Parkland Picks with Popcorn #10

 

POP Goes: Dick Tracy Detects, Hombre Means Man, Tides are Passionate, and Groucho Goes Motoring

DICK TRACY (1945) --- Called in some quarters Dick Tracy, Detective, as if we’d need telling what Dick did for a living, or maybe it was necessary since Dick derived from a comic strip called kid stuff by most (even though grown-ups liked him too), the character better put to serials. Three of latter had come from Republic with Ralph Byrd starring, but RKO was for launching Tracy in features, and using their own Morgan Conway, at least for initial two of four, Tracy rights reverting back to strip publisher and quartet of RKO features suffering quality-wise as result. Enter VCI with a Blu-Ray set, Tracy in toto, plus one of the serial chapters for sampling of what went before. As expected, the lot never looked better. To adapt Dick Tracy faithful was to invite more comedy than police action, Gould gallery of villains outlandish enough on pages, more so as fodder for films, thus straight psychopath “Split-Face” as essayed by Mike Mazurki. Nothing's funny about this knife killer and precursor to noir slaying we’d see more of as forties ebbed into fifties and rawer thrilling. Here then was not a Tracy on comic terms, but a sleuth in dogged pursuit of menace more menacing than Sunday strips deigned to depict. Dick Tracy along with Murder, My Sweet tendered noir on budget terms, these 61 minutes with a negative cost of $202K, more than Falcon entries were spending, the company seeing potential in Tracy as ongoing franchise. $537K in worldwide rentals suggested as much, money way better than the Falcons generated. To continue with Tracy was foregone conclusion. Revenues were down however for follow-ups, each softer than the last until Dick Tracy vs. Gruesome, even with presumed help of Boris Karloff, lost money. The group by now leaned heavier into humor while RKO ramped up dark aspects of noir otherwise. Replacing Morgan Conway with more popular, at least familiar, Ralph Byrd gave the series a smell of serials, themselves on decline by 1947 and RKO’s final Tracy try. For sampling of the four, VCI’s set comes highly recommended.

Villainy Bad as Boone's Often Made Mops of Would-Be Leading Men, as Evidenced Here

HOMBRE (1967) --- Downer westerns were a coming thing by the mid-sixties, effort always to differentiate from TV formula doings. I'd regularly see futility of life duly explored. However his casting as flawed or troubled sorts, Paul Newman was in essence a can-do star after tradition style, looks, charisma you’d not wrest from him no matter the part. Intended heel that was Hud did not emerge that way for watchers who found in the character a new reason to enjoy Newman. Hombre by its luck and brief “H” title indicated more of approximate same, to bend Newman brand but not break it. If he was our star however, why plop him among dreary and at times unpleasant ensemble that is Hombre? What emerged was Stagecoach unofficially revisited, interesting as Fox had done an official remake just a year before. Those aboard Hombre’s coach smack of live drama once televised where many plus Newman had starts, these to distract from the star we paid to watch. I liked Newman bashing his rifle butt against smart mouth of baddies at the bar, hoping for more of same over balance of a film that spoke revisionist 60’s voice of westerns no longer as preferred at least by me. Old man oaters would sustain however, aggressively so in the face of change. For each Little Big Man or Soldier Blue, there were half-dozen War Wagons or Five Card Studs. Producer Hal Wallis made late career stand for saddlery like dads wanted. A local friend’s took him to such defenders of norm, westerns a bulwark against counterculture until the seventies finally dealt them altogether out. Hombre compels as drama more than action, it well-played with always crisp dialogue and situations. Better from our vantage to take it as specimen of a time when westerns might still be viable, but for maybe not much longer. For that reason, it would not do for modern thinkers like those behind Hombre to serve them face up. Let posters look like westerns of yore and customers be surprised once in (or were we surprised by 60's time of so much bleak observing). Twilight Time did a nice Blu-ray of Hombre which I assume is now out-of-print and possibly hard to locate.

