THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 44

 One movie from each decade from the '20s to the 50's, with only one starring an actor you might be familiar with. Hey, I've got to offer something to the masses

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929): As a 12-year-old fan of old horror movies and
young dishy starlets, my heart raced at a black & white still of a bizarre creature with unkempt hair and bad teeth towering over Thelma Todd (seen below). I had no idea what the movie was about, nor did I even care. All I wanted was to see the production, tantalizingly titled Seven Footprints to Satan. 

Alas, this was an impossible dream, for it was apparently lost, or at least misplaced. Then, very recently, a restored version became available for a mere $8.99. I waited for the right time (the 75 minutes my wife would be out of the house), put it on and prepared to be scared witless by monsters and seduced by a sexy actress.

Well, at least I got the sexy actress. As with nearly every rediscovered "lost" movie, Seven Footprints to Satan --originally a silent/talkie hybrid now lacking its original Vitaphone soundtrack --proved to be two footsteps to disappointment. Not that it's bad. The general idea of a couple kidnapped and taken to a strange mansion where they are put through their paces by Satan's minions, monsters, and eventually the host himself, is a good one. But I quickly figured out that the whole thing was a ruse, and that all the "monsters" were actually people paid to scare the male half of the couple (Creighton Hale). 

It's not like I'm giving anything away. You'd figure it out, too, even if 1929 audiences didn't. I realize the comedy/thriller genre was a big thing at the time, but come on. You've got to have genuine thrills mixed with the chuckles. While the actors' make-up and the art design are impressive, conceptually Seven Footprints to Satan isn't much different than one of those pop-up "horror houses" that appear in your neighborhood every Halloween. Is it worth $8.99? For a quasi-legendary once-lost picture, sure. Is it worth watching again? With Thelma Todd in a lowcut dress, absolutely. But not until next Halloween. Or the Halloween after.

BONUS POINTS: One of the "scary" creatures is Angelo Rossitto, the dwarf from the previously-discussed Old San Francisco and Scared to Death. Sheldon Lewis, the guy in the memorable still with Thelma Todd, plays the title role in the genuinely terrible, not-worth-watching-even-once The Phantom. Oh, and a naked woman is tied up to a pole and whipped.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND (1937): Squire John Meadows is a malevolent, vindictive justice of the peace in a small town he holds in the palm of his hand. When he's not bribing people to break the law on his behalf, he runs the local prison, taking glee on doling out physical and psychological punishment on the inmates -- men, women, and adolescents alike -- with an alarmingly sadistic glee. His latest scheme is to win the hand of the lovely Susan Merton by framing her fiancé George for poaching. When the real poacher, George's friend Tom, confesses to the crime, he is imprisoned. George, meanwhile, goes to Australia to seek his fortune but promises Sue he'll return. Seizing his opportunity, Meadows pays off the postmaster to give him George's letters so they don't get delivered. Deciding that isn't enough, he spreads the rumor that George has married another woman in Australia.

If you want subtlety, you've come to the wrong movie, for It's Never Too Late to Mend -- not the most understated title, either -- stars Tod Slaughter, usually called Britain's answer to Bela Lugosi. You want scenery chewing? Slaughter chows down with the manners of a starving hyena, with his co-stars not very far behind. Even the lovebirds George and Susan engage sweet nothings that went out of style two decades earlier. But that's the whole idea behind Slaughter movies, as they deliberately recreate the over-the-top melodrama of 19th century British stage plays (which is likely why they were never released in the U.S.). And once you get into the groove, your oh-so-sophisticated attitude and heh-heh snickering will give way to emotions you'd rather not admit to possessing. 

Go ahead, you laugh at the  15-year-old boy, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving mother, dying in a metal straitjacket. You chortle at the chaplain protecting the prisoners with only the power of his faith. You giggle as Squire Meadows slips the heroic George a mickey in order to steal his newly-won fortune and fiancé. 

Trust me, It's Never Too Late to Mend -- considered one of Tod Slaughter's more "serious" movies --will have you hissing and booing the same way British audiences did when such behavior in the theater was not just accepted but demanded. And wouldn't it feel better to do that at an old, low-budget movie rather than the evening news?

BONUS POINTS: The 19th-century novel and play on which It's Never Too Late to Mend is based so moved Queen Victoria that she demanded the reform of the British penal system.

