Parkland Picks with Popcorn #8

 

Pop Goes: Three Men in White, The Spider, and The Las Vegas Story

THREE MEN IN WHITE (1944) --- Three Men in White stood for what Metro meant to accomplish with all their product … “a solid guarantee of good entertainment for the whole family,” good in italics for assurance that yes, here “drama is keen, exciting … but this is not heavy nor serious drama.” Might such be credo for all Leo did, all of what Hollywood ideally did? “The lightest fastest, funniest, most bubbling story … Dr. Gillespie has ever become involved in.” I belabor these quotes from trade publication The Lion’s Share to show what amusement, particularly wartime amusement, was meant to accomplish. The Gillespies like all series, certainly those from MGM like Andy Hardy, Maisie, the Thin Man, Tarzan … were soft upholstery, predictable in ways radio “drama” was and television in a future would be. Gillespies revolved around medicine, all afflictions addressed and cured within ninety minutes, no suffering acute or unfixable. I don’t recall anyone perishing at Blair Hospital, would note tragic end for Laraine Day as Dr. Kildare’s wife-to-be, which surely was disorienting as would be Lew Ayres’ exit from the series soon after. Lionel Barrymore’s function was to console as well as amuse, a voice to assure that illness, indeed war, would pass. He will mentor the young, resolve their doubts, counsel their romances, Gillespie a guiding light through uncertain times. Here too was era of doctors driven by instinct rather than corporate and insurance carrier protocol. I don’t know when trusted and veteran faces were more vital to films. Barrymore broadcasted from firesides not unlike what Roosevelt spoke from, as would Charles Laughton, latter on marathon duty to sell bonds as were others a public knew and trusted in many instance since youth. A dose of Lionel Barrymore as Gillespie was tonic sure as what real medicos offered. At Blair Hospital, every malady had its cure.

Blair’s was revolving door for Metro stars in making. Much learning of craft went on here. Van Johnson had been in a dreadful car crash that nearly took the top of his head off but came back to studio applause and what sage Lionel called fresh-won skills as an actor, him knowing wisdom forged from hardship. Young players finding their wings, as here with Johnson and newcomer support Ava Gardner, was ongoing to the series, auditioning for us who would judge star potential. Fans could/did determine careers, no personality force-fed, at least not for long. Marilyn Maxwell for Three Men in White suggested another Lana Turner, that not to be, so Marilyn drifted eventually away, as must all whose dream goes unfulfilled. There were numerous of these in/out of MGM, post-career the fruit of whatever momentum they accumulated while there, Maxwell, James Craig, Tom Drake, all instance of this. 1957’s The Cyclops has latter two clinging to residue of polish applied at Metro. We could wonder why Van Johnson and not James Craig, but what was stardom other than an intangible, chance-driven process? Van courts Marilyn Maxwell by constantly ducking her advances, his “Aye, Yai, Yai” at her persistence itself too persistent. Was this calculated to increase Johnson’s femme following? It escapes me how, assuming that was intent. For the record, “Aye, Yai, Yai” was an expression akin to “oh boy” denoting excitement, frustration, or attraction. I don’t envision it coming back to vogue any time soon. Three Men in White after two Gillespie chapters to build suspense reveals who Barrymore’s new assistant will be, Van Johnson or Keye Luke, both youngsters having established following, Luke especial when he draws a chart to demonstrate a medical problem for Dr. Gillespie and we get glimpse of art background Keye Luke came from prior to acting. Three Men in White is available from Warner Archive in a set with other Gillespies.

