Parkland Picks with Popcorn #8
Pop Goes: Three Men in White, The Spider, and The Las Vegas Story
THREE MEN IN WHITE (1944) --- Three Men in White stood for what Metro meant to accomplish with all their product … “a solid guarantee of good entertainment for the whole family,” good in italics for assurance that yes, here “drama is keen, exciting … but this is not heavy nor serious drama.” Might such be credo for all Leo did, all of what Hollywood ideally did? “The lightest fastest, funniest, most bubbling story … Dr. Gillespie has ever become involved in.” I belabor these quotes from trade publication The Lion’s Share to show what amusement, particularly wartime amusement, was meant to accomplish. The Gillespies like all series, certainly those from MGM like Andy Hardy, Maisie, the Thin Man, Tarzan … were soft upholstery, predictable in ways radio “drama” was and television in a future would be. Gillespies revolved around medicine, all afflictions addressed and cured within ninety minutes, no suffering acute or unfixable. I don’t recall anyone perishing at Blair Hospital, would note tragic end for Laraine Day as Dr. Kildare’s wife-to-be, which surely was disorienting as would be Lew Ayres’ exit from the series soon after. Lionel Barrymore’s function was to console as well as amuse, a voice to assure that illness, indeed war, would pass. He will mentor the young, resolve their doubts, counsel their romances, Gillespie a guiding light through uncertain times. Here too was era of doctors driven by instinct rather than corporate and insurance carrier protocol. I don’t know when trusted and veteran faces were more vital to films. Barrymore broadcasted from firesides not unlike what Roosevelt spoke from, as would Charles Laughton, latter on marathon duty to sell bonds as were others a public knew and trusted in many instance since youth. A dose of Lionel Barrymore as Gillespie was tonic sure as what real medicos offered. At Blair Hospital, every malady had its cure.
Blair’s was revolving door for Metro stars in making. Much learning of craft went on here. Van Johnson had been in a dreadful car crash that nearly took the top of his head off but came back to studio applause and what sage Lionel called fresh-won skills as an actor, him knowing wisdom forged from hardship. Young players finding their wings, as here with Johnson and newcomer support Ava Gardner, was ongoing to the series, auditioning for us who would judge star potential. Fans could/did determine careers, no personality force-fed, at least not for long. Marilyn Maxwell for Three Men in White suggested another Lana Turner, that not to be, so Marilyn drifted eventually away, as must all whose dream goes unfulfilled. There were numerous of these in/out of MGM, post-career the fruit of whatever momentum they accumulated while there, Maxwell, James Craig, Tom Drake, all instance of this. 1957’s The Cyclops has latter two clinging to residue of polish applied at Metro. We could wonder why Van Johnson and not James Craig, but what was stardom other than an intangible, chance-driven process? Van courts Marilyn Maxwell by constantly ducking her advances, his “Aye, Yai, Yai” at her persistence itself too persistent. Was this calculated to increase Johnson’s femme following? It escapes me how, assuming that was intent. For the record, “Aye, Yai, Yai” was an expression akin to “oh boy” denoting excitement, frustration, or attraction. I don’t envision it coming back to vogue any time soon. Three Men in White after two Gillespie chapters to build suspense reveals who Barrymore’s new assistant will be, Van Johnson or Keye Luke, both youngsters having established following, Luke especial when he draws a chart to demonstrate a medical problem for Dr. Gillespie and we get glimpse of art background Keye Luke came from prior to acting. Three Men in White is available from Warner Archive in a set with other Gillespies.
THE SPIDER (1958) --- Misses greatness achieved by Tarantula, which sort of ruined us for giant spiders after 1955. Bert I. Gordon was brain behind this, him congenial with AIP worldview and a cut-rate master of special effects that really looked cut-rate, part after all of Bert’s charm. Here’s a secret of why sci-fi appealed to teens: So many used them for ID figures, sighting aliens or monsters and being doubted by grown-ups until threats become real and adults realize they were wrong not to take the word of their offspring. Note that at AIP at least it was often youth that routed other-worldlies, so maybe we should give them a better listen next time. The Spider at 73 minutes gets right on with scares, the monster attacking within moments of the title. AIP doubled this with The Brain Eaters, the two near point where Jim Nicholson realized black-and-white pairs were on ways out and said so to an exhibitor conclave. The Spider did AIP’s best B/W sci-fi business since The Day the World Ended, a surprising $374K in tills. There was speculation that AI’s Spider fed off sensation of Fox’s Fly, both infesting summer 1958 theatres. Some of The Spider was shot at Bronson Caves where monsters dwelt before. What a convenient filming site this proved to be. Atmosphere was supplied also by Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, a special credit to that effect, but close inspection, in fact it needn't even be close, reveals still images of the caverns were used with actors superimposed in front of them, more instance of Bert Gordon movie magic. I like how the giant spider is parked in a high school gym where kids rehearse their rock and roll band before the creature awakens and frightens them out. The Spider stayed available to theatres for years past ‘58 release, even after TV got it in 1964-65, being a title I’d see listed often at drive-ins and kiddie shows in Winston-Salem, for which I was years later told by an exhibitor there that rental for AIP oldies hovered usually around fifteen to twenty dollars. Seems hardly enough to cover expense of delivery.