THE MONSTER MAKER (1944): PRC's The Monster Maker plays like a celluloid Mad-Libs game of countless poverty row movies: A PHONY DOCTOR from EASTERN EUROPE, who keeps a GORILLA in his LABORATORY, injects a CONCERT PIANIST with a dose of ACROMEGALY in order to marry THE PIANIST'S DAUGHTER, who resembles THE DOCTOR'S LATE WIFE, despite HIS ASSISTANT being IN LOVE WITH HIM. 

Credit the three(!) writers for coming up with the acromegaly angle to separate The Monster Maker from other low-budget B's of its type, even if its title damns anyone with the disease as, well, a monster. Very few people had likely even heard of it had it not been for actor Rondo Hatton, a real acromegaly victim. Here, Ralph Morgan has the honors, and only because we needed to see his before-and-after visage. Once a star at MGM (as in the adaptation of Eugene O'Neil's Strange Interlude), Morgan wasn't the only former A-lister who found himself slumming in stuff like The Monster Maker a decade later. A pro to the end, he gives his all for a concept that probably had everyone on the set dizzy from rolling their eyes.

Speaking of one-time A-listers on the skids, Bela Lugosi must have been busy making Voodoo Man at Monogram in order for J. Carrol Naish to win the lead role of Dr. Igor Markoff. Strictly in support throughout his career, he was probably thrilled to get top billing for a change. Hollywood's idea of a linguist, Naish played a wide variety of ethnic roles equaled only by his limited

talent. Italian, German, Russian, Sioux -- you can't tell one from another without the wardrobe and make-up departments cluing you in. (One of Naish's most absurd roles was in The Hatchet Man where his portrayal of a Chinatown resident consists of squeezing his eyelids nearly shut and over articulating his dialogue even more than usual.)

In order to pad out The Monster Maker to 65 minutes, co-star Wanda Blake (the object of Naish's affection) often repeats dialogue spoken to her, only as a question ("Your father visited me for a consultation." "My father visited you for a consultation?"). And we can't forget the ol' gorilla-in-the-lab gag, which serves no purpose other than for Dr. Markoff to try killing his love-starved assistant Maxine. These kinds of things make me love movies like The Monster Maker. It's short, utterly predictable, wildly implausible, and perfectly entertaining.

BONUS POINTS: They don't even try to convince us that the first scene in a Carnegie Hall-style theater is just a faux-loge 20 feet away from the faux-stage

BLACK TUESDAY (1954): The exceptionally violent Black Tuesday shows Edward G.

Robinson at age 61 still in all his glory as Vince Canelli, the star inmate of a West Coast prison where he and his fellow death row resident Peter Manning await their turn in the hot squat. One of the prison guards has been forced to help facilitate the escape of Canelli and others on death row in exchange for the freedom of his kidnapped daughter. But while the guard gets plugged anyway, the criminals look forward to splitting $200,000 in stolen loot Manning has hidden in a place only he knows -- even after he's been shot.

There's something poignant about Edward G, Robinson in Black Tuesday, still speaking with the N'yeah, see? delivery that made people sit up and take notice 25 years earlier. As for his character, Canelli's at an age where he should be enjoying his ill-gotten fortune by lounging on a beach in Acapulco, not breaking out of stir again with guns blazing. Not like Canelli's the reincarnation of St. Jude. While on his getaway from prison, Canelli kicks three of his death row pals to the curb in order to make sure he gets more of the stolen dough. He's willing to risk the life of the badly-wounded Manning for the same reason. Not even Father Slocum, the prison priest he's taken hostage, is safe from his threats. Maybe poignant isn't the right word after all.

Robinson overshadows his Black Tuesday co-stars, although the older, familiar character actors manage to hold their own. (No point in naming names -- you'd only know them by their faces anyway.) But the younger, less impressive supporting actors are straight out of a baby-boomer's Emmy Award "In Memoriam" segment. In addition to Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) as Manning, there's Milburn Stone (Gunsmoke), Russell Johnson (Gilligan's Island), William Schallert (Patty Duke Show), and Stafford Repp (Batman). Black Tuesday is unlikely to be considered a classic in the Robinson canon like Little Caesar, but it still makes for fine entertainment and demonstrates how commanding an actor he was throughout his entire career.

BONUS POINTS: Sylvia Findley as Ellen Norris, one of the few actresses who looks like she would be Edward G. Robinson's girlfriend (which might be why her imdb profile lists only two movies).

