Trade Talk #5

 

What Trades Told: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

“Hollywood’s still the same,” says Van Johnson from a mock-up cockpit circa seventies. “Call time, six in the morning,” he adds as if it were twenty-five years earlier with him back at MGM, where he’d become their most popular leading man, at least until the first team got out of uniform and back in front of cameras. Van spoofs his Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo self, latter which predated Post Fortified Oat Flakes the star now was selling. The ad ran near, if not concurrent, with an ABC special from 1972 called Hollywood --- The Dream Factory (cited previous, and often at Greenbriar). That primetime hour entranced for it introducing treasures off MGM’s Classic Era assembly line, a first see of sights so far out of reach in feature entirety. Capper was Van Johnson leading his bomber group over Tokyo to special effects accompany still dazzling decades after the fact, authentic enough to still be borrowed by filmmakers active in the seventies. If Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was so remarkable as this in part, imagine its impact whole. The Doolittle raid took place April 18, 1942, a mission we’d call daring if not suicidal. Success was measured more by morale than damage done. In fact, Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle considered the whole thing a failure and was convinced he’d be court-martialed for bungling the job. In fact, he was promoted to Brigadier General and received the Medal of Honor. I understand from James Curtis’ Spencer Tracy biography that the actor hesitated to play Doolittle because all he’d do was brief crews, an all talk, no action part. Did Tracy observe what a canonical figure Doolittle had become? The association would do the actor nothing but good, Doolittle’s prestige and authority rubbing off on him as earlier had Father Flanagan. Tracy was famously reluctant to take any assignment, finding reasons to back out right up to start days. Popular as Van Johnson had become, it was Tracy who’d close attendance deal for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, something MGM merchandisers understood even as he seemed less aware of that obvious fact.

For a mission wherein all aircraft were lost and only half of combatants got back, the Tokyo raid was unreservedly declared a winner in all aspects. The movie was based on memoirs by Ted W. Lawson, the flyer Van Johnson portrayed. The bombing was central and what everyone came to see. It was also anticlimactic for an hour left of story to tell how Johnson’s crew gets rescued out of China. We don’t see the Japanese but are assured they are closing in. Hollywood and military overseers were for toning down atrocity stuff as by this stage of war those in authority figured us for sure bet to win, certainly against Japan which by that time was on the ropes (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo released November 1944). Speaking of rough play by the enemy, there was one that dealt that in spades to my adolescent sensibility, Fox’s The Purple Heart, being harrowing account of Doolittle crewmen captured and put on show trial for war crimes on Nippon soil. They are tortured (offscreen) and their cause seems hopeless, which indeed it was, eight of the actuals sentenced to die, three executed. Shook me up enough to cost sleep. Sure could have used three or four Ozu features for antidote, but what did I know of Ozu in 1969? Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was long at 138 minutes but nobody squirmed. Rentals went skyward to $6.3 million worldwide and there was $1.4 million in profit. Here was a picture much of its time that sustains after fashion of Sergeant York and choice others of WWII by mainstream filmmakers. They had gung-ho jobs to do and did them, boundaries being the Code plus the U.S. Office of War Information, a censorship body not called that but every bit as controlling. Japan had assured us by word and hostile gestures that they were impregnable. No enemy could approach, let alone breach, their home islands. That seemed so for success they’d been having for opener months of the war. Americans needed to believe we could penetrate Japanese defenses, the Doolittle raid a necessary corrective to defeats more rule than exception in the conflict so far. Besides that, we wanted to get even for Pearl. This then was the first good strike we’d have at Japan, triumph at Midway achieved in part because so much of Japan’s defenses had to concentrate at home after what we did to Tokyo.

As majority of moviegoers were female during height of the war, it was essential for war-based features to address issues beyond violence characteristic of a genre long defined along such lines. Metro spread assurance among trades plus their own Lion’s Roar journal that Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo would address the private life of Capt. Lawson as essayed by Van Johnson, his wife and expectant mother played by Phyllis Thaxter. “He took off for Shangri-La,” said she and thousands of women who would wait, this then to be more than just another combat feature. An emotional finish harked back to The Big Parade, having been tested on that previous occasion, showed by a public’s acceptance to be effective, and so sure-fire for an encore in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. To bolster child support came Margaret O’Brien endorsing Van Johnson on behalf of junior patrons, no base ignored by merchandisers. Should Metro have consulted this model when they produced and tried subsequent to sell Command Decision in late 1948 and into 1949? Latter lost money perhaps for overlooking crucial segments of their potential audience, a failure too late recognized to adjust. Block-long lines braved rain to see Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo at Broadway’s Capitol Theatre as reported by the Motion Picture Herald. The Capitol Theatre had an enormous clock outside that traffic was routed around, keeping not only time but a record of war bonds dispersed by the minute, cheering for totals plus for entertainers stationed beneath the timepiece as it recorded sales. Live bands and singers would pull shifts and exchange tickets to Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo for each war bond purchased. Such was street theatre to bally the Capitol’s show, the clock face emblazoned with the film’s title. The event tied patriotism to moviegoing for a civilian home front army not to be underestimated by the industry or the War Department.

