Shot Near the Top of My Chart

 

Among the One-Hundred: Hell's Angels

There’s been conjecture as to cost and casualties on Hell’s Angels. Some claim four million was sunk in the negative, a most since the silent Ben-Hur, while others make it more, as in $4.5, claims also that two million was gone just on a near-completed talkless Angels that Howard Hughes scuttled in favor of sound. United Artists data says $2.8 million was the outlay, $1.6 million coming back in domestic rentals. Is truth somewhere in between? Probably so, as myths attached quick to Hell’s Angels. This was glorious Hollywood, madness Hollywood, fiscal indifference to give free-spend appearance, but seldom the reality of it. Hughes had roared into town on his own (inherited) money, was a cock of the air when aviation was a most romantic pursuit men could aspire to, him tall, dark, and obsessive, still sane enough to make projects begin and eventually conclude. He did features that clicked, are still shown at TCM, if silent and not a little strange. Universal owns the lot. They licensed Hell’s Angels to Criterion for its recent 4K release, which I might as well go ahead and call Disc of the Year. Did I mention casualties before? There were four deaths said most, some creeping it up to five. Suppose there were more that got covered up? --- that easy enough in wild-wooly H’wood of off-chart risks and reward. Stunt flyers went all but Kamikaze over jobs that paid best for a day’s (or hour) work. Nobody wanted to die in the air, but better men had, and theirs was an ennobled fraternity. Just occurs to me: Was there ever a woman stunt flyer? Surely yes … we just haven’t been introduced to her. What if a Louise Brooks lookalike posed as a pilot, bobbed hair beneath goggles, a years-long career daring death and we never knew about it. Sounds like a script idea, but who’d play it? There is after all no Louise Brooks or comparable to cast. So many tales about Hell’s Angels are tall. Things are to a point where I prefer invention if not outright fabrication.

They'd Never Let Her Look and Act This Way at Metro ... more's the pity

There were Hell’s Angels junkies that wrote to Films in Review, and often. They’d argue as to what kind of biplanes were used for dogfights. Mel Torme of singing fame was one of ultra-fans. How many boys were weaned on Hell’s Angels? I knew one during law-practice days. He was a superior court judge who kept juries waiting while he and I talked over old movies in chambers. Judge Tom Seay saw Hell’s Angels on first release and it stayed a religious experience from there on. You realize it had a color sequence, he said with expected intensity. Yes sir, your honor, I heard about that but never saw it (this the eighties after all). Forgot to ask if he also caught the spider pit in King Kong … too late now. Losing veteran picturegoers like Judge Seay was pretty much losing it all. Yes, Hell’s Angels had a color section, at least a reel, the cast said to have sweated under lights hotter than Satan shoveled. They also got Klieg eyes, which meant your eyeballs got singed by the heat. I repeat … eyeballs singed. There would have been no movie stardom worth that for me. Jean Harlow among others experienced it, Hell’s Angels also when she began putting poison in her hair to make it unnaturally blond, this laden upon a woman already doomed by adolescent scarlet fever with kidneys compromised as result. Harlow bore Indian sign as did others with early acquired health conditions. More of her to come … oh, why not now? Jean was eighteen, came from privilege, was not the ding-dong some films made her out to be, could read and all that. In fact, she wrote a book once, was good to fans, loved William Powell (don’t we all?). But Harlow also kept reckless company, was not so nice to husbands or lovers once she tired of them (Bill an exception, him nobody’s doormat). That’s the chance you took, fellows, her being Jean Harlow after all. She’d claim to the end that the screen image had nothing to do with her. To large extent, it didn’t. Whole of studio mourned, really mourned, when she died in 1937. Lots claim she was hopeless in Hell’s Angels. Not me --- I call Harlow as “Helen” fully formed and wish Harlow had stayed just the way she was here. Talk about a raw feed. She is that and loads more, primitive and gimme-gimme, all men’s dream and eventual nightmare. Many imagine they’d want something like her, but don’t go near that stove.