There Were Apparently Enough Heels Around Back Then for Mae Marsh to Always Marry One

TIDES OF PASSION (1925) --- Mae Marsh marries a rotter after time-honored fashion of melodrama still played in earnest but not for much longer as of 1925 and a talking curtain soon to descend on long-standing silents. Interesting how short a time it took for dialogue to ridicule old styles as embodied here. Tides of Passion was of Vitagraph origin, based upon an early century novel (In the Garden of Charity) by one “Basil King,” and lest we smirk, be aware a reprint was published late as 2010, question being has anyone above ground read it? Tides of Passion was a feature shaved to two reels for a 1930 reissue, probably with music/effects, those not surviving. Was idea to laugh at old-timey tribulations per here, perhaps with sarcastic narration for garnish? We’ll never know … unless then-reviews tip it off. Melodrama was still a respected format in 1925, would remain so in certain contexts, such as the “woman’s picture” and offshoots, Tides of Passion by title identifying itself on outdoor terms, a rich stage tradition however unlikely such a thing might seem to us. Not to forget though is trains, storms, chariot racing, all depicted before footlights, and darn well too. Hard making story sense of what happens to Tides as trimmed, but therein lies pleasure. Storms and stormy emotions carry all forward to reward time spent. Should we want to illustrate what melodrama was about during silent days, this will do. To jeer at pre-talk technique overlooks hardship casts endured, shooting sans stunt doubles in treacherous weather to make Griffith proud. A tougher breed then, and much exertion to admire them for (let’s say Mae Marsh earned her fee and leave it at that). Historian and preservationist Ben Model rescued Tides of Passion from a 9.5mm source. Being little larger than 8mm means hanging by a thread for many titles which survived so and no way else. Silents, all films in fact, were fair game where made by independents, juice squeezed out, then farmed to sellers intent on wringing what crumbs might still be left in them. Think of it: Seven reels in 1925, us left with two of them. Maybe we’re the better for such limit, as I’d find tough getting through seven spools, unless they derived from 35mm with tints and tones. How spoiled we are by souped-up silents so carefully restored. Fair enough 8mm from Blackhawk used to be whipped cream with cherries atop, but no more. See Tides of Passion among Undercrank offerings in their Accidently Saved: Volume Four, all of titles enhanced by Ben Model’s sterling scores.

Quick Query: Do You Suppose Groucho in His Life Ever Actually Sat a Horse?

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (1961) --- 1961 was not too late to laugh at tin lizzies and ponder how far we progressed from them. And who better than Groucho Marx to narrate pile-ups, Jalopies versus old Dobbin, history happily swept away and thanks be to freeways to make life happier. Groucho was however not for dismissal of such past, for he had lived through it, and we get from a coda his realizing new times were not necessarily better times. NBC’s Project 20 was intermittent hours detailing days gone and fashions spent, affectionate if not patronizing views of how quaint we’d once been. Much was newsreel-derived, not enough to fill needed 52 minutes, so recreations were done, moderns aboard antique vehicles and kitted in fashions to evoke then as opposite to now. To hear them tell it, we’re lucky autos survived onslaught of public and official reaction, Groucho telling of laws then-meant to choke progress in its cradle. Horseless conveyance seemed a worse threat than others recorded and as vigorously put down. The public would embrace motorcars if not be slow getting round to it, principal reason expense of the things, a rich man’s hobby to start and small wonder that stirred resentment. Project 20 had a way with history lite, more likely learned by casual approach more informative than any two terms at public school. Groucho as interlocuter gets irony of rose watered past and never kids us that it was lost paradise, not where streets were less streets than rivers of mud, and here came drivers better put to swimming through same than driving over it. I like Groucho giving voice and insight to these situations because his was a persona so defined as to know his outlook going in and who better to lend perspective where fads and foibles of an earlier time are addressed? With regard those rickety autos, no thanks I said after watching, give me a hoss at least till these things were tamed. Earliest racing is shown, 55 MPH a reckless pace which sure enough was case where tip overs could squash men like bugs. Inspiration sort of runs dry for final arc where slapstick and even Keystone Kops get a look-in. Was this reward for Junior having patiently watched an initial forty minutes? Merrily We Roll Along: The Early Days of the Automobile was an early DVD release (2003) from “Stanachie Entertainment,” which appears still to be in business, if now concentrated more on music CD’s.