Blowing Out 1973 Candles ...

When Warners Turned Fifty

Warner Bros. threw an anniversary party for themselves in 1973. History went back to 1923 (or somewhere thereabouts) but owner of the pre-49 backlog was United Artists, which meant birthday showings of WB classics would have to be cleared through UA. It had been that way since the mid-fifties when Warners perhaps foolishly (no “perhaps” about it) sold their library outright for ludicrously low $21 million. As Greenbriar and others have said before, the cartoons alone were worth that. So long as viewer eyes still beheld the shield on openings of Warner work, they’d figure it all still belonged to the stripped-down company, which had more lately bartered themselves to a buyer top heavy with parking lots and garages, plus funeral homes and other unappetizing assets. Warners did a lookback to show at festivals, saluting the old but emphasizing the new, in this instance Mame, which was in production and sucking up money as only over-produced musicals could. Heritage was acknowledged by revivals where anyone wanted them. Late shows had used WB oldies long enough to be less enamored by them now, but nostalgia gained ground by the seventies and there was cult interest in some of inventory (Bogart, James Dean, individual titles here and there). The ABC network did honors with a late night (appropriate) celebration of the studio co-hosted by Bette Davis and Jack Benny plus then-WB chief Ted Ashley. I watched the show on that historic ninety-minute December 12 occasion, a Wednesday, getting a jolt when special guest Jack L. Warner (himself) strode out to bandy with Bette. Still not sure if maybe I dreamt it. Principal writer was Tony Thomas, an undoubted benefit, though I was less familiar with him at the time. There’s no trace of this “Wide World of Entertainment” at You Tube, pre-VCR 1973 early for home sitters to record stuff off TV. There is no indication of ABC having repeated it. Of all bizarre broadcasts, here is one I’d dearly want to watch again.

A Rich Book from 1976 and Easy to Find for Cheap from eBay

Can’t recall much detail apart from Bette saying how dreamy Errol Flynn looked. She and J.L. got along OK … it hadn’t been so many years since Dead Ringer. Further peal of anniversary bells came with the release of two record sets, boxes to contain music from past films and/or memorable dialogue exchanges. It all seemed too good to be true, but proof was in the listening, and we had every reason to think old films were indeed on cusp of coming truly back. The Warners library did resurface on TV stations recently hatched on UHF bands, oldies filling primetime hours to compete with major network programming. Our ABC affiliate in High Point surprised watchers by bumping the net’s schedule in favor of WB classics, Channel 8’s weatherman the on-air host and booster. Frank Deal had once tried acting, recalled for a broadcast of Sergeant York how he worked with a small part player in that film. It made a good story, and Channel 8 gave two and a half hours to at least most of Sergeant York. United Artists benefited by circulating the WB back library they owned, on 16 and 35mm. Our wretched College Park Cinema booked Casablanca and while yes, the 35mm looked great, it would also accentuate yards of footage gone with every splice, oodles of those it seemed. The Adventures of Robin Hood came back in 1976 with fresh promotional paper, a one-sheet (at right) more pleasing than the original from 1938 had been. Cherry atop was Little, Brown releasing a coffee table sitter called Here’s Looking at You, Kid: 50 Years of Fighting, Working, and Dreaming at Warner Bros. The writer was James R. Silke, him of dizzying past research plus popular culture pursuits of every sort. He was a graphic designer and drew comic books, lived to ninety-three. Silke had Warners cooperation on his book and interviewed a score of names not otherwise accessible. He used stills I don’t recall seeing elsewhere, presumably got before WB cabinets were rifled by collectors who by the nineties would cream most of studio inventory.

Really Hoping Someone Other Than Just Me Will Remember This Long-Ago Magazine for School-Agers

Producers like Robert Lord and Henry Blanke sat down with Silke. Show me where else these spoke or cooperated with anyone. Warners cleared roads for Silke otherwise shut. Here’s Looking at You, Kid is not a puff job. Bluntness like this you’ll not find in subsequent histories of WB or any studio, rabbits that much more scared since. Silke’s book goes 317 pages, a lot for its being oversized in the bargain. I read the whole thing again last week, a first revisit in decades. Memory suggests it cost twenty-two or twenty-three dollars when new. Our local newsstand unaccountably had it and I knew waiting would see the price knocked down, which sure enough it was (who else in my town would be interested?). That brings me to a paragraph from Silke’s preamble to sort of pour ice water going in: “The Audience remembers the Warner Bros. stars even if it only met them on the pale gray tube late at night in a lonely apartment.” A few years myself from a lonely apartment in 1976, I still felt label of loser for caring about topics Silke embarked upon. Was old film exclusive province of the friendless and forlorn? The author implied so, a mainstream caring only where oldies held “camp” promise like Busby Berkeley chorines dancing with electric-lit violins. Those of us more committed stayed so on solitary terms. To watch an old film was to stay up too late, normies' sleep not to be sacrificed for piffle offered at owl hour. We got a monthly magazine in eighth grade called “Scholastic Scope” which actually wasn’t bad and free besides. The February 29, 1968 issue was devoted to “The Story of Movies,” sole reason for my saving it all these years. Ads included Kellogg’s cereal (Win a Guest Role of The Monkees TV Show!) and early Army recruitment (!!), latter relevant as there was still action happening in Viet Nam if any of us hoped to one day get in on it.

