He’s a daunting subject.  Scholars have shaped their careers around studying the life of Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens, who was born 172 years ago tomorrow, on November 30, 1835.  For every schoolchild who devoured his many literature classics, to the many moviegoers who saw his books brought to life on the screen, Twain captured the quintessential spirit of 19th Century America–brash, inventive, adventurous, imperfect, but always with a sense of humor.  We haven’t got time here for a deep study of Mark Twain, but we can take a look at the ways Hollywood adapted and appreciated the wit and wisdom of this entertaining writer.

Beginning with very early silent films, the movies often turned to Twain when in need of a property with plenty of audience appeal.  According to the IMDB, Twain himself appeared in one of the early adaptations of his works, the 1909 version of The Prince and the Pauper, which had been preceded two years earlier by the first screen Tom Sawyer.  From that time onward, Twain’s characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would be perennial silver screen and later television subjects, both of them appearing both singly and together dozens of times over the past century.  In the early outings, such boy actors as Jackie Googan, Billy Cook, and in David O. Selznick’s lavish Technicolor 1938 version Tommy Kelly, brought the young Sawyer to vivid life.

A year after Selznick’s Sawyer, MGM made The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with their resident bright-eyed boy Mickey Rooney in the title role.  Over twenty years later MGM would bring Finn to the screen again, a semi-musical version with songs originally written for a never-filmed 1952 version, to have been directed by Vincent Minnelli, which would have starred Gene Kelly and Danny Kaye as the Duke and the Dauphin.  (As a fan of both Kelly and Kaye, I rue that this was never made….).

Almost as popular as Tom and Huck was one of Twain’s other famous duos, The Prince and the Pauper, filmed many times with the identical boys played by variously by slight women, trick photographed boys, or in the case of the popular 1937 Warner Bros. version, by actual male twins.  Sixteen-year-olds Billy and Bobby Mauch (I was saddened to learn he died this past October) were delightful in the lead roles, as was Errol Flynn in actually a very minor role as the dashing Miles Hendon.  A great score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold helped the action along (and was later incorporated into his Violin Concerto) and Twain was well served by this rousing adaptation.

The time-traveling comedic adventure A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was also popular Hollywood fodder, memorably starring Will Rogers in 1931, with Maureen O’ Sullivan as his love interest and Myrna Loy as the treacherous Morgan le Fay.  In 1949 Bing Crosby, at the height of his popularity, starred in a delightful musical version for Paramount, co-starring the ravishing Rhonda Fleming, with William Bendix around as able comic relief and Cedric Hardwicke as King Arthur.  It’s a charming, breezy Crosby performance, with some nifty songs including a hilarious song-and-dance number with Bing, Bendix and Hardwicke dressed up like peasants and roaming the countryside.  I think this is one of Bing’s best films, a treat all around, and is out on DVD.  The novel has also been interpreted in animated form and with females in the lead; the concept seems to take on all comers.

Mark Twain died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four as an incredibly prosperous and world-famous celebrity, and his name is as famous today as ever.  He is, I would say, as popular and uniquely American a character as Abraham Lincoln, and that might account for the fact that he’s turned in up as a character in shows such as Star Trek:TNG and in assorted biographical works, including Fredric March’s turn as Twain in The Adventures of Mark Twain from 1944.  Twain's unpretentious and cantankerous nature continues to appeal to us from across the years, and his stories offer opportunities to each new generation to discover and make Mark Twain their own.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Clemens!

I found a newspaper clipping dated February 2, 2004 from the local paper this morning that was written by Silvia Pettem, a Boulder historian. The subject was Eugene O’Brien, a silent-film actor who worked with the likes of Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadge, and Gloria Swanson. O’Brien was born Louis O’Brien (he later changed his name to Eugene). He was raised here in Boulder, Colorado and, at the age of 21 in 1902, he got his first minor acting role at Elitch Gardens in Denver. He was a University of Colorado medical school drop-out who then moved to New York City. An amusing excerpt relating to his ambitions relates the following:

After leaving college, he studied to become a doctor, hoping all the time that something would prevent him from realizing the ambition, which was wished on him by his family. His idea of a career was to go on the stage, but in a family of professional men this was not to be considered for a moment. So he studied a little and went in for athletics. At last, after the family saw that he would never succeed as a surgeon, they permitted him to switch to civil engineering. He took that up, vowing that it would be but a temporary avocation. (The Blue Book of the Screen, 1923)

And, sure enough, it was. In New York, O’Brien landed a part in a vaudeville play, was praised by critics, got bigger parts, and eventually broke into the movie business. Pettem observes that “Boulder family and friends finally got to see O’Brien perform when he appeared in his first silent film, The Lieutenant Governor. It was shown in February 1915 at the Curran Theater, the current site of the Boulder Theater on 14th Street.”

(For historical pictures and more information on the Boulder Theater see: http://www.bouldertheater.com/history.php)

O’Brien’s status as a heartthrob was helped along by his dashing good looks and athletic build. He was six feet tall, came in at a trim 160 pounds, had light brown hair and blue eyes. “A female reporter who interviewed him on the set of The Perfect Lover found him only a bit better looking than I ever imagined any man could be.’” (Pettem.) That was in 1919. O’Brien never transitioned into the talkies and, in 1928, he left the movie industry.

My favorite excerpt from Pettem’s article is one that should serve as a source of inspiration for single men everywhere: “In 1929, at the age of 48, O’Brien moved into a Hollywood hacienda, ‘untroubled by girls and reveling in athletics, gardening, and most of all bachelorhood.’ He told a reporter that he would never marry because women were too possessive. He said he liked to do as he pleased at all hours and particularly enjoyed mornings alone.”

