Two Sure-Fire and Past a Century Old

 

"Written by Mark Twain" Said Credits

True or no? --- most films improve upon novels they adapt. Why buy books for adapt to movies? Many are useful as pre-sell. Lots have a concept surefire, can’t miss. How was Jaws anything other than bulletproof for screens? Mark Twain wrote The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, two not taught much at school, but bore his name on covers and him having wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn made all subsequent classics by default. Fact is Pauper/Yankee had ideas a natural for picturization. Lookalike boys switch identities, complication ensues, presto makes and remakes on screen. And what of time travel to valor and jousts? Mark Twain lived long enough to let at least one of his stories be screen-adapted. I could believe he would have seen Prince and Yankee on filmic terms had films been around when he wrote the two novels. Bernard DeVoto was the twentieth century’s leading Twain/Clemons scholar. He found The Prince and the Pauper “second-rate” but conceded it had “structure … developed from within,” that last known necessity to Classic Era filmmaking and manna to whoever was put to scripting Clemons. Again, and as with all adapted from literature, there was right-away critic assumption that result would not live up to its source. DeVoto as spokesman for the learned may well have seen Warner’s 1937 Prince and the Pauper and come away figuring it was at least as good as source material having “already lost (its) luster” (DeVoto wrote this of the Twain novel in 1946) but would “still charm children as it once charmed Victorian adults.” Here was faintest praise, DeVoto figuring grown-ups, even youngsters after 1946, too sophisticated to enjoy Mark Twain’s fancy. Think was and is as of 2026. I dug out The Prince and the Pauper plus A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to see (or read) if indeed we are too advanced for either. Verdict: Both are comfortably ahead of us. In fact, try most any nineteenth century work on WTF/OMG generation and prep for a fall.

To no surprise, I found The Prince and the Pauper a plenty sophisticated read, even as DeVoto called it kid stuff. Here was still child level as measured by 1946 education not so far declined from Twain’s time where him and those as motivated took self-improvement by daily if not hourly dose. The author has his “pauper” seek Latin study from an as-impoverished priest, then uses acquired knowledge to thrive among if not lead beggar-boy class he is suddenly heir to, such character device to make us wonder what rewards might come of latter-day boys and girls gearing toward humanities, speech, communication, even as public education shuns these things. Could skills unique and of real value (pecuniary even) come of this? I like how the Pauper teaches himself to read and uses that to assist his masquerade as the Prince once the two swap identities. Mark Twain got in digs at inhumane system that was English life in the sixteenth century. This author went medieval on then times plus current ones, his social commentary bitter as in relentlessly so. He wrote in Connecticut Yankee how “terror” of the French Revolution was as nothing beside suffering haves had imposed upon have-nots for thousands of years leading up to turn of eighteenth-to-nineteenth century, and so what if a few thousand aristocrats got theirs on French scaffolds? They had it coming, says MT. Hanged (right word) if this didn’t feel like reading modern and radicalized fiction today. It’s known that Mark Twain’s wife vetted what he wrote and laid a heavy blue pencil where he went overboard, which apparently was often. Twain wrote pal William Dean Howells that “there wouldn’t be so many things left out” if he could do his books over again, this time with “a pen warmed up in hell.”

Mark Twain offered much opinion with regard “the damned human race,” such sentiment the more as he got older and life dealt deuces rather than aces previous. Most writers get a little caustic as they go, but his stuff heated sufficient for the estate to put lids on much, and for years after Twain’s 1910 passing, this a bur under DeVoto’s seat because he wanted Mark Twain out there and unexpurgated. Warts-and-all had to wait till survivor daughter Clara at-late-date relented and gave DeVoto keys to the store, Twain nevermore a benign old humorist in the ice cream suit. His senior output is tough swimming but let no one say this author threw soft balls. Check sometime his letters just to various editors, never mind private correspondence more explicit. Man as barbarous is threaded through Prince/Pauper and Connecticut Yankee. And I thought Injun Joe was the meanest tool in Mark Twain’s kit. Warner Bros. in 1937 needed kid gloves to handle The Prince and the Pauper, Twain’s spelled-out truth of London life an impossibility for Code Hollywood. Laird Doyle of campus wit past and previous Greenbriar celebration was put to softening-plus-getting values generous within the book, mere skeleton of which was enough for a more than fine show. WB was blessed by twin boys under contract, Billy and Bobby Mauch, so no need for split-screening or camera tricks with one kid in dual roles. There also was insurance of Errol Flynn who although first billed does not enter the fray till a second half which surely saw ’37 grousing like would issue from me 2026 watching, though absorbed enough in action to forget Flynn was in wings. Mark Twain was given possessory credit over the title, plus his image briefly in case we forgot that face, bringing pedigree to the enterprise even as WB took customary liberties with property they’d bought.

