 |
| New Genius? Her Old Genius Was Plenty Enough for Me. |
 |
| Unleash These Tigresses! Image Courtesy Mark Vieira/Starlight Studios |
Precode: Clara Cat Fights, Connie Nurses Good, Harding Hardly Looks Herself, and Charley Chases Precode Placement
CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) --- Not enough savage I say, too much wage of
sin. Parts I’m for rewatching anytime: Clara Bow whips Gilbert Roland and he
apparently digs it, Clara smashes a guitar over a guy’s head after asking him
twice to quit playing it, Clara wrestles at length with a Great Dane what is
bigger than her, catfights with Thelma Todd, struts about in skivvies --- so
where does Call Her Savage sag? I’d say where Bow breaks on wheel of parental
meanness, no-good husband (Monroe Owsley, 30’s trust equivalent of Ray Danton),
and midway resort to streetwalking which I didn’t get for disappointed dad
having told her early on that should she need funds, get them from the family
lawyer even though he never wants to see her again, plus there’s generous
allowance from the estranged cad husband. It’s like they want to punish Clara’s
character by contriving her to hit bottom, me for fast forward till Clara got back
in comparative chips. Her “Dynamite” Nasa is “born bad” as in sins-of-ancestors
(including Fred Kohler --- now that’s bad), biblical quotes underling the
point. Had this been all for fun, as likelier case from Warners, I’d unspool Call Her Savage more frequent, but do acknowledge it for playbook
of “don’ts” as soon would be hard-enforced by the PCA. Just wish they hadn’t
gone so hard on Bow. I’d swear writers had it in less for Nasa then the
actress playing her … Clara Bow the offscreen outlaw getting overdue spank? She’s unplugged to point where you wonder if it’s altogether
acting, an electric merge of person with part. Watching Clara Bow is a gift to
keep giving. There was obviously something here that lit her up. Poor kid was but
28 when she did Call Her Savage, miles of hard life behind her. Definitive
story was told by David Stenn, him brains also behind a Bow documentary. Call
Her Savage barely saw profit for Fox. Was it the star they rejected or harshness of
the film? She was wise getting and staying out, whatever hiccups such as the
night club or temptation to be Scarlett. |
| Turns Out the Star "Everybody Adores" Wasn't Adored Quite Enough, At Least for a Long Haul |
BORN TO LOVE (1931) --- Movies deal from a cold deck where using crib
death to resolve a story point, worse as device to unite a love-struck couple
otherwise chained by convention bound up in the child. Audiences in addition to
infants paid dear for queasy-arrived-at clinches to finish not just precodes
but many a melodrama to come (Caught from 1948 further egregious example). Born
to Love was meat processed by RKO for frugal $338K neg cost, similarity
among Constance Bennett vehicles the more where her next, The Common Law, came
in at $339K. RKO could set clocks with Constance, seeing profit with her until
one day they didn’t, her a star that sank for sameness of parts and execution
of same. She’s a WWI nurse in Born to Love. My impression based on fiction and
other films is that nurses laid down more than wounded soldiers they treated. This
time it’s Joel McCrea, on British leave and spending rapturous night with Bennett
before death at the front, except he doesn’t die, her with child and marrying
Paul Cavanagh who is a baronet and has old Baron Frankenstein for a Dad, all
which could be exhausting if Born to Love ran more than 81 minutes (in fact, 71
would digest better). Great War leaves were near-always a matter of snatch-and-run
romance, back to trench or flight goggles after stolen nights and never a
parson to bless couplings. Love scenes got pride of place over battles for which
staging took dollars, too few of those, especially at RKO, to risk even on
Constance Bennett during brief period she prospered for them. McCrea is a flyer
but we never see a plane, not even stock footage of one. Boudoirs are
battleground upon which warriors engage, the male as prize bull and not a stock
part Joel McCrea or any male lead could bring much texture to. He’d look later
on these as mere price of all and sundries, the word “sameness” a burden sure
as was for Constance Bennett. Difference was McCrea could sustain, stay a tall
oak indefinitely, so long as horses held out and a public relied on his reassuring
presence. Born to Love plays TCM, transfer soft as with most early thirties
RKO. |
| Above is One of Those Heralds They Inserted in Newspapers or Put in Grocery Bags |
 |
| Ann Harding with Morganton, N.C.'s Own Robert Williams |
