Watch List for 5/13/2024

 

Watched: The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, The Impossible Years, One of Our Spies is Missing, and The Private War of Major Benson

THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING (1955) --- I learned from IMDB that Marilyn Monroe turned down this opportunity to play Evelyn Nesbit, object of early century scandal when her husband shot and killed Evelyn's former lover in a crowded restaurant. We’ll never know excitement all this caused (happened in 1906), but plenty oldsters who attended The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing did recall the event and subsequent trial. So how many among youth cared? Not enough apparently, because Fox’s Cinemascope outlay ($1.7 million spent) lost them a million once beans were counted. Maybe it was figured the sex would sell, but in floor length dresses that were Code contained besides? Monroe likely sensed this and reasonably said no. Joan Collins plays Nesbit as a good girl steered wrong, Ray Milland the rake who deflowers her, plus Farley Granger spurned and unbalanced with a gun. The trial can’t help but play anti-climactic, and we don’t get what ultimately became of Nesbit. She copped a credit for consultation, and maybe that’s why the character skirts are so clean.

Nesbit was dynamite looking in her teenage prime, frankly more so than Collins, and radiated steam sufficient to fill a thousand headlines. Red Velvet indicates fall of grace for the fade, Nesbit reduced to degrading variety work, though fact in real-life was her having a profitable run at vaudeville, then sing/songs for clubs far flung as Havana. There is You Tube footage of her performing there in the early thirties, a spoof of torchy tunes Evelyn knew too well from life if not art. Creepy in unplugged way, here is evidence of what happens when celebrity is too long clung to. Evelyn stayed around however, excelled at ceramics, taught them successfully, died in 1967. Book and movie Ragtime dredged her up yet again, but by then, there was no more memory of Nesbit or the killing than lore from the Boer War. So long as there are Google images however, we’ll not lose sight of passions such an extraordinary looker as Evelyn Nesbit roused in Edwardian men. Just too bad Fox didn’t have an actress on hand that could rise to her level (closest? I say Debra Paget). The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing plays HD at Vudu, also at Amazon Prime. Disney will allow it on Blu-Ray when I win the Irish Sweepstakes.

THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS (1968) --- So far as parents were concerned, the ratings system arrived not a moment too soon, but what began with promise came a cropper when likes of The Impossible Years went out "G" labeled. That stink rose from cavern of Radio City's Music Hall, where families mistook Metro's sex farce for a Christmas package with Disney-like whimsy inside. Came the complaints from mortified Moms and Dads --- if anything merited an "M" at minimum rating, it was this smutty send-up of teen groping habits and lost virginity. The adapted-from play had been a hit, written by middle-age men (one of them Groucho's son Arthur Marx) and yes, the concept was leering and smarmy as after dinner speeching at the Friar's Club. The Impossible Years wasn't alone for getting an unlikely "G": there was Dracula Has Risen From The Grave similarly rated, eyebrows aloft as well when the Monkees' Head passed for all audiences. This would suggest liberal lean on MPAA part, and that indeed was case for these first titles submitted, but outcry would tighten screws, final outcome being nanny standard applied today, where smoking a cigarette onscreen might buy you a hard "R." To that last, Christina Farrare as teen cause of travail in The Impossible Years is seen lighting up to no objection from David Niven and Lola Albright, their problems with her about to get a lot worse as story thickens.

Niven had sure hand for comedy --- who better to fall off bridge between the generations? He's a college prof here, campus setting a retro reprise of what Jerry Lewis concocted for The Nutty Professor. It surprises us, then, to see "protesters" hauling signs after comic opera fashion, The Impossible Years safely ahead of Kent State and events that make such demonstration a scary prospect. Here it's all for laughs and kids will be kids, no more serious than Elvis and pals being hauled to hoosegow for over-exuberance in Girl Happy. There's nary mention of Vietnam or social injustice or whatever occupied real-life activists at the time. The Impossible Years would tread cautiously over establishment eggshells, this after all a bid for entire family attendance, even as individual elements alarm in hindsight --- but who knew the "Bartholomew Smuts" character, a bearded party crasher with artistic pretensions, would later remind us so of Charles Manson? It took only months for The Impossible Years to hopelessly date ... in fact, it was so before cameras began rolling. Critic duty obliged me in 1968 to pen a review for our local sheet, which to my look-back surprise gave The Impossible Years a “Grade A,” noting also that the Liberty “held it over, and pricked off a day from The Pink Jungle.” I did return that week to review The Pink Jungle, but how could it hope to surpass The Impossible Years?

ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING (1966) --- Time again to cry U.N.C.L.E for paying admission to a feature cobbled from TV episodes of the spy series, a deceptive art perfected by Metro after discovery that paste-ups could gross ahead of bombs they were dropping into theatres during very bad seasons that were the mid-60's. One of Our Spies is Missing was actually a fourth fake of eight the U.N.C.L.E. team spat forth, and a first to be restricted to overseas release. An initial three had grossed well, astonishingly so in foreign playdates, so that's where effort would be concentrated. One of Our Spies is Missing had been built for $108K, which was TV's two-part episode cost plus expense of added footage and reshoots for Euro theatrical. What came back was $1.7 million in offshore rentals, better money than Metro realized on any number of clucks they had in circulation. Spies is sold on DVD by Warner Archive along with the seven other U.N.C.L.E.'s, and noteworthy is fact it crops nicely to 1.85, clear being fact they framed the show for eventual theatrical use. Challenge comes of 100 minutes doggedly done on dull MGM backlot as dressed for London or Paris. Leave them face it in 1966: One of Our Spies is Missing was a cheat in any man's language. There's an outstanding article by Craig Henderson on production/release of the film in Issue # 12 of Cinema Retro.

THE PRIVATE WAR OF MAJOR BENSON (1955) --- Released mere months before Rebel Without a Cause, but what era-book-ends these make. Youth as potential adult with maturity and discipline that implies was a dream to fast vanish once JD’s and rock-roll defined teens figured now to stir trouble. The Private War of Major Benson is set at a military academy, Charlton Heston the martinet assigned there for his own bad attitude, focus on boys of varied age from whom he’ll learn patience and humanity, stock stuff as Universal-International was so gifted at dispersing. Heston found the property, was eager to do comedy to relieve severity of ten commanding. Principal tyke is Tim Hovey, cherub star of this and other U-I’s and fated to future horrors like child stars as unfortunate. Same for Sal Mineo, here where Benson and Rebel intersected, Sal in Benson as model boy any Dad or Mom would embrace, us to wonder if any of Mineo was like this or was he altogether sad Plato of Rebel placement. So why go see The Private War of Major Benson … for Heston? He is romance-teamed with Julie Adams, as in why feature two big names to whom you must bestow percentage when contract staff does as well. Youth in addition to Hovey and Mineo amounts to faceless plus Tim Considine, a survivor and smart for being so, his future with Disney (was he “Spin” or “Marty,” or neither?), much other TV, getting smacked by George Scott as Patton, and finishing up as dispenser of fifteen-dollar autographs at Hollywood Collector Shows. No martyr to decaying culture he. The Private War of Major Benson fascinates on levels not imagined in summer 1955, a celebration at twilight of "good" boys that only Buena Vista or Pat Boone would eventually stand up for. Of movies invisible since syndication day, Benson stands tall. I’d seen it nowhere since Channel 9-Charlotte 60’s day, TCM the digger-up for a Heston night, transfer stale, not 1.85 and HD as hoped, but as with much that is vintage/obscure, let’s not ask for the moon.

Gary Cooper Crossing the Lines

 

War is Distinctly Not Hell in Only the Brave

Only the Brave was progression of, also departure from, long and noble line of Civil War melodrama going back to first shots fired in 1861. Never did theatrical stages get such hypo as shooting conflict between the states, being everyone’s urgency and a most American sub-genre to so far fire footlights. Narratives dealt mainly with impact on individuals, seldom if ever focused upon larger issues, let alone reasons for the strife itself. Civil War melodrama was essentially romance set against landscape of neighbor against neighbor, often brother opposed to brother, theme at center being all of us as essential one, postwar a healing process plays sought to salve. Consider recounts over the seventy years prior to Only the Brave in 1930, variations endless. How then to freshen approach? Keene Thompson was a writer on staff at Paramount, born 1885, so he undoubtedly grew up on Civil War drama, be it lavish or done threadbare by small traveling troupes. Those born of latter half of a nineteenth century would know the format backwards, its cliches, expected bumps, and inevitable outcomes. Thompson, adaptor Agnes Brand Leahy, and scenarist Edward E. Paramore, Jr. took an essentially tired formula and upended it, Only the Brave emerging as sly spoof of whole institution that was warring between the states on pretend terms. I’ve got a feeling Only the Brave raised a lot of laughs in 1930 houses, viewership having been weaned on content done earnest and more than ready for Hollywood to give tradition a kick in the rear. We can’t appreciate Only the Brave a same way but can have fun watching what witty writing and a game cast does with material they all knew was ripe for parody.

