Lightning Sketches #1

 

Quick-Draw J. Stuart Blackton Demonstrates His Art

Speedy and Shorter and Welcome, AI

Pioneer filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton got a start in vaudeville doing what was called “lightning sketches,” artist and easel on stage to astonish watchers by how fast he could draw. Stuart sped so at the game that he took up cartooning, which made switch to movies a cinch. This was pre-teens when everything in that business amounted to history being made. Lightning sketching is sort of what Greenbriar proposes here, a cousin to quickie cartooning before, and a way to jam more topics into posts under these new umbrellas. First off I confess to willing enslavement by AI, that innovation arrived at artistic place no longer to be ignored or dismissed. We’ve lived so long with black-and-white images to shun whatever proposes to assume its place. AI is not “colorization” to my eyes, being instead a reality we knew was there, at least once there, and now comes recapture. Yes, it feels to me like standing in front of those theatres. I tend to take years embracing new technology, having shunned VHS except for novelty or last-resort, like when Captain Blood showed up complete on cassette in 1986, a first time ever we could enjoy 119 minutes rather than 99. Still there was no giving up 16mm for the rest … until the rest became DVD and death of analog, the Night Film Ended as recalled previous at Greenbriar. I’m giddy each time I color convert an image till now monochrome. Think of AI as ideal way lobby cards looked where artfully tinted from the twenties forward. We’ve now passed that to a highest point knowable, not by way of process slowly got at, but gratification had instant, push-button the door to paradise. Do I somehow settle for less, joining philistines who would wreck our culture? If so, consider me and mine wrecked, and welcome to AI arrived at apex.

I'll Never Regard a Black-and-White Marquee Online Again, Now That I Can "Fix It"

Latest from Lubitsch --- This was news alright, the second teaming of Maurice Chevalier with director Ernst Lubitsch. The Smiling Lieutenant was made particularly for an urban carriage trade. They wanted what mid-staters did not, so money had to come from bookings in the largest and perceived most sophisticated bergs. How to best and quickest get it was answered by roadshowing, twice daily shows at advanced prices. Here was asking a lot in May 1931, Depression teeth sunk in and admissions far harder come by. The Criterion bespoke home for the best, generally from Paramount, Wings having landed there for 63 weeks, The Love Parade soon after which suggested hard ticket possibilities for Chevalier-Lubitsch output. Two dollars was price for the ducats. To stand outside and regard a lavishly decorated front would alone have been worth that to me. The Smiling Lieutenant stayed fourteen weeks at the Criterion, a throughout-the-summer hit (An American Tragedy would follow with a late August opening). The Criterion seated 900, “a relatively intimate size,” said trade observers, especially by palaces up Broadway like the Loew’s State that could accommodate 3,000+. We could wonder how much negative cost was earned back for this single engagement, not forgetting theatre overhead always aspect of such an event.

