Precode Picks #9

 

42nd Street and Dancing on Precode Ceilings 

Let’s say that dancing is your dream and you’ll do just anything to be on Broadway and show your stuff. Many gave wholly enough of themselves to end up with nothing save spent youth and limbs shot for good. I knew a Broadway seeker who ended up teaching what she could no longer perform, aged hopelessly out by thirty. Having been in the Will Rogers Follies was proof of her making the grade. Touching hem of such success was perhaps enough for many, the heaven knows most would subsist on less. I look at background Golddiggers and chorus folk who vaulted if not to heights, then at least to tap, hoof, or speaking jobs elsewhere. One in 42^nd Street was Dave O’Brien, he of falling down for Pete Smith shorts, being a cowboy and getting to talk, if not from Shaw or Ibsen, at least for box lunch or enough to cover rent. There was Toby Wing who’d smile winningly in close-up beside Dick Powell while he, and not her, sang, me left to wonder why looker to surpass all lookers Toby didn’t make stardom grade. She surely wondered too, though living to eighty-five was some compensation, signing stills and fielding fan mail even though she’d been more-less retired since the late thirties. “I used to dance for Busby Berkeley” wouldn’t rate a front table at the Mocambo because after all, so many had so danced. Toby glories still for our thinking and talking about her, but what of “youngsters” who slaved eighty-six hours a week for $25, take-it-or leave heard going in and out of auditions, rehearsals for which you’d not be paid, this by far bulk of what your so-called living comprised. Life not ever being fair was etched deeper upon Toby and kin than cow hide stood for the hot iron. They’d complain, even strike, then pay dear for complaining and striking. “Troublemaker” was a term broader than what a thickest Thesaurus tendered.

Driven by Whips ... the Life of Depression-Era Chorus Folk

Toby Wing with Dick Powell --- Hers Was Beauty That Doesn't Date

Chorine reunions --- were there such things? I’d guess competition was such to foreclose friendships, though Rockettes are said to have got together for reminisce. To what … revisit past hardship, struggles, being overworked and underpaid? Hours given to the grind were rule, not exception. Accounts read like Upton Sinclair exposing meat pack abuse going on concurrently, Depression breeding desperation in most walks of life. Motion Picture Herald on 9/16/33 spilled beans re dancing for devils that was presentation houses, specifically Radio City Music Hall, the Capitol, Paramount, other palaces trading dreams for ducats. New York was primary target for Chorus Equity spokeswoman Dorothy Bryant, who with “cold but dramatic precision” relayed cost of dubious fame as tendered by women and men whose bodies had but so much to give. Big reason such conditions persisted was ongoing buyer’s market that was chorus work. If you don’t take our terms, somebody else will. Carrot at the end of very long sticks was Broadway as ultimate get, if not that maybe a specialty where it’s just you plus the orchestra and thousands applauding. So what if it’s all day and most of nights rehearsing (remember: no pay), then they want you back at seven a.m. the next (more likely same) morning. Warner Baxter in 42^nd Street warned that’s how it would be, so if you can’t cope, go home if you've got one. What’s refreshing, and bitingly realistic about 42^nd Street, its MGM cousin Dancing Lady, plus Golddigging to follow, is warning they gave of price paid to dance. No one would hand you success. Even if you had talent enough to earn it, you’d not necessarily get it. Ask Toby Wing. And how many hours did it take for a pair of rehearsal shoes to fill up with blood? Upton Sinclair may have missed a bet not turning his laser in dance direction. Comedian Georgie Price was for reforms, having suffered in same trenches as dancer peers. He’d push through policy that “ballet girls” would “not be required to stand on their toes more than eight hours at a time.” Eight hours? I can barely stand on mine eight seconds (just tried).

