Where Bootlegs are Best #2

 

Had Blood Money Been Readily Seen Over the Years,
Frances Dee Would Long Since Have Been a Cult Figure

Boots: Blood Money and Pleasure Cruise, both 1933

BLOOD MONEY (1933) --- Honey of a precode barely known because it has for years been buried, object of veneration by fans who dig deepest for treasure denied us by ownership. “Denied” flatters entity which for most part has no idea of assets from this far back and so obscure in the bargain. “Assets” might also be poor choice of words, for when since 1933 did Fox bookkeepers look upon Blood Money as an asset? Only legit exposure I’m aware of was early-seventies placement in the “Golden Century” TV syndication package, a noble effort toward earning at least something off moribund content even a most seasoned buff knew little or nothing of. A handful of 16mm prints were made up to service those packages, tiny handful leased by brave stations mostly UHF; what came back after broadcasts was then sprung from warehouses by dealers poised in parking lots to divert loads on way to landfills. That’s how Blood Money survived till video took it digital directions, survivor prints transferred to tape, then disc, for spread among discreet listers and dealer tables where word-of-mouth kept Blood Money’s pulse beating, if barely. William K. Everson showed it for his class during the seventies, a reputation (good) initiated from there. A 16mm print I had was of unknown origin and there couldn’t have been double-digit of these. Maybe that was what a DVDuper eventually used for his combo disc of Blood Money with Pleasure Cruise, a neat pairing of Fox features to remain largely unknown to a wider world. There is spread among streamers, okay I suppose unless you insist on being able to clearly see and hear it. Trick is to find the bootlegger with a best transfer, that is one closest to precious few 16mm prints extant. Is reward worth such effort? Those who’ve seen Blood Money give a resounding yes, me among them. If you crave pre-code, this is a missing must to rank high among best of the category.

Can Bancroft Beat This Opponent Who Bested Dracula and the Mummy?

Runtime is comfortable as-always 65 minutes, much happening to George Bancroft as a bail bondsman operating within hair-breadth of legality he and we accept as corrupt, who cares? coming with most to theatres showing Blood Money in 1933. No moral judgment, that most departed of stance films once took before a Code applied choke collars which led ultimately to Current Code even more confining (look again at modern preachments where Al Pacino or somebody starts out cheerfully crooked but must eventually pay back the “people” he has so betrayed). Bancroft moves blithely among low and high placements in the unnamed city he grazes on, making no distinction between so-called honest and dishonest. It took writer-director Rowland Brown to translate truth of the streets on movie terms still timid even where trying to be unleashed. Speaking of same, Frances Dee as a character still startling has a self-summing up line for the ages: “If I could find a man who would be my master and give me a good thrashing, I’d follow him around like a dog on a leash.” Write a line like that today and see how long you keep WGA membership. Rowland Brown wrote Blood Money, and yes, he took a fall maybe not for that reason, but plenty else that made him a handful for an industry that did and forever does prefer talent docile and compliant. Brown was neither and starved for it. Blood Money along with a couple others he directed is his memorial. Work this refreshing didn’t come often even in rich preserve that was the early thirties. Bancroft’s “Bill Bailey” is a role model for go-getters, no door closed to him, all and sundry paying homage. Movies like Blood Money will put a spring in steps of those who’d aspire to precode assuredness and angling always for advantage against stacked deck that is daily life. I knew bail bondsmen in workaday times, one or two calling themselves “private detectives,” this without irony and yes, a few thrived with it, at least till circumstance caught up with most, in fact I can think of none still around, let alone thriving.

