebrated ensemble, only with action and dance compressed to just over half the length of Metro's special. Night World swung for the fence and played singly, or at least at top of bills. It went unseen for decades after 1932 until a print showed up from Europe in the early 70's and got revival play. Television didn't bite until the old AMC ran Night World and lit up collector VCR's, their tapes satisfying need for the title ever since. Thirty years of dubs and re-dubs do work their havoc, but where or how else to see Night World? Fact of it being zippy precode with meaningful names at a start of long careers should commend Night World to at least a streaming berth, but Universal won't be bothered, so onward we subsist on plain-wrap discs ten or so generations from what AMC broadcast a generation ago.

Chorine-in-chief, and object of love rivalry between Lew Ayres and George Raft, is Mae Clarke in lively depart from stoic victim she'd been in Frankenstein. Speaking to that comparison is Night World's primary asset Boris Karloff as tough egg who runs the hot-spot where dramas happen. Uni clearly didn't want him for monsters only, at least early on, Karloff proposed here as character asset if not the lead. He's genial and menacing by turns,  "Hello, big shot!" a greeting to all and sundry. Catching his faithless wife in embrace of Russell Hopton, BK advances toward the camera like the man-made monster he'd recently immortalized. There were worse ideas than having Karloff play gangsters --- he'd do so repeatedly both before and after Frankenstein. I wonder what sort of career he might have had if not for the creepers. Kick comes of seeing Karloff interact with Mae Clarke so soon after threat he posed to her as F's creation. What joy fans would have got from Night World if only late shows had run it, or home video (legitimately) offered it. Columbia/Sony at least dealt us right by packaging their own Karloff: Criminal Kind DVD set, which included Behind The Mask, The Guilty Generation, and The Criminal Code.

Trade ads went customary hyperbole one better: "An appalling torrent of conflicting human emotions," with a capper of "God! What a mess it made of life." Copywriters must have been overtired or under influence. Or maybe they guessed how seldom Universal had something so bracing to sell. First-billed Lew Ayres enters the narrative at tail end of what's said to be a three day drunk, consequence of his mother having killed his unfaithful father. It's made clear that this club does not serve alcoholic beverage, and we see no action at a bar, or drinks dispensed. Was Universal observing Prohibition protocol at eve of the law's abolishment? And yet Karloff is threatened by "suppliers" aggrieved when he tries switching to another source, but what exactly have they been supplying? Crime is punished, and then some. Five bodies litter the floor for a finish, including some of principal characters. Night World might be a downer but for frisky dialogue throughout, and there are numbers staged by Busby Berkeley, a couple of films away from 42nd Street. Night World had benefit also of small part George Raft achieving prominence between production and release, his name a plus for theatres getting the film toward the end of distribution routes. For such a brief programmer (58 minutes), Night World needed all that live acts or a second feature could supply, such as here at the RKO Mainstreet, where a comedy, newsreel, and a full dose of vaudeville accompany the feature.

Journalism With A Meat Cleaver

Scandal Sheet (1931) Feathers Love Nests

Tab editor George Bancroft's credo is, if it's news, we print it, and never mind human casualties. Of course, he'll be hoisted upon his petard in a third act, that the fun for waiting an hour and fifteen minutes for the telegraphed payoff. What's wrong with formula when good enough people play it? Besides Bancroft, there is Kay Francis (what's she doing with him?, we, and she, asks), Clive Brook (him the interloper to Bancroft home/hearth/wife). There is noise of final editions shouted by newsboys, presses stopped so new dirt can be shoveled onto front pages --- when did extras fade from real-life sheets? Newspaper yarns couldn't help at least seeming authentic thanks to much of H'wood writing pool migrating from the trade. Scandal gather is shown on merciless terms, the mother of a suicide auctioning photos and poetry of her just-dead son to scribes scrambling for a spiciest headline. Heartlessness is coin of the realm for press jackals, and we're meant to be but barely shocked by their business as usual. This was cynicism of a deepest kind, talkies a fresh messenger to a public torn loose from age of innocence that was the silent era.

Scandal Sheet was first-foremost a vehicle for George Bancroft, a big galoot, said then-boy Budd Schulberg (in a later, and fine, memoir), and oblivious to what  laughing stock he was among wiser heads on the Paramount lot. One of these was director John Cromwell, who made the best of rush jobs like Scandal Sheet. Cromwell tried explaining nuance of parts to Bancroft, but it was useless, the actor having no "consciousness" of roles he took. "To him it was always just another part to play in the same old manner. He had no realization of the opportunities that were there, so they were simply missed." For a while, though, audiences made do with raw material that was Bancroft, so he saw no reason to vary a simple approach. Maybe Cromwell was misled for imagining he could make something meaningful of stock material. There would come an ally at Paramount in David Selznick, who wanted things better than assembly could disgorge. He and Cromwell did what they could with a few properties (Street of Chance a worthy try), though both would leave the lot rather than bang heads against a shut door of creative authority. Their association would continue over years DOS spent at independent producing (Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Prisoner of Zenda, Since You Went Away, all directed by Cromwell).