Attention-Grabbed by the Throat in Gotham

Hell’s Angels was the fastest ride 1930 ever saw. There had been Wings and The Big Parade before, both sedate alongside this. Hell’s Angels is kicking-door-down, brute entertainment, like King Kong and Tarzan and His Mate would be, these to exhilarate, if not unnerve a little. Movies tempered like steel, guard down, stops out. TCM had been playing Hell’s Angels High-Def, so OK, it was familiar, but this … as said, it’s 4K, and lookit, they widen ratio to 1.54 for the zep raid plus dogfights. Was 1.54 random arrived at or did theatres, at least first-run ones, see Hell’s highlights that way? No matter, it socks. 127 minutes goes by like grease spilled on hot surface (there is an intermission). We get prewar set-up in Germany, dueling right away, enlistment for brothers James Hall and Ben Lyon, then the color, then Ben seduced by Jean, and so on through pell-mell whole. Hell’s Angels all but wrung me out. Who among participants do you favor? I’ve drifted more toward Ben Lyon’s Monte. He’s selfish, a shameless fornicator, takes coward way out of all conflict, a mere boy in men’s uniform. Monte’s a lot like Hud Bannon had he been around to serve in the Great War. And he gets a terrific speech denouncing militarism and patriotic fervor that is said to have roused applause from 1930 audiences who’d long since re-thought baseless conflict that was WWI. Monte is in short a pioneering anti-hero. The talkies’ first? I say yes. Brother Roy is a simp beside him, always doing the “right” thing, a hopeless chump to Helen, who finally shrieks so, plus abusive more, when he catches her all but mounting a French officer in a smoky barroom. Movies to have drama must have their Roys, and Montes. Their back-forth leads to searing pay-off. Who wrote this? I’m told Marshall Neilan to begin with. Let’s say spine of the story was his. If that’s true, by all means lionize him instead of recap that he stayed drunk, irresponsible, unreliable, a sound-era washout. Alkies got good ideas too, sometimes great ones.

Germany's Attacking Zep Both Outside and In --- Sure Looked Real to Me!

Speaking of greatness applied to Hell’s Angels, there was also James Whale, brought on to direct dialogue, it estimated (biographer James Curtis) that Whale was ultimately responsible for sixty percent of completed Hell’s Angels. He’d not do aerial scenes of course, that was Hughes’ bailiwick. Whale instead focused on words and character. We know from later evidence that he was masterful at both. I’m almost at point of calling Hell’s Angels “A Film by James Whale.” All I hear is how mean he was to Jean Harlow, but he couldn’t have kept on being that way and gotten such a marvelous performance from her. Again, re Harlow: She would never be this fresh, unplugged, smoldering, again. How could mainstream Hollywood have stood it, let alone eventual employer MGM? Suppose Whale met her later at some industry function and maybe said, I always knew you had the stuff, Jean. Nice to think something like that maybe happened. Funny how so much movie “facts” come instead from our imaginations, not to mention that of those put to telling “truth” about a largely lying industry. Again Ben Lyon: He’s said (he claimed) to have discovered Marilyn Monroe. Was there enough of Monte in Ben to take advantage of that situation, or was he offscreen more Roy’s speed? I think Monte was the model. In fact, didn’t Jim Bacon say so in one of his indiscreet seventies paperbacks? Guys so experienced as Lyon were takers where they could be and givers where they must. Aren’t we all? Ben had Bebe, a catch for sure, but was he a Monte in tinsel clothing? Catch Ben interviewed by Kevin Brownlow about throwing Pola Negri out of the Valentino funeral for excess weeping and show-off floral arrangements. Lyon comes across as a realist and ultra-doer. I’ll bet Bebe used extra-strength rouge remover on his shirt collars. Had but guys like Ben Lyon left memoirs.

Kid on the Left in What Looks Like Goggles, Another Stood in Profile with Leathery (Flight?) Jacket

