Noir Nook: Ripped From the Headlines – Try and Get Me (1950)
Try and Get Me (The Sound of Fury) (1950)
This is an unpleasant post about an unpleasant
movie based on an unpleasant, real-life incident.
With luck, this post will be the worst thing about
the new year. It’s uphill from here, y’all!
The movie? United Artists’ 1950s feature Try and Get Me (originally released The Sound of Fury), starring Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges, Kathleen Ryan, and Richard Carlson. In a nutshell, it centers on Howard Tyler (Lovejoy), an unemployed family man who, desperate for a way to support his pregnant wife and young son, allows himself to be lured by an acquaintance, Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges), into a life of crime. At first, limited to a string of petty robberies, the two eventually escalate their endeavors to the big time – kidnapping the son of a wealthy local businessman. But like many a best-laid plan, this one goes awry when their victim ends up dead, and Howard is increasingly tortured by the role he played. And when the law catches up with the men, their troubles really begin. Spurred by a series of articles penned by a crusading journalist, the community is whipped into a frenzy of vigilantism that concludes with the mob lynching of Tyler and Slocum. It’s a harrowing, hard-to-stomach tale from start to finish, an especially grim noir made all the more disturbing by the fact that it was based on an actual occurrence.
Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy
Directed by Cy Endfield, the film was adapted from the 1947 novel The Condemned, by Jo Pagano, who also wrote the screenplay. Pagano based his tale on the 1933 kidnapping of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old heir of the L. Hart & Son’s department store, one of the most successful businesses in San Jose, California. Brooke disappeared on November 9, 1933; later that night, his family received a call that Brooke had been kidnapped and would be returned upon payment of $40,000. Just a week later, through the combined efforts of several law enforcement agencies, and the use of call tracking, the kidnappers – Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes – were apprehended. Before long, the men confessed that they had killed Brooke Hart – and that by the time they’d placed their first ransom call to the family, Brooke was already dead.
Kathleen Ryan and Frank Lovejoy
With Thurmond and Holmes detained in jail, the public’s anger over the crime began to grow, fueled in part by a front-page editorial in a San Jose newspaper that called for “mob violence” and labeled the men as “human devils.” When a mob began to form outside the jail, Holmes’s attorney sought to have the National Guard employed to ward against a possible lynching, but California governor James Rolph refused, even vowing to “pardon the lynchers.” The volatile atmosphere reached a fever pitch when Brooke Hart’s badly decomposed body was found near the San Mateo Bridge. Press reports varied widely on the number of people crowded around the jail, ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 men, women, and children. On the night of November 26th, the mob fashioned a battering ram from a long pipe, stormed the jail, dragged the men to a nearby park, and hanged them both. (A few people were eventually arrested for the lynching, but none were convicted, and a lawsuit filed against the governor by Holmes’s family was dropped in 1934 when Rolph suffered a fatal heart attack.)
Frank Lovejoy
Try and Get Me was actually the second motion picture that was inspired by this incident; the first, Fury, starred Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney and was released in 1936. If you’ve never seen Try and Get Me, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. You can find it on YouTube. It’s not easy to watch (and if you’re like me, you may never want to see it a second time!), but it’s worth it. Trust me.
Just keep the lights on.
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Western RoundUp: Western Film Book Library – Part 4
I hope the new year is starting
well for everyone!
With many of us across the
country — indeed, the world! — still spending most of our time at home, this
seemed like a good month to share some additional classic film book recommendations.
Below are a variety of titles I
own on various aspects of Western movies. All of these books are
currently available to order online.
The Western Films of Robert Mitchum: Hollywood’s Cowboy Rebel by Gene Freese is a new book just published by McFarland in 2020.
The Western Films of Robert Mitchum: Hollywood’s Cowboy Rebel by Gene Freese
I was quite impressed with this
substantive volume, which has relatively small print and runs 236 pages,
including the index and bibliography.
Freese, who previously wrote the informative 2013 biography Jock Mahoney: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Stuntman, has a gift for researching, especially when one considers that most of those who made the films are no longer with us; the extensive quotes he found in old interviews are supplemented by new interviews by people such as Chris Mitchum, actor Don Collier, and stunt double Dave Cass.
The book covers each of Mitchum’s numerous Westerns individually, including the seven (!) Hopalong Cassidy films Mitchum appeared in during 1943, his very first year in the movie business. There’s a substantive background on the making of each film as well as appreciations of the movies and Mitchum’s performances.
The book is illustrated with black and white photographs. In my view it’s a “must-have” for fans of Mitchum and Westerns.
Last of the Cowboy Heroes: The Westerns of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy by Robert Nott, published by McFarland in 2000, was my “go-to” reference on these films when I first really began to seriously watch these movies around the time the book was published.
Last of the Cowboy Heroes: The Westerns of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy by Robert Nott
While I had grown up watching
many of McCrea’s Universal Westerns on local TV, there were still a number of
his movies I’d never seen, and Scott and Murphy’s Westerns were mostly new to
me.
Western historian Nott, who later
wrote additional books focused solely on Scott and Budd Boetticher, devotes
multiple chapters to each of the three Western stars, discussing the making of
their films and analyzing the finished movies, along with providing plenty of
biographical information and career overviews.
The book is well illustrated with
numerous black and white photographs. I learned a lot from it and still
return to it for reference.
When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Moviemaking in Utah by James V. D’Arc is a gorgeous book that quickly became a favorite. While not exclusively devoted to Westerns, they naturally comprise a majority of the titles covered in this volume about location filming in the great outdoors of Utah.
When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Moviemaking in Utah by James V. D’Arc
The book is neatly organized by county and has beautiful spreads of high-quality photos printed on glossy paper, with plenty of informative text to go along with the attractive visuals.
The photos are presented in both
black and white and full color. Here are a typical couple of pages:
A look inside
D’Arc is a top historian; his commentary track for the 2003 DVD release of Brigham Young(1940) remains, in my view, one of the finest such tracks ever recorded.
When Hollywood Came to Town was first published in 2010; an
updated edition with additional text and photos was published in 2019.
Lone Pine (Images of
America) by
Christopher Langley is a short paperback by one of the preeminent historians on
Lone Pine, California. It was published in 2007 in Arcadia Publishing’s
Images of America photo book series.
Lone Pine (Images of America) by Christopher Langley
Lone Pine, California is where countless Westerns were filmed, as I’ve previously written about here on multiple occasions. Langley presents a concise yet thorough look at the area including its natural history, Native American history, the battle for water, and of course Lone Pine’s role in movie history.
The book is illustrated with black and white photographs from Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History, as well as from the Eastern California Museum located in Independence, California. (The latter museum will celebrate its centennial in 2028.) The book serves as a solid primer on the Lone Pine area, essential background for anyone who loves Westerns.