Now to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, rendered first with talk in 1931(a silent done in 1921). Bernard DeVoto offered excerpts from the book in the Viking Portable edition of Mark Twain which he edited, DeVoto of opinion that Connecticut Yankee was “the most tragically marred of Mark’s books.” He went on to impugn the presumed classic of American literature by first conceding “it might have been a masterpiece … but nothing is sustained … in short the book is at war with itself.” This could be a film reviewer confronting the 1931 or 1949 versions. To defend Mark Twain, I’d point out as DeVoto did not that it was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the author introduced, I’d aver for a first time, the story slant others of fantasy and sci-fi bent would play to a hilt, that being time travel as plot accelerant (what Twain referred to as “the transposition of epochs --- and bodies”). Here was brilliance enough to excuse the rest. Movies muffing a job of adaptation was their fail, not Mark Twain’s. His gag of an eclipse saving the hero from public burning is one any writer would long to dream up. Whole idea of an 1879 dweller thrust back to the sixth century and King Arthur’s time was based on Twain’s meeting a castle tour guide during a trip to England who claimed he had lived through Arthurian time, Mark figuring, what if he did? From such encounter did Yankee spring. Hollywood updated via Will Rogers as a 1931 radio repairman and occasional broadcaster, then for ‘49 Bing Crosby a blacksmith in 1912. Rogers treatment allows for humor of the known satirist’s sort, nowhere near raw treatment Mark Twain applied. It’s been suggested that Rogers was an update on Twain in his writings and general attitude, but short reading of Mark Twain will disabuse most of that. Both were charged by circumstance of a popular image to pull in horns to some extent, Rogers more than Twain, latter whom could doff kid gloves more readily when truculent mood called for it.

To The Prince and the Pauper again, novel which was compact and lent itself to action, intrigue, and pageant, all which were visually compelling like the Connecticut Yankee’s eclipse as rescue from execution. Warners’ Prince/Pauper aimed their treatment toward real-life Brit coronation seemingly timed to pump 1937’s release, event-inspired newsreels playing in tandem with the feature for many dates. WB treatment skewed heavy to youth per Mauch twins presence, plus there wouldn’t be observations from the book such as church premises being host to scaffolds in non-stop use. Errol Flynn was star assurance against too literary an association, though kept in mind should be Twain’s novel published but fifty-six years before (1881) the film was released. Pedigree was the more pronounced by 1962 and a Disney version produced in England, to be released theatrically there plus Euro markets, premiering on US television screens as three-parts on Sunday night’s Wonderful World of Color, broadcast dates March 11,18, and 25, 1962. A dullish telling of the Twain story said observers, host Walt Disney explaining harshness of the era it depicts, though standard/practices for TV at the time made spoon bread of what viewers saw. Guy Williams of Zorro habit assumed Flynn’s part, while Sean Scully took the dual title roles. Disney inaugural season for NBC saw money spent on larger scale than had been case at ABC, The Prince and the Pauper looking like a feature despite its low-budget, Disney as host making the case for Mark Twain as Number One favorite author from his childhood (“I read every one of his books”). Exposure on such wide seen forum as The Wonderful World of Color amounted to best exposure for the author but fifty years passed, The Prince and the Pauper appearing also in a comic book and children’s hardbound edition circa 1962. Considering influence Disney had on consumer choices during this his strongest period in both TV and film, we can assume The Prince and the Pauper got its best-ever boost to a contemporary marketplace.