Here was convention among many to be burlesqued: Stalwart Union officer (Gary Cooper), heartbroke by a faithless fiancée (Virginia Bruce), accepts a suicide mission because, after all, life means so little now. He’ll don Confederate uniform and carry false dispatches into Southern stronghold that is honey dew plantation occupied by belle Mary Brian and guest suitor, a jealous one, enacted by Phillips Holmes. You see, Cooper wants to be captured, the enemy misled by “concealed” orders so they will ride off en masse to assured defeat. It wasn’t necessary for director Frank Tuttle to gag up proceedings beyond obvious opportunity the set-up supplied. Viewership would have known early that here was a yarn not to take seriously, least wise not by veteran viewers of drama done good, bad, or indifferent by everyone from David Belasco, William Gillette, to school mates in ill-fit blue-gray brandishing their wooden swords. Hollywood had by 1930 poked fun at old-style board- trodding, as witness Buster Keaton in uproarious takeoff that was Spite Marriage in 1929, him as stagestruck yokel who through guile becomes a soldier extra in small town rendition of North-South dispute. It was a modern sign of sophistication to look askance upon any Civil War situation done straight, for hadn’t most spent a lifetime giving such stuff the horse laugh? This may have been at least partial reason why much of Hollywood doubted Gone With the Wind as screen prospect, for how could anyone sit still for yet more “epic” treatment of a war lost and won within countless auditoriums over what seemed infinite years?

Movies had themselves ground the conflict to as much powder. There were enough single reel silents to float a boat, or an ironclad. D.W. Griffith warmed up to The Birth of a Nation with a plethora of pocket dramas that explored many aspects of Civil warring, while live theatre stayed with the subject to what surely was exhaustion for watchers. Ground rules, if unwritten, did apply, as in drama must strike a conciliatory tone. War being long over, but scars still healing, meant we must explore that past on surface emotion terms, as in will love overcome patriotism, can a girl of the Confederacy shield her lover who is spying for the Yanks? Only the Brave had fun with the well-worn theme, not to extent of tampering with a happy ending everyone still preferred, but exposing whiskers grown on a story too oft-told. Director Tuttle, who himself had written for the stage, was a Yale man who understood convention and how to spoof it, appreciated comedy as brought to bear by Keene Thompson and helper scribes. Tuttle lived into the sixties and by that time worked less, so took occasion to pen a memoir of life behind cameras, his daughters saving the manuscript and enabling publication via Bear Manor Books in 2005. They Started Talking is first-hand account of a studio career first at silent forge, then learning process of sound and how to master it. We could wonder after reading Tuttle’s colorful recall how many former directors left life stories in attics that might yet be extant, waiting for descendants to come across them. Tuttle talked about Only the Brave in terms of comedy intended from the start. We might “get” the humor sooner had we slogged through as many Civil War dramas as folks in 1930, and yes, it does take Only the Brave a little time to reveal its farcical face, that coming I’m sure as delightful surprise for viewers in 1930, as hopefully they would today.

Gary Cooper does sly variation on his slow-talk cowpoke. Is he up to subtlety of spying, one asks? --- except that hardly matters, as this loser-at-love spy seeks to fail, even be shot, an unlikely quest, for what woman would betray Gary Cooper on romantic terms? Opener reel where Virginia Bruce swaps Coop for a “pansy” is good as any tipoff that Only the Brave will thereafter unfold in fun. Tuttle reported female co-workers’ fascination by Cooper’s “detachment” and limited way with words on set. “Where the ladies are concerned, a retreating male back seems to create an almost irresistible challenge,” said Tuttle. Seems all of femmes wanted to know from the director what was behind the charming, but “temperamentally somewhat aloof” façade. Tuttle finally in frustration told them “truth” that the star was “probably looking for a set with a bed in it, so he can lie down and take a nap,” this confirming Cooper’s reputation for being able to sleep on a tack between takes. Mary Brian was the leading lady. She would survive to recount for many what it was like to toil at Paramount, one job merging unto others like water flowing toward common reservoir. There was Brian and increasingly less others to answer queries and bear witness to an era irretrievable otherwise. Indeed, she would outlive Only the Brave castmates Cooper and Philips Holmes by forty-one and sixty-one years, respectively. Only the Brave played syndicated airwaves after late fifties TV release. Present day streaming options are nil, no Blu-Ray in sight (“too old” a likely argument against release), Only the Brave extant only on bootleg discs a dealer might tender.