52Weeks, 52 Western Movies: Film Classics and Modern Masterpieces by Scott Harris, Paul Bishop, and Wyatt McCrea is an enjoyable paperback that provides fun reminisces for longtime Western fans and a great introduction for those new to the genre.
52Weeks, 52 Western Movies: Film Classics and Modern Masterpieces by Scott Harris, Paul Bishop, and Wyatt McCrea
As its title suggests, the book covers a year’s worth of Westerns. Each short entry, typically a two-page spread, presents a variety of facts and insights regarding the film. In addition to the three named authors, who wrote a majority of the entries, there are additional contributions from Western experts including James Reasoner and the late Bill Crider.
The book covers many expected classics such as Red River (1948), The Searchers (1956), and Rio Bravo (1959), but it also focuses a spotlight on lesser-known gems such as Ramrod (1947), Four Faces West (1948), and Four Fast Guns (1960). I wrote about the latter film here recently in my post: Hidden Gems, Vol. 2.
In addition to the written content, this book, published in 2018, is beautifully designed; it’s filled with photos and posters printed on quality paper. The majority of the photos are in color. Here’s a sample spread celebrating the Westerns of Joel McCrea:
An inside look
Tall in the Saddle: Great
Lines from Classic Westerns by Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa is another nicely
produced little book, published in 1998 by Chronicle Books.
Tall in the Saddle: Great Lines from Classic Westerns by Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa
The quotes of Western dialogue that appear throughout the book are, in my view, a relatively small part of the fun; more important are the fine photos printed on glossy paper.
The book includes both color and black and white photos, with attention paid to both major classics and lesser-known Westerns such as Along Came Jones (1945), which is seen on the book’s cover, and Roughshod (1948), another title from my recent column on “Hidden Gems.” It’s an enjoyable book for Western fans to peruse and, like 52 Weeks, 52 Western Movies, provides those new to the genre with numerous ideas for future Western viewing.
My shelves are filled with even more books on Western film history, so it’s likely I’ll share another list a few months from now! In the meantime, for more ideas on Western film books, please visit my lists from July 2019, November 2019, and May 2020. Meanwhile, recommendations are always welcome in the comments.
Happy reading!
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
Casablanca and the Battle over “As Time Goes By” (Exclusive by Author Steven C. Smith)
By mid-1941, Max
Steiner had already scored over thirty films at Warner Bros. since becoming that
studio’s highest paid staff composer in 1937.
Many of his projects had been prestigious and highly profitable. The list included Jezebel, Angels With Dirty Faces, Four Daughters, Dark Victory, and The Letter. But at age 53, the Vienna-born composer was physically and mentally exhausted, after more than a decade of nonstop, night-and-day work in Hollywood.
Max Steiner, portrait 1936 (image courtesy of Steven C. Smith)
Lack of sleep, studio
pressure, two alimonies, IRS trouble, and worsening eyesight were turning the genial,
well-liked Steiner into a short-tempered man on the verge of a breakdown.
On July 11, 1941, it
finally arrived.
What began as a minor
disagreement with his wife Louise, who was also principal harpist on his scores,
exploded into a violent argument. Days later Louise left her husband, and her recording
career, to pursue a new life in New York.
Steiner was devastated.
For the next three years, he wrote Louise almost daily, imploring her to return
to him and their young son, Ronald.
As their correspondence
grew increasingly bitter, Max buried himself in work, channeling his loneliness
and romantic longing into some of the greatest music of his career.
1942’s Now, Voyager, starring his friend Bette Davis, earned Steiner his second Academy Award, and a popular song hit: “It Can’t Be Wrong,” based on his love theme from the film.
Just days after recording that score, Max moved with typical speed onto his next Warners project. It would ultimately become his best-loved.
The
unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick’s found its genesis in 1938 in a
French café, La Belle Aurore. There, a visiting writer named Murray Burnett met
French patriots and Nazi soldiers, along with a black pianist who delighted listeners
with performances of American jazz.
At
Belle Aurore, Burnett heard about Casablanca, a Moroccan city flooded with
Europeans trying to escape Hitler. Returning to America, Burnett teamed with
writer Joan Alison on a play that melded his impressions of the club with the
latest news about war in Europe. They incorporated Belle Aurore’s pianist, now
named Sam, who played a tune from Burnett’s college days: “As Time Goes By.”
Although
never produced, Everybody Comes to Rick’s was brought to the attention
of Warner Bros.’ head of production, Hal Wallis, in 1941. Pearl Harbor brought
extra relevance to the drama’s themes of patriotism and sacrifice.
One
day after the attack, Wallis optioned the play.
A new deal with Warners allowed him to personally produce four movies a year for the studio. Casablancawas among them — and as a result, no detail was too small for his eye.
Humphrey Bogart (Rick) and Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa)
Wallis
considered music a character in the film: it cemented the backstory of its
lovers, Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, and their favorite song re-inflicts old
wounds and rekindles their passion. In one scene, music even becomes a weapon,
as free Europeans sing the French national anthem in defiance of the Nazis, on
the battleground of Rick’s Café.
The
decision to retain “As Time Goes By” was Wallis’s. The song was written in 1931
by Herman Hupfeld, a prolific but little-known composer, for the Broadway revue
Everybody’s Welcome. Despite the
show’s inviting title, it ran only 139 performances. A few recordings of the song
were made, but it was mostly forgotten by 1942.
Wallis reflected more about the music of Casablanca than he had on any previous film. Four days before shooting began, he wrote a lengthy memo listing which popular songs he wanted used in scenes set at Rick’s Café. He also wrote detailed comments about underscore – noting that as Humphrey Bogart’s Rick drunkenly recalls his romance with Ilsa, Sam’s playing of “As Time Goes By” would segue into an “orchestral treatment” of the theme.
With
the music of Now, Voyager fresh in
his ears, Wallis assigned Steiner to the film on July 11th, 1942,
three weeks before principal photography was complete. The likelihood that Max
was not consulted during shooting is supported by one surprising fact.
Max
Steiner hated “As Time Goes By.”
“He
absolutely detested the Hupfeld tune,” Louise confirmed. “He said, ‘They have
the lousiest tune, they already have it recorded, and they want me to use it.’”
Today,
after more than eight decades of acclaim for the song, Max’s judgment seems
especially flawed. His hostility also seems curious, since he often
incorporated other composers’ melodies into scores without complaint.
But
his reasons were threefold.
Weeks
after writing Now, Voyager’s love theme, Steiner was confident he could
give Casablanca a memorable song of
its own. Secondly, he knew that such a song could yield him desperately needed
royalties. He also believed that Hupfeld’s syncopated tune was rhythmically
unsuitable for use as a short recurring theme, which Wallis wanted heard throughout
the underscore.
Dooley Wilson (Sam), Humphrey Bogart (Rick) and Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa) (image courtesy of Steven C. Smith)
In 1943, Max told a reporter that Wallis would have let him write his own theme. But unfortunately, “As Time Goes By” was referenced in dialogue and performed onscreen, and Ingrid Bergman, currently under contract to David O. Selznick, had already had her hair cut for her next film, making reshoots impossible.