I Used to Wonder at Age Fourteen if Viet Nam Would Last Long Enough for Them to Scoop Me Up

Scope’s cine-history was eight pages and did a fair job summing up the so-far story of American film. Nibbling round edge was “Famous Lines from the Movies” kidding cliches gleaned from late nights sat before television in those lonely apartments Silke referenced. He’d not coddle us re past pictures. As Warners “ground out” approximately sixty features per year --- well, how could even half of them be good, and what of these, if any, achieved greatness? Permit detour to a Warner studio tour some of us took in 1989, perky guide showing off a backlot where immortality was daily captured and recorded for all time. Me being know-it-all plus snide toward present days said yes, but look at televised rubbish occupying mock-up streets today. Our hostess who up to then was sunshine itself must have been ready for my remark, her quick to retort: “Bear in mind, sir, that half if not most of movies from the so-called “Golden” age were B at best, the classics always in a minority on a busy lot like Warners.” I shrank smaller than Grant Williams for realizing how right she was, the reproof richly deserved. Even “star” vehicles could be commonplace, good because we’re predisposed to figure any Warners of the era will be good. One seen of late was The Big Shot for middling example of a thing neither special nor especially bad. It was a starring part for Humphrey Bogart after doing High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon except instead of Raoul Walsh or John Huston directing, he got Lewis Seiler. The Big Shot is fun accompany to Here’s Looking at You, Kid. There is Bogart plus pace and tempo unique to WB, music too a decided asset (Adolph Deutsch) and link w/ previous successes, the score oft- salve to shows otherwise ordinary. The Big Shot is blessedly unburdened by expectation that all from Warners must score at Falcon level. Silke’s book understands this and credits output fine as it was under endless pressure that was limited budgets and nonstop stress to begin and finish always on schedule.

History for Fun #2

Beware Austerity Eyes That Paralyzed

From Fact: Doing Without Even After You Win

Lots imagine how great it would be to have met one or all of the Beatles. What fun to find common ground with that irreverent lot, but here’s the thing, a massive thing. We of stateside spoilage had not a thread in common with these or any Liverpool boys or girls, virtually all of whom knew life in the rawer than we of comparative, if sustained, privilege, ever would. Did postwar Yanks experience rationing, meatless most days, endless austerity as did all four Beatles plus pop faves off the Isles we thought spoke for us? They might not have remembered the war but sure understood scarcity of necessaries afterward. Bombs had stopped falling, but still was shortage of most staples, this to gruel another nine-at-least years, time aplenty for Beatles and contemporaries to know want as way of life. How did they respond to us who had things so easy? Brits still in the 1960’s were rags beside Yank riches, us swimming in gravy from babyhood. All who grew up in England after the war knew what it was to be without. They’d darn a sock rather than toss it away and buy a new pair. Everything was had in minimum. Kids swapped toys for sweets, soap was precious, “Make Do and Mend” meant patches on clothes and forget embarrassment because all your mates endured a same thing. Think life was markedly better by the swinging sixties? Not so pampered Americans would notice. Look close at English films from after the war, and years after, to see dimes stretch to dollars, putting on appearance of prosperity where really there wasn’t any. 1963’s Children of the Damned is a UK home movie for how desolate life still was long after Britain had “won” its war. I use quotations for fact the country went flat broke financing what in many ways was pyrrhic victory. Yes, they were free and no longer nightly blitzed, but who financed their defense? Us Yanks, us who boomed after the surrenders and never had things so good as we would for generations to come.