Precode Picks #3

 

Precodes: The Age of Consent, Female, What's Playing Broadway, and The Painted Veil

THE AGE OF CONSENT (1932) --- Any depict of the college experience circa 1932 is manna for me, The Age of Consent doing it with game cast of youngsters not burdened by star status nor baked-in song and patter to be highlighted were this, say, a Paramount project. Post-twenties setting, so no need for racoon coats or hip flasks, initiates to life swapping sarcasm as they learn of “free love” and other concerns revolved around Topic A. The Age of Consent is precode to extent of what drives girls and boys, none constrained by faculty advice to go slow what with temptations like Dorothy Wilson and Arline Judge, one sent by parents to get proper educated and maybe a husband, the other of working class who will put out where a young man merits such gesture. This all smacks of real life except what do I know of collegiates in 1932 but for recognizing tropes from my own long-past experience and what got observed during that not-so radically changed epoch. To most essential point, were girls on campus to book learn or snare a mate? At least two confessed to me post-graduation that parents expected both. You’d fail and waste their investment lest you brought home a diploma plus a husband. I saw a lot of friends marry right out of, or during, college. How did they work out? NSG for a most part, as ones (or twos) I can think of are on at least second wedlocks today, or single and relieved to be that way. Callow Richard Cromwell (for casting he got, we could dub him “Callow Cromwell”) gets in a pickle after one-night wing-ding with Arline, and he was supposed to be engaged to Dorothy. Seems Arline fed him hootch and hours later he couldn’t recall their act of lust, a movie device reflective of no reality I ever knew. There are indulgences simply not to be forgot mere hours later, no matter what one has to drink, or am I wrong?

The Age of Consent schools us re slang cleverly applied to collegiate conversation never so bristling in my own experience. Were RKO scribes former campus wits as was customary case where writing was especially good? Insights to growth and maturity are supplied by Professor John Halliday, who a generation before got his sheepskin but surrendered love, thus “finish your education” is not what he’ll preach, and for this instance at least, we are told at the fade that degrees while OK are no substitute for home, family, and whatever job might be got. Was this responsible advice? Search me, as dropping out, let alone to marry, would have been unthinkable in seventies sojourn as I experienced it, unless ceremony was of shotgun nature of which not a few were observed as well. Does youth still attend institutions to learn life as opposed to what books would teach? Seems at times I was there more to show campus films than learn about poets of yore (English major), height of arrogance telling a prof not to expect me next day for necessity of drive to High Point and scoring Bride of Frankenstein on 16mm from piratical George Ashwell. “Hey, will you introduce and show it to the class next week for extra course credit?” asked Dr. Mahan, to which I wrongly concluded Everybody wins!, him happy, students too, and me maybe off the hook for Beowulf. College then was continual game of slip-slide and fool choice in priorities, Greenbriar in a sense what I’ve got to show for it, but perhaps there are worse ways to apply one’s higher learning.

FEMALE (1932) --- Ruth Chatterton acknowledges at the end of Female that “I’m only a woman,” and thereby surrenders control of the multimillion dollar automotive firm she inherited from her father to George Brent. Now that is trusting a guy beyond reason, judgment and any semblance of self-preservation. Where will they live, in her mansion customized specifically to her needs? And why should she give that up for the sake of any man, even George Brent? (the pair would wed offscreen as well) I sat long trying to figure the post-end power structure for these two. “Drake Motors” is hers, subject I suppose to stockholder will and that of a Board of Directors, but what does Brent's “Jim Thorne” bring to the party? Largest real-life category of women who should not trust men are women with money, because how do any know if it's them or the money men want? “Alison Drake” is frankly better off in executive chair with men-as-toys she can enjoy in off-hours. Why should she give in to convention that is marriage and comparative isolation that is home and hearth? I could endorse Alison’s decision were the actress playing her a tad younger, but Chatterton was past forty when she essayed Female and starry eyes for Brent or any other George is tough for alert eyes to accept. And here’s the other bugaboo … Brent was in real life twelve years Chatterton’s junior. His Thorne protests at one point that he will not be a gigolo to Alison, but methinks that’s very much how he comes off, at least to jaded eyes that are mine. Depression-wracked watchers were lots more worldly wise than I could ever hope to be, and I can’t help guessing they looked askance at all this. Female is fun despite absurdities, being sixty minutes long and pleasingly fleet. Deco trappings (her house!) is a feast for senses smitten by luxury as known by precious 30’s few. Female plays HD on TCM.

