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.

Film Noir #33

 

Noir: Was The Killers (1964) Too Tough for TV?

Fascinating mid-60's Universal project, actually one of their key ventures of the decade, as it led off a hugely profitable arrangement with NBC for TV-movies. Why make features for the tube? Simply this: the Hollywood pix backlog was drying up and soon there'd be nothing fresh to show, post-48's having been consumed lots quicker than anyone imagined since 1961 when they began unspooling in earnest. NBC had dabbled in long-form programming, Universal their supplier for weekly ninety-minute episodes of The Virginian. For watchers at home, this was like getting a bonafide movie each Thursday night, and for nothing other than patience with drop-in ads. The western was cheaply shot, done largely on backlots, but had a solid cast of regulars and big names in guest capacity. The Virginian was a hit from outset and lasted years, being a best argument for passing the hour mark on televised drama.

A lot would say U's theatrical features by then befit the tube more than paying houses, pallets of these dumped to the network along with quickies getting "World Premiered" on primetime. Lew Wasserman was string-puller at Universal, having come to power from agent ranks. His were ice-cold business doings with indifference to quality product, but Wasserman knew The Killers had to deliver as inaugural run at Made-For-TV's. Don Siegel wrote vividly of head office bead on every Killers aspect; they'd even overshoot budget toward good as possible outcome. This was wise investment for long view re the NBC deal and dozens of custom pics that could be sold if The Killers worked out. Trades took an interest from early 1964 when Variety touted Johnny North (later renamed The Killers) as "something never before attempted for the small screen," NBC and Revue (Universal's TV arm) agreeing to each put $300K toward completion. The trade reported twenty-five days spent shooting, plus a few more by a second unit.

Don Siegel was bullish on The Killers, calling it "the only hope for TV," and vanguard of whole new concepts in programming. His version was also an improvement on Mark Hellinger's 1946 original, said Siegel, who credited Wasserman for coming up with the idea of hit-men Lee Marvin and Clu Gulugar on their own investigating a robbery-gone-wrong, "which gave it a whole new flavor," according to Don (angling here for more MCA work?). Siegel was an ideal pick for fast and economical work over "epics." "They bore me," he said, and what's more, his twenty-five days spent on The Killers could and would be trimmed to 15-20 days on future projects, this music to ears of Uni brass. In what reads like bald appeal for a next assignment, Siegel recounted how thrifty he'd been over a long filmmaking career. Saying TV movies should cost around $500,000, Siegel added that his could be done for less. "I made Baby Face Nelson for $175,000, Riot In Cell Block 11 for $225,000, (and) The Body Snatcher (as in Invasion Of ...) for $300,000."

NBC had initial objection to violence in The Killers, said Variety, but withdrew complaint "after (Siegel) explained it was essential to the story." Another tender spot was action involving a rooftop sniper, this a flag after the Kennedy assassination which took place while Johnny North was in production. As the scene was locked into narrative, all Siegel could do was shoot "in a different way, and now the killer is unseen," which in the finished film played somewhat ragged (who was firing the weapon?). Universal knew early that The Killers would be released theatrically in Europe, and it was for that reason a widescreen framing was used, with an open matte for TV broadcast in the states. Costs on Johnny North had crept to $900K, and that concerned NBC program chief Mort Werner, him acknowledging that pilots tended toward bigger spending in order to lure advertisers, but "they're trying to make this look too good."

Saying that NBC had balked on Johnny North (now The Killers) for "an overdose of sex and brutality," Variety gave the now-theatrical release a nasty pan on 5/27/64, calling it "a throwback," and "essentially an anachronism," saying that only buffs of crime melodrama would "get much of a charge out of this exercise of hate, double-cross, and sadism." Insiders knew that The Killers had gone wide of what Universal and its network customer intended, but this still was a Lew Wasserman project, to which he applied creative effort, atypical role for this ultimate bean-counter, so who would dare slap his wrist for botch that was outcome? Besides, The Killers brought $949,260 in domestic rentals, not bad for a minor actioner, but foreign receipts of at least that much would be needed to keep it from going into red. Now The Killers is a classic, a 1.85 Blu-ray out of Region Two that captures vividly how the film would look on theatre screens.

More about The Killers, both versions, at Greenbriar Archives HERE.

