Each year I look forward to the Silent Summer Film Festival at the Portage Theater, one of Chicago’s few restored movie palaces. For six consecutive Fridays, the Silent Film Society of Chicago (SFSC) presents a variety of well-known and unknown silent movies accompanied with live organ and sound effects by professional “photoplay organists” Dennis Scott and Jay Warren. This year’s lineup included: The Freshman starring Harold Lloyd, the original Ben-Hur, The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks, the comic-strip comedy Harold Teen, and Pollyanna starring Mary Pickford. Though the festival isn’t over yet, I have already selected my favorite: Lon Chaney in The Penalty.

Over the years, the SFSC has presented several Chaney films, and I have seen them all, becoming a major fan of this unique star. I had seen film stills and clips of the actor in his most famous roles, but I had never viewed a Chaney movie in its entirety until I saw The Phantom of the Opera a few years ago in all its glory on the big screen with live musical accompaniment. The experience was a terrific introduction to the work of this intense actor whose films are highly recognizable but little seen and whose image is famous but whose real life was overshadowed by publicity.

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I hope you’ve all gained as much respect and admiration for actor Woody Strode as I have after reading all the great posts this week, and after watching Strode in action.  Jeff referred to himself as the “loose caboose” in our Woody Strode blogathon, but I may be an even looser one.  Because I’m a particular devotee of TV, I wanted to take a look at what Woody had done in television, a medium that is often and usually less forward-thinking than the movies (possible less so today, believe it or not, I think, more because movies are so timid, not because TV is so bold).  Back in the 1950s when Strode began his acting career in earnest, America was still uneasy with mainstream black performers, even ones who had risen from the most egalitarian and open of playing fields, which happened to be the actual playing fields of sports, where Strode had made a name as one of the best college football players around and was recruited for the world-famous Los Angeles Rams team.  Clearly his impressive physicality, gridiron fame and extraordinary good looks made him an easy candidate for Hollywood talent scouts, but the color of his skin sometimes limited the kinds of roles offered to him. 

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Difficulties exist in any discussion of African American actors in westerns prior to the 1960s.  Given the general stereotyping of black actors as servants or entertainers in secondary roles during the Golden Age, most film histories criticize the industry for its institutionalized racism and leave it at that. While this widely held interpretation of Hollywood’s treatment of minorities is standard and not to be dismissed, this view—like all generalizations—leaves out the interesting exceptions to the rule, particularly in regard to genre films. However, unless a scholar or writer is lucky enough to have seen these exceptions or to have uncovered specific references to them, any notable or positive depictions of black characters in genre films are lost to history.

I have seen some interesting snippets of black performers dressed in archetypal cowboy garb in Golden Age musical westerns, giving black audiences a western image to identify with that is not an embarrassing stereotype. Dorothy Dandridge sang a sexy version of “Cow Cow Boogie” in a musical short (called a soundie) that used the familiar conventions of the western, while Ella Fitzgerald sang her famous “A Tisket, A Tasket” with a couple of cowboys accompanying her on guitar and harmonica in the Abbott and Costello comedy Ride ‘em Cowboy. I came across these discoveries accidentally and without context. Such exceptions remain unheralded by scholars in film history books, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the western genre, black actors, and black audiences.

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August marks TCM‘s annual Summer Under the Stars festival, and the Morlock’s have been given their marching orders: pick one overlooked star deserving of a week-long tribute. In 2008 it was Fred MacMurray. In 2009 it was Gloria Grahame. This year it’s Woody Strode (1914 – 1994). Strode was an athlete who turned to acting. He also broke several color barriers. First as one of four blacks who, in 1946, integrated major league pro football and, later, as a prolific actor whose first big break was in the title role of Sergeant Rutledge (1960) – which was released the same year as another memorable role for him in Spartacus. Another barrier he broke had nothing to do with the color of his skin as he was, according to Todd von Hoffman (co-author of The von Hoffman Bros.’ Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness), “Simply one of the most ridiculously perfect human specimens to ever walk the Earth.”

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A few days ago, Morlock Jeff offered a list of movies that suffered from at least one horribly miscast actor whose performance and character distracted from the rest of the film. The list was topped by the preposterous casting of Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi, Holly Golightly’s Japanese neighbor, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Few can dispute that this character not only represents insensitive stereotyping but also disrupts the ultra-romantic tone of the movie. Breakfast at Tiffany’s has come to symbolize a certain sophistication because of Audrey Hepburn’s star image and her stylish look as Holly Golightly, a reputation that makes Rooney’s character seem even more out of place to us now. As Morlock Jeff pointed out in his post, even Rooney didn’t think much of the role.