That
story was a cover for Steiner’s wounded ego. Jack Warner always balked at
retakes: if a movie’s ending was in doubt, two versions were shot during
production. Also, film stock had become more costly due to the war. Re-shooting
entire sequences of Casablanca, with
Bergman re-loaned from Selznick at additional cost, to please a staff composer?
Calling that scenario unlikely is, to quote Claude Rains’s Captain Renault, a gross understatement.
Wallis
wrote in his autobiography that he “insisted” Max use the Hupfeld tune, after
which “Steiner grudgingly began his work.” But Wallis conceded that “under
great pressure, and with countless arguments, Max Steiner produced a rich,
romantic score.”
It
is a testament to Max’s professionalism that listening to Casablanca, one would assume that he not only loved “As Time Goes
By” but had written it himself.
Steiner
set aside his disappointment to hear the Hupfeld melody from Rick and Ilsa’s perspectives.
He was aided by his orchestrator, Hugo Friedhofer, who later said that Max “had
a concept of it as being kind of a square tune, which requires translation from
what’s in the printed piano part to a more relaxed version. You can’t play
‘Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta’…which is what it is in the original. So, I say
this with all modesty, I said, ‘Max, think of it this way.’ [sings] With
triplet [waltz-like] phrasing. He thought about it, and that’s the way it came
out.”
The
theme’s effectiveness is enhanced by Steiner’s limited, specific use of it. Sam
plays “As Time Goes By” at Ilsa’s request 33 minutes into the film. Rick storms
over and orders him to stop. At this moment, the tune appears for the first
time in Steiner’s underscore, played with chilly astringency by solo oboe, mirroring
Rick’s shock at seeing Ilsa.
Not
until the flashback to pre-war Paris do we hear the melody played ecstatically,
in the waltz-like form Friedhofer recommended. Here, and later during Rick and
Ilsa’s final goodbye at the airport, Steiner lifts the Hupfeld melody into a
near-delirious statement of romantic ecstasy.
The
composer had no difficulty seeing Ilsa as Rick did: Max was besotted by
Bergman’s performance and beauty. She is the only cast member he mentions when
discussing the film in correspondence. She “is masterful in it,” he told
Louise.
The crowd sings a defiant “La Marseillaise”
The
score features a second theme no less important than “As Time Goes By.” The
French anthem “La Marseillaise” is a love theme of its own…the embodiment of the
liberty our heroes fight for. Its performance still elicits cheers at
screenings, as freedom fighters in Rick’s Café sing it in defiant counterpoint
to the Nazis’ bellicose rendition of “Die Wacht am Rhein.”
That scene’s effectiveness is due not only to director Michael Curtiz’s brilliant staging, and its pivotal role in the story (it is the turning point for Rick rejoining “the fight”), but also due to the music’s arrangement. On September 2nd, Wallis instructed Steiner: “On the ‘Marseillaise,’ when it is played in the café, don’t do it as though it was played by this small orchestra. Do it with full scoring orchestra, and get some body to it.”
Steiner
did so with such effectiveness that few viewers ever notice that the
instrumentation is larger than what we see onscreen.
Significantly,
“La Marseillaise,” not “As Time Goes By,” is the theme that concludes the
score, in an arrangement that starts with shimmering, quiet promise as Rick and
Louis walk into the fog, then ends in a call-to-arms fortissimo. As he often would do, Max uses music in the final
seconds of a film to tell us where the characters are going next.
Max Steiner conducts 1939 (image courtesy of Steven C. Smith)
Steiner’s
score for Casablanca would earn him an Academy Award nomination, and
praise from tough critics like Hal Wallis, Jack Warner and Michael Curtiz. From
his first viewing of the film, Steiner had been captivated by its romanticism;
and as an Austrian whose family was endangered by Hitler, he was invested in
its philosophy.
By
the end of his writing, he could even joke about the most frustrating aspect of
its creation.
“THE END,” Max writes on his final page of
the score. “Dear Hugo: Thanks for
everything! I am very pleased with you! Yours, Herman Hupfeld.”
Steven has produced over 200 documentaries for television and other media. They include The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg; A Place for Us: West Side Story’s Legacy; and Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood. He can be reached at www.mediasteven.com
You can purchase Steven’s book on amazon by clicking on the below images:
Silents are Golden: A Closer Look at – Way Down East (1920)
One of the most influential early directors of all time was D.W. Griffith, who rose to acclaim for the excellent short dramas he directed for Biograph and went on to create some of the biggest features of the 1910s. Controversial today because of The Birth of a Nation(1915) (you might be aware of it), his experimental epic Intolerance(1916) and masterful dramas like Broken Blossoms(1919) have nevertheless remained landmarks of early cinema.
By the end of the 1910s, having established such a high reputation and having just made a string of lower budget films like A Romance of Happy Valley(1919), Griffith felt the pressure to churn out more ambitious masterpieces. How would he follow up on a massive, multi-hour feature like Intolerance? Or even the wartime propaganda piece Hearts of the World(1918), made at the request of the British government? Surprisingly, Griffith was inspired by the last thing anyone would’ve imagined: the old, tired Victorian melodrama Way Down East.
Way Down East (1920)
Written by Lottie Blair Parker and producer
William A. Brady and first performed in 1897, Way Down East was a genuine old-school “mellerdrama,” about the
innocent, naive Anna lead astray by a dastardly seducer, abandoned by him and
forced to bear her subsequent baby alone. The baby dies, Anna quietly finds
work as a lowly servant on the Bartlett farm, but in time her secret past is
revealed. The showpiece of the play was a scene where Squire Bartlett points
dramatically at the door and orders the girl to leave. Lillian Gish recalled, candidly:
“We all thought privately that Mr. Griffith had lost his mind.”
Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Kate Bruce, Creighton Hale, Mary Hay, Burr McIntosh, Edgar Nelson, George Neville, Vivia Ogden, Lowell Sherman, and Porter Strong in Way Down East (1920)
To Griffith, this cliched, over-familiar play had a deeper meaning than first met the eye. It wasn’t just melodrama, it stood for many struggles suffered by generations of innocent people, especially women. Its predominantly rural settings and “rustic” characters were both nostalgic and reflected many of the very audiences who had enjoyed the play so much over the years. It was, Griffith felt, a humble piece of Americana that was worthy to be retold in a fresh way and elevated to the status of art.
Richard Barthelmess, Lillian Gish, and Lowell Sherman
Accordingly, Griffith paid an astonishing $175,000 for the rights to the play and started production at his studio in Mamaroneck, New York. It would take over six months to film–a long time for even the big features–largely because Griffith wanted to film a number of outdoor scenes that depended on authentic changes in season. Most importantly, he would need a real blizzard for the climax of the film–and apparently took out insurance in case it didn’t appear by a certain date.