DEVOTION (1931) --- Ann Harding had common sense quality across board of
performing in precodes and after. Must have been her unless all characters she
played were written a same way. Line readings have a thought-out and sincere
quality, as if Harding analyzed actions/motivations going in and had made up her mind how to improve on them. Shorthand is me believing whatever the set-up,
be it The Animal Kingdom in 1932 and also with Leslie Howard, or
frankly foolish former, Devotion for Pathe, that company of crowing logo rooster
atop world globe that surely got laughs then as it’s sure to now. Cracked is
the concept, Ann as Cinderella-ish daughter of wealth who I figured first for a
servant, but no, she just likes serving everyone drinks and lighting their
cigarettes. Enter Leslie Howard and it’s love at first sight on her part, so
why not don middle-age disguise to apply for governess spot at Leslie’s country
manor? Nuts I know, Devotion but faintly a comedy, Harding already having a
mature look so we almost buy Howard taken in by her disguise. She fusses over
him and his kid likes her almost to point where he’d be better off having her
as caretaker/babysitter rather than wife for Dad she schemes to be. Enter
Robert Williams as a wife-killer that lawyer Leslie gets off the hook, Williams
also an artist who wants to put Harding on canvas, him having sussed her scheme
but in love with her anyhow. This sort of thing is where old movies really earn
“old” appellation. Skirts stay clean, spike to argument that not all precode tickled edges. I’m astonished but gratified that TCM still runs Devotion,
having watched for liking Howard, Harding, and especially Williams who as told before was from Morganton, NC and the uncle of a friend of mine at college.  |
| Slight Off-Topic: Do You Think Roland West Confessed Offing Thelma to Pal Chet Morris? |
CHARLEY CHASE --- Many things long obvious to others come to me like
bolts from blue, like why not Charley Chase for precode totem? In fact, he and
Thelma Todd for placement among oracles of early thirties sinema. There was steppingstone
that was jazz associated with both thanks to casting of Todd as vamp or gold
digger in features, she for support but still prominent. Chase was up-to-minute
too with comedy modern-set and attitude for emphasis. Sound came to the Hal
Roach company in 1928 via disc-recorded music-and-effect scores,
these to buoy fun enacted by Chase, Laurel-Hardy, Our Gang, the rest. Herewith jazz
became escort to clowning, keeping them current (in Chase case and L&H, years). Live accompany had been there, yes, but catch-can
music did not necessarily follow fashion as recorded escort now would. Viewers,
at least ones with access to wired theatres, got popular tunes they could
associate with favorite clowns. Charley Chase, who already had pep we’d
associate with moderns, saw youth restored thanks to music sprightly where
instrumental, saucy where lyric helped. Chase even sang as settings enabled, Thelma
Todd along what with speech to enhance their byplay. Could all this add up to
precode as we define it? Maybe not to desired degree, Hal Roach resolute at
keeping his comedies clean, personnel tempted where chosen gags they thought
funny tilted toward blue. We Faw Down got showman complaints from that, “dirt,
vulgar, obscene” among words bandied. So were jazz lyrics complainers called suggestive. Charley Chase looks precode ready
in the portrait above, a little dark (dissolute?), at the least ready for
anything. Not like chipper Charley that Robert Youngson tendered us in 1970’s
Four Clowns (“the original good time Charley whose Elk’s tooth had a cavity”), 1928-29 a peak period for recorded music to make Roach comedians
more up-to-moment than ever before or since. For me to declare them precode is faint as supported by filmic facts, but
support is there via the Laurel-Hardy disc scores presently available plus ones
for Charley Chase to hopefully come with eventual release of surviving 1928-29
output.
UPDATE (6/24): Erudition requested (in the comments), and supplied, courtesy Scott MacGillivray
Hi, John — RKO Thrift Books (or Thrift Ticket Books) went into effect on Monday, October 24, 1932. It was a discount-ticket plan honored at RKO theaters, targeting bargain hunters during the Depression. Here are the slogans for the program, as published in the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle:
6 Comments:
Roach films were full of people unjustly accused of naughty behavior, or trying to evade consequences of possibly innocent flirting (or in the case of Laurel and Hardy, chivalry). Still, a lot was implied in those two-reelers.