Where Bootlegs are Best #2

 

Had Blood Money Been Readily Seen Over the Years,
Frances Dee Would Long Since Have Been a Cult Figure

Boots: Blood Money and Pleasure Cruise, both 1933

BLOOD MONEY (1933) --- Honey of a precode barely known because it has for years been buried, object of veneration by fans who dig deepest for treasure denied us by ownership. “Denied” flatters entity which for most part has no idea of assets from this far back and so obscure in the bargain. “Assets” might also be poor choice of words, for when since 1933 did Fox bookkeepers look upon Blood Money as an asset? Only legit exposure I’m aware of was early-seventies placement in the “Golden Century” TV syndication package, a noble effort toward earning at least something off moribund content even a most seasoned buff knew little or nothing of. A handful of 16mm prints were made up to service those packages, tiny handful leased by brave stations mostly UHF; what came back after broadcasts was then sprung from warehouses by dealers poised in parking lots to divert loads on way to landfills. That’s how Blood Money survived till video took it digital directions, survivor prints transferred to tape, then disc, for spread among discreet listers and dealer tables where word-of-mouth kept Blood Money’s pulse beating, if barely. William K. Everson showed it for his class during the seventies, a reputation (good) initiated from there. A 16mm print I had was of unknown origin and there couldn’t have been double-digit of these. Maybe that was what a DVDuper eventually used for his combo disc of Blood Money with Pleasure Cruise, a neat pairing of Fox features to remain largely unknown to a wider world. There is spread among streamers, okay I suppose unless you insist on being able to clearly see and hear it. Trick is to find the bootlegger with a best transfer, that is one closest to precious few 16mm prints extant. Is reward worth such effort? Those who’ve seen Blood Money give a resounding yes, me among them. If you crave pre-code, this is a missing must to rank high among best of the category.

Can Bancroft Beat This Opponent Who Bested Dracula and the Mummy?

Runtime is comfortable as-always 65 minutes, much happening to George Bancroft as a bail bondsman operating within hair-breadth of legality he and we accept as corrupt, who cares? coming with most to theatres showing Blood Money in 1933. No moral judgment, that most departed of stance films once took before a Code applied choke collars which led ultimately to Current Code even more confining (look again at modern preachments where Al Pacino or somebody starts out cheerfully crooked but must eventually pay back the “people” he has so betrayed). Bancroft moves blithely among low and high placements in the unnamed city he grazes on, making no distinction between so-called honest and dishonest. It took writer-director Rowland Brown to translate truth of the streets on movie terms still timid even where trying to be unleashed. Speaking of same, Frances Dee as a character still startling has a self-summing up line for the ages: “If I could find a man who would be my master and give me a good thrashing, I’d follow him around like a dog on a leash.” Write a line like that today and see how long you keep WGA membership. Rowland Brown wrote Blood Money, and yes, he took a fall maybe not for that reason, but plenty else that made him a handful for an industry that did and forever does prefer talent docile and compliant. Brown was neither and starved for it. Blood Money along with a couple others he directed is his memorial. Work this refreshing didn’t come often even in rich preserve that was the early thirties. Bancroft’s “Bill Bailey” is a role model for go-getters, no door closed to him, all and sundry paying homage. Movies like Blood Money will put a spring in steps of those who’d aspire to precode assuredness and angling always for advantage against stacked deck that is daily life. I knew bail bondsmen in workaday times, one or two calling themselves “private detectives,” this without irony and yes, a few thrived with it, at least till circumstance caught up with most, in fact I can think of none still around, let alone thriving.

Five of a Kind for Fun

PLEASURE CRUISE (1933) --- Roland Young is a gone broke baronet who redoubles his poverty with wedding vows and ends up wearing an apron to cook for the working wife, her at daily behest of wolves on the job, income good enough to withstand insults. She, as essayed by Genevieve Tobin, thinks it a good idea to take separate vacations, that is she’ll go on a luxury cruise and he'll stay home mashing the potatoes. How’s for Roland to reassert his authority? That’s the comedy set-up and it turns out a swell one, Pleasure Cruise another of unknowns floated on a sea of bootlegs and good luck seeing it look like something other than an oil slick (doubt decent elements survive, but hope I’m wrong). As with Blood Money, there are sources if one searches. Mine was on that disc with Blood Money, and who knows what happened to my supplier .. probably went ways of those bail bondsmen/private dicks of local yore and lore. I laughed lots at Pleasure Cruise, alone I laughed lots, so imagine how it might click with a crowd. “Crowd” … the very word seems quaint in this day of empty theatres and group avoidance. Or is that just me? Anyway, they’ll not be running Pleasure Cruise to gatherers again, that is unless they find lots better prints than what evidently remains of this one. Pleasure Cruise was another that Everson showed, his class lab being about all of exposure so many films had over a period of years, generations you could argue. I learned of them largely from copies of his program notes, chance of attending classes slim to nothing. There at least was knowing how good Blood Money, Pleasure Cruise, others like them, promised to be,  seeing any a matter of grabbing what 16mm might surface on lists or in ads. I trusted Everson’s judgment enough to buy blind with no guarantee my taste would reflect his. Hot Saturday came into possession that way. I sensed it would be wonderful based on plaudits from him, and sure enough, it was better even than that.