Corman Cashing In On Sputnik

Ads Make Better Satellite War Than Movie

This was cut-rate fruit from the Sputnik vine. Roger Corman claimed that he got it together within mere weeks of the Russian satellite launch, but release date vs. Sputnik circling indicate months between the two, and besides, there was plentiful product to hook actual events with sci-fi at least roughly on point. Pics that caught Sputnik tailwind included MGM's The Invisible Boy and Enemy From Space from United Artists, both out during Fall 1957 when headlines were hottest, War of the Satellites arriving well after Sputnik re-entry and burnout (January 1958). Distributing Allied Artists pinned a ripe second feature to Satellites which was Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, since an object of cult immortality. I'll bet in fact that auction sales of posters for 50 Foot Woman have well surpassed total receipts AA collected back in 1958. Sci-fi combos, nearly always black-and-white, did a grab-and-run with whatever could be scooped over a week stand at hardtops or (predominantly) drive-ins. Posters did a heaviest lift, and this double-bill had doozy art for both elements, even if frankly lying as to content (ray-gun brandishing space walker against rocket-in-flight background, the 50 Foot giantess plucking cars off a freeway). Truest auteur behind much of 50's sci-fi may have been Reynold Brown and other artists who created stunner bally for otherwise impoverished weirdies.

Once out of theatres, War of the Satellites took lumps from television (so brief at 66 minutes that it was actually padded for tube runs). Roger Corman had charge of the negative and licensed War, plus Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of This Earth for a DVD triple from the Shout! Factory. I cropped War of the Satellites from full-frame to 1.85 projection and got a nice result. Seeing it like this at least helps the film play better, if not so vivid as under a blanket of 1958 stars or amidst butter corned aroma of a matinee, but that era isn't coming back, so this will do. War of the Satellites is best enjoyed on basis of what remarkable things Roger Corman did with string-bean budget and clocks ticking mightily against him. Being soft for sci-fi helps, and there's sport of ID'ing sound effects and stock footage cribbed from someone else's older movie. A standout visual, shown over, then over, and so on, has elephantine missiles matted behind full-size buildings, a shot too lavish for Corman and staff to have rigged, so I'm wondering where it came from --- looks like pre-dated British sci-fi to me, but would '58 be too soon to borrow from one of the Quatermass thrillers? War of the Satellites is worth the watch where one ponders such issue, and not half-bad for a yarn it spins of alien interference with our space program. Dialogue warns against letting rival planets dictate space policy, a pointed reference to Soviets maybe using orbit as a combat staging area.

Last Feature Roundup For The Stooges

Larry, Moe, and Joe Out West for The Outlaws Is Coming! (1965)

Fellow fifth graders were surprisingly indifferent to this --- in fact, I don't think any of us caught the Liberty's three-day run. I had borne brunt of earlier Stooge features from Columbia, having been dragged to them by cousins or neighbors, but '65 was a new day, and I considered myself inoculated from further Stooging. This recent view was therefore my first, and hanged if the thing didn't play better than grim anticipation over interceding half-century. The boys had spoofed westerns before, primarily in shorts, though there was a teaming with George O'Brien at feature length. Outlaws at times has an almost hipster spin on genre clichés, future Laugh-In's Henry Gibson applying layers of irony to his Indian support part. The thing looks hardly more lavish than a late Stooge short; kids in theatres must have thought they were looking at a great big TV set for economies observed, but the trio give all, and I'm impressed as ever by their outlasting virtually all Gold Age acts that came before. Indeed, the Stooges might have performed to infinity but for Larry's stroke. To sum up, I didn't laugh at The Outlaws Is Coming!, but did respect it, and could spank myself for passing in 1965. Columbia got respectable returns for minimal outlay: $598K in domestic rentals, and $240K foreign. The Sony Channel's HD displays map of Moe's wrinkles to splendorous effect.

How Far Can A Public Be Uplifted?

Metro Does Good Citizenship With The Magnificent Yankee (1950)

You'll thank us for making it, even if you don't come see it, was seeming Metro message to a public they wished would support The Magnificent Yankee, but hang those gum-poppers who wanted comedies and melodramas and westerns. Still, The Magnificent Yankee could go far arguing that movies had more to offer than empty genre calories. MGM had punted before for prestige sake. Occasionally that had value even over profit. Let The Magnificent Yankee lose $465K so long as Leo's patriotism was burnished, 1950 a time when never enough of that could be had. "A credit to the industry" said Metro marketers to showmen who'd immediately smell fish. They saw similar dodge before and had suffered for taking the bait. "It is just about one of the best, and in playing it and promoting it, you will win for your theatre the gratitude and respect of your community." Such high-minded talk translated quick to: You'll lose your a--, but feel good doing it. 