Not Much of a House, We'd Say, but Postwar Blighted Britishers Were Thankful to Get It

Britain emptied vaults to secure “lend lease” and other loans from the US. Their gold supply ended up in our Fort Knox. Ironic to see James Bond rescue that US asset from clutches of Auric Goldfinger. British empire crumbled in the wake of war. They just couldn’t afford colonies anymore. India split in the late forties and Egypt rebelled in 1956. The rest disappeared like mercury over hardwood flooring. A cultural comeback came with the sixties, music and movies, though they’d not last at pitch with which they began. Back to semi-doc Children of the Damned which seems to me another of “wreckage” work Englanders engaged to make a best of settings that would loudly reflect a world struggling from under rubble of war. Children’s civil servant chums share a tolerable flat, those they assist in hovels you’d not house dogs nor cats in. Titular children are damned by everyday circumstance no less than whatever unholy force guides them. Children of the Damned lifts veil off hardship but barely relieved by 1963. Much location in London sees houses, buildings, too few rebuilt from mess left after Germans hit, most telling a famous church, St. Dunston-in-the-East, blasted by the Blitz (1941) to leave but outer walls, a tower and a steeple. Initial building went up in 1100, remains today a public garden. As if to emphasize devastation from the war, Children of the Damned used also interiors of the church, no set adequate to convey impact upon said ruin. Were horror-seekers put off by real horror Children of the Damned conveyed? I sensed much at age nine that was barren and hopeless in this London, in-part product of story told, but more so places utilized to tell it, stark beside my gingerbread world. And to think the Beatles would within weeks debut on Ed Sullivan where a whole new face for England would emerge.

Well-Traveled "Black Forest" Near Hammer's Humble House That Doubled as Studio

Speaking of horrors, was there good reason for Hammer Films to focus on period backdrops? Did these  spare us lingering looks on post-apocalypse peeking still from an English landscape? Bray’s picturesque if sinister “Black Forest” seemed a garden spot beside London even when and where it swung. People beset by vampirism and werewolfery at least were not poor and just this side of ration books. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, the rest, dress elegant and wear tall toppers. To step into parlors, even pubs, in a Hammer horror is to sample a Whitman box filled with flavors. I never had to worry where their next feast came from. The Baron breaks from cutting a cadaver and there’s chicken alongside his bloody scalpels to sample. Compare with also-Hammer but contemporary-set Cash on Demand where Cushing heads bank management  and won't waste a copper-plated steel penny. Where Hammer staged latter-day scares, it was often sparce conditions that scared us more. The Quatermass series excels for science explored on penurious terms, Brian Donlevy having constructed a rocket, but who heck paid for the thing? He investigates alien intrusion largely on his own dime it seems, facilities he’ll consult barren of resource as we’d expect for British sci-fi set in 50’s there-and-then. The Quatermass Xperiment in 1956 (known here as The Creeping Unknown) captured reality frightful as whatever alien posed a threat. Latter on-the-loose stalks a riverbank mostly mud and, in all ways, uninviting where a dingy little girl plays with her dolly to seeming satisfaction, daily life for the character and maybe Jane Asher (b. 1946) who plays her,  Asher of later and close association with Paul McCartney and co-starring with Vincent Price in Masque of the Red Death. If anyone could tell of Britain in sustained hard times, then 60’s rebirth if but partial, it would be Jane Asher. Has she shared insights from the era? I note from Google that she has not so far done a memoir but has written several novels plus a tome about cake decorating.

Hammer's Idea of a Splurge Would Easily Have Been These Picturesque Models

Scores of others, many still around, sat both ends of Britain’s cultural seesaw. Think Dave Clark, who with his Five recorded hit after hit plus starred in Catch Us If You Can (US title: Having a Wild Weekend), which Greenbriar visited in 2013. There are but two of Clark’s Five left, Barbara Ferris, also of Catch Us, having lately left at eighty-eight. It’s been writ, by me on occasion, that UK imports rode a tough sled because we wouldn’t groove with their accents and idiom. I begin to wonder now if it was more the defeat their contemporary-set features reflected, that “wreckage” earlier referred to. Was this why late 40’s Brit melodrama leaned so heavy on period backdrop, where production wealth could at least be simulated by costumes, real castles or estates, maybe Technicolor for added splash? Look at recently released Saraband for Dead Lovers, an astonishing Blu-Ray, or restored Blanche Fury. There are others. Hammer took a lot of stylistic instruction from these. Were postwar British movies more palatable where set way past? Remember it was solidly Brit and puffed sleeve Tom Jones that took 1964’s Academy Award, this after Lawrence of Arabia, also British and set far back, took the prize for 1963. Not to dump on The Apartment, but given the authority, I’d have awarded Brides of Dracula in 1961. Still would, even at this point in life where I should know better.