Did Hughes have Harlow? Earlier employer Hal Roach did, according to a trusted source. It’s been said HH “didn’t bother with her.” Oh, sure … in that dog kennel of a town, cathouse of an industry? High minders will say it’s of no concern, so long ago and all that, but believe me, when you watch Hell’s Angels on 4K, it's in part to hash over such indelicate things. Of course, some of us could look at a muddy dupe with same debased thoughts. I don’t admire Harlow any less whether she played ball or not, and figure she used predators better than they thought they were using her. One’s mind percolates where watching Hell’s Angels. No sooner are we off the color segment than the zep shows up, blue-tint, hand-applications (that red explosion!), scary in its authenticity (balloon “miniature” was sixty feet long). German personnel leap to deaths to reduce weight after their craft is hit, sacrifice of all to the Fatherland. Glad Monte wasn’t there and forced to jump. Speaking of scary, there are the air battles, “staged” not noticeably so, for these are real planes en masse and chasing each other as though war was on in earnest, increased stunt pay for bringing down your opponent or plunging yourself. Was courting death daily aspect of stunter life not unlike war itself? Some of these men after all were combat vets. Those four/five lost could enlighten us. Ghosts aloft, Hell’s Angels unearthily effective as no other war depiction had been or would be. Did Ben Lyon offer extended explain of dogfighting he obviously did? He lived long enough (James Hall gone by 1940 after Harlow’s ’37 depart), and was interviewed, hopefully not just by Brownlow, Ben’s extended lifetime against backdrop of a Hell’s Angels cult long in place (could this have been the first cult movie?). The show stayed visible for decades after 1930 as a presumably cheap reissue, Hell’s Angels and Scarface out there (and often combined) to show what gutsy filmmaking was really all about. Stock footage saw as much service as blown-up lizards from One Million B.C. I can’t count the number of cheapies with that same truck blowing up, courtesy Hughes. To sum-up: Never mind what went before of Hell’s Angels. Criterion is the goods. Best ever, hands down, this rocketing up my Favorite List to Top 100 (more like Top 20) for what 4K, recaptured color and width-for-highlights have done for it. Plus there’s extras, unseen outtakes narrated by David Stenn, a Harlow segment with Farran Smith Nehme, her work as always terrific.

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 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 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 to 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 matinees 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 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, not none. What would happen if TCM shut down? Gather 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 decades 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 framed it for fun, 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, enjoy selves, 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. 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.

Watch List for 11/10/2025

 

I Like Stan Best When Winning, So Tend to Gun the Remote After This Scene

Watched: (and) Skipped Through, plus The Man I Love

GET ME PAST THESE QUICKER --- How many “skip-watchers” among us? Till lately I’d advocate seeing all of a feature, or none. To shorten was somehow to cheat, committing in part rather than whole. There’s a TCM stream option at Roku, their last months’ worth to watch as one will, pictures well known often glazed over, memory knowing where favored sections are and a remote to land us there. Nothing is sacred where sampling. I’m learning how much a movie matters, or rather, what portion of movies still matter. Getting to essence was advantage we didn't have with television or film on reels. Video cassettes had not the convenience of chapters. To watch piecemeal is to follow baleful lead of You Tube or Tik Tok, where much is mere tasted and seldom digested. Is this to admit attention depleted? Herewith chunks consulted, parts passed by, and why: Nightmare Alley … yes to Stan succeeding at rackets, putting it over on rubes, but not Stan descended to drink and geekdom. He and Blondell together, this all repeat-worthy. Helen Walker not as much because I don’t enjoy her getting the better of Stan. Guess it’s clear I like Stan and don’t want him humbled, save moment of him put to geek duty by Roy Roberts (Mister, I was made for it). Such smacks of playing albums and realizing its but part that will play repeatedly, says me who hasn’t dropped a needle on an LP in thirty-five years. Why shave Rio Bravo from 141 minutes down to 80? To minimize Angie Dickinson and Gonzalez-Gonsalez and wish there was more of John Russell and Rick Nelson. A lot of Dean Martin goes bye now, worn out welcome his tortured drunk save where there is action like shooting the guy off bar rafters. When Chance says midway we’ve been pamperin’ you too much, I tend to agree. Should features be cut like tailored suits, each to our own desired length? I no longer linger on what meant much to makers, Rio Bravo mine to enjoy minus marbling, which if we can trim same off meat, why not here? Art the creation of its maker becomes the property of its consumer to do with what he/she will. Oscar Wilde thought that and said so, his own work never sacrosanct as he saw it (“a starting point for a new creation”).