Bebe Herself Excelled in Early Musicals, Sidelined Much As Her Character in 42nd Street 

42^nd Street and Dancing Lady were but two among many to valorize the struggle of creation, both emphasizing necessity of sacrifice. If that be life itself, then live it, this emphasized by Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, director supreme of musical revues whose doctor tells him that this latest project, if embarked upon, will be his last. Aura of doom hangs over Marsh throughout and to final 42nd Street view of him a seeming moment before collapse alone in an alley, brave ending to a story honestly told. Musicals of lesser merit would go glib direction, each reliant upon 42nd Street momentum. But how long could copies measure up to the model? Turns out no longer than it took for the PCA to lock down. Major among takeaways was what highlights director Busby Berkeley did with a last seventeen or so minutes where principal songs and dancing were enacted at levels of imagination not experienced so far in movies save those Berkeley himself had worked on to forecast this and even wilder extravaganzas he’d stage as Golddigging was developed. Sixties and into seventies bloom his rose maintained kept not only Berkeley evergreen but Ruby Keeler as both came back to Broadway where just maybe they could make magic same as they had thirty-forty years before. Seemed an impossibility and sure enough it was, but look what the gesture said about staying power of long-ago efforts, whither camp, kitsch, or unintended comedy now, though at least the last was intended, and staged so dynamic as to defy those who’d call such entertainment “light.” 42nd Street and follow-ups Golddiggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade were elephants behind whom pygmies would march once Code enforcement withdrew hope of worthy encores. Truth-tellers faced high enough hills before restrictions got tighter, working many times harder to simulate life and people living it.

Joan Faints with Fatigue, So Let's Give Her a Two Minute Break to Recover

42nd Street ennobled hardships of performing. So did Dancing Lady of the following year. Chorines sneak off to sleep behind boxes, so great is their fatigue. Joan Crawford pulls a leg muscle and Clark Gable has to rub it out before brusquely sending her back to the line. All in a life’s work for so long as you last at it, said both films plus innumerable others. Anybody who complained didn’t deserve a chance, so rare and precious were these. Bosses could and probably did argue same at hearings cited earlier. Getting exploited was everybody’s worry from top to bottom, best survival method being not to carp over it. Theatres playing 42nd Street numbered in thousands, but had not power that ordinarily came with numbers. They’d grouse to trades in small print toward back of issues, each saying same things that made all less potent. “Really a wonderful picture” was 42nd Street, “get busy and play it now” they’d add, but then would come the stinger: “I’m getting tired running my theatre for the producers. No more such one-sided contracts will get my signature. If they won’t make me a few dimes, I don’t want them. High film rentals and percentage pictures are a thing of the past for this house.” Success of 42nd Street would only encourage further abuse: “Why do we suckers bite on this 50 per cent thing?” asked an Iowa showman having to empty his till to play Golddiggers of 1933. Maybe the truest precode stories were told by retailers at the end of the line who’d pay dearly for pictures they’d admit were good, realizing the while that this would only make terms stiffer.

Category Called Comedy #11

 

CCC: Fields the Inventor, Ernst Lubitsch Makes Us Pay Attention

YOU’RE TELLING ME (1934) --- Back a moment to 9/23/2024 and W.C. Fields making Winston-Salem stand in 1970, “The Great Man” promoted thus: See the crusader against everything, the funniest comedian of all time representing everything that decent people don’t, or say they don’t, want to be. This sounds like local management talking. Dan Austell ramrodded the Carolina, wrote ad copy to suit himself. The foregoing was his conception of who W.C. Fields was, something other than what “decent” people aspired to … in 1970? Fields by then represented protest vote as cast by youth in search of rebels to identify with, despite his having been gone for going on twenty-five years. They saw values Austell maybe didn't, 70’s taste for Fields far afield of husband under siege he’d play in many if not most of 30’s starring vehicles. You’re Telling Me was near-a-best at distilling essence of a plain speaking Classic Era. I’m sorry this comedian has dimmed with time, must assume Kino did not sell out of discs featuring him, as limit seems reached releasing Bill’s backlog while fire sale prices apply nowadays to ones the video company did share. Fields was much about a philosophy, little of his comedy derived from elsewhere than himself and experiences that molded the man. Pals from the road could slip him gags, Bill a sponge for what was funny, or he'd pull humor out of ideas not so funny elsewhere. Material once his was uniquely his, no use anyone trying to copy. Fields as beset family man in You're Telling Me invents a puncture-proof tire and we want badly for it to succeed, him then shed of domestic yoke and free to ruminate with lay-about friends after fashion of offscreen Bill.

