Film Noir #34

 Noir: The Crooked Way, A Cry in the Night, and Cry Vengeance

THE CROOKED WAY (1949) --- A sort of from hunger turn on the serviceman with amnesia theme used by Fox for Somewhere in the Night a few years before. John Payne had lately took a leaf from Dick Powell to effect a postwar image change from charm boy to beat-down survivor of noir travails, trouble being his Crooked Way fall-guy falls down too much, each beating coming on heels of the last. Oft-problem for noir was protags on receiving end of excess to point of frustrating (for us) punishment, reels to wait for pummeling to cease and give heroes if not a win then at least a measure of peace. Benedict Bogeaus produced The Crooked Way with usual efficiency, finishing three days ahead of schedule and under budget with assist of director Robert Florey, who knew from get-it-done pace. Bogeaus for this occasion tried something new on the selling end ... television trailers ... six different offered at $25,000 cost to the producer, him among first to use spots for the tube. Another innovation: Bogeaus had amateurs stage scenes from the movie on TV and let viewers decide who was best. Lone wolf BB was an early booster for home viewing, two characters in The Crooked Way with televisions prominent in their homes, a surprise sight for any 1949 release. Bogeaus was nothing if not the clever showman. Variety called The Crooked Way "a tense, tightly edited example of commercial picture-making," which maybe was the trade being generous to give leg-up to an independent (they called The Crooked Way a best Bogeaus pic "to date"). Off-cast Sonny Tufts was the heavy, and very good at it. He and the producer went on a seventeen-city tour to promote the show. Master lensman of noir John Alton lays blackest ink to shadows broken by sudden light shafts, a trick neatly applied to similar work at Eagle-Lion. The Crooked Way took "modest" receipts as a single (Broadway's Globe Theatre), better as support in Chicago for also darkish Alias Nick Beal. $486K was final take of domestic rentals, about average for crime thrillers United Artists handled at the time (their Gun Crazy did $409K). The Crooked Way was released on Blu-Ray by Kino.

CRY IN THE NIGHT (1956) --- Alan Ladd’s “Jaguar” company produced this for Warner release. He narrates an opening shot to establish danger and mood, to wit Natalie Wood kidnapped from a parked car at so-called “Love Loop” by Mama’s boy misfit and potential killer Raymond Burr, who’ll keep her in a shack for the rest of running time, us wondering if something dreadful will happen before rescuing dad Edmund O’Brien arrives for the showdown. Economy-made ($414K), profitable for Natalie Wood being aboard, her by 1956 the coming thing among teen temptations. Stories as here could be intense and not a little unpleasant. How Cry in the Night was sold was more warning than lure, unless you liked crazies besetting defenseless girls, Burr all too real playing unbalanced sorts (did Victor Buono observe his act and imitate it?). Burr and Natalie were said to be devoted pals, him a safe date wherever she needed one. Mother-fixated menaces were a ’56 focus, While the City Sleeps turning on the theme, plus what anthology TV offered. Natalie Wood was all over half-hour dramas, had much exposure to keep home audiences aware of her, and perhaps draw them out to see Cry in the Night. “Eighteen, nice girl, nice home --- HOW DID SHE FALL THIS FAR?” asked posters that implied sex content the picture resolutely did not have, truth in advertising not a policy Warners embraced, as witness another that year with Natalie Wood, The Burning Hills, plus to come, The Girl He Left Behind and Bombers B-52. Query to all: Are there such things as “Lover’s Lane” or “Lover’s Loop” anymore? Getting caught at such spots was bane of Montgomery Clift and Shelly Winters in A Place in the Sun, us led to think such locales are best stayed away from. Are they still, or do any even exist? Also would ask if Alan Ladd saw meaningful return from Cry in the Night. It at least gave him opportunity to give friends work (director Frank Tuttle, son-in-law Richard Anderson, other player pals Anthony Caruso, Brian Donlevy, more). Still, I wonder if Ladd yielded more off his “Alan Ladd Hardware Store” in Palm Springs than from projects like this.

CRY VENGEANCE (1954) --- To vary on a worn joke of three celebrities walking into a bar, what about Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Skip Homeier, the trio sharing a drink in late 1954. Brando has triumphed with On the Waterfront, Dean just starred in East of Eden, Homeier lately back from Alaska location of Cry Vengeance. Ages were respectively 30 (Brando), 23 (Dean), and 24 (Homeier). They discuss which is best actor of the three. Brando and Dean debate finer points of performing. Homeier feels outclassed and tends to his pretzels. There really is no punchline, unless it is Skip the odd one out and bar patrons casting vote for Marlon or Jim. Funny thing, I gravitate more to the Homeiers that tended field for lead men who never quite made it, a mule to carry necessary water. Instance of this vis a vis Homeier was Mark Stevens, lately of 20^th build-up that never got built. He began reasonably strong with The Dark Corner, had varied parts after, then was finished at Fox. No disgrace, as plenty ended in variation of such circumstance, Stevens at least a made man for being major studio anointed, his a future doing budget leads. Stevens showed initiative enough to set up independent projects as here in Cry Vengeance, directing same in addition to starring. Eager-to-break-into-better-bookings was distributor Allied Artists, a “new” company emerged from cocoon that was Monogram. Stevens had an independent’s advantage of playing whatever ruined characters he pleased, in this case a bitter ex-con with a face half-mutilated thanks to gang abuse that killed his family and saw him framed and expelled off Frisco’s police force.