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "HIGH TREASON" (1929)

There are certain things early futuristic  sci-fi movies agree upon: zeppelins and gyrocopters becoming as ubiquitous as Ubers; one-piece jumpsuits as normal dresswear; televisions and video phones in all homes; and another world war breaking out. That's two out of four they always get right, as does the 1929 British production High Treason.

The year is 1940.  A series of terrorist incidents are inching the two superpowers, the Federation of European States and the Empire of the Atlantic States, closer to war. Stuck in the middle of this crisis in London are military official Michael Deane and his girlfriend Evelyn Seymour, who, along with her father, runs the World League of Peace. You see the problem already, right?

Dr. Seymour and the President of Europe
get ready to rumble.

Just before the President of Europe declares war, Evelyn's dad Dr. Seymour assassinates him on live television. At Seymour's murder trial, the judge instructs the jury to ignore the fact that the crime saved millions of lives by preventing a second world war. To me, that sounds like tipping the scales against the peacemonger, but I haven't got a law degree hanging on my wall. 

Go ahead and laugh, but I challenge you to
create this in your basement.

High Treason is one of the few formerly "lost" movies that lives up to its legend. While the similar 1936 UK release Things to Come has a better script (thanks to screenwriter H.G. Wells) and boasts better production values, High Treason can easily be enjoyed as the little railway that could. 

The miniatures standing in for skyscrapers, airplanes, and land vehicles aren't what you'd call convincing, but the amount of skill that went into creating them is impressive, bettered only by Fritz Lang's Metropolis. 

Nine paid agitators walk into a black room...

The story confirms every conspiracy nut's nightmare that somewhere a mysterious group is pulling the strings in order to cause worldwide misery. In High Treason, that would be a cadre of "paid agitators" who are creating havoc. You can tell it's an international movement -- one guy has a Trotsky beard, another a French beret, and, just so they're inclusive, there's an Asian. 

As usual, Russia is left out in the cold. 

Whether starting border conflicts or bombing the English Channel train (hey, the movie got the Chunnel right, too!), the terrorists always make sure the Atlantic States appear responsible. Because Europeans never start wars. Judging by High Treason's map, the Atlantic States consist of the USA, South America, China, and Japan. The European Federation appears to be what we would call the European Allies, plus Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Foundland, Greenland, Africa and whatever British territories were left over. We Yanks are clearly outnumbered.

"Hello, darling. We're going to war no matter
what you pacifists think!"

But what of High Treason's star-crossed lovers, Michael and Evelyn? Well, after starting off all lovey-dovey, that darned threat of war takes precedence over their relationship. While the men await orders to go bombs away over New York and Washington, women are conscripted to work in the airplane factories. The women, however, are members of the World League of Peace. Led by Evelyn, they refuse to let the planes leave. 

The women don't take no shit no how.

Their standoff threatens to turn violent, when Michael orders his troops to turn their weapons on the women, including Evelyn, who orders her "troops" to stand their ground, convinced that the men would never kill them. It's an impressive moment unlike any other I've seen in a movie of High Treason's era. It's matched only by the climax, when pacifist Dr. Seymour is portrayed at his sentencing as the second coming of You Know Who. When the closing credits roll, you wonder which side was committing high treason after all. 

In case you couldn't tell by the silence.

As with many movies made in the late '20s, High Treason was also released as a silent, which is several minutes longer, mostly due to subtitles. But some scenes are shorter, while others are unique to the silent or use different angles. And it's only in the talkie you hear the several uses of "hell" and "damn", usually spoken by the ugly Americans. Both versions have Evelyn's sexy shower scene behind a semi-opaque door. (Sound isn't necessary for such things.) Oddly, the silent subtitles inform us the story takes place in 1950 rather than a decade earlier in the sound version. There's another prediction it got right: nobody can agree on anything.

One thing neither version of High Treason explains is who exactly is paying the agitators. If other movies of the time are any guide (such as The Man Who Reclaimed His Head and Transatlantic Tunnel), it's either arms manufacturers or press barons eager to sell newspapers. Hey, maybe those conspiracy nuts are on to something after all.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 10

 Now that my wife has returned home after a week away at a retreat, my obscure movie marathon is winding up. So, until the next thrilling installment, here are four pictures to entertain or appall. But at least I finally saw them.