Trouble was, no matter how cheaply MGM made small pictures (Yankee's negative cost $638K), they'd still wind up in the red. You couldn't blame old timers for saying the company was on fumes. And here came Dore Schary with a film about a Supreme Court Justice back in 1902. Ads had to conceal both the content and the period setting, plus total dearth of names (Louis Calhern the lead). Whole of the campaign would turn on reviews, which were laudatory to a fault, but where's the good when other aspects of The Magnificent Yankee had to be hid? Metro did two trailers, both accessible either at You Tube or as an extra on the Warner Archive DVD. One features Lionel Barrymore pitching for the film, describing Oliver Wendell Holmes as a "rough, tough, sort of man," but also a "genial giant." This came under heading of anything to imply action, which The Magnificent Yankee did not have, unless verbal arguments could be called action. It's easy to imagine East Coast merchandising turning up collective noses at what experience taught them would be a hard sell, and no one drawing checks based on performance liked hard sells. Failure would only invite blame from Culver, as in You Didn't Sell Hard Enough. Movies like The Magnificent Yankee were in the end a no-win game.

Trades reported a May 1950 week that Metro staff and researchers spent in Washington getting Supreme Court background, cooperation assured as The Magnificent Yankee would be a 100% positive depiction of the court and its workings. They'd be back in June to shoot four days of location footage, virtually on heels of the Born Yesterday crew, which had just finished up in Washington. Historical, said Variety, was a percentage deal given Emmet Lavery, author of the play on which The Magnificent Yankee was based, him to also pen a script for the screen adapt. MGM had evidently not cut scribes in on profits before (as it turned out, of course, Lavery got no additional coin, as there were no profits). Metro prided itself on historical clarity and verisimilitude, this tested by exhaustive search for a photo of Fanny Holmes, wife of the title character and played by Ann Harding. Turned out there were no photos in existence of the woman, whereas there was plentiful visual record of her husband. Inquiry revealed that Mrs. Holmes had been sickly before and during their life in Washington, and refused to sit before a camera (her hair was cut very short due to the illness and didn't grow back). I checked Google for possibility of an image turned up in the sixty-eight years since The Magnificent Yankee was made, but nothing. Toward speed and economy, there were ten days of rehearsal for The Magnificent Yankee under direction of John Sturges, to be followed by 22 days of shooting. MGM under Dore Schary was watching out-flow of dollars.

A timely boost came in August 1950 for The Magnificent Yankee. Major segment of the film had Justice Holmes ruling against free speech where it posed a "clear and present danger." The concept was revisited by the 1949-50 court when a group of Communists appealed a decision which said they had no right to espouse the Red cause as that was violation of the Smith Act, which made it a felony to teach and advocate violent overthrow of the U.S. Government. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction and declared the Smith Act constitutional. Yankee's emphasis on the Holmes ruling put Metro foursquare with the Americanism theme pushed hardest by the film, as well as emphasizing the company's opposition to present-day Un-American activities, this another means by which Leo and The Magnificent Yankee could prosper whatever the economic outcome.

Metro began sneak previews of The Magnificent Yankee in October 1950 and realized they had makings of a critical success and possible award winner. There were also "academia" screenings and an unspool for the Supreme Court, to which five Justices showed up. Decision was made to open The Magnificent Yankee in December to qualify for Academy consideration. L.A.'s 4 Star Theatre, recognized as a "sure-seater" (art house) was chosen for the invitational premiere. A special trailer was made for the 4 Star opening, which is still extant and a bonus on the Warner Archive DVD. MGM opted for a "soft-spoken, homey, and 'sincere' approach" for its radio campaign, no hard sell or sound effects for "spot blurbs." The appeal would aim at stations listened to by adults, including classical music outlets. Test of the approach in L.A. would determine viability of a similar policy for national release. Gotham booking was at Radio City Music Hall for January 1951, with a stage extravaganza entitled "Red, White, and Blues," which, said Variety (1-24-51), ran the gamut "from opera to voodoo and swing." Two weeks of "fair," then less, play, saw The Magnificent Yankee out of the Hall.