PRECODES ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY --- “Current Attractions” as in early 1932, here is trade mosaic of what was tendered to Broadway patrons when features and especially ads for them were looser than loose. I’ve long believed movies ran distinctly second to daring of ads selling them, newspapers seen more by tender eyes than product splayed upon screens during years before toothy Code took sway. Did Junior ask Dad to explain copy that read, “Temptations Never Come Singly … To a Married Man”? Did Dad lie and reply that such temptations are nothing other than too much ice cream or fudge? Rest assured Junior got to truth of matters, one way or another. My mother’s adolescence came amidst the precode era, her favorite actress Helen Twelvetrees, which means at ages fourteen, fifteen, she was going and seeing Twelvetrees vehicles, most of which were resolutely precode. Don’t let anyone tell you youth wasn’t worldly in those days, just for seeing what they did on screens if no other way. Much that is promoted by this montage is lost to us now, in whole or Code-cut part. Mata Hari, Forbidden, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were gelded for reissues and still are not put right. Mati Hari exists complete in a Euro archive but nothing has been done by present owner Warners to access it. Live acts were seasoning for features that in most cases ran less than ninety minutes so as to make room for what much of patronage was really there to see. Note nascent star and down-billed Bing Crosby sharing show time with This Reckless Age. I like how Sooky is touted as “A Picture for Grown-Ups,” and someone please step up who has seen Stepping Sisters, being one I never heard of before seeing this page. Imagine … Disney owns it now. Well, maybe we’ll finally get Stepping Sisters after it enters Public Domain in a few years.

THE PAINTED VEIL (1934) --- Garbo as restless wife of stolid cholera healer Herbert Marshall gets an itch for rakish George Brent in modern-set Hong Kong dressed by Metro to look more a real thing than if they had boated over with full cast/crew. Compare The Painted Veil with 1955’s Soldier of Fortune, latter which was done far flung and achingly authentic (many Cinemascope captures of wider-than-wide vistas), but then comes interiors back on Fox environs that barely bother about Far East flavor. Distinction of The Painted Veil lies in all sets, décor, scrims, street scenes, looking my idea at least of just right, even if they weren’t within three thousand miles of site depicted. Again … big enough studios with resource like MGM did not need to go far afield when artisans could improve on reality right at home, plus ravish their stars with lighting and affect they’d never have gotten hauling all across oceans for so-called “real thing.” Drama is effective, based on Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil released post-enforcement edict, but I’ll include it here for maintaining spirit of precode, which in this case is honesty re GG in faithless mode and reckless passion, continental sizzle intact despite new rules damping same down. Seems Herbert Marshall was cuckolded lots in movies, though closer exam reveals he was as much cuckolder as cuckoldee. I like how Garbo spills truth to him in seeming first scene where he suspects, sparing us slog of getting to a showdown. The Painted Veil saw profit. It was not until Conquest that Garbo had her first red ink bath, over a million gone with that Napoleonic wind. Like with Norma Shearer and Riptide, also 1934, Garbo and handlers tried at business as usual, but stories revolved around infidelity were fast passing their day, at least on terms precode had played them, doom to Garbo, Shearer, host of others who breached morality walls and thrived for it in past circumstance that would not come back. Companies couldn’t even get a pass to reissue scorchers such stars had done during peak lure when anything went, or at least seemed that way. What was there but decline and age the bane they would have confronted either way? Appropriate then that Garbo and Shearer would retire from films within a year of one another, neither needing the gaffe or further chase after money.

Category Called Comedy #5

 

CCC: A Brit Box Plus Duke and Sammy

WHISKY GALORE! (1949) --- Retitled Tight Little Island for US distribution by Universal, this was a J. Arthur Rank-enabled project of Ealing Pictures, a firm lately dedicated to froth-focus on English life, Whisky Galore! set in Scotland and shot there for authenticity. Humor was of droll sort, rather Brit sort as understood by Yanks who kept Whisky Galore! aloft at Gotham artie the Trans-Lux for a remarkable twenty-six weeks, venue a rebranded newsreel theatre and small enough to function nicely as a sure-seater. Comedy was understated enough for oversea offerings to be viewed as real-to-life by comparison with bumptious and increasingly unfunny US humor. Not a few elites shunned comedy unless brought from the Isles, question eventually down to, Is Alec Guinness in it? Not in Whisky Galore!, but spirit to ultimately become his got birth here and would wait for the star to embody it. We watch Ealings and are sometimes amused, charmed by a better few, but what was fuss that kept such a minor piece as Whisky Galore! humming for so many frames? Set-up is island folk dependent on spirits as an only recreation who find themselves fresh out until a passing ship goes aground and they discover its sole cargo is liquor. Varied types respond in ways we expect of eccentrics not of culture as strictly defined by Hollywood. Whisky Galore! seemed truant for showing how oft-earthy characters live very unlike we do, or did. Here was what made Whisky Galore! refreshing with encores a must, thus enter Guinness and others of singular sort to keep kettles cooking. Does Whisky Galore! play today? On TCM, yes, in pleasing HD, where interwoven stories boast a cast familiar to those who Brit-shop: Basil Radford, known/liked as half of the “Charters and Caldicott” team of Lady Vanishes fame, Joan Greenwood, whose part is smaller than her billing, James Robertson Justice, John Gregson (who would later drive Genevieve). Whisky Galore! enhances with hindsight, working better the more times we visit.