Advantage with Connecticut Yankee was you could plug current personalities to Twain’s title character and get satisfactory result, or better where handled right. Will Rogers thrived with it, as though Mark Twain in 1881 saw his successor humorist coming. This might also have applied to Bing Crosby in 1949. Beauty in whatever Twain wrote was flexible to what a current public was judged to need, never mind close adhere to text. Crosby was a good actor and a great singer subject to same hot/cold winds as any star. A Going My Way happened once, while Blue Skies and others like it happened a rest of times. Weaker vehicles by 1949 outnumbered memorable ones. Bing’s best from this period might be hear-but-not-see Ichabod and Mr. Toad, voice only putting him in fuller command than cameras would permit. Swathes of Washington Irving got in his Ichabod Crane narration as overseen by Crosby, result like one of his expertly pre-recorded radio programs, these a summit of tech perfection. As the Connecticut Yankee, he falls prey to onus that is team effort, a nice opening to foretell not just comedy, some music, perhaps bittersweet romance (Bing joins a castle tour and casually announces he “was there” when sixth century events took place, a variant on Mark Twain tour experience that gave him Yankee’s inspiration). Being Paramount supervised, plus (over) produced, Connecticut Yankee obliges Crosby charisma to drag what shading he could manage across a finish line. Result was a film no better regarded then than now, points of interest yes, enough to wish Mark Twain’s property might be remade to at last emphasize a notion compelling now as what the author devised in 1881.

Ads and Oddities #12

 

What This Book Tells Will Surprise You Plenty. Go Get It.

Ad/Odds: Drews Delight in New Book, Mac/Eddy a 60's Happening, Cooped Up Lost World Watchers, and What Got Looked At Twenty Years Back

They Go Way Back but Still Are Funny for My Money

PRESENTING MR. AND MRS. SIDNEY DREW --- Neither odd nor an ad, this instead a new book by Rob Farr that explores the lives of Sidney Drew and the two Mrs. Drews, first who appeared with him on stage with second spouse filling in for movies after death of the first. Greenbriar has on several occasions dropped in on the Drews. They were funny on “genial” terms of comedy that stopped short of slapstick, deliberate device to set them apart from Sennett. For all their mirthing, no Drew threw a pie to my knowledge. They were successors in a sense to John Bunny who also got laughs from expression and reaction to absurd situations, stuff that could happen to any of us his fodder for fun. Bunny died premature and the Drews sort of took up his mantle. Author Farr does not confine himself just to their films however. There was stage drudge before to remind us how artists starved and struggled along inhospitable rail lines and tank towns where one night stands were misery few among moderns could stand, never mind dedication to art or craft. Sidney Drew was kin to the Barrymores. Farr explains the links and that enriches his telling of the Drew saga. Sidney was often (nearly always?) broke on the road, threatened with jail, stranded troupes, poor attendance, bombing in Butte and other sites, stiffing a hotel, threatened with a pistol and/or carving knife, dragged off a train and bashed for owing someone or other. Such actor’s life would sure not have been for me or thee I’d venture. We all would take vanilla after reading the Drews’ harrowing account. Rob Farr knows vaudeville plus film lore and recounts it beautifully. This is show history not to be put down, and for sure enriches whatever we watch of the Drews from now on (Rob Stone indicates a Blu-ray collection is coming). In a meantime, the Drews are spread amongst silent and comedy DVD/Blu collections. Kino’s of-late Vitagraph disc set has much of Drew humor and is not to be missed. HERE is where to order Rob Farr's Mr. and Mrs. Drew book.

Forget Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate During the Sixties. This Was the Goods.

WHEN MACDONALD/EDDY GOT HOT AGAIN --- Alarming to think that during the sixties as beatniks gave way to hippies and everyone did the Limbo or Twist, and don’t forget we were “losing our innocence” that whole time … well, along comes Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy to reassert true glory in filmed entertainment of yore. The pair had adherents still, older maybe but ambulating still to local cinemas where Mac/Eddy asserted charm intact despite thirty years since same songbirds made magic. Theirs were jewels amidst operettas salted among MGM’s “Perpetual Products,” a category invented by Metro marketers and trade shorthand for movies still viable no matter how old or familiar from TV. MacDonald and Eddy served best as a communal experience, kindreds sat in seats where music could waft about them as if the pair were live concerting. All recalled impact these features had when movie viewing was a different and shared experience. Ponder figures: The Girl of the Golden West (1938) had 637 revival bookings between September 1, 1962 and August 31, 1967. $20,540 was collected by Leo at average rentals of $32 per date. Perpetuals were generally used on slow Tuesdays or whatever wasn’t prime weekend time. $20,540 may not have been a windfall, but then again, for a 1939 title that wasn’t The Wizard of Oz or GWTW, well, yeah, it was a windfall, especially if you were a Metro field man who’d long given up on oldies as useful product. It got better: Mac/Eddy in Sweethearts (also 1938) seized 802 dates, collected $31,772 at average $40 rental. How long would graying patronage hold out? Not forever of course. Fanship for the team would fade as expected as would willingness to line up and buy tickets for fare free at home. Stimulating the more was not having to stay up (too) late, endure endless commercials plus cuts to see/hear favorites again. Fans are still out there for Mac/Eddy, more I suspect than we realize. Consider too that MGM had a hundred more vaulties in theatrical circulation through the sixties, many in circulation even unto the eighties (I saw The Secret Garden at a Gastonia, NC matinee in 1981). Warner Archive offers Technicolored Sweethearts on Blu-ray, and more recently, Rose Marie. I hope both sell well and inspire more.

