Ads and Oddities #10
Ad/Odds: Rudy Remembered, 3-D Early Arrives, and Cleveland Gets Showboat
VALENTINO FOR ALWAYS? --- They promised we’d treasure Rudolph Valentino forever, part-true for at least me and lots reading, but 1926 was then, as in near a century, and I’m wondering what successors were bred off mobs stood hours to get in Campbell’s NY parlor for glimpse of Rudy at rest. This was what gripped me tightest of Irving Schulman’s Valentino bio in 1967. And to think many of those waiting were still with us at the time, while of Rudy wives, Natascha Rambova had but lately passed (1966), and Jean Acker would stay eleven more years, till 1978. Re mass of humanity lining approach to Campbell’s, this being August, and likely hot. So many had to be passed through, and fast. Did even epic mourner Pola Negri get a bum’s rush? If Valentino had such massive following as suggested here, why did The Eagle underperform? He was on the right track for putting humor in his latter films. Tearful line was understood to be mostly women. I’ll assume men present were to escort wives, sisters, mothers even (but try keeping Kenneth Anger away, him born but months after the event). I’ve never waited so long for anything as did these folks. New Yorkers had patience though, for look at lines routinely stood outside Radio City Music Hall, lots knowing admission would be for the show before the one they were lured for. Will movies or stars appearing in them ever command such fealty again? Speaking of distractions along cortege way, observe up-the-street Capitol Theatre, its attraction Buster Keaton in Battling Butler. Were I a standee on that sweltering street, this would tempt me. Why not duck in for a show, especially a Buster show. Not like that choking crowd is going anywhere for a next few hours, and it’s presumably cooler inside. But was it? Did the Capitol have air conditioning in 1926? Fans blowing over ice perhaps to supply “refrigerated air”? Shade alone would make things cooler inside, but keep in mind vacuum sealing crowd you’d be among and rethink it. Looks like I’m well along a time-drift back.
Rudy montages here are again fruit of collector scrapbooks dated back to the idol’s life, then death. I like ripped and raw quality of fan-kept treasure. You took what images were found, be it magazines, newspapers, flyers from theatres. Nothing you’d buy or find was sacred, nor to be kept intact. A Photoplay cover of Valentino was fair game for scissors, job to remove print referring to other subjects so as not to deface your creation with players sub to Rudy. Post-death captioning was rife with we-knew-all-alongs. Plenty claimed clairvoyance after fact of his passing was known. Yes, it was “abetted by overwork,” stills of the Sheik reflecting “terrific strain,” but was there any industry toiler not overworked? The Sheik was where “the silver sheet became the burning sands of Rudy’s greatest triumph,” a straight line and to be admired for being that. Soon enough the late and Latin lover would be camped up by clips of “old-time movie” sort for shorts, needled by irony that was Paramount’s re-selling of The Sheik in 1938, then independents doing as much for The Eagle and Son of the Sheik, the three noteworthy for being among few occasions for silent features to be relevant, if left-handedly so. For that matter, we’d enjoy better his final two if only prints were up to snuff like pristine silent survivors Wings, The Big Parade, limited others. Look how close the scrapbook keeper clips round text. Specimen I show were not yet pasted in albums, being removed from original context, trimmed accordingly, and made ready for book placement, which for whatever reason, did not happen. It was for me to gather up slivers to lay upon scan glass and do my own conception of updated tribute. The caricature of Valentino stood out for being an only such I came across. Was he too much revered to be object of even mild kidding during a brief lifetime? “Cinema-goers … always will revere his romantic memory” says caption, and so I ask, how long did reverence last? The lady in black who stood anniversary vigil at his grave kept coming for decades after 1926, and lest I’m in error, there are still ceremonies in recognition of August 23.