Here's One Time You Could Show Up for Act Three and Get the Best of a Movie

Reap the Wild Wind has good things, but a far-in court trial isn’t among them. DeMille, knowing or not, provokes fast forwarding here. I say no to Lynn Overman and pitch parts of Susan Hayward to get quicker with the squid. Had I but spared college companions to lulls in 1974, theirs a restless itch felt by default for having dragged them to it. Not to revile Reap, thanks to much being good about it, plus visual enhance Blu-Ray supplies. Speaking of fruit with worms to discard, there is The Razor’s Edge and Anne Baxter dipso narrative endlessly fussed over. Dropping her sharpened this Edge from ungainly 145 minutes to manageable 100 or so. Not to discount Razor merits, what’s good being terrific (Power, Tierney, especially Clifton Webb, Elsa Lanchester, Herbert Marshall, let’s have all there is of these). Picking my own company on film is what we all prefer to do in life, to edit chat among folk onscreen as if able to do so with acquaintances off. If only. Next of late: Skyscraper Souls and an easy fix, keep Warren William and can the rest. Not that I dislike Wallace Ford, Anita Page, Jean Hersholt, but beside William they evaporate, or in my case, go by like blurs while I press forward to get him back. And adios Jeanne Crain and Jeffrey Lynn from A Letter to Three Wives plus Ann Sothern and Kirk Douglas except when Florence Bates is around. This picture, much as I admire it, belongs to Linda Darnell and Paul Douglas. Did Mankiewicz, Zanuck, and company realize these two were the whole show? Me with my push-button votes yes. Lastly, Jerry Lewis, but why linger long on this? You’re Never Too Young and The Nutty Professor each resolved to about forty minutes, enough being enough. Will I be able to get through The Day the Clown Cried even when finally permitted to look at it?

Is This Where Gable Learned That Hand Trick He'd Use in Publicity for Band of Angels? (see index)

THE MAN I LOVE (1947) --- Aspects of the jazz life were much to be envied. Total freedom, reporting to nowhere for nobody save yourself toward perfection of skill at the craft. Immerse in jazz made everything else superfluous, to starve OK so long as one had talent and the instrument. The Man I Love gets at lone but in ways attractive life through characters played by Ida Lupino and Bruce Bennett, former returning home after years separation from siblings suffocated by obligation, internecine conflict, and unstable marriages. These are what “Petey Brown” has dodged through wandering ways and not letting herself be tied down. Petey’s sister Sally (Andrea King) took wartime vows and now husband Roy (John Ridgely) is shell-shocked and an in-patient. Her other sister (Martha Vickers) keeps bad company from which Petey must separate her, and a brother has fallen in with gangsters, all which suggest Petey chose right the isolated life, options expressed by the feature’s opening in which she all-night plays for a “jam session” where no participant has homes to return to or schedule to keep. Most who worship at jazz alter have pasts to escape. Bennett’s “San Thomas” was famed once in music circles, Petey recognizing his name and attracted to him, San wrestling demon of a bad union that drove him to enlist with the merchant marine, means by which bridges may be burned. Others talk of escape but these two manage it, if not together then at least away from everyone else.

For Me, Dolores Moran Had More on the Ball Than Bacall ... Warners Should Have Used More of Her

Warners had celebrated jazz as dark-lit enterprise in a short subject called Jammin’ the Blues, out in 1944 and confirming that jam sessions happen best at night after business hours and all of squares figured to be tucked in and ready for when AM alarm sounds. The Man I Love takes stylistic leaf from Jammin’s one-reel book to establish the Lupino character and define that of Bruce Bennett, director Raoul Walsh capturing well the isolation of those who live altogether for their chosen art. Melodrama is incidental to what story and these characters are really about. Best then to let Warner mechanics go expected way and enjoy what The Man I Love reveals about truly alternate lifestyle that was jazz music, even as the film focuses on hit standards most of which went back a ways, these a bridge mainstream audiences could easier cross and associate with movies viewed before plus songs heard previous, and often. We listen to accompany for The Man I Love and visualize Warner cartoons where tunes got used, that or Steiner’s score for Saratoga Trunk, background against bustle at Robert Alda’s nightclub. The Man I Love was shot during mid-1945 but not generally released until early 1947 after select ’46 holiday opens, though service personnel saw it during the interim as with much Warner output. Lacking King’s Row pedigree perhaps, but The Man I Love similarly gave opportunity to WB players otherwise ill-used or miscast after initial impressions wore off, these including Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Dolores Moran, Bennett and Ridgely. The effect is of workshop participants displaying what they learned over contract terms not so productive as they hoped. The Man I Love offers such opportunities and is outstanding if not largely ignored, at least till Warners announced Blu-Ray release and has bumped broadcasts at TCM to High-Def. Also there is footage added that wasn't there before.

