Stills That Speak #9

STS: Bandstands on Newsstands and Maverick Maker Meets Mainstream Oldies

SWING PLUS CROONER CRUSHES --- Who dreamed Big Bands would fade after the war? I’m told costs were culpable. Think of travel, on buses yet, a peak that was wartime not again to be reached. Crooners survived, since as Max DeWinter said, he travels fastest who travels alone. Above “Band Leaders” magazine showed up amidst a pile. To be a band leader at summit was to be a star, as in Star equal to those Hollywood incubated. Betty Grable was happier scoring Harry James than any male thesp she'd had. Harry James was definite upgrade on George Raft. Note glam Betty Hutton on the color cover. Hers seemed a talent to go on forever, but Betty, like ration coupons, had an expiration date. So did Betty Grable for that matter. She sixties-showed up in Charlotte to do summer stock, and I thought even then how mighty doth fall. Crooners unless they were Frank or Bing also had latter day rocks to break. Think of ancients still singing in stadiums today, rockers from when fanship was unborn or barely so. Miraculous is their music leading charts still, nothing current able to approach popularity of 70-80’s, even some 90’s, music. All vets need do is stay alive, show up, and collect. I look at names back of my birth and wonder what became of some, or who heck were they to begin with? Yes, there was Dick Haymes and Perry Como as illustrated below, known to me because Haymes made movies and Perry lasted long enough to enrich TV. But what of Sunny Skyler and Jerry Wayne? Break please while I investigate both. OK … I just looked and listened at/to Sunny Skyler trilling Don’t Cry to accompany of Vincent Lopez and men. Sunny sings of whippoorwills and saying adieu to love. Did swooning fans hope to end up with husbands like this?

Current Feud Among Fans? I'd Say They Were Happy to Embrace Both

The soundie with Lopez was about all I found of Sunny Skyler at You Tube, but there is a Wikipedia page where I learned of his multi-talents, plus he wrote a tune called “A Little Bit South of North Carolina,” heard just now and for first ever time at YT, and rendered by Dean Martin, both recorded and on his NBC variety show. Here was a Jolson sort of number that Dean puts over in Jolson style, and we figure Sunny got a check for this plus sea of songs he also wrote (many remain jazz standards, says Wiki). Sunny retired from performing in 1952 after tide went out for big bands, stayed active with composing and music publishing, lived to ninety-five, died appropriately in Las Vegas. Jerry Wayne wrung undoubted tears at least for his primary hit, “You Can’t Be True, Dear,” which was Billboard’s Number Six pick for 1948, several renditions at You Tube. One I heard was a 1950 recording with Ken Griffin doing organ accompany, Jerry whistling to augment his voice, another Jolson borrow. Interesting how Al influenced others well after peak was passed, in fact well after his death in ’50. So who were the most impactful singers of the twentieth century? I’m going to say Jolson, Crosby, Judy Garland, Sinatra, and Elvis. Have I forgotten any? From my picks it’s interesting to observe how each got along with others. Elvis missed Jolson as they did not share performing years, though Presley was an admirer of Al’s music. Everybody to Jolson’s mind was competition, but he hit it off with Crosby per many shared appearances on radio. Did Sinatra ever sing with Jolson? Or Judy with Jolson? Not even sure they met, but hope so. Sinatra and Crosby got along, worked often together. Garland on several occasions sang with Crosby. He hosted her on his radio program after MGM let her go and she needed confidence Bing helped supply. I doubt Crosby felt Frank overlapped his turf, as there was plentiful room for both. Did Bing get together with Elvis? I know Sinatra invited the King for a post-Army Welcome Home special, where they duoed (“not a standard word in the English language,” says AI source, but I’m using it anyway).

Just Drop Me Off Here, says Greenbriar, and Let the Rest of 1957-9 Pass By

VINTAGE SHADOWS HAUNT REBEL SHADOWS --- Famously crowd-financed independent feature by John Cassavetes started in 1957, tweaked even past initial showings in 1959, a primer for all thereafter who’d seek to make a movie out of seeming nothing. How it happened is stuff of legend. More people want to know about that than to see the finished work. There is Village vibe and Bohemian air to “stolen” shots of Gotham when it still was at least somewhat safe to dwell in. We keep wanting Jack Kerouac to chance by, even J.J. Hunsecker should fiction intersect with reality. Cassavetes had been around as an actor and done Hollywood mainstream even as his heart was elsewhere, that is, beating heart of ultra-self-expression he’d devote most of a career to. Shadows is said to have cost $40,000, money cadged from friends and acting colleagues. Press and critics were a big help once screenings started. Everyone gung-hoed for a US art film to rival Europeans who it seemed had territory to themselves too long. There is enough analysis of Shadows at You Tube to spend a whole day watching. Criterion has a Blu-Ray with loads of extras. Accounts and post end title tells us that Shadows was fruit of improvisation, which to extent looks true, mostly because we’d like it to be true, but accounts suggest there was writing plus reshooting plus recasting, re-recording of dialogue, ongoing effort to make finished product presentable. Cassavetes in the end wanted his film to make sense. Response to Shadows showed his instincts were right.

Condemned Men Don't Have to Drill, Said Future Franco, but He'd Run Shadows Set Like a Vet D.I.

My fave parts are strolling down streets, past stores lit for night, and best of all theatres like Christmas trees, marquees of sort we’ll not see again. And so many. There are host houses for The Ten Commandments, Ten Thousand Bedrooms, Top Secret Affair, The Night Heaven Fell, plus posters to background character conversations, notable of these being for A Night to Remember. Best of show worlds on revue, most welcome a “Liberty Theatre” reviving “2 Errol Flynn Adventures,” Desperate Journey and Edge of Darkness, both barely fifteen years old, if that, each belonging to time and technique long past and not ever coming back. These were Warner pictures from 1942 and ’43 respectively, out for a last theatrical stroll now that both and hundreds more were available for TV broadcast. “Dominant Pictures” was the sub-distributor for United Artists that pushed WB oldies toward whatever revenue could be squeezed from relics before surrender to home tubes. New prints were made. They had to be for Desperate Journey and Edge of Darkness being nitrate otherwise, neither having had an official reissue on safety stock from Warners. Independent exchange owner Harry Kerr of Charlotte told me years ago that Dominant sent down twenty or so features for him to book through as many theatres and drive-ins as he could scratch up. Don’t know about up north, but NC venues held fast at $20 or less (said Harry) for booking of most oldies, especially where they were black-and-white and all the more obsolete. Some were used frankly for chasers. An exhibitor acquaintance in Hickory used to clear his nightly porn movies by putting on odd reels of Sergeant York or Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I saw same 35mm after Moon Mullins scored both and image quality was incredible. If somehow it were possible to visit Shadows' world, I'd beeline to their Liberty for Desperate Journey and Edge of Darkness, maybe afterward checking out beatniks, itinerant filmmakers, and what not on busy avenues. Maybe a drop-in to sad remnant of the Rialto running Girls, Inc. and who knows, maybe random reels of The Maltese Falcon to empty the joint for closing or clean-up.