O’Brien died when he was 85 in 1966. A funeral was held in Hollywood, but his body was buried in the Green Mountain Cemetery in Boulder, in a family plot next to his parents and brothers. I decided to visit the cemetery on my way home tonight and snapped a couple pictures with my phone in the twilight. Rest in peace, Eugene. It sounds like you did a pretty good job of attaining it in life, too.

I’ve been to Carvel, USA and come back to tell the tale.

Maybe it was the L-tryptophane semi-coma induced by Tom Turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Or perhaps it was the desultory feeling induced by that “day-after-a-holiday” fog that colored my judgment, but something led me to check out a few of the 16 Andy Hardy movies aired by TCM last week. I thought that these movies lost their allure for me about the time that I stopped reading about the adventures of Archie and Jughead in comic books—but the Hardy series, along with the Henry Aldrich, Nancy Drew and others marked the emergence of adolescence in the 1930s as a commercial and social force in America. These films still have some effective moments, despite the distance between us and the era when they were made.

Mickey Rooney in Broadway to Hollywood (1933)

Is it possible that even in the 21st century, the simple, wholesome power of that small-town America composed of families with deep, almost spiritual ties, still beckons, if only for the running time of the movie, to that surprisingly durable hope for “wholeness” that perches in the human heart? When the little B movie, A Family Affair was made in 1937, it was intended to ride the coat tails of a previous MGM successful adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness transformed into a gentle valentine to an idealized home life on screen by Clarence Brown.

At the time when the highly successful series Hardy series began at the studio, the Munich Pact, The Spanish Civil War and the Nanking Massacre were big news. After the Roosevelt administration tried to reinvigorate the American market for several years, the economy took an unexpected nosedive in 1937, leading to a jump in unemployment from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938. Historians will tell us that several of the “isms” that have bedeviled us in the last 200 years, from romanticism, and communism to fascism were partly due to a desire for human beings to find a way of coping with the nearly constant, often overwhelming change of the average person’s life in this period.

Fortunately for us in some ways, I suppose, the response in this country to our problems was often to escape into the movies. After all, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the average movie ticket price by 1929 had risen to an unheard of 35¢, but one good thing about the Depression was that it brought that ticket to dream down to a much more sensible 25¢ once again.
A shrewd businessman and a dreamer, I suspect that studio head Louis B. Mayer understood that there might be a profit in making movies that gave Americans a brief glimpse of an imagined ideal life. Mayer‘s observant grandson, Daniel Selznick, once said that his grandfather saw the films that he produced “as artifacts of Americana and really saw them as shaping the taste of the country—[he] consciously hoped that they would shape the taste of the country.”

Mickey Rooney with Cecilia Parker, Lewis Stone, Sara Haden and Fay Holden in Andy Hardy Meets a Debutante (1940)

Frankly, I thought that I had very little interest in Andy Hardy himself, as embodied in an unfettered Mickey Rooney, though I was always interested in the other actors who popped up throughout the series and the settings the movies created for the audience. As it turned out, I couldn’t possibly bear to watch the entire Hardy Family “canon” over the two days, but my family and I found ourselves leaving the movies running in the background as a sort of video wallpaper in the background of the usual hubbub of the Thanksgiving holiday. As a result, even my glib assessment of the remarkable Mr. Rooney shifted a bit. He was–and is–a superb actor. And in MGM’s carefully crafted films, he is surrounded by skilled actors at every level.

I’m not entirely sure that this isn’t an apocryphal story from the imagination of Billy Wilder, but the filmmaker once recalled the time in the late ’30s when he and his writing partner Charles Brackett were working on a script at MGM for Ernst Lubitsch for the movie Ninotchka. Reportedly, their office “windows gave onto a little bridge which connects this old building with the new Thalberg Building. We looked out the window because there was screaming going on, and Louis B. Mayer held Mickey Rooney by the lapel. He says ‘You’re Andy Hardy! You’re the United States! You’re the Stars and Stripes. Behave yourself! You’re a symbol!’”

Mayer and Rooney with others use Judy Garland's birthday for a photo op. Rooney would later say that such occasions ended as soon as the cameramen left.

Clearly, if Wilder‘s memory is to be believed, on this occasion the flesh and blood “symbol”, (who was only, after all, a highly paid, extremely talented, greatly indulged teenage boy working very hard at the time), had done something that contradicted the wholesome vision of the studio’s driving force and upset Mr. Mayer‘s dream of America. While I’m as likely as anyone to dismiss the Andy Hardy films as a “confected rather than a reflected” reality about America, I was reminded recently—after several years of avoiding viewing any Andy Hardy movies—that, like it or not, I can still get caught up in the small tragedies and triumphs of  the Hardys.

Though I admit that there were moments when I shared Mr. Mayer‘s urge to throttle the hypekinetic Mr. Rooney as Andy Hardy during the recent marathon, my regard for his real artistry in his non-Andy roles in National Velvet, The Human Comedy, The Comedian, Requiem for a Heavyweight and The Black Stallion has deepened considerably over time, so I thought I might try to see if my perception of Andy Hardy had also changed.  Alas, a little of the Mickster powerhouse still goes a long way in most of the Hardy movies, especially when a movie script starts to flag a bit.