Showmen Sell It Hot #5

 

Showmen: Hondo and What Happened to 3-D TV's?, Plus The Sting

Glasses Given Out So Viewers Can Watch Once-Only 1991 TV Run of Hondo in 3D

Producing Partners John Wayne and Robert Fellows

HONDO (1954) --- Why did they take away 3D televisions? Were we being punished for something? There’s eerie effect to corporations that make a policy decision, all hands down with it. Guess I'm out of luck when my present 3D-enabled TV wears out. There are old sets at eBay and places, but I’m skittish where it comes to second-hand, especially where they travel through mail and you can’t be sure about proper packing of leviathan flat screens. I spoke with a prominent retailer and they said there were complaints about condition/quality and it was not worth the effort of fielding them. “Lack of content and waning consumer interest” are also said to have been factors for dropping the 3-D option. Projection TV with goggles give too dark an image like theatres when attempt was made to revive depth during the seventies and eighties. So why do I carp over 3D in a column about Hondo, when we can’t access Hondo on 3D anywhere? I’d like knowing why that is but must assume “consumer interest” is gone. Remember aberrant occasion when Hondo ran on 1991 television in 3D, some sort of tie-in with 7-11 stores? I didn’t watch for never much liking red-green specs. Hondo and Dial M for Murder are probably the best 3D features not taken up with monsters and spacemen. There was myth for years that because Hondo was released late in 1953, it played mostly flat for the fad having passed. Robert Furmanek and team debunked that, plus theatre-front evidence here suggests brisk business for Hondo at least at its Palm Theatre engagement. It was profitable for Warners and producing Wayne-Fellows. All-night shows at the Palms permitted closure from 6 am till 10:45 am. That’s punishing hours for anybody. Figure they had three shifts at minimum. Hondo like a number of westerns compared itself with great ones past, in this case The Covered Wagon, Red River, and Shane. The Covered Wagon by then would have been stuff of long-ago legend, but then again, it was only thirty years past, and that seems but blink of an eye. The ad's “New” 3D, seen through “Wonderful New Glasses” seems to acknowledge problems had with the old ones, and indeed they were not infrequently a problem. We may assume Slaves of Babylon was pretty punk after thrill of Hondo, Slaves flat and formulaic, but there was option to walk out, as many undoubtedly did after getting money’s worth that was Hondo.

The Sting Selling Hot with Poster Art by Richard Amsel

THE STING (1973) --- For a picture so celebrated in its day, I wonder how many under-sixties know from The Sting, let alone ever saw it or would be inclined to. Robert Redford recalled how he rented the video to amuse a grandchild staying over the weekend. To the elder’s embarrassment if not surprise, The Sting just lay there. Would it for other sharer’s offspring as well? The Sting needs concentration, over two hours of it, and I wonder if that’s beyond a viewership for whom any feature seems much for moderns to get through. Here was a Best Picture winner dubbed the perfect smart amusement, humor but with high stakes, a puzzle to flatter our attention and intelligence. Civilians say movies should just “entertain,” this to me implying that no film can satisfy beyond a humblest goal. The best films give joy measurable not just from a first time seen, but forward via memories and repeat looks where affection only grows. Do classics have a simpler definition? The Sting belongs to 1973 as does American Graffiti and Jaws to their respective years. I don’t know anyone who enjoyed these but have renounced them since, each pleasing to a level few features achieve then or now. I say this today but what of ten years hence with the seventies gone farther out with tide? We measure affection for 60’s features by how close a current generation embraces them at You Tube. YT deepest-dishers go back no further than The Godfather it seems, save for James Bond and scattered genre titles. 

Deliberate Retro Look for Art Inserts Throughout Credits and Body of The Sting

Give us another decade and chances are the eighties and nineties will predominate, that being but natural, say analysts. First responders to any popular culture take away most fervent love, but still I’d ask: Can anyone way back, since, or now, revere King Kong, Meet Me in St.Louis, or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon as certain ones among us do? For viewership in 1973, The Sting staged fiction set less than forty years prior, the mid-thirties within clear memory of many who saw the movie, a condition akin to us and something depicting the late eighties. Would that seem so profoundly distant as the era The Sting recreated? Time and change can convulse or barely register. We might say things are not so different as they were forty years ago yet argue life in a first couple months of 2020 was as it never would be again, for reasons obscure already to many that are younger. Everyone has their own idea of landmarks, assignment of same a matter of personal choice and circumstance. Universal’s Blu-Ray of The Sting has an hour-long documentary that was done in 2005. Almost all of principals, save director George Roy Hill, were still around and eager to talk. Now they’re pretty much gone, writer David S. Ward among survivors. I see he taught three courses at Chapman University in Orange, Ca. Does he still, at eighty, instruct hopefuls how to pen a script good as the one he did for The Sting? Is The Sting in 2026 a highest mark to aim at, or would students need to be acquainted with, then convinced of it as ideal distillation of story and characters? We speculate on present-day chance The Sting or something like it might have with studios, but look what’s become of studios, indeed Hollywood, both seeming now to sleep with fishes.