Charley twice procured "good time girls" to grease business deals, Ollie and Stan sometimes scrambled to conceal Ollie's (presumably pre-marital) dalliances, and "Mighty Like a Moose" is about a married couple going to a hot party -- not recognizing each other due to dentistry/surgery, so it's intended adultery.
In "Limousine Love" Charley arrives at his wedding with a naked girl in his car. It's totally innocent, but all the men rally to help without questioning how she got there. Even the bride's father joins the effort, cheerfully recalling his own naughty youth. Maybe they were the same guys jumping out of windows in "We Faw Down".
Sexual mischief could be implied, but it generally had to be outside the story at hand, and delicately handled if it involved the star. Charley could never enjoy being surrounded by playful beauties. He had to suspect gold diggers, or have a suspicious wife/girlfriend, or have been traumatized by man-starved Russian beauties during WWI, or just goofily bashful.
SIDEBAR QUESTION: The ad that heads the story includes a blurb exhorting viewers to read RKO Thrift Books. I did a quick Google search and find no reference to any such item outside of the movie ads the words appear in (and a modern boutique called RKO Thrift Clothing).
Does anyone have any insight as to what RKO Thrift Books were?
Judging from that ad, it looks like those "thrift books" were for sale in the cinema lobby; that may explain why they're unknown now.
They were books of tickets to use to buy admission and/or food and drink at the theater. Like buying a book of tickets at an amusement park. They saved you money.
Love CALL HER SAVAGE. Love all of it. Especially loved she got $2 million from Fox after Paramount squeezed every penny they could get out of her, treated her contemptibly. Love her two FOX films were hits. They wanted her back but she had had enough. Good on her. Those Clara Bow Fox films more than deserve full restorations. She's an Icon.
Dan Mercer watched CALL HER SAVAGE on TCM this week, and files his report:
Many years ago, I read in "Film Fan Monthly," the fanzine published by a precocious Leonard Maltin, that "Call Her Savage!" was being included in a television package of films. The description of it was lurid enough--whippings and sex and oh, my--so I was certainly curious about it, but, alas, I was never aware that any television station in my area bought the package. So, my curiosity remained unsatisfied until it faded away with the passage of time.
That is, until I had occasion to watch it recently on Turner Classic Movies. Goodness, but the young Mr. Maltin certainly hadn't exaggerated its contents. I was almost surprised that it had remained in existence, given how thoroughly it trampled the "Don'ts" and "Be Carefuls" of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Given that these were incorporated into the Motion Picture Producers Code a couple of years later, there was no way it could have been re-released under those auspices, when even the most judicious editing would have left perhaps 45 minutes of projectable footage. The whole show was rife with sexual perversity--the singing waiters were the least of it--and its very theme, of miscegenation, was forbidden. If Fox still wanted to wring some coin from it, their choices were largely limited to processing it for the silver content of the negatives and prints--or maybe supplying the music industry with an abundance of guitar picks--or selling the exhibition rights to Dwain Esper.
As wild a show as it was, and with as storied a star as Clara Bow headlining it, it still earned but modest profit for Fox. Perhaps the Great Depression made people too careful with their money to spend it on trifles like this, but the ad you carried suggests that the studio hadn't marketed it very well. Could anyone willing to be introduced to Clara Bow as a dramatic actress--"the woman of a thousand moods"--have been satisfied with the raw melodrama that was "Call Her Savage!"? I think that he would have been disappointed, while those who would have flocked to such a spectacle would have found the marketing approach somewhat diffident. They would not have been aware that this was meat for their appetite.
The shame of it is that the Clara Bow on display in "Call Her Savage!" is every bit as new and dynamic as what the ads suggested. Whatever difficulties she had making the transition to talkies, here she displays a confidence and natural ease, with great timing and a very pleasing, mellow voice. And, of course, she remains sexually alluring, well-traveled though she may be. Of course, what she's playing is basically trash, but not all of it. Occasionally, she's required to act like a real person and she does so convincingly. The scenes with her child, at her mother's bedside, or at the end, contemplating the love her mother had for another man, provide her character with a heart of some depth. She's really very good and I could well imagine her making a second career that would have lasted years, if she had wanted it.
I don't know that I'll want to revisit "Call Her Savage!", but as a curiosity it was well worth the wait and, for this glimpse of a Clara Bow who might have been, tantalizing.
Post a Comment
<< Home