World Mad and Maddest --- Greenbriar talked about It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World  way way way back in May 2010. The column drew fifty-two comments, a record I believe to that time. Clearly this was a film passionately liked. Clear too was fact any book devoted to it would be met by mobs, at least what mob survives sixty-three years after the Cinerama show was released and sixteen annums past all those comments at GPS. This may well be sixties sentiment folks feel deepest for and are most eager to learn more about. From what I’m hearing of James Curtis’ new book, Comedy Is a Grim Business: The Making of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, there are lots in wait for this telling and all are devoted beyond feeling most could have for any movie so long past. Author Curtis as expected reveals facts and data unknown to myself and likely oceans of others. He explores the background of producer-director Stanley Kramer (fascinating in itself), also of writers William and Tania Rose (I never knew they were behind Genevieve and so many of the Ealing comedies, but there it is, and Curtis covers all in fascinating detail). And how he explores horde of comedians in front of the camera … let’s just say we hardly knew them ... till now. So many personalities and so deftly examined. You don’t have to like the movie to love this book. So who were two cast members to cast longest reach of awe among colleagues? Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton. They’d have been my picks as well, and here’s the thing, James Curtis has written definitive bios of both. He tends to outdo himself each time out of the gate, this occasion per always rousing result. Go get it, plus Criterion's Mad Blu-Ray, or streaming, whatever media will enrich the experience of learning all, all, all about It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Depth But Barely Dreamed Of --- My Blu-Ray of the 3-D Money From Home arrived a few days early, so here's rave all round for this summit of 3-D Archive artistry. Masterminds Bob Furmanek, Greg Kintz, and Jack Theakston have done it again, and that says plenty considering fabulous work they’ve done on previous depth releases. Let me go ahead and declare it: Money From Home is the best 3-D restoration I have so far seen, the expert triumvirate having spent several years to get things right, and with Paramount’s full cooperation, they sure did. Jack says in an extra that elements they used filled a room. Remember this was three-strip Technicolor which meant three strips of everything at 100 minute total, plus 3-D meaning multiple miles more of film to finesse. If not for this team, who on earth could have had enough patience, let alone expertise, to get such massive work done? I ducked Money From Home all these years thinking someday maybe it’ll show up on 3-D, grateful now for the wait as here’s an M&L to rank among favorite of theirs. Color also is astounding, Paramount truly on visual parade. We are privileged by receipt of Money From Home in 3-D considering a distinct minority of patrons saw it that way in 1953-54, that story told in 2014 at Greenbriar. Be sure also to consult the 3-D Archive's extensive production history of Money From Home here.

A Book Filled with Revelation, Typical of William M. Drew.

Final Straw --- There ought be a book by that title, when and what was moment when stars or others of movie hire got their fill and pushed away from the buffet for good. One that notably did was Billie Dove, at exotic left, who excelled doing Blondie of the Follies, then found herself dealt out by editing and service (at Billie’s expense) to first-billed star that was Marion Davies. Billie said “I’ve had mine” and quit movies cold. She tells that story and plenty more in William M. Drew’s At the Center of the Frame, a dazzling compendium of chats the author had with leading ladies of the twenties and thirties, published in 1999. Festooned with arresting stills, this volume and Drew’s companion book, Speaking of Silents, also made up of star interviews, are must-haves for anyone curious as to great female leads of past times and what became of them. Talks are detailed enough to get the essence of these personalities and depths they plumbed looking back. They’ll not be more books like Drew’s because there are no veterans left to testify so forcefully as here. I’m just thankful Drew went the mile(s) to get it all down when he did and present the lot in print.

Blood and Sand By Coincidence? No, Anthony Slide Did the Blu-Ray's Audio Commentary, and It's Excellent

THE SILENT PICTURE --- Another who blazed history’s trail and still doing same was/is Anthony Slide, who edited/published “The Silent Picture,” a Brit publication from the late sixties/early seventies that lasted nineteen issues and had, among other things, breathtaking sit-downs with stars not approached by others, at least not successfully, but Slide always had a way with folk not so accessible to plain press and curiosity seekers. I had a pile of past issues gotten at shows but lately figured to fill in missing ones via eBay, thus recent grab of one where Slide spoke with Bebe Daniels for what had to be her final interview, husband Ben Lyon also present and commenting. I really like how “The Silent Picture” had ongoing commentary on attitudes toward silent film and the struggle to make audiences appreciate the era again. To think these were published while I was still in high school, Anthony Slide to this day active as ever and frequently showing up to audio-commentate for silent movies released on Blu-Ray. Nobody knows this stuff like him.

Unknown To Me Till You Tube Host Jake Reed Dredged It Up ... Bravo to Him!

BLANCHE IS BACK and YOU TUBE HAS HER --- Never mind treks to museums and archives. I’m for sitting home and letting YT discoveries wash over me, especially where talkless favorites Blanche Sweet and Bebe Daniels venture into sound and such rarities unseen by me turn up on exemplary quality formats free for the viewing. Are we sailing upon digital magic carpets or what? YT provider Jake Reed lately added Blanche in The Woman Racket to his upload inventory, and it’s a 1930 creampuff, done by MGM, in fact Sweet’s first with dialogue, her a better Ruth Chatterton than Ruth Chatterton for my money. What a shame silent stars were being bum-rushed out sound stage doors, for Sweet had the goods as ever, age (34) setting stage for character work to come, but where to shine with so little studio opportunity tendered? She’d go east and do legit (in, among things, The Petrified Forest), then television, finally becoming senior spokeswoman for age of innocence few were left to tell of and yes, she spoke extensively with Anthony Slide and William M. Drew.