COTTAGE TO LET (1941) --- A comedy sure, but this is wartime, so there is German spying midst the frolic, and they mean deadly business where cornered. Surprise awaits the watching, for few in cottage residence are as they appear. This was barely released in America, and by Monogram yet (called Bombsight Stolen, as misleading as it was inappropriate). Cottage to Let played early television like most of Brit content substituting for Yank pics viewership preferred, but could not yet enjoy. At least that got them seen, and by a far wider audience than would have been case had they played US theatres. Afterward there was William K. Everson to champion obscurity that was Cottage to Let. His NYU class notes are a spur to watch, and happily there is You Tube rendition of Cottage to Let that looks fine, YT a rich resource for British titles. Cottage cast is rich too with names established or on upward move: Leslie Banks as a distracted arms inventor who uses 16mm projection to research but doesn’t explain why, and what heck is he doing with yards of film draped round his shoulders? Alastair Sim has a star-making part, comic and sinister by turns. There is John Mills who will surprise us in a third act, Michael Wilding early on, a lot more Brit faces well known to then, if less so now. Much of UK war seems to have been rooting out German operatives seemingly everywhere and in most benign disguise, not a few planted since the last war and toiling quietly toward success with the current scrap. And what of Huns who were Oxford educated and spoke perfectly the King’s tongue? It may have been better policy to trust nobody till victory was assured. Everson noted Hitchcockian devices and they are there, Cottage to Let more instance of influence AH exerted. Why not him as blueprint for a nation’s thrillers to come? He did a same trick stateside, the label “Hitchcockian” perhaps born in the USA, perhaps not. In fact, I’d like knowing when it was first used. Greenbriar earlier explored the “Master of Suspense” tag and when that was initially applied, but who’s to know where set upon oceans of ads, publicity from so long ago?

THIS MAN IS NEWS (1938) --- Freewheeling (for the UK) mystery-comedy after Thin Man fashion, as in married leads sharing three bottles of champagne over an evening, then brandy cocktails upon awaken next morning (but never sick nor hung over). Ever tried this? Don’t. Pace is quickened, except Brit rush through words is often a trick to decipher. UK slang was seldom adopted across water, or I presume at other Euro sites, England all the more an island unto popular cultural self. We are given that their newspapers operate at even more hysterical pitch than here and I suspect that reflects less authenticity than effort to copy and hopefully best Yanks at their own rapid-fire game. Alastair Sim as harassed editor gives plus value, pushed hard to keep pep at unreal level. What we like about the English is relax-as-a-rule the colonies got seldom from their own product, many to find that refreshing as often still do. This Man is News getting the hypo was novelty at least, Valerie Hobson at dream wife duty, Barry K. Barnes the husband, his name less US known. Powell and Loy they aren’t, but there is part of appeal, and This Man is News seems to have been a meaningful hit, enough so to provoke a sequel, This Man in Paris for 1939. Both got American release, News in 1939, Paris in 1942. US-Paramount financed and subsequently owned This Man is News, television exposure a result of latter put among features sold to syndication in 1959. It is since around on grey-label DVD, but online reviews so far are unsparing re picture-sound quality. My exposure came courtesy You Tube.

