Generations Since We Had It Complete ...
The Sea Wolf (1941) Howls On Warner Blu-Ray
posted by John McElwee at 5:07 AM
6 comments
Monday, October 02, 2017
The Sea Wolf (1941) Howls On Warner Blu-Ray
Monday, September 30, 2013
Flynn As "The Robin Hood Of The Seas"
Favorites List --- The Sea Hawk
 |
| A Concluding Scene for The Sea Hawk That UK Patrons Saw More Of. |
 |
| A "Color-Glos" Still As Issued by Warners for The Sea Hawk in 1940 |
 |
| Luxury in Abundance at The Ambassador Theatre in St. Louis |
posted by John McElwee at 8:14 AM
6 comments
Monday, December 14, 2020
Do They Like You Best When You Play Yourself?
 |
| That's Hal Wallis Hovering Over Eddie and Paul |
Personality The Cake, Versatility The Icing
Under head of disliking someone who has too much in common with you comes Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni, two peas in a Warner pod who had strong personalities plus versatility, but could not abide one another, as stated flat in Robinson’s memoir, “I disliked Muni and Muni detested me.” Being “versatile” saw Robinson/Muni engage strikingly different parts, never so hemmed in as many of peers. Tough customers at a start, bound by that profile you’d think, but these two itched to go beyond brute man mode, Muni early declaring himself done with it, Robinson keeping avenue open should career flux oblige him to again snarl and wield a gat (it would, and often). Theirs in the day was adjudged to be “acting” in a sense of no role beyond either, exaggeration on its face that Robinson/Muni sensed better than critics draping them in laurel.
 |
| Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle |
 |
| Maude Adams ... Writers Claim She Was Not a Beauty ... Sez Them! |
Wrangle between performance bound by “personality,” as opposed to “can-do-anything,” (and should) fed debate and discussion among actors from a thesping start, consensus no nearer now than in the nineteenth century when braver voices (some prominent) lauded players who put aspects of themselves into whatever part they took, audiences not only appreciative, but insistent that they do so. A so-called “cult of personality” arrived with greater realism the stage would embrace, actors becoming more like us as individuals rather than representatives for the American spirit. Versatility could still be admired, but loyalty, in fact love, was a performer’s reward for choosing those parts that fit best. Joseph Jefferson could do, had done, a mosaic of roles over a long career, but it was as Rip Van Winkle that he would gain immortality. Maude Adams, basking in warmth her Peter Pan generated, knew too well, and from humbling experience, that Shakespeare was ice flow to be avoided, at least for her elfin type. The list went on: James O’Neill a nonpareil Count of Monte Carlo, even if trapped by the role, Edwin Booth a Hamlet or Richelieu for the ages (above right), but wise enough to duck Othello. People came less to see Hamlet than Booth as Hamlet, his singular impersonation their value for money. So never imagine the movies introduced a star system. It was well in place before first flickers lighted a screen.
 |
| William Gillette Shows Off The Personal Railroad At His Connecticut Estate |
Most prosperous of artists knew their strength, and limits. Each acclaimed great, their public responded to favorites playing a character as much or more than the character being played, each role but variation on what the actor or actress had offered before. Critics said this was valuing outward appearance rather than proven acting skill. Aged in wood from birth in 1858, and a thousand parts played since, Otis Skinner spoke for an old guard raised on the road or in stock companies, “Acting has changed. Versatility, once the choicest possession of the player, is being bred out of the stock. Actors are no longer chosen for their ability to express every and any character, but for their physical and temperamental approximation to one particular character.” So how was this a bad thing, answered others, among them William Gillette, who wrote his own best vehicles, and was legendary as Sherlock Holmes. Gillette spoke to personality as any actor’s defining asset. Citing a “plain fact” to the New York Times, he claimed “personality as the most important thing in really great acting,” this a quote from 1914 as applied to stage artists, a star system in movies still emerging at the time. Gillette challenged a consensus. Stock companies throughout the country had after all prided themselves on membership that could do it all, and did. Veterans from “palmy days” longed for a lost era when to act was to act whatever needed acting. Was this not the truest measure of a professional’s skill? Gillette thought not, pointing out that times, and audience expectation, had changed. Realistic acting required a closer identity between part and player. “Personality is the most singularly important factor for infusing the Life-Illusion into modern stage creations that is known to man,” said Gillette. Actors “playing themselves” need not apologize for doing so.