It astonishes me that Washington went so relentlessly after Hollywood for trust violations after all movies had done toward overcoming Axis forces. The government let Hollywood off the hook for years leading up to war, knowing the while how much they’d need industry assist once hostilities commenced. Studios willingly submitted to government oversight if not overtake of procedure formerly the exclusive province of company employees. Disney’s shop was virtually occupied throughout the war, salve being government dollars poured into production of animated shorts to bolster the war effort. War-themed features even mentioning the conflict or service branches had to be vetted by the OWI, movies perhaps not altogether a propaganda arm of Allied interests, but darn close according to complaints (quietly) made. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo would a decade later be the first of “Pre-48 Greats” from MGM to play television in Los Angeles and by most accounts got a record audience. Tokyo showed how certain old movies could mop up where star and subject coalesced to form an attractive viewing package. Greenbriar earlier (2012) visited L.A.’s MGM story and there is much emphasis on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, including 1956 comments from the film’s producer Sam Zimbalist, who speculated on how well the film stood up after twelve years, a happy outcome he did not necessarily expect. Fascinating to read of attitudes re vintage tiles, how they’d wax and wane, even among creatives involved in their making. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo plays TCM and streams at Amazon, Vudu/Fandango, others, in HD. No Blu-Ray as yet.

Pulling Pin Off a Seventies Nostalgia Grenade

 

Never Mind Turning Water to Wine ... CBS Running This in 1979 Primetime. Now That Was a Miracle

When Carol Burnett (and Others) Helped Make Old Movies Mainstream Again

Carol Burnett on her 70’s comedy-variety show did affectionate parodies of “old” movies thirty or so years passed. She’d open with a card reading “Late, Late Movie” or Lyle Waggoner in black tie as mock host for a local station’s “Nostalgia Theatre.” Plenty of such programming went on then. Channel 8 in High Point had a weatherman that doubled as presenter of pre-49 Warner titles in mid-seventies primetime, something few expected what with VHF stations abandoning older syndicated packages in favor of all-color content. What Carol Burnett celebrated, maybe without knowing, was large-scale revival of B/W now that UHF stations were on the rise and reacquainting viewers with “Movies When They Were Movies.” Advantage of deep libraries was getting them cheap. A program manager from Memphis told me how they licensed Warner oldies for seven runs on each title, $25 per play. How could then-present owner United Artists command more, competition from recent movies fierce as it was? UHF channels bought heavily from vintage preserves and unspooled them at all times of the day and night, Charlotte with two such outlets, Channels 18 and 36, both top heavy with pre-49. Classics ignored during latter half of the sixties came roaring back in the seventies to tap memory wells. Renewed popularity if not a surprise at least led to mainstream VHF use, such as with latterly mentioned Channel 8 or Winston-Salem’s Channel 12 where It Happened One Night occupied prime viewing hours in 1976, Channel 8 doing the same with Ceiling Zero, Now Voyager, you name them. What startled me was these affiliates skipping their network feed for movies they but recently would have said were played out. To theatres in a meantime came Summer of ’42, The Sting, American Graffiti, more. PBS affiliates got rarities like Once in a Lifetime and Counselor at Law, even silents in a pinch. Classics got a yearly boost from American Film Institute “Life Achievement” Awards which recognized likes of John Ford, Cagney, Bette Davis, each with a backlog finding fresh viewership on local stations suddenly awake to the appeal of old and older favorites.