Seen This is Your Life, Bebe Daniels on You Tube? It's a Treat

Bebe Does Song --- I toot my grateful horn not for archives that hoard, but for home archivists that share, like the Vitaphone Sound Project, whose work of late has been astonishing. They uploaded last week a 1930 musical from Radio Pictures called Love Comes Along, starring Bebe Daniels, Lloyd Hughes, and Montague Love. All Talk, All Music says the lobby card, as would others through avalanche of tunes till the format ran dry in 1931. Love Comes Along was of sort that might slither to surface on AMC back in eighties day, a likely source for the video cassette from which the Vitaphone Sound Project derived their online version. I did not expect such quality going in --- how could anything off ancient VHS look good still? --- here my mea culpa, because this transfer is astounding for what Vitaphone was able to coax from on-its-face unpromising material. Let’s just say (once again) that miracles are being wrought at home by preservationists who take it upon themselves to discover and then uproot one rare title after another. Remember in May of this year when I pearl-dived at You Tube? Well, there’s been oceans of oysters since, Love Comes Along just one more in a seeming endless parade of pearls. Dispatch yourself quick to Vitaphone’s content page and be amazed at what they’ve come up with so far. Such creators as these make every morning Christmas for classic gatherers.

Precode Picks #10

 

No Such Scene in the Picture We Have Access To, But We Can Dream, Can't We?

Precode: Cagney with Blondell, Welcome to Hollywood, and Have a (Hard) Seat

BLONDE CRAZY (1931) --- The first starring James Cagney after a quartet with him in support or unexpected lead (Public Enemy a surprise for Jim and employers). He was difficult from a start, demanding more money he knew he was worth, falling out also with the William Morris agency which he felt didn’t do enough for commissions they extracted. This was a star not afraid of courtrooms and immune to threats, which JL Warner issued regularly to no effect. Cagney said he’d as soon return home and enter agricultural college, or maybe study medicine, and yes, he was serious. We could all want to be James Cagney’s kind of movie star, spit in mogul eyes and make them like it. Being indispensable, which he was right off a start button, was advantage peers did not enjoy, like for instance Bogart, who’d do a lot of crawling before he’d walk, supporting Cagney in numerous incidents, plus Robinson, Raft, Bette Davis, even Priscilla Lane. Blonde Crazy was frisky Jim up to tricks skirting law, outright breaking same in fact, which even though this was precode, had to have consequence. Thing is, no one enjoyed seeing Jim in jail, Blonde Crazy bit of a downer at departure, though it’s implied Joan Blondell will wait for him (won't be for so long), saving goodies well worth the time. Here was a team almost twins, same colorings, sassy mouths, as though sprung from a shared cradle. She was five two, him five five, so were two-of-a-kind side-by-side. Both were for adlibbing and made with tricks they knew a public increasingly liked, till Jim’s wife told him to slow down the spasms, which he did (like Hitchcock, Cagney got much advise at home). He was brave to play Mama’s boy and even crybaby where same suited drama. Blonde Blondell tells him constantly what a spoiled little kid he is. Most male leads would not have dared stuff Jim regularly engaged.