Foreign Art is Variation on Domestic Nostalgia Emphasis, but Note Flared, Low-Hanging Cuffs

David S. Ward is best recalled for The Sting, but gravy may have flowed more from Major League plus two sequels he penned. A surprising lot of writers (or should it surprise?) ended up teaching, presumed feathers in academia caps that hire them. It makes sense that writers would eventually teach others to write. How many great scripts does even a great talent have in him/her? Consider luck it needs for any newcomer to sell one, never mind more. Same with producers. Tony Bill from The Sting is still with us, him once male ingenue acting support, switched to producing where real success in Hollywood lay. Bill taught too, returned to acting, was known to help writing newcomers. He is eighty-five this year, reminder again of how long ago The Sting was. Astounding comeback the 1973 film enabled was for Scott Joplin, who unknowingly and seventy-five years earlier supplied music for The Sting. Success of the score was not quaint, retro, camp, or ironic, Joplin accompany a latter-day hit that needed no apology or explanation, being fresh as was heard and enjoyed during the nineteenth century. I wondered if Joplin was tabbed for films since The Sting and found but shorts, minor use here/there, but no showcasing like in 1973. Has opportunity been missed? Might illuminate to know how much Joplin generates in Spotify listens, other stream sources for music old and new. Are his themes used by those who score for silent features? I’d say they’re missing a bet if they don’t.

Count Your Blessings #6

 

CYB: Pearl Diving at You Tube

So much technology rides current wind. I’m beginning to take miracles for granted. For instance what’s being done with Public Domain content aboard You Tube. Features, shorts, cartoons, all put to freshener that is, what, AI? CGI? I’m dumb to details of how but dazzled by results. All of a sudden comes high-def spun off standard transfers, clouds parted to bluest of skies. We’re talking talkies of earliest vintage looking near-as-good as if put through process previously expensive that also took more time to achieve. Advanced techs will call it “fake” and maybe much of it is, but so long as I’m guided by eyes/ears alone, these things will more than do. Flaws sure, occasional blips, work improving all the time, reminiscent of sound where first unveiled in the late twenties. That had kinks too which had to be, and were, ironed out. Such modern equivalent exhilarates plenty. All jobs aren't performed equal. You may sift a dozen transfers of Applause before landing on sweet spot that is “BlimeyTV.” Blimey is right. Don’t know who he/she/they are, but each/all is parting curtain between us and quality long awaited from titles too long on dimmer setting. Titles through 1930 are so far grazed upon with each New Years freeing up more. We’re kids in a sweet store where oldies seem not so old. Behold what crossed my way over a past week: The Doorway to Hell, Three Faces East, The Bishop Murder Case, and Old English. More, much more, is accessible, additions each day, hour in fact, the lot for free unless you buy You Tube Premium which sidesteps ads that make syndication of yore look like public television before that amounted to nightly begging for financial support. Work happening now smack of labors for love, in a sense all of what YT creators do, save ones clawing way toward “influencer” standing.

I stumbled across BlimeyTV like all of favorites now on an ever-growing tickle list. They along with others teach that movies online need no longer be “authorized.” Imagine how Disney felt when a flock of Mickeys entered the Public Domain (or do they really care?). Same with features … good features, not just wretched antiques. When Animal Crackers can be had, used, enjoyed freely by all, well, that’s change. Same for good ones with Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, all who straddled silent and talk eras. The four features I watched were more/less random picked. A hundred others could qualify. It’s my choice now rather than what corps permit me to see. The Doorway to Hell is long a TCM member, had from Warner Archive in standard DVD. BlimeyTV somehow punched it up, don’t ask how. Cue Robert Mitchum as Dan Milner: “I’m not knockin’ it man, I’m just trying to understand it.” Through 1930 Doorway comes Lew Ayres as head hood “Louie Ricarno.” Believe in him or not, this was neat off-casting for Ayres and I bet audiences were captivated, maybe shocked, by it, after he’d done All Quiet so recent before. This and Okay, America plus Iron Man shows how Ayres bent expectation and wouldn’t fall into a male ingenue trap. He conveys essential goodness in Ricarno, near to an end being hope, the wrap sobering because it’s Ayres rather than a heavy we root to be caught or otherwise quelled. Thing about gangsters operating then was even baddest ones merited crowd support, Depression’s public wrapping arms round the lot. Aspects of life having changed little means many still want Cagney, Robinson, Muni and kin to prevail. Go-getters appeal no matter how they go about getting it. The Doorway to Hell has as bonus a starter-out Jim Cagney making presence felt throughout. Of course he could have played Louie. I don’t see how Warners, Wellman, anyone, could think of anyone other than JC for Tom Powers in Public Enemy.