HOW EXCESSIVE IS 133 FEATURES IN FIVE MONTHS? --- Might as well ask depth of spirits consumed in a night, how many chocolate chip cookies ate in a sitting, any habit over-indulged. Seems we watch less features than before, sample or skip the tendency, attention deficit ruling days plus nights. You could claim it’s plight of the young, but what if change is wider spread among ages, everybody now afflicted. Too many glasses left mostly full, thirty second sips or none. I look at features in whole and feel a last left to do so. Saw three in a gulp one recent night, Angels With Dirty Faces, Three Smart Girls, and Them!. Latter was new-arrived 4K, the others Blu-Ray. A picnic and no red ants as with analog happily passed. How different was life in 2004-05? No less than change wrought over any passage of twenty years. We had DVD by then, film collecting going if not gone (but wait, recently it has roared back). Too few classics were had on disc by 2004. A lot was seen off TCM and other satellite outlets, some broadcast in High-Definition. That by itself was reason to watch Woman of Straw, Queen of Blood, or Fun in Acapulco where otherwise you might ignore them. The James Bond series was showing up in HD on HBO, Showtime, here/there. Lacking wherewithal to record and save them meant setting alarm for four am one January ‘05 morn to watch On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever. I couldn’t say what the “Best” film was from this 04-05 list, but do recall the “Worst,” Star for sure as complete heaven-help-me roadshow on a Fox DVD. Had never seen it, hope not to again. Not sure I got through to the end. A few of the 133 have screened again so far in 2026, Dial M for Murder, Mogambo, The Big Broadcast of 1938, Son of Dracula, la Dolce Vita, International House, How to Steal a Million, They Came to Cordura, Blow-Up, Helen of Troy, and Khartoum, most the fruit of Blu-Ray or 4K releasing. Certain favorites have been screened at least a dozen more times since 04-05: Giant, The 39 Steps, Vera Cruz, The Big Clock, Across the Pacific, Planet of the Vampires, Strangers on a Train, other evergreens. Fact is all 133 would rate an encore, 132 if I exclude Star. Latter could happen in hope opinion might change with two decade growth and increased tolerance for 60’s elephant art.

Says Projectionist: My Cigar's Gone Dead, Pal. Got a Light?

LOST TO THIS WORLD HAD FILM CAUGHT FIRE --- Of all times and places I’d not revisit, even if option were open to me, here is one to rank highest. It’s a topic addressed before, The Lost World as airborne featured attraction on a passenger flight, hosted by Imperial Airways Ltd., a British firm. Lately I found a slightly different and much clearer image from the well-publicized 1925 event. There also is capture of the plane’s interior that shows seating, resumed capacity for eight not including pilots (bring back wicker chairs for flying, I say). Occupants would traverse the North Sea. Is that near where Leslie Howard was shot down in 1943? I spoke before to insanity of running 35mm nitrate at high altitude with no means of emergency egress. Do you suppose Imperial permitted smoking aboard? Bet they did, not unlike Moon Mullins stood in his film storage shed during hot-as-hell July sans shirt and rewinding nitrate. I was as reckless for helping him. Was risk worth an Out of the Past trailer Moon peeled off and gave me? The Lost World experiment appears to be the first time a feature film was shown aboard a plane for the amusement of passengers. Years later (1961), the first regularly scheduled in-air movie was By Love Possessed. Collectors would refer to these as “airline prints” and mixed bags they were, quality-wise. There were sticky fingered lab employees to sell same out back doors to dealers who’d sell same at weekend Meadowland shows. This was early-to-mid eighties when Universal was still ordering 16mm prints of stuff they controlled for use as in-flight entertainment, final days for exhibition of celluloid aboard planes. Among titles were Hitchcock and Howard Hughes properties U controlled (and still do): Vertigo, Hell’s Angels, Scarface, Rope, others. All were “original” prints and hot-sought. Air travelers now watch movies on the back of a seat in front of them, or on devices they bring aboard. Progress to be sure, no one fated to a screen visible whether you liked it or not.