Higher profile stars could but dream of a part so rich, some could even have played it given the chance, though for most with higher public profiles to protect, it may have been too chancy. Stevens rolled dice and made a wow of the job. Cry Vengeance unfortunately floated belly down on bills and critics hardly noticed. I sought trade mention, came away from haystacks with too few needles. Cannon fodder wasn’t just for battlefields, exhibition perhaps a worse hill to die upon. Expectation would not have been high, though I could wish someone had picked Cry Vengeance as some sort of sleeper. Stevens presumably shot easier on public streets because he wasn’t Brando, just as Homeier might act less self-consciously because he was not Brando or Dean. Are players more effective for less expectation riding on them? I would have been. Homeier had made initial splash a decade before on Broadway as a hateful Nazi youth adopted by an American family. Where to go from there except further villainy, Homeier always proficient at that. His Cry Vengeance albino sadist killer who wears oversize reading spectacles is really one for the books. Unfortunately, they don’t give many ribbons for being bad. Otherwise, a late-in-life Roy Barcroft might have stood at an AFI podium. Homeier was hopeless to contact in final years, not wanting ever to talk about a career he dropped from in 1982, apart from being briefly seen in a Lassie TV movie circa 2006. Having done two Star Treks, surely he was dogged by Trek’s most determined of fans. Homeier died in 2017. Mark Stevens lived to 1994 but to my knowledge gave no career interviews. Cry Vengeance is available from Olive on a very nice Blu-Ray.

Where Bootlegs are (Were) Best #3

Here is What a Local Theatre Could Ad-Achieve in 1924. Great Art I Calls It.

Boots No More ... but Still: Chaney and Ford Legit ... and Not

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924) --- Stop presses. He Who Gets Slapped is no longer a bootleg. Not that it has been for a good many years now, Warner Archive having released a standard DVD, then Flicker Alley with a Blu-Ray culled from better preservation materials than Warner had. Latter owned the title thanks to acquisition of the Metro library, all of silents now Public Domain, us enabled to exploit entirety of the era at will. Unfortunates who got Slapped decades ago were those who dared copy classics even where ownership cared nothing of their assets except to harass those who loved forgotten films and sought to share them. How refreshing then to see He Who Gets Slapped and ones like it please fans willing to spend for silents. He Who Gets Slapped was of sort you’d lure out back door of archives or via those with illicit access to holdings of same. I knew such freebooters and bless their memory. If you wanted Chaney apart from the Phantom or Hunchback, these were sole sources, no question asked but how much? It seems an ongoing violation to be in legitimate possession of He Who Gets Slapped, so once forbidden was it and others akin. Flicker Alley has been Blu-Ray supplier of much from pre-talk epoch. Their Foolish Wives was a miracle I never imagined for what seemed worst distressed among Stroheims. He Who Gets Slapped happened thanks to Flicker Alley not having to rely on Warners, quality source being Blackhawk in latter-day ownership and improving on what went before. What a treat to see the Blackhawk logo on back of Flicker’s box, a reminder of that company being around since before most of us were born. He Who Gets Slapped made history as the first feature following merge of Metro, the Goldwyn company, and Louis Mayer’s independent firm. Slapped stars in addition to Chaney were Norma Shearer and John Gilbert, but of the trio Chaney stayed ripest fruit.

Note Chaney Chair Gifted to Him By "Working Staff" on He Who Gets Slapped ... No Actors, Just Crew Signatures ... Shows How Popular Chaney Was With Those Like Him Who Labored for a Living.

What is it about him that fascinated,  fascinates still? Maybe aspects of life that torment his characters bedevil us yet. Chaney touched deepest it seems. What slows us walloped him. He Who Gets Slapped is of one man’s utter humiliation, profound so as to change identities and bury his once accomplished self. How many today could drop out so completely? Fewer now I’d guess, the 20’s a time when a spouse and/or father could ditch obligations and start fresh way far else (see William Desmond Taylor). Who of us have considered such a radical move? Wouldn’t work so well what with drones observing and who knows what/whom else. Remember “grass widows”? None of these so long as Google thrives, let alone AI. Lon Chaney’s “Paul Beaumont” could slip quietly away and watchers circa 1924 not only believed it but could emulate him given similar circumstance. Surely harder pulling off serious crimes nowadays, so guess I’ll forget looting the Louvre. He Who Gets Slapped was based on downer premise from a Russian novelist thought avant-garde, his a hit to succeed on stage and the movie. Beaumont, aka “He,” was cream to cat that was Chaney, Beaumont hauling near weight of Quasimodo’s hump, revenge upon stealer of science research plus wife delayed till bloodthirsty finish Chaney fans waited patiently for. Certain and specific insults to mind, body or both were Chaney catnip, him zeroed in on darkest corner of onlooker psyches. This was a reason, maybe the best of them, why Chaney topped attendance polls. So long as our sufferings seemed incalculable, then so will his till point of getting even or ennobling death. There was no other actor so readily identified with. We’d not realistically hope to be a Gilbert or Fairbanks, but Chaney … anytime, all the time. Seems to me Laird Cregar was a sort of sound successor to Chaney. Whatever privacy latter insisted upon offscreen was accommodated, this a least we could do to show appreciation for what he toiled so mightily to give us.