Five of a Kind for Fun

PLEASURE CRUISE (1933) --- Roland Young is a gone broke baronet who redoubles his poverty with wedding vows and ends up wearing an apron to cook for the working wife, her at daily behest of wolves on the job, income good enough to withstand insults. She, as essayed by Genevieve Tobin, thinks it a good idea to take separate vacations, that is she’ll go on a luxury cruise and he'll stay home mashing the potatoes. How’s for Roland to reassert his authority? That’s the comedy set-up and it turns out a swell one, Pleasure Cruise another of unknowns floated on a sea of bootlegs and good luck seeing it look like something other than an oil slick (doubt decent elements survive, but hope I’m wrong). As with Blood Money, there are sources if one searches. Mine was on that disc with Blood Money, and who knows what happened to my supplier .. probably went ways of those bail bondsmen/private dicks of local yore and lore. I laughed lots at Pleasure Cruise, alone I laughed lots, so imagine how it might click with a crowd. “Crowd” … the very word seems quaint in this day of empty theatres and group avoidance. Or is that just me? Anyway, they’ll not be running Pleasure Cruise to gatherers again, that is unless they find lots better prints than what evidently remains of this one. Pleasure Cruise was another that Everson showed, his class lab being about all of exposure so many films had over a period of years, generations you could argue. I learned of them largely from copies of his program notes, chance of attending classes slim to nothing. There at least was knowing how good Blood Money, Pleasure Cruise, others like them, promised to be,  seeing any a matter of grabbing what 16mm might surface on lists or in ads. I trusted Everson’s judgment enough to buy blind with no guarantee my taste would reflect his. Hot Saturday came into possession that way. I sensed it would be wonderful based on plaudits from him, and sure enough, it was better even than that.

Roland Figures to Throw a Wet Blanket Over Ralph and Genevieve's Tête-à-Tête

Pleasure Cruise is like finding a secret stash of something fine that no one knows about and likely never will, unless you spread the word, or better, show it to them. Like any early thirties story set on shipboard, we have accommodation more luxurious than cruises afford today, too many looking like Wal-Mart bargain shoppers put aboard and you hoping to comport like pre-iceberg Clifton Webb on the Titanic. No more evening wear and shuffleboard with cocktails just beyond the twelve-mile limit. I can’t picture Roland Young aboard a Carnival Cruise. What would precode participants, let alone their audience, have to say if adrift amidst culture today? Or better put, modern culture loosed upon them? There truly is a language plus code of conduct endemic to that era that takes getting used to for anyone tempted to taste early-on entertainment. No one adapts immediately, unless perhaps they studied history of the times and are wanting to see how movies reflect them. Given enough of something like Pleasure Cruise and its attitude seems natural, so much so that what happens now requires adjustment. Ideal circumstance might be to shift nimbly between their vanished world and what prevails today, embracing advantages of both, not becoming alienated from either. That’s reading a lot into something so simple as Pleasure Cruise, but films, especially old ones of course, are best enjoyed where you can transport back and see sense to what moves and motivates characters that dwelt over ninety years ago. Suppose we could identify this close with folks who lived during the Civil War, let alone the Revolution? --- but alas, no movies of them. Had there been cinema during these epochs, I’d say yes, we’d find plenty of parallel with them.

Sigma Sampling #2

 

Not Looking for Friends, Let Alone a Designing Woman and Her Clingy Kid

Alone Again, Naturally: Hondo and No Name on the Bullet

HONDO (1953) --- John Wayne enters Hondo with a gun and a dog and that’s as much as any Sigma male needs. It is for narrative with help of romantic interest Geraldine Page and her boy Lee Aaker to show Hondo he’s wrong and that domesticity is, or should be, the life for him. To go it alone in the fifties was bad as to shirk during wartime. Hondo looks dangerous as he approaches under the credits, a threat accentuated by 3-D. I must imagine that effect for not yet seeing Hondo in depth (why, oh why … not?). “Angie Lowe” runs for her gun at the sight of Hondo with his mangy dog sporting a deep scar across the bridge of its nose. These are loners of a wasteland but can-dos in a pinch. Per customary in films, especially postwar, they need but to be brought round to service of a woman, her child, her community. Angie is not long recognizing Hondo for a suitable successor to her worthless husband. Latter is Leo Gordon, who really is Hondo in extremis, a natural outcome of anti-social attitudes Hondo has so far shown. “Ed Lowe” is foul-tempered and a back-shooter. He even kicks “Sam,” Hondo’s dog who is uncredited. Ed Lowes of the world are what postwar adjustment was meant to smooth out. If Ed won’t straighten up, then there is Hondo to do harsh job of disposal, in self-defense mind, but getting it done all the same because a civilization he’ll soon be incorporated into must be protected. Hondo is a Sigma with a target painted upon his back, a sitting duck for Angie, little “Johnny Lowe,” even Apache chief “Vittorio” who has specific ideas of how Hondo must be domesticated. Hondo is plain spoken to Angie, insulting her even, this only digging his hole deeper. She’ll observe how well he sharpens an ax edge, shoes a horse, all the while appraising him for ranch duty on her and Johnny’s behalf. “That’s wonderful!” she says when Hondo mentions that he has a place in California, her by now measuring drapes to decorate it. Hondo shows Johnny a quick way to learn swimming, but we know by now it is Hondo’s Sigma way of life that will drown. His talk to Angie about a man functioning best alone will serve her countermoves toward taming his anti-social, anti-family, position. So Hondo doesn’t like Angie to feed Sam because Sam should be self-reliant like him? That won’t last past eighty-three minutes this movie lasts (for that matter, neither will Sam).

