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 having made 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 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 you’d pay 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?

Ads and Oddities #11

 

You Can't Tell Me This Isn't Rudy Revived Through Early Realized Miracle That Was AI.

Ad/Odds: They Revived Rudy in 1956!, Cosmic Carradine, Snooze and Lose

Was Rudy So Tall As This? Sources Indicate He was Between 5"8' and 5'9" 

FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE (1956) --- Z as in grade but also for Zzzz, destination sand land for many watching, or trying to, 74 minutes yawning toward eternity. Fire Maidens from Outer Space was a “Saturn Production” released by “Topaz,” anyone’s guess as to what/who these entities were. Principal creative was Cy Roth, who evidently did it all here. What immortalized Fire Maidens was AI (yes, Artificial Intelligence) apparently in use for a very first time. Who knew it went back so far as 1956, yet here is Rudolph Valentino in a starring role thirty years following his demise. Fire Maidens was 50's Rudy doing dialogue, fast action, clinches with co-star Susan Shaw (was she AI too?). Never mind credits that call him “Anthony Dexter.” I aver it was Rudy himself revived, recreated, call the miracle what you will. Surely such technology ate up what budget there was for Fire Maidens from Outer Space. Imagine costs of cloning the silent era’s sheik to live and love again. No wonder the rest seems so threadbare. These artists made history and we must applaud them for it. Fire Maidens looks admittedly like a Rocky Jones episode done stricter from hunger than even Rocky on most impoverished terms, titular Maidens to dance singly and in groups to fill running time. Leave it for Rudy to galvanize proceedings with dynamism his alone. Yes, there was only one Valentino, and it was great having him back for this final inning. See Fire Maidens from Outer Space (Blu-Ray via Olive) and be astonished.

First Billing Flipped Between Ads and Film Credits --- Did Bruce and John Flip a Coin or Arm Wrestle?

Yes, He Did The Last Hurrah a Year Before This, But JC Was Never One to Keep Score

THE COSMIC MAN (1959) --- Pondering John Carradine after a look at The Cosmic Man, lately installed by Film Masters at You Tube in HD and though full frame, readily converted to 1.85 by simple flick of the ratio button. Carradine is top-billed, though oddly enough, not on posters, even though he comes first in onscreen credits. Behind (or in front of) him is Bruce Bennett. Don’t offhand know whose company I’d first pick, Bennett to admire for shucking Tarzan cloth to study the craft and come back as a reliable character man, or Carradine who, chances are, mastered Shakespeare in the cradle. He was by 1959 gnarled as fiends he’d be pressed to play, crippling arthritis an always companion. There’s nobility in whatever capacity, here an alien, the titular one, shading the part where he can, reciting as though from the Bard or poets of yore. Carradine took his money and ran, if nothing else from memory of doing quickies the sad lot of classical actors amidst mumblers and Method boys consigning his sort to Museums of Thesporial History (I know there aren’t such things, so …let’s build one). Seeing him shot down so unceremoniously at the end of The Cosmic Man was for me akin to Lear brought low, but Bennett murmers He’ll be back, a perhaps improvised line Bruce came up with as tribute to his colleague as much as service to a script he’d barely consult (like me if stuck in something like The Cosmic Man). Black-and-white sci-fi was on slippery ground by 1959. This one was independently produced, distributed by Allied Artists, claimed after years missing by Wade Williams, gone again with him in possession, back now that Wade has passed. Oh for bleak years we endured without The Cosmic Man, but here it finally is, and what with no expectation, there’s less disappointment for catching up. What is appeal of space yarns where we never step foot in space or see aliens that truly are alien. Carradine could be anyone’s strange uncle, or the neighbor you’d as soon not encounter, yet without him, I may not have ventured to The Cosmic Man.