Parkland Picks with Popcorn #10

 

POP Goes: Dick Tracy Detects, Hombre Means Man, Tides are Passionate, and Groucho Goes Motoring

DICK TRACY (1945) --- Called in some quarters Dick Tracy, Detective, as if we’d need telling what Dick did for a living, or maybe it was necessary since he derived from a comic strip called kid stuff by most (even though grown-ups liked him too), the character better put to serials. Three of latter had come from Republic with Ralph Byrd starring, but RKO was for launching Tracy in features, and using their own Morgan Conway, at least for initial two of four, Tracy rights reverting back to strip publisher and quartet of RKO features suffering quality-wise as result. Enter VCI with a Blu-Ray set, Tracy in toto, plus one of the serial chapters for sampling of what went before. As expected, the lot never looked better. To adapt Dick Tracy faithful was to invite more comedy than police action, Gould gallery of villains outlandish enough on pages, more so as fodder for films, thus straight psychopath “Split-Face” as essayed by Mike Mazurki. Nothing's funny about this knife killer and precursor to noir slaying we’d see more of as forties ebbed into fifties and rawer thrilling. Here then was not a Tracy on comic terms, but a sleuth in dogged pursuit of menace more menacing than Sunday strips deigned to depict. Dick Tracy along with Murder, My Sweet tendered noir on budget terms, these 61 minutes with a negative cost of $202K, more than Falcon entries were spending, the company seeing potential in Tracy as ongoing franchise. $537K in worldwide rentals suggested as much, money way better than the Falcons generated. To continue with Tracy was foregone conclusion. Revenues were down however for follow-ups, each softer than the last until Dick Tracy vs. Gruesome, even with presumed help of Boris Karloff, lost money. The group by now leaned heavier into humor while RKO ramped up dark aspects of noir otherwise. Replacing Morgan Conway with more popular, at least familiar, Ralph Byrd gave the series a smell of serials, themselves on decline by 1947 and RKO’s final Tracy try. For sampling of the four, VCI’s set comes highly recommended.

Villainy Bad as Boone's Often Made Mops of Would-Be Leading Men, as Evidenced Here

HOMBRE (1967) --- Downer westerns were a coming thing by the mid-sixties, effort always to differentiate from TV's formula. I'd regularly see futility of life duly explored. However his casting as flawed or troubled sorts, Paul Newman was in essence a can-do star after tradition style, looks, charisma you’d not wrest from him no matter the part. Intended heel that was Hud did not emerge that way for watchers who found in the character a new reason to enjoy Newman. Hombre by its luck and brief “H” title indicated more of approximate same, to bend Newman brand but not break it. If he was our star however, why plop him among dreary and at times unpleasant ensemble that is Hombre? What emerged was Stagecoach unofficially revisited, interesting as Fox had done an official remake just a year before. Those aboard Hombre’s coach smack of live drama once televised where many plus Newman had starts, these to distract from the star we paid to watch. I liked Newman bashing his rifle butt against smart mouth of baddies at the bar, hoping for more of same over balance of a film that spoke revisionist 60’s voice of westerns no longer as preferred at least by me. Old man oaters would sustain however, aggressively so in the face of change. For each Little Big Man or Soldier Blue, there were half-dozen War Wagons or Five Card Studs. Producer Hal Wallis made late career stand for saddlery like dads wanted. A local friend’s took him to such defenders of norm, westerns a bulwark against counterculture until the seventies finally dealt them altogether out. Hombre compels as drama more than action, it well-played with always crisp dialogue and situations. Better from our vantage to take it as specimen of a time when westerns might still be viable, but for maybe not much longer. For that reason, it would not do for modern thinkers like those behind Hombre to serve them face up. Let posters look like westerns of yore and customers be surprised once in (or were we surprised by 60's time of so much bleak observing). Twilight Time did a nice Blu-ray of Hombre which I assume is now out-of-print and possibly hard to locate.