Sigma Men Tend to Trust Their Dog to the Exclusion of Other Humans

A Sigma male will watch Hondo and think it an endorsement of his way of life. No, Mr. Sigma, think again. Soon as we see Angie dressed well for her guest, we know he’ll be a permanent guest. How these 50’s traps crept up on a Sigma … sometimes with civic pride and three-layer cakes like in Bend of the River, or where Johnny (offscreen) crawls into Hondo’s bunk, “put his arms around my neck, made me feel kinda funny, like he was dependent on me.” Yes, Hondo, he and Mom are by now very dependent on you, especially with Apaches broken bad and white folk having to clear out. Where to now but Hondo’s ranch in California? He and Angie pledge never to tell Johnny that his new Daddy shot and killed his old Daddy, but I bet surely the kid would eventually find out had there been a sequel. Would he then become the problem Rock Hudson’s teenage offspring was in The Lawless Breed? Sigmas watching, truly committed ones, know middle-class servitude comes in on soft cat feet, the tender trap Frank sang about and yielded to. Westerns after the war exalted those who in the end would tend home fires. John Wayne’s Hondo learns his lesson sooner than Tom Dunson in Red River, maybe because Hondo had no sidekick other than Sam, nor a temporary woman available when natural impulses called. Angie will answer these needs, but at a high cost, Hondo’s Sigma principles blown away with a desert wind. Will he have cause to regret a decision not really his own once the three relocate? Hondo won’t address this question. It is enough that by an end credit, he has been roped and put in service to rigid creed that is family responsibility.

Just to Be Straight Here: They Didn't Mark Him for Death ... He Marks One of Them for Death

NO NAME ON THE BULLET (1959) --- For us to admire a Sigma, let alone adopt him for a role model, there must be virtue back of his silence and withdrawal from mainstreams. Criminality right away robs a man of Sigma status. We wait instead for him to be caught or killed, projecting ourselves upon his exploits only during “fun” parts of Acts One and Two where he does things polite society would deny viewership. Con men thrive, often time prevail, because those they cheat are worse crumbs. Schemers might also form emotional attachment to an intended victim and redeem themselves for a hopeful, if not altogether happy, finish. John Garfield starting out as Sigma in Nobody Lives Forever achieves this, even if we finish in doubt as to his fate. Outright murderers have little chance to survive an end title, whatever their attractiveness or romantic inclination. “Raven” in This Gun for Hire is doomed for acts committed in a first reel, audiences captivated by Alan Ladd’s charisma but knowing they’ll wait for safer follow-ups the new-minted star can survive. Audie Murphy for Universal began as a “kid,” could be handy as a gunslinger but not outright killer, play Night Passage outlaw on Sigma terms if redeemable. Audie Murphy brought Sigma as built-in accessory to all parts he enacted, his sociability having been scattered upon European battlefields. Credibility for conflicted or isolated characters was Audie’s by default, but hold … he had friends and a second marriage that sustained, two sons outcome of that, and we’d like to think family life was relief at least in part from PTSD he had to cope with.