THE LAS VEGAS STORY (1952) --- Of quaint era when Vegas was still a small town easily managed by a sheriff like Jay C. Flippen and deputy Victor Mature, this being casinos case where “outside interests” maintained rigorous law/order all their own. Later treatments like Bugsy and Casino explained those truths and we can wonder if tourists, gamblers, civilians, were safer on streets in Las Vegas than in other busy burgs of the time. Was this unique instance of law enforcement by private, as in very private, enterprise? I need to read more about history of the town, and whether it is so transformed now as surface suggests. Does it remain “Disneyfied” now that the Disney model itself has collapsed? The Las Vegas Story is reshuffle off His Kind of Woman deck, Mature rather than Mitchum, Jane Russell back, Vincent Price her husband now rather than paramour. Howard Hughes liked familiars. He especially enjoyed Price in all of works, putting him again to menace Mature in two years' later Dangerous Mission! (not me but the title with an exclamation mark) I enjoy Hughes’ cracked mindset and each familiar aspect of The Las Vegas Story, at least here was break from Mexico as a location, question being what ownership interests did Hughes have in Vegas? I know later he lived there in secrecy at a hotel he owned. Did HH enter casinos in disguise and mingle among guests? Probably not as he was so paranoid about germs. There seems little evidence of Hughes tampering with The Las Vegas Story after director Robert Stevenson completed it, this not to be confirmed what with RKO records locked up and inaccessible. Victor Mature was, with Mitchum, a most reliable leading man the company had. What with casting of both, they could have, probably did, swap parts right up to moment of shooting on one or other of respective vehicles. It was types they played that merged, pleasingly so for my watching, as who’s around now of Mitchum-Mature stripe? Final inquiry: Would Terry Moore have dared claim previous marriage to Hughes had he still been alive? I get a feeling he could be a dangerous guy if seriously crossed, a sort of real-life Blofeld where circumstance called for Blofeld solution to problems.
11 Comments:
The heavily promoted Disneyfication of Los Vegas actually fizzled some years ago, and the city's reputation (and marketing?) veered back to "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas". Recently there's been a lot of talk about how the city, once celebrated for cheap rooms, buffets, and entertainment, is now charging ever more for everything, and often delivering less. The same charges are leveled at Disney and to a lesser extent Universal, but those destinations remain crowded (another complaint) while Vegas is sweating a drop in business.
The Sphere, Vegas's gaudy technological marvel, is showing a substantially shortened version of "Wizard of Oz" for upwards of $109 a ticket. To justify the price they've subjected the movie to extreme CGI mutilation and William Castle gimmicks. YouTube has audience videos of the more conspicuous effects, such as flying monkey drones floating about lazily.
You might also check out YouTube videos of Universal's new Epic Adventure park in Florida. Alongside lands based on current franchises (Mario, How to Train Your Dragon, and of course Harry Potter) there's an elaborate Dark Universe area themed to the old Universal horrors, complete with a lavish dark ride featuring most of the star monsters and a restaurant under a burning windmill. Universal is still able to market the monsters despite all the failed attempts to bring them back in movies.
Interesting your mention of Vegas and Sphere, Donald, because that's part of what next week's column will deal with.
"I was years later told by an exhibitor there that rental for AIP oldies hovered usually around fifteen to twenty dollars. Seems hardly enough to cover expense of delivery." ... Delivery was separate from film rental. In our area, every theatre sent a weekly check to the Charlotte Observer for the delivery of their film prints.
I remember that spider with a human skull image on the cover of a Ken Films box when I was a kid.
Love those graphics with the THREE MEN IN WHITE post! The caricatures are great but that Kildare sketch with intent Lew Ayres, a sly Barrymore and the winking babe is, well, something!
I always thought THE SPIDER was one of the more-watchable of those early AIP cheapies. Although TARANTULA is a superior film on almost any level, SPIDER delivers where the Universal film came up short: Ber I. Gordon's big bug made it into the town! The alternate title EARTH VS. THE SPIDER overstated things a bit, but HICKSVILLE VS. THE SPIDER might have been accurate since considerable carnage was accomplished thanks to some spotty special effects.
