THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 61

 Two features and one short from the early 1930s, and one game show from the 1950s. You've never heard of these, and will likely never see them. That's what I'm here for.

THE HOT HEIRESS (1931): Just another of those pictures where a construction worker accidentally lets a hot
rivet go flying through a rich woman's bedroom window, setting a fire... in their hearts! Can they overlook their class differences in order to build a path to the altar? Or will the girder of love collapse under the strain of disapproving friends and family? 

It took three days to make it through this 79-minute musical comedy, and even then, it was strictly for historical reasons. The Hot Heiress was the first movie with a score by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart and a script by their longtime Broadway collaborator Herbert Fields. And while they were played up in the big time in the original trailer, the result is Blah City. There isn't one genuinely funny piece of dialogue to be found here, and as for the score, the most memorable song is titled "Nobody Loves a Riveter but His Mother". This, from the duo who wrote "My Funny Valentine", "Isn't it Romantic?" and "Where or When." As with Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Once in a Blue Moon, there's something about the movie industry that can bring out the worst in the most talented people. (Rodgers & Hart would redeem themselves two years later with their score for the brilliant Paramount musical Love Me Tonight.)

Another bit of interest is The Hot Heiress was made at a time when audiences were sick of musicals that opened on an almost weekly basis since 1929. Many of them wound up being released after the numbers were left on the cutting room floor. The literally spotty condition of two of The Hot Heiress's three songs suggest the same thing happened here and were only put back when it was eventually sold to television in the 1950s. The one number that appeared to make it to its original release? That ridiculous riveter/mother song. If you're interested, you can catch it here following the credits. Don't be surprised if you find yourself humming it to yourself for the next day or two, whether you want to or not.

BONUS POINTS: Ben Lyons, the leading man, was briefly a studio exec at 20th Century-Fox in the 1940s, when he discovered Norma Jean Mortenson and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

GUILTY HANDS (1931): If you watch just one great Lionel Barrymore movie (trust me, I know what you're thinking), Guilty Hands
can't be beat. A decade away from his wheelchair-bound, thunder-and-lightning, batten-down-the-hatches delivery, he proves himself to be the equal of his brother John, and superior to most other movie actors of his time. In a mere 69 minutes, Lionel runs the gamut of emotions, from cynical, loving, philosophical, and murderous, never once making the wrong move. 

The set-up of Guilty Hands is ripe for drama. Former D.A.-turned-defense attorney Richard Grant is appalled that his daughter is going to marry his client, the debauched Gordon Rich. Fully aware of Rich's sordid love life -- including a 16-year-old girl who jumped out of his 24th-floor apartment -- Grant promises that he will commit the perfect murder in order to prevent the wedding. Grant, in turn, swears to return from the dead to exact revenge. Both men succeed, without the help of anything other than a clever idea and simple science respectively.

There's a solid supporting cast to be found in Guilty Hands, including Alan Mowbray as the foul Gordon Rich who gets what's coming to him; Kay Francis as the sidepiece who sticks with him during his constant philandering; and Madge Evans as Grant's young, innocent daughter Barbara, who's dazzled by her libertine fiancé. (Her playful relationship with her dad gives one pause today, as it occasionally appears to border on incestuous.)  With plenty of pre-code situations and dialogue (one wonders what Grant has in mind when warning Barbara that her wedding night to Rich will be "a horror" she'll never be able to shake), and, of course, Lionel Barrymore's surprisingly natural performance, Guilty Hands is one more obscure early talkie that needs to be rediscovered.

BONUS POINTS: In no other film does Lionel look exactly like John from scene to scene.

BOO (1932): Following 

a disgusting dinner of lobster and a glass of milk, a dope falls asleep reading Dracula, leading to nightmares accompanied by a "funny" narrator. When things wrap 10 minutes later, you could swear you just had a nightmarish experience. 

Universal Studios' Boo

anticipates the 1963 TV series Fractured Flickers by using clips from other movies while dubbing in silly narration ("He better keep away from the casket, or he'll be coughin'" is just one of a dozen or so puns we're forced to listen to.) It's kind of surprising that Universal allowed Frankenstein to be openly mocked here, an act that strikes me as sacrilegious. Oddly, instead of clips from Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Boo features Nosferatu, the 1922 German version of the story, which few Americans had seen up to that time. 

What gives Boo interest today is that it features two minutes from the long-lost 1930 horror movie The Cat Creeps. (Last month, seven more minutes were discovered.) Of course, its dialog here is obliterated by the irritating narrator, making it an even more frustrating watch. To those of us who went to college in the '70s, Boo dredges up memories of "midnight shows" of wacky shorts and TV clips made hilarious under influences legal and otherwise, but tedious when older and sober.

BONUS POINTS: In its defense, Boo seems like a parody of the similar MGM shorts produced and narrated by Pete Smith. If you don't know who he is, consider yourself lucky.

LAUGH LINE (4/16/1959): 

The obscure game show Laugh Line's concept is pretty simple. Viewers at home sent in descriptions of New Yorker-style cartoons which were re-created by actors.  A panel of comedians then re-arranged the actors and provided a new caption. Get ready to laugh, America!

A show like this depends on quick wits and a lot of luck to put it over. Laugh Line's merry-makers are Orson Bean, Dorothy Loudon, and Mike Nichols & Elaine May, all of whom are enveloped in a near-constant cloud of cigarette smoke. While talk-show stalwarts Bean and Loudon are at home in this setting, Nichols & May seem like, well, sophisticated comedians stuck on a game show featuring commercials for aspirin and ingrown toenail medicine -- the kind of thing they parodied in their nightclub act. While Laugh Line puts their improv experience to good use -- Nichols comes up with a funny idea for one of the "cartoons" immediately -- I couldn't help but think he and May were doing this strictly for the money. And who could blame them? 

Presiding over the hoped-for shenanigans is Dick Van Dyke, in one of the many, many pre-sitcom TV series he hosted in the 1950s, and that few people are alive to remember (other than Elaine May and Van Dyke himself). As he was on Mother's Day, Van Dyke is silly and non-threatening, as is Laugh Line itself. There are some funny moments -- it gets better as it goes along -- but not enough for it to have lasted more than two months. The commercials are fun, however. 

BONUS POINTS: Within a year of Laugh Line, Dick Van Dyke and Nichols & May would become Broadway stars in Bye Bye Birdie and An Evening with... respectively.  A year later, Orson Bean starred in the stage musical Subways are for Sleeping. A year after that, Nichols would direct Dorothy Loudon in the off-Broadway show The World of Jules Feiffer. They don't make game show panelists like that anymore.

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