Movies took this many steps further as stars created by screens made the audience-artist identification far more intense than anyone could have imagined. Old-timers saw this and were threatened by it. How could a comparative beginner who made a specialty for him/herself rise overnight to fame no stage artist dreamt of? Yet it happened, and repeatedly. Close-ups were a factor, in fact the determining one. Suddenly we were near enough to feel nuance and expression as our own, a level of intimacy not attainable no matter how close one sat to a stage. The meteoric rise of a Chaplin or Mary Pickford went beyond anyone’s experience, but if electric lights and motor cars were possible, then peace must be made with this, even as many a grey eminence resisted (see Tully Marshall kick traces in early 30’s interviewing). These of a passing generation kept faith that to act was to enact whatever was put before them. Maybe this would do for character and small parts, but stars weren’t born by such route, and most actors, after all, longed to be stars.
Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni were character stars. Romantic leads sat uneasily with them, both the better for that, as options widened to include youth-to-elder sagas (Muni with The World Changes, Robinson and Silver Dollar), social-driven themes (much of Muni), and show-offness of dual roles to offer wide range for one ticket. Having shown capacity to startle, Robinson with Little Caesar, Muni with Scarface and Fugitive, both could show amplitude to a public safely aware of dynamism they had in reserve. Throughout years to follow, we sensed the killer instinct behind whiskers Robinson and Muni often wore. Our knowing they could return to basics made variances tolerable. Fun was when restraint was served in a same frame with hard cases we liked Robinson or Muni to play. Humble-in-extreme The Man With Two Faces (72 minutes) has Robinson being “himself” for a first half (an actor of forceful E.G. mien), then showing up bearded as a timid scholar (mere disguise… he’s committed murder and is hiding behind the muff). His next feature had Robinson, meek again as a bookkeeper and butt of office jokes, met by a snarling “Caesar” doppelganger (also Eddie) on the lam. This was The Whole Town’s Talking in 1935, which by then saw a whole town talking about Robinson as one who could do most, if not all, of what dramatists devised.
Paul Muni’s was a more distinct about-face, maybe too much considering legacy he left and how we remember him. No longer would Muni be an ordinary Joe at a reporter desk (Hi, Nellie!), a sort of part to invite comparison with livelier wires Cagney, Lee Tracy, others more at home in city rooms. The Story of Louis Pasteur was his own radical idea, at least going forward with it, a departure from what Muni played to then. Warners resisted, so far as the star flattered himself in recalling (practically “snuck” it past them, he said). Pasteur then was the plunge, his Academy statue the reward, “Mr. Muni” addressee for Warner memos composed from kneed position in deference to status now his. Rugged up to then in Bordertown and Black Fury, mitigated only to extent of ethnic tilt laced with accent, Muni’s unadorned face was still there to look at, till Pasteur and Zola belled the cat, heavy beard and bent posture under weight of an industry's esteem. Wallis saw threat of Muni forsaking “Paul Muni,” a charismatic brand with life left in it. Trouble was Muni wanting no part of things he had done before, thus firm and final no to High Sierra, being a gangster part, him foresworn not to be that again. The Sea Wolf was also offered, Muni in something akin to energy and aggression of old, but again he’d pass, Edward G. Robinson doing Wolf Larson and thriving (Wallis: “Muni … was extremely critical of the roles offered him, and turned down part after part”). Muni eventually left Warners by mutual consent after a last few for them went into red, the star blamed in part for overruns on Juarez. A vogue for historicals seemed over, and maybe Muni with them.