Splitting Spoils Three Ways (They Think), But At Least One Has Other Ideas

Blonde Crazy has him as dervish of a bellhop selling hootch and rolling craps, Jim’s “Bert Harris” like everybody ignoring Prohibition and figuring the rest of us concurred, so long as we didn’t mind jail time or small town censure. Lots took umbridge at law so blithely ignored, clash of attitudes in part responsible for stricter enforcement of the Code. Bert keeps a scrapbook of favorite shady schemes and wants to imitate perpetrators, he and Joan little crooks feeding off bigger crooks like Louis Calhern, who makes the mistake of underestimating them. Blonde Crazy is raggedy but written well and under eighty minutes, still on training wheels typical of 1931 as opposed to later, even by a year, and thereby slicker, WB precodes. For repeated views and thus forewarned, I switch off seven of so minutes ahead of the end because I don’t like seeing Jim brought to book. Drat long arms of law says us who like precode for its letting crimes go unpunished. Cagney cites "Age of Chiselry" as he outlines scams he’ll play upon suckers, them already rich and underserving of it, or more dishonest than him which makes his fraud look fun, and I wonder if young folk didn’t learn from Cagney, then go to do likewise. Was he recognized by parents early on as a bad influence? This worried Jim too, who thought his stuff not only monotonous but unwholesome, a big reason why he rebelled against sort Blonde Crazy and too many others were. He made up for a life of movie crime by seeking class and culture offscreen, photographed among his books and art, learning to play piano and right away composing for it. Jim was quintessence of don’t-do-like-I-do in films, do instead like me at subdued and scholarly home. Seeking intellectual company got him in quicksand, for some of these were Red recruiters that saw Jim for a prize get. J.L. called him a Commie dupe and warned his star off bad company, a lesson Cagney had to learn maturing for himself. Best pal Robert Montgomery supplied corrective in that respect. Blonde Crazy shows up at TCM looking pretty good if not pristine like later Cagneys, and streams in HD at Amazon.

HO HUM, ANOTHER BORING BUSINESS LUNCH --- Let’s say you’re Bebe Daniels in the latter stage of life (the early 70’s), and you're among guests with varied interests and topics to discuss. Someone mentions Admiral Byrd and what he achieved decades before in the Antarctic. You then say casually I had lunch with him once, and the table goes silent. You, Bebe, have the floor. They want more, but what more is there? That meal in 1931 was merely part of work at Warners, your presence likely as not required. Being Bebe and on the job a crushing sixteen hours most days, what time did you have to follow Adm. Byrd or any other notable outside of movies? Note you’re standing close by Darryl Zanuck, him who might give your next good part, your left arm locked with George Arliss, as prestige a name as there is amidst your circle. Then there is Jack Barrymore. He needn’t fly over the Arctic circle to be top dog here, or anywhere. Unless you kept up closely with news of exploration, Byrd was just another VIP you were obliged to be nice to. Let us then flip the coin and say you’re him. Being far off where there was no movies nor news of stars ... who are these people with whom you now break bread? Barrymore yes, a more than meaningful name to almost anybody, but Arliss? You were shipboard and headed south before GA had his first talking American hit on film. Unless you were a stage hound and saw him perform during a US tour, chances are Arliss was a mere abstraction, just another defined in terms of celebrity, and you’ve sat through meals with plenty of those since coming off the ice.  Byrd plus Warner stars, any star, constantly met celebrities outside respective wheelhouses. What may we suppose Richard Barthelmess discussed with Albert Einstein, or Marion Davies stood beside Charles Lindbergh? They who served at behest of bosses … too busy perhaps to realize august company they’d be thrown amidst. Provided she gave an honest answer, Bebe’s likely as not would be, Oh, I don’t remember much about Byrd. It was so long ago, and we barely spoke. 

You Got to Be Pretty Hardcore at Home, and Have Plenty of Jack, to Rig Up An Outfit Like This