Precode Picks #8

 

Turn Off the Spigot, Warners --- There's Folks Drowning Here!

Precode: Safety Last Where Moviemaking, Duck, Jim!, and Museum Gets a 1970 Re-Wax

DEATH VALLEY DAYS --- There were losses recorded among those beloved in the business. Think Lon Chaney, Marie Dressler, Will Rogers … gone too soon. But what of ones snatched away under violent and unexpected circumstance … perished in flames, trampled beneath horses, claimed by bodies of water gone awry. Accidents that in many if not most cases could/should have been avoided. Someone, or some institution, was invariably to blame, none better equipped to clam up and circle wagons than corporate Hollywood having goofed at the expense of lives. Consider necrologies that came off these projects, The Trail of ’98, Noah’s Ark, The Painted Desert --- each surveyed previously at Greenbriar. I’m fascinated by carnage staged, result disastrous, concealed from there on. Survivors who lasted long enough told tales to interviewers, later enough to figure it was safe to share. “55 in Studio Employ Killed in Five Years,” this trade-published in 1931, cold insurance data gone down rabbit hole that was page 18 of an Exhibitor’s Herald. Old news this was, and how does that help business, now or at any time? Movies were for fun and fantasy, not men drowned while making them. Bury such incidents deep, industry with immense resource to do just that. Quick query: Was there ever a major star that died in service to film? I’m drawing blank, but there had to be a few. I do know of a horrific on-set incident that claimed Martha Mansfield in 1923 (she of previous co-starring with Barrymore’s Jekyll/Hyde). “Majority of these accidents occurred at Hollywood plants,” said the article, ring of truth as this info derived from California’s Industrial Commission. Imagine cone of silence that dropped whenever someone died on a soundstage, such thick walls with all inside warned to keep mum. How many families were settled on terms never to talk? Lots went to eventual graves holding their tongue. Remember what Scorsese said in Quiz Show, “corporations never forget”? What about where a star was responsible for the loss, a careless error, but being assets, they had to be protected. $421,850 is lots of money on late twenties/early thirties terms, equivalent to eight million today. Working lower rungs of movies was hazard duty for many. One could moonlight hauling nitro and be no worse off.

WWI Vet Discharges a Machine Gun Right Toward You ... What Can Go Wrong?

SHOT FOR REAL --- Here is William Wellman at center lining up a next shot for Public Enemy, “shot” not inapt for WWI marksman Clem Peoples on the scaffold preparing to empty his machine gun just to the left of James Cagney, live ammo at the ready (Peoples was after many years correctly identified thanks to research by Frank Thompson and John Gallagher in their outstanding Wellman book). Wellman was a tough egg not afraid to take risks with himself or cast members. Did Bill realize he’d take the fall if something went wrong? Movies were footloose for sure in precode days, or maybe life was cheaper. Did Warners value talent so little as this? I’m surprised Cagney submitted, but he was just starting out so maybe that explains. Later on, he’d not cooperate so readily, a similar scene in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) faked per his insistence. Cagney never trusted Warners for truth, money, even his own survival. It was their chiseling that finally made him split in 1942. What Public Enemy lacked in caution was made up with conviction. Gunshot gags were done for films other than here, plenty of sure-shot William Tells happy to blast apples or otherwise off actor heads provided latter was dumb or hungry enough to stand still for it. Hard ups chose these over apples they might otherwise be selling on streets, dogs of Depression baying without. WB was the sort of place where they worked you twenty hours a day and made you like it. What price Hollywood indeed. I read where overwork exhausted Joan Blondell to a point where she went temporarily blind. Was stardom worth this? Interviewed in old-age Cagney was asked about conditions, him waving off with “No great strain.” He’d long since put most down memory holes. I would have. Was there PTSD from working in 30’s movies? This image above crossed my sightline a first time at age twelve when I got The Movies, by Griffith and Mayer, Public Enemy on page 363. They also did a two-page “story in pictures” for the film that I swooned for, dreaming to someday see whole of the feature (as illustrated previous at Greenbriar). That wouldn’t happen because prints were cut down for the 1954 reissue and left that way for TV. Some errant footage later got into the Blu-ray.