The great Lillian Gish, who’d been with Griffith’s studio since 1912, was cast as the virginal Anna, and the up-and-coming young Richard Barthelmess was cast as David, the farmer’s son (he had also been in Broken Blossoms). The dastardly Lennox Sanderson would be played by Lowell Sherman, who specialized in similarly dastardly characters. Other actors originally included Clarine Seymour, who’d made a splash as a proto-flapper in True Heart Susie(1919), but unfortunately, she died of an intestinal ailment and was replaced by Mary Hay (Hay would later marry Barthelmess).
Souvenir Book
Numerous details were carefully poured over.
Anna’s clothes were designed to be plain and not that noticeable. In the
ballroom scenes, her gown was inspired by Greek clothing, in contrast to the
fashionable ladies around her (that included the real-life socialite Mrs.
Morgan Belmont). “It wasn’t in style then, and it wouldn’t be in style now,”
Gish recalled, “but it has never been out of style.” Anna’s childhood home is a warm and nostalgic
place, with old-fashioned furniture and lilac bushes in the front yard. The
Bartletts’ country home is equally comfortable, with oil lamps and
quaintly-patterned tablecloths.
Way Down East abounds with beautiful shots and romantic details, like the pastoral scenes of Anna and David by a lake, or a dove perching on Anna’s shoulder when she’s at a well. The comic scenes involving several village characters like gossipy Martha Perkins and nerdy Professor Sterling haven’t aged quite as well and were probably hearkening back to rural comedies from the stage. The dramatic scenes, however, more than make up for them.
Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish
Some of these scenes were among the most effective Griffith had ever done. The heartbreaking scene of Anna losing her baby was shot at night, for as quiet and solemn a background as possible. The baby’s father watched the shooting and Gish later claimed he fainted at one point. The brief scenes of Anna in labor, showing a doctor dabbing sweat from her face while servants listened outside the door, seem pretty basic today but were considered shockingly realistic in their day – critics wondered if that much realism was necessary.
But the crown jewel of the film was the impressive frozen river sequence. Griffith had insisted on waiting for a real blizzard before shooting it, which didn’t come until March. He and his crew worked day and night to get the shots they needed of Gish floundering through the snow in her light dress–several closeups captured the ice that started forming on her face and eyelashes. Many of the river scenes were shot at White River Junction, Vermont, with the actual river ice broken into floes by the crew. Gish, who was a trooper throughout the whole ordeal, suggested that when Anna collapses on a floe she should trail her hand in the water. Until the end of her life, her hand would ache whenever it was exposed to the cold.
Lillian Gish on a frozen lake
Some of the shots with the waterfall were later done in the spring at a small river in Farmington, Connecticut, with plywood ice floes. But the shots of David running across the ice floes to save Anna were authentic as they could be. Barthelmess had to jump from floe to floe in his bulky fur coat, at one point almost sinking into the freezing water – a moment that made it into the finished film.
Filming the ice scene
Dangerous and time-consuming as the shoot could be, in the end, Griffith had made another masterwork that became a huge box office draw. The premiere was a triumph, with the audience cheering and whistling by the end of the river sequence. Most critics gave the film high praise, one of them stating, “There is a real and unaffected poignancy about the betrayal of a young and ignorant girl by a sophisticated seducer which can easily be brought home to vast audiences. Here the moving picture has the advantage over the play.”
Barthelmess and Gish
Gish recalled reminiscing with Barthelmess about
Way Down East’s shoot, and how he
talked about how dangerous the ice floe sequence had been. “I wonder why he
went through with it,” he had said to her. “We could have been killed. There
isn’t enough money in the world to pay me to do it today.”
To Gish, Griffith’s most devoted and hardworking
actress, the answer to this was simple: “But we weren’t doing it for money.”
Advertisement for D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920)
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterlyand has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
How many Films did Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne Star in Together?
John Wayne and the lovely Maureen O’Hara
“There’s only one woman who has been my friend over the years and by that I mean a real friend, like a man would be. That woman is Maureen O’Hara.” -John Wayne, from ‘Tis Herself(Maureen O’Hara’s autobiography)
There’s no doubt in my mind that Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne had an undeniable onscreen chemistry, and that said, I would have sworn that I saw them in ‘countless’ movies together. Imagine my surprise when I tallied up ‘all those’ films and actually found out that…
Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne starred in FIVE films together, the first three of which were directed by the legendary John Ford.
My Favorite? Boy, that’s a tough one — depending on my mood — but if I had to choose, I would probably have to say The Quiet Man. But don’t hold me to that 🙂 What are yours?
Early in her life, Tallulah’s beauty won her the chance at stardom, but her indomitable personality made her a legend.
Tallulah’s mother, who died a few weeks after giving birth, is buried at Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama. A local performer plays the role of Tallulah visiting her mother’s grave during the annual Cemetery Stroll.
Tallulah Bankhead was more famous during her lifetime as a stage actress than a movie star, but she’s on my mind perhaps more often than any other icon of the classic era because I live in her hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, and here she’s almost omnipresent in my daily life. My house sits just a few blocks from Bankhead Parkway, which was named for the powerful male politicians in her family, and my regular walks through our historic cemetery take me by the grave of her mother, Adelaide Eugenia Bankhead, who died shortly after Tallulah’s birth on January 31, 1902.
Downtown there’s a marker noting the house where Tallulah was born, just across the street from the courthouse. It glosses over the scandalous habits that made Tallulah infamous rather than merely famous, but it rightly notes her importance as a leading actress of her day. Her legacy, however, reaches far beyond her stage career, her 19 film appearances, and her own self-destructive behavior, and every classic movie fan ought to know more about her.
A historical marker notes the location of Tallulah’s birth in downtown Huntsville, Alabama.
I won’t call her “Bankhead” – she was that rare, first name only kind of famous. She was also fiercely possessive of her distinctive name and her fame, which led her to sue Prell Shampoo in 1949 for its jingle about “Tallulah, the tube of Prell.” She had been named for her maternal grandmother, who was named for Tallulah Falls in Tallulah Gorge State Park in Georgia. If Prell had thought about it, they would have seen the lawsuit coming, because Tallulah was a force to be reckoned with all her life. She got her start as an entertainer singing and behaving badly to get the attention of her alcoholic, widowed father, but luck gave her a wider audience for those talents when she won a photo beauty contest in Picture Play and escaped Alabama for New York City, where her prize was a bit part in the 1918 silent film, Who Loved Him Best. Soon she was acting regularly on the Broadway stage and wreaking havoc at the Algonquin Hotel, where theater friends introduced her to cocaine and other habits that would stay with her for the rest of her life. Determined to be a star, she relocated to London, where she got attention from the audience by turning cartwheels on stage. Although she would eventually become a huge theater star, success in the movies eluded her most of her career, with her best Broadway roles in the original productions of Jezebel, Dark Victory and The Little Foxes earning critical raves and Oscar nominations for Bette Davis instead.