Amidst this was Carol Burnett and her spoofs. She had been a fan since growing up one block up from Hollywood Boulevard, witness to red carpet premieres (she remembers seeing Linda Darnell), dramatizing films with her friends after seeing them. Burnett would be variety TV’s ideal spokesperson for the glories of Classic Era filmgoing. Being mainstream and maybe the most popular comedian on television at the time, Burnett would peak at 22.1 percent of U.S. TV-equipped households watching, which according to estimates, translated to over twenty-five million residences tuning in, and considering most homes had multiple occupants … well, those numbers are staggering beside what passes for a “hit” today. Carol Burnett made movies memorable by ribbing them: Mildred Pierce, A Stolen Life, various 30-40’s musicals familiar perhaps to an older generation, but objects of discovery and appreciation by younger watchers. “Gentle parody” might better describe Burnett’s approach, always affectionate where mimicking the old stars. Some called in to express appreciation, Joan Crawford after “Mildred Fierce,” James Stewart for enjoying a skit not even taking off on one of his, but pleasing to him still. Burnett gathered veterans to her show's guest list, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Martha Raye, Dinah Shore, others who would assert existence outside late show schedules. Again point out: the seventies thanks largely to UHF stations put pre-49 back on prime, at least more accessible, hours (all hours of the day and night, in fact). Not for years had vaulties known such relevance. It helped that artists who made them were alive and eager to commemorate their revival. Major current names stood up to cheer for veterans. Burt Reynolds did two CBS specials where he interviewed panels of Classic Era luminaries, these accessible at You Tube though I can’t vouch for quality, level of that evident in captures below. Still it was nice to see Reynolds hosting Esther Williams, Van Johnson, James Stewart, June Allyson, others, such appearances to let fans know they were alive and ready to take fresh bows for work playing heavily on local channels.

No coincidence was That’s Entertainment landing in theatres to such fanfare and modern crowd embrace, its premiere stage crowded with faces that once populated the old musicals, would spokes-speak for them again as That’s Entertainment and sequels fanned out to audiences nationwide. Vibrant vet Ann Miller took the field as MGM’s Good Will Ambassador and spent a year spreading happy news that old musicals were new again, not unlike similar arrangement Gloria Swanson had with Paramount during 1949-50, her traveling on behalf not just of Sunset Boulevard but other Para product, Swanson ideal to trumpet past-set if not nostalgic The Heiress. Swanson selling Sunset was less simple a commission than Ann Miller’s for That’s Entertainment, Boulevard having struck more a sour note amidst cheerful look back at Hollywood the stuff of Betty Hutton as Pearl White or much-proposed screen bios of Mack Sennett, those so close, yet so far, from actual production. The seventies had Day of the Locust to muddy ponds, less noticed by a public preferring rose colored looks-back. It’s interesting that plainer-speaking Sunset Boulevard would, from late-forties, early-fifties explore of all things old, take posterity’s ribbon. Embracing a Classic Era in the seventies would not isolate enthusiasts, not with oldies drawing crowds well beyond those who'd recall the films from distant past. It was plenty OK during this epoch to be an old movie geek, be you young or past that.

Ann Would Again Do Her Dance for Leo Long After MGM Orchestras Had Left the Stage

Campus shows often were cult-driven, idols to include Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, us to assume students would gravitate always to these and other past personalities, but no, we'd since see it for pop-cultural gust of short-lived smoke it was. Gift we have in age 92 Carol Burnett is one of the last eyewitnesses to the best of a Classic Era. Artists who made all that entertainment are gone. No more Ann Miller or Jane Powell. What remains are fewer-every-day first-run fans of Miller and Powell, others of us not yet born when they thrived. Burnett, the pioneer fan, tells Dave Karger on TCM how she was taken to see Gone with the Wind when it was new, her barely past toddling. That’s like me at The Shaggy Dog, but what does The Shaggy Dog amount to beside Gone with the Wind? One day I’ll be among last who recalls Gone with the Wind when it still played theatres, notwithstanding Fathom Events. Carol Burnett speaks for those from best years of filmgoing largely gone, like veterans of World War Two. Original fans, fans that understood best, like Ray Harryhausen who saw King Kong when a boy and had his life changed by it, or my collector friend Bill Wootten in Statesville (him 1948 writer of the first monograph and index on John Ford’s films). Bill was fortunate enough to develop “pink eye” (is that a thing anymore?) which enabled him to skip school and enjoy Kong with the other eye. Greenbriar had joy and privilege that was access to Conrad Lane, born in 1930 and seeing everything worth seeing from three-years-old on (starting with Footlight Parade!). Conrad offered eyeball account of King’s Row, Desperate Journey, To Each His Own when they were new in theaters, his perspective not to be approached by latter-day “historians,” including myself. But then we can’t blame those who study Caesar or Copernicus just because they never conferred with either chap.