THE SPIDER (1958) --- Misses greatness achieved by Tarantula, which sort of ruined us for giant spiders after 1955. Bert I. Gordon was brain behind this, him congenial with AIP worldview and a cut-rate master of special effects that really looked cut-rate, part after all of Bert’s charm. Here’s a secret of why sci-fi appealed to teens: So many used them for ID figures, sighting aliens or monsters and being doubted by grown-ups until threats become real and adults realize they were wrong not to take the word of their offspring. Note that at AIP at least it was often youth that routed other-worldlies, so maybe we should give them a better listen next time. The Spider at 73 minutes gets right on with scares, the monster attacking within moments of the title. AIP doubled this with The Brain Eaters, the two near point where Jim Nicholson realized black-and-white pairs were on ways out and said so to an exhibitor conclave. The Spider did AIP’s best B/W sci-fi business since The Day the World Ended, a surprising $374K in tills. There was speculation that AI’s Spider fed off sensation of Fox’s Fly, both infesting summer 1958 theatres. Some of The Spider was shot at Bronson Caves where monsters dwelt before. What a convenient filming site this proved to be. Atmosphere was supplied also by Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, a special credit to that effect, but close inspection, in fact it needn't even be close, reveals still images of the caverns were used with actors superimposed in front of them, more instance of Bert Gordon movie magic. I like how the giant spider is parked in a high school gym where kids rehearse their rock and roll band before the creature awakens and frightens them out. The Spider stayed available to theatres for years past ‘58 release, even after TV got it in 1964-65, being a title I’d see listed often at drive-ins and kiddie shows in Winston-Salem, for which I was years later told by an exhibitor there that rental for AIP oldies hovered usually around fifteen to twenty dollars. Seems hardly enough to cover expense of delivery.

THE LAS VEGAS STORY (1952) --- Of quaint era when Vegas was still a small town easily managed by a sheriff like Jay C. Flippen and deputy Victor Mature, this being casinos case where “outside interests” maintained rigorous law/order all their own. Later treatments like Bugsy and Casino explained those truths and we can wonder if tourists, gamblers, civilians, were safer on streets in Las Vegas than in other busy burgs of the time. Was this unique instance of law enforcement by private, as in very private, enterprise? I need to read more about history of the town, and whether it is so transformed now as surface suggests. Does it remain “Disneyfied” now that the Disney model itself has collapsed? The Las Vegas Story is reshuffle off His Kind of Woman deck, Mature rather than Mitchum, Jane Russell back, Vincent Price her husband now rather than paramour. Howard Hughes liked familiars. He especially enjoyed Price in all of works, putting him again to menace Mature in two years' later Dangerous Mission! (not me but the title with an exclamation mark) I enjoy Hughes’ cracked mindset and each familiar aspect of The Las Vegas Story, at least here was break from Mexico as a location, question being what ownership interests did Hughes have in Vegas? I know later he lived there in secrecy at a hotel he owned. Did HH enter casinos in disguise and mingle among guests? Probably not as he was so paranoid about germs. There seems little evidence of Hughes tampering with The Las Vegas Story after director Robert Stevenson completed it, this not to be confirmed what with RKO records locked up and inaccessible. Victor Mature was, with Mitchum, a most reliable leading man the company had. What with casting of both, they could have, probably did, swap parts right up to moment of shooting on one or other of respective vehicles. It was types they played that merged, pleasingly so for my watching, as who’s around now of Mitchum-Mature stripe? Final inquiry: Would Terry Moore have dared claim previous marriage to Hughes had he still been alive? I get a feeling he could be a dangerous guy if seriously crossed, a sort of real-life Blofeld where circumstance called for Blofeld solution to problems.

Film Noir #32

 