I Love Screwy Expressions Actors Put On for Publicity Posing

SALUTE (1929) --- What we, we as in ones separate from archival holdings, have on Salute is dubs off dubs off dubs made from an AMC broadcast (their John Ford tribute) of thirty at least years ago when fans kept VCR’s always at the ready to record on cassette films they might never have opportunity to see again. That wouldn’t be case for classics that turned up and often in sparkling quality, Salute and others like it gone down ratholes from which they’d not peek apart from DVD from collector to collector or You Tube now that PD status finds Salute all over the Net, transfers still circa AMC past and blurry for most part (most? I haven’t found one yet that was passable). AMC’s print looks to have been 16mm, cue marks throughout for commercial TV insertions, George Eastman House credited as source. Is this the best GEH has, or do other archives also have Salute? Whatever … it’ll pass on a small enough screen, and it is Salute after all, a rarity among John Fords and surprisingly ignored or dismissed by his chroniclers. Odd taste that is mine likes it however, and though I never attended military academy, there is still romance of same that makes me almost wish I had (not really … would they have let me stay up to watch Shock Theater?). Ford’s Navy geekdom might have started here, nothing about the institution he doesn’t revere, even hazing as imposed by beginners Ward Bond and John Wayne which seems cruel in the extreme, or maybe that’s because we are all such sissies now. This was a first time Wayne got to talk onscreen, him in and out of groups, getting words in where he can. It sure took Ford a long time to recognize what an asset he had in Wayne, but look how nasty he got when Raoul Walsh did the overdue job of “discovering” Duke. Wouldn’t speak to Wayne for years after. Not sure I could have stayed friends long with a personality like Ford’s.

Ward Bond Started Off as a Sour Apple. He Does Seem Sort of Scary in Early and Small Parts

Ward Bond lends ape-like appeal to chief bully part, softens later to almost a regular guy. He was said to have pushed his way onto a bus headed for location, Bond recalled by all as a guy who could not be insulted despite many trying, was never embarrassed for being oblivious to possibility of it. A happy life Ward must have had as result … how does one get hurt where unconscious of those who’d try? Bond never met a twenty-four ounce steak he didn’t like and drank others not under tables, but floors. Add nonstop smoking and cue early exit (Ford’s mourning was profound). Wonder if the by-then “old man” regretted in hindsight making fun of Ward. Old man thing baffles me, as Ford was younger than me when he did his last, Seven Women. Didn’t take as much to hang old tag on folks then, men and women, unhealthy habits getting premature job done. Salute was shot mostly at Annapolis, thus authenticity re training and drills. Might they yet have a print from days showing Salute to incoming plebes? Bet you could ask a hundred and draw that many blanks, sort of like when we went to Williamsburg the last time and I inquired of lots if they recalled the Perry Como holiday 1978 special shot there in entirety, John Wayne Perry’s guest and checking out historic sites, talking to staff plus guests. You’d think from now it never happened. George O’Brien is putative star of Salute, but he’s gone for long stretches where focus is instead on William Janney and Helen Chandler. Lee Tracy as sport announcer along with director colleague of Ford’s at Fox David Butler get a look-in, Salute culminating with the big Army-Navy game where it looks like a hundred thousand easy in attendance. I watched that mass of cheering humanity and thought, all gone. And look how exuberant they are for an event to now raise more chill than cheers.

Blowing Out 1973 Candles ...

When Warners Turned Fifty

Warner Bros. threw an anniversary party for themselves in 1973. History went back to 1923 (or somewhere thereabouts) but owner of the pre-49 backlog was United Artists, which meant birthday showings of WB classics would have to be cleared through UA. It had been that way since the mid-fifties when Warners perhaps foolishly (no “perhaps” about it) sold their library outright for ludicrously low $21 million. As Greenbriar and others have said before, the cartoons alone were worth that. So long as viewer eyes still beheld the shield on openings of Warner work, they’d figure it all still belonged to the stripped-down company, which had more lately bartered themselves to a buyer top heavy with parking lots and garages, plus funeral homes and other unappetizing assets. Warners did a lookback to show at festivals, saluting the old but emphasizing the new, in this instance Mame, which was in production and sucking up money as only over-produced musicals could. Heritage was acknowledged by revivals where anyone wanted them. Late shows had used WB oldies long enough to be less enamored by them now, but nostalgia gained ground by the seventies and there was cult interest in some of inventory (Bogart, James Dean, individual titles here and there). The ABC network did honors with a late night (appropriate) celebration of the studio co-hosted by Bette Davis and Jack Benny plus then-WB chief Ted Ashley. I watched the show on that historic ninety-minute December 12 occasion, a Wednesday, getting a jolt when special guest Jack L. Warner (himself) strode out to bandy with Bette. Still not sure if maybe I dreamt it. Principal writer was Tony Thomas, an undoubted benefit, though I was less familiar with him at the time. There’s no trace of this “Wide World of Entertainment” at You Tube, pre-VCR 1973 early for home sitters to record stuff off TV. There is no indication of ABC having repeated it. Of all bizarre broadcasts, here is one I’d dearly want to watch again.