Mickey Rooney as the horse trainer in The Black Stallion (1979), a role that reminded everyone--even AMPAS--that he was a fine actor. Rooney was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. (He should have won, though Melvyn Douglas was got the nod for Being There)

Perusing Rooney’s official website to verify a factoid for this article, I was amused to see that one of the quotes chosen to include there was one from comedian Dana Carvey, who appeared in a sitcom with Rooney several years ago.  Carvey, whose riff about the showbiz legend has been a very funny staple of his comedy routine in the past, has mentioned the actor’s amusing flair for profanity in between asking God to bless the same people he’d just cursed, is quoted on Rooney‘s website as saying:

“Mickey Rooney was a real colorful character, told us great stories. He used to walk around and say, ‘I was the No. 1 star in the world, hear me? The world!’ And that’s when he was alone in his dressing cubicle.”

I have to like a man who can see the humor in that affectionate jibe at his own legendary status!  Based on the Robert Osborne one-on-one interview with Mickey Rooney, he is a man whose tumultuous life leaves him apparently able to forgive and forget much, especially his own and others foibles, and he does so in such a good natured, technicolored way. I’ve read that Rooney, while genial, is reticent with most interviewers and biographers when discussing his career and the people he’s known, in part because he has written his own memoir, which supposedly will someday be published. I like to think that it might also be because he might be following a path of “never complain, never explain” in this, his ninth decade.

The Depression era Hardy family sharing their responsibilities (and swapping gender roles) in one of the later vehicles.

It is easy to mock but underneath the impossible idealistic view of life in Rooney‘s Hardy movies is an undeniable pull. That tug may not be toward any supposed upper middle class reality that once was—most kids could only dream of owning a car as Andy did and even finishing high school was beyond the reach of many moviegoers, not to mention going to college. Having seen more Hardy movies than I’ve ever seen–or can stand to see again–over the last week, I think it’s not just the wish fulfillment that the Andy Hardy movies offered audiences, but a shared sense of longing that runs through the series that gives it some continued power.

Still, the wiseacre in me had several questions that popped into my head during the 2 day Hardy-a-thon, that I feel compelled to ask:

Do you think George Seitz, the pioneering director of most of the Hardy films, whose credits went back to The Perils of Pauline (1914), ever mentioned the idea of “Less is More” to Mickey?

If Judge Hardy and Emily (Mother) met as freshmen in college, how come Lewis Stone seems ancient compared to his wife?

Fay Holden with Judy Garland grabbing a breath of fresh air in Andy Hardy's world

If Emily (Mother) Hardy (Fay Holden) went to college, what could she possibly have majored in? Domestic Science? Quantum Physics? Cake decorating?

Could Mrs. Hardy’s real problem be that she is having an identity crisis due to the fact that she has so many titles and so few people address her by her actual name of Emily?

She’s “mother” to both her children and her husband, and only occasionally is called by her real name by either her sister or her husband, much less anyone else!

Have they ever considered having Mrs. Hardy evaluated for an arterial flow problem since she tends to speak in non sequiturs, i.e. in Andy Hardy Comes Home, her sister Milly asks Emmie if she’s ever dreamed about a trip around the world. Emmie’s vague reply: “Oh no. I’d like to go somewhere else.” I’m telling you, this lady’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.

What’s the backstory of Aunt Milly (played most memorably by Sara Haden)?  If she’s an English teacher with her own income, does she have to live with the Hardys?

Sara Haden

Have you ever noticed that when the more self-absorbed members of the Hardy family are—as usual—ignoring some important news that the Judge is dying to share with his loved ones, she is the person who asks him gently to explain what he’s getting at? Is there a bit of romantic tension between the Judge and his sister-in-law? Is it possible she’s pining for Jim Hardy (Lewis Stone)?

Has anyone ever written a master’s thesis on the evolution of the Andy Hardy figure from the personification of a quasi-rural, Jeffersonian America to the Cold Warrior Salesman he appears to be in the last and saddest Hardy movie, Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958)? Well, I’m hardly equipped to write such a thesis, but, as Mrs. Lowman said in that Arthur Miller play about another sort of salesman, attention must be paid—and for a few pages, perhaps it might be paid to a few aspects of the Hardy series.

Like that fatal potato chip prior to the Thanksgiving feast, after I started to watch the first Hardy family movie, A Family Affair (1937), however, the decision to  stop watching was a bit harder. Though not initially planned as a series but simply as a B movie featuring some engaging A players such as Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington as Judge and Mrs. Hardy, this first movie has a more voluble Judge Hardy and a more vibrant Emily (Mother) Hardy because of the leads’ personalities. Lionel, like all the Barrymores, remains a fascinating figure for me, even when the material is rather thin and Byington, though given little to do but fuss, was an endearing presence.

After literally and figuratively digesting the contents of the films and the day’s celebration, it finally dawned on me that there were two primary reasons why I felt compelled to turn back to the Hardy films for two days. One was, as I attempted to explain above, surprisingly, Mr. Rooney, and the other was Lewis Stone. The actor most closely identified with the Judge, Lewis Stone, who began playing the part in the next film in the series, You’re Only Young Once (1937) remains an intriguing figure. Btw, according to legend, Lionel Barrymore and Lewis Stone are the only two actors who managed to remain on the MGM payroll long enough to be fully vested to receive a pension from the studio, (though neither would live long enough to enjoy much of that pension).

A younger Lewis Stone, who had a long career in silents and on the stage prior to becoming identified with Judge Hardy.

