When Even Biggest Names Get Forgot

 

Latter-Day Dig for Norma Talmadge

Among pioneer film historians, Richard Griffith stood tall. He co-wrote seminal The Movies (w/Arthur Mayer) and a 1950 edition of The Film Till Now, with Paul Rotha. He also did The Movie Stars, published in 1970, the year after Griffith died. In it, he surveyed players up to then that achieved fame in films. Griffith was born in 1912, so was exposed to them either in prime, getting there, or lately coming off it. One that got a chapter was Norma Talmadge, who Griffith admitted was past and forgot by the sixties (Talmadge herself gone since 1957 at age 63). We’ve pondered stars once big that few think of anymore, Norma Talmadge a deepest sixed, known perhaps as Buster Keaton’s sister-in-law, but what more? Trouble for me is having too little context in which to place her, despite lifelong troll for old pictures. Fact in stone: Norma Talmadge was about the biggest female name in 20’s film, nipping always at Mary Pickford or whoever else had a rung up. Everyone who loved Talmadge, their number in millions, have gone to reward. I miss living in a world where there was always somebody who remembered anybody that worked in movies. Think how once there were fans among us for first-run Broncho Billy or John Bunny. No more!

Griffith recalled and spoke well of a Talmadge vehicle called The Lady. In it, she ages from girl to old woman, a sort of act Norma did best. The Lady is lost, or was when Griffith spoke of it in the late 60’s. We miss a lot for not having access to so much of what pleased in the silent era. How can anyone reach reliable conclusion as to what or who was best back then? There seems only enough of Norma Talmadge to get hints, and for what home view affords, a fraction of that. Kino released a two-fer of Kiki and Within The Law in 2010, possibly as response to burning question of who heck Norma Talmadge was. The pair is typical and atypical … latter because Talmadge did mostly melodrama, which Kiki is not … typical for Within The Law being melodrama as purest distilled, that being Norma’s strength. We imagine melodrama was what folks endured before a next Chaplin or Lloyd flashed up. Fact is, I think given choice of but one, they’d have given up fun stuff to keep the sawmill and railroad tracks (as in tied to ...). Melodrama had been a way of performance life for length of everyone’s lifetime. I’m told emotional hair-raising was an only way to take audience minds off hardship of their lives. The higher pitched, the more effective. Judging by trauma dished in melodrama, in movies and certainly on nineteenth-century stages, there must have been a lot of hardship to rinse away. Being chief laundress for her public’s emotional tension made Norma Talmadge a least disposable of any 20’s star, so how then was it so easy to dispose of her before the 20’s even ended?

There must be a limit on how many times one can play a same essential part. Richard Griffith said Norma’s essential role was Norma, each time a variation on what she had done before, this expected, nay insisted upon, by her fans, known procedure for screen folk, to remain so with talkies, persisting unto today, but Norma Talmadge was not one to oversell travails, which is to say she underplayed much of stock situations handed her, making all the more a shame there isn’t Talmadge in quantity to evaluate and maybe cheer for ahead-of-time technique. I watched Within The Law, based on a play by Bayard Veiller, rousing for its day, being of a department store drudge at $5 per week, accused of stealing and innocent of that, but sent up river for three years and swearing to square account with the got-rocks owner who wouldn’t let a judge show mercy. She pulls the time, learns how to do rackets just cautious enough to keep cops off her, “love balm,” as in breach-of-promise suits, made legit by having lawyers always present and no taking payoffs direct from elder millionaires being fleeced. I recite the yarn because yes, it compels even now, was good enough to remake with Joan Crawford in 1930, then again as a 1939 B with Ruth Hussey. Within The Law is all-Caps melodrama, but Norma Talmadge plays the situation like Ibsen and Eugene O’Neill got together on it, her uplifting ordinary stuff into something believable, if not sublime.

Kiki was flip side to Within The Law, an easier modern sell because it is comedy, has Ronald Colman for a male lead, and was directed by Clarence Brown, who was resourceful from start with a megaphone. Must say, and unexpectedly, that I prefer Norma the dramatist over a pushy would-be chorus singer who all but overtakes Colman household and opens his mail before burning letters she wants him not to see, this all meant to be cumulatively endearing, but isn’t. Kiki was 1926, Talmadge having reached early thirties, so a tad late for untamed gamin stuff, plus on her thirty looked at times severe thirty, due possibly to lifestyle excess Richard Griffith mentions. Kiki, like a lot of other Talmadge ventures, was remade for talk, Mary Pickford giving it a go just a few years later. Talmadge meantime saw decline before screens spoke. 1928’s The Woman Disputed dipped, a fact plain enough to make her spend a year off girding for sound. There was Brooklynese to be ridded of, said some, and even if Norma seemed not to care about staying a star, her dedication to speech culture suggested a desire to keep in the arena. Sister and also-luminary Constance had bailed, no talkies for her, and Natalie, the Talmadge who did not make good in movies (tried, but given up), was unloading a consolation prize no longer prized, which was husband Buster Keaton. Could any Talmadge believe, were they still around, that Buster would be a sole one from the clan remembered, still revered, us obliged to travel leagues to find anyone who know, or care, what any Talmadge was.

There is a Connie Collection, also Kino, which I haven’t investigated, partly because I never found her that attractive, Natalie in fact my choice between the two were it necessary to choose, yet the family, including a dragon mother who evidently ran the roost, saw Nat as the Ugly Duck. Just my reaction, or changed standard since the 20’s? Sole image of Mrs. Keaton is her spending Buster’s money fast as he could earn it, a sop for clothes, luxury, other sillies, and goaded on, I suspect, by sisters and Mom. Also never liked the two Keaton boys name-change to Talmadge, but maybe they were better with that label in a Hollywood still status conscious even after Norma-Constance had quit and Ma was gone. Norma’s initial talkie try was a wash. There didn’t seem to be even curiosity, translate to B.O. spike, for New York Nights, which had a good director (Lewis Milestone), designer (William Cameron Menzies), other pluses as arranged by Norma-husband Joseph Schenck, him devoted still to her career if eased out of the bed chamber (Gilbert Roland his successor there). NY Nights got but $621K against $712K spent on the negative … so much for what Norma sounded like.

How quick they forget, though others of silent emote were as unlucky. She would try once more, Dubarry --- Woman Of Passion, a disaster by all account --- certainly so by UA account books, $753K out the door, only $437K coming back, time indeed for Norma Talmadge to chuck the career, which didn't much matter because there was money as invested by the mother. Story got round of a fan who approached Norma, her saying, “Get away, I don’t need you anymore,” an amusing blow-off, one she maybe made up to discourage others who might intrude. Norma married George Jessel in the 30’s, an idea good for him and vaude marquees where he could exploit her. Jessel used the faded name but good, Norma said to have been a stood-still stooge for his act. If this wasn’t for the cash, then why did she do it? Love of Georgie? She’d get over him in any case, marry a doctor next, and that stuck to the ‘57 end. There are other Norma Talmadge titles that stream … Amazon has several plus discs of dubious source. My curiosity was satisfied with the Kino DVD, so am not likely to rattle this skeleton further. Still it’s a pity to see (or rather, not see) an actress be so neglected. Are we the poorer for being Norma-less?