A Rich Book from 1976 and Easy to Find for Cheap from eBay

Can’t recall much detail apart from Bette saying how dreamy Errol Flynn looked. She and J.L. got along OK … it hadn’t been so many years since Dead Ringer. Further peal of anniversary bells came with the release of two record sets, boxes to contain music from past films and/or memorable dialogue exchanges. It all seemed too good to be true, but proof was in the listening, and we had every reason to think old films were indeed on cusp of coming truly back. The Warners library did resurface on TV stations recently hatched on UHF bands, oldies filling primetime hours to compete with major network programming. Our ABC affiliate in High Point surprised watchers by bumping the net’s schedule in favor of WB classics, Channel 8’s weatherman the on-air host and booster. Frank Deal had once tried acting, recalled for a broadcast of Sergeant York how he worked with a small part player in that film. It made a good story, and Channel 8 gave two and a half hours to at least most of Sergeant York. United Artists benefited by circulating the WB back library they owned, on 16 and 35mm. Our wretched College Park Cinema booked Casablanca and while yes, the 35mm looked great, it would also accentuate yards of footage gone with every splice, oodles of those it seemed. The Adventures of Robin Hood came back in 1976 with fresh promotional paper, a one-sheet (at right) more pleasing than the original from 1938 had been. Cherry atop was Little, Brown releasing a coffee table sitter called Here’s Looking at You, Kid: 50 Years of Fighting, Working, and Dreaming at Warner Bros. The writer was James R. Silke, him of dizzying past research plus popular culture pursuits of every sort. He was a graphic designer and drew comic books, lived to ninety-three. Silke had Warners cooperation on his book and interviewed a score of names not otherwise accessible. He used stills I don’t recall seeing elsewhere, presumably got before WB cabinets were rifled by collectors who by the nineties would cream most of studio inventory.

Really Hoping Someone Other Than Just Me Will Remember This Long-Ago Magazine for School-Agers

Producers like Robert Lord and Henry Blanke sat down with Silke. Show me where else these spoke or cooperated with anyone. Warners cleared roads for Silke otherwise shut. Here’s Looking at You, Kid is not a puff job. Bluntness like this you’ll not find in subsequent histories of WB or any studio, rabbits that much more scared since. Silke’s book goes 317 pages, a lot for its being oversized in the bargain. I read the whole thing again last week, a first revisit in decades. Memory suggests it cost twenty-two or twenty-three dollars when new. Our local newsstand unaccountably had it and I knew waiting would see the price knocked down, which sure enough it was (who else in my town would be interested?). That brings me to a paragraph from Silke’s preamble to sort of pour ice water going in: “The Audience remembers the Warner Bros. stars even if it only met them on the pale gray tube late at night in a lonely apartment.” A few years short of a lonely apartment in 1976, I still felt label of loser for caring about topics Silke embarked upon. Was old film exclusive province of the friendless and forlorn? The author implied so, a mainstream caring only where oldies held “camp” promise like Busby Berkeley chorines dancing with electric-lit violins. Those of us more committed stayed so on solitary terms. To watch an old film was to stay up too late, normies' sleep not to be sacrificed for piffle offered at owl hour. We got a monthly magazine in eighth grade called “Scholastic Scope” which actually wasn’t bad and free besides. The February 29, 1968 issue was devoted to “The Story of Movies,” sole reason for my saving it all these years. Ads included Kellogg’s cereal (Win a Guest Role of The Monkees TV Show!) and early Army recruitment (!!), latter relevant as there was still action happening in Viet Nam if any of us hoped to one day get in on it.

I Used to Wonder at Age Fourteen if Viet Nam Would Last Long Enough for Them to Scoop Me Up

Scope’s cine-history was eight pages and did a fair job summing up the so-far story of American film. Nibbling round edge was “Famous Lines from the Movies” kidding cliches gleaned from late nights sat before television in those lonely apartments Silke referenced. He’d not coddle us re past pictures. As Warners “ground out” approximately sixty features per year --- well, how could even half of them be good, and what of these, if any, achieved greatness? Permit detour to a Warner studio tour some of us took in 1989, perky guide showing off a backlot where immortality was daily captured and recorded. Me being know-it-all plus snide toward present days said yes, but look at televised rubbish occupying mock-up streets today. Our hostess who up to then was sunshine itself must have been ready for my remark, her quick to retort: “Bear in mind, sir, that half if not most of movies from the so-called “Golden” age were B at best, the classics always in a minority on a busy lot like Warners.” I shrank smaller than Grant Williams for realizing how right she was, the reproof richly deserved. Even “star” vehicles could be commonplace, good because we’re predisposed to figure any Warners of the era will be good. One seen of late was The Big Shot for middling example of a thing neither special nor especially bad. It was a starring part for Humphrey Bogart after doing High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon except instead of Raoul Walsh or John Huston directing, he got Lewis Seiler. The Big Shot is fun accompany to Here’s Looking at You, Kid. There is Bogart plus pace and tempo unique to WB, music too a decided asset (Adolph Deutsch) and link w/ previous successes, the score oft- salve to shows otherwise ordinary. The Big Shot is blessedly unburdened by expectation that all from Warners must score at Falcon level. Silke’s book understands this and credits output fine as it was under endless pressure that was limited budgets and nonstop stress to begin and finish always on schedule.