Lewis Stone (1879-1953), who always looked more grandfatherly than fatherly as Judge Hardy, (he was about 59 when he began the role), had reportedly turned gray by the time he was 20. His pensive, slow-moving, sometimes dour manner in this part makes him occasionally seem crotchety, but as the moral fulcrum of the story, his magisterial words and actions seem to help set the world right by the time The End appears. More importantly, in dramatic terms, Stone’s quiet, deliberative nature contrasts well with his screen son’s nervous energy. Stone does seem to embody an older, slower America too, while Rooney is clearly meant to personify the unbridled, sometimes foolishly optimistic spirit of America in the 20th century. Both characters seem to learn from one another throughout the series.One aspect of the arc of the series that surprised me, was that despite his calm appearance, it’s interesting how much trouble the ol’ Adjudicator, Judge Hardy, finds himself in during several of the Hardy’s adventures.

In the earlier Hardy films in which he appears, made as the Depression dragged on in America,  Stone‘s character shows some very poor judgment, being hoodwinked by con men, almost removed from the bench and investigated for his finances and decisions on more than one occasion. Despite the upper middle class trappings of the Hardy home and the esteem that is publicly expressed toward the judge’s honor and perception, Judge Hardy inevitably faces ruin of some sort in these early entries, such as Judge Hardy’s Children (1938), The Hardy’s Ride High (1938), and Judge Hardy and Son (1939)—sometimes due in part to the mischief of his dunder-headed offspring, but often due to the judge’s own flawed insight into human nature. Surely, this aspect of the early plots helped to endear the fallible Judge to often hard-pressed audiences, even though it made me wonder about his ABA rating.

The part of Judge Hardy has come to overshadow Lewis Stone‘s earlier roles, but the contemplative part was more of an anomaly in the actor’s remarkably long career than one might realize. His parts on stage and in earlier films were more often men of the world, and in some roles, Mr. Stone–believe it or not–was positively dashing.

Lewis Stone as the leading man in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922)

Becoming an actor after leaving college to serve in the Spanish-American War, Stone became a popular and romantic stage actor, originating the role of the white explorer-hero in the stage play of Bird of Paradise on Broadway in 1912 opposite a very young Laurette Taylor as the doomed South Seas native girl. This story, which was later filmed twice in the sound era in 1932 and 1951, was described by a contemporary review in the New York Times as colorful and romantic as well as ground breaking in its treatment of intermarriage among the races.

Lewis Stone fencing with Stuart Holmes in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922)

After making his successful debut in film by 1915, Stone soon became one of the most courtly figures on the silent screen, even with a mid-career interruption due to his service in World War One. Back on screen after the war, he appeared in the dual role of the Ruritanian prince and his cousin in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), (shown at right). Some critics felt that Lewis Stone‘s characterization provided the elegant blueprint for Ronald Colman‘s ’30s version. The following year Mr. Stone’s appearance opposite Ramon Novarro in Metro director Rex Ingram’s version of Sabatini’s Scaramouche (1923) cemented his reputation for filling courtly roles with a brio that Hardy viewers might find startling. Stone‘s oily performance as the despicable The Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr who feels nothing for disdain for those who would fight for the Rights of Man in a revolutionary age gave the actor a chance to evince a talent for playing a believable villain. Both films have appeared occasionally on TCM Silent Sundays and may again prove interesting viewing and Scaramouche is now on DVD.

One adventurous role that looks as though it might have been quite a show was Stone’s appearance in director Alexander Korda‘s second film in Britain, The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927). A comic take on the Helen of Troy story, Lewis played Menelaus in the First National production opposite Maria Corda in the title role. Miss Corda was a star in Korda’s native Hungary and the director’s wife at the time. Both she and Mr. Stone were cited by Variety for their nimble acting. Unfortunately, as with so many silent films, only about 27 minutes of this movie is said to exist in the vaults of the British Film Institute and are currently too fragile to be projected.

Lewis Stone with Maria Corda in Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)

Still, as we can imagine, based on the Korda reputation and the elaborate costume and sets seen in this the above image, Mr. S. cut quite a figure. Satirizing ancient myth and the eternal battle of the sexes,  Korda reportedly crafted this movie in the same irreverent vein as his later biopics, The Private Life of Henry VIII (1934) and Rembrandt (1936). The New York Times praised the topical humor throughout the send-up, singling out Stone for giving “a capital performance as the nonchalant Menelaos. He snores, he  yawns, he hates wars; but there you are, if a country demands it one  must.”

Lewis Stone in his Oscar-nominated role as Count Pahlen in the lost silent, The Patriot (1928)

Another extraordinary silent film, now believed lost, except for fragments in archives, was the “intense and vivid” The Patriot (1928), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and featuring Emil Jannings, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton, and Florence Vidor. This film, a portrait of the 18th century Russian Czar, Paul I, received exceptionally enthusiastic reviews, praised for its subtlety and scope, and was nominated for five Oscars: Best Film, Best Actor, Lewis Stone, Best Director, Ernst Lubitsch, Best Art Direction and Best Screenplay, (only the screenplay won an Oscar). As you can see in the enthusiastic trailer below, and in Mordaunt Hall’s rhapsodic review in The New York Times, found here, The Patriot was entertainment on a large scale.

Stone‘s raffish side had further workout in the seven films in which he played opposite Greta Garbo, who was at her most  mysterious in A Woman of Affairs (1928), Wild Orchids (1929), and Romance (1930).  Like a male dancer whose role on stage is often to provide a frame for the prima ballerina, Stone‘s characters provide a setting for Garbo‘s artistry. In several of these films, he often plays a man of the world who may be Garbo‘s rich older “benefactor,” an adviser or an occasional stumbling block in her quest toward romantic self-fulfillment in these flicks, as he did very effectively in the early talkie, Mata Hari (1931), pictured below.