Roland Figures to Throw a Wet Blanket Over Ralph and Genevieve's Tête-à-Tête

Pleasure Cruise is like finding a secret stash of something fine that no one knows about and likely never will, unless you spread the word, or better, show it to them. Like any early thirties story set on shipboard, we have accommodation more luxurious than cruises afford today, too many looking like Wal-Mart bargain shoppers put aboard and you hoping to comport like pre-iceberg Clifton Webb on the Titanic. No more evening wear and shuffleboard with cocktails just beyond the twelve-mile limit. I can’t picture Roland Young aboard a Carnival Cruise. What would precode participants, let alone their audience, have to say if adrift amidst culture today? Or better put, modern culture loosed upon them? There truly is a language plus code of conduct endemic to that era that takes getting used to for anyone tempted to taste early-on entertainment. No one adapts immediately, unless perhaps they studied history of the times and are wanting to see how movies reflect them. Given enough of something like Pleasure Cruise and its attitude seems natural, so much so that what happens now requires adjustment. Ideal circumstance might be to shift nimbly between their vanished world and what prevails today, embracing advantages of both, not becoming alienated from either. That’s reading a lot into something so simple as Pleasure Cruise, but films, especially old ones of course, are best enjoyed where you can transport back and see sense to what moves and motivates characters that dwelt over ninety years ago. Suppose we could identify this close with folks who lived during the Civil War, let alone the Revolution? --- but alas, no movies of them. Had there been cinema during these epochs, I’d say yes, we’d find plenty of parallel with them.

Sigma Sampling #2

 

Not Looking for Friends, Let Alone a Designing Woman and Her Clingy Kid

Alone Again, Naturally: Hondo and No Name on the Bullet

HONDO (1953) --- John Wayne enters Hondo with a gun and a dog and that’s as much as any Sigma male needs. It is for narrative with help of romantic interest Geraldine Page and her boy Lee Aaker to show Hondo he’s wrong and that domesticity is, or should be, the life for him. To go it alone in the fifties was bad as to shirk during wartime. Hondo looks dangerous as he approaches under the credits, a threat accentuated by 3-D. I must imagine that effect for not yet seeing Hondo in depth (why, oh why … not?). “Angie Lowe” runs for her gun at the sight of Hondo with his mangy dog sporting a deep scar across the bridge of its nose. These are loners of a wasteland but can-dos in a pinch. Per customary in films, especially postwar, they need but to be brought round to service of a woman, her child, her community. Angie is not long recognizing Hondo for a suitable successor to her worthless husband. Latter is Leo Gordon, who really is Hondo in extremis, a natural outcome of anti-social attitudes Hondo has so far shown. “Ed Lowe” is foul-tempered and a back-shooter. He even kicks “Sam,” Hondo’s dog who is uncredited. Ed Lowes of the world are what postwar adjustment was meant to smooth out. If Ed won’t straighten up, then there is Hondo to do harsh job of disposal, in self-defense mind, but getting it done all the same because a civilization he’ll soon be incorporated into must be protected. Hondo is a Sigma with a target painted upon his back, a sitting duck for Angie, little “Johnny Lowe,” even Apache chief “Vittorio” who has specific ideas of how Hondo must be domesticated. Hondo is plain spoken to Angie, insulting her even, this only digging his hole deeper. She’ll observe how well he sharpens an ax edge, shoes a horse, all the while appraising him for ranch duty on her and Johnny’s behalf. “That’s wonderful!” she says when Hondo mentions that he has a place in California, her by now measuring drapes to decorate it. Hondo shows Johnny a quick way to learn swimming, but we know by now it is Hondo’s Sigma way of life that will drown. His talk to Angie about a man functioning best alone will serve her countermoves toward taming his anti-social, anti-family, position. So Hondo doesn’t like Angie to feed Sam because Sam should be self-reliant like him? That won’t last past eighty-three minutes this movie lasts (for that matter, neither will Sam).

