Trade Talk #2

 

What Trades Told: Tempting Hoppy ... and Bing, Where Superman Flew Again, and Kroger Babb's Non-Pursuit of Quality

HOPPY AND HIPPY? --- William Boyd had been around the business long enough to know everybody worth knowing, many social contacts among filmic royalty. Hopalong Cassidy was Boyd’s preferred monicker. He'd stay the character, if henceforth for television, fed by oldies Boyd now owned, plus a fresh-filmed series to augment vaulties. Late forties fad for all things Hoppy stunned a staid industry. Who dreamed a B cowboy could achieve such latter-day glory? C.B. DeMille was a Boyd intimate. Latter’s last appearance in a feature was a cameo for The Greatest Show on Earth. DeMille wanted Bill to play Moses for The Ten Commandments, which come to think of it was a swell idea. Another major project appears to have come close to fruition, “Thataway” proposed teaming of Hopalong and Bing Crosby, to be directed by Leo McCarey. The mind indeed boggles. How close were they to reality? I recall another proposed project at Paramount, a late thirties teaming of John Barrymore with W.C. Fields. Publicity stills were taken for that too. I have a few for which back caption promises the pair in “Everything Happens at Once,” which unfortunately, never did happen. The Hoppy-Bing announcement came in 1950, a point where Crosby needed a hit, his last several having been soft. Would Hoppy have been the stronger draw in event of their co-starring? Would Bing’s singing be drowned out by Hoppy’s hoofbeats? Such notion maybe gave Bob Hope casting ideas for Son of Paleface, where he used Roy Rogers to overall benefit. Roads not taken … and we wonder who backed out. McCarey prospects might have been uncertain, his last with huge result The Bells of St. Mary’s of five seasons before. As to Cassidy-Crosby together, we’ll make do with this still and whatever other print and image might have been generated for “Thataway.”

ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN (1950) --- I’m through Chapter One and still waiting for Atom Man, though it is unlikely he will amount to much. How could owners have entrusted such IP as Superman to Sam Katzman? Easy … especially if you consider utter absurdity of anyone referring in the forties to Superman as an “intellectual property,” yet look at him after eighty-five years in flight, beaten perhaps by other heroes, yet unbowed. Atom Man vs. Superman is a scrapbook, more scrappy book, of stock footage, chases where 40’s autos careen suddenly among 30’s autos, this for consorting with trims from whatever Columbia programmer was pillaged. All of characters check in, and that counts for plenty. To consult early serial birth of figures later iconic is to observe buds from which oak grew, us to recognize all greatness must begin somewhere. Superman “flies” with help of cartooning, and someone please inform if children laughed where first seeing this, or did they storm management and demand refunds? I bet Disney could have made these effects look real, at least realer. Imagine if he were licensed Superman, but when was Walt willing to borrow a thing rather than create and thus own it? (a bitter lesson was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit). I find flying in Superman serials a quaint and thus warm thing, also the cheapness, plus “Butch” of Our Gang as Jimmy Olsen, and Noel Neill at cutest. Kirk Alyn is an adequate alter-egoer, would seem better were there not George Reeves to compare with later. Alyn was another of collector convention guests who would morph eventually into a dealer like scratch-after rest of us, and I used to wonder how much he needed modest cash off these shows. Sad too was Kirk talking up chapterplays no one could then see. Now both Columbia serials are on DVD, nobody’s idea of restorations, but being rarities, one takes what one can get.