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Though not as doggedly determined as Sam Spade or as quick with the quip as Philip Marlowe, hard-boiled private eye Toby Peters investigates the most entertaining cases because his beat is Hollywood during the Golden Age. While working for such legendary stars as Errol Flynn or Mae West, Toby rubs elbows with other real-life film actors or powerful film industry personnel, offering an inside look at Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. The hapless private detective was the creation of mystery novelist and screenwriter Stuart Kaminsky, who wrote 24 Toby Peters novels between 1977 and 2004.

Kaminsky was more than a mystery novelist. He was also a screenwriter and a professor of film.  I was fortunate enough to be one of his graduate students when he taught at Northwestern University.  During my first year in the program, my classmates and I were intrigued with our mystery-writing professor and eagerly devoured his first few Toby Peters novels. While I enjoyed the interaction of a fictional private eye with real-life movie stars, relishing the nostalgia, I didn’t realize just how clever they were.  Sadly, Stuart Kaminsky died in October 2009, and, though he was 75, I was shocked to hear the news, in part because it made me realize that my years at Northwestern had been so long ago and that time takes no prisoners.  His death prompted me to revisit the Toby Peters mysteries, and I discovered that no book series could be more irresistible to movie lovers of all types, from the film historian to the star-struck fan.

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After the Great Fire of 1871, the city of Chicago was rebuilt as a modern metropolis that included theater and entertainment districts. By the turn of the century, Chicago had grown into a show business capital, peaking in the 1910s and 1920s as a mecca for every form of entertainment.

There were 19 major theaters in the Loop by the early 1920s that averaged 100 plays and musicals per year.  Because of its location in the center of the country, Chicago became a major stop on several vaudeville and burlesque circuits during the 1910s, with the Orpheum, Rialto, McVickers, and Bijou Dream Theatres hosting some of the biggest names in variety theater. Also during the 1910s, the Essanay and Selig movie studios produced hundreds of one-reelers , launching the careers of several major stars, including Gloria Swanson and Wallace Beery. In 1917, Barney Balaban and Sam Katz opened the Central Park Theatre, the first movie palace in Chicago. Their chain of luxurious popcorn palaces at key locations around the city serviced more patrons than the movie theaters in any other city, including Manhattan.  Movies were not the only form of entertainment at Balaban and Katz’s theaters. Before the film was shown, live musical acts, dance troupes, and even classical musicians were featured. As a matter of fact, musicians of all genres flocked to the city to play in the nightclubs that began cropping up during World War I. Later, these clubs defined the city during the Jazz Age, because the biggest joints were owned by mobsters engaged in turf wars over the illegal liquor trade. Given the variety of entertainment that thrived in the city, dozens of actors, entertainers, and musicians arrived and departed the city on a weekly basis.

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If there’s a more deserving fellow to wish a very Happy Birthday to today, I can’t think of him.  Actor/director/producer/author Bruce Campbell, born 52 years ago today, is a real pro, a Hollywood survivor and one of the most delightful onscreen personalities around today.  I just finished watching his 2008 feature (as director and star) My Name is Bruce — really, just now, on Netflix streaming, it’s beautiful! — and his spoof on his own image, that of a cowardly, horn-dog, B-Movie actor, is hilarious.  Though I looked on Rotten Tomatoes and it only has a 38% rating, there are plenty of laughs and I highly recommend it.  Even better, there’s a lot of talk in the movie about it being Bruce Campbell’s birthday, so it’s perfect viewing material for today! 

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Natalie Wood has been named Star of the Month by TCM, and fans and viewers will be treated to a selection of her films every Monday evening in June. Tonight’s bill includes my favorite Wood film, Splendor in the Grass, along with two she made with Tab Hunter, The Girl He Left Behind and The Burning Hills, in addition to Rebel Without a Cause and A Cry in the Night. Despite the inclusion of more favorites later in the month, such as Gypsy, Love with the Proper Stranger, and Inside Daisy Clover, I was disappointed to find that This Property Is Condemned did not make the schedule.

Expanded from a short one-act play by Tennessee Williams, This Property Is Condemned is a melodrama about love and survival in a small Mississippi town during the Great Depression. Wood plays Alva Starr, a young beauty who attracts the men who work for the railroad to her mother’s boarding house. Mama Hazel Starr exploits her daughter’s beauty as a financial asset, arranging “dates” for her with well-to-do but married men. Mama is positioning Alva to land a man with money, so that the whole Starr family can live in style.

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