Photographing Mystery of the Wax Museum From the Ground Way Up

WHO’S FOR HOT WAX? --- The “Eighth New York Film Festival” happened at Lincoln Center from 25 to 27 September 1970. Saw word of it in The New York Times at my high school library early one morning, Mystery of the Wax Museum to beggar belief that so lost a classic had finally been found. Scott MacQueen kindly sent me these images. He was age thirteen and at Lincoln Center for the show. I had to imagine it from 601 miles distant. Film fandom derives from far-flung places. Scott says the single surviving nitrate print was shown. He would decades later use selfsame 35mm toward Wax’s UCLA restoration. 1970 saw Mystery of the Wax Museum inaccessible to all but then-attendees. Now we have it or can readily get it. Above is behind-scenes Wax doings, the molten vat as centerpiece with Lionel Atwill, Glenda Farrell, and director Michael Curtiz on a scaffold atop. Such stills had to be as carefully composed as scenes for the film. This capture, which I never saw before Scott sent it along, was published as part of International Photographer’s June 1933 nod to “Chief Camerman” Ray Rennahan, who we know ran the table on Technicolor photography for years to come, among best men for these sorts of jobs. For the record, 1970’s NY Festival tendered also Back Street (1931), The Emperor Jones, The Front Page, The Kid Brother, King of Jazz, The Last Flight, Laughter, The Miracle Woman, and Once in a Lifetime. All but two (Laughter and Once in a Lifetime) can be had today on Blu-Ray. Wonders do not cease, for even aforementioned two can be accessed provided one knows the right bootlegger or dark streaming platform. I have a feeling Mystery of the Wax Museum got the most enthusiastic response of the group in 1970. Everybody figured it for gone, legend meantime assuring greatness few could confirm or deny, though at that time there still were plenty who could first-hand recall the 1933 experience. Program notes were supplied by Carlos Clarens, his seminal An Illustrated History of the Horror Film featuring first-ever glimpse of the unmasked Atwill from Wax Museum, a shock punch we never got from monster magazines to that time.

More for Halloween

 

Say What You Will About the Narrative, But There's No Taking Away How The Undying Monster LOOKS

Pumpkins X 2: The Undying Monster and Dementia 13

THE UNDYING MONSTER (1942) --- This ran a scant 63 minutes, being a Fox werewolf movie with barely a werewolf, it spun off what Universal had done with The Wolf Man, minus as good result. To first glimpse your monster within seconds of an end title would not help word of mouth. Twentieth kept largely clear of horror but would answer a market’s call, to recognize Universal’s success and find some way to feed off it. No major could ignore a genre earning profit for others, whatever indifference to the brand within creative ranks. Any Fox, Metro, or Paramount chiller went far afield from what Universal brewed. Only RKO of rivals issued a serious challenge to U with their Val Lewton series. Latter years frustration was The Undying Monster and obscure ones like it being hard if not impossible to locate on television, Fox not owing enough monsters to give them a syndicated package of their own. The Undying Monster was made for $207K and realized but $330K in worldwide rentals, final profit a mere $1,600, this despite stunner of a physical production with borrowed sets off bigger Fox ventures (Son of Fury is echoed here). Lucien Ballard photographed under John Brahm direction. They make a little go remarkably far ways. Who’s for voting Fox B’s among most handsome in the industry?

Rummage Sale Sets, Most, If Not All, Borrowed, But They Sure Pack a Visual Wallop

We want much for The Undying Monster to take flight but must in an end be content with what is visually an equal of anyone’s work within the genre. Again I cite scare moments among least crucial aspect to Classic Era horror films, atmosphere always the gift to go on giving. A class company like Fox leaned more toward gothic as outlined by literature, being respectable base from which to launch gothic themes (Dragonwyck a similar, and safe, instance). Family secrets, perhaps a subterranean crypt, but outright supernatural themes? These if explored were done so tentatively, chance of fanciful content fending off a wider audience that might find such themes silly, or worse, childish. All-out approach seemed something only Universal would do as ongoing policy. Selling however was different. Local showmen depending on their market could run with a ball like The Undying Monster and spill blood all over local ad art. However humble The Undying Monster was at creation level, managers gave it push unknown but to biggest mainstream attractions. Venue energy and inclination could bring The Undying Monster into town at the head of marching bands, like here in Memphis where it played as a virtual single in by far the largest display ad for January 15, 1943’s edition of The Memphis Press-Scimitar, the town’s leading daily. The Undying Monster in other situations ran tandem with Dr. Renault’s Secret, two-for-one policy with Fox the supplier of both. In Memphis there'd be no co-feature, Vaudeville Days a two-reel short courtesy Warner Bros. The ad itself was nowhere among recommended art from Fox, likely the Warner Theatre’s own creation. A theatre if so inspired could get behind any small effort and make something large of it, at least in terms of promoting if not profits counted by close of the engagement. The Undying Monster is available from Kino in a fine Blu-Ray.