History for Fun #2

Beware Austerity Eyes That Paralyzed

From Fact: Doing Without Even After You Win

Lots imagine how great it would be to have met one or all of the Beatles. What fun to find common ground with that irreverent lot, but here’s the thing, a massive thing. We of stateside spoilage had not a thread in common with these or any Liverpool boys or girls, virtually all of whom knew life in the rawer than we of comparative, if sustained, privilege, ever would. Did postwar Yanks experience rationing, meatless most days, endless austerity as did all four Beatles plus pop faves off the Isles we thought spoke for us? They might not have remembered the war but sure understood scarcity of necessaries afterward. Bombs had stopped falling, but still was shortage of most staples, this to gruel another nine-at-least years, time aplenty for Beatles and contemporaries to know want as way of life. How did they respond to us who had things so easy? Brits still in the 1960’s were rags beside Yank riches, us swimming in gravy from babyhood. All who grew up in England after the war knew what it was to be without. They’d darn a sock rather than toss it away and buy a new pair. Everything was had in minimum. Kids swapped toys for sweets, soap was precious, “Make Do and Mend” meant patches on clothes and forget embarrassment because all your mates endured a same thing. Think life was markedly better by the swinging sixties? Not so pampered Americans would notice. Look close at English films from after the war, and years after, to see dimes stretch to dollars, putting on appearance of prosperity where really there wasn’t any. 1963’s Children of the Damned is a UK home movie for how desolate life still was long after Britain had “won” its war. I use quotations for fact the country went flat broke financing what in many ways was pyrrhic victory. Yes, they were free and no longer nightly blitzed, but who financed their defense? Us Yanks, us who boomed after the surrenders and never had things so good as we would for generations to come.

Not Much of a House, We'd Say, but Postwar Blighted Britishers Were Thankful to Get It

Britain emptied vaults to secure “lend lease” and other loans from the US. Their gold supply ended up in our Fort Knox. Ironic to see James Bond rescue that US asset from clutches of Auric Goldfinger. British empire crumbled in the wake of war. They just couldn’t afford colonies anymore. India split in the late forties and Egypt rebelled in 1956. The rest disappeared like mercury over hardwood flooring. A cultural comeback came with the sixties, music and movies, though they’d not last at pitch with which they began. Back to semi-doc Children of the Damned which seems to me another of “wreckage” work Englanders engaged to make a best of settings that would loudly reflect a world struggling from under rubble of war. Children’s civil servant chums share a tolerable flat, those they assist in hovels you’d not house dogs nor cats in. Titular children are damned by everyday circumstance no less than whatever unholy force guides them. Children of the Damned lifts veil off hardship but barely relieved by 1963. Much location in London sees houses, buildings, too few rebuilt from mess left after Germans hit, most telling a famous church, St. Dunston-in-the-East, blasted by the Blitz (1941) to leave but outer walls, a tower and a steeple. Initial building went up in 1100, remains today a public garden. As if to emphasize devastation from the war, Children of the Damned used also interiors of the church, no set adequate to convey impact upon said ruin. Were horror-seekers put off by real horror Children of the Damned conveyed? I sensed much at age nine that was barren and hopeless in this London, in-part product of story told, but more so places utilized to tell it, stark beside my gingerbread world. And to think the Beatles would within weeks debut on Ed Sullivan where a whole new face for England would emerge.

Well-Traveled "Black Forest" Near Hammer's Humble House That Doubled as Studio

Speaking of horrors, was there good reason for Hammer Films to focus on period backdrops? Did these  spare us lingering looks on post-apocalypse peeking still from an English landscape? Bray’s picturesque if sinister “Black Forest” seemed a garden spot beside London even when and where it swung. People beset by vampirism and werewolfery at least were not poor and just this side of ration books. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, the rest, dress elegant and wear tall toppers. To step into parlors, even pubs, in a Hammer horror is to sample a Whitman box filled with flavors. I never had to worry where their next feast came from. The Baron breaks from cutting a cadaver and there’s chicken alongside his bloody scalpels to sample. Compare with also-Hammer but contemporary-set Cash on Demand where Cushing heads bank management  and won't waste a copper-plated steel penny. Where Hammer staged latter-day scares, it was often sparce conditions that scared us more. The Quatermass series excels for science explored on penurious terms, Brian Donlevy having constructed a rocket, but who heck paid for the thing? He investigates alien intrusion largely on his own dime it seems, facilities he’ll consult barren of resource as we’d expect for British sci-fi set in 50’s there-and-then. The Quatermass Xperiment in 1956 (known here as The Creeping Unknown) captured reality frightful as whatever alien posed a threat. Latter on-the-loose stalks a riverbank mostly mud and, in all ways, uninviting where a dingy little girl plays with her dolly to seeming satisfaction, daily life for the character and maybe Jane Asher (b. 1946) who plays her,  Asher of later and close association with Paul McCartney and co-starring with Vincent Price in Masque of the Red Death. If anyone could tell of Britain in sustained hard times, then 60’s rebirth if but partial, it would be Jane Asher. Has she shared insights from the era? I note from Google that she has not so far done a memoir but has written several novels plus a tome about cake decorating.

