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 that Austell had maybe not considered, 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 such prejudice than simply withdraw and exist apart from it, a position to be preferred whatever his 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 skill, 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.

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.

Parkland Picks with Popcorn #9

Pop Goes: The Whole Truth, Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, Absolute Quiet, and Santa Fe Passage

THE WHOLE TRUTH (1958) --- Producer Stewart Granger ram-rods another of chaotic oversea film crews that Vincente Minnelli would definitively characterize in Two Weeks In Another Town a few years later. What better atmosphere for a murder, and of the hot-blood leading lady at that? Naturally, she's Italian; it seemed in 50's pics that all divas off Rome plazas were just itching to be bumped off. They too would be celebrated down the line with La Dolce Vita, but for meantime, here was The Whole Truth mirroring whole truth of stars on dimmer playing crime like chess in that sophisticated way we imagine film folk would in offscreen life. Stewart Granger is put in the frame by "psychopath" George Sanders, who looks and acts ready to leave because he's bored, to quote the note GS later left for his own exit. There's much transit in sport cars to retrieve evidence or hide same. Pic was produced by Romulus, late of The African Queen and Moulin Rouge, but Huston had left their sets and now it was John Guillermin driving, not a bad prospect as his was generally fine work in genre context. Hammer folks are in credits and onscreen, Roy Ashton at make-up and John Van Eyssen performing. It never seems likely that rakish Granger would be married to Montana farm girl Donna Reed, or that he would care especially if she stays despite his infidelities, The Whole Truth merely another where sense is suspended in service to "mystery" that must be unraveled. Fun for the curious, however, as it's always interesting to see how Brits were going about spade work as TV spread over their rooftops and carried cinema audiences away. The Whole Truth is 1.85 available as a nice Columbia On-Demand DVD.

INSIDE THE WALLS OF FOLSOM PRISON (1951) --- Warners scores a coup, invited inside dreaded cage that was Folsom and laying its brutal past on the line, emphasis on past, of course, to insure present cooperation. WB pulled in horns since I Am A Fugitive days and willingness to take on the Man. Folsom is strictly B by Byrnie Foy cut from soiled cloth and written/directed besides by once-leading man, Crane Wilbur, who actually untied Pauline from train tracks back in 1915. Folsom's "expose" is safely set at turn of the century, only evidence of this a handful of vintage cars in and out of gates. Presumption was that no one would be around to bitch or sue over negative depiction. Dates, of course, are non-specific. We never see calendar leaves like with most prison movies.

Using the actual site was a hypo to verisimilitude, a thing most mellers lacked for not shooting Inside The Walls of ... whatever. Enough stock heavies are here to put some in service to good, thus David Brian as unaccustomed reformer instead of inmate looking to bust out. Steve Cochran is a least rehabilitated of prison population and leads the climactic break, plus there is Ted de Corsia as ultimate of sadistic wardens. Final montage emphasizes "the model prison that Folsom is today," and you wonder what reaction that got where this movie was unspooled to inmates (query: Were prison stories shown inside prisons?). WB assurance that all is well in nationwide stirs is a gesture they'd not have made in cynical context of precode filmmaking. Still, Inside The Walls Of Folsom Prison carries a sock the lot of best B's and was something of a twilight for Warners working efficient at an old and favored forge.

ABSOLUTE QUIET (1936) --- Made after MGM had their B unit up/running, a brisk 70 minutes with good ideas and fast runner George B. Seitz as director. He'd do more of these, then steer one after other Andy Hardy afterward. Did pace lead to premature passing in 1944 at age 56? Seitz began in serials, so knew from speed. Though action is confined in Absolute Quiet, there's still movement among a colorful ensemble, Lionel Atwill as string-puller and slightly more benign update on Count Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game, luring guests to his isolated cabin voluntary or not. Atwill saved many a venture like this, he could enhance A's and reliably rescue B's. The situation looks frankly borrowed from The Petrified Forest, though instead of Duke Mantee holding a cast at bay, there is "Jack and Judy," a squirrelly pair of ex-vaudevillians played to hilt by Wallace Ford and Bernadene Hayes, the pair turned loose to show how close support could come to stealing a show, if only Atwill weren't the banker. Absolute Quiet had a negative cost of $168K, played mostly doubles, and ended up breaking even. It surfaces from time to time on TCM.

SANTA FE PASSAGE (1955) --- Trail guide John Payne goes sour on Indians after a flock of them massacre women/kids while he's negotiating with the chief. Santa Fe Passage could be argued as Republic's Trucolor jump on The Searchers, Payne ordeal not unlike Wayne's the following year. JP doesn't like redskins and speaks it plain, going so far as to half-scalp aforementioned renegade chief to leave him looking House Of Wax-y in further battle, this a neatly gory touch in a big-scale (for Republic) western that was anything but "B," despite quick-draw William Witney directing from sun going up to same going down. Don't let anyone kid you that all Republic saddlers were cheapies --- they upgraded after the war and made westerns a lush equal to anybody's. Herb Yates also hired name casts, particularly good character/support people, and there was mostly color policy in effect from 50's dawn. Even some of B's got rainbow treatment.

Santa Fe Passage is near-all outdoors on stunner Southwest Utah sites, action dwarfed by red cliffs put to vivid use by numerous westerns, time aplenty spent against natural landscapes. All this compensates for distinction the story lacks, Witney keeping the pace brisk, Payne plenty good in hard-bitten postwar image-change mode. Faith Domergue is a half-breed heroine Payne must learn to love (she'd later call Witney her favorite director), Slim Pickens an inoffensive sidekick, while Rod Cameron, downgraded from hero leads, is unmasked eventually for a heavy but dies nobly. Santa Fe Passage played once upon better times of Amazon streaming and is surprisingly stout in full-frame, which it shouldn't be, though I cropped the image to 1.85 and the show looked great.