LILIOM (1930): In Budapest, humble servant girl Julie falls in love with vain carousel barker Liliom. Julie's devotion pleases him enough to quit his job, move in with her, avoid work, and knock her up. It must be love! When a robbery he's involved in goes wrong, Liliom kills himself. God's Chief Magistrate allows Liliom to visit his daughter for ten minutes after a spending a decade in hell. His eventual anonymous visit with the daughter doesn't go well, although Liliom returns to the afterlife happy that she heard her father was handsome. Yeesh!

Where to begin with an alleged love story where you hate the guy and don't respect the girl? Truly, I have no idea what the point of Liliom is. From the moment they meet, the jackass abuses Julie emotionally, psychologically, and (offscreen) physically --and she willingly keeps coming back for more! Apparently, she believes that Liliom isn't really a bad sort -- he acts the way he does because he's hurt inside. Even the great Lee Tracy, one of my faves, bothers me as the two-bit crook who indirectly causes Liliom's death. Come to think of it, every character in this movie bothers me.

I was drawn to Liliom having seen the 1934 version filmed in France and starring Charles Boyer. Maybe I enjoyed that one because it was a little more frank -- you can see he and Julie share a bedroom -- and Boyer's French dialogue made him at least sound charming. He's also a much better actor than Charles Farrell, who here sounds like Bert Wheeler. Farrell is also grating, irritating, and an all-around abhorrent fellow. Rose Hobart's Julie couldn't be more masochistic -- and, worse, pathetic.

And talk about the apple not falling far from the tree! When Liliom slaps his 10 year-old daughter, she describes it to her mother as feeling like a kiss! Julie understands, as she explains to the little girl, "It's possible for someone to beat you and beat you... and not hurt you at all." How the hell did Rodgers & Hammerstein turn this horror show into the much-loved musical Carousel? And more to the point, why? 

BONUS POINTS: The lush production reminded me of another Fox film, the 1928 silent classic Sunrise. And the arrival of the Heaven-bound train into Julie's living room to bring Liliom to the afterlife is as startling a special effect that could be seen in a movie this old, and wouldn't be nearly effective with today's CGI.

GIFT OF GAB (1934): 1930s comedies don't come much worse than Gift of Gab, a
70-minute exercise in tedium wrapped in futility, about the rise, fall, and redemption of egomaniacal radio announcer. It tries without success to be Universal Pictures' answer to the Paramount's Big Broadcast musicals, which featured popular radio and recording stars of the day in guest roles supporting the studio contract players in the lead roles.

But while the Big Broadcast films featured the likes of Burns & Allen, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, and Bob Hope, Gift of Gab stars Edmund Lowe, who, while a fine actor, was not necessarily a box office favorite by this time. As for the radio guest stars, they're basically the people who didn't make the final cut at Paramount:  second-tier radio announcer Tom Hanlon; annoying comedian Phil Baker (who resembles a sex criminal); and writer/raconteur/pompous ass Alexander Wolcott. The musical guests range from bonafide stars Ruth Etting, Ethel Waters, and crooner Gene Austin (who was by now losing ground to Crosby), to unknowns like the Downey Sisters and the Beale Street Boys.

Lost until fairly recently, Gift of Gab was legendary for featuring appearances by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Once a print was discovered and the legend became real, it proved a disappointment, since the two horror stars, while appearing in the same scene, are never on screen together, and have three lines of dialogue between them. 

Their scene, a parody of murder mysteries, makes no sense since it's a visual sketch that's supposed to be on radio. But it also features Chester Morris in a nice self-parodic turn as a dumb detective. Everybody else in Gift of Gab is wasted. In fact, the best way to enjoy it is to be wasted.

BONUS POINTS: The leading lady is played by Gloria Stuart, the old lady from James Cameron's Titanic 63 years later, proving it's possible to survive a movie like Gift of Gab, and continue to entertain audiences at the end of the century.

THE 9TH GUEST (1934): Eight people  receive identical telegrams from an unknown host inviting them to a party thrown in their honor. Soon after they arrive, a mysterious voice comes over the living room radio warning them that each will die before the night is over; the penthouse is wired so nobody can leave. True to the voice's promise, at every hour a guest dies in a different way from the one before. Accusations fly throughout the night until the mystery is solved, with only two survivors able to live to tell the tale. Good luck getting the cops to believe any of it, though.