Greta Garbo as Mata Hari (1931) with Lewis Stone.

By the time that Garbo appeared in Queen Christina (1933), Stone, and his roles had matured into that of a trusted attendant to the star. One film made with Garbo that offered Lewis Stone several moments to make his mark away from the star’s charisma, was in the ensemble film directed by Edmund Goulding, Grand Hotel (1932), based on the novel by Vicki Baum. As Doctor Otternschlag, the hotel doctor, whose face has been horribly marked by the First World War, is filled with ennui, unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the turmoil, trouble and triumphs of the characters surrounding him in the lobby of the gathering place where he hovers, a ghost-like presence who observes that “Grand Hotel… always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

Lewis Stone as Doctor Otternschlag in Grand Hotel (1932).

However, there were still some interesting parts awaiting the actor at Metro. Strictly Dishonorable (1931), based on a hit Broadway play by Preston Sturges, gave the actor a nice foreshadowing of his later part as a very playful, amusingly philosophical alcoholic judge in an ensemble cast led by Paul Lukas. The sophisticated film casts a tolerant  eye on the denizens of a speakeasy where the sober Judge Hardy would never be seen.

Lewis Stone counseling a flirtatious Sidney Fox in Strictly Dishonorable (1931)

One other pre-Hardy part that Lewis Stone played is, in my opinion, among his very best, blending the actor’s skill for projecting an introspective nature with some lively Western action. Directed by Richard Boleslawski, (a pioneering influence in introducing Stanislawski’s acting principles to this country), Three Godfathers (1936) is the second of at least three remakes of a Peter Kyne novel about a band of robbers who find themselves wandering in the desert, like the Magi at the first Christmas, though these bandits find themselves toting a newborn baby. The far more well known 1948 remake by John Ford, (who also directed a silent version in 1919 called Marked Men), stars John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry (Dobie) Carey, Jr. Given Ford’s painterly gifts, it is a magnificent desert tableau to look at, though, perhaps the material receives too sentimental a treatment by the director. Yet for those who’ve seen the grittier, low budget 1936 version, which stars Chester Morris, Walter Brennan and Stone,  there may be no contest in choosing a favorite version for some of us.

Chester Morris, Walter Brennan & Lewis Stone tend to the baby in 3 Godfathers (1936)

The ’30s version, photographed by one of the masters, Joseph Ruttenberg, is able to communicate the bleakness of the setting in a straight forward manner. This is perfect for the Depression era, tougher treatment giving the basic storyline a sharper edge with fewer sentimental frills. Chester Morris is outstanding in the leading part of the villain with the darkest nature of the three, both charming, brusque and dangerous. Brennan‘s rather sad, illiterate cowpoke is also touching and real, especially in his wonderful scenes  with Lewis Stone, who plays an educated man who, finding himself at a dead end in the desert, still turns to Schopenhauer and Shakespeare for some hoped-for perspective. Mulling over the path that led him to throw his life away as the bleakness of their circumstances becomes clearer, Stone‘s legacy to a hapless Brennan and a cold Morris is to remind them that they are still human. Encountering this previously unknown film (to me at least), a couple of years ago on TCM, I’ve never forgotten its power and the subtle, forgotten performance by Lewis Stone, who clearly, was more than Judge Hardy.

Upcoming Mickey Rooney movies on TCM can be seen here.

Upcoming Lewis Stone movies on TCM can be seen here.

Lewis Stone, taking a breather from his role as Menelaus, just outside the stage where The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927) was filming.

Sources:

Eyman, Scott, The Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer. Simon & Schuster. 2005.
Gabler, Neal, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Doubleday, 1988.
Thomson, David, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

At high noon today, Tuesday, November 27th, dozens of angry horror writers converged on the Executive Gate of Warner Brothers Studios in beautiful downtown Burbank. Now four weeks into the WGA 2007 Contract Negotiations, they were mad as Hell… and nobody knows from Hell quite like the Horror Writers of the WGA! Led by cod-cleric strike captains Scott Kosar (author of the recent Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Amityville Horror remakes) and Jace Anderson & Adam Geirasch (the writing team responsible for Tobe Hooper's The Toolbox Murders and Dario Argento's Mother of Tears: The Third Mother), a street corner exorcism was carried out under atypically bright and sunny skies (and, fittingly, a a grave stone's throw from Forest Hill Cemetery) to drive out the demons of stinginess from the eternal soul of The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Highly visible among the normally faceless scribes of cinefear were Masters of Horror Mick Garris and Stuart Gordon (pictured right and flanking Cynthia Garris), as well as veteran scribes Daniel Farrands (Hall6ween: The Curse of Michael Myers and the upcoming The Girl Next Door), Stephen Susco (The Grudge, The Grudge 2) and David J. Schow (The Crow, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning). Although protester placards promised terrible things to those caught crossing the picket line, the demonstration was carried off peaceably, with motorists passing on Olive Avenue honking their horns in support of the horror writers. Monster icons Michael Myers and Chucky were also in attendance, but in solidarity with the striking writers, they said not a word. Their silence spoke volumes.

"A mob is an ugly thing… and it's just about time we had one!"

from Young Frankenstein (1974)

As the Writer's Strike of 2007 (and hopefully only of 2007) reaches its fourth week, picketers are facing the reality that when the going gets tough the tough get medieval. Today, November 27th, 12:10 pm (PST), the horror writers of the WGA will hold their own special picket at Gate 4 of Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank… an exorcism to shame the Devil (or whomever is possessing The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) and drive out the demons of stinginess!