AUDIOSCOPIKS, WHATEVER THEY ARE --- Is half-arse 3-D better than none? Probably no, and I’ve corneal scars to prove it, squint through seventies-eighties effort to convey depth, but too seldom getting it right, or even tolerable. A collector in New York found elements of a Metro “Audioscopik” short and had prints made on red/green stock, plus glasses, for others of us to acquire and enjoy. I ran mine to no little disappointment of most, concluding remark like a chorus, No wonder 3-D died! Who needed stereo views in 1935 outside Grandma’s parlor? There were evidently three Audioscopiks made, the third being one I had, Murder in 3-D (1941), being novel for having a Frankenstein monster designed after model that was Karloff at Universal. Did Leo ask permission? I’m guessing not, cause why would Uni allow a rival to exploit their patented creation? The short itself was entertaining and some of depth effects worked, so all was not lost. It was more/less like flipping through a 60’s comic book or magazine sold with same red/green specs. Remarkable how fast boredom came of those, same now as when I was ten and giving from twelve to thirty-five cents for them. One could ask why Warners hasn’t issued the Audioscopiks on disc, or have they? Were there more than mere three it might work as a set, but how to justify a Blu-ray release, with glasses, for less than thirty minutes of content? Besides, Universal might suddenly awaken to long-ago poach, block release, and launch a million(s) dollar infringement claim. I like how this trade ad anticipates “the next step in box-office history,” if two decades early doing so, no denying Bwana Devil made its own history in 1952 with others to follow. How many more 3-D epochs might we expect? I still burn for TV manufacturers quitting sale of depth sets. What for --- perceived lack of interest? Just wait till 3-D makes yet another comeback …
WHERE THE PLAY’S THE THING --- Ponder please the meaning of truly hard work or define it shorthand by pondering this 1933 Cleveland ad for Showboat road landing on tab terms for what Broadway would still call hinterland play, though no way you’d discount Helen Morgan (above with Irene Dunne) headlining “110 artists including 75 Glorified Ziegfeld Girls.” Picture houses situated well enough, and owned by sufficiently monolithic interests (like Loew’s here), could front a show that for “popular prices” offered entertainment beyond any rival’s capacity. What was Broadway then but feeder to wider patronage that never saw dark of Gotham legit and frankly did not need to so long as companies could be assembled and sent trainward like vaudeville of old. Trouping on Main Stem stage was never like this, Showboat oarsfolk expected to perform four shows on the same day as Cleveland arrival, first of bows not till 2:00, so imagine exhaustion by the time quitting bells rang. Vets of vaude could rise to worse circumstance, but this wasn’t a couple song numbers or skit, Showboat even if shortened a real commitment, the more so with all and sundry compressed. Patrons knew and expected highlights of the musical, and woe betide if favorite moments went missing. I’d assume much of drama was sacrificed to revue aspect of comedy and above all, music. Showboat if anything was spectacular bonus to the featured movie ordinarily traded for price of admission, though I suspect Hot Pepper was more/less a chaser, considering junior placement on the State’s ad and excitement surrounding Showboat. Here was where management, certainly Loew’s booker, would insist on flat rental, Showboat an expensive proposition and whatever percentage was paid going to the play’s ownership. Who knows but what Showboat pleased better on ninety or so minute basis, scheduled times as announced in the ad a little over three hours apart, with Hot Pepper running 76 minutes for total to rest comfortably within time allowed. Factoring a newsreel, shorts, overtures, etc. would be added, these flexible, even disposable due to specialness of Showboat.
7 Comments:
Phil Smoot considers rights and wrongs of 3-D presentation:
At this Summer (June 2025) Monster Bash in North Pittsburgh this year, I saw the best presentation of "Third Dimensional Murder" that I have ever seen, and it was still rather poor.
Before it screened, a couple next to me ask about which color went over which eye - -
And I responded that it should be the Blue gel on the right eye and the Red gel on the left,
but
in the prelude to the film itself, it says just the opposite - -
So,
for that short film, it is Red on Right and Blue on Left!
Strange, as that is not the norm.*
(*Note: In wiring, such as speaker wire or other, Red on Right is the rule, but this is not he case with Anaglyph Red/Blue 3D Glasses)
- Phil
3-D Rarities 1 has the footage used in AUDIOSCOPIKS. All three films are available in anaglyph and field sequential 3-D on DVD. I have converted my copies for use with my projector. I also posted them on the web. I had that 16mm print too. It was terrible for 3-D. The videos, although poor vhs quality, are better. On 3-D Rarities the footage is superb. RE: Valentino, United Artists didn't have access to the theatres Paramount and MGM had access to. Keaton's UA Features did not do the business his MGM features did, mainly I think, for that reason.
Anybody recall the wildly uneven Dick Van Dyke feature "The Comic"? Narrating his own sparsely attended funeral, an old silent star imagines how it would have been if he died at his peak. A faux newsreel shows a nation mourning, a grim Calvin Coolidge reading a speech, and finally the ex-wife, hysterical with grief, trying to drag the coffin from the grave. Semi-related: Disney's 1922 Laugh-o-Gram "Puss in Boots" has a boy and his cat viewing a bullfight epic starring "Rodolph Vaselino". Disney was doing his own drawing, and Rodolph barely qualifies as a caricature, especially when compared to the famous faces appearing in "Felix in Hollywood".