Depression-era audiences must have gotten a kick out of rich people behaving like maniacs and getting knocked off like teacups off a mantle in an earthquake. The 9th Guest (the title character being Death) is the kind of locked room -- make that locked penthouse -- mystery where it doesn't matter who the actors are. All that counts is that they suffer emotionally and physically for the benefit of ticket-buyers.

For the budget-conscious Columbia Pictures, The 9th Guest's art deco set is pretty sweet. And while the solution is pretty convoluted, you'll realize some of the clues were right there in front of you if you were paying attention. 

As for the cast, fans of this kind of movie will recognize many of the actors while not knowing their names. B-listers cost less, and the set likely took up most of the budget. 

BONUS POINTS: In a case of art deco taken one step beyond, the grandfather  clock is built into the living room wall. 

CLOSE-UP (1948): After covering a woman's fashion show in Madison Square, newsreel cameraman Phil Sparr discovers he also filmed a close-up of escaped Nazi war criminal Martin Beaumont. (And you thought David Hemmings had a scoop in Blow-Up!) Sparr is soon hunted down by Beaumont with the help of washed-up actor Joe Gibbons and two-timing doll Peggy Lake. Will Sparr live to film another newsreel -- or wind up on the cutting room floor? 

Close-Up would probably have a decent reputation if it looked, well, decent, rather than in its current washed-out, audio-challenged state. Location footage of Manhattan, including a genuinely exciting chase aboard the Staten Island Ferry and a climactic shootout along the East River jazz things up. You just kind of wish the newsreel folks were a little more careful when it comes to trusting guys who claim to be FBI agents without showing any ID.

As Phil Sparr, character actor Alan Baxter appears to be auditioning to be Gary Cooper's voice-over and an oak tree's stand-in. Borscht Belt comic Joey Faye, as Sparr's sidekick Roger, makes up for Baxter's stiffness by delivering every line as if he were onstage at Grossinger's. The best performance is given by Richard Kollmar, a Broadway actor and producer in his only movie appearance, as Beaumont, giving his character genuine menace without going overboard. Fun fact: Kollmar was married to columnist Dorothy Killgallen, with whom he starred in the daily radio talk show Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick, which opens itself to way too many interpretations. 

Close-Up, then, provides plenty of reasons for a nostalgic 75-minute viewing, not the least of which is that it reminds you of a time when Nazis were still frowned upon, instead of something to aspire to. 

BONUS POINTS: Character actor Sid Melton in a truly funny scene as a cab driver being questioned by the police. Delivering a ridiculous monologue in one long take, Melton steals the movie without breaking a sweat. If he had to do more than one take, it was the fault of the director.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "INGAGI" (1930)

Ingagi chronicles the thrilling, true-life adventures of Sir Herbert Winstead as he leads his hunting safari through darkest Africa. Armed only with some rifles and a couple of hand-cranked movie cameras, Winstead and his team face danger and possible death every step of the way, climaxing with the astonishing tribe of women who mate with --

Oh, hell, what am I talking about? Despite what the movie's prologue states, there was no such person as Sir Herbert Winstead. And by the way, seventy-five percent of Ingagi''s footage was stolen from a 1915 documentary Heart of Africa; the rest was filmed in the heart of California.

And as for those tribe of women... well, they're the only portion that justified Ingagi's existence in 1930 -- although the word "justified" is questionable in relation to the human beings onscreen. Let's just say there would have been no audience patronizing Ingagi without its final 15 minutes. 

Judging by how audiences
were fooled, I'd say Darwin
was wrong.

If you thought the last four years were proof of how easy it is to hoodwink a sizable portion of the American population, Ingagi will make you wish you had access to a movie camera, non-actors, and an editing room over 90 years ago.  

The idea that audiences accepted someone named Sir Hubert Winstead speaking with a New York accent, pronouncing "first" as "foist" and "search" as "soich", is the first tip-off of just how gullible people were. The real narrator, Louis Nizor, sounds like he's reading the script for the first time, which is probably the case. Rehearsals take time, and time is money!

Then there's the film quality itself. While the California-as-Africa scenes are in fine condition,  the    real documentary footage -- only 15 years old at the time -- appears to have been trampled on by an elephant herd before being left out in the sun too long. 

Luncheon is served.

Oh, there's some interesting shots in the 1915 footage. And by interesting, I mean stuff that is no longer considered worthy of movie entertainment, like rhinos writhing in pain after being shot, and dead hippos being dragged upside down along the ground. 