Two Thinking Men Identified So Because They Play Chess

Audie showed up on What’s My Line and did not even bother to disguise his voice. Sigma. Audie didn’t trust a lot of people, and once he went sour on somebody, there was no going back. Colleague Charles Drake in No Name on the Bullet got on well with him; you can tell it by their congenial co-casting here. Hired killer “John Gant” rides into town to off a man he’s never seen but has been well paid to dispose of. Nothing personal, just simple matter of picking an argument and gulling his target to draw first. Gant stays within the law, and the Code, us to decide based on our own code how bad a man he is to choose such depraved means of earning keep. Audie Murphy as John Gant is heaven-sent Sigma casting. We like this star best where revealing least, 77-minute question being who he’s here to kill and why. He will walk alone and prefer it, has intellect (chess player), is foreclosed from love interest by dint of profession. I don’t know another actor who could have played Gant with such conviction as Murphy. Who else carried such baggage with which to work? Audie Murphy wasn’t acting, he was being. Wiser filmgoers early on detected him for the real thing, his popularity greatest in the South, which as we know, is where wisest filmgoers dwelled and still dwell. State of grace No Name on the Bullet achieves is fruit of Audie alone, it understood that other actors were a little nervous around him, not just for lethal former exploits but for his having tapped into screen presence they’d not known and probably never would. Audie opposite bigger names always came off smelling like a rose, if cactus rose. Watch Night Passage James Stewart do his acting thing while Audie just stands, quietly observes, says little if nothing because the scene is already his. Both men had extensive and heroic war experience, but Jim came home more-less whole, if damaged (hearing), Audie a for-keeps paradox who’d forever define Sigma malehood both on and off the screen.

History for Fun #1

 

I Looked Up "Simoon" --- Means "Hot, Dry, Dust-Laden Wind Blowing in the Desert"

From Fact: Suez (1938) and Khartoum (1966)

Herein a new category where I pretend to be broadly educated. Thanks, You Tube for enriching me in ways school never did. Let search for gross errors on my part commence!

SUEZ ---1938’s Suez set me aboard Egyptalogical bobsled to head Khartoum way, my finish line two versions of Four Feathers to come with History for Fun #2. You Tube's an assist for assembling “broken bits of pottery” as Sir Joseph Whemple would suggest. Ever wonder had you been born in England, would they make you a sir, an earl, a viceroy? I’d expect knighthood at least, as wouldn’t we all during colonial epoch? Suez was Fox’s telling of how the canal got built between 1859 and grand opening 1869. The Frenchman who dreamed and dared was Ferdinand DeLessep, already well along when the dig got going (b. 1805) and eventual father of seventeen, so who other than Tyrone Power at age twenty-four to  embody him? Power’s Ferdinand was neither man nor Disney’s bull notion of a Frenchman, OK as I'd be annoyed were he burdened by an accent. He'll finish the epic job, loved by and losing two lead ladies, Loretta Young because she chooses Napoleon III and Annabella for sacrificing herself to a desert sirocco so Power may go down in history. Foregoing not sarcasm as Suez richly satisfies, streams High-Def at Fandango formerly Vudu. The canal continues to floats boats, 120 miles it stretching, forever nerve center for international transport. Pharaohs tried linking the Nile with the Red Sea, came up empty despite thousands of lives spent on the venture. Napoleon centuries later ordered surveys toward his own canal before being chased off sand by Admiral Nelson.

Aftermath of Expected Third Act Crisis to Nearly Wipe Out Canal Work So Far Done

"Color-Glos" Still to Promote Suez in 1938

That was 1798, half-century before the Egyptians got rich off cotton cropping thanks to the Civil War shutting out Southern exports. That seemed ideal time to modernize the country, plus link with France and De Lesseps to realize the ages-old dream. Problem for Khedive Ismail, Pasha of Egypt, was money spent faster than Egypt could earn it, him borrowing first from France, then more unwisely from England, who never knew a nation they couldn’t loan to and eventually dominate. Massive job at ditch digging took 1.5 million conscripts toiling in frightful desert heat, 120,000 said to have died in the doing. This wasn’t (altogether) slave labor, so imagine the costs. Goal was to join the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Even the ancients never thought so big. “Debt trap” for Egypt was three million pounds initially owed that shot up to two hundred million by 1875, the Canal finished, but creditors largely running the show and scooping up gravy. A thing called “dual control” took effect by 1876 (France and England), the hapless Pasha having sold his 44% interest to Benjamin Disraeli acting on London behalf. 1882 would be anchors aweigh for Brits taking over, Egypt their colonial property which would stay that way for seventy-four years. The movie simplifies such process, Power asking Disraeli and latter saying sure, why not, sit down and let's have supper. England as octopus would not be Hollywood-addressed, not so long as Isles represented our film industry’s most lucrative market beyond domestic screens. Truth was the canal as critical to English interests and no way could they leave it alone. If Brits didn’t snake that waterway away from Egypt, some other imperialist power would.