Robinson had gone a similar route and knew it, referring later to Muni as “my most potent competition. He played Pasteur and Zola; I could have. I played Ehrlich and Reuter; he could have. The Brothers Warner regarded us as two sides of a coin and did not hesitate to exploit the situation.” Robinson was flexible where Muni had not been, E.G. mixing character tries with what his mob expected from “Edward G. Robinson,” investing in safe stock to keep taut a lifeline (Ehrlich and Reuter both lost money). The 40’s saw Robinson broadening his brand further, triumphs in Double Indemnity (a support role, but the picture could not have done without him), Scarlet Street (a milquetoast, but murderous where pushed), ganging it up for laughs (Larceny, Inc.) or being hardest bark (Key Largo). HUAC weight and domestic collapse put Robinson in what he’d call “B’s,” but how he elevated them … Vice Squad, Black Tuesday, even a trifle like Big Leaguer. Paul Muni opted mostly for the stage, did a welcome reprise on gangsterism for half of dual role he had in Angel On My Shoulder, which in 1946 showed what might have been had Muni played ball with genre formula. Like virtually all of past/present Hollywood in the 50’s, Robinson and Muni guested (separately) on What’s My Line, Eddie brisk and chatty, Muni reserved and giving answers via awkward device of playing “Yes, We Have No Bananas” on a violin he brought, a gesture to counter those who claimed he had no sense of humor. There are books on Robinson, one by himself, and excellent. Michael Druxman wrote on the life and films of Muni, revised and reprinted by Bear Manor in 2016.
posted by John McElwee at 10:26 AM
4 comments
Monday, May 31, 2021
Gold Is Where Average Viewers Find It
Critics --- Get To Know Your Audience!
What more useless than critic reviews the product of screening rooms where company was other critics, films they saw not yet put before a retail public. These I skip in favor of notices the fruit of crowded view, where a Mordaunt Hall, Frank Nugent, or James Agee bore witness to crowds lit up by movies they were not paid to evaluate, but themselves paid to enjoy. Plain folk reactions often guided critics as to how they should react. How any film was received by its first-run audience was most valuable data any observer could record. Fans memorialized such events in scrapbooks, while pro scribes who were most perceptive incorporated live and spontaneous response into columns they wrote. Mordaunt Hall did so in 1925 when Valentino came to Broadway’s Mark-Strand with The Eagle, Hall’s reporting a clean break from herds reviewing the film but none of context surrounding it. Frank Nugent found himself hip-deep in hepsters on January 4, 1939 when he settled at the Paramount to ostensibly review Zaza, a Claudette Colbert drama-comedy few cared hoots about, for they were there to see Benny Goodman and his Boys play live on stage. Nugent gave up notion of critiquing Zaza to instead eulogize said hapless non-attraction “rude enough … to disturb the chatter, the hand-clapping, and the rhythmic foot-stamping of an audience that was impatient for Benny Goodman’s orchestra to take the Paramount’s stage again.” Sad was fate of any film backing white hot stage accompany, none so steamy as Goodman at ‘39 zenith of popularity.
Quote Nugent: “Key scenes (of Zaza) were greeted by chants of “We want Benny! We want Benny!” Colbert and company were “received coldly,” love scenes prompting “audience wits (who) took it upon themselves to shout advise, most of it unprintable,” result being “Mr.Goodman and his adolescent following had the Paramount all to themselves … Zaza and its would-be reviewers were simply interlopers.” Nugent was obviously a good sport, realizing as he should that the profile of any film is tied up in its reception by initial audiences. No movie played in a vacuum, even if current circumstance suggests they do, and will, what with streaming the increased way to go. Anyone thinking they know the Val Lewtons and Curse of the Cat People should read a remarkable notice James Agee turned in circa April 1, 1944, his having caught Curse (ideally) at Arthur Mayer’s legendary Rialto Theatre, all-night and day retreat for seekers after screen sensation, Agee there “by pure chance” on what he referred to as “a reviewer’s holiday.” Curse of the Cat People took he and patronage by surprise, for contrary to what the title suggested, this was low-key and sensitive exploration of a child’s dream world, a seeming last of choices the Rialto mob might make. They responded warmly, “showed it in their thorough applause,” said Agee, whose review became as much an appreciation of Rialto clientele as an endorsement for Curse of the Cat People, even to a point of citing the “West Times Square” viewership as a “finest movie audience in the country,” calling them “deeply experienced” where it came to rooting out worthwhile films.