But at least their meat was sustenance for the tribal population. But what was the point of trapping monkeys for anything other than our amusement? Come to think of it, maybe that was enough.

One more wisecrack, and this ape is ready
to pounce.

As with similar low-rent releases of the 1930s, Ingagi''s narrator wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't offer the occasional "amusing" observations about the natives. As tribal women do the kind of hard physical labor more appropriate for men, he asks, "Isn't this a wonderful way of reducing?" -- as in weight. Their native assistants are regularly referred to as "our boys", while both they and small animals are called "the little beggars."  Today, he'd be begging -- for his life.

An extra 10 points for this guy keeping a
straight face.

Rickety footage of real animals, however, wasn't enough for the director, so Winstead (or whoever it really is) discovers a previously-unknown animal with the body of a tortoise and the armor of an armadillo, which he immediately dubs a tortadillo. Or what anyone with half a brain would see is a turtle in a plastic costume from the Five & Ten. 

No matter. We're assured that his dog died three hours after being bitten by this mini-monster. Did I refer to audiences as "gullible"? Make that anencephalic.

Most movies ran only three days,
so the people of La Crosse clearly
desired a week of interspecies sex.

It wasn't a tortadillo that lured people to Ingagi  (African for "gorilla", in case you were wondering). The real drawing card was a group of tribal women who live in sin with a gorilla. And this is where, for modern audiences, things likely go off the rail.

I would have taken a screenshot, but just watching things unfold made me feel ashamed. My idea of the Central Casting description will have to do: Negro women wanted to play African natives in love with a gorilla. Must move as if mentally deficient. Total nudity required. $1 for one day's work. 

It's worse than it sounds, a degrading scene that these poor women likely welcomed just for the money. One woman holds a baby (or doll) described as having a face more gorilla than human, which tells you what the filmmakers are trying to get across without actually saying it.

Look out! It's a man in a monkey suit!

At least  neither they, nor the merely topless woman who's later given to the gorilla as a sacrifice, were ever in danger. For their simian swain is actually Charles Gemora, Hollywood's #1 monkey impersonator from 1927 until his death in 1961. 

That his suit looks absolutely nothing like the real thing we see in close-ups makes no difference. Just the idea of a black woman and a gorilla making monkey business was enough to get the cash registers jingling.

The reverse P.O.V. of the cameraman filming
the gorilla. Did audiences think it was filming
him?

And how they jingled! Ingagi went to gross an astounding $4,000,000 -- at a time when the average ticket price was 25 cents. You can't blame the producer for repeating the whole psuedo-doc-shock with Nu-Ma-Pu: Cannibalism,  with the wilds of California standing in for the Solomon Islands.

Twenty years later, Ingagi
was on a double-bill with a
renamed Freaks.
That's entertainment!

Hard as it is to believe, Ingagi was one of the most influential movies of its time. The gorilla/woman angle was repeated (to far better effect) three years later by King Kong. The art of stitching together pirated silent footage with cheap talkies continued with Are We Civilized? and White Gorilla (notice how those things keep popping up?), and undoubtedly many more.

As movie restrictions lessened in the 1960s, the "doc-shock" genre became known as "mondo", thanks to Mondo Cane. Subsequent movies upped the ante (real or faked) with Traces of Death, Faces of Death, Shocking Africa, Shocking Asia... you get the picture. 

As for the movie that started it all, Ingagi ran in grind houses for decades, proving that audiences never smarten up. After disappearing in the 1970s, a print was found in, of all places, the Library of Congress, and restored to 4K with its original tints. Feel free to pick up a copy, but don't tell them I sent you. Let me retain what little pride I have.

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Read about White Gorilla here.

Read about Are We Civilized? here.

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "TOO MANY KISSES" (1925)

Richard Gaylord, Jr. has been shipped overseas to the Basque region by his rich businessman father. It seems Jr. keeps getting in trouble with the ladies, a hobby Daddy finds expensive after each break-up. Jr. has been assigned to find the valuable mineral turidium. If he stays away from the dames for six months, he gets 50% ownership of the company. Who needs sex when you're the turidium king?

When was the last time the phrase
"Breach of promise" was heard in a courtroom?