Picturesque Wear-and-Tear Upon Romantic Pair that are Tyrone Power and Wife-To-Be Annabella

Viper in the Desert Garden Nigel Bruce Acting on Behalf of Would-Be Colonizers

How could any Hollywood treatment, let alone in 104 minutes, summarize events at Suez? Cost to  England in lives and treasure toted up through wars, rebellion, massacres, occurring over those 74 years, Egypt trouble spilling into Sudan and eventually Israel, Egyptians restless over inequity of Brits living high on hogs, paying no tax where in residency, crimes they'd commit heard by imported and sympathetic judges rather than Egyptian authority, which had little legal authority what with England pulling strings. Something had to give and did in 1956 when Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and saw to expulsion of UK overseers. America helped by reading riot act to England, France, and Israel after they got up a scheme to oust Nasser and take total control of the Canal, if not Egypt itself. This was where/when the sun truly set on the Empire. Don’t know how Nasser or countrymen reacted to Fox’s Suez movie, but I doubt they revived it often if at all. Hollywood was for fantasy and using barest bones of history to fill two hours for amusement, complexity an enemy that comfort films aimed to supply. Making Suez accurate would muddy water thick as the Nile, and who in 1938 wanted gloves-off telling, what with the UK mired in crisis Germany had created. Brits besides still controlled the canal when Suez was released, so why rock boats with a people soon enough to be an ally against far more cosmic threats?

Always Thought It Was Odd for Roadshowers to Refer to Unspool of Film as a "Performance"

KHARTOUM (1966) --- Khartoum showed on a Saturday only at the Liberty combined with a black-and-white chiller, The Vulture, which actually had been shot in color and  did anything but chill. Wonderment at the time was an epic like Khartoum landing, no thudding, in diminished circumstance as this. We were riper to see The Vulture, enduring Khartoum a show of pity perhaps for Roadshows having sunk so far. Little of Khartoum made sense to me at age thirteen, being ignorant of history it depicted and disinclined to learn. I’ve since if belatedly grown into it, helped by a superb Blu-Ray from Twilight Time, Khartoum like much from them out-of-print with second-hand pricing to reflect rarity. Khartoum told of Sudanese uprising the British put down at great expense of time and lives, trouble spreading in Sudan direction from Egypt proper. A self-proclaimed prophet called the “Madhi” had masses of native strength at his command, England dispatching General Charles George Gordon and too little else to protect UK interests in the region (Gordon at above right). Upshot was Gordon being killed by uprisers (per below left being speared), Brits taking a black eye they’d be determined to avenge. The United Artists film ends with Gordon’s death. Other and previous films took up aftermath which was campaign to take back Khartoum in 1898 and get even for the 1885 massacre. That episode was famously treated by Four Feathers and its varied remakes, General Gordon’s death referenced early in these with characters motivated by need to reassert British authority in Sudan’s desert. For 60’s Khartoum, Charlton Heston played Gordon with Laurence Olivier as the Madhi. Khartoum was a classy venture that hoped to duplicate Lawrence of Arabia’s success. It did not but there were adherents and still are. As to why for wickets letdown, I’d propose Khartoum lack of exotic and charismatic leads that were Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif getting stardom start. Heston and Olivier were terrific, that is were for having been around long enough for us maybe to take them for granted, especially Heston in this sort of role, plus 70mm served to reserved seats having lost much of lure by 1966.