PROUD TO PEDDLE JUNK --- A reason I like showmanship and exhibition is revisit it affords to films thought favorite or worth visiting again. To proudly push bad merchandise seems an affront to those watching, let alone those who’d pay to watch. Did Kroger Babb’s conscience ever bother him? He seemed to neither know nor care as to good or bad, the good merely what drew money, the bad that which did not. I haven’t seen any of features he cobbled together, and based on what I’ve read as to how he did it, am not inclined to. There certainly were firms that measured purely to formula, the series westerns, short comedies made and sold in bulk. American-International drew posters first, then molded movies out of them. Lots enjoy these because for all of cheapness and rush, talent could and did peek through, plus whatever the defects, most seem at least sincere, as were people who made them like Roger Corman, who despite Babb-ish aspects did not scavenge so brazen as Kroger, nor express as freely contempt for those who’d buy his goods. Ads here for “Hallmark Productions, Inc.” reveal much. Hucksters Hiring Hucksters, none with pretext of pride in product. Hallmark wanted hustlers and never mind niceties past that. “You earn what you get, you get what you earn” sounds to me like code for eighteen-hours as daily expected. “Get Wise, Get Up Early” it says, sleep be hanged if you want in for real money. Babb recruited for men of his own stripe, Over 21 and Under 50 a base requirement, Honest and Clean and Nice Looking a help. Wilmington, Ohio was corporate address. I checked Google and found no record of Hallmark in Wilmington, except the greeter cards. What, no historical marker? Kroger was born in Lee’s Creek, Ohio, which today has a population of forty-two. What, no statue?

Hallmark distributed such things as Mom and Dad (childbirth footage), She Shoulda’ Said No, and Wrestling Jamboree. Hottest merchandise came with a lecture to assure patrons of pure intent behind what otherwise was purest prurient. Hallmark statement of intent sounds like a Boy Scout pledge: “There is no substitute for Honesty … no rule so sound as The Golden Rule … no battle so worthwhile as a Fight for The Right.” Question arises as to whether Kroger Babb lived by such precept. I’ve no reason to think he didn’t. Just handling dishonest films does not make dishonest men, or does it? Kroger and his Hallmark partner were Ohioans. Did not realize until seeing these trade ads that people of that state are called “Buckeyes.” We of North Carolina are sometimes referred to as “Tar Heels.” End of geography lesson. Among Hallmark output, Wrestling Jamboree sounds nifty… for about ten minutes. That sort of sums me up for near-all of exploitation features, one reel in, then time to bail. Babb’s Mom and Dad is said to have earned untold millions, all evidently based on a segment no mainstream release would dare touch. I’ll guess Babb outran more county sheriffs than Larson E. Whipsnade, there being something imminently arrestable about him. I hope he died rich, which surely he did, unless income taxers fell on him. Might have been fun to be one of Babb’s “Elliot Forbes” presenters, traveling with Mom and Dad to lecture patrons and assure all they were seeing it for their own good, though I’d have preferred backstage doors to the alley for a fleet exit where needed.

UPDATE (11/11/2024 --- 7:47PM) --- Scott MacGillivray checks in with further data on Kroger Babb.

Hi, John — I thought you might be interested in these Kroger Babb trade clippings. First, we have Kroger Babb and his partner Jack Jossey heralding their triple-threat company H. P. Inc. (comprising Hallmark Productions, Hygienic Productions, and Hollywood Productions), with four offices in America and in another six in other countries: “We’re still just those same two country showmen with fresh shoeshines." This trade ad dates from 1948 and highlights THE LAWTON STORY, an Easter pageant filmed in Lawton, Oklahoma with local talent. The exhibitor comment I’ve seen is mostly from small-town and rural theaters, which reported favorably on the homespun content and the unusually high grosses.

Babb reissued THE LAWTON STORY as (THE LAWTON STORY OF) THE PRINCE OF PEACE, and mopped up.

Next we have a clipping from Boxoffice magazine (1961) in which Kroger Babb himself describes his methods:

Here is one more peek into the world of Kroger Babb. It develops that WRESTLING JAMBOREE was really his expansion of a five-reel streamliner of 1953 called THE FALL GUYS. I was surprised to see Clyde Elliott credited as producer — this is the guy who directed BRING ’EM BACK ALIVE two decades before.

Nice to see Kroger Babb still in the game in the sixties!

Best wishes — Scott