LAPS OF LUXURY? --- Imagine precode patronage in theatre seating like above. Did even the King of Persia have sits so soft? Audiences in the 30’s took hard backs and liked them. The Liberty offered Iron Maidens and we’d not complain. The Winston Theatre, home of 2001, introduced “Rocking Chair Comfort” in the late sixties and who imagined such extravagance being real? It might even have made up for bad pictures being shown. Now we get recliners, “cuddle couches,” even beds from which to watch in theatres. Greensboro’s Janus hippie house had ratty sofas and bean bags to host Last Tango in Paris and Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, latter in head-splitting 3-D, distinctly not for proposed “VIP” onlookers our modern luxuries aim at. Now a rocker/recliner, if not altogether lay-back, is but a least all expect, theatres more short-term motels than mere place to watch a movie. Surely there are somnambulists not easily awakened when time comes to clear auditoria. Home theatre is much to blame. What we construct in living rooms is way in front of anything paid cinemas can deliver. Could this in part be why they push IMAX so hard? Could be movies played loud is to keep folks from nodding off. Trade ad shown from 1933 seems to promise anything but comfort, “chairs” they call them, and for all of cushioning, these might better suit visitor’s day at the state penitentiary. Point is that audiences did not expect what we loudly do today, them content with any place to rest weary feet. Depression dwellers got not elegant furnishings in most spots they’d visit, common areas in movie palaces coming closest perhaps, thousand or more seats from which to view more functional than plush. Part of reason, among many, for my not going to current shows is no Lazy-Boy waiting for me with a pillow to prop my head like at home, plus a clearer picture like at home, better sound like at home, better popcorn like at … point hopefully made.

New Category: Cartoon Carnival (#1)

 

I Could Have Grown to Accept Betty's Dog Ears as Half-Moon Earrings Had They Been Tendered as Such

Cartoon Columns Should Be Shorter, So Here Goes ...

Decided to inaugurate a series for animation, and those being best where brief, let points stay nugget-size like candies enjoyed while watching.

Too Few Humans? Betty Boop began as a dog, at least had dog ears. She did not appeal that way, not compared with what she became. Final form Betty was human enough to be a sex symbol. How many more of those emerged in cartoons? Possibly Tinker Bell, Jessica Rabbit, the Tex Avery sirens. Avery women became a sensation for patronage demanding shorts be repeated that featured them. Popeye was human as was Olive and Bluto, all abstract enough to fit best in a cartooned world (live action Popeyes not notably successful). Disney’s prince in Snow White was an awkwardist fit to that feature. His maker admitted as much. A more angular and sharper featured prince in Sleeping Beauty works better, at least for me. Superman is cool for Fleischer but too super to register as human. Live action Supermen had the same issue but for George Reeves, superest of all to my estimate with runner-up Christopher Reeve, ratings which do nothing but expose my age.

The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes. Jerry Beck named his for a book published in 2010. Would he select the same shorts today? The book is compact and beautifully laid out. Beck enlisted modern animators and assorted experts in the field to dwell upon each of his picks. I read selections and go and watch the cartoons on Warner discs which is plenty fun. The book really enhances fresh views. Colorful frames illustrate each of the subjects.

What Did Popeye Meets Sindbad Do to People? Ought it to be “Sindbad” or “Sinbad”? The Popeye special in 1936 had the D, but 1958’s Seventh Voyage did not. AI says the D is closer to correct Arabic spelling. Doesn’t matter I guess. The Fleischer deluxe cartoon sent watchers into orbit, they said. Imagine adding forty more minutes to sell as a feature. Popeye Meets Sindbad would have beat Snow White’s historic time! Did Max and Paramount consider, discuss it perhaps? As it is, theatres pumped Popeye like it was full-length, did near-much when he was just on for seven minutes. Sindbad got treated like the super-special it was, Popeye at a peak of popularity in 1936. I’ll bet there were lots, and not just kids, who never forgot the experience of seeing it new. Here was when Popeye began eating Mickey Mouse Clubs for lunch, or at least concessions.

Novel Way to Price Gouge. There was a UHF channel operating where I went to college. They ran whatever was got cheap from syndicators, B-westerns, cartoons nobody else in the market wanted, etc. Among those was Betty Boop, 16mm original NTA prints. For collectors, such was gold dust, if not turning to dust. I approached the station manager to see if he’d sell. Well OK, he said, and I’ll charge you by the frame, since each of these are an individual work of art and should be priced accordingly. Add all the frames in a shortest cartoon and you get … how many thousands of dollars? Too many to calculate I knew, but he was intractable, in fact proud of how he arrived at such value, our minds as result not meeting. Never forgot this clever means of giving his potential buyer a buzz cut.