Mid-Fifties John Jungle Trekking Circa 1960, Still the Tower of Strength We Love

Filmfax #14 paid tribute to John Carradine with a profile and interview. In fact, there are a couple of interviews, Carradine’s attitude differing between one and the other. This was published in 1989, the year after Carradine died. His chat with writer Dennis Fischer was among last he did. The other, more candid, was with Jack Gourlay. Carradine’s response to questions, mostly about his horror parts, go as follows: “Just a job” … “It’s the same old grind” … “Half of that crap I don’t remember” … “I just take what’s given to me.” We could use artists as forthcoming. Many were obliged to take lame parts. Carradine knew crap better than anyone. He just wanted to work and so went where crap work was. He’d go for instance to Africa in 1960 to oppose Gordon Scott in Tarzan the Magnificent ... how promising could such prospect be? … yet look how strong a performance Carradine gave. Was he surprised by the quality of the script so as to rise to it and give of his best? “Abel Banton” to my thinking is the best part Carradine had since the fifties and to come, that including the Ford pictures and all else. As criminal father to worse sons, he is villainy personified and, along with Anthony Quayle in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, sternest threat of all to the jungle King. Should you want to see great men rest Shakespearian robes to genre service, playing straight plus sinister, get these two Tarzans from Warner Archive and be profoundly impressed. Maybe much of what Carradine got stuck in was rubbish, him still reassuring presence for me at pictures risible even for a ten-year-old. Two landed at the Liberty to bitterly recall: The Incredible Petrified World and Curse of the Stone Hand. I entered knowing that with John Carradine on hand, I would somehow sustain. This was true even as his character in Stone Hand was identified as “the old drunk.” I hope Carradine realized what he meant to ones of us satiated just for seeing him work in films even hardest core fans might skip.

This Monster More Pathetic Than Paralyzing Was Complaint I Often Heard

THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958) --- Was movie pursuit more fun when there was urgency to it? We make no more effort now than starting a DVD or streaming whatever needs watching. Everything can be had, anytime and at anyplace. If you had a Dick Tracy wristwatch, you could look at Ben-Hur on it. There was a time, however, long and thankfully past, when seeing a show was opportunity you got just once. At least it seemed so. Be there or live in torment for having thrown away your one chance ever. I suffered for sake of such that came and went, my having muffed chance to be there. Such is why it took forty years to align with Black Zoo, She, Devil Doll, numerous others. The ad at left was 1958's invite to despair, Revenge of Frankenstein being bumped so The Key could play another week. Assurance is that Frankenstein will arrive July 17, but what if The Key stayed beyond even that? Theatres were known for promises not kept. My own experience paralleled the Hipp's in Cleveland, also with a Hammer film as prize being dangled. We got A Hard Day's Night in August 1964, a four day booking to be followed by Evil of Frankenstein, which for me was British invasion to be preferred even over the Fab Four. Unexpected were lines for the Beatles unknown since Elvis did Kissin' Cousins. The Liberty gave Frankenstein a heave-ho minus a rain check. I asked and was told "maybe later ... if we can get it," which to me was good as "never, so live with it." A following month was spent with conviction that I'd finish a lifetime without seeing Evil of Frankenstein. Of course, it drifted finally in with other backwash delayed by Beatlemania. I could sleep again, as sometimes I do when occasion arises to revisit Evil of Frankenstein.

New Bids for Comedy of Old

 

Dream Team of Lloyd, Sturges, and Hughes Commit The Sin of Harold Diddlebock

Stop me if you recognize plowed ground. Remember Moon Mullins having a friend that worked at National Screen in Charlotte, the one who’d bring hundreds of stills, posters, at a time and hand them over to Moon? One day I was there and what turns up but a thick file for The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946) and Mad Wednesday (1950), two titles for obviously the same film. This was 1973 and a first-time seeing artifacts from Harold Lloyd’s last, known hitherto from vague mention in a few books and not seen elsewhere. Moon’s stills were half captioned for Diddlebock, the balance for Mad Wednesday. Of course, I wanted them and so traded him cowboy stuff for the lot. Few years later, a UHF channel in Hickory, oddly up the boulevard from where Moon lived, bought PD features including The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, thus a first time seeing it, “seeing” an elastic term for quality, or lack of, in fact dross served by a broadcaster barely afloat. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock seemed a thing dredged from ocean’s bottom, but any old port midst storm, so I watched, checking off against memory of stills Moon had let me have. I'm past fifty years since, time enough for someone to fix Diddlebock/Wednesday, but so far none of reclamations have surfaced, though there are viewing opportunities at You Tube and elsewhere, quality better than I recall, still short of threshold to make either version worthy of dream team that was Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges.

“The Man Who Gave You The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” followed Sturges like plague, a worse canker as years went by and his last hit retreated further into memory. It was not unlike Bogdanovich in latter half of the seventies and into the eighties referred to as “The Man Who Gave You The Last Picture Show and What’s Up, Doc,” even a most forbearing public moved eventually to ask, yes, but what have done for us lately? When Preston Sturges merged with Howard Hughes in 1945 to do The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, there was every reason to believe he would strike lightning again … and again. Their “California” firm gave Sturges full freedom to make pictures his way, something Paramount had denied, plus they fiddled with Hail the Conquering Hero (his save an eleventh hour one), but The Great Moment was wrecked, so Sturges said, what we have of Moment tampered to ruin. Again, I want to know how such an insane thing was permitted to happen … I mean Sturges being let out of Paramount against backdrop of hits, smash ones, while he lost entry through Marathon gates. The Sin of Harold Diddlebock has been undervalued largely because no good prints were had after theatrical release in 1946, that aborted after a handful of bookings, then Diddlebock back in 1950 as Mad Wednesday, pushed hard by RKO, which Hughes now owned, his partnership with Sturges and their California shingle having been taken down and forgot. What a whirligig. By 1950, Harold Lloyd was barely mentioned on ads, so past was promise of his comeback. He by then had trouble enough just getting his oldies into theatres indifferent to what legacy he represented.