Hammer's Idea of a Splurge Would Easily Have Been These Picturesque Models

Scores of others, many still around, sat both ends of Britain’s cultural seesaw. Think Dave Clark, who with his Five recorded hit after hit plus starred in Catch Us If You Can (US title: Having a Wild Weekend), which Greenbriar visited in 2013. There are but two of Clark’s Five left, Barbara Ferris, also of Catch Us, having lately left at eighty-eight. It’s been writ, by me on occasion, that UK imports rode a tough sled because we wouldn’t groove with their accents and idiom. I begin to wonder now if it was more the defeat their contemporary-set features reflected, that “wreckage” earlier referred to. Was this why late 40’s Brit melodrama leaned so heavy on period backdrop, where production wealth could at least be simulated by costumes, real castles or estates, maybe Technicolor for added splash? Look at recently released Saraband for Dead Lovers, an astonishing Blu-Ray, or restored Blanche Fury. There are others. Hammer took a lot of stylistic instruction from these. Were postwar British movies more palatable where set way past? Remember it was solidly Brit and puffed sleeve Tom Jones that took 1964’s Academy Award, this after Lawrence of Arabia, also British and set far back, took the prize for 1963. Not to dump on The Apartment, but given the authority, I’d have awarded Brides of Dracula in 1961. Still would, even at this point in life where I should know better.

Showmen Sell It Hot #5

 

Showmen: Hondo and What Happened to 3-D TV's?, Plus The Sting

Glasses Given Out So Viewers Can Watch Once-Only 1991 TV Run of Hondo in 3D

Producing Partners John Wayne and Robert Fellows

HONDO (1954) --- Why did they take away 3D televisions? Were we being punished for something? There’s eerie effect to corporations that make a policy decision, all hands down with it. Guess I'm out of luck when my present 3D-enabled TV wears out. There are old sets at eBay and places, but I’m skittish where it comes to second-hand, especially where they travel through mail and you can’t be sure about proper packing of leviathan flat screens. I spoke with a prominent retailer and they said there were complaints about condition/quality and it was not worth the effort of fielding them. “Lack of content and waning consumer interest” are also said to have been factors for dropping the 3-D option. Projection TV with goggles give too dark an image like theatres when attempt was made to revive depth during the seventies and eighties. So why do I carp over 3D in a column about Hondo, when we can’t access Hondo on 3D anywhere? I’d like knowing why that is but must assume “consumer interest” is gone. Remember aberrant occasion when Hondo ran on 1991 television in 3D, some sort of tie-in with 7-11 stores? I didn’t watch for never much liking red-green specs. Hondo and Dial M for Murder are probably the best 3D features not taken up with monsters and spacemen. There was myth for years that because Hondo was released late in 1953, it played mostly flat for the fad having passed. Robert Furmanek and team debunked that, plus theatre-front evidence here suggests brisk business for Hondo at least at its Palm Theatre engagement. It was profitable for Warners and producing Wayne-Fellows. All-night shows at the Palms permitted closure from 6 am till 10:45 am. That’s punishing hours for anybody. Figure they had three shifts at minimum. Hondo like a number of westerns compared itself with great ones past, in this case The Covered Wagon, Red River, and Shane. The Covered Wagon by then would have been stuff of long-ago legend, but then again, it was only thirty years past, and that seems but blink of an eye. The ad's “New” 3D, seen through “Wonderful New Glasses” seems to acknowledge problems had with the old ones, and indeed they were not infrequently a problem. We may assume Slaves of Babylon was pretty punk after thrill of Hondo, Slaves flat and formulaic, but there was option to walk out, as many undoubtedly did after getting money’s worth that was Hondo.

The Sting Selling Hot with Poster Art by Richard Amsel

THE STING (1973) --- For a picture so celebrated in its day, I wonder how many under-sixties know from The Sting, let alone ever saw it or would be inclined to. Robert Redford recalled how he rented the video to amuse a grandchild staying over the weekend. To the elder’s embarrassment if not surprise, The Sting just lay there. Would it for other sharer’s offspring as well? The Sting needs concentration, over two hours of it, and I wonder if that’s beyond a viewership for whom any feature seems much for moderns to get through. Here was a Best Picture winner dubbed the perfect smart amusement, humor but with high stakes, a puzzle to flatter our attention and intelligence. Civilians say movies should just “entertain,” this to me implying that no film can satisfy beyond a humblest goal. The best films give joy measurable not just from a first time seen, but forward via memories and repeat looks where affection only grows. Do classics have a simpler definition? The Sting belongs to 1973 as does American Graffiti and Jaws to their respective years. I don’t know anyone who enjoyed these but have renounced them since, each pleasing to a level few features achieve then or now. I say this today but what of ten years hence with the seventies gone farther out with tide? We measure affection for 60’s features by how close a current generation embraces them at You Tube. YT deepest-dishers go back no further than The Godfather it seems, save for James Bond and scattered genre titles. 

