Footnotes To Recent Posts ...

Not Quite Done With These Topics

LEON ERROL: This follows up on Leon Errol shorts I mentioned for the Technicolor post a few weeks ago, where he was more noticeable than the color. What any of us find funny is obviously going to differ, as in one man’s meat, so on, and yes, certain comics are poison for some if not many who view. Rather than cite those who repel, here are ones, usually playing in support, that I treasure: Bert Lahr, Ted Healy, Cliff Edwards, Jack Oakie (especially Jack Oakie), plus one more lately realized for a favorite … Leon Errol. That was years coming, partly cause we never had his RKO shorts on television (nearly a hundred!), and 16mm seldom coughed them up. Ever run across a lifelong familiar face that suddenly becomes a heart’s delight? That’s me and Leon. Like with Preston Sturges, I think I’ve grown into him. One night saw three of his shorts along with Mexican Spitfire Out West. Earlier in the week came What A Blonde (from Warner Archive). I laughed at these till I cried, with nary audience to encourage it. Loving Leon may be a personal bent, which would apply to any comedian we’d choose for companion, so let's ignore fightin’ words Esquire published in a 1947 profile: “As comics go, Leon Errol was never really one of the greats. If you were ranking the funnymen of his time, you would put him toward the middle, perhaps a shade this side of mediocrity … he is a man making his living trying to be funny, the way some men make their living behind a counter in a bank or counting oranges in a grocery store.” Now how is that for snideness? I only regret Leon having to read this for himself at the time (he died in 1951).

Leon Errol and Bill Fields --- Friends Since Shared Days Of Vaudeville

Found an interview from The American Magazine dated January 1922. This was height of Leon Errol’s Broadway career, him co-starring with Marilyn Miller in Sally. He was forty at the time, and recalled childhood perhaps clearer than might be the case in two-reel era decades later. Little Leon and his friends enjoyed swimming on native Australian shores. One of the boys jumped off a rock and into the mouth of a shark, which ate him. Errol told the story to 1922 reportage almost in his stride, said he and pals would continue their swims, only further down the beach. Another time Leon was in the water and was pulled down by what turned out to be an octopus. A passer-by beat it off and saved him. The offhand way Errol told these anecdotes satisfies me that they were true. Like many an entertainer from that past century, he had a Mark Twain boyhood, even if it happened halfway around the world, and with sharks/octopi. As the star he’d become in vaudeville and legit, Errol knew every device for clocking reaction and would each night spot an audience member and use that person as barometer for how the whole crowd would jump. By the time he did comedies for RKO, Leon Errol was beyond seasoned. You see consummate skill in all of his two-reelers, response honed to maximum laugh effect. The plots are plywood, hauled up, knocked down for a next, all an essential same, as in Leon the erring husband snuck off to a stag convention, or hiding blondes under his bed. He was never really innocent; we could wonder what his characters are up to offscreen, considering jams they’re already heir to when the shorts begin. Titles are fun in themselves: Too Many Wives, Sweet Cheat, He Forgot To Remember, It Shouldn’t Happen To A Dog, a peck of these and most unseen for years. VCI has a DVD of some. Alpha, of course, offers multiple volumes, should you venture into that cave. Suffice to say, I am a total Leon Errol convert.

The recent James Bond discussion led me to a local friend who did not see Goldfinger when it came to the Liberty in March, 1965. In fact, he never saw 007 on a theatre screen until Diamonds Are Forever in 1971-72, reason being that Tony lived in my immediate neighboring small town (Wilkesboro as opposed to North Wilkesboro), borders of which abut, are identical in many ways, except that Wilkesboro had no theatre and North Wilkesboro had the Liberty (our Allen Theatre having burned in 1962). I could foot it to the Liberty where necessary, home being a mile from its door, but Tony lived further, in fact, too far, to get there other than a parent or friend’s parent hauling him (no driving age sibling, which I did have, thus further advantage of getting to the Starlight Drive-In where essential). Had our positions been reversed, it is doubtful you’d be reading Greenbriar now, as I would probably be moonshining, growing hemp, whatever else folks from my section are popularly assumed to do. I inquired of Tony how Wilkesboro peers bore non-access to James Bond at a peak of pop-cultural domination, his answer that they seemed barely aware of 007 one way or the other, parents not likely to let them go even if someone volunteered to drive them. James Bond was off-bounds to nine-eleven year olds. Tony surprised me, however, by mention of one secret agent that did capture a following of Wilkesboro boys, him accessible each week, and for free besides. Where Bond could not be had, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would more than do.