In Hitchcock’s WWII thriller, Lifeboat, Tallulah gives her most memorable film performance as a journalist adrift at sea with other survivors of a Nazi attack.
Luckily, we have an enduring example of her talent in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 psychological thriller, Lifeboat, in which Tallulah leads an ensemble cast as one of the survivors of a German U boat attack. Her casting as Connie Porter was intentionally incongruous – imagine the epitome of worldly glamor and sophistication in such a spot! – but she’s perfect in the role, fierce and determined but never naïve about the situation. She suffered through motion sickness and pneumonia on the shoot, scandalized the crew by neglecting to wear underwear, and gave a performance that tantalizes us with what might have been had she enjoyed the Hollywood success of rivals like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Lifeboat is the best known and easiest to find of her dramatic films, although you can track down copies of The Cheat (1931), Devil and the Deep (1932), and A Royal Scandal (1945) if you’re persistent, patient, and willing to spend some money. Several of her film appearances were cameos where she simply played herself, as she did in Make Me a Star (1932), Stage Door Canteen (1943), and Main Street to Broadway (1953).
While her own addictions and recklessness undermined her chance at movie stardom, they also made her a larger-than-life figure whose legacy endures. She wasn’t the inspiration for Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), as much as she would have liked to be, but she definitely was the inspiration for Cruella de Vil in Disney’s original, animated adaptation of 101 Dalmatians(1961), in which fellow Southerner Betty Lou Gerson gives the iconic villain Tallulah’s cadences and her penchant for calling everyone “darling.” Cruella’s mad driving around London recalls Tallulah’s days terrorizing other motorists in the city when she wasn’t on stage. Long after her death in 1968, her ghost would be resurrected on Broadway multiple times. Kathleen Turner played her in Tallulah in 2000, and Valerie Harper resurrected her for Looped in 2010, which dramatized her disastrous effort to loop her lines for Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), a hagsploitation horror that would be Tallulah’s last appearance on the cinema screen. Fictional versions of Tallulah also turn up in TV productions like Z: The Beginning of Everything (2015-2017) and Hollywood (2020). It turns out that you don’t have to live in Tallulah’s hometown to find that she’s almost omnipresent.
Like Davis and Crawford, Tallulah accepted a horror role late in her career; she plays a deranged mother in Die! Die! My Darling (1965).
I can only offer a brief glimpse of Tallulah’s story in this post, but there are many biographies where you can plunge deep into the history of her rise and fall. Try Joel Lobenthal’s Tallulah! The Life and Times of a Leading Lady(2004), for a more recent book that is readily available, or read the section devoted to her in Judith Mackrell’s Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation (2015), which also discusses contemporaries like Zelda Fitzgerald and Josephine Baker. Once you’ve sampled her work in classic movies, catch her famous guest star turn on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957) and her final TV bows as Black Widow on Batman (1966-1968).
In my opinion, the most extraordinary documentary series in the history of the medium is the late director Michael Apted’s “Up” films. Beginning in 1964 with “Seven Up,” a group of 14 British children from various socio-economic backgrounds were interviewed about their lives, hopes, and dreams for the future. Attempting to explore the Jesuit maxim, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you a man,” the film offered a fascinating glimpse into class and social structures of 1960s England. Apted was a young researcher for that film, but seven years later, when the children were 14, he took over the reigns and has been directing updates ever since.
I first caught up with the series in 1984 when the subject were 28 and I’ve waited with great anticipation every seven years for the next installment: “35 Up,” “42 Up,” “49 Up,” “56 Up,” and finally, last year’s “63 Up.” While some of the players have come and gone over the years, the films continued to feature most of the original subjects: charismatic cab driver Tony; former East London schoolmates Jackie, Lynn (who sadly died in 2013 shortly after the release of “56 Up”), and Susan; the troubled but always searching Neil; Nick and Suzy, who were among the more privileged kids, and the others, each one revealing a fascinating story despite the fact that they were a fairly ordinary group of people.
When he wasn’t working on this lifetime project, Apted became one of the most prolific, well-respected directors of his generation. His feature films include “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “Nell,” “Enigma,” and “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” I was thrilled when I got the chance a while back to sit down with Michael Apted in a Los Angeles recording studio to talk about his remarkable documentary series. Here is that unpublished interview.
Danny Miller: I know that the first film was made as a one-off for British television. Was it your idea to go back seven years later to see what happened to those kids?
Michael Apted
Michael Apted: No—I wish I could take credit for it but I was just a small cog in the wheel. I found most of the children for the first one. We were just trying to get a quick look at the class system in England and we were surprised how successful it was when it came out—I think people responded to it because it was funny as well as being chilling. But even then the penny didn’t drop until about five years later. I was having lunch with the head of Granada Television one day and he asked me if I ever thought of going back to those kids and seeing what they were up to. So we did it and it wasn’t that great because they were teenagers and pretty mono-syllabic with spots on their faces and all that! But we could see there was a big idea there that no one had ever tried before and it was really a no brainer to keep it going every seven years. I love the series and I know it’s never going to happen again because the business side of things just won’t allow for it.
Yeah, for one thing I can’t imagine any company today having the patience and foresight to wait seven years between films!
Never, and remember, this same company has bankrolled it every time for 50 years now. I can’t even imagine any company staying in business that long anymore! And I’ve seen what happens without that kind of support. I tried to do another series called “Married in America” which I thought had a lot of very rich material. I somehow managed to do two films, but I can’t get the money to do a third one. The people who financed the first one disappeared, the people who did the second one pulled out, then you get into the copyright issues in terms of who owns what, and so on.
Not an easy model to follow these days! I love all of the films but was surprised at how uplifting the current film is. It felt like despite some big challenges they were facing, all of the people were getting a much better handle on what’s really important in life and what true “success” is. I found this film to be terribly moving and inspiring.
It’s reassuring to hear you say that. I did this interview on “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross and she said she thought the film was quite depressing, all these people in very difficult situations. I said “Really?” Like you, I was very surprised by how positive the film was in the end. You don’t really know what you’re going to get in something like this because each film really has a different tone to it that you can’t anticipate. But when I saw the film put together as a whole, I thought the cumulative effect was very positive.
The series is such a great depiction of the “extraordinary” in the “ordinary.” Even though no one is curing cancer or famous in any way, they have proven to be such a fascinating group of people. Did that surprise you over the years?
It just made me believe what I always suspected—that everyone has a story worth telling. We picked these kids very quickly back in 1964, almost in an arbitrary way, really. We just thought, okay, let’s have a few with this background, maybe a couple from the north of England, and so on, but they all turned out great.
One element of the films that I find so fascinating is the antagonism some of them feel toward the series. I love that you include those conversations. These are obviously not the Kardashians looking for some kind of false celebrity. And considering it all began when they were just seven, it’s not realy like they chose to be in it.