Deliberate Retro Look for Art Inserts Throughout Credits and Body of The Sting

Give us another decade and chances are the eighties and nineties will predominate, that being but natural, say analysts. First responders to any popular culture take away most fervent love, but still I’d ask: Can anyone way back, since, or now, revere King Kong, Meet Me in St.Louis, or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon as certain ones among us do? For viewership in 1973, The Sting staged fiction set less than forty years prior, the mid-thirties within clear memory of many who saw the movie, a condition akin to us and something depicting the late eighties. Would that seem so profoundly distant as the era The Sting recreated? Time and change can convulse or barely register. We might say things are not so different as they were forty years ago yet argue life in a first couple months of 2020 was as it never would be again, for reasons obscure already to many that are younger. Everyone has their own idea of landmarks, assignment of same a matter of personal choice and circumstance. Universal’s Blu-Ray of The Sting has an hour-long documentary that was done in 2005. Almost all of principals, save director George Roy Hill, were still around and eager to talk. Now they’re pretty much gone, writer David S. Ward among survivors. I see he taught three courses at Chapman University in Orange, Ca. Does he still, at eighty, instruct hopefuls how to pen a script good as the one he did for The Sting? Is The Sting in 2026 a highest mark to aim at, or would students need to be acquainted with, then convinced of it as ideal distillation of story and characters? We speculate on present-day chance The Sting or something like it might have with studios, but look what’s become of studios, indeed Hollywood, both seeming now to sleep with fishes.

Foreign Art is Variation on Domestic Nostalgia Emphasis, but Note Flared, Low-Hanging Cuffs

David S. Ward is best recalled for The Sting, but gravy may have flowed more from Major League plus two sequels he penned. A surprising lot of writers (or should it surprise?) ended up teaching, presumed feathers in academia caps that hire them. It makes sense that writers would eventually teach others to write. How many great scripts does even a great talent have in him/her? Consider luck it needs for any newcomer to sell one, never mind more. Same with producers. Tony Bill from The Sting is still with us, him once male ingenue acting support, switched to producing where real success in Hollywood lay. Bill taught too, returned to acting, was known to help writing newcomers. He is eighty-five this year, reminder again of how long ago The Sting was. Astounding comeback the 1973 film enabled was for Scott Joplin, who unknowingly and seventy-five years earlier supplied music for The Sting. Success of the score was not quaint, retro, camp, or ironic, Joplin accompany a latter-day hit that needed no apology or explanation, being fresh as was heard and enjoyed during the nineteenth century. I wondered if Joplin was tabbed for films since The Sting and found but shorts, minor use here/there, but no showcasing like in 1973. Has opportunity been missed? Might illuminate to know how much Joplin generates in Spotify listens, other stream sources for music old and new. Are his themes used by those who score for silent features? I’d say they’re missing a bet if they don’t.

Count Your Blessings #6

 

CYB: Pearl Diving at You Tube

So much technology rides current wind. I’m beginning to take miracles for granted. For instance what’s being done with Public Domain content aboard You Tube. Features, shorts, cartoons, all put to freshener that is, what, AI? CGI? I’m dumb to details of how but dazzled by results. All of a sudden comes high-def spun off standard transfers, clouds parted to bluest of skies. We’re talking talkies of earliest vintage looking near-as-good as if put through process previously expensive that also took more time to achieve. Advanced techs will call it “fake” and maybe much of it is, but so long as I’m guided by eyes/ears alone, these things will more than do. Flaws sure, occasional blips, work improving all the time, reminiscent of sound where first unveiled in the late twenties. That had kinks too which had to be, and were, ironed out. Such modern equivalent exhilarates plenty. All jobs aren't performed equal. You may sift a dozen transfers of Applause before landing on sweet spot that is “BlimeyTV.” Blimey is right. Don’t know who he/she/they are, but each/all is parting curtain between us and quality long awaited from titles too long on dimmer setting. Titles through 1930 are so far grazed upon with each New Years freeing up more. We’re kids in a sweet store where oldies seem not so old. Behold what crossed my way over a past week: The Doorway to Hell, Three Faces East, The Bishop Murder Case, and Old English. More, much more, is accessible, additions each day, hour in fact, the lot for free unless you buy You Tube Premium which sidesteps ads that make syndication of yore look like public television before that amounted to nightly begging for financial support. Work happening now smack of labors for love, in a sense all of what YT creators do, save ones clawing way toward “influencer” standing.