Bill's Mad Lab for Wacky Invention, this Still Supplying Detailed Look. Note the Handy Spitoon.

Fields was spokesman for men on constant run from expectations and responsibility, always just this side of riches come easy and life how they want it. Small-town class consciousness is skewered, us assuming he had lived it growing up or observed same as trouper on trains not to be embraced by polite society, even in unlikely event he’d seek such approval. Fields wanted less to overcome prejudice than simply withdraw and exist apart from it, a position he preferred whatever the circumstance. Since when did Bill cater to a Hollywood mainstream, his social circle more/less variations upon himself, not really belonging nor wanting to. Fields had enough of Paramount's confidence to write how he liked and see his vision realized more than most any screen personality not paying their own way, like Chaplin and … nobody (closest getting such generous creative terms at Paramount was Mae West). Tottering near suicide in You're Telling Me, then persuading another not to go that route, Bill walks rope not attempted, maybe not dreamt, by others of comic fraternity. He’s greatest perhaps in moments of seriousness, just moments mind, for comedy he mines for You’re Telling Me was bettered by none, including maybe himself. Was Fields anti-marriage and offspring as suggested by much of his work? A dutiful daughter relieves You’re Telling Me and later Man on the Flying Trapeze, but what of bratty or neglectful girls in The Dentist or It's a Gift? As to sons, never mind … they never worked out, on screens or off, it seems. Fields kept stock comics for support, them around the house for drinking companionship or to run errands, drive, whatever. Foolproof stage routines could be adapted for features that could use them, belonging or not of scant concern, so long as they’d raise laughs, a certainty where Fields performed, like time-honored golf game a third act for You're Telling Me, and so what if done but recent for a short subject few would recall? Anyone who worked with Fields kept headful of tales spun by him, or ones of their own for knowing him, interviewers always asking first, what was he really like?

ERNST LUBITSCH AS THE ENEMY OF POPCORN --- My eyes closed for ten seconds during one of Ernst Lubitsch’s silent features and I nearly lost whole of the thread. He made undivided attention a must, as did most of an era when eyes alone caught story value and looking sideways or backward could spell game over. Think of voiceless years for film followed by lazy viewing talkies encouraged. You watch intent where watching is whole of the experience, though yes, there was music, but only to underline action on the screen, which if you didn’t pay attention, was just formless noise and pointless for being there. With sound came switch back-forth between movie and radio experience, looking at the picture when not occupied by business of concessions or conversation with he/she beside you. Didn’t matter which for talk coming in both ears, two tasks doable just like being at home with senses all engaged and no one of them in exclusive use. There would never come a time like silent movies again. It needed a certain skill to enjoy them, like perhaps with opera or playing bridge, chess, any recreation requiring concentration. Jean Harlow asked in Libeled Lady what to do with so much idle time, William Powell answering “Maybe you could learn to read.” Imagine entertainment foundation which was consumers able to read, not then or now a given. One can read without comprehending. Happens all the time. It could be argued that radio dumbed us down, TV finishing the job. A filmmaker like Ernst Lubitsch asked much of his viewership. Ones who grooved with him were regularly flattered for getting his humor and nuance. Hollywood liked him for making its industry look good. Didn’t matter even if his pictures lost money.

