The Art of Selling Movies #3

Art of ... Selling Around a Sock, Wish Upon Voices, and Spanish Spoken Here, Says Seattle

LOMBARD AND MARCH, KNOCK YOURSELVES OUT --- Nothing Sacred was a Selznick Technicolor comedy in 1937 that ran 77 minutes, aspects unique in themselves, the more so as this feature later entered the public domain and for years evaded worthwhile prints. Best elements are presently housed at Disney, owners of most Selznick output and seemingly indifferent to it all. Kino has a Blu-Ray, “as good as it’s ever going to look” according to more than one responsible reviewer. Considering dog-earness of previous editions, I'll concur to that. Nothing Sacred was credited to Ben Hecht as writer with contributions by half the wits of Hollywood, Selznick with that sort of reach once gone independent. Carole Lombard and Fredric March were independents too and came at a high price. The film cost lots and lost money. Parts are funny, but funnier where you’re wired to non-ending wisecracks the lot of Hecht and help. These people lived under pressure to top each other at dinners and cocktail gathers. Hecht humor varies, an emperor with fewer clothes than others paid less than he famously was. Nothing Sacred was remade with Martin and Lewis at Paramount and that’s probably where negatives crossed up. There had been before a Cinecolor reissue for Sacred that yielded 16mm prints to make collectors wonder if old-style Technicolor was good as it was cracked up to be. Much of talk (and advertising) revolved around fist-fighting between Lombard and March, each punched unconscious by the other to presumed comic effect, which maybe worked better for posters and ads than in the movie. Sure it gave pressbooks and theatre art shops plenty to chew on, the fight by far centerpiece of all promoting, at least in 1937. Nothing Sacred looks good enough to enjoy, Lombard in color and such a sum-up of Selznick’s ideal for boxoffice. He might have done better than with United Artists to distribute. They commanded highest flat rentals at least from the Liberty during those years, and DOS famously fell out with them on more than one occasion. Ultimate split led to his distributing work for himself.

OH TO HEAR THEM JUST ONCE --- Lately contemplated silent era sufferers and realize how most seem worse off for not leaving voice evidence of how hard ordeals were. Wallace Reid, Mabel Normand, Valentino, Mary Miles Minter … not one can we hear save a song Rudy recorded that disappoints for him not speaking as in talking to us like his characters did minus sound. Valentino was after all not a vocalist by trade. Sadness surrounding the lot would be more so (or less?) if we could hear one or all utter for themselves. Reid got hooked on morphine and no doubt could have explained much of his pain had devices been handy to memorialize his struggle, but would Edison, or De Forest, or anybody, want to get Wally’s truth down for fans or posterity to hear? Reid theatre ads are gateway to themes/genres beyond just him. How regrettable so much of this star is lost, though we could say that about whole of his peer lot. Who’s for seeing The Ghost Breaker and/or 30 Days? Neither appear to survive. Exposé features followed Wallace Reid’s death, many like The Drug Traffic sold like horror films. Twenties public was taught to shun, fear, and dread narcotic use. Reid’s wife made cottage --- no mansion --- industry of scare shows suggested by what happened to her husband. Devils with long horns came on heels of illicit drugs. You’d not sink lower than using them. Reid might be recalled for other than his addiction were more of his films extant. Most were comedies or action oriented. He was peppy like Fairbanks and a model for Reginald Denny, more to come, and might have lasted long had fate been kinder. Would legacy sustain the more were there recordings and a voice to associate with the silent face? Fairbanks and Denny got to talk, and plenty, over lifetimes longer than Wally’s. What seems so ghostly about gone players from pre-sound is so many who’d remain mute for all time.

Where squawk over lost voices, why stop with stars? There is after all no hearing Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson. They were stars too, bigger ones in fact than most who’d emerge later on film, and we could ask why none spoke for pioneer recorders. Emerson having died in 1882 would have been early to such part, but Edison by 1877 was successfully catching sound, and Emerson with his more than robust reputation as a lecturer would have been a natural to record. Oscar Wilde too seems ideal for capture, having lived till 1900, and there's alleged track of him reading from his final work, authenticity challenged, debunked by experts who cite its revolutions per minute (78) a development to come beyond Wilde’s departure. Wishful thought causes many to claim legitimacy, this to illustrate how much we’d all like to hear the writer and supreme wit of his era. Stateside equivalent to challenge Wilde would be Mark Twain and he’s said to have experimented at home with cylinders to memorialize his voice, but not satisfied with results, he either destroyed same or let them get lost (but what if somebody found them behind a secret panel at the Clemens home which does still stand?). Closest we’ve got to hearing Mark Twain is an impression, said to be dead on, by famed stage actor William Gillette who grew up a neighbor to Clemens, knew the author well, and was in fact mentored by him. Of acting legends emerged from the nineteenth century, there was at least one, Edwin Booth, who graced cylinders with excerpts from Othello and Hamlet.