I stumbled across BlimeyTV like all of favorites now on an ever-growing tickle list. They along with others teach that movies online need no longer be “authorized.” Imagine how Disney felt when a flock of Mickeys entered the Public Domain (or do they really care?). Same with features … good features, not just wretched antiques. When Animal Crackers can be had, used, enjoyed freely by all, well, that’s change. Same for good ones with Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, all who straddled silent and talk eras. The four features I watched were more/less random picked. A hundred others could qualify. It’s my choice now rather than what corps permit me to see. The Doorway to Hell is long a TCM member, had from Warner Archive in standard DVD. BlimeyTV somehow punched it up, don’t ask how. Cue Robert Mitchum as Dan Milner: “I’m not knockin’ it man, I’m just trying to understand it.” Through 1930 Doorway comes Lew Ayres as head hood “Louie Ricarno.” Believe in him or not, this was neat off-casting for Ayres and I bet audiences were captivated, maybe shocked, by it, after he’d done All Quiet so recent before. This and Okay, America plus Iron Man shows how Ayres bent expectation and wouldn’t fall into a male ingenue trap. He conveys essential goodness in Ricarno, near to an end being hope, the wrap sobering because it’s Ayres rather than a heavy we root to be caught or otherwise quelled. Thing about gangsters operating then was even baddest ones merited crowd support, Depression’s public wrapping arms round the lot. Aspects of life having changed little means many still want Cagney, Robinson, Muni and kin to prevail. Go-getters appeal no matter how they go about getting it. The Doorway to Hell has as bonus a starter-out Jim Cagney making presence felt throughout. Of course he could have played Louie. I don’t see how Warners, Wellman, anyone, could think of anyone other than JC for Tom Powers in Public Enemy.

The Doorway to Hell pleases on ground level crime films later got above. Rough exterior here does not conceal polish beneath as would case for later 30’s crime. Whole of Hell is rough. No music backgrounds save several “Brunswick” records played on “Brunswick” machinery. Warner never shied from whoring its wares, one more thing I admire them for. Rowland Brown wrote the underlying story. He was surely the one who came up with “Mileaway” for Cagney’s character name. Brown was all-pavement as a scripter. Had his temper been cooler, he could have defined a whole genre instead of just highlighting it all too seldom. Did I mention The Doorway to Hell never looked so good before? At least for me. Next was The Bishop Murder Case. Just looked and lo/behold, I gave it a short paragraph in August 2012. Pleasure sustains since, primitive as Bishop is. Why keep coming back? Rathbone for one. Let him just talk and I am appeased. Mysteries are the more mysterious the earlier they got made. This and the Wm. Powell Vance series are deepest of narrative wells. Swim them at peril you’ll sink for dialogue sometimes tough to divine plus snail-pace and clues missed for nodding off here/there. Still there is deep regard I feel for these. Must at this juncture mention Applause, the Mamoulian kick-starter for sound as creative expression with cameras no more nailed down, at least by him. Applause is progressive as all that, but fifteen minutes was all I could last thanks to downer recap of beat-down Helen Morgan, herself beat-down no matter what parts she played (hard offscreen life) so I go in with pity for her as eternal doormat epically mistreated by a louse who we know will be around for most (too much) of Applause. I wanted Helen, or somebody, to clunk him with a heavy ash tray, or anything, and release us all from bondage, heels really heels in those days. Applause fits best under “Academic Interest,” but again, it never looked so good, certainly not what I saw first time around 1970 on educational TV out of Linville, Tennessee, a UHF channel (first one I was exposed to). Linville was and remains known for caverns not unlike ones Tom and Becky ran from Injun Joe in.

To follow was Old English, as in George Arliss, which makes Old English, like all his, irresistible. Again, seen it before but not like this. He plays “old,” mightily old, which most figured George started out as. Rascally per always, he outwits chiselers and would-be usurpers, verbal weaponry unique to Arliss, for who else since approached him along such line? Old English was lifted bodily off the stage, Arliss having done it there to greatest so-far legit success. He didn’t bother “opening up” where transferred to screens. So long as he was there to carry bags, who cared if we stayed indoors or out? Here’s the stunner re Old English, and don’t read what follows till you watch the show: George eats and drinks himself to death for a third act, deliberate so as to defeat threats to his beneficiaries, selfness, noble as we expect, but how this consummate actor stages run-up to demise --- humor first in the food and (much) drink, then a pretty much planned-for stroke, very realistic as Arliss would of course insist on, collapse and death in his favored armchair, work upon this world finished. Imagine anyone else’s star vehicle finishing thus, and Old English was a comedy to this point. Such was good and plentiful reason why Arliss stayed a star of substantial heft. Final of four was Three Faces East, seventy-one minute matter of Constance Bennett outfoxing Erich von Stroheim. It’s about spying circa the Great War and I give up trying to separate agents from double agents and are they for or against us. Stroheim works best, as always, for himself, love making him finally mis-step, Connie the object of fatal temptation. Von poses as butler for the English manor where intrigues take place. Watch him unpack Bennett clothing (emphasis on underthings) and know what great acting was about. Beauty of Three Faces East was Von not just in background, but prominent throughout. We get him front, center, and ongoing. I’m a pig in mud where it’s Stroheim. No such thing as enough of him, let alone too much.