Who but Preston Sturges would look back upon silent comedians he adored during the twenties and ask what became of the characters they played? A lot might say who cares?, as these were not real people being real people, but Sturges knew better. Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd told stories about life as it was, more so than formula driven epics or melodramas. Sturges asked, as any of us might, what happens after the happy endings? Did the blind flower girl, healed by the tramp’s effort and sacrifice, remain with him after regaining sight and realizing who he was? Would Johnny Grey and Annabelle Lee enjoy wedded life to follow his saving of the South? Only Keaton gave a grim forecast of what cheery fades amounted to, stunning viewers in 1927, more so today, with final moments of College. Harold Lloyd being sunniest of comics insured reward for all his onscreen risks, but Sturges pondered joyous fades and wondered what really would follow. Imagination like his always pointed forward. Maybe Harold asked too in contemplative moments, though I’m guessing Lloyd had fewer of those, being too occupied with a career, then hobbies plus Shriner leadership, once the career slowed down. He was also too rich to trouble over abstract concepts, that as much as anything how he’d differ with Sturges throughout shared effort that was The Sin of Harold Diddlebock.

Sturges was mistaken to think he could trust Howard Hughes and was warned to that effect by director friends like Hawks and Wyler. Money had a narcotic effect, as in apparent bottomless well of it that Hughes was willing to drop on Cal-Pix, no evident strings attached. Hughes did not care what got spent until one sudden day he did. That came later though, for in the meantime there was camaraderie and common ground for the two to enjoy, such as both being inventors and overall singular personalities for a press to marvel over. Hughes had made movies too, spent wildly so that what looked like a hit (Hell’s Angels) ended up scarcely that thanks to cash poured into it. To budget The Sin of Harold Diddlebock at over a million was music to Sturges, 49% owner of Cal-Pix, a deal to seem rich but wasn’t, for Hughes could pull his plug at whatever random suited him. For the present, there was a movie to make, Sturges free, or so he thought, from interference. Missing however was factory resource to lend polish Sturges relied on more than he or anyone realized. Renting space to shoot, borrowing even (from Paramount at one point), was no luxury. Harold Diddlebock lacked comforts of Para home and it was duly noted, if not by Sturges then by critics and patronage. Here was effect like the Cagney brothers felt when suddenly they were off Warner premises and having to scrounge for spots to shoot and monies to make their output look pro. Result felt cut-rate despite amounts spent, loaning banks alert and keeping stopwatches. Sturges had no worry of that, or so he figured through progress on The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, which overran estimated cost by $600K, this alarm to ones who'd wonder how comedy with a silent era lead could possibly get that much plus necessarily much more back.

Question of what happens twenty years after you’ve won the big game would be asked lots more in years to come, being tune so many contemporary films have played, so Sturges was forward-thinking with Harold Diddlebock, but how much of patronage cared to know how “Harold Lamb” (now Diddlebock) from The Freshman turned out? Part of problem awakening memory was The Freshman being long gone from circulation, not for lack of effort on Lloyd’s part --- he wanted to be seen again. I doubt any writer-director other than Preston Sturges could have enticed Harold Lloyd back to screens, him doing The Sin of Harold Diddlebock not for payment, at least in dollars, but to revive his old self in depth not explored previous. Diddlebock’s drama lay in fact he has lost twenty years to office drudgery with nothing but pittance saved to show for it. To restore vim/vigor of past Harold was both men’s goal, difference in going about this a source of mild tension, but not serious conflict, as Sturges and Lloyd liked each other too much to fall out. Differing philosophy might have been expected, the writer-director wanting his dialogue to dominate, the comedian-star preferring sight humor as had worked over years of silent popularity. They would compromise in principle, but what we have looks/sounds more like Sturges than Lloyd. What was liked of old-style Harold would be reprised, like ledge-hanging updated to frantic newness, Lloyd chained to a lion and swinging too-fro and many stories up, this all déjà vu for some but as it turned out, not enough. Difference was Harold having executed former thrills for real and Diddlebock being faked on a stage and effects driven, good as technique could manage in 1945-46 (John Fulton pulling strings), but audiences had lately seen high wiring in The Horn Blows at Midnight, so nothing truly new there, only further evidence that big studios could manage trickery far better than independents.