 

 

Enter stage left Yvonne Hurja, the beautiful daughter of the Spanish guy that Jr. is working with. Enter stage right, the cruel Captain of the Guards, Don Julio, who has his eyes on Yvonne. And if this what made the movie interesting, it would be exit off the couch for the viewer right then and there.

Made in late 1924, released in 1925, lost until 1971, and restored in 2020, Too Many Kisses is six reels of silliness mixed with romantic comedy and melodrama. It likely would have remained forgotten had it not been for one unlikely piece of casting. For despite the presence of Richard Dix and William Powell as Jr. and Don Julio respectively, Too Many Kisses is known only for the screen debut of Harpo Marx.

Harpo celebrates breaking into movies
before his brothers.

 

What Harpo had over his siblings regarding silent movies was his own silence -- even if, in Too Many Kisses, he has two lines of dialogue (via subtitles). Yet if you watch closely, he stands with his mouth agape in typical Harpo-style when he's supposed to be talking. My guess is that he had become so used to almost 20 years of doing a dumb act that talking just didn't  come naturally in performance. Or maybe he forgot what he was supposed to say.

Laddero Marx.

It's nice to see that Harpo's persona was fully-formed by now. His first appearance, sound asleep and snoring so hard that he's moving straw back and forth, wouldn't have been out of place in any of his subsequent movies. And while there's no chance (or need) for him to play his usual instrument, Harpo does get another Harpoesque moment when he's accompanying Don Julio's musical wooing of Yvonne by "playing" a ladder like a guitar. (His character is billed in the credits as "The Village Peter Pan", which I suppose is nicer than "Village Idiot".)

It would take almost a century for Harpo (right)
to be considered stealing a scene from
William Powell.

Harpo stays primarily in the background for most of the movie; he might not have been even noticed in many scenes by moviegoers who weren't familiar with his stage work. But he's there enough, particularly in the second half, so that a Marx fan doesn't go away entirely disappointed.

More observant (i.e., boring) people like me will notice that not only does he walk like the Harpo we've always known, but that he's playing more like his overly-sympathetic MGM character rather than the earlier, anarchic style at Paramount. Ironic, then, that Too Many Kisses is a Paramount picture.

Richard Dix would lose that silly look in his noirish 1940s dramas, while William Powell
wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like that again.

 

So what of Too Many Kisses' real stars? Being more familiar with their sound movies, I could "hear" Richard Dix and William Powell speaking their subtitles. But either they improved by the end of silents, or director Paul Sloane instructed them to overact whenever possible. Dix's reaction to sitting next Frances Howard (as Yvonne) is strictly Jerry Lewis. Powell is more subtle, yet appears to be the template for every sneering villain of the time.

Despite being beautifully restored with its original tints -- and a lovely piano score by Harpo's son Bill -- Too Many Kisses is strictly for the diehard Marx Brothers fans who need to see everything they ever did, whether it's worth watching or not. And after they see this the first time, they can rewatch it to see if, as rumor has it, Zeppo Marx really is an in-joke extra. It'll take their mind off the rest of the movie.  

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To read about how good Richard Dix could be, click his name below.

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "NIGHT FLIGHT" (1933)

This poster would have been even better if the
artist knew what John Barrymore and
Helen Hayes really looked like.

Here's Night Flight in one sentence: While the managing director of an airline stops at nothing to create an overnight flight service, a pilot flies through a dangerous storm to deliver the mail.

OK, sounds like the makings of a fine dramatic two-reeler. Unfortunately, the real result -- an 84-minute feature trying to be an epic -- was such that the author of the book on which it was based eventually pulled it from circulation. But more on that later.

Ridiculously promoted as "Grand Hotel of the air!" in 1933, Night Flight seems to be the movie that the phrase "interesting failure" was created for. It anticipates the Airport movies of the 1970s: Get a bunch of famous actors, throw them into some airborne danger, and see what happens. 

Gable focuses on the bottle of bourbon
promised him if he gets this in one take.

In Night Flight's case, it's really very little. Having seen it twice, I actually marveled how a half-dozen A-list stars, surrounded by fine character actors, are unable to lift a thin story off the runway. Clark Gable, in particular, has what was either the most thankless role of his career or the easiest gig ever. 

Speaking no more than a dozen lines of dialogue throughout the picture, he spends all his time in the open cockpit of his plane. The most action he gets is scribbling notes to the radio operator in the seat behind him. The whole shebang probably took one day's work. I mean, the close-up of Gable's hand writing notes probably belonged to a stand-in (or is it write-in?).