Noir: Crime in the Streets, The Crimson Kimono, and Criss Cross

CRIME IN THE STREETS (1956) --- Again a thesis movie, amusement sacrificed on the altar of preachment. The Dead End Kids did these better, and had Bogart or Jim Cagney for grown-ups to ID with. Reginald Rose wrote Crime in the Streets for television. Maybe it got by easier there just for being shorter, and besides, big heads shouting at home jangled nerves less than bigger ones doing so from theatre screens. Director Don Siegel checked baggage Rose delivered and made necessary trims, Crime in the Streets a movie after all rather than lecture off a ten-inch lectern. Rose objected, but Siegel was boss, thus a film we may assume was improvement upon the tube version. All was built and executed at rented Goldwyn facilities but for a rumble opening shot outdoors, also at Goldwyn. Allied Artists would release during a youth problem cycle forged upon hit momentum of Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle. Rock and roll could ease burden of less earnest treatment, but Crime in the Streets was earnest, and so used Franz Waxman to score rather than relying on disassociated platters. John Cassavetes had his debut here, magnetic from a screen start even though playing an utter crumb of a wayward kid “born to be hung” as they used to say of J.D.’s from eras back to Billy the Kid. Much of Cassavetes can’t help being funny now, Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me! repeated enough to qualify for anyone’s nightclub impression. Being set bound for whole of the show plays less well than what worked for Dead End in 1937, but Crime in the Streets was a trim craft and there probably wasn’t money to enable street shooting. Among support is Sal Mineo in early incarnation of tortured boy, named “Baby” here, his eyes twin pools of suffering. Mineo was plenty good but suffered himself for too brief a shelf life, suddenly not wanted anymore (so he would recall) even after critic acclaim and Academy nomination for work done in the early sixties. A first truth taught to virtually all actors was life never being fair. Should juvenile drama be labeled noir? Perhaps not, but Warners put Crime in the Streets into one of their DVD grab bags, so I’ll play along.

THE CRIMSON KIMONO (1959) --- Samuel Fuller sometimes fired off a pistol rather than yell Cut on location. For young males intent on a career directing, from where came higher endorsement? Fuller lived the maverick life of making movies in all forward and back sense … writing, producing, megging, doing on-camera trailers as “Sam” of uncompromising breed that was largely gone even as he soldiered on. I don’t wonder he had devoted following among starter-outs in the 80’s, into 90’s, right till Fuller passed in 1997, his typewriter clacking to the finish. He was accessible and adored. Documentaries have been made on his life and career. His films are considered a best of their sort, which was mostly war, crime, bizarre topics, especially by the sixties when he went way off walls with things like The Naked Kiss and one that played our Liberty late show only, Shock Corridor, which I really wanted to go see for thinking it was a horror film, which it kind of was but not in the way I might enjoy in 1963. Just as well parents forbade my late attendance (single unspool at 9:30 PM, then back on the Charlotte Observer newspaper delivery truck where all prints went in/out of our town, more than appropriate mode of ingress/egress for Sam Fuller reels). The Crimson Kimono was sold on trashy terms, Columbia posters never attractive whatever content, but these made much of pairing between Victoria Shaw and James Shigeta, exploitative as in wait till you see them kiss, but Fuller didn’t mean his story to be received that way, had no say in any case, for what director could influence selling apart from Hitchcock, DeMille, precious few others? Forbidden love engages Fuller maybe more than the murder hunt Shigeta and detective partner Glenn Corbett engage.

Victim is a strip dancer called “Sugar Torch,” so merchandising could go all types of sleazy direction, The Crimson Kimono better bound for lower placement on bills and early forfeit to television. Its discovery by Fuller fanbase and noir listers amounts to rescue and assurance that what began as minor product should thrive forever on auteur and cult shelves. There was no denying such status for Fuller, as no word of his writing reflected other than a singular vision of life and people. Having been on newspapers from age 12 and experienced worst of the war, Fuller had nervous energy to write all night and direct all day, provided they'd let him, which too often was not the case, would-be projects fallen by the boards for not enough financial or moral support. Of course, that’s the story for most filmmakers, especially independents like Fuller, but there were periods when he was backed, notably in the fifties when Zanuck lent a continuing hand and enabled Fuller to make one fine film after another. Wish it could have lasted, but nothing does in an industry rocked by constant change. As Zanuck went from Fox, so went Fuller. The ninety-ten rule that applies to life goes especially here (as in ninety percent of what you want, you won’t get). What I noted about The Crimson Kimono this time was how sharply edited it was, plus dialogue eccentric as ever, terrific atmosphere shot around L.A.’s “Little Tokyo,” Fuller detailing Japanese culture as practiced stateside. There is emphasis on martial arts, so much so that I wish he could have revisited the theme in the seventies when a cycle of such pictures became popular. The fact Fuller films are unpredictable is what makes them easy to revisit. Even if you recall the essential story, details are what grab for repeat rides. There are You Tubes where Fuller’s daughter guides us through her father’s work room, still maintained and all his effects there. Families are what keep many great names alive, and it’s good Samantha Fuller is here to do that job. The Crimson Kimono can be had on Blu-Ray from Twilight Time with good extras.