Agee lauded “infinite superiority” of Rialto watchers over what he termed “art-theater devotees --- not to mention … the quality and conduct of Museum of Modern Art film audiences,” him fed up by self-conscious art/quality seekers. So long as there was patronage like the Rialto served, “no one in Hollywood has a right to use the stupidity of the public for an alibi,” Agee maintaining there was always a ready audience for “films as decent and human” as Curse of the Cat People. Among thinking critics then, it looked like a crusade on behalf of Val Lewton and work likely to be misunderstood due to RKO merchandising and theatres appealing to low denominators. Manny Farber boosted Curse to point of comparison with The Song of Bernadette, vision-seeing Jennifer Jones’ performance left wanting beside that of little Ann Carter, whose similar sightings were for Farber more effective and believable. Something about Lewton drew renegade reviewers. They saw how he upturned Hollywood formula from basement level at RKO, a model for those who thought for themselves in an industry largely forbidding step off a chalk line. To like Lewton was to be of his independent stripe. Being fashion choice for critics was no influence, however, upon trade appraisal concerned only by whether product pulled B.O. weight, Curse of the Cat People a distinct letdown by their reckoning.
Those on the inside knew getting customers on board with art mislabeled as horror was a higher hill than quick in-and-out theatres could climb. What two-day run built word-of-mouth even where latter was enthusiastic? Trades figured Curse of the Cat People too elegant for anyone’s good, let alone teens who were “practically the entire patronage” for chill bills where Curse typically placed, consensus opinion as expressed by Indianapolis manager of the Lyric Theatre, Frank Paul. Keep selling simple was not just a best, but an only way to go where hundreds of features passed through your doors per year. No time to cultivate even a most exquisite rose; let uptown critics pluck these at leisure and maybe send gem seekers your way. This was real world of management trying to mollify cat people fans asking why they didn’t get cat people in this movie. Based on such a title, who'd blame them? Trade reviews could be cruel, but they spoke to truth of marketing. “Mediocre” said The Motion Picture Herald and Harrison’s Reports, “unique horror of the original is not recaptured,” added the Herald, Harrison of the opinion Curse “fails to carry the punch” of previous Cat People. Motion Picture Daily warned against drawing parallels with the 1942 chiller, lest fans feel “defrauded,” Curse less a shocker than “a fanciful tale for children.” A real concern was exhibitor attempts to link Curse with Cat People, for that matter any horror, patrons most likely to be alienated once wise to what for them was a ruse. Merit of any film was secondary to its sales potential, trades there to pitch for … or warn against … all to arrive at market. Anything falsely advertised was better avoided. Why invite complaint with horror that was anything but horrific?
Curse of the Cat People stood its Rialto ground for two weeks, where, like most of their attractions, it played as a single. Manager/owner Arthur Mayer (showman colleagues the Brandts had a 25% Rialto interest) kidded his status as “The Merchant of Menace,” fact being virtually all his attractions were NY first-runs, not of highest profile perhaps, but a banquet spread before passerbys lured by Rialto front promotion and wild stunts to sell action/thrill subjects Mayer cleaved to. Curse of the Cat People collected $12K a first week, and so held for a second, which took $8K. Previous tenant Calling Dr. Death, from Universal, merited a three-week stay, arriving just after Return of the Vampire, these typical of product the Rialto played. Mayer and ad-designer, entrance-decorator George Hoffman out-circussed the circus, except Rialto fairground stayed open all night, two entrances from the street plus access from a subway platform beneath the theatre. This was useful for school truants, errant husbands, or whoever was on the run from authority, downstairs a quick getaway to departing trains should anyone come through the front looking for you. Gunshots were commonplace amidst dark Rialto trappings. Mayer’s son acquired usher skills in part by advising amorous couples that they might enjoy greater privacy by retiring to coital confines of the Rialto’s less populace balcony, for which Dad gave him a raise for tact and ingenuity. This was before Mayer tore down the old Rialto, which had begun as Hammerstein’s Victoria, once home to the “Flying Appletons” of Portrait of Jennie fame. The space tumbled from 1,960 seats to 600, sans balcony, part of ultra-streamlining Mayer meant to apply now that ongoing Depression had Broadway by show throats.