Sigma Men Tend to Trust Their Dog to the Exclusion of Other Humans

A Sigma male will watch Hondo and think it an endorsement of his way of life. No, Mr. Sigma, think again. Soon as we see Angie dressed well for her guest, we know he’ll be a permanent guest. How these 50’s traps crept up on a Sigma … sometimes with civic pride and three-layer cakes like in Bend of the River, or where Johnny (offscreen) crawls into Hondo’s bunk, “put his arms around my neck, made me feel kinda funny, like he was dependent on me.” Yes, Hondo, he and Mom are by now very dependent on you, especially with Apaches broken bad and white folk having to clear out. Where to now but Hondo’s ranch in California? He and Angie pledge never to tell Johnny that his new Daddy shot and killed his old Daddy, but I bet surely the kid would eventually find out had there been a sequel. Would he then become the problem Rock Hudson’s teenage offspring was in The Lawless Breed? Sigmas watching, truly committed ones, know middle-class servitude comes in on soft cat feet, the tender trap Frank sang about and yielded to. Westerns after the war exalted those who in the end would tend home fires. John Wayne’s Hondo learns his lesson sooner than Tom Dunson in Red River, maybe because Hondo had no sidekick other than Sam, nor a temporary woman available when natural impulses called. Angie will answer these needs, but at a high cost, Hondo’s Sigma principles blown away with a desert wind. Will he have cause to regret a decision not really his own once the three relocate? Hondo won’t address this question. It is enough that by an end credit, he has been roped and put in service to rigid creed that is family responsibility.

Just to Be Straight Here: They Didn't Mark Him for Death ... He Marks One of Them for Death

NO NAME ON THE BULLET (1959) --- For us to admire a Sigma, let alone adopt him for a role model, there must be virtue back of his silence and withdrawal from mainstreams. Criminality right away robs a man of Sigma status. We wait instead for him to be caught or killed, projecting ourselves upon his exploits only during “fun” parts of Acts One and Two where he does things polite society would deny viewership. Con men thrive, often time prevail, because those they cheat are worse crumbs. Schemers might also form emotional attachment to an intended victim and redeem themselves for a hopeful, if not altogether happy, finish. John Garfield starting out as Sigma in Nobody Lives Forever achieves this, even if we finish in doubt as to his fate. Outright murderers have little chance to survive an end title, whatever their attractiveness or romantic inclination. “Raven” in This Gun for Hire is doomed for acts committed in a first reel, audiences captivated by Alan Ladd’s charisma but knowing they’ll wait for safer follow-ups the new-minted star can survive. Audie Murphy for Universal began as a “kid,” could be handy as a gunslinger but not outright killer, play Night Passage outlaw on Sigma terms if redeemable. Audie Murphy brought Sigma as built-in accessory to all parts he enacted, his sociability having been scattered upon European battlefields. Credibility for conflicted or isolated characters was Audie’s by default, but hold … he had friends and a second marriage that sustained, two sons outcome of that, and we’d like to think family life was relief at least in part from PTSD he had to cope with.

Two Thinking Men Identified So Because They Play Chess

Audie showed up on What’s My Line and did not even bother to disguise his voice. Sigma. Audie didn’t trust a lot of people, and once he went sour on somebody, there was no going back. Colleague Charles Drake in No Name on the Bullet got on well with him; you can tell it by their congenial co-casting here. Hired killer “John Gant” rides into town to off a man he’s never seen but has been well paid to dispose of. Nothing personal, just simple matter of picking an argument and gulling his target to draw first. Gant stays within the law, and the Code, us to decide based on our own code how bad a man he is to choose such depraved means of earning keep. Audie Murphy as John Gant is heaven-sent Sigma casting. We like this star best where revealing least, 77-minute question being who he’s here to kill and why. He will walk alone and prefer it, has intellect (chess player), is foreclosed from love interest by dint of profession. I don’t know another actor who could have played Gant with such conviction as Murphy. Who else carried such baggage with which to work? Audie Murphy wasn’t acting, he was being. Wiser filmgoers early on detected him for the real thing, his popularity greatest in the South, which as we know, is where wisest filmgoers dwelled and still dwell. State of grace No Name on the Bullet achieves is fruit of Audie alone, it understood that other actors were a little nervous around him, not just for lethal former exploits but for his having tapped into screen presence they’d not known and probably never would. Audie opposite bigger names always came off smelling like a rose, if cactus rose. Watch Night Passage James Stewart do his acting thing while Audie just stands, quietly observes, says little if nothing because the scene is already his. Both men had extensive and heroic war experience, but Jim came home more-less whole, if damaged (hearing), Audie a for-keeps paradox who’d forever define Sigma malehood both on and off the screen.