Dementia 13 Wasn't Part of the Liberty's Terror Tandem. Had It Been, Would I Have Stayed to Watch?

DEMENTIA 13 (1963) --- Dementia 13 was the first feature Francis Coppola directed. There might have been student films I’m not aware of; in fact there was at least one that won laurels for him at UCLA. Coppola and friends were among first “film students” to crack industry’s mainstream. He was practical enough to know you had to finish a movie in order to earn from it. Coppola also understand that getting a best movie deal was to write your movie, then find someone to finance it. Dementia 13 was such a venture. Roger Corman unsurprisingly backed him, for practically no money it’s true, but Coppola knew value lay in Roger’s willingness to give him entrée to a creative playground even if surrounded by moats. Dementia 13 was shot in Ireland after Coppola finished working the sound for The Young Racers, Corman figuring a trip across the Atlantic was better worth the expense if two movies came of it rather than just one. He also knew plebes would happily work eighteen-hour days just to for-real make movies. What Corman wanted was to rip off Psycho. Coppola understood and gave him more-less that. Dementia 13 is properly “sick” like others spun off Hitchcock’s loom. By 1963 release date, everyone from Hammer down to William Castle had re-fried Psycho to lesser outcome, but what matter so long as the mold sold, even where moldier as more emerged. Few confused Dementia 13 with good picture making, yet parts showed Coppola had gifts to share, mere fact he finished, and on time, reason to trust his future. Amazing that within ten years, there would be The Godfather. Dementia 13 went out with The Terror under American-International auspices, The Terror billed first because it was in color and featured Boris Karloff. I went to The Terror for Karloff. If Dementia 13 was the Liberty’s co-feature that day, I wasn’t conscious of it. The picture seemed so obscure to me not to bother about until recent, go-ahead thanks to a Blu-Ray released by “Film Chest, Inc.”

Plentiful Effort in Evidence Here, So Why Couldn't They Spring for the Copyright Registration Fee?

Francis Coppola is said to have restored Dementia 13 himself some years back, but I don’t know where it is available, if it is available. For meantime, Film Chest’s is OK. At least it is the intended 1.85. Dementia 13 appears to be Public Domain. I’m wondering if the camera negative lies at bottom of a same ocean as The Terror, also PD. They make an effective combo, The Terror had on Blu from Film Masters with bonus The Little Shop of Horrors. The Terror has been mocked for paste-up it was, Corman assists sent one after other into maelstrom that was making, Coppola fed as well into said chipper. No one in the end could claim credit, despite how titles read. I like The Terror more than most for having been there in 1963. Much of what came from AIP requires early exposure, preferably from age eight up. See a thing when tenderest and they own you from there on. I recall resenting notion that Targets used The Terror for reclaimed stock, said “terrible movie” useful only as chunks to show how far into tripe the Karloff character had descended. To have admired The Terror was to lifetime commit. Why otherwise evangelize for Black Sabbath, the Poes, Planet of the Vampires, even 50’s B/W? Is it true that The Terror and Dementia 13 fell into the Public Doman because Corman didn’t want to pay the registration fee? There are more interview accounts of The Terror in gestation than for almost feature made during the sixties. Fly-by-night has that sort of fascination. Dementia 13 too has a litany of truth-tellers who were there and later talked. Mary Mitchel was one. She spoke at length with Tom Weaver for Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers, a fascinating look-back book. The Terror and Dementia 13 for all of latter attention made little enough noise when they were new, The Terror down on AIP books as earning $360K from 7,030 bookings, Dementia 13 taking but $116K from 2,927 stands.

UPDATE: 3:05pm, 10/27/2025 --- Thanks to Phil Smoot for his comment and evidence below that a Director's Cut of Dementia 13 was indeed released on Blu-Ray.