Comedy arose from alcohol before, drunks funny in moderation, but interval between Diddlebock on drawing boards and unspooling at theatres saw The Lost Weekend as Best Picture warn that tippling was ruinous where overdone, so suddenly Harold’s spree was less funny than cause for concern. Whatever he consumes is mostly offscreen, us told that one drink will release Diddlebock's primitive impulse. Preston Sturges himself overdrank, increasingly a problem as he aged and luck had run out. Did someone whisper that alcohol abuse as basis for humor was a theme that had its day and was no more? No matter, for Sturges was in a catbird seat with full control and no reason as he saw it to heed voices saying “No,” even benign ones speaking for his own good. Also there was pressure, always pressure, to keep overlarge machinery that was The Sin of Harold Diddlebock running, Sturges alone responsible for seemingly all duties associated with production, things a support army at Paramount handled invisibly while the writer-director tended to creative matters. Idea of Harold as milquetoast let loose and leading a lion through bank offices to acquire a loan was good perhaps on paper and as told to friends during dine at “The Players,” Sturges’ restaurant and pride/joy, but getting this all on the screen made for top-heavy second half of a comedy creeping toward overlength, Sturges realizing trims were needed to get Diddlebock to a more manageable ninety minutes before sending his work to market.

Sturges went largely without sleep, four hours his norm, when lucky. There was always more to do, the writer-director swimming with ideas, many good, if few implemented, because where were resources to produce so much? Opening for The Sin of Harold Diddlebock came under cloud of Howard Hughes not liking finished (1/46) product. United Artists would distribute, and there was a lavish pressbook to promise ad saturation in national magazines and a major splash for Harold Lloyd’s return. People must have wondered what became of The Sin of Harold Diddlebock when it suddenly vanished after a mere handful of engagements ($21,400 from twenty-one bookings), and what of rhapsodic reviews from the trade? Were we denied something well worth seeing, another Morgan’s Creek or maybe even funnier? Sturges and Hughes had broken bonds, the writer-director bought out of his 49% with a few thousand. There was work Sturges did “as a favor” on something called Vendetta, in which Hughes intended to launch Faith Domergue as the next big thing. Diddlebock was back in 1950 as Mad Wednesday, ads not bothering to mention it was old stuff, and barely letting us know Harold Lloyd was involved. RKO, owned now by Hughes, was distributor, but with no stars to sell, apart from character comedians (Lloyd barely a sidebar), soft business could be expected ($550K in domestic rentals, $450K foreign), among weaker returns for RKO that season. Preston Sturges by then was finished with major studio work, or rather they were finished with him. He still wrote every day, surviving journals filled as always with bright concepts someone should have financed and prospered with. What to do where you’ve been declared damaged goods?, yet Sturges would not give up. He still invented as sort of a hobby, and who knows but what these could serve mankind should they come to fruition? Sturges was forceful proof that it needed luck above all things to succeed, or in his case, keep on succeeding. He understood such reality better than most, so did not complain … just carried on creating until departure in 1959.

A NEW COMIQUE HAS LANDED --- I’m a babe in comedic woods alongside talent back of Comique, issue #3 just out and freely accessible online. Bylines represent best and brightest of slapstick historians, each studying the art since before men made lunar landing. I’m pleased to know some of them, am impressed by contribution all have made to this latest number. Cover subject is Lloyd Hamilton, definitively profiled by Richard M. Roberts. Aside from excellence of his text, there are stills, ads, all to arrest and most seen, at least by me, for a first time. Ed Watz continues his personal history of devil incarnate Raymond Rohauer, with side trips to Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, the Marx Brothers, each during life or afterward intersecting with RR. Ed Watz knows whereof he writes for having been employed by that baddest man. They say worst among us compel the most. Ed proves it here. There is Louise Fazenda: Forgotten Queen of Slapstick, by Lea Stans. Am I alone for thinking Louise was kind of attractive during her silent prime? Hal Wallis would apparently have agreed, as he married Louise and stayed with her for the haul. Polly Moran (Joanna E. Rapf) and Minta Durfee Arbuckle (Paul Gierucki) are covered admirably. There’s also Vernon Dent, Buster Keaton in the USSR, Ed Watz asserting how Bud could be funnier than Lou, plus cherry atop that is a lengthy letter Stan Laurel wrote to a friend in 1962 where he names his favorite comics. Comique this time out is 236 pages. I could wish it were a thousand.