You Boys Behave, Said Straight Arrow Max to Ribald and Reckless Animating Staff

Bad Boys That Drew. What were early animators really like? Ray Pointer explains in his Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer book. These folks were what we’d expect from watching their cartoons, a randy, boisterous lot. Frat boys who never lasted enough grades to join a fraternity, “young men in their late teens and early twenties with nothing more than a high school education at the most. Some had not even finished high school,” says Pointer. As to pastimes, “wild living, speakeasies, and gambling … consuming bootleg liquor and weekend bridge-playing with prostitutes.” And to think we entrusted cartoon-consuming children to these scamps. Could such conduct explain why the shorts are so good?

Max the Inventor.  Again from Ray Pointer’s book. Seems Max Fleischer was a sort to hide himself “downstairs” where charts and compasses and doo-dads inspired him to make cartoons better by revolutionizing the process, which he did by, among other things, creating third-dimensional backdrops to dazzle watchers who never saw rivals Felix or Farmer Alfalfa get up to such speed. Max’s was a lonely pursuit, him bent over calculating tables while the boys upstairs whooped it up and sped through whatever jobs were at hand. His was stern policy of work-first, then family responsibility, grown-up habits and behavior at all times. No wonder he and brother Dave were so often at loggerheads. They should have focused more on the many good qualities each had and brought to the Fleischer table, leave Cain and Abling to brothers not making such cultural contribution as these two did.

Did Kansas City Give Birth to Animation? Jeff Lenburg wrote a fine book on “Great Cartoon Directors” for McFarland. Talent seems to have gathered at an unlikeliest Midwest setting … Walt Disney, Friz Freleng, Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising … the list goes on, plus there was Carl Stallings who began in Kansas City and would make the best music of anyone scoring cartoons. Freleng having lived 88 years survived most all his colleagues and experienced more than most any animation golden ager, Friz the Zelig of his (long) time if I may use a dated reference (soon if not now we’ll have to explain who Woody Allen was). There must be a lengthy and detailed oral history one or more of the fan/historian brigade conducted with Freleng, but I have not come across it.

Is the E.G. Lutz Book Rare? This was the animation how-to that Disney and the rest studied. It was copyrighted 1920 and my copy was published in 1926. Lutz wrote at least four other books on related subjects. I wonder if Disney ever tracked Lutz down so he could tell him how inspiring his work had been. Owning “Animated Cartoons” does not mean I have read it. Some books we get simply to have got. There’s a penciled 25 cents inside my cover. No dust jacket. Did it ever have one? Maybe not at first because this is basically a tech manual, not pretty pictures that would prod one to draw cartoons. Most readers I'd guess were predisposed to do that and sought out Lutz's work so they could learn how, his a seeming only game in town so early as 1920. Does the Disney Archive have Walt’s personal copy of Lutz’s book?

Would Daffy Duck vs. Huck Hound Even Have Been a Contest? I was a Huckleberry Hound fan right from him being introduced in 1958. Before that if you wanted miserly cheap cartoons for TV, Clutch Cargo was it, or were there others? I liked Huck enough to want a record album we saw at the Charlottetown Mall in December 1959. I played that disc thin. Chuck Jones said cartoons made for TV were no better than listening to radio. He was right because they were basically all talk. There wasn’t a corner Hanna-Barbara did not cut. So how are there still fans for their stuff? I was crazy for The Jetsons and Top Cat when they were new but got beyond it. Others did not and hot-pursue Blu-Ray sets from Warner Archive. I mentioned “Daffy vs. Huck” and indeed there was no contest. Did children’s instinct tell them that Huck and friends were cheats? They were there to sell breakfast cereals which were incorporated into opening and closing credits. Then Daffy sank to a same thing on behalf of Tang when ABC gave old Warner cartoons a primetime berth in 1960. To my non-conformist satisfaction, I never went for Tang or Sugar-Frosted Flakes, still have most of my original teeth to prove it, opting to rot same instead with Baby Ruths and Pom-Poms.

