Where Bootlegs are Best #2

 

Had Blood Money Been Readily Seen Over the Years,
Frances Dee Would Long Since Have Been a Cult Figure

Boots: Blood Money and Pleasure Cruise, both 1933

BLOOD MONEY (1933) --- Honey of a precode barely known because it has for years been buried, object of veneration by fans who dig deepest for treasure denied us by ownership. “Denied” flatters entity which for most part has no idea of assets from this far back and so obscure in the bargain. “Assets” might also be poor choice of words, for when since 1933 did Fox bookkeepers look upon Blood Money as an asset? Only legit exposure I’m aware of was early-seventies placement in the “Golden Century” TV syndication package, a noble effort toward earning at least something off moribund content even a most seasoned buff knew little or nothing of. A handful of 16mm prints were made up to service those packages, tiny handful leased by brave stations mostly UHF; what came back after broadcasts was then sprung from warehouses by dealers poised in parking lots to divert loads on way to landfills. That’s how Blood Money survived till video took it digital directions, survivor prints transferred to tape, then disc, for spread among discreet listers and dealer tables where word-of-mouth kept Blood Money’s pulse beating, if barely. William K. Everson showed it for his class during the seventies, a reputation (good) initiated from there. A 16mm print I had was of unknown origin and there couldn’t have been double-digit of these. Maybe that was what a DVDuper eventually used for his combo disc of Blood Money with Pleasure Cruise, a neat pairing of Fox features to remain largely unknown to a wider world. There is spread among streamers, okay I suppose unless you insist on being able to clearly see and hear it. Trick is to find the bootlegger with a best transfer, that is one closest to precious few 16mm prints extant. Is reward worth such effort? Those who’ve seen Blood Money give a resounding yes, me among them. If you crave pre-code, this is a missing must to rank high among best of the category.

Can Bancroft Beat This Opponent Who Bested Dracula and the Mummy?

Runtime is comfortable as-always 65 minutes, much happening to George Bancroft as a bail bondsman operating within hair-breadth of legality he and we accept as corrupt, who cares? coming with most to theatres showing Blood Money in 1933. No moral judgment, that most departed of stance films once took before a Code applied choke collars which led ultimately to Current Code even more confining (look again at modern preachments where Al Pacino or somebody starts out cheerfully crooked but must eventually pay back the “people” he has so betrayed). Bancroft moves blithely among low and high placements in the unnamed city he grazes on, making no distinction between so-called honest and dishonest. It took writer-director Rowland Brown to translate truth of the streets on movie terms still timid even where trying to be unleashed. Speaking of same, Frances Dee as a character still startling has a self-summing up line for the ages: “If I could find a man who would be my master and give me a good thrashing, I’d follow him around like a dog on a leash.” Write a line like that today and see how long you keep WGA membership. Rowland Brown wrote Blood Money, and yes, he took a fall maybe not for that reason, but plenty else that made him a handful for an industry that did and forever does prefer talent docile and compliant. Brown was neither and starved for it. Blood Money along with a couple others he directed is his memorial. Work this refreshing didn’t come often even in rich preserve that was the early thirties. Bancroft’s “Bill Bailey” is a role model for go-getters, no door closed to him, all and sundry paying homage. Movies like Blood Money will put a spring in steps of those who’d aspire to precode assuredness and angling always for advantage against stacked deck that is daily life. I knew bail bondsmen in workaday times, one or two calling themselves “private detectives,” this without irony and yes, a few thrived with it, at least till circumstance caught up with most, in fact I can think of none still around, let alone thriving.

Five of a Kind for Fun

PLEASURE CRUISE (1933) --- Roland Young is a gone broke baronet who redoubles his poverty with wedding vows and ends up wearing an apron to cook for the working wife, her at daily behest of wolves on the job, income good enough to withstand insults. She, as essayed by Genevieve Tobin, thinks it a good idea to take separate vacations, that is she’ll go on a luxury cruise and he'll stay home mashing the potatoes. How’s for Roland to reassert his authority? That’s the comedy set-up and it turns out a swell one, Pleasure Cruise another of unknowns floated on a sea of bootlegs and good luck seeing it look like something other than an oil slick (doubt decent elements survive, but hope I’m wrong). As with Blood Money, there are sources if one searches. Mine was on that disc with Blood Money, and who knows what happened to my supplier .. probably went ways of those bail bondsmen/private dicks of local yore and lore. I laughed lots at Pleasure Cruise, alone I laughed lots, so imagine how it might click with a crowd. “Crowd” … the very word seems quaint in this day of empty theatres and group avoidance. Or is that just me? Anyway, they’ll not be running Pleasure Cruise to gatherers again, that is unless they find lots better prints than what evidently remains of this one. Pleasure Cruise was another that Everson showed, his class lab being about all of exposure so many films had over a period of years, generations you could argue. I learned of them largely from copies of his program notes, chance of attending classes slim to nothing. There at least was knowing how good Blood Money, Pleasure Cruise, others like them, promised to be,  seeing any a matter of grabbing what 16mm might surface on lists or in ads. I trusted Everson’s judgment enough to buy blind with no guarantee my taste would reflect his. Hot Saturday came into possession that way. I sensed it would be wonderful based on plaudits from him, and sure enough, it was better even than that.

Roland Figures to Throw a Wet Blanket Over Ralph and Genevieve's Tête-à-Tête

Pleasure Cruise is like finding a secret stash of something fine that no one knows about and likely never will, unless you spread the word, or better, show it to them. Like any early thirties story set on shipboard, we have accommodation more luxurious than cruises afford today, too many looking like Wal-Mart bargain shoppers put aboard and you hoping to comport like pre-iceberg Clifton Webb on the Titanic. No more evening wear and shuffleboard with cocktails just beyond the twelve-mile limit. I can’t picture Roland Young aboard a Carnival Cruise. What would precode participants, let alone their audience, have to say if adrift amidst culture today? Or better put, modern culture loosed upon them? There truly is a language plus code of conduct endemic to that era that takes getting used to for anyone tempted to taste early-on entertainment. No one adapts immediately, unless perhaps they studied history of the times and are wanting to see how movies reflect them. Given enough of something like Pleasure Cruise and its attitude seems natural, so much so that what happens now requires adjustment. Ideal circumstance might be to shift nimbly between their vanished world and what prevails today, embracing advantages of both, not becoming alienated from either. That’s reading a lot into something so simple as Pleasure Cruise, but films, especially old ones of course, are best enjoyed where you can transport back and see sense to what moves and motivates characters that dwelt over ninety years ago. Suppose we could identify this close with folks who lived during the Civil War, let alone the Revolution? --- but alas, no movies of them. Had there been cinema during these epochs, I’d say yes, we’d find plenty of parallel with them.