For Wilkesboro, U.N.C.L.E. was talk of the school, not Bond. Maybe isolation from the Liberty explains it. There were a couple of 007 specials broadcast on NBC during the 60’s, lots on LIFE covers and media otherwise (the Goldfinger theme via radio Hit Parades), but for outliers like Wilkesboro, Bond stayed an unknown quantity. U.N.C.L.E., and later Batman, were heroes to a rescue of those too young or immobilized by distance from theatres. I’ve no doubt the problem existed elsewhere than small towns in North Carolina. If U.N.C.L.E. was all you had, where was basis to compare?, which was why Napoleon Solo and Illya laid siege to at least Wilkesboro’s Elementary class, while more fortunate of us waited for Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and reissue double features with 007. We knew U.N.C.L.E. was no match for Bond, but watched anyway, because it was convenient, and free. Some of us went for the Aurora models, one of Napoleon, a next of Illya, each for a dollar. I’ve tried watching U.N.C.L.E.’s from half-century hindsight, and boy, do they drag, usually ten or so minutes for curiosity to be satisfied, then the off switch. What I don’t overlook are people, many people, to whom television meant far more than features ever would. They connected readily, and forever, with personalities and programs discovered early, and beloved since. For these, a Man From U.N.C.L.E. stands tall over whatever the Bond series achieved, loyalties formed at home being for them the strongest.

To further Hammer ramblings, spun off recent X--- The Unknown and Quatermass musings, I’ll add meditation on why theirs was the most successful ongoing series of British films distributed in the United States. Who had cracked that code before? British films in the 50's struggled outside art houses, and even in these, you needed Alec Guinness being drolly humorous to pull in patrons who’d forgive accents otherwise. And yes, those accents were a deal-breaker for most US patrons, and further yes, I've found them occasionally tough to penetrate, despite Anglo-sympathy since youth. Last week’s view of Storm In A Teacup (1937) was seeming proof such things were made purely for a home market. Provided they speak slow, you might get by, but sped up, it’s a race I lose, especially where barmen or chimney sweeps horn in. An interview with Vivien Leigh from 1960 made clear what she and others of British origin recognized as a problem: “I think, on the whole, one has to speak much more slowly for an American audience. Of course, it’s because of our English accent. That again --- that you have to speak more slowly and make it much clearer for them than you do for an English audience --- that is a very good thing, a very good challenge.” Leigh qualifies her position somewhat as she didn’t want to seem a snob, or patronizing toward us, but fact was fact, we did require proper English spoon-fed. I’d add that Hammer was perhaps a first UK concern that consistently, and successfully, did just that.

Proof of pudding is any Hammer screened, at least those square-aimed at US markets. X---The Unknown is as good an exhibit as any. American lead Dean Jagger carries bulk of narrative, but support cast is native, all understandable for applying lessons learned by staff eager to be understood by Yank patronage. I’ve read how Hammer was sensitive to communication gaps from their start at scaling export walls, the firm intent on not repeating mistakes of others. I think a lot of us benefited from exposure to Brit idiom from early age. Thank Hammer horrors for adjusting several generations to a culture other than our own, making their approach to language a familiar, and eventually, welcome, one. British players had been popular before, all the way to talkie beginnings, but here was entire output of a UK shop that we never questioned as to speech and manner. I clearly recall Hammers as intelligent in all aspects because, let’s face it, theirs seemed a more civilized culture. I surely envied the crisp diction that Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee displayed. Market barriers Hammer overcame have not to this day been properly recognized. Theirs should rank high among achievement of British filmmakers.