History for Fun #1

 

I Looked Up "Simoon" --- Means "Hot, Dry, Dust-Laden Wind Blowing in the Desert"

From Fact: Suez (1938) and Khartoum (1966)

Herein a new category where I pretend to be broadly educated. Thanks, You Tube for enriching me in ways school never did. Let search for gross errors on my part commence!

SUEZ ---1938’s Suez set me aboard Egyptalogical bobsled to head Khartoum way, my finish line two versions of Four Feathers to come with History for Fun #2. You Tube's an assist for assembling “broken bits of pottery” as Sir Joseph Whemple would suggest. Ever wonder had you been born in England, would they make you a sir, an earl, a viceroy? I’d expect knighthood at least, as wouldn’t we all during colonial epoch? Suez was Fox’s telling of how the canal got built between 1859 and grand opening 1869. The Frenchman who dreamed and dared was Ferdinand DeLessep, already well along when the dig got going (b. 1805) and eventual father of seventeen, so who other than Tyrone Power at age twenty-four to  embody him? Power’s Ferdinand was neither man nor Disney’s bull notion of a Frenchman, OK as I'd be annoyed were he burdened by an accent. He'll finish the epic job, loved by and losing two lead ladies, Loretta Young because she chooses Napoleon III and Annabella for sacrificing herself to a desert sirocco so Power may go down in history. Foregoing not sarcasm as Suez richly satisfies, streams High-Def at Fandango formerly Vudu. The canal continues to floats boats, 120 miles it stretching, forever nerve center for international transport. Pharaohs tried linking the Nile with the Red Sea, came up empty despite thousands of lives spent on the venture. Napoleon centuries later ordered surveys toward his own canal before being chased off sand by Admiral Nelson.

Aftermath of Expected Third Act Crisis to Nearly Wipe Out Canal Work So Far Done

"Color-Glos" Still to Promote Suez in 1938

That was 1798, half-century before the Egyptians got rich off cotton cropping thanks to the Civil War shutting out Southern exports. That seemed ideal time to modernize the country, plus link with France and De Lesseps to realize the ages-old dream. Problem for Khedive Ismail, Pasha of Egypt, was money spent faster than Egypt could earn it, him borrowing first from France, then more unwisely from England, who never knew a nation they couldn’t loan to and eventually dominate. Massive job at ditch digging took 1.5 million conscripts toiling in frightful desert heat, 120,000 said to have died in the doing. This wasn’t (altogether) slave labor, so imagine the costs. Goal was to join the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Even the ancients never thought so big. “Debt trap” for Egypt was three million pounds initially owed that shot up to two hundred million by 1875, the Canal finished, but creditors largely running the show and scooping up gravy. A thing called “dual control” took effect by 1876 (France and England), the hapless Pasha having sold his 44% interest to Benjamin Disraeli acting on London behalf. 1882 would be anchors aweigh for Brits taking over, Egypt their colonial property which would stay that way for seventy-four years. The movie simplifies such process, Power asking Disraeli and latter saying sure, why not, sit down and let's have supper. England as octopus would not be Hollywood-addressed, not so long as Isles represented our film industry’s most lucrative market beyond domestic screens. Truth was the canal as critical to English interests and no way could they leave it alone. If Brits didn’t snake that waterway away from Egypt, some other imperialist power would.