I'm going to assume they cleared the house after each performance of "Showboat", and likely after any major attraction. When did continuous performances ("This is where I came in.") become the norm? And when did it become standard again to chase everybody out?
Somewhere long ago I read that the Marx Bros.' "The Big Store" was originally going to be filmed in 3D (and possibly Technicolor) as their big send-off from MGM. It would be interesting to know if any test footage was shot before the studio accountants stepped in.
And as for Valentino... when I was growing up 40 years after his death, his name was still the go-to comparison for movie lovers of the 1960s, whether facetiously or not. Going back 40 years from 2025, we find the deaths of Phil Silvers, Yul Brynner, Rock Hudson, and Margaret Hamilton. Hudson is remembered mainly for the cause of his passing, while Hamilton would be forgotten if not for Wizard of Oz. As for Silvers and Brynner -- anyone under the age of 40 recognize the names? And yet somehow all of my classmate, going right into college, knew who Valentino was, even though we had never seen any of his movies. How many of today's stars will have that kind of long-lasting fame?
The field sequential 3-D versions of these films gives much, much better 3-D results. You can use 3-D Combine to create left/right and over/under versions which deliver what anaglyph can't. Google the titles plus my name and you can find my versions which you can download.
Dan Mercer considers Rudolph Valentino:
Rudolph Valentino was kidded during his lifetime and rather more. A cottage industry developed meeting the needs of American men offended by his more exotic approach towards lovemaking, as least as depicted in his films. Possibly they had not properly taken his measure, however. There is a title card in "The Sheik" which some still find engaging, when he stands over a cowering Agnes Ayres and responds to her question of what he wants, "Are you not woman enough to know?"
The most notorious incident came when the Chicago Tribune took umbrage in an editorial about a city hotel supposedly installing a vending machine in its men's washroom, which would dispense face powder into one's personal puff. The unnamed writer of the editorial said that he was shocked to witness two individuals actually making use of it. He ascribed blame for this descent into effeminacy to Valentino:
"A powder vending machine! In a men’s washroom! Homo Americanus! Why didn’t someone quietly drown Rudolph Guglielmo, alias Valentino, years ago?… Do women like the type of 'man' who pats pink powder on his face in a public washroom...?… Hollywood is the national school of masculinity. Rudy, the beautiful gardener’s boy, is the prototype of the American male.”
Valentino was enraged. He asked an acquaintance, the journalist and gadfly, H. L. Mencken, for advice on how to respond. Mencken said that he should just "let the dreadful farce roll to exhaustion."
Instead, he sent a furious challenge to the newspaper:
“To the man (?) who wrote the editorial headed ‘Pink Powder Puffs’ in Sunday’s Tribune, I call you in return, a contemptible coward and to prove which of us is a better man, challenge you to a personal test.”
The test he had in mind was a boxing match. The writer of the editorial was never identified and the challenge never accepted, however. It was probably just as well. Fights between reporters were not uncommon in the speakeasy age. They tended to be short, vicious affairs, often initiated by use of the "sucker punch" and with blows not confined to the regions prescribed by the Marquis of Queensbury. Valentino, would have been too gentlemanly to engage in that style of fighting. He also was not much of boxer.
The stuff of a good fighter was there, in the physical grace he demonstrated as a dancer and his well proportioned, smoothly muscled physique. Perhaps with time it might have been developed. Unfortunately, there are pictures of him sparring with the boxer Ace Hudkins, the "Nebraska Wildcat," and a few moments of film, as he engaged with a much smaller sparring partner, the heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey, looking on. Dempsey was a friend of Valentino and had offered his services as a trainer. He had his work cut out for him. Rudy demonstrated a lazy left hand jab, his head high and chin in the air in what connoisseurs of the manly art would have described as a "hit me pose." Against any competent boxer, he would have taken punishment.
As noted, the fight never came off but Valentino took punishment nonetheless. The farcical aspects of his stardom galled him and this insult to his manhood stayed with him to the end of his life. When he came out of anesthesia after surgery to correct the problem that would kill him, his first words were, "Well, doctor, and do I now act like a 'pink powder puff'?" His physician replied, "No, sir. You have been very brave. Braver than most."
After his passing, to call someone a “Sheik” remained shorthand reference to Valentino and his screen style of lovemaking. My favorite of these asides in movies comes from Robert Woolsey in PEACH-O-RENO (1931) when he asks a woman, “Would you describe your husband as a sheik or would that be insulting the Arabs?"
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