Death Valley Days with Comic and Dinosaur Relief

 

Trail Mix of Good, Less Good, and Great

Quest for relaxation again yields fun and frustration endemic to stuff hardly meant to be looked at once newness wore off. As often the case, I find myself locked into a thing like Riders of Death Valley and wondering who else in the wide world might watch, fifteen chapters to make Gibson Gowlands of us all, not for nothing the place called what it was, though unlike Universal for the serial, I understand Stroheim actually went to hottest DV stove lid to shoot his Greed, but still I’ll stand by the Gowland gag and assume he had it no worse than ones of us sitting through Riders of Death Valley. So why self-punish? Mostly it was status of this as a first-ever Million Dollar Serial (surely none before or to follow), a brag I’d dispute, for how do you get a million back from youth paying but dimes to get in, but hold on, they presumably did it fifteen times. Chapterplays were a good bet once watchers were loyal to them. Did any serial play a same town twice? Showmen who said no to what opposition had previous used would surely say no, no to a lollipop kids had already licked. Point is, I have never watched a serial twice. Has anyone?

Riders of Death Valley had Charles Bickford as principal heavy, to undoubted chorus saying Charles Bickford is too good to be in serials. Why then? He would be mean to Tarzan and kidnap Boy a year after Riders, then perform priestly good in The Song of Bernadette, and they don’t come more prestigious than that. Charlie took memoir pride in having cussed out Louis Mayer, then being blackballed across the industry (the FU to LB blurted w/o benefit of witnesses), Riders of Death Valley a next worst thing to that, for Bickford as “Wolf Reade” can’t kill off a good guy for hardest trying, him a Coyote in a desert filled with Road Runners. Big galoot assist is Lon Chaney, Jr., who in Wolf’s estimate never does anything right. For all of mines they blast, avalanches they cause, stampedes they rouse, Bickford’s bunch cannot rid themselves of a single Dick Foran (for ease of reference, let’s refer to the entire hero ensemble as “Dick Foran”). No wait --- not fair --- one of them is Buck Jones, the immortal Buck Jones, who is unaccountably billed third, behind Foran, behind even Leo Carrillo, an outrage. I wanted Buck to ramrod this show, let Dick be his singing assist. Life was no more fair in 1941 than now. Riders of Death Valley is had on DVD from VCI. They also announced a Blu-Ray for release soon.

Look at that Lloyd face. Doesn't he have a pleasant face? Harold made real effort to wrassle talkies, came away sadly licked. I got out The Cat’s Paw, was impressed, thought changes he made intelligent ones. Lloyd knew the old gag format was done, at least for then that was 1934. He produced The Cat’s Paw himself, as in his $, then Paramount as distributor rejected it. Imagine them doing that five years before. Unthinkable. Fox took over, got $1.2 million in worldwide rentals. Lloyd was still judged viable, if only he could unlock changed times door. Seems to me he had a right idea with The Cat’s Paw, as here was a new Harold, as posters said, a distinct character committed to one-two-three (as in acts) narrative. The Cat’s Paw has Capra feel, populist in a kook way, provided you’re OK with corrupt elements beheaded at a finish, which of course, won’t really happen, even as Harold makes miscreants think it will. A fun and novel resolve, even dragged past humor or shock value, that being the Cat’s rub, 102 minutes where timeout should be twenty or so before.

Still, there is Lloyd more fish out of water than was case before. Notice how talkies tended to see him isolated from a mainstream? Silent Harold was generally square in a middle of middle-class chaos (when he wasn't idly rich), or at least trying toward mainstream placement. The Cat’s Paw is HL the ultimate oddball, speaking our language but not conversant in it. As a son of China missionaries, and raised there, he shows up stateside minus cope skill for US idiom, let alone slang, and there is basis for spritely highs, albeit verbal, but verbal was where Lloyd saw a future, if he had one. Again, no one tried harder than this man to get a talkie grip. The Cat's Paw was a salve, but to fail must have hurt, and yes, Harold ultimately failed, at least to stay relevant. But where’s shame in that? How many of us get to stay “relevant”? And if Lloyd failed, why do I keep watching and enjoying his work, including this one? The Cat’s Paw is among features in the multi-box Harold Lloyd DVD Collection. It is fascinating, mostly funny, and a worthy lead-up to even better The Milky Way.

When does run-up to the monster engage more than arrival of the monster? For me, when it’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, where every effort goes to making us believe there really is a monster, over and above seeing him in a first reel. Beast calls up moments we’ve all had trying to convince others of truth we know for truth, but they won’t hear, humanity’s shared Paul Christian/Jack Pennick moments. We know a stack of dinosaur drawings has the ringer, and await the high of Paul/Jack spotting it, not unlike a witness reviewing mug shots. 50’s sci-fi really went the added mile of making far-outness make sense, as if paleontologists, or at least high school science teachers, were peering always over their shoulders. I'm optimistic enough to trust conclusions reached by Cecil Kellaway in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and Edmund Gwenn in Them!. Not having dinosaurs has been a loss to man. What little boy does not worship them? My mother took my brother to see The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms at our Allen Theatre in June 1953. She told me in 1964 (following a Channel 9-Charlotte broadcast) that there was a scene where the Beast took a drink of water and emptied a lake. I figured 9 had cut their print, a part of me to this day awaiting rediscovery of the scene, ever knowing that won't happen, because it simply was not there, sort of my 53/64 spider pit equivalent.

Review of Beast’s first-run campaign makes us know what we missed for not being there in 1953. I say that about everything, it seems, but this one is acute. Imagine the novelty --- there had not been a well-built dinosaur on screens since King Kong and its sequel. Hollywood evidently did not know or care how youngsters longed for them. The stunning success of Kong in summer 1952 gave a hint. Some speculate this led to making of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, but a few frames grabbed off Beast show theatre marquees circa late 1951, early ’52 at a latest, and it doesn’t look like stock footage. Captures like these have value in themselves, like Across The Wide Missouri in NY first-run, or more vividly, the RKO Palace front where Judy Garland appeared live from October 1951 into February 1952. Note too Detective Story at the Mayfair. Motion Picture Daily had a 3/12/52 piece on producers Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester wherein they announced Monster From Beneath The Sea as an “immediate production” for their Mutual shingle. This, of course, was before the reissued King Kong went out. Judging by NY footage, it would appear Monster/Beast was already in at least preliminary works. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is available on Blu-Ray from Warners.