We watch Lubitsch and come away smart. He always gave credit for brains, as if saying maybe your neighbor doesn’t get what I’m showing here, but of course, you do. He made us feel wise for watching. Who knew audiences could stay even with such puzzles as he devised? Lubitsch was reminder to Hollywood that it could challenge viewers, at least tweak them a little. Fact he'd incorporate comedy was all for better. Spoofing marriage and manners had been around, Lubitsch generous for making kindred spirit with what till then was classified as a rube audience. Latter felt the more provincial where faced with European sophistication. For comedy we had Charlie Chaplin while continentals had Max Linder. Chaplin anticipated America-bound Lubitsch with A Woman of Paris, too serious for rurals to embrace, though Lubitsch did once he saw it and was inspired. He'd explore intimacies of the bedchamber where sophisticated couples dress while arguing, undress where doing a same, this like keyhole peeping and who knew but what next time Lubitsch would go farther. He’d interweave five, six characters and expect us to follow, and thanks to his smarts, we could. Maybe there was a place for European sensibility in American films. “Lubitsch Touch” so celebrated would be imitated: Jewel Robbery, This Is the Night, Easy to Love, more no doubt. Most silent Lubitsch is available on Blu-Ray or DVD. I looked at The Marriage Circle, Lady Windemere’s Fan, So This is Paris, and Three Women. Forbidden Paradise exists but looks rugged in clips I’ve seen. Lubitsch takes adjustment even for seasoned watchers, but once you’re there, his is a sweet spot.

UPDATE (3/12/2026): Happily proven wrong since saying several days back that interest in W.C. Fields has waned. Seems Universal is at verge of releasing four of the Great Man’s features, The Big Broadcast of 1938, Million Dollar Legs, International House, and Mississippi, all on Blu-Ray. In fact, U has four so far lots of Blu coming from their deep library, these featuring Claudette Colbert, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, plus a precode group, in addition to the Fields lot. I hope all will be supported to encourage still more. I’m hoping offhand for what is left of the Deanna Durbins. Putting toe in yielded Here Come the Waves, which I saw (on standard DVD) and wrote about in December 2006. Why the Blu upgrade? Better asked, why not? Took time to freshen the column overall and realize that here was first occasion to ponder Vertigo, that followed by further ruminations as years (decades) followed here at GPS. Reader comments on each of those occasions are worth re-reading.

Stills That Speak #10

 

First and Last Time Jack Would Be Billed Alone Above the Title Where Appearing with Garbo

STS: Stars That Shone and Smoldered, Gold is Where Warners Did Not Find It

SURE WAS SEDUCTIVE --- There is a great old book called Seductive Cinema, written by James Card who used to ramrod the George Eastman House film archive. He showed up also at Syracuse shows, post-GEH retirement, but I never approached him, sort of pygmy in the presence of a giant thing, plus there was something formidable about Card, him among other adventures having a thing with Louise Brooks after she landed in Rochester during the fifties. He shares much insight about her in Seductive Cinema (well, up to a point … if only he’d told it all … there would really be seductive cinema). Card’s reading of film and people tipped me toward insights not arrived at despite years chasing this stuff. For instance, he ponders the whole Garbo thing from her Euro start to uncertain beginning with Metro and trying to make sense of a culture (and language) she had but barest familiarity with. How to survive but to rely on innate hotness, which GG was perceived to have in abundance (notice I don’t say she did, Garbo in that respect less timeless than Brooks … will the latter ever be not be hot?). Garbo needed a patron and got one in John Gilbert, him seemingly born to be used by a woman who was career first, peers last (turning down Freddie Bartholomew for an autograph … really?). I got the feel from reading Card (and others before) that Garbo used Gilbert like any instrument toward success, or at least to keep holes out of roofs over her head. Who knows how hard she had it back home, and besides, how could GG trust any of sharks that swam her way with promises of stateside stardom?