The official word:

We, the horror writers of the WGA, don't necessarily believe that the AMPTP is evil. Rather, we believe they've been invaded by evil spirits whose devilish agenda is the destruction of our Guild. For this reason we have decided to conduct this exorcism for the mutual benefit of this industry. We may be dark souls, but we do believe that good eventually triumphs over evil.

We encourage our brothers and sisters in horror to join our procession by emailing Jace Anderson at creepymofo@roadrunner.com or Scott Kosar at scottkosar@mac. com. And, of course, we welcome ALL writers to come and support our fight at Warners Gate 4, Tuesday at noon.

The Movie Morlocks will put in their presence and lend their support. Check back later today for pictures from the event.

Required Reading:

Speechless Without Writers

Last week, November 21st was the 62nd anniversary of the death of the wonderful humorist Robert Benchley.  The kind-faced writer, who also had quite an impressive career in Hollywood, may be most identified as a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the group of Roaring Twenties-era New York-based wits who congregated at the NYC hotel on a regular basis to trade barbs with each other.  Benchley was probably the nicest of the bunch, and he became a movie favorite often playing the kind of everyman character that his benign Massachusetts countenance perfectly reflected.

Born in 1889 in Worcester, Mass. , Benchley was a Harvard-educated stand-out who started his comic writing career at the famed Harvard Lampoon publication, and also would hit the boards himself as a member of the Hasty Pudding theatrical society.  Even as a young man his droll demeanor was a favorite with his friends and fellow students, and though he clearly had the gift of creativity, his first job out of college was in civil service, which he quickly left for literary freelancing and eventually a job at the New York Tribune newspaper.  There he learned that ferreting out facts for stories wasn’t his strong point, and he was moved into criticism, a switch that helped him get into theater reviewing at the prestigious Vanity Fair magazine.

It was at Vanity Fair that Benchley first met and worked with fellow wit and writer Dorothy Parker, starting a friendship that would last many years and fairly define the ideal platonic relationship. (Benchley had married high school sweetheart Gertrude in 1914.)  Both had wicked senses of humor and delighted in parody and gentle insubordination, much to the consternation of their VF bosses.  When Dorothy finally got the axe (due to complaints from play producers who'd received bad reviews from her), Benchley also quit in solidarity with her, a move which Parker called “the greatest act of friendship I’d ever seen.”

Leaving Vanity Fair certainly didn’t hurt his career, which prospered on freelance writing assignments and eventually a long stint at Life magazine and at The New Yorker.  The acting bug also bit him again, as he participated in a Round Table production doing his original piece “The Treasurer’s Report,” playing an awkward speaker asked to sum up an organization’s financial state.  His droll and delightful delivery earned him kudos and resulted in the act being picked up by Irving Berlin for his Music Box Review show on Broadway, where Benchley performed the "Report" every night to tumultuous acclaim.

Though he continually avowed that he was primarily a writer and not an actor, he was pressed into filming some of his material, and eventually was signed to do a series of short subjects.  He juggled these acting assignments with his work at The New Yorker, but soon Hollywood sent offers his way which were simply too lucrative for him to resist, and he followed many of his Algonquin cohorts out into the California sunshine and, in his mind, creative sellout.  He mixed appearances in feature films like China Seas, Dancing Lady and Broadway Melody of 1938 with his own series of “How To” short subjects, including the Academy Award-winning short “How to Sleep” from 1934.  Though some of the shorts were more successful and basically funnier than others, Benchley was steadily employed both as a performer and a writer for them (sometimes uncredited, though) as well as working on other screenplay/acting assignments like Foreign Correspondent and The Reluctant Dragon.  He was also a frequent guest performer on top radio shows of the day. 

As the 1940s began, Benchley’s career matured into a series of well-received character roles in films like You’ll Never Get Rich, Take a Letter, Darling, The Major and the Minor, I Married a Witch, Flesh and Fantasy, and several others.  One of his most charming and unusual appearances is in the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedy Road to Utopia from 1945, where he pops up from time to time to comment on the action and explain the absurd and hilarious goings-on.  Benchley had also been regularly issuing books of humor, some of them reprints of his columns and others new collections of his always-popular essays.

In addition to his career-spanning humorous talents, Benchley was also known as a tireless crusader for justice, a political animal who frequently wrote and commented on some of the controversial issues of the day (and today, too) such as racism and government witch-hunting.  Personally, Benchley was a fascinating individual.  A teetotaler a great deal of his life, he finally succumbed and had his first drink at the age of thirty-one, and with a hard-drinking crowd like the Round Table folks it was easy to make up for lost time.  He became rather a heavy drinker over time, sometimes berating himself while in his cups for not following his literary muse and going Hollywood, but mostly he was delightful, drunk or sober.  Though happily married and ever-respectful to his wife Gertrude, who basically lived in Massachusetts while Benchley was either in NYC or out West, Benchley had a couple of showgirl girlfriends over the years, affairs he conducted with complete discretion and his characteristic kindness.

It was his drinking which evidently led to health problems in 1945.  Benchley had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, a condition he kept secret from everyone, but which was beginning to manifest in frequent nosebleeds and internal bleeding.  His health was failing, but massive vitamin injections and Benzedrine–administered to enable him to fulfill his work obligations–plus his continued drinking took a toll on his physical and mental well-being.  Friends who had never seen him less than kind and polite, ever, saw an uncharacteristic moody side, a side-effect of his deteriorating wellness.  Finally, in November, Benchley was plagued by a series of serious nosebleeds on many days, and the frequency and severity got him admitted to a hospital, where doctors temporarily stopped the bleeding but feared the worst.  As Benchley’s wife Gertrude stood vigil by his bed, dozens of his friends lined up at the hospital to volunteer as blood donors for their failing friend. 