There Were Apparently Enough Heels Around Back Then for Mae Marsh to Always Marry One

TIDES OF PASSION (1925) --- Mae Marsh marries a rotter after time-honored fashion of melodrama still played in earnest but not for much longer as of 1925 and a talking curtain soon to descend on long-standing silents. Interesting how short a time it took for dialogue to ridicule old styles as embodied here. Tides of Passion was of Vitagraph origin, based upon an early century novel (In the Garden of Charity) by one “Basil King,” and lest we smirk, be aware a reprint was published late as 2010, question being has anyone above ground read it? Tides of Passion was a feature shaved to two reels for a 1930 reissue, probably with music/effects, those not surviving. Was idea to laugh at old-timey tribulations per here, perhaps with sarcastic narration for garnish? We’ll never know … unless then-reviews tip it off. Melodrama was still a respected format in 1925, would remain so in certain contexts, such as the “woman’s picture” and offshoots, Tides of Passion by title identifying itself on outdoor terms, a rich stage tradition however unlikely such a thing might seem to us. Not to forget though is trains, storms, chariot racing, all could be and were depicted before footlights, and darn well too. Hard making story sense of what happens to Tides as trimmed, but therein lies pleasure. Storms and stormy emotions carry all forward to reward time spent. Should we want to illustrate what melodrama was about during silent days, this will do. To jeer at pre-talk technique overlooks hardship casts endured, shooting sans stunt doubles in treacherous weather to make Griffith proud. A tougher breed then, and much exertion to admire them for (Mae Marsh surely earned her fee). Historian and preservationist Ben Model rescued Tides of Passion from a 9.5mm source. Being little larger than 8mm means hanging by a thread for many titles which survived so and no way else. Silents, all films in fact, were fair game where made by independents, juice squeezed out, then farmed to sellers wringing what still was left in them. Think of it: Seven reels in 1925 and us with but two of them. Maybe we’re the better for such limit, as I’d find tough getting through seven spools, unless they derived from 35mm with tints and tones. How spoiled we are by souped-up silents so carefully restored. Fair enough 8mm from Blackhawk used to be whipped cream with cherries atop, but no more. See Tides of Passion among Undercrank offerings in their Accidently Saved: Volume Four, all of titles enhanced by Ben Model’s sterling scores.

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (1961) --- 1961 was not too late to laugh at tin lizzies and ponder how far we progressed from them. And who better than Groucho Marx to narrate pile-ups, Jalopies versus old Dobbin, history happily swept away and thanks be to freeways to make life happier. Groucho was however not for dismissal of such past, for he had lived through it, and we get from a coda his realizing new times were not necessarily better times. NBC’s Project 20 was intermittent hours detailing days gone and fashions spent, affectionate if not patronizing views of how quaint we’d once been. Much was newsreel-derived, not enough to fill needed 52 minutes, so recreations were done, moderns aboard antique vehicles and kitted in fashions to evoke then as opposite to now. To hear them tell it, we’re lucky autos survived onslaught of public and official reaction, Groucho telling of laws then-meant to choke progress in its cradle. Horseless conveyance seemed a worse threat than others recorded and as vigorously put down. The public would embrace motorcars if not be slow getting round to it, principal reason expense of the things, a rich man’s hobby to start, and small wonder that stirred resentment. Project 20 had a way with history lite, more likely learned by casual approach more informative than any two terms at public school. Groucho as interlocuter gets irony of rose watered past and never kids us that it was lost paradise, not where streets were less streets than rivers of mud, and here came drivers better put to swimming through same than driving over it. I like Groucho giving voice and insight to these situations because his was a persona so defined as to know his outlook going in and who better to lend perspective where fads and foibles of an earlier time are addressed? With regard those rickety autos, no thanks I said after watching, give me a hoss at least till these things were tamed. Earliest racing is shown, 55 MPH a reckless pace which sure enough was case where tip overs could squash men like bugs. Inspiration sort of runs dry for final arc where slapstick and even Keystone Kops get a look-in. Was this reward for Junior having patiently watched an initial forty minutes? Merrily We Roll Along: The Early Days of the Automobile was an early DVD release (2003) from “Stanachie Entertainment,” which appears still to be in business, if now concentrated more on music CD’s.

UPDATE (6-23-2026): Scott MacGillivray boosts Morgan Conway as Dick Tracy:

Hi, John — I’m with you on Morgan Conway. I always liked him, and so did Chester Gould. I dug up all sorts of stuff about Conway and wrote it up on Wikipedia, including this March 1948 item from the Hollywood Reporter:

I haven’t bought the Dick Tracy Blu-ray set because I have all four Tracys on 16mm, and they’re gorgeous originals. Whenever I want to spend an hour with Mr. Tracy, I thread up the projector!

Best wishes — Scott

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.

A 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 Fox build-up that never got built. He began reasonably strong with The Dark Corner, had varied parts after, then was finished at TCF. 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.