All the While She's Planning How to Use and Then Discard This Poor Man, On Screen and Off

Thing to remember is that Garbo barely spoke English, understood less, and really needed somebody to use influence to hoist her up. Gilbert then was the guy. He had status and stardom to turn her from a Jack to a Queen. Plus he was in “love” with her, as if infatuation off a movie set could be anything other than … infatuation, or simple transaction. Trouble was, Gilbert really bought into phony lovemaking, believing in it wholly which was in part what made him such a magnetic actor. Poor guy even fancied he’d marry Garbo. She surely figured him for a sap, if a useful one. He got her into better pictures after they teamed, and steamed, in Flesh and the Devil, which if you must show a silent melodrama to civilians/normies/whatever, make it this one. Vudu/Fandango streams it High-Def, and presumably so does TCM when they schedule same (not often). Flesh tells a good story of twisty passions, jumped to folklore level when G&G topple onto horizontal state midst floor strewn with their fur coats (snowy outside) and her the dominant one (likely as in life). What they say about ancient movie love is borne out here. Did Gilbert look back on Flesh and the Devil to realize he sort of lived it in the aftermath? Friends saw him for onscreen champ playing offscreen chump. I don’t fully believe tales of Gilbert being stood up at proposed wedding to Garbo. That one’s a little too good to be real-lifeish true, even by tinsel telling. Do you suppose Garbo insisted on him for Queen Christina partly out of guilt? I would not have liked being GG’s boyfriend, too much like being measured for a Kick Me sign.

It Wasn't Just Disney Pushing "Multiplane" Technicolor in Those Days, as Witness Above and Below

GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT (1937) --- This tells real history, doggone it, so why didn’t (or don’t) schools teach Gold Is Where You Find It as part of curriculum? (some did in 1938, says the pressbook) I would have flipped for this in seventh grade, Claude Rains my gateway (Claude Rains!!). There is preface to explain when and what we’re getting into. Sometimes you have to spell out setting, dates and all, to make sense of complexities to follow. Fuss is over farmers drowned by mountains melted by miners for gold, them using recent-developed pressure hoses (eighteen-seventies) instead of primitively panning for the stuff. Clear enough? Just know all outdoors is captured by early-on Technicolor, which even off Warners’ old transfer still looks striking. Trees topple like in WB’s other back-to-nature Valley of the Giants, made close around this time, plus first arriver God’s Country and the Woman. Folks probably preferred looking at these to taking real vacations in the wild. At least you’d not get rained on or bitten by snakes inside theatres. Reminds me … kids used to say there were rats at the Liberty, all that candy and corn dropped on floors, but I never observed them. Guess rats, like gold, are where you find them. Gold is just that for beauty of its telling, more showing, of natural bounties, though not to be underestimated is factual backdrop of big business badness doing any and all ruthless things to coax yellow rocks out of ground. WB went hard on corporate schemers, and there they were scheming most aggressively of all. Bless all hypocrites, them the stuff of great drama, if complicated lives.

Like Sitting in a Sauna, but for Director Curtiz (at Left), Even Coals of Hell are Comfortable

Mining interests get well impugned here, them staging fancy balls to bask in corruption, even inviting former president U.S. Grant to sip ill-got champagne. Fun is inside joking over inventions we know will revolutionize us, folks including Grant calling them screwy at best, impossible at least (telephones, electric lights, you name it). Bad capitalists are led by Sidney Toler, John Litel, others as welcome, and I liked how Gold presents upwardly mobiles tied by family, marriage, some inbred way or other. Does wealth and power still circulate on such terms? George Brent is the outsider who must quell greed, him against seemingly everybody (when you think about it, these Warner “social” documents could be a cynical lot where turned fully loose). I’m surprised modern miners didn’t take offense at how they're shown here, Gold depicting evils practiced but fifty years before and probably still going on in 1937-8 when the film circulated. Wonder if the Brent part was initially considered for Errol Flynn, especially with Olivia De Havilland being the girl lead. Flynn would have been fine and apropos, a tilt to Technicolor predating Adventures of Robin Hood, if by mere months. Imagine him, DeHavilland, Claude Rains, getting in color rehearsal time for Robin, Maid Marion, Prince John. That would make Gold Is Where You Find It a better-remembered picture than obscure one it is. Gold should be known, deserves to be, won’t be till Warners does spit-and-polish on the elements and gets out a Blu-Ray. Surprising was cash poured into this, over a million that resulted in final loss, me to wonder if maybe the odd title was to blame. Would you have spent your last 1938 dime to go see Gold is Where You Find It?