The Art of Selling Movies #4

 

It's 1962, and Look at the Line a 1946 Musical is Luring

Art of ... '62 Crowds Converge for Clouds, What Glorious Night This Weekend Was

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1946) --- Call this a windy footnote to ideas floated in 2006, nascent days at Greenbriar when Till the Clouds Roll By came first to attention via Warner DVD. Watching again made me mindful of other world Till the Clouds Roll By must seem to have occupied when 1962 saw it brought back among Great MGM Musicals, playing slow weekdays by showmen hoping to lure not just memory seekers but youth that might give old music a try from curiosity if nothing else. These features in part dated back to the thirties (The Merry Widow, plus The Great Waltz, others). Prints were new so presentations were up to snuff. An MGM festival played a little theatre in Greensboro during 1977 when I was at Wake Forest. The drive over was forty or so minutes, each program a double-bill, one combining An American in Paris with Gigi. This took me at least close to what ’62 sitters experienced, a thrill either way for anyone who’d not expect to have these wonder shows again intact and on theatre screens. That’s Entertainment and sequels made vaulties viable, or so it seemed. Of musicals from the Lion, Till the Clouds Roll By belongs most resolutely to the year it first ran. Was any aspect of 1946 relevant to 1962, let alone to now? I re-read another GPS column about “Pre-48 Greats” being released to television in 1956, and how subscribing stations realized right away that musicals did not draw viewers on anything like the level of action oriented features. Was it just the songs that dated these films so? Till the Clouds Roll By purports to tell the life of Jerome Kern. He composed the Showboat score among many other then-popular tunes. Till the Clouds Roll By has what amounts to a tab version of Showboat for an opening seventeen or so minutes. I imagine folks in 1946 were thrilled by this, but what of 1962, especially with the full-on 1951 remake also playing revival dates that year?

Watch Him As Bruno, Look Again at This, and Be Creeped Out

Other aspects of Till the Clouds Roll By would fade as well, for instance thrill of a bandleader seen from behind who turns around, and it’s … Van Johnson! … singing, dancing in most unexpected and uncharacteristic ways. And more for Ripley, Johnson was billed first of all the big stars performing in Till the Clouds Roll By, even over Judy Garland. Since when did that happen with Judy after the early forties? Also there is a scene where Jerome Kern and wife, him played by Robert Walker, arrive by train and assume a waiting crowd is for them, only it’s Esther Williams they’ve come to see and get autographs from. She isn't identified, just smiles and signs for a wordless cameo. No patron alive in 1946 would fail to recognize Esther Williams in 1946, but by 1962? Creative managers at those revival matiness might well have offered free popcorn for anyone who could name the mystery guest and not lose so much as a box of the concession (on the other hand, loyal late shows watchers, most reliable attendees for these matinees, would ID her right away). Till the Clouds Roll By still is richly enjoyable, but as an antique, and principally for those who revere MGM musicals however obscure they’d seem to a general viewership. I feel less connected even to old movie fanship every time I delve into lessers from the Lion, Clouds differing little from Words and Music, Thousands Cheer, any of a dozen powerhouses of their era less known since. Devotees are not gaining in numbers I suspect, though song/dance extracts thrive on You Tube/Tik-Tok, elsewhere. Cultural observer Ted Gioia checked Netflix recently and found they have virtually nothing left of a deep library, not Kane, not Casablanca, nada. What would happen if TCM shut down? Snatch up physical media while ye may.

He Loves Her, He Loves Her, But Was Jack Sort of Shining His Partner On, and Us?

HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT (1929) --- Look at this ad: the problem was always the pleading part. Repeated “I love you” would have sunk Wm. Powell, Colman, anybody we credit with an ideal voice for talkers. Gilbert legacy fate got sealed by producers David Wolper and Jack Haley, Jr. when they featured stand-alone horror of Jack-as-doormat opposite Catherine Dale Owen, latter an utter nobody by 28 November 1962 when Hollywood: The Fabulous Era ran first on ABC. Sight, let alone sound, of great romantic John Gilbert begging Miss Nobody for a crumb of affection embarrassed older viewers who knew the star from youthful filmgoing, while the clip got not titters, but guffaws, from offspring who wondered how Mom ever thought this guy was the hots. Gilbert seemed funnier even than Rudolph Valentino over at Silents, Please, running concurrently on NBC. The Fabulous Era defined John Gilbert for all time to follow 1962, nothing else of His Glorious Night available to see. My Cinecon glimpse came in 1997 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, CA, no sighting since. GPS would recall '97's view in 2006 and defend Gilbert, a habit ingrained here. TCM this past weekend re-premiered His Glorious Night and I stayed up to watch just like for Shock Theatres way back, again will assert Gilbert’s voice was fine, mindful as usual that it's my opinion and maybe not shared by others.

Image Montage Issued by Metro to Boost Gilbert's Full-Length Talkie Debut

Nobody speaks like Gilbert today but maybe we‘d profit by leaves off his clear and well-modulated book, and add this re His Glorious Night: it’s a comedy, source Molnar of then-distinguished reputation having designed it for comedy, most of cast in accordance, much being funny, intentionally so. His Glorious Night began as Olympia at New York’s Empire Theatre in October 1928. It had thirty-nine performances into November. Ian Hunter took the Gilbert role. Don’t know if Olympia has been revived on stage since. His Glorious Night cast, including John Gilbert, have fun, as so can we with open minds. Was Jack spoofing his Great Lover line here? He's ardent to nines with Owen, operating at multiple levels of deceit before this farce is through, scheming to have the girl and yes, he ultimately will, Gilbert's ruse cunning in hindsight, apparent I Love You, I Love You chump who’ll prove a champ carrying Catherine to consummation on precode terms with post-coital morning after to wrap a whimsical narrative. Sure it's stone-age creaky cinema, but there is solid story here, if endlessly chatted before director Lionel Barrymore’s nailed-down camera. What else should we expect from talkers at stolid start? Lubitsch or Rouben Mamoulian might have saved this bacon, but do we really want His Glorious Night other than gloriously primitive? Gilbert drama of decline played into everything he'd do from this point on. His Glorious Night is essence of this at beginning, and for all of misfortune attached, should be treasured, old Hollywood stumping toes and priceless for precisely that reason. Curiosity if sometimes grim pleases where satisfied, faithfuls to the rescue of relics disdained by a mainstream. Were it my dying wish for friends and family to watch His Glorious Night with me, no doubt they’d turn me down, there being but so much one could expect from civilians. His Glorious Night is to watch by oneself, or with very kindred spirits. Robert Harris and James Mockoski oversaw the restoration, and there is a Blu-Ray of His Glorious Night forthcoming.