CRISS CROSS (1949) --- Among grimmest of born loser noirs, Criss Cross is snappy but doesn't amuse, is actionful, but in disquieting ways. Noirs were about serious business but are more fun for increasing distance between our time and theirs. Criss Cross is an exception for pitiless reveal of hard lucks who come to messy finish, no mercy for the doomed nor us with one of the darkest fades ever in noir. Criss Cross had been set for Mark Hellinger's next after the producer's sensational triad for Universal release, The Killers, Naked City, and Brute Force, but Hellinger died suddenly, and properties in development, including Criss Cross, were sold by the estate. Packaging included the story plus services of Burt Lancaster, who had been pledged to Hellinger and did two for the producer. Direction was again with Robert Siodmak, he having come up Universal ranks earlier in the decade. Criss Cross status maintains mostly because he guided it, The Killers' pattern of a caper gone wrong more/less repeated, here an armored car robbery, it understood that these never succeed unless there's an inside man, which made me wonder if that's true for real life. If so, there was a lot of wasted effort on part of criminality in future noirs where armored stick-ups were tried and failed. Universal taking over the property and doing it in-house meant they could further develop Yvonne DeCarlo, an exotic second to faded Maria Montez, and till Criss Cross a saloon or desert wanderer with Rod Cameron or Tony Martin for consorts. She's the fatale here, but with shadings; we figure this girl wouldn't be altogether bad given plenty of cash and a less moody partner than Lancaster, who by 1949 had got monotonous as continual guy behind eight balls. He really needed rescue of The Flame and The Arrow that would come a following year.

Where Bootlegs are Best #1

 

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 the 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 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 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 some lucky kid, whoever he/she was, lucky that is till 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 others of brood. How do you suppose he’d react to Junior leading even a free nag up to the door? (nag probably accurate, it unlikely the Schine would be giving away Seabiscuit or his equivalent) Management doubtless took a 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.

Watch Zasu Here and Realize What a Consummate Actress She Could Be

Skeets Gallagher is the on-air shouter, what we wish modern hosts could more be, while Zazu Pitts is in/out doing sob-sister duty. Her jail cell interview with J. Bennett is about the best scene I ever saw Zazu play, her perfectly capturing what evil media-folk do, but how pleasingly she does it. Zazu surely got her cues from listening lots to everyday radio and giving interpretation the gas. So were her arrows accurate aimed? Don’t fully know cause so little of radio survives from the early thirties, let alone radio capturing other than biggest news of the day, darn little even of that. Listening by 1932 was way of everybody’s life, more so frankly than movies thanks to it being free and baleful preview of strip-mine TV to come. Studios wisely joined this enemy they could not overcome, tie-ins plus investment in the format a result, as look at RKO doing The Phantom of Crestwood after radio set the table, broadcasts essential to the film making sense. Then there was Paramount putting large money into CBS, using personalities from there to garland music and patter comedy revues, International House sterling sample of same. Should I ever get to go back in time, first priority will be to switch on home crystal and hear what wide, wild world of radio was daily about. Till then, there is The Trial of Vivienne Ware to at least suggest power the devil’s box had. Maybe I should be glad to have been reared on television despite numbing overall effect of a lifetime exposed to that. And now it’s scanning, streaming, Artificial Intelligence --- is it misnomer to call any intelligence artificial? What there is of human intellect we’d like to think is real, but if we’re all so subject to being fooled by AI, well … the future looks uncertain indeed. And here I am wondering when someone will rescue Vivienne Ware and put her before a wider viewership. Might as well stay vested in trivialities and let an alarming world go by. I sing praise for The Trial of Vivienne Ware because hang it all, this should be seen and is, in event you know the right outlaws or shadier avenues online. Not that owners care to protect such piddling asset, and besides, in a couple years it will be Public Domain.