Nigel Green Welcome Always in British Uniform, as Was Also Richard Johnson

To reckon of experts at 70mm.com, Khartoum did not have a roadshow engagement in North Carolina, prints for my state 35mm as opposed to giant gauge. Khartoum had a negative cost of $6.2 million, earned $2.060 million in domestic rentals, with $5.7 foreign. More unfortunate was fact it had only 7,926 stateside bookings, a woefully low number compared with demand for Thunderball (13,325 bookings), Help! (18,423), numerous others. I’m happy to have contributed at least a pittance to Khartoum receipts, my quarter to get in at “Under 12” rate persisting to early 1968 when a local boy whose name lives still in infamy busted me at the Liberty’s boxoffice by making it known I was almost fourteen. From that day on (the picture was Bonnie and Clyde), I’d be obliged to tender sixty cents for Liberty admission. Khartoum action was profuse, safe to say they won’t make them like this again (cue further praise for “practical effects”). Khartoum reveals Empire scheming that kept Gordon behind an eight-ball throughout the mission his superiors, plus his own considerable ego, obliged him to accept. Khartoum came well after England lost strength that was worldwide power and influence, era of Empire lost to memory for many, representing faded nostalgia for increasingly few. Anti-colonial attitude floated in Khartoum would fuller blossom with Charge of the Light Brigade a couple years later, another that landed at the Liberty on a Saturday double feature. Were we presumed to have so little interest in British lore? Colonel Forehand surely figured us to care less. Why did he even play these things except maybe to accommodate a booker who needed to make the month's quota?

Showmen Sell It Hot #4

 

Showmen: Old Cartoons Better Than Ever (We Hope), Deanna on Oversea Soil, and Our Starlight Gives Them Away

CARTOONS ON YOUR CAMPUS --- “Showmen” here were non-theatrical renters looking to hike interest among grown or growing kids for content enjoyed when they were littler kids. What if someone developed a scheme to monetize the old cartoons in a way never tried but foolproof, to succeed spectacularly where no one else could for the last half of a century? When did Warners, the Popeyes, lesser but plentiful others, begin to wilt? Old animation had been saleable, on a meaningful basis, since the seventies when most recognizable of it played local stations, plus the networks. Taking all of viewing markets into consideration, including most of all home video, added up to lots, flow consistent and considerable for decades beyond the fifties. Now we get vintage cartoons on backwater streaming, and thanks be, Warner Archive still releases deluxe sets, a recent all-inclusive Tom and Jerry collection, plus ongoing Looney Tune compilations. I’ve heard Warners got way less than they should have for pre-49 features they sold to AAP, later United Artists, back in the mid-fifties. Seems to me however that the real steal was cartoons from the same epoch virtually thrown in with the full-lengths and unrecognized as a most lucrative asset $21 million bought. Of all things old, you’d think cartoons would be the last to announce themselves that way, but put beside successors often inspired by, certainly respectful of, what went before, the differences in tempo and attitude immediately date, and here were fans thinking they would endure forever. During the eighties when this UA rental catalogue was published, there still was likelihood a far-back short would be daring, sometimes outrageous. This was reaction I noted to Tex Avery MGM’s elusive on North Carolina television, discovered belatedly when bootleg 16mm prints came way for us who had not seen such cheek in cartoons before. We were seeing them same as theatre audiences of a past generation, TV on daily basis to increase exposure, please us like parents who’d been there for first-runs from the thirties and into the fifties.

Fans who devoted lives to animated study came together on UA’s classic cartoon behalf, cover art by Leslie Cabarga, who also wrote a book on the Fleischers, Leonard Maltin with an Introduction, and Jerry Beck editing the whole. Cartoon scholarship goes on yet among these three, plus others having pursued the topic at least as long. Are there historians who celebrate and graze upon Tiny-Toon Adventures? Seems like sarcasm even to ask, but rest assured there are those who treasure memories of such. Classic Era shorts were unique for being “now” and “happening” longer than any of us, or elders, stayed young. Only to recent viewership do they seem passe. I’d like knowing if ten-year-olds sitting before Popeye, that is Fleischer Popeye, might embrace him. Would black-and-white be a stopper? Maltin said “what’s good stays good” in his catalog intro, adding that “A Popeye classic from 1935 is as fresh today as the day it was made, (and) the comedy of Daffy Duck gets the same laughs in the 1980’s that it brought in the 1940’s.” Jump then to today … still true? UA’s price list is telling. $25 to rent “Parade” reels, generally three of thematic kind. Individual cartoons with reputation of their own (I Love to Singa, Coal Black, Corny Concerto, etc.) were $17 per date. I got bootlegged Coal Black for about twice that, but never had to send it back. UA offered comedy two-reelers in their catalogue. There were all six of the Fatty Arbuckle Vitaphone comedies, which try seeing those any other way at the time (sum up in two words: Im-possible). Bolder even was a Ben Blue short to hopefully tickle modern funny bones, this asking much of ardentest cultists (ardenest not a “standard English word,” but hereby anointed by Greenbriar as it does apply here). You’d need to have been plenty expert on the era to play such deep-dug obscurities, and I wonder what colleges had such radical student schedulers, and if survivors still collect or enthuse over oldies (question answered by peruse of past Greenbriar comment sections). Never mind campus marches and overtake of classrooms, the real uprisers were those brave enough to book Ben Blue.