No, not at all, that’s why there is this residual anger that probably started at 21 when they found themselves in the middle of this roller coaster. By that time the series was beginning to gather momentum and they started to have a lot of negative feelings about it since they had no say in getting involved in the first place. To be honest, there’s been a lot of anger generally about the project—it’s always been torture for me to get some of them to do it every seven years! It’s gotten less difficult lately, but sometimes it was really awful, it took months to talk them into it.
I think one of the funniest lines in “56 Up” is when Suzy (who does not appear in “63 Up”) compares being in the series to staying with a bad book—she hates it but feels a kind of strange loyalty to it!
I know! I had a lot of trouble with Suzy who announced in “49 Up” that she wasn’t going to do any more films. Suzy and I are quite close, actually, she’s a wonderful person, but she seemed quite firm that she wasn’t going to come back. She had always stayed in touch with Nick and it was finally Nick who convinced her to return which is why the two of them appear together in the film. That was their idea, not mine, I was quite worried about it but Nick got much more out of her than I ever could. For me it was always like trying to get blood from a stone! But I always thought comments like Suzy’s were fair game, and people love it when they tell me off, it’s part of the life of the films!
Do you stay in contact with them between the entries?
Not that much. It’s kind like a family, some of us get on better, some of us are more social than others. Whenever I have a movie opening in the UK, I always get a theater and invite them and their families. It’s nice for me to do something for them for a change without asking for something in return. (Laughs.) I’m usually in the role of the supplicant!
Is there ever a situation that arises that would make you shoot them in between the seven-year gaps?
I only did it once and that’s when Bruce got married and Neil showed up at the wedding. I just couldn’t miss that, but it’s the only time. I think doing that would be very confusing. There are now eight films where they are eight different ages, not more, and if I mess around with that and start going somewhere when I think something important is happening, it undermines the whole idea. This is a snapshot of these people every seven years.
It must be incredible for them all to watch their lives flash before their eyes as they age in minutes. Is there vanity involved? Do they panic in the months before you get there and try to lose weight or something like that?
I don’t think so. I remember going around to all of them at 42 asking them how the series has affected their lives. And I think it was Symon who said that he always thinks, “What have I done over the past seven years—I better hurry up and do something before Michael gets here!” But I honestly don’t think they do anything special to prepare for the cameras. I do agree with you that they’re very brave. Who would want one’s life put up to examination like that to a fairly big audience? It’s a huge act of courage!
At this point are they pretty well known in the UK?
Oh yes, for a time, anyway. For about six months after it comes out they’ll be recognized in shops and on the street, and of course some of them, like Tony who has become something of a celebrity, really embrace it and do interviews and press. But a lot of them wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot bargepole!
Do you think your original assumptions about what would happen to the kids were borne out?
No, not really, and I learned a painful lesson about that. I made a bad mistake with Tony in “21 Up.” At that time he was running around the dog park laying bets and I thought, this guy is going to end up in the slammer—wouldn’t it be a good idea to take him around East London in his cab and have him show me all the choice crime spots. So I did that and put it in the film and it proved to be a major embarrassment since he didn’t go that route at all and he was very upset when he figured out what I had done. After that I thought, you can’t play God with these people! It’s interesting enough and hard enough to track what’s really happening in their lives, I don’t need to try to anticipate what might happen. I’m glad I learned that lesson early on!
Of all the people that dropped out of the series from time to time, Charles is the only one who hasn’t returned to it. Do you still hold out hope that he might?
I don’t know. The truth is I behaved badly when he pulled out. Charles is a documentary filmmaker himself and that made me more angry—I thought, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword! With Peter, who was gone for several films but came back for “56 Up,” I was much more humane and kept in touch with him all these years but with Charles I’m afraid I misbehaved. I think I cursed at him when he said he wasn’t going to do “28 Up!”
Do the rest of them have any control over the content of their segments?
Yes, now they do! At this point they know they have the ultimate sanction in whether they come back to do the next one. As it’s gone on some of them have become very savvy about it!
Well, I’m already counting the minutes until the next film comes out.
Let’s just hope we’re both still above ground at that point!
Director Michael Apted died on January 7, 2021, at the age of 79.
How Abbott and Costello brought the Meet-cute to Horror
To start this new year of Monsters and Matinees let’s take a deep breath, exhale all the anxiety from 2020 and laugh. Yes, even here in the world of Monsters and Matinees, we need to laugh and remember that horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin.
So this column is dedicated to the monsters and matinees that brought us chills and laughter courtesy of that dynamic comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. These guys perfected the scare comedy and the fact that they brought Universal monsters and iconic horror stars with them is an irresistible combo.
The gang’s all here in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Though there were scary elements in Hold That Ghost (1941), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is the first with the Universal monsters and remains the duo’s most popular film. We can think of the five films in the A&C Meet… series for Universal International as the horror version of the meet-cute with comedy duo getting to know the all-star horror roster of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff and Glenn Strange. There were scares and laughs in equal measure and even controversy that led to heavy editing, an “X” rating and banned films. (Getting laughs out of corpses was not OK at the time.)
Here’s a quick look at the Abbott and Costello Meet … movies. Since the duo often went by variations of their own names in the films, I’ll call them Abbott and Costello, then list the character names.
This was hailed as an instant classic on its original release. Today, the film that inspired filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and John Landis is considered one of the best horror comedies ever made and is on the AFI list of the 100 Greatest Comedies and National Film Registry.
It’s also a favorite of classic horror film fans who admire this movie for the respect it shows to the creatures and actors. In “Turner Classic Movies Presents Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide,” Maltin writes that the “All-time great horror-comedy still works beautifully, mainly because the monsters play it straight.”
Lon Chaney Jr., who reprises his role as Lawrence Talbot from The Wolf Man, remains the tortured soul he was in the original 1941 film. And though we laugh at Costello’s reaction as he’s hypnotized by Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the close-up of Lugosi’s eyes – used so menacingly in 1931’s Dracula– remains intensely chilling.
Abbott and Costello are bumbling baggage clerks put in charge of two crates carrying the remains of Count Dracula and Frankenstein. It’s a set-up by Wilbur’s lovely girlfriend Sandra (Lenore Aubert). She’s a surgeon working with Count Dracula to find a “pliable” brain for Frankenstein so they can control the creature. Who better a brain donor than the childlike Wilbur?
Talbot tracks down Costello and begs him not to move the crates until he arrives. Now if Costello heeded that warning, we wouldn’t have a movie, so the crates are moved to McDougal’s House of Horrors where hilarious hi-jinks ensue. Costello sees Dracula rising from the coffin – the moving candle on the coffin routine is from Hold That Ghost – but can’t prove it. The scene is replayed when the action moves to a fantastically creepy castle on a lake where Costello is chased by Dracula and Frankenstein but again isn’t believed.