The Doorway to Hell pleases on ground level crime films later got above. Rough exterior here does not conceal polish beneath as would case for later 30’s crime. Whole of Hell is rough. No music backgrounds save several “Brunswick” records played on “Brunswick” machinery. Warner never shied from whoring its wares, one more thing I admire them for. Rowland Brown wrote the underlying story. He was surely the one who came up with “Mileaway” for Cagney’s character name. Brown was all-pavement as a scripter. Had his temper been cooler, he could have defined a whole genre instead of just highlighting it all too seldom. Did I mention The Doorway to Hell never looked so good before? At least for me. Next was The Bishop Murder Case. Just looked and lo/behold, I gave it a short paragraph in August 2012. Pleasure sustains since, primitive as Bishop is. Why keep coming back? Rathbone for one. Let him just talk and I am appeased. Mysteries are the more mysterious the earlier they got made. This and the Wm. Powell Vance series are deepest of narrative wells. Swim them at peril you’ll sink for dialogue sometimes tough to divine plus snail-pace and clues missed for nodding off here/there. Still there is deep regard I feel for these. Must at this juncture mention Applause, the Mamoulian kick-starter for sound as creative expression with cameras no more nailed down, at least by him. Applause is progressive as all that, but fifteen minutes was all I could last thanks to downer recap of beat-down Helen Morgan, herself beat-down no matter what parts she played (hard offscreen life) so I go in with pity for her as eternal doormat epically mistreated by a louse who we know will be around for most (too much) of Applause. I wanted Helen, or somebody, to clunk him with a heavy ash tray, or anything, and release us all from bondage, heels really heels in those days. Applause fits best under “Academic Interest,” but again, it never looked so good, certainly not what I saw first time around 1970 on educational TV out of Linville, Tennessee, a UHF channel (first one I was exposed to). Linville was and remains known for caverns not unlike ones Tom and Becky ran from Injun Joe in.

To follow was Old English, as in George Arliss, which makes Old English, like all his, irresistible. Again, seen it before but not like this. He plays “old,” mightily old, which most figured George started out as. Rascally per always, he outwits chiselers and would-be usurpers, verbal weaponry unique to Arliss, for who else since approached him along such line? Old English was lifted bodily off the stage, Arliss having done it there to greatest so-far legit success. He didn’t bother “opening up” where transferred to screens. So long as he was there to carry bags, who cared if we stayed indoors or out? Here’s the stunner re Old English, and don’t read what follows till you watch the show: George eats and drinks himself to death for a third act, deliberate so as to defeat threats to his beneficiaries, selfness, noble as we expect, but how this consummate actor stages run-up to demise --- humor first in the food and (much) drink, then a pretty much planned-for stroke, very realistic as Arliss would of course insist on, collapse and death in his favored armchair, work upon this world finished. Imagine anyone else’s star vehicle finishing thus, and Old English was a comedy to this point. Such was good and plentiful reason why Arliss stayed a star of substantial heft. Final of four was Three Faces East, seventy-one minute matter of Constance Bennett outfoxing Erich von Stroheim. It’s about spying circa the Great War and I give up trying to separate agents from double agents and are they for or against us. Stroheim works best, as always, for himself, love making him finally mis-step, Connie the object of fatal temptation. Von poses as butler for the English manor where intrigues take place. Watch him unpack Bennett clothing (emphasis on underthings) and know what great acting was about. Beauty of Three Faces East was Von not just in background, but prominent throughout. We get him front, center, and ongoing. I’m a pig in mud where it’s Stroheim. No such thing as enough of him, let alone too much.