Category Called Comedy #12

 

CCC: Merry Clipped-Out Marxes, Bouncing Baby Sandy, Dapper Offscreen Harold, and Comedies Gone Till Now

KEEPSAKE MARXES --- Clippings, shavings, call these fragments what we will, but this was collecting on clowns before there was public access to posters, stills, lobby cards, wells into which much money is presently pumped by those who seek Marx artifacts long gone from theatre fronts and shop windows. Show of hands for those willing to give five thousand for an original Duck Soup 11X14, or three grand (likely more) for Night/Opera, Day/Races title cards, each, not for the both. All gatherers had to do in the thirties was sharpen scissors and go to work on what refuse they could access, magazines spent, newsprint featuring the team, a wide world of Marx mentions. What I’ve found in fragments so far is a Duck Soup ad chunked out (at left) from the original pressbook, desecration to be sure, like taking a razor knife to hundred-dollar bills. How valuable is such an item? Let me put it this way, I’ve collected pressbooks for sixty years and have never been offered one for Duck Soup … at any price. Whose image shouted “funny” so certainly as the Marx Brothers? I don’t know artists from film more caricatured than this unit of four, eventually three. These boys dressed comic to register comic, each able to attend fights, races, restaurants, without necessarily being recognized. They were constantly group posed, so Buster Keaton was right when he pointed out how one Marx drifting off could skid progress to halt when filmmaking. Suppose these brothers were happier when they were able finally to work as singles? I’m guessing Groucho at least preferred that arrangement.

Note closely these captioned images. Many of scribes who had no professional association whatever with the Marxes presumed still to speak for them, time-honored “wisecracks” the bane of thirties print,  seeming all to vie for placement among what passed then for wits. Thought balloons ascribed to one or more Brothers seldom approached level of what pro writers supplied for their feature comedies, but where thousands of dailies spat forth Marx images, license had to extend for staff, gifted or not with words, to apply print often hackneyed, seldom amusing, into the mouths of Marxes. From under what rock did someone emerge who called Groucho the “sad-eyed senior member” of the team or described Harpo’s “impersonation of an imbecile.” The boys must have dreaded sight of themselves so mispresented. We’re told the Marx Bros. left Paramount because Duck Soup lost money. Note though their MGM features did the same but for A Night at the Opera and The Big Store, and yet … virtually all such output was brought back in years to follow. All of Paramounts were reliable for late forties “Laffmovie” dates. I’d guess rentals were flat and no more than fifteen or twenty dollars for such engagements (save larger urban dates), but each played and were presumably liked. Same for the Metros, their five back to theatres and offered well into the sixties, this before the team became manna for cultists and designated “revival houses.” Receipts Films Inc. accumulated for 16mm rentals of the Metros between the mid-sixties and mid-eighties would be informative reading.

BABY STARDOM A LITTLE ACCIDENT? --- Was Jack Pierce during retirement ever asked what making up Baby Sandy was really like? Was Sandy informed in adulthood that the man who applied her greasepaint was one and same as he who created the Mummy and Frankenstein’s monster? Baby Sandy was among what was called “infant phenomenons,” except Sandy was celebrated more for being passive and managing a goo-goo here and there, being adorable whole of her inventory. Look at Sandy and consider: You too might have been a baby star and have no memory of it. I doubt latter-day Sandy recalled a jot of her celebrity, let alone what sort Hugh Herbert was to work with. She started at age one, retired at four. Had I done the same thing, would I retain a sliver of it? There was a girl at USC who in 1975 showed me a photo of herself at age three sitting on Clark Gable’s knee, but she couldn’t recall him. Universal made a series of Sandy features around the same time they launched Gloria Jean. Chance of reviving either is remote. I fully expect to die without having seen a Baby Sandy film (notwithstanding whatever dupey remnant might surface at You Tube). LIFE gave a cover to Sandy, which we may assume was framed and hung on her wall. I attempt to speak authoritatively of a player I’ve never seen play. The only time this happened before at Greenbriar was where we addressed artists of the nineteenth-century stage. This trade ad for Little Accident assured exhibitors that “Sandy Sells Seats,” which she undoubtedly did or Universal would not have continued making Sandy vehicles. To call her movie Little Accident implies something quite beyond kin of any Code release; possibly that was lure of a sort. There was vanished time I’m sure when Little Accident ran on late night television. It was regarded as sensible to have low comedians support stars not yet having power of speech, thus Edgar Kennedy as a “paperhanger,” Fritz Feld, and of course the inimitable Hugh Herbert, all under direction of Charles Lamont, who lived long enough to be profiled re his long career, but was he asked about Baby Sandy? “Woo-Woo vs. Goo-Goo” ads said as much as 1939 should expect of any supporting feature. What is psychology behind so many films centered around abandoned babies? The thirties were rife with them. Little Accident ran 65 minutes, I’m sure a gracious plenty.