The boys, the monsters, a beautiful insurance investigator and a handsome doctor attend a costume party at a club that is ripe with opportunities for mistaken identity. Watch and laugh as Costello bravely takes on the Wolf Man thinking it’s Abbott who is dressed as a wolf. The music club is next to a forest that’s made for chases and has plenty of isolated spots for people to be hypnotized and bitten. The action returns to the castle where things go haywire as everyone comes together to either help or stop the transfer of the brain from Costello to Frankenstein.
This lean 83-minute film moves along quite well. Every scene is packed with action, laughs, chases, creatures, vampire bites, hypnotism and, my favorite, secret passageways.
Stay to the end for a surprise cameo that’s the perfect conclusion
for this monster mash-up.
Trivia: The working title of The Brain of Frankenstein was changed because it sounded like a straightforward horror film. Nearly all the scenes with the monsters were cut in Australia and Finland – which leaves you with a very short movie. This was the second – and last – time Lugosi played Dracula on film. Lon Chaney Jr. was the only actor to play Lawrence Talbot and even subbed for Strange in one scene after he hurt his foot on set.
Names: Abbott is Chick Young, Costello is Wilbur Grey, but listen for Wilbur to call Chick “Abbott” during the revolving door scene.
(1949) Without the late addition of Boris Karloff to the cast – and film title – this could have played as a murder mystery. But when you’ve got Karloff as a mysterious Swami and other odd characters skulking about a secluded resort on a dark and stormy night, the tone changes quite a bit.
Abbott is a detective and Costello an often-fired bellboy at the Lost Caverns Resort Hotel where a high-powered attorney arrives and within hours is murdered. Costello, who finds the body, is becomes the prime suspect and is then framed for the murder by those strange hotel guests who all have a shady past with the attorney. They spend much of the film peering out from behind curtains, popping their heads out of hotel doors and just looking guilty. The group is led by Karloff playing Swami Talpur complete with turban, satin shirt and cigarette holder. He uses hypnotism – to little avail – on Costello by wiggling his fingers in front of his face. Though it’s a comical gesture, it mimics the same hand movements of Lugosi in Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Bud Abbott, left, and Lou Costello (dressed as a maid) are trying to hide two corpses but are forced to sit them at a card game to fool a flirtatious hotel clerk played by Percy Helton (standing) in this hilarious scene from Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.
The body count grows (don’t open the closet door) and the action turns farcical as the boys move the corpses around the hotel to avoid the police. There is an especially funny sequence where Costello, dressed as a maid to transport a body in a laundry cart, catches the eye of the desk clerk played by character actor Percy Helton (his raspy voice is instantly recognizable). In another famous scene, they somehow make it believable that the corpses are two members of their card game. Though the corpses look impeccable in their suits, these scenes were deleted in Australia and New Zealand and the film was banned in Denmark.
Despite his perceived guilt, Costello is used as a pawn to draw the killer out and the plan works. He’s stalked by a masked person in a long raincoat through the very nifty Lost Caverns – complete with a bottomless pit. When the killer is revealed and all is told, don’t be surprised if you’re scratching your head at the quick, nonsensical explanation. And don’t be surprised when you shrug it off either because you’ve had a good time.
Trivia: The film’s original title was Abbott and Costello Meet the Killers which was too similar to 1946 Burt Lancaster film The Killers. The “s” was dropped to make it “Killer”; the final name change occurred when Karloff was signed days before filming started.
Names: Abbott is Casey Edwards; Costello is Freddie Phillips.
When are Abbott and Costello like the 3 Stooges? When they
meet the Invisible Man.
Newly licensed private detectives A&C realize too late that their first case is with boxer Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz) who is wanted for murder. Tommy needs help proving his innocence and thinks the invisibility formula being worked on by his fiancée’s (Nancy Guild) uncle, Dr. Gray (Gavin Muir), will buy him time. One problem: the doctor warns it comes with a side effect of madness, which is especially bad for a guy with a hot streak. That doesn’t deter Tommy from injecting himself to evade the police, allowing hilarious 3 Stooges-like antics throughout the film where the trio is poking, prodding and slapping each other like children. (Take notice of the “spaghetti” scene between Costello and the invisible Tommy; it looks an awful lot like the spaghetti sequence from Lady and the Tramp, released in 1955.)
When Abbott and Costello help by going undercover as a manager and boxer, the invisibility leads to the film’s best known and funniest sequences where Tommy throws punches so it look like the hapless Costello (as Louie the Looper) is doing it. Everyone buys it and the shady promoter gets Lou in the ring to throw a fight – or else. (The promoter is played by Sheldon Leonard who you’ll recognize from his thick New York accent and similar roles as heavies.)
Genre fans will appreciate the nod to the 1933 Universal film as it references the work of Dr. Jack Griffin, played by Claude Rains, whose photo also is on the wall.
Names: They use their first names with Costello as Lou Francis and Abbott as Bud Alexander.
This film is an absolute gem, an underrated film packed with
some of the duo’s best comic set pieces.
For the first 20 minutes or so, you’ll forget you’re watching an Abbott and Costello movie. We’ve got a murder on a foggy London night; newspaper headlines screaming “Monster Strikes Again”; a women’s suffragette rally; a lovely young lady (Helen Wescott) and equally handsome journalist (Craig Stevens) making eyes at each other. Oh look, there’s Dr. Henry Jekyll, regally portrayed in cape and top hat by Boris Karloff. And we’re off.
Is this a murder mystery? A romance? Whatever it is, I’m
into it. Plus any film with a revolving bookcase is a winner.
Abbott and Costello’s role? They’re in London studying local police methods but get thrown off the force when they bungle helping at the suffragette rally. To get back in the force, they go on a monster hunt where their lives get tangled with the young lovers, Dr. Jekyll and the monster Mr. Hyde. Then the fun really begins.
Lou Costello starts to transform into a mouse – and it won’t be the last time he doesn’t look like himself in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Witness:
Costello trapped in a museum with Mr. Hyde and wax statues including Dracula, Frankenstein and police officers.
A basement research lab where rabbits bark, a dog mews like a kitten, and a monkey moos.
Costello turning into an adorable mouse.
Two – yes two – Mr. Hydes being pursued by authorities culminating in a clever overhead chase around a large chimney. And by the film’s end, don’t be surprised to see more.
Trivia: The scenes with Dr. Hyde led to an X rating in England. Reginald Denny plays a police inspector.
Names: Abbott plays Slim and Costello plays Tubby.
This was the last film the duo made with Universal after 15
years. They would make only one more film together, Dance With Me, Henry,
in 1956.
Abbott and Costello are in Egypt where they overhear a doctor who needs help getting a newly discovered mummy to America. Klaris is the guardian of the tomb of Princess Ara and has a sacred cursed medallion that will open her treasures. That makes the mummy highly sought after by others including Semu, the leader of the followers of Klaris (the wonderful Richard Deacon, looking a bit humorous – in a good way – in his high priestess garb) and Madame Rontru (Marie Windsor) who are willing to kill for the treasure. That’s bad news for the doctor who is dead by the time the boys show up to offer their services, leading to another “moving corpse” scene played for laughs.