Despite all best efforts, Robert Benchley suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage and slipped away on November 21, 1945.  His friends and family remembered him fondly; John Hay Whitney, philanthropist and U.S. Ambassador, called him “the dearest man I have ever known”; writer Donald Ogden Stewart said “He was humor, with its instinctive humanity, toleration, wisdom, non-competitiveness….” 

Anyone who has ever read Robert Benchley or seen him in one of his short subjects or movie roles will understand exactly what they are saying.  Such a kind face, such a delightful man, such a brilliant creative force.  Sweet Old Bob, indeed.

To refresh your memory, the purpose of “didja ever notice” is to find out just how well you pay attention to the tiny seemingly obscure details when you’re watching movies. If TCM is on all the time in your home (like mine) then, in addition to learning the names and faces of dozens of unique character actors, you’ve probably noticed other minutia that’s not catalogued anywhere else except this MovieMorlocks.com blog. If you google the keywords didja ever notice, you’ll find that this series has made the front page (e.g. it’s within the first 10 responses)!

For those of you who are new (or relatively new) to our blog, here is a list (with links) to the first nine entries in the series (in chronological order):

1. Didja ever notice – “runs on the bank” in film?

2. Didja ever notice – “milk trucks” in film?

3. Didja ever notice – “hiding out in a small town” in film?

4. Didja ever notice – “train wreck” in film?

5. Didja ever notice – “an exclamation point” in film (titles)?

6. Didja ever notice – “marriages with delayed consummation” in film?

7. Didja ever notice – “Taxes or I.R.S. issues” in film?

8. Didja ever notice – “prescience” – in film?

9. Didja ever notice – “movies that mix black-and-white with color” in film?

Feel free to respond to any of the above and/or this month’s challenge:

Didja ever notice – “picnic basket raffles” (otherwise known as “box socials”) – in film?

I could only think of three; can you add any others?

The Busher (1919) – premiered on TCM last October 14th (actually, the wee hours of the 15th for those of us who were in EDT); it’s a silent sports drama featuring Charles Ray in the title role. He’s the baseball star of a small rural town. He’s also smitten with Colleen Moore, but so is John Gilbert, who has more money but is also something of a jerk. Ray gets a chance to shine when the St. Paul Pink Sox get stranded in their small town. Later, the men must bid for what they hope is their sweetheart’s picnic basket, because the winning (e.g. highest) bidder gets to share the prepared meal with the basket’s owner. What’s unique about the raffle in this film is that the ladies appear behind a screen – all the men can see (e.g. to bid on) is a silhouette.

One Sunday Afternoon (1933) – I finally got around to watching this original which was remade twice by director Raoul Walsh: as The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth (in the title role), and Jack Carson (among others) and the Technicolor musical One Sunday Afternoon (1948) with Dennis Morgan, Janis Paige, Don DeFore, and Dorothy Malone. I don’t remember a picnic basket raffle in the former, and I haven’t seen the latter, but this one contains a scene in which Gary Cooper (as future dentist Biff Grimes) tries to win Virginia Brush’s (Fay Wray) favors by outbidding all others (including Neil Hamilton as Hugo Barnstead) for her basket with a telltale ribbon, as Amy Lind (Frances Fuller) watches.

Oklahoma! (1955) – contains perhaps the most famous (and drawn out) box social sequence in all of cinema, and director Zinnemann milks it for all it’s worth. Aunt Eller (Charlotte Greenwood’s best role?) starts and runs the proceedings at Skidmore’s farm with gavel in hand, hoping the event will raise enough money to finish the community’s schoolhouse. Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert) would rather not marry Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame) but her daddy’s (James Whitmore) shotgun makes it inevitable unless Will Parker (Gene Nelson) can come up with $50; so Ali buys Will’s gifts from Kansas City to make it so. Unfortunately, Will is too dim-witted to hold on to the bounty, and he bids the entire amount for his sweetheart’s basket, forcing Ali to outbid him and overpay for a three day bellyache. Then, both Curly (Gordon MacRae) and Jud Fry (Rod Steiger) want to win Laurey’s (Shirley Jones) basket. Jud tops every man’s bid adding “and two bits” until Curly enters the picture. The exchange gets quite heated and both men end up bidding all that they own in the world before it ends.

What other classic movies can YOU think of which feature a “picnic basket raffle”?

If you walked into a theatre showing BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD without knowing anything about it or who directed it, you’d probably think it was the work of a dynamic new independent director -possibly in his late twenties or early thirties – who had talent to burn. Of  course we know it’s the work of the 83-year-old Lumet but the film is just as fresh, surprising and alive to the harrowing and painful emotions of its tough love story as Lumet’s best work and that means on a par with “The Pawnbroker” (1964), “Serpico” (1973), “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975) and “Network” (1976). 

Without spoiling any of the film’s unexpected twists and turns – and I recommend avoiding the movie’s trailer if you want to come to this cold – all you need to know about the film is that it deals with a middle-class family thrown into crisis mode brought on unintentionally by two members of the family whose desperate need for money has led them into the abyss.

A nightmare vision of an American family unraveling, this is Greek tragedy on a grand scale and bares comparison with Lumet’s stark adaptation of Eugene O’Neil’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” another film which descended into hell by degrees, taking you into deeper, blacker depths with each step.  And like the best of Lumet’s work BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD is an actor’s showcase with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Albert Finney working at the peak of their powers.