 |
| Above Two Images of the Rialto in Earlier Incarnations |
Mayer proved himself a scrapper from early on. He had leased the Rialto from Paramount after being in their employ for years, doing publicity, taking orders. Para brass thought the Rialto washed up, a teens-era barn seldom filled. Mayer began the comeback upon leased receipt and stripped overhead to bare bones, working a deal with distributors to play second-tier product, including Universal’s, the Rialto in receipt of U’s the Music Hall did not want. One of those was The Bride of Frankenstein, which Mayer thought ideal for his mob, but the Roxy wanted it also, and Universal in a venal moment let them book it, result an aggrieved Mayer filing suit to block the engagement. Courts got involved: he wanted an injunction against Bride unveiling on Roxy ground, negotiators from warring sides burning late-night oil toward peaceful resolve. Outcome was the Roxy taking Bride of Frankenstein, the Rialto getting Werewolf of London’s premiere as salve for its pain. Such was contest over goods with exploitation promise, Mayer knowing what sold best and ready to go to the mat for it. He talked about policy … wrote witty accounts for trade chums, Terry Ramsaye at the Herald of long-stand association. Mayer was educated (Harvard), knew culture, but chose to wear it lightly, kicking highbrow notion in the pants for preferred “murder, horror, mystery, and fighting.” He (and patrons) liked comedy too, lower-brow the better. Mayer arranged a mural for Rialto walls to celebrate his “steady and sturdy clientele, primarily male.” To that strategy he applied The Lost Patrol, which other Broadway houses “passed up because it had no women in the cast.” Patrol stayed at the Rialto three weeks to packed seating, a bold stroke against ingrained theory, and it worked. Mayer’s notion that one man’s theatre should reflect his own philosophy, and adhere to it, was a sound one.
The Rialto stuck with single features but loaded up on shorts that would excite male interest, newsreels plentiful, not ones fashion-oriented (unless it was swimsuits), sport reels a best where prizefighting was focus, cartoons always a hit, short comedies so long as they were impolite. News took a spike with fresh war in the 40’s, The Marines at Tarawa a rousing extra with Curse of the Cat People, as was The Hungry Goat, a Paramount Popeye, latter a favorite for the Rialto’s kind of audience. That wall mural featured him, plus the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, along with poised daggers, mad science, vampires, a full course for Rialto diners. The theatre was first-run Gotham host to scare offerings from the mid-thirties through much of the forties. Mayer’s would also be launch pad for Laurel-Hardy feature output, the Rialto first to get Way Out West, Swiss Miss, The Flying Deuces, Air Raid Wardens, others. Super-A’s went elsewhere, for what use did Mayer have for a latest Greer Garson or Paul Muni? He chided the Music Hall for advertising “too dignified,” cursive scroll, white space, and what not. The Rialto took what was trade-known as “sluffs,” humble fare if not outright B’s the big studios generated but did not care to showcase at flagship housing. That’s how Mayer came by, and gave pride of Rialto place, to Arsene Lupin Returns, an MGM runt of 1938 litter that George Hoffman dressed up like a thrill-Vesuvius poised to erupt.
Arthur Mayer got joy from playing “bad” movies, but really, it was those bad movies he respected more than gilt-edge emptiness the lot of too many studio specials. If his offerings were so lousy, why were people so eager to come in and watch them? Mayer during 1941 singled out stuff critics did not like … The Shanghai Gesture, Hellzapoppin,’ Sundown, emphasizing how each were selling strong along Broadway. Further example from his own Rialto, The Wolf Man, spat upon by reviewers, “piled up the year’s outstanding gross” for Mayer, while celebrated Citizen Kane, down several blocks at the RKO Palace, “left most picture-goers either bored or puzzled or both.” New York critics “are too smart,” he said, Mayer summing up that “Movies are a mass art and must be judged by men and women whose pulses beat in rhythm with the heart of humanity.” So who did Mayer think he was? Just someone who had worked this business since the teens. “Most theatres have to sell 100 to 300 pictures annually. They cannot do this with under-emphasis or apology. The day that advertisers in this industry stop believing that every motion picture is the greatest of all forms of entertainment, that day we are all sunk. The day that every producer, whether he is making an A picture, a B picture, or an XYZ picture, regains that faith, that day our worst troubles are over.”