The boys find the medallion and naively try to sell it, putting a target on their backs. When they learn it’s cursed, they try to pass it off to one another in a hamburger scene originally in The Colgate Comedy Hour. Costello eventually swallows the medallion, but that doesn’t deter the bad guys who will get it out of him one way or another.
Lou Costello, left, Bud Abbott, Richard Deacon and Marie Windsor are in trouble in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.
As in the other films, the movie has a frantic and hilarious denouement, this time with an ancient pyramid filled with mummies standing in for the haunted houses.
Trivia: The flower girl in the café is Costello’s daughter, Carole.
Names: The end credits list them as Pete Patterson and Freddie Franklin, but they used their real names in the film.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in
Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love
for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever.
Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now
leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put
Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner
of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at
@toniruberto.
Classic Movie Travels: Doug McPhail Los Angeles, Hollywood and Beverly Hills
Betty Jaymes and Doug McPhail in Babes in Arms (1939)
While Doug McPhail’s name may not be well remembered today, his brief time in the film industry is to be appreciated. Typically appearing in lighthearted musical fare with his booming, melodious voice, McPhail is best remembered for his appearances in early MGM musicals alongside the likes of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Sadly, his life was tragically cut short by suicide.
Douglas
Saunders McPhail was born on April 16, 1914, in Los Angeles, California, to
Norman and Caroline Kemp McPhail. His father was of Scotch-Irish descent, born
in Massachusetts, and worked as a salesman in the oil industry, while his
mother was born in South Dakota. Douglas also had a brother named Norman or
“Kemp,” who was one year older.
McPhail and his brother attended Beverly Hills High School in the 1930s. Though McPhail would complete one year of college, he would soon transition to working in the film industry, capitalizing on his baritone voice. He appeared with various nightclub bands in South America before eventually being hired on to carry out bit parts in films, usually as an uncredited singer.
a young McPhail
When McPhail performed in the chorus of San Francisco (1936), actress and singer Jeanette MacDonald took a personal interest in him, advocating for him to sing in more of her films. For example, he can be seen in Maytime (1937) and Sweethearts (1938) in very minor roles. He can also be spotted performing a short solo in the “Entrance of Lucy James” scene in Born to Dance (1936). At age 19, he was signed on by the studio to perform in the chorus of The Girl of the Golden West(1938), though he actually did not appear on-screen.
The best years of his career were in 1939 and in 1940, in which he worked in several different musical films. He worked with Rooney and Garland in Babes in Arms(1939), Eleanor Powell in Honolulu(1939), and Broadway Melody of 1940(1940), and as Garland’s love interest in Little Nellie Kelly (1940). He would actually perform with Betty Jaynes, whom he secretly married in 1938, in Babes in Arms. According to census records, they supposedly lived together at some point in Dayton, Ohio, in 1935, though I could not locate an address for them.
James and Betty
McPhail and Jaynes would go on to have a daughter named Joan Lorraine McPhail on January 5, 1940. Unfortunately, the marriage was short-lived, with the couple divorcing after about three years of marriage. With his career on the rise, McPhail was being groomed as the next Nelson Eddy, though this reality would not come to pass. The studio recognized that moviegoers were tiring of Eddy’s singing style, leading them to take less interest in McPhail. Jaynes was given sole custody of their daughter.
McPhail
enlisted in the Army in 1942 within the Quartermaster Corps. His service time
was cut short due to a fall in basic training, which left him bedridden for
eight months He was given a medical discharge at the rank of private.
Though he tried to restore his film career, MGM did not renew his contract in 1943. He worked four hours a day as a gardener and took music lessons in hopes of securing a concert. McPhail turned to alcoholism and attempted suicide in the same year.
In
the following year, McPhail attempted suicide again. He suffered from acute
nervous exhaustion and swallowed poison at his Hollywood home, passing away at
the General Hospital on December 6, 1944. He is buried at Los Angeles National
Cemetery.
Today,
some locations of relevance to McPhail remain.
In
1920, he and his family lived at 3909 Halldale Avenue in Los Angeles,
California. The original home has since been razed. This is the property today:
3909 Halldale Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
His alma mater, Beverly Hills High School, does still
remain. In fact, it happens to house the still functional “swim gym”
that appeared in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946).
Beverly Hills High School
By
1940, he and Jaynes were living at 11150 Cashmere St. in Los Angeles with their
daughter, Joan; housekeeper Anne Hardin; and nurse Marie Marsel. Both he and
Jaynes are listed as actors and singers.
11150 Cashmere St., Los Angeles, CA
In 1942, he relocated to 10355 Cheviot Dr. in Los Angeles.
This is the home today:
10355 Cheviot Drive, Los Angeles, CA
McPhail’s suicide occurred at 1818 N Vine St. in Hollywood,
which is now the location of the Vine Lodge Hotel.
1818 N Vine Street, Hollywood, CA
Though McPhail’s time in films was short, viewers can continue to enjoy his vocal talents in his films available today.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
That said, here are some of our January picks available for FREE STREAMING all month long on the CMH Channel. All you need to do is click on the movie/show of your choice, then click ‘play’ — you do not have to opt for a 7-day trial.
In celebration of January Birthdays, we’re featuring Cary Grant (born Jan 18, 1904) with the rapid-fire 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday co-starring the wonderful Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy. We’re also celebrating Jose Ferrer’s birthday (born Jan 8, 1912) with the 1950 classic Cyrano de Bergerac also starring Mala Powers and William Prince. Plus more movies from birthday boys and girls Dan Duryea (Jan 23, 1907), Conrad Veidt (Jan 22, 1893), Danny Kaye (born Jan 18, 1913), Donna Reed (born Jan 27, 1921), Loretta Young (born Jan 6, 1913) — and more!
Starring birthday boy Cary Grant
With birthday boy, Harry Carey, born Jan 16, 1878
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We’re also chasing away the winter blues this month with some fun movies including Road to Bali, My Favorite Brunette and Father’s Little Dividend! And more…
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For those of you who aren’t familiar with the service, Best Classics Ever is a new mega streaming channel built especially for classic movie and TV lovers. The idea of the channel is to make lots of classic titles accessible and affordable for all. That said, Classic Movie Hub is curating titles each month that our fans can stream for free on the Classic Movie Hub Channelat Best Classics Ever. If you’d like access to the entire selection of Best Classics Ever titles, you can subscribe to everything for a low monthly fee of $4.99/month (Best Stars Ever, Best Westerns Ever, Best Mysteries Ever, Best TV Ever) or for an individual channel for only $1.99/month.
You can read more about Best Classics Ever and our partnership here.
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