The trend tended toward strong initial days or weeks at urban sites, then steep or steeper drops. Hinterland stops saw The Magnificent Yankee at tail-end of double bills. Generally, something with action led the bill, like in Chicago where Yankee backed up a Ray Milland thriller out of Britain, Circle of Danger. None of this would surprise Metro handlers, who knew from disappointment over "offbeat" merchandise. Sales veep William F. Rodgers maintained, however, "that experimentation is necessary, for there can be no formula in anticipating public taste." Rodgers referred to Stars In My Crown, The Next Voice You Hear, and Night Into Morning as others of "different" persuasion, each out of Metro in 1950-51 and all to lose money. Sales staff was instructed "to make any kind of terms ... within reason" once a problem title was recognized. Viewers induced to see The Magnificent Yankee enjoyed it, but there was the rub --- getting them in. The film was safe and civilized to a fault, for Justice Holmes did nothing dramatic beyond dissenting often with other sitting judges, and where was excitement in that, unless you were a legal scholar? Still, it was the sort of output Metro could point to with pride when sourpusses later hung crepe over things like Rogue Cop or Flame and The Flesh that appealed to a baser audience.

Tied Tight To The Movie Habit

Record Crowds Go Boom For Boom Town (1940)

I just adore holdover ads like this. They so reflect the joy of success at exhibiting. You've got a hit --- crow it out! Human impulse is always to go and look at what everyone else is looking at. Why be the wallflower who hasn't seen Boom Town? "Oh Boy!" says the Wilkes-Barre crowd with a rope around an all-star cast. This could be seen coming. The Comerford knew way ahead that Boom Town would be held over --- and over. MGM set terms on that assumption, and they were high. Boom Town was notorious that year for what Leo demanded. Well, take Gable, Tracy, Colbert, and Lamarr or leave them, said the Lion. Boom Town theme was close to distribution philosophy, being of corporate meat-eaters on never-ending prowl for profits. Who says movies were the voice of directors? This one was shout of parent company Leow's Inc. Their rope was around all of showgoers in lush year that was 1940.

Endless Quest For Journey's End

The Great War Drama We Forgot

Atlanta Gets The Live Journey's End Experience

What a downer to know a thing is good, but you can't see it. Journey's End is owned by who-I-don't-know, produced by a company that folded before Prohibition quit. Anyone interested in The Great War should see it, but most won't, and likely never will based on phantom status. There's also issue of length, a long version intended, plus cut ones that misrepresent Journey's End where it has too seldom resurfaced. I was slipped a bootleg that was thankfully intact, but search me as to whether anyone could care enough to fix Journey's End and put it on Blu-ray. Bigger gorilla that was All Quiet On The Western Front took bulk of 1930 laurels, few of even harder core buffs having seen both. I needed two looks at Journey's End to get full into trench-set eyeball of a Lost Generation in the making, and admit to wanting to watch firstly because James Whale directed and Colin Clive starred. That's two endorsements, and frankly enough to justify the sit even if Journey's End weren't special otherwise, but here's the save, it is.

James Whale Directs The Stage Cast

Journey's End had been a play in England, its writer (R.C. Sherriff) having waded war's mud and blood for real. Viewers felt the authenticity, those who had served saying Journey's End was just what they suffered. Word-of-mouth made attendance an almost religious experience. There had been WWI plays, but none so far to capture the hell so vividly. We know men of the second war were reluctant to discuss what they'd seen, and may assume their elders from the first round were even more reticent. Many saw Journey's End through tears. It either resolved a lot of PTSD, or awakened it. England took Journey's End most of all to heart because that country felt more of Allied loss. No man of sufficient age was untouched, ones who saw Journey's End balanced by those who'd stay away for fear they couldn't relive the experience w/o hazard. This, then, was something beyond casual theatre-going. Had James Whale not been taken up by children who'd love his later horror films, he would be best remembered for Journey's End, a property JW saw through live staging in both the UK and US, then for this first feature he would direct.

The story is of men living in a hole. They can only go out to face Germans, or have the Germans pour in. Journey's End as a play is ideal for such confinement, for how many of trenches offered more space than a stage? Advantage served by live performance might be lost in translation to screens, where movement was a must, even in earliest talkies for which a single set was anathema. Here was where James Whale could prove himself equal to the challenge that filming posed, keeping values of a successful play from fate suffered by nascent tries at adaptation by others. James Whale had an instinct for stage-screen translation right from his start. Waterloo Bridge and Frankenstein were a next two after Journey's End, and look at assurance of both. We're lately reminded of his skills by 2017's reemergence of The Old Dark House, so there are Blu-Rays now of all Whale chillers. A director's status can rest on preservation/availability of work, and for James Whale at least, there has been much progress. TCM runs Showboat now in HD, and their lease of One More River continues. A Kiss Before The Mirror languishes on substandard DVD, a Universal "On-Demand" that demands more their willingness to re-master it, so far not done. A fix and revival for Journey's End would be a welcome step closer to exalted place Whale deserves.