 |
| Unveiling the Rialto's Drawn-To-Ghastly-Measure Mural |
Mayer thought Top Ten lists were largely for birds, lest it was ten most attended or popular among hoi-polloi he catered to. Being one who’d act on rebel impulse, and happy always to travesty taste-makers, he made annual gift of “Rialto Ten Worst,” a Yuletide thumb-to-nose for critics who took cinema too serious. Partying was fuel for Rialto staff, trades filled with recap of whatever Mayer lately celebrated. It could be the venue’s anniversary, a birthday (anybody’s), or just the help saluting their boss for being such a regular guy. Guests came from up-down Broadway-42nd, every hour Happy Hour at the Rialto, as the place never slept. Bookers, brother managers, studio folk in from the opposite coast, even stars who knew where fun was best had (Sir Cedric Hardwicke announcing “Worst” winners for 1939 at a Santa soiree). Rivals by day were common-cause revelers by night. Wonder if critics like Agee or Farber attended a Rialto party … only if they could laugh at themselves, I suspect. Guests could get stewed and not worry about a drive home, hacks or subway mere steps or stagger away. The working show world was a closest of any fraternity because these people ate and slept their trade, yes, drank it too. Selling dreams round clocks was way of life that once engaged, never was parted from. Arthur Mayer stayed a biz course through exhibition, distribution (Euro imports), production (documentaries), consultation (remember his supervising Freud events in 1963?), a memoir (Merely Colossal), plus what was for many a first book on movies, called The Movies, co-written with Richard Griffith. The Rialto, sold by Mayer in 1948 to Brandt interests, demolished since, thrives among annals of splendid showmanship. Best ballyhoo a film could get was got just for opening there, truly a portal to then-viewing paradise. Mayer himself lived ninety-five years, till 1981.
Many Thanks to Lou Lumenick for supplying the Paramount Theatre's Zaza ad.
UPDATE: 5/31/2021 --- 11:10 am --- Ed Watz checks in with as-always fascinating info and some terrific ad images:
Hello John,
Hope this finds you well - we're doing good in our neck of the woods. I just read your latest post on critics critiquing a movie amongst moviegoers - what can I say, it's excellent as always! Your analysis of Arthur Mayer and the beloved Rialto's fare reminded me that my mom had saved some wartime issues of the NY Daily News that I enjoyed paging through as a kid. I recalled that one paper in particular intrigued me -- inside was a 1945 ad for Laurel & Hardy in THE MUSIC BOX. Faulty memory told me this attraction played The Rialto - it didn't - it played The Laffmovie house - close enough proximity to The Rialto - but regardless, as a kid I was reassured that Bill Everson's (and others) claim that L&H were cast aside by '40's audiences in favor of modern comics like Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye or Red Skelton doesn't hold true.
Here's the ad, first by itself, then with the full page so you could see how prominently the 13-year-old, 28-minute MUSIC BOX was being promoted. You can imagine how this floored me as an 8 or 9 year-old - for me, that yellowed and crumbling Daily News was like discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls!
In the Keaton talkie book (out soon, I hope) I've included a mid-forties ad for a current war film double-billed with Keaton's 1935 two-reeler TARS AND STRIPES. Buster's short receives as much ad space as the new feature. Who says the old-time comedians were forgotten - if the films were talkies, there was no problem finding an audience in the 1940s, in big cities or small towns. And as you previously showed us, if the films featured Chaplin, they didn't even have to be talkies!
Thanks for always educating all of your friends & fans with the Best Blog ever!
All best wishes,
Ed
posted by John McElwee at 6:27 AM
7 comments