For all I know, the lot of now-silent personages were heard on radio, for what do we know of hours in abundance conveyed by wireless to listeners as gone themselves as voices they heard, then forgot? There is reason to believe that Normand, Minter, Rudy, infinite more, stood before primitive microphones to address home listeners. Sadness lies in virtually no recordings extant, as who preserved radio transmission during the twenties and to what purpose? What if Mabel or MMM, or both, ruminated as to how William Desmond Taylor got offed? Occurs to me that were it not for Warner Bros. inviting Roscoe Arbuckle to come in and make six talkie shorts in 1932-33, we might never have heard the comedian’s voice, would forever wonder what he sounded like. I assume Mary Miles Minter talked for radio, if not during the twenties, then certainly during the thirties when she was known to show up places and make with her opinions. How many know Theda Bara did radio? Not me for the longest time. Imagine if we had lost Chaplin right after Modern Times, or Fields before talkies could capture his voice and essence of being funny. Larry Semon was one who did not make it, missed the switch but barely, so spoken word remains a mystery. William S. Hart did single reels in guest capacity and introduced Tumbleweeds for reissue purpose, spoke for radio, but where and to what listeners? D.W. Griffith made odd appearance introducing the silent 1923 feature Dream Street, was back years later to share thoughts on The Birth of a Nation for its sound-era revival. I’ve tried finding radio work by former band teacher Priscilla Lyon but have so far come up only with Mayor of the Town (her with Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead), but so far no Junior Miss segments where she performed with Shirley Temple. Are all gone with the ether?

NEVER NEEDED SUBTITLES TO BE FUNNY --- Is the Fox Theatre in Seattle fitting foreign to the week’s comedy? Featured is Laurel and Hardy in Night Owls, “twice as long, 10 times as funny.” Ladrones was how Night Owls went out to Spanish-speaking viewership, length at 38 minutes, U.S. release that was Night Owls a customary twenty minutes. The comedians did phonetic reading of lines unfamiliar to both. Humor of Night Owls was visual, as with most L&H. It’s easy to enjoy foreign versions of their shorts minus subtitles. So too might watchers that ’30 week in Seattle. For them, a Laurel-Hardy twice as long was that much wider spread of joy, as was for me watching Ladrones, which happily survives, is available on DVD and to my reckon one of the funniest of all Laurel-Hardys. Extended go at housebreaking sees every imaginable thing go wrong for the pair. Seekers after comedy done ingeniously right will laud loudly, few to shun spoken language not their own. Seattle counted on audience arms to embrace humor rich even if it didn’t talk like most watching. Evidence of this ad is all I have to suggest it was Ladrones and not Night Owls unspooling for this engagement but will stand by “twice as long” and what that appears to confirm. Further research in trades might reveal other US theatres that used foreign-spoke comedies put before domestic lookers, being longer lending them lure next to standard versions. They play unique and almost exotic to fan following now. Small miracle Ladrones was located in storage thirty years back among cache of Roach comedies. Till then we’d seen stills from foreign versions but never the real thing in motion. Who knew for sure they ever existed? My Spanish teacher in high school, a refugee from Cuba, told me Laurel-Hardy ran in cinemas almost to the day he fled in 1959. Bet there are vaults down there yet to yield treasure. Hal Roach said his team did bigger business out of the country than in. Look how L&H were received when they visited and later performed in the Brit Isles. AI stats courtesy Google: Seattle’s Hispanic population in 1930 amounted to 15.9%, about 365,583. That population was surely drawn in, as would be curiosity seekers and those wanting double-dose of L&H. Few if any gag relies on language here. Is it safe to say sight comics were most liked worldwide of all film performers, silent or sound?