HAROLD LLOYD: “BORN HUMORIST”? --- Harold Lloyd as himself could enter any market in any state and shop unmolested. So could Chaplin. But not necessarily Laurel and Hardy. Maybe Laurel with his hair combed back. W.C. Fields would have been unmistakable, as also Buster Keaton. Groucho Marx pre-mustache of his own and You Bet Your Life could sit all day at a sidewalk café and not be approached. Harold Lloyd posed often as offscreen man of affairs, as in affairs of high film finance and builder of mansions undreamt by even largest of stars. He was gifted in matters of business and of putting those with similar gift for comedy at his behest. Saving charm was Lloyd never claiming he did it all. He knew comedy was a corporate matter, like anything manufactured in volume. His most prolific of output was no coincidence, Harold perhaps wondering why rival comics couldn’t get as organized. Here with his cigarette, he looks like a lifelong world-beater. An industry knew him as an actor who affected funny, never as a man to be laughed at. He’d not exercise bad judgment like colleagues often did (Keaton), nor let hubris guide steps (Langdon). Lloyd could chair a lodge meeting of hundreds, this in fact his vocation once movies played out. There was no making go of reviving his old movies, efforts valiant to be sure, but I doubt it mattered so much. Lloyd’s ego did not hang on success he achieved apart from what could be counted in dollars, and of those, he kept more than most of peers combined. I note Lloyd features dried up on Blu-ray, also most of shorts, good as they all are, him in a way as hard a sell as in the fifties/sixties when going door-to-door for distributors. I salute this smoking pose for HL having a world by it’s tail at a time when/where he best basked in it. No waiting on posterity for this artist. If he couldn’t altogether revive “Harold,” there were plenty other pleasures for Lloyd to indulge.

MANY MOVIES OF MIRTH --- Mack Sennett was too successful not to be imitated. His slapstick formula seemed easy on its surface for copiers, but who of these could step before a camera and be reliably funny? Carl Laemmle hired a crew who might and called his series “Joker Comedies.” An overseer named Allen Curtis was responsible for 250 shorts made between 1913 and 1917. Pressure upon him might be imagined. Curtis hired funny folk who had plied trades on transient stages and knew from farcing, single reels done at such pace as to seem mostly improvised, but so were the Sennetts, and who complained about them? Nickel patrons liked to laugh and these humble efforts largely got the job done. Theatres changing their bill every day barely knew one clown from another, whether bought from this company or that. Split-Reel is the firm behind Blu-Ray release of Joker comedies plus others of obscure silent vintage. Subjects all derive from 35mm Library of Congress holdings, nitrate decomp here/there but who’d carp for knowing it’s the only way these rarities exist. Rivals to Sennett have too long been unseen. Diggers into comedy other than his are pleased to see something besides what forever floats about on film and video. The Jokers have not been seen for over a hundred years and would not/never have been but for effort of Split-Reel chiefs Rob Stone and George Willeman. Andrew E. Simpson supplies scores for the lot. Completists at comedy will not find a richer resource than these. Amazon among others (Rob Stone's own Split-Reel site) has the two-disc Blu-Ray of eighteen shorts. Get yours and support Split-Reel’s ongoing excavation of comedy’s past.