The Art of Selling Movies #6

 

First Ever Opportunity to Read One of J.J. Hunsecker's Columns ... Only at Greenbriar!

Art of ... Sweet Smell of Success, Monsieur Verdoux, Judy Garland Revisit, and Cass Timberlane

FORGIVE AND FORGET? --- Ads called Sweet Smell of Success “The Motion Picture That Will Never Be Forgiven or Forgotten.” By who exactly … Walter Winchell, readers of New York tabloids, night club operators? Trouble among many for Sweet Smell of Success was a mass public seeing nothing not to forget, let alone forgive. Much ado about who cares was this, Gotham elite account of things that mattered to no one else. Even tougher now to interest anyone in Sweet Smell of Success, for who recalls ink-wet daily papers tossed in heaps to eager readership, printed news extinct or headed there, and what columnist, assuming there are still columnists, have anything like reach of a J.J. Hunsecker? Fans must face it … Sweet Smell of Success is rarefied and removed from daily experience. If there is a modern Hunsecker, he/she might be influencing at some corner of You Tube or Tik Tok. Sweet Smell was snakebit from a start. Sophisticates stayed home. A mainstream and certainly showmen preferred Lancaster and Tony Curtis on Trapeze highwires. Lancaster produced Sweet Smell, small comfort to him years later when fans seeing the film for free on television called it ambrosia. Rule One among those who spent to make a movie: If it failed to sell, it don’t matter how good it was. A dud is a dud where too few pay. The “Cool” Loew’s State ad is busy, if talkative. Was cool their conception of the movie, or did it refer to air-conditioning? (this was June 27, 1957). There was an added Disney cartoon called The Wetback Hound which I’d enjoy them trying to reissue today. Has it surfaced anywhere? The Loew’s front had towering Burt poised to slap Tony. Most of slaps in Sweet Smell of Success, however, were verbal. Such a shame when something so fine fails. Loew’s State had been home to lushest of Metro output. Now they were cut loose from Lion moorings, each booking a gamble all its own.

CHAPLIN CHANGES --- CAN YOU? --- This was query UA put to patronage in 1947 when poor prospect Monsieur Verdoux sallied forth to empty cinemas and disappointed remains of Charlie Chaplin viewership. He hadn’t worked since The Great Dictator, which was a hit, but dated now and surely to goodness CC wouldn’t try being the Little Tramp again. He did not, but exhibitors hoped he might, at least instead of “The Modern Bluebeard.” Was putting the Tramp in an upper left corner teasing us to possibility? Loew’s advertising seems almost reluctant to spell out premise of Charlie as a serial killer of women, the offscreen conqueror of oft-underaged fair sex, and to scandalous outcome. In fact, his last press in profusion circled round drain that was le affaire Joan Barry, who with compliant jurors and judges took Chaplin to edge of ruin and lightened his purse toward support of offspring demonstrably not his. So here comes Monsieur Verdoux to be schizo sold as “strange, haunting romance, shocking drama,” with “surprising laughter.” Yes, they’d be surprised in view of rotten press Chaplin had been getting, his recent meet with reporters, intended to boost Verdoux, being instead a turkey shoot with Charlie the gobbler. Didn’t help when he opened the conference by saying, “You may proceed with the butchery,” actually one of my favorite lines Charlie ever uttered. He could have won the Irish sweepstakes and still been in a hole. CC accused United Artists of dumping Monsieur Verdoux. Maybe they did, but it would have taken a marketing genius with a forklift to peddle these goods. At least Loew’s put best feet forward with a crowded Vaude bill to support their star. I’m thinking Charlie would been better re-staging his old Karno Night in the Show. At least this would have made for merrier matinees. Disaster that Verdoux was, Chaplin would not give up on it. A 1964 revival booking in New York saw his broken toy redeemed and folks lining up for weeks to see it. Raves ensued. We like Verdoux now for lots that Chaplin dared. Criterion has a Blu-Ray flush with extras.

JOYOUS JUDY NOW … AND THEN --- Imagine romance of wintertime trek to Loew’s State, its glittery marquee beckoning from a block away,  evocative capture here to suggest what magical occasion this would be. Digging reveals this still was shot between November 11 and 17, 1966. I had assumed it was a 1952 booking to tie in with Judy live at the Palace, and who knows, that could be the case. What year does that green taxi look to be? Either way I’d go for MGM (past) glory of two surefires, Meet Me in St. Louis with Babes in Arms. We know Judy still performed as of 1966, had dates around town and was seen frequent, so revivals seemed a safe bet. Who knows, she might have stopped into Loew’s to relive memories. Both features had played television for some time before ’66, but some yet preferred seeing them on screens as intended. Prints would be fresh off “Perpetual Product Plan” as launched in 1962. Got a feeling Babes in Arms was still shorn of the Mickey-as-Roosevelt number that came out after the President’s death and stayed gone till Warners put it back in a video release. Note fifty cent admission. Loew’s probably bought both shows at flat rate. That was the customary arrangement with oldies during the sixties. You couldn’t make much profit running vaulties on percentage. What a lovely place pre-hellscape Broadway could be. Photos like this --- marquees like Loew’s --- all beyond modern reach. I’ll guess this is indeed 1966 because it is a fact they ran the combo that year, and because in 1952, Loew’s was still very much a first-run palace and would have been hard put to use past attractions without specific cause. This reminds me of another Gotham house using Desperate Journey with Edge of Darkness in 1957. Product shortage keenly enough felt obliged theatres to fill time with proven hits of yore. Look to local listings and you’ll see theatres doing a same now. Our Liberty had the old Polar Express for Christmas season 2025. I bet more came to see it than anything that was new.

EARNING YOUR SEAT --- Would you walk through a chest-high snowdrift to see Cass Timberlane with Blondie’s Holiday? I used Cass as sample of a once-thought-important Metro special later reduced to ninety-minute TV spotting by Charlotte’s Channel 9, just another of their “Pre-48 Greats” leased from MGM and fed into broadcast chipper. Put yourself in the photographer’s position. He or she had enough sense to capture the image, hail a cab, head either home or to a bar. Me on the other hand would have braved elements to get under that marquee, admire displays to shiver point, then pay ways in to inspect the lobby plus concessions. No matter how high boots were, I’d still be soaked to my shirt, or hopefully overcoat. Imagine sitting hours in such circumstance. Would there be a Tom and Jerry or Tex Avery in support of the feature? I figure shorts would have been less because Cass had company in Blondie, which frankly I would not have stayed for, having avoided Blondie for all of life so far. Channel 7 in Spartanburg ran them, me for switching whenever one surfaced. Metro especially felt the postwar pinch but try to make them stop spending as though it were blooming and booming early forties. 1946 was a record year, late 1947 and into 1948 to slip noticeably, result hard lesson learned by all the majors. Cass Timberlane as I recall was an OK picture, well enough made to engage. They need not all be great to impress. Trouble for thousand or more seat showcases was less people inclined to come downtown for movies. What with war ended and families expanding, they had more vital things to do. Farther-sighted Hollywood observers predicted several years prior that this would happen, and now it did.

UPDATE (9/14/2026) 2:18 pm: Griff supplies a World Premiere Gotham ad for Monsieur Verdoux.