Your suggestion of Hughes-as-Blofeld is, in fact, the plot of "Diamonds Are Forever," albeit in reverse. Blofeld replaces reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, using the penthouse apartment atop his Las Vegas casino as his headquarters. After all, with no one having seen Whyte in years, who would know?
Apologies for the delay in publishing several of the above comments. I've had trouble this week with my Google settings.
Dan Mercer speaks to Gillespie-era medicine (Part One):
I can imagine why a movies with a hospital setting like the Dr. Kildare series for MGM would have proven popular at the time. There had always been an interest in stories about physicians and the difficulties they faced in thwarting sickness or mediating between their professional duties and societal demands. Movies like "The Story of Louis Pasteur," "Arrowsmith," and "Doctor Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" were especially well done. Such melodramas as "Dark Victory" also provided a medical basis for the particular struggles face by their characters.
More particularly, the financial implosion of the Great Depression left the American economy moribund. Large portions of the population would be left without work from time to time, making it difficult to keep a roof over their heads, obtain sufficient healthy food, clothe themselves, or even to have heat in the winter. This would have been very stressful and adversely affected the health of many. In such troubled times, the hospital would have been seen as a bastion of charitable care, especially in the cities.
The care that would have been provided, however, would have been variable. There were exciting developments in surgery and in related diagnostic tools, such as the X-ray and fluoroscope. The insights of Sigmund Freud suggested that the secrets of the mind were now known and that mental illnesses could now be treated and cured. With regards chronic diseases, however, such as those concerning the heart or circulatory system or cancer, or infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia, the medical profession could provide little but palliative care, in the hope that the body could cure itself.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
I'm reading Thomas Fleming's biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the war years, which details the hypertension suffered by the president at that time. The account is rather startling. Roosevelt's systolic or upper rating ranged from 180 mmHG to 250 mmHG, while his diastolic or lower rating was from 90 mmHG to 150 mmHG. We now know that a normal range for a man his age would have been below 130 systolic and below 80 diastolic. The effect of hypertension was not properly understood then, however. The progression of his blood pressure from high normal at the beginning of his first term to what should have been considered extraordinary and alarming was thought to be what we should expect with advancing age. By the time a cardiologist properly diagnosed the problem in March 1944, when he was close to cardiac collapse, his health was already compromised. He was treated with digitalis, one of the few drugs available which strengthened the performance of the heart, put on a restricted diet, especially with regards salt intake, and had his cigarette and alcohol consumption limited. Most importantly, he was essentially taken off his official duties and made to rest for several months. Unknown to the public, the country was essentially without a president during that time. Roosevelt was considered an irreplaceable man, however--certainly by himself--and he not only returned to work, though limited to 20 hours a week, but ran for a fourth term and won. His staff and advisors persuaded themselves that he remained as sharp as ever mentally, despite lapses in his memory or the inability to express himself. He was really an invalid despite the enforced rest, and his health continued its inexorable decline. During the crucial Yalta Conference, when the future of Europe after the war was decided by him, Stalin, and Churchill, his blood pressure was again reaching levels as high as 250 over 150. It is thought by many historians that Stalin took advantage of his debilitated condition to obtain advantages that would later be exploited during the postwar period. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, at the age of 63.
So, it's understandable that the Dr. Kildare series played to the strengths of medicine at the time, with surgical interventions or sometimes psychoanalysis achieving almost miraculous results. Other stories might essentially deal with crime or romance, but the setting was the hospital, with its emphasis on the care of consideration of the doctors and nurses. With so much in American society seemingly compromised or beyond their control, the people who made up the audience for these movies would have appreciated the appearance of such order brought to bear upon the problems of their lives.
When I was young I'd compare photos of FDR from his first two terms and his last year or two. I'm pretty sure I asked my mother, who was alive during his presidency, "Didn't anyone realize he was sick?"
Those 1930s films about Pasteur and Ehrlich were more about public health and the public struggles of those physicians to both do and publicize their work in the field of public health, rather than being about the more private roles the physicians play in the domestic melodramas presented as playing out in the hospitals in the films of the 1940s; the former portray their drama as playing out on the public stage, whereas the latter keep a tighter focus on on the private lives and dramas of the individuals being portrayed, those both of the patients and of the doctors.
There's an inward -looking, more individualistic focus in the films of the forties portraying medicine, as compared to the outward, public health oriented focus of the films of the 1930s.
Considering that medical science itself only started in earnest around about the 1890s, perhaps that shifting focus ought not to be too surprising. Modern medicine in the 1930s and 1940s was but 40 or 50 years old.
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