IMAGINE … MITCHELL AND PETRILLO IN PERSON! --- Don’t wish to brag, but I once met and talked with Sammy Petrillo, and probably was better off than if it were Jerry Lewis after whom Petrillo was patterned. Sammy as precocious teen teamed with Duke Mitchell, handlers figuring there was enough Martin-Lewis overlap to fill imitator purses. Hal Wallis wanted to sue Duke-Sammy, Jerry also despite initial good will (Sammy TV guesting with him). Had Mitchell and Petrillo kept clear of movies, things might have been calmer, but here was a faux team actively poaching on theatres bound to Paramount and real-thing that was Martin-Lewis, and word is, those venues that hosted the ersatz pair got spanked for doing so, as in no more Paramount product for enablers. Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla was produced by Jack Broder, reissue peddler and overall seller of whatever sold, the sort who’d tell a Wallis, or Martin-Lewis, or whoever, to go jump in available lakes. What did high-power Hollywood ever do for Jack? Stick it to them all, he figured. “The Public Is Entitled To See and Judge” says the Midway Theatre’s ad, and what a thrill to have shown up for the gala stage and screen show, only improvement upon announced bill if “Poor Bela” had come along as bonus. And don’t underestimate Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla --- it’s plenty polished pleasure, direction by William Beaudine, funny stuff from Sammy, songs by Duke. There is a DVD, Gorilla a supposed Wade Williams property. Again to Sammy at that Meadowlands show in the early nineties: He could not have been nicer, still doing stand-up with a girl partner. He even gave me a page of jokes used for his shows. It was like someone from a fifties nightclub stage had materialized at a New Jersey hotel ballroom, me older today than Sammy was then. Bless him and good fortune for our having intersected, Sammy's kind of show biz well missed and surely not coming back.

UPDATE: 4/23/2024: Dan Mercer ponders Brooklyn Gorilla and sends some neat fotos.

The Wikipedia article on Sammy Petrillo quotes Jerry Lewis' son Gary as saying that, "When Sammy and that other guy played in that gorilla movie, I remember my Dad and Dean saying 'We got to sue those guys...this is no good.'

...Whenever there was any mention of Sammy Petrillo, it was a tense moment."

There actually was a law suit against Jack Broder to prevent "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" from being released, on the ground that it had appropriated the likenesses of Martin and Lewis, hence the pictures of Duke Mitchell and Petrillo with the charming Charlita, who played a native girl in the film, cavorting outside a Manhattan court room. Mitchell said later that Broder had used him and Petrillo to provoke Lewis and Martin and their studio, Paramount Pictures, into suing him, with the idea that they would buy the movie from him and destroy it to prevent its release. If "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" had become 10,000 guitar picks, he would have been content, as long as he got paid.

It was the sort of deal some RKO Radio executives might have wanted to have made with William Randolph Hearst for "Citizen Kane." However, Broder not only wanted to get his budget back, he wanted a little more. which was where he overplayed his hand. Hal Wallis at Paramount wasn't agreeable to settling for more than the picture's budget. He didn't like Broder, he didn't like being held up, and he thought that the movie stunk and wouldn't make a dime. The talks broke down, the law suit was dropped, and Broder was forced into releasing his film after all, which predictably did no business. So, it was a sort of "Springtime for Hitler" in reverse, with the preservation of "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" its dubious outcome.

ANOTHER UPDATE - 4/26/2024:

Dear John:

For the record, and for those who have never seen the U.S. variation in ad design, here is a crummy image of the U-I New York Times opening day ad for WHISKY GALORE as "Tight Little Island" from December 25, 1949.

Regards,
Griff

An 85th Anniversary Surprise Booking ...

 

Gone with the Wind Blew Back Last Week

A part of me is for shortening Gone with the Wind to simply Gone. And yet there are pockets that care, 116 of them showing up for a Fathom Events run this past week, my local six-plex using GWTW for one matinee (Sunday) and two evening runs (Monday, then Wednesday). Admission was $10, which means they collected $1160 total. That may have been more than Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire or Kung Fu Panda 4 took for comparable play. I dealt myself in for Sunday afternoon, time served one hour, as here is where audible reaction most occurs, at least that was case on distant occasions when me and audiences intersected. Back then prints were bad, good, worn, intact … one never knew. This time GWTW was digital and that translates more/less to idiot proof, so worry not of wrong ratio or faded color. This looked and sounded OK if dimmer, though I’d guess audiences by now are resigned to that. GWTW ran in a smaller room to seat 125, so Sunday’s 55 seemed a crowd. Here was chance to see what Rhett and Scarlett could do with 2024 viewership. Obviously none came on casual impulse … not to a four-hour film, most having seen GWTW I expect, never on a big screen perhaps, as was case with the lady who cuts my hair who pledged weeks ago not to miss her all-time favorite movie “as it was meant to be seen.” I had ears up for response to specific scenes well recalled for how each played a half-century back. Would they go same directions again? Answer was yes, with a few surprising no’s.