Cooper v. Chinese Warlords

The General Died at Dawn (1936) An Action Oddity

Gary Cooper continually exposes himself to mortal danger for no reason other that his love of democracy, so he says, and often, in The General Died at Dawn, a lethal dose of Clifford Odets as screenwriter and recent Communist Party member. Didn't he realize that soldiers of fortune were supposed to be after fortunes first, maybe a woman next, then revenge, something or other, politics/principles at end of a long motivating list? Audiences were cynical enough, certainly by the mid-30's, to know that self-interest guides us all, let alone ones that hire out to Chinese peasants wanting to rid themselves of warlords. Cooper seems a chump for all time with his speechifying on behalf of downtrodden we hardly see, let alone get to know or care about. Still, being Cooper, there's at least dangle of Madeleine Carroll to keep him in an otherwise sucker's game, something to thank her for more than Odets. Would the author himself have gone to China and risked all for faceless hordes? To hear him tell it, via Cooper as mouthpiece, sure.

General's script was one that a Howard Hawks would have tossed out and started over. Certainly there would have been humor, which The General Died at Dawn has little of, other than oddity of Cooper carrying a monkey inside his suit coat. This may have been Coop's embellishment, as he was known to bring mini-apes home from safari here and there. Lewis Milestone directs, his signature lateral-moving camera an opener tip-off to who is in charge. Milestone gives General visual distinction second only to what Jo Sternberg might have envisioned. How much of Paramount's 30's look was thanks to Sternberg? His style must have had huge influence, like Murnau at Fox, Welles later on at RKO. Lewis Milestone latterly claimed that it was his idea to pit an American "representing democracy" against a Chinese general "representing authoritarianism," and that this would work, "provided we got a writer who understands the political setup." That would be Odets.

Milestone and Odets' political setup was really no more political than Sternberg's had been for Shanghai Express, as neither take on Chinese government policy, idea being that China really had no government, just killing and chaos. Populace as victims of marauding bands would segue neatly to treatments of same as prey for invading Japanese. Had The General Died at Dawn been made two or so years later, there might have been dose of that, for newsreels by then were laden with account of atrocities that presaged our own war with Japan. You could call Cooper's much-contested money belt, fought over by both sides, a McGuffin of a sort Hitchcock would have had more fun with than Milestone and Odets here. Attitude is the make or break of movie adventuring. Play straight and heaviness results, downerism an outcome no paying onlooker wanted. 1936 was early, too early, for us to emotionally invest in far-off oppression, other than to be entertained by exoticism inherent in the setting. To that end, The General Died at Dawn succeeds, if less completely than Shanghai Express.

Trade Talk #6

 

What Trades Told: 1929 from 1970 Viewpoint

Films in Review was among few ways film folk kept in touch, (more/less) monthly means for kindred souls to share plus be reassured that others, if few, were like them. Write in and chances were they’d print your letter. Industry notables contributed, FIR house organ for the National Board of Review, which had been around long as movies themselves. Average press run per issue was 7980, this circa September 1970. There were over 4000 paid subscribers. I was on-off among them. Considering numbers printed, it’s no wonder eBay bulges with back issues. 3100 are lately listed. They go fairly cheap, two dollars and up, even less where bunched up. My submission of two multi-part articles, one about theatrical trailers, the other on reissues, got printed around 1989, 1990. Robin Little was editor at the time. Films in Review ranks high for picture history, easy to lose myself in whatever pile falls off the shelf. Certain writers were ubiquitous. William K. Everson showed up lots. Herman Weinberg had a regular column. One feature circa seventies was “Films on 8 and 16,” by Samuel A. Peeples. Clearly this was for collectors, but Peeples addressed more than just that. He had begun as a writer for westerns, mentored by Frank Gruber of prolific past penning them. Peeples made further contacts as he gained experience. Lancer was his TV series. There also was Star Trek which he helped Gene Roddenberry develop, and for which he wrote the second pilot which sold the series to NBC. Peeples did not discuss these things in his column. Latter was for helping fans find prints to home view, legal and above board of course. Sam died in 1997 and left his collection to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. There are 225 boxes open to scholars with no restrictions. Much of that is 8 and 16mm movies. I can’t picture researchers asking to watch Sam’s black-and-white flat print of Holiday for Lovers (1959), while silent titles are long superseded by digital versions superior in visual quality. Digital has its cruel way with analog antiquity.