Picturesque Wear-and-Tear Upon Romantic Pair that are Tyrone Power and Wife-To-Be Annabella

Viper in the Desert Garden Nigel Bruce Acting on Behalf of Would-Be Colonizers

How could any Hollywood treatment, let alone in 104 minutes, summarize events at Suez? Cost to  England in lives and treasure toted up through wars, rebellion, massacres, occurring over those 74 years, Egypt trouble spilling into Sudan and eventually Israel, Egyptians restless over inequity of Brits living high on hogs, paying no tax where in residency, crimes they'd commit heard by imported and sympathetic judges rather than Egyptian authority, which had little legal authority what with England pulling strings. Something had to give and did in 1956 when Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and saw to expulsion of UK overseers. America helped by reading riot act to England, France, and Israel after they got up a scheme to oust Nasser and take total control of the Canal, if not Egypt itself. This was where/when the sun truly set on the Empire. Don’t know how Nasser or countrymen reacted to Fox’s Suez movie, but I doubt they revived it often if at all. Hollywood was for fantasy and using barest bones of history to fill two hours for amusement, complexity an enemy that comfort films aimed to supply. Making Suez accurate would muddy water thick as the Nile, and who in 1938 wanted gloves-off telling, what with the UK mired in crisis Germany had created. Brits besides still controlled the canal when Suez was released, so why rock boats with a people soon enough to be an ally against far more cosmic threats?

Always Thought It Was Odd for Roadshowers to Refer to Unspool of Film as a "Performance"

KHARTOUM (1966) --- Khartoum showed on a Saturday only at the Liberty combined with a black-and-white chiller, The Vulture, which actually had been shot in color and  did anything but chill. Wonderment at the time was an epic like Khartoum landing, no thudding, in diminished circumstance as this. We were riper to see The Vulture, enduring Khartoum a show of pity perhaps for Roadshows having sunk so far. Little of Khartoum made sense to me at age thirteen, being ignorant of history it depicted and disinclined to learn. I’ve since if belatedly grown into it, helped by a superb Blu-Ray from Twilight Time, Khartoum like much from them out-of-print with second-hand pricing to reflect rarity. Khartoum told of Sudanese uprising the British put down at great expense of time and lives, trouble spreading in Sudan direction from Egypt proper. A self-proclaimed prophet called the “Madhi” had masses of native strength at his command, England dispatching General Charles George Gordon and too little else to protect UK interests in the region (Gordon at above right). Upshot was Gordon being killed by uprisers (per below left being speared), Brits taking a black eye they’d be determined to avenge. The United Artists film ends with Gordon’s death. Other and previous films took up aftermath which was campaign to take back Khartoum in 1898 and get even for the 1885 massacre. That episode was famously treated by Four Feathers and its varied remakes, General Gordon’s death referenced early in these with characters motivated by need to reassert British authority in Sudan’s desert. For 60’s Khartoum, Charlton Heston played Gordon with Laurence Olivier as the Madhi. Khartoum was a classy venture that hoped to duplicate Lawrence of Arabia’s success. It did not but there were adherents and still are. As to why for wickets letdown, I’d propose Khartoum lack of exotic and charismatic leads that were Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif getting stardom start. Heston and Olivier were terrific, that is were for having been around long enough for us maybe to take them for granted, especially Heston in this sort of role, plus 70mm served to reserved seats having lost much of lure by 1966.

Nigel Green Welcome Always in British Uniform, as Was Also Richard Johnson

To reckon of experts at 70mm.com, Khartoum did not have a roadshow engagement in North Carolina, prints for my state 35mm as opposed to giant gauge. Khartoum had a negative cost of $6.2 million, earned $2.060 million in domestic rentals, with $5.7 foreign. More unfortunate was fact it had only 7,926 stateside bookings, a woefully low number compared with demand for Thunderball (13,325 bookings), Help! (18,423), numerous others. I’m happy to have contributed at least a pittance to Khartoum receipts, my quarter to get in at “Under 12” rate persisting to early 1968 when a local boy whose name lives still in infamy busted me at the Liberty’s boxoffice by making it known I was almost fourteen. From that day on (the picture was Bonnie and Clyde), I’d be obliged to tender sixty cents for Liberty admission. Khartoum action was profuse, safe to say they won’t make them like this again (cue further praise for “practical effects”). Khartoum reveals Empire scheming that kept Gordon behind an eight-ball throughout the mission his superiors, plus his own considerable ego, obliged him to accept. Khartoum came well after England lost strength that was worldwide power and influence, era of Empire lost to memory for many, representing faded nostalgia for increasingly few. Anti-colonial attitude floated in Khartoum would fuller blossom with Charge of the Light Brigade a couple years later, another that landed at the Liberty on a Saturday double feature. Were we presumed to have so little interest in British lore? Colonel Forehand surely figured us to care less. Why did he even play these things except maybe to accommodate a booker who needed to make the month's quota?