Gone with the Wind was pondered last at Greenbriar in 2010. Many comments were posted, these worth a latter look after fourteen years elapsed. I tried this time to put myself in the place of today-folk watching a 1939 release. Were any there who had never seen GWTW? If so, they were in for something unlike all that is modern filmmaking, and more so, storytelling. Is any current film so heavily scored? I’d like to think someone among the uninitiated might “discover” the music and want more of same sort, or is that too wishful thinking? Love for lush accompany might be too high a hill for anyone young (even old) to climb, for didn’t movies abandon classical/romantic models by the sixties, certainly the seventies? I felt keenly Wind's age when Thomas Mitchell did his Tara speech and the camera rolled back for a majesty take. When was this sort of thing last attempted? Gone with the Wind defines narrative-driven, bearing in mind this isn’t something moderns necessarily want, so does GWTW suffer for its discipline and careful construction? Characters are dense and piled high. Could you scroll, text, as so many do, and still keep up? Lots insist a movie permit all this, which may be why coherence matters so much less now. No film today is remotely like Gone with the Wind, whereas on 1967-68 occasion for a major reissue, there were still features that harked back, at least tentatively, to the epic original. Imitators stepped boldly forward just ten years before, Raintree County and lately mentioned Band of Angels. I wasn’t nervous watching GWTW for not being responsible for how it would be received, my days for bringing anything vintage before current lookers happily and mercifully passed.

Gone with the Wind was for years a gateway drug to old film addiction. Exposure enough, repeated enough, made a rest of the Classic Era simpler to access, easier to enjoy. How possible was it to sit a civilian down for black-and-white recital by faces all of which were unfamiliar? During the sixties-seventies at least, more people saw GWTW than any way-past title save The Wizard of Oz, opportunity arising to widen their acquaintance with at least the four principals from Wind: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia DeHavilland. Gable as lure brought groups of sorority girls to my 1975 collegiate run of Honky Tonk, all of them there for knowing him as Rhett Butler. My sister long ago sat through televised Intermezzo with me after recognizing Leslie Howard, and how many tolerated Errol Flynn pictures I showed at school for familiar face Olivia DeHavilland showing up in them? Clark Gable acknowledged in later years that Gone with the Wind was what primarily kept his name alive and enabled public forgiveness for weaker movies he had done. Ever asked someone who liked GWTW if they’d seen anything else with one of its stars? Had they not, chances are they might be willing to. Wish I could have polled Wind’s exiting audience last week, me as modern-day Johnny Grant with Rock, Pretty Baby’s crowd. As it is, my stay was less than whole of runtime, truth of matter being I’m hard pressed to sit among an audience that long. Comfort of home has become too comfortable. When Blu-Ray looks hands down better than anything they can project upon public screens … well, that’s progress of a sort I suppose, but are we richer for it? Me for the door once data was gathered.

Query to all: Was Gone with the Wind the only Clark Gable starring feature where he did not end up with the girl? Did Leslie Howard really sacrifice himself so the Germans would not realize the Brits had broken their code? Had Vivien Leigh’s bipolar condition become a handicap by the time she played Scarlett, and if not then, when? I knew a collector named Herb Bridges who lived in Atlanta and had the largest GWTW stash of anyone under one roof. We visited him once and I got to hold the green Paris hat that Rhett brought Scarlett. Also went to a high school basketball gym where the Scarlett portrait hung, and you could still see a dent where Rhett threw his glass against it. Pleased to report 2024’s audience laughed at same spots they had before, the biggest when Aunt Pitty fainted at the bazaar, a most appreciative when Rhett says “And you, Mrs. Hamilton, I know just how much that meant to you.” Suppose Selznick penned that line? It could have been any of a dozen credited, or not, scribes. Either way, it's deathless. Most interesting and unexpected was the viewing 55’s non-reaction at Rand Brooks’ proposal to Scarlett, specifically his skipping away after her acceptance for “Mr. O’Hara, Mr. O’Hara!” Later when we’re shown a letter from the War Department informing Scarlett of Charles’ death wherein Measles is listed as the cause, audiences of my past tittered or laughed outright once eyes scrolled to the bottom, but this time, and for a first time I’ve experienced, there was stillness. Do present-day neighbors feel a greater compassion for Charles Hamilton than crueler counterparts I grew up among? What a difference fifty years makes. Ann recalls patronage stood up the street and around our local bank’s corner to see a Sunday matinee for Gone with the Wind at the Liberty in 1972. Comparing this with the 55 I saw it with seems a considerable drop down, but saints be praised for mere fact Gone with the Wind was shown theatrically, it among oldies I’d least expect to turn up in this or any present year.