Hayes demands airline boss John
Barrymore get her on the first
flight back to Broadway.

Speaking of Gable, the concept of Helen Hayes as his wife is too much to swallow. Even at 32, she already had the demeanor of a middle-aged housewife who only wishes she was married to Clark Gable. And the closest she gets to him in Night Flight is gazing at his photo! It  seems like Louis B. Mayer's big fat joke at her expense. Alright Miss Famous Broadway star! Try to make something of this claptrap!

Yet despite Hayes's reputation as a great stage actress, there's something consistently off about her early film appearances, especially in Night Flight. Either she never learned to act for movies, or can't successfully lower herself to their standards.

Loy tries desperately to
push Gargan away.

Not even Myrna Loy, a first-rate screen presence, can rescue her brief, teary role -- like that of Helen Hayes -- as a pilot's wife. Now Loy, I can easily imagine getting it on with Gable. But married to middling supporting actor William Gargan? Not a chance. She and Hayes must have spent their off-hours commiserating about playing the weeping little ladies stuck on earth while their flyboys are up in the air.

That is, if they even saw each other. For all Night Flight's great cast, there's almost no interaction between anybody. Helen Hayes, for instance, is the only one other than Lionel Barrymore to share a scene with John Barrymore. Robert Montgomery gets about three minutes with Lionel, which probably took a day to shoot. 

"How's it feel to play a role on the same level of
Myrna Loy and Helen Hayes -- meaning,
worthless?"

Montgomery, by the way, is another pilot whose existence seems to be just provide further star power. At least he has a character, even if it isn't very deep: a devil-may-care pilot who shows up to work in a tuxedo having been out drinking all night with his latest floozie -- and nobody at the airport thinks it dangerous. 

However, he provides the movie's pre-code moment near the end, pointing out an overnight airplane to the hooker in his bed. It's not much, but compared to what's come before, it's gold.

John and Lionel play a round of Can You Top This?

As usual, it's up to the Brothers Barrymore to provide Night Flight's best moments. As Riviere, the hard-headed managing director of the airline, John gradually gives unexpected depth to a role that could have been one-note. 

Yes, Riviere is aware he's pushing his pilots to the limit, but he knows that night flights are the future of aviation -- and that a vital polio serum needs to be delivered to a hospital the following morning.

Apparently, the Barrymores weren't
hot stuff in Sweden.

In his entire career, Lionel Barrymore never missed an opportunity to steal a scene, particularly when  opposite his younger brother. Playing Riviere's eczema-suffering stooge Robineau, Lionel is constantly upstaging John by scratching himself silly, even going so far as reaching down the back of his pants. John, no stranger to overplaying a role himself, lets Lionel own their every scene. As if he had a choice.

Aside: If you ever wondered what an overflowing ashtray would sound like if it could talk, listen to John Barrymore in Night Flight. His lungs must have been the color and texture of licorice. And you have to wonder if he burned his fingers the way he smokes cigarettes down to their stubs.

Hope you like this, because you're going
to see a lot of it.

Director Clarence Brown probably realized Night Flight didn't quite reach the heights of M-G-M's two other all-star releases of the time, Grand Hotel and Dinner at Eight, each of which runs a full half hour longer. Likely in order to get Night Flight closer the 90-minute mark, endless shots of a mail plane flying over the Andes pad out its running time. 

Not that they aren't genuinely dramatic. But when accompanied by an utterly unmemorable score, their reason for being is less artistic and more practical -- otherwise, Night Flight would probably run roughly 77 minutes, laughable for an all-star cast even in 1933.

"Ah oui! And zen after I get ze Hollywood money,
I will pull it from release! I am ze clever one, no?"

Night Flight, the credits inform us, was "based upon the 1931 Prix Femina novel", as if to convince Americans it sounded important. Its author, Antoine de Saint-Expuery, probably sounds familiar if, like me, you were forced to slog through his most famous novel, The Little Prince, in high school French class. Saint-Expuery hated Night Flight's transfer to screen, and refused to renew the screen rights after his agreement expired in 1942.

Thus, Night Flight became that most mouthwatering example of a movie: lost. Doubling the legend was its all-star cast. Fans cried, If only we could see it! When it was finally made available 79 years after its original release, those same fans muttered, If only it was good. That's the way these things usually work.

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