A lot from Bette Davis-Joan Crawford had been lumped into “weeper” category, obvious exception their late-career horrors, but Carol Burnett alerted viewers to values of 40’s melodrama. They may not register as modern, nor “camp,” but still could be enjoyable if not baroque by comparison with less energetic successors. Not a coincidence was music from older films being re-recorded, re-packaged, re-discovered, by those thinking “classical” might have a broader definition. The RCA Charles Gerhardt album series was successful enough to continue past initial Steiner and Korngold, and I’d ask how many campuses booked Now Voyager beside their Marx and Bogie weeks? A good reception for one aspect of oldies might suggest other ways for a deep library to prosper again, such inventory not nearly so deep fifty years ago as now. Refreshing aspect of then-youth embrace for vintage films was their not being driven by “nostalgia,” few or none having been around when the features were new. I’d like to understand mindset that took hold of that seventies generation --- actually it had begun in the sixties, lasted well into the eighties. For that matter, I was still running by then ancients to early twenty-first-century collegiate crowds, surely a last stand for campus shows based on earlier models. But wait … maybe there is college programming yet, and well attended, though insistent voice tells me, probably not.

Scope Samples #3

 

Disney Draws Blood ... the Dragon Sleeping Beauty's Undoubted Highlight

Wide Worlds: Two for All the Family

SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959) --- I am drawn to Disney’s Sleeping Beauty like moths to flame, having written of it in two 2006 parts, reflecting also on other Buena Vista releases from 1959. Blu-Ray since permits viewing the show very much as roadshow patronage from early that year through latter months when laggers like the Liberty finally took delivery. Disney wanted in on roadshow money and that was understandable, trouble being this was not his audience, advanced admissions and reserved seating scarcely stuff of the family friendliest company. Disney attractions were more the sort you’d drop kids off for, not go in with them, let alone pay premium price for doing so. The short that came with Sleeping Beauty for most dates was Grand Canyon, which breath-takes still on a wide enough home screen with proper separation of its rich stereo sound (and included on the Blu-Ray). I sat for and felt transported to time when $1.90 would buy my adult ticket, a bane to then-grown-ups dragged to 70mm shows for sake of small fries seduced by strongarm saturation on ABC’s Disneyland, this effective despite color not yet part of the broadcast mix. Noteworthy was Disney road-showing a seventy-five minute feature cojoined with a thirty minute travelogue, these on reserved seat, hard ticket terms. Both were weightingly artistic whatever their length, a plate piled high with spinach, all which suggested we’d be more enriched than amused, prices pledging more than shaggy dogs or Mickey and pals up a beanstalk. Walt Disney who appealed best to basic appetites was serving filet to a hamburger audience, the more so considering content he tube-gave them weekly. Snow White had been art, but less self-consciously so. Sleeping Beauty for all of width and clarity was former plus Cinderella warmed over. What was a prick on the spinning wheel but reprise of the poison apple, similarly motivated witches arranging both?

Animation Less Fleshy and More Stick Figure. Which Looks Better To You?

One problem, an essential one, was artists and staff largely middle age, many more than that, having been with Walt since twenties beginning, their skill on the increase to support situations and humor tendered before, repeated times before. Such veterans were near receipt of their gold watch and retirement, fun-making on hep and now terms beyond most. Closest to forward thinking might have been Ward Kimball, him around forever too, but with a mindset still like kid-at-heart he’d been and would stay. Could that be why Walt chose this approximate time to let air out of Ward’s tire by publicly demoting him off Babes in Toyland, Kimball having overstepped procedural bounds by announcing himself director for benighted Babes? Warner cartooning too had gotten staid too for simple reason those guys were no longer young like when starting out for the firm. If Kimball had a WB counterpart, it likely was Bob Clampett who had left the shield years before but kept his sharp edge for TV projects harking ahead rather than backwards. Who were young turks of fifties animation? I say Chuck Jones still at Warners, him hardly a kid but smarter, the most creative, and being Chuck, said so. Then there was talent at minimalist UPA, but were they less funny than innovative? Jay Ward and Bill Scott were cartooners that Mom and Dad could enjoy with their martinis, the little ones laughing with Bullwinkle even where they didn’t get all his acidic asides. Fifties animation was a lot of old guys hanging on, but who of beginners had their discipline, inventiveness, experience? Search suggests that Sleeping Beauty did not have a 70mm playdate in North Carolina during 1959. South Carolina either. My parents would have had to drive me to Atlanta to see it roadshown. Not that I cared one way or the other (“This is the Only Theatre in This Area …” being policy endlessly repeated on ads, note ones here). Sleeping Beauty knocks us out for craft, a show window for sleekest electric trains so far built. I can enjoy it still for expertise applied, allowance made for what’s not there by way of story breakthroughs. In short, comfort Disney, a last roar for big-spend feature animation before boxoffice disappointment told Walt finally to cut corners where necessary to keep his long-form cartoons in profit. He’d do that successfully with sixties ones to come.