One extraordinary thing I came across in the inventory was a King Kong model constructed by Willis O’Brien and used in the 1933 film. That needs to be in a vault, at least under glass where visitors to the library can easier worship it. As things stand, I suspect Sam’s accumulation of a lifetime sits largely ignored, as who recalls him apart from past readers of Films in Review? Such reality weighs heavy upon all collectors who’d ask what fate awaits treasure they have gathered and nurtered. One thing I realize for looking over Sam’s backlog: No two collectors were ever alike … choices in spite of overlap were nonetheless specific to him and could not be confused with anyone else. Collecting speaks to individual identity. None need compose a memoir so long as their collection survives to speak for them. Samuel Peeple’s accumulation tells posterity who he was. There also of course is the writing. Peeples’ column reads like an ongoing story of his life, at least life spent with classic film. He’d been a child of the twenties, born 1917, saw silents give way to talkies, recalling it all for the August-September 1970 issue of Films in Review. Sam’s mother was in the amusement business and so canvassed towns surrounding home base. Berg where they lived was small, theatres not yet wired. Some closed for lacking funds to convert, same as my hometown and lamented “Rose Theatre” that shuttered soon as ’29 curtain rang down. Sam watched silent versions of shows city dwellers got to see and hear, The Broadway Melody, Alias Jimmy Valentine, The Canary Murder Case. His being road worthy thanks to Mom gave Sam access to mute plus talkie treatments, each before or after the other, comparisons constant, him evaluating both at leisure.

Was this luck or what, Sam born in a right place at an ideal time. Late as 1970 he still remembered in detail. Alias Jimmy Valentine was “a good little melodrama” minus talk, running 7142 feet, while sound Jimmy expanded to 7803 feet, difference being seven minutes of “stand-still dialogue that was unnecessary in the silent version and would have made it drag.” What entertained before was “cinematically and dramatically useless, but necessary, in order to permit actors to speak dialogue.” Imagine being eleven (Alias Jimmy Valentine released in late 1928) and getting to compare technologies, one rushing in, the other being eased out. Stark was seeing one Broadway Melody more/less beside the other. How far apart was the talking/singing Melody from what live accompany supplied in still "silent" houses? Sam saw The Broadway Melody with sound in the city at 105 minutes, then silent back home for 66 minutes. “Of course the musical numbers are much briefer in the silent version,” he recalled. Peeples attributed slowness of conversion not just to expense, but which system to adopt, theatres knowing but one could survive. To choose was to gamble, not unlike pick between Beta or VHS. We know sound on film won, but how could showmen long ago have anticipated that? For a meantime, they'd play safe with both silence and sound, at least till viewer preference could sort it all out. Sam, being a boy, liked his action fare, sound chosen “especially” for the “airplane ones.” Live accompany still suited best for “spooky background music” by pianos or organists addressing mysteries and “mood pictures.” For Sam, The Unholy Night was “a bore” with talk, him “loving every minute” of the same show where sound was absent save (again) that spooky music. This didn’t go so much for also mysterious The Canary Murder Case, which needed talk for explanation, especially of a “sound gimmick” around which the resolution revolved (again note length difference as estimated by Peeples: Canary with sound at 7171 feet, silent 5843 feet).

Sam saw seemingly everything off 1929’s menu. “It really was a marvelous year,” he wrote, to which we could say, Yes, it really was … and wouldn’t it be marvelous to have experienced it first hand like Samuel Peeples. Consider sobering truth of no one left to tell us what that year was like at theatres. Reading Peeples’ essay is for me like watching an early thirties film where tens of thousands of people watch a football game. You know they are virtually all gone, yet here they all were in the sunshine and having the time of their finite lives. Easy to wish I’d been around in 1929 to see The Canary Murder Case new, but then where does that leave me in 2026? Certainly not here with the rest of you. Sam chose a favorite for that pivotal year, nominees The Virginian, The Cocoanuts, Noah’s Ark, The Iron Mask, The Wolf of Wall Street (where oh where is that one now?), his pick perhaps unexpected … Paul Leni’s The Last Warning, another where he saw both silent and sound editions. Sam said Leni was such a skilled director that one couldn’t distinguish between the two, that Leni “retained the full fluidity of his mobile camera where other directors confined their cameras to sound-proof booths and boxes.” What survives of The Last Warning is the silent print, lately restored by Universal and released on Blu-Ray by Flicker Alley. That’s OK by me. From what program notes report of the sound version, we are much the better with silence, that is apart from music and effects supplied by Flicker Alley, us lucky to have The Last Warning at all. Much as I would have enjoyed canvassing theatres with Peeples and seeing silent plus sound versions of 1929 releases, chances are my vote would have tipped heavily toward the silents. Remember Murnau’s City Girl? Historians say we’re blessed it survives silent as the director intended, the talking pastiche doubtless lost for good. And what was that about Fox bringing another guy in to graft dialogue onto The Black Watch after John Ford finished it? Much of 1929 product was crazy quilt in extremis. Truth is most of it could not be digested by latter-day general viewership, but let’s be thankful Samuel Peeples stayed long enough to look back from forty years’ distance to tell us what being there was all about.