Don't Look Up, Girls! Old Ygor Might Be Peering Out That Window

MAD ABOUT MUSIC (1938) --- Local friend had a mother-in-law that after the war worked for Universal-International in Europe. They stayed busy releasing old titles new to continentals. Here is the Danish program for Universal’s Mad About Music with Deanna Durbin. It has sixteen pages and is the size of an average note pad. Dealers would show up at Cons with odd items like this. Mad About Music had undoubted foreign appeal for its Euro setting and background, being about a Swiss girl’s school attended by Deanna. All of atmosphere was feigned on Uni stages per customary, most striking of effects a village with housing and a train platform like something off studio blueprint for Son of Frankenstein, which actually followed Mad About Music into production and then release. It could be what made Son look so lush was décor left over from the Durbin project and redressed to accommodate Basil Rathbone plus itinerary. There was no genre or thematic overlap between the two, but one sure evokes the other, and I kept waiting in Mad About Music to see Rathbone detrain behind Deanna, or vice versa. Where classic Universal horror parallels with what amounts to a musical fairy tale, well, anything might happen. I years ago had a 16mm trailer for Mad About Music and listed it in the old Big Reel paper for sale. First caller identified himself as one of the “Cappy Berra Boys,” a harmonica group that did a specialty number with Durbin for the film. He got the trailer and I got anecdotes about the making of Mad About Music. How easy it was to take for granted days when we'd encounter veterans of the Classic Era, figuring they’d always be around and accessible. Mad About Music’s story was of a movie star played by Gail Patrick who conceals the fact she has an adolescent daughter away at a private school. Did this sort of thing actually go on? Did real-life luminaries have kids hid? Patrick was an actress who often played unsympathetic, having an expression that could look moody or mean unless smiling (sometimes too when she smiled). Same went for Helen Parrish among the schoolgirls, her as often a nemesis for Deanna and though surface pretty, could register spiteful and untrustworthy. Did implied attitude like this make life harder for actresses fated with faces that said one thing even while trying to register another? Universal has Mad About Music on a nice Blu-Ray.

The Starlight in Mid-70's Free Fall

FREE TO TAXPAYERS --- Here is/was our Starlight Drive-In. This is where I saw The Curse of Frankenstein and Brides of Dracula for a first time, so of course it is sacred ground. Pretty sure Garland Morrison was owner/operator at the time. He’d been a showman since shortly after talkies came, made his bones handing out passes to hog farmers so they could see Flying Down to Rio gratis. I wrote a feature article about Garland and wife Virgie for the Winston-Salem Journal back in the eighties. By then, the Starlight was but a memory. Another friend, Eddie Knight, saw out its final days as manager (cousin to Brick Davis referred to him as “Eddie Daylight”). Eddie revealed to me that the Starlight’s screen was hollow and full of discarded stuff. Feel free to take what you want, said he, and boy, did I. Found amidst oodles a custom window card, in a glass and aluminum frame, for the Starlight’s combo of Thunder Road with Tobacco Road. These would be hung on brick walls through town, plus merchants cooperating with the drive-in. Now there’s nothing to suggest there ever was a Starlight, a non-descript food market now sat upon this once-Valhalla. Truth is I wasn’t crazy for drive-ins mostly because sound was so lousy, like a transistor radio hung just beyond reach of hearing. What displays here is a herald Garland made up for April tradition that was free movies for broke taxpayers, playdate appropriately on 15/16 April, I’m going to guess around 1963. By then Bachelor Flat would have played itself out country-wide and Garland could get it for comparative nickels. Same applied to The Command, a 1954 release still at Warners’ Charlotte exchange. Garland Morrison understood good will currency of a “Big Free Show.” I bet he and Virgie filled up both nights. Suppose they also drew the art and did home-style printing? Looks that way.