Hoffman, in particular, continues to take risks as an actor which pay off spectacularly, taking us places on a dramatic and emotional level which can be incredibly uncomfortable yet revelatory. Hawke is no less impressive, playing against his handsome charmer of “Before Sunrise” (1995), “Before Sunset” (2004) and “Great Expectations” (1998), and creating a portrait of an over-30 ne’er-do-well who is completely incapable and unprepared for life as an adult.  

Albert Finney remains in the background for the first half of the film, muted and low-key, but comes forward in the second half when his gradual realization of what is really happening brings him to the point of blind rage and then decisive action. It’s a powerful performance and Lumet honors him with the final, devastating fade-out.

In a role only slightly less important than the three male leads, Marisa Tomei provides a vivid portrayal of Hoffman’s self-centered wife whose self-image is based almost completely on her attractiveness and sex appeal which is considerable – but not enough to improve her lot in life. Rounding out the supporting cast are Rosemary Harris and Amy Ryan who make their brief scenes stand out in ways that come back to haunt you later.

Probably the only thing about BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD that could be construed as trendy and typical of contemporary movies is the structure which avoids a linear narrative as if that is something to be avoided at all costs. Maybe this is continual fallout from Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and even current films such as “Michael Clayton” are guilty of it but it’s doesn’t undermine the power of Lumet’s film. And some viewers may find that this fragmented, time-hopping approach works fine when applied by a master like Lumet.

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD may not be the holiday movie that you want to take the whole family to see. Or maybe it is. As a cautionary moral tale or a portrait of a contemporary American family rendered as a spectacular train wreck, you won’t find a more riveting emotional experience on movie screens this season.

As for those who have written Lumet off after a rather lackluster decade or more of disappointments  –  “A Stranger Among Us” (1992), “Guilty as Sin” (1993), “Critical Car” (1997), “Gloria” (1999) with Sharon Stone, “Find Me Guilty” (2006) with Vin Diesel – I’m here to tell you THE MAN IS BACK!!! And rumor has it he is already working on his next picture.

I have fond memories of drawing movie studio logos in my schoolboy notebooks. The United Artists logo (the somber one that appeared before James Bond movies) was one I tried to copy with painstaking ineptitude; I even made a pass at the TransAmerica symbol that accompanied UA’s stamp after the 1967 merger. Additionally, I turned my hand to various Warner Brothers logos, namely those for Warners-7 Arts (above), reflecting that 1967 merger, and the Warner Communications Company (below), which looked like two and a half red cold capsules floating in the black void of space before morphing into two and a half white cold capsules floating on an eyepatch in a sea of blood.

Oddly, I never attempted the classic Warner Brothers shield (below), which is as strong and brassy a logo as they come… yet I never warmed to it. You can’t argue with the effect but it was never close to my heart.

I really liked the new American International Pictures logo (below), which was put to use around the turn of the decade. There was something about the shade of orange-yellow they used for the A and the I that just signaled danger to me. But maybe that was guilt by association, as AIP tended to broker in movies that bitch-slapped you to attention and then kicked you out of the cinema to think about what you had just seen.

This logo is just cool and way better than the austere, cod-presidential seal the company went with before this. Speaking of cold and hard-to-love, that’s the Paramount logo for me all over. (See below for a modern version of a logo that has stayed largely the same over the years.) As with the 20^th Century Fox symbol, the Paramountain occasionally gets pulled into the action of the movie it’s fronting (Raiders of the Lost Ark comes immediately to mind) but beyond that it’s just a big old hill to me.

Brr! More palatable to me is the Columbia Pictures logo, which has since 1924 depicted a stately lady holding a torch in the manner of the Statue of Liberty. The original design (below) had the lady holding a fistful of sparklers and wearing an American flag as a mantle but this changed in the 1940s to become the generic toga that endures to this day. Bette Davis alleged that the model was showgirl Claudia Dell, who played Octavia to Claudia Colbert’s Cleopatra (1934) but wound up starring in Poverty Row productions and doing uncredited bits in A-films, such as the 1939 Davis’ vehicle Juarez. Another candidate is former Columbia extra Jane Bartholomew, who claimed that she was paid $25 to model for the studio logo. Yet another name put forward was one Amelia Batchler, who may have answered the same cattle call as Bartholomew on the Columbia lot. It's a mystery that's likely never to be solved (I'm only saying this so somebody proves me wrong) but whomever the subject really was, Lady Liberty has enjoyed a few moments of fame, being frightened by The Mouse That Roared (1959) and transforming into a six-gunning Jane Fonda for the opening frames of Cat Ballou (1965).

The Columbia logo changed over the years and is now represented by the rather underwhelming presence of model Jenny Joseph, who brings to the job of Torch Lady the narrow-shouldered stature of a soccer mom. (Wikipedia mistakes this Jenny Joseph, a Huston-based muralist, for the British poet Jenny Joseph, who would have been about 60 at the time the painting was done.) There were rumors for years that the model for this painting by Michael J. Deas was the actress Annette Benning, a bit of misinformation fueled by the fact that Benning's mug was superimposed over the Lady's face for the 2000 comedy What Planet Are You From?. Apparently Mrs. Warren Beatty bought the rumor at face value and began to tell interviewers that she was the inspiration. Critic Roger Ebert finally put paid to the myth in an October 31, 2004 Movie Answer Man column.

To be continued…

References:

The History of a Logo: The Lady with a Torch, Reel Classics, 2001.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About American Film Company Logos but Were Afraid to Ask by Rick Mitchell, Hollywood Lost and Found