The More I Look At This, the More It Seems Doctor Dolittle Should Have Worked

DOCTOR DOLITTLE (1967) --- Hark back a year to Greenbriar coverage of Midnight Cowboy. One image shows signage for Doctor Dolittle wrapped round the block, a smash not just presumed, but guaranteed. Starkest truth here was Doctor Dolittle being backdrop for a past soon to be scuttled by Midnight Cowboy, the old kicked curbside by pitiless new. For Fox still drunk on receipts from The Sound of Music, Dolittle seemed a cinch for even more. Hindsight suggests they should have been out looking for their own Midnight Cowboy. The sixties by this point amounted to stand-off between understood approaches and incoming, insistent change. Fox wasn’t doing anything specifically wrong so long as they let product be guided by what worked before. Wasn't that how studios always operated? The crutch now was kicked from under them, winds of change fiercer by the day and no one knowing in which direction a public would blow. Doctor Dolittle was sold on reserved seat basis. How else where such colossal sums had been spent? This they proposed was a blockbuster for all the family to enjoy together! Taking all of one's brood out, parking the car, that is paying for the car to sit and hopefully not be stolen or vandalized, especially if you’re going in Gotham, then the getting-in, which adds way up where you’ve got multiple moppets, along with Mom/Dad neither of whom care much about seeing Doctor Dolittle but are there for sake of tots to experience “Entertainment for Everyone.” Doctor Dolittle was sort of 67’s Sleeping Beauty, much that was good but more perceived bad, certainly so by reviewers and impatient youth. Disney had their own Sleeping Beauty for the same year, The Happiest Millionaire, which would not be happy for loss it took. Due to top-heavy show scheduling, Doctor Dolittle had but ten playoffs per week at NY’s Loew’s State, so how do you break even unless the show stays a year at least, which The Sound of Music had, but Doolittle distinctly would not. 70mm was the by-now familiar hook, Doctor Dolittle an only feature playing the enlarged format that year that had been filmed that way.

The Thing Behind Rex Was Not a Miniature, Nor Stop-Animated, But Was Expected to Supply a Sock Finish

Charlotte’s Park Terrace at the time had the largest, widest screen in North Carolina. I saw a combo of Thunderball with You Only Live Twice there in 1972 and near fainted from bliss. The Park Terrace ran Dolittle on 70mm for twenty weeks beginning in January 1968. Did it sell sufficient tickets for that long or were twenty weeks contractual? No other theatre in North Carolina used Doctor Dolittle on roadshow terms, certainly not on 70mm. I ducked it at the Liberty, having smelled an elephantine rat. Outcome for Fox was ruinous, $16.6 million spent on the negative, $6.2 million coming back in domestic rentals, $4.8 foreign. Who took fault, or got blame, for such utter fail? But how “utter” really, because the soundtrack was liked, many wearing out grooves on their LP. Fox loss would not be historic, least ways not for latter half of sixties Fox where disaster was the rule rather than exception. Looking at ledgers, I’m almost surprised the joint didn’t shut down altogether. Reason to take up the topic today? TCM served Doctor Dolittle for Thanksgiving … presumed whole of it at 2:30 pm EST to wash down turkey and cranberries (“presumed” for uncertainty as to run time … was theirs an edited version?). I watched for never having seen Doctor Dolittle and doing penance for the oversight. How much do you suppose TCM paid for the license, presumably a once-only run, usual arrangement the network has with Twentieth (or nowadays, Disney). Figuring Doctor Dolittle for HD broadcast, I knew at least it would look and sound great. There was a Twilight Time Blu-Ray that went out of print years ago. You can have it for one hundred or so dollars at Ebay. I’ll not pile onto Doctor Dolittle and call it an overblown fiasco as did many then and more now. Of course it is dated. Isn’t that partly why we watch? Rex Harrison talk/sings his songs in more-less reprise of Henry Higgins, not unwelcome as he did it well before. Parents obviously saw Doctor Dolittle as a “treat” for their offspring, but how did offspring view it? Treats are seldom best defined by elders. The Simpsons did a brutal takedown of Doctor Dolittle to open a 2015 episode. The clip’s at You Tube. Director Richard Fleischer gave a long memoir account of hellish ordeal that was Doctor Dolittle, mostly his having to cope with Rex Harrison.