Boots: The Rider of Death Valley and The Trial of Vivienne Ware
Call them bootleg, black market (discreetly “grey”), stuff of illicit
circulation but circulating widely nonetheless. This once was what film collecting
was all about. Anyone not dealing contraband was not dealing movies, at least movies
collectors wanted. Best brigands in the business are passed now. A number got
busted when the FBI was handmaiden to studios. Feds that cleaned out one dealer’s
house even took his Castle films, fact those were legit mattering not a whit. Few dealers were stopped by regulations, like Cagney and Robinson flipping Prohibition the bird. Film companies finally realized they could do better joining rather than beating
collectors. My first 16mm print in 1972 was Mutiny on the Bounty, the 1935
version, which I got from a vendor who appropriately lived in Death Valley, apropos to today’s topic. Buying unsanctioned discs is Ebay commonplace, and
look at what springs up on You Tube hourly. Pirates never had it better, nor
viewers to relish their bounty. Such seems an only route to much of what fans
long to see, devotees fated to dwell in moral twilight. Where Boots
Are Best thus debuts as a series, today’s entry its inaugural. |
| Lost in a Desert Hell --- Could You Trust Tom To Get You Out? |
THE RIDER OF DEATH VALLEY (1932) --- Let’s agree that Tom Mix line
readings are … eccentric? Most don’t know Tom from talkies, or at all for that
matter. I can think of no bigger star so forgot since his prime, except virtually
all of western names once revered by young and old, none more so than Mix, who
made enormous money when money was still real money. My back door disc of The Rider
of Death Valley came from heaven knows what “liberated” print that for all I
know was a same one William K. Everson used for his 2-11-80 NYU class. Everson
knew how lucky he was to score that as I am for the DVD slipped my way at a
cowboy show back when they still had cowboy shows (all gone, as in not a one
left, and if I’m wrong, do brighten my day by telling me so). To whom will it
matter that The Rider of Death Valley is lauded best of nine Mix talkies plus
his 1935 serial, The Miracle Rider. I’ve written of Mix before, radical gestures considering how obscure he’s become. There are corners of the Internet, and
Facebook, to celebrate him. Old-timers I knew, long gone now, waxed eloquent on
him. Nobody rode like Mix … that we know … but something about his performing
shifts to highest gear once Rider chips go down. He growls lines and acquits
like a cobra, his voice dry dust raspy and authentic for one of his wives
having shot Tom in the throat (had he left the cap off their toothpaste?). Threshold
question then: Is The Rider of Death Valley a good western? I argue yes, and
more so would if only Kino came out with a Mix Blu box (all nine of the
Universals --- imagine!). Rider begins in town then shifts to title valley for
as stark an account of water deprivation and slow death in the sun as any movie
made to then or since. Mix starts off like Randolph Scott in The Tall T, jolly
and jokey, until landscape closes in, then he’s determined, intense, utter
conviction pouring off him like desert sweat. Water runs out and villain
ride-alongs will trade their gold for a sip, but no, Tom has the canteens plus knowing
human nature, that is, humans being no d—n good. |
| He's Stern As Here, and Won't Buckle Under a Punishing Sun |
Fun if overdue is seeing bully and badman Fred Kohler in tears chasing
after a lake mirage and getting a mouthful of sand, vultures circling over him
and waiting their turn. Powerful image is Mix beating beloved Tony to make the
horse go back to his ranch for help, for which Lois Wilson chides Tom till he
tells her it’s the first time he ever struck Tony and it’s breaking his heart,
but there’s no other way to save their lives. Here’s as intense a desert trek
as I ever saw in a film. You wonder if they’ll ever get out of this. Location
work looks miserable as convincingly cracked lips on the cast. Kids should have
got purple hearts for getting through The Rider of Death Valley, being raw steak
even for 1932 and for adults same as youngsters. Mix takes customary punishment
for a man past fifty who’d had his body busted in a hundred ruining ways. Cue
the Schine’s Palace in Lockport (but what state?) giving away a Beautiful Live
Pony to a lucky kid whoever he/she was, until he/she gets home to Dad who’s
just come off a twelve-hour shift at the railroad yard with barely enough poke to
feed a wife and five other kids. How do you suppose he’d react to Junior
leading his free nag up to the door? (nag probably accurate, it unlikely the
Schine would be giving away Seabiscuit or his equivalent) Schine management doubtless took a terrific cussing that day along with return of the animal. Then what? Long
since spent milk, but I could wonder how many unwanted pets were handed out at
matinees to cause no end of complication at home. You fret for the poor,
unwanted beasts gone from pillar to post and no one to finally claim them. Hope
this horse was finally a rescue for some person or entity other than glue
works. There’s a two-and-a-half-minute segment from The Rider of Death Valley on
You Tube that looks better than woebegone boot I have, so maybe there’s hope
for improved quality to eventually show up. In the meantime, we make do like Tom with his drying canteen.
 |
| Neither a Glowing Prospect, So What's Precode Pin-Up Lillian Bond To Do? |
THE TRIAL OF VIVIENNE WARE (1932) --- Long been a hound for You Tube, it being all the television I care to watch anymore. Others seem in accord if
statistics are any guide. Celebration of sensation and tabloid style media is timeless
theme at YT, it evoking The Trial of Vivienne Ware, humdinger of a precode dug from Fox
catacombs years back (late 60’s) by archivist Alex Gordon and put barely into
circulation, ignored thanks to barely part. William K.
Everson had a 16mm print, ran it at his NYU class, where many a classic was
born then regrettably forgot because studios cared too little to share with a
wider public. Word of Vivienne worth spread via collector tom-toms and renegade
discs spread at shows at which I scored one off a dealer since gathered to
reward. The Trial of Vivienne Ware thrills … no … exhilarates, as few of 30’s
kin can. What I said about YT and tabloids --- and cue hackneyed the more things
change, the more they stay, etc. You Tube videos on any/all topics routinely
grab us via clickbait “preview” clips and visual cues outlandish as any front
page of the New York Mirror in heady days, The Trial of Vivienne Ware reminding
me more of now than then that was 1932. Vivienne Ware is about Joan Bennett put
on a fry pan for murder, sharkish radio broadcasters on the scene, mere sheet
of glass separating them from courtroom proceedings. Did this go on during
the early thirties? I seem to remember Bruno Hauptmann tried publicly. Anyway,
there’s footage of him on the witness stand, and at You Tube appropriately. The
Trial of Vivienne Ware conducts hearings we’d much enjoy if reality served them
so raw, knives thrown at testifiers, witnesses on a verge of exposing a killer
shot dead in open court, all stuff of anarchic dreams and reported breathlessly by wireless press. What a circus radio must
have been if Vivienne is any guide.
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| Watch Zasu Here and Realize What a Consummate Actress She Could Be |
