THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 63

 How can four movies count as five? You'll find out.

TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS (1922): Long before the Church of Latter-Day Saints was an object of satire in a Broadway musical, it was considered a nefarious sexual cult. Just look at the tagline on the billboard for the British silent shocker Trapped by the Mormons.

Nora Prescott, a virginial thing of beauty, is mesmerized by Isoldi Keene, a Mormon elder, into leaving her parents, dumping her noble boyfriend, getting her female coworkers to join the church, and eventually marrying him. (Man, I had it tough just getting a girl to have a beer with me.) When Keene's current wife Sadie objects, he arranges for her murder. Keene's associates decide that Nora, who's finally come to her senses, might as well get the heave-ho as well. This movie might as well be titled Killed by the Mormons. 

You know right off the bat what kind of a scoundrel Keene is, seeing that the very first shot is a close-up of his eyes as he practices his hypnosis skills. He pulls every trick in the book to win over Nora, even the ol' resurrecting-the-dead gag. Religion never comes in to play as far as Mormons here are concerned; it's all about the polygamy. The only thing Nora's elderly father hates as much as the Mormons, it seems, is America because that's where these people come from. Just the seeing "Utah" on a pamphlet is enough to drive dad into a frenzy. I bet he's just jealous of all the tail those guys are getting.

The one thing that keeps Trapped by the Mormons from going full-scale camp is Evelyn Brent's portrayal of Nora. While Louis Willoughby (Isoldi Keene) and Cecil Morton York (Nora's father) compete in a scenery-chewing contest as if their union memberships depended on it, Brent keeps an even keel throughout. It's odd she rarely broke out of B-movies like Symphony of Living  (Interference being an exception). Quite a comedown for the attractive, American-born Brent, who had great success in classy British stage productions during the 1920s. Her character might have been trapped by the Mormons, but Brent herself was trapped by the studios.

BONUS POINTS: I recognized Olaf Hytten, one of the Elders, from his appearances in the 1940s Sherlock Holmes movies. God, how did I ever get laid?

THE INFORMER (1929): Long overshadowed by John Ford's 1935 adaptation of the novel, the original UK production of The Informer is interesting in  its own way. Gypo Nolan, a dimwit former member of the local Communist Party, turns in a comrade for the reward money so he and his hooker honey can sail to America. But being a dimwit, he starts flashing the cash at the local pub, leading folks to figure out what happened, and party officials putting him on "trial" 

Perhaps wanting to make Gypo even less sympathetic, the British version has him rat out his comrade out of jealousy over Katie, the woman they both love. In order to ease his guilt, Gypo eventually gives the reward money to a needy young woman whom Katie mistakenly believes he was carrying on with, leading her to inform on him to the Commies. While Ford's adaptation switches the Commies to the IRA, these changes in the original make for a more interesting story, as they add extra layers of drama and irony overall. The recently-restored DVD of The Informer, then, is well-worth a viewing.

The silent version, that is. Following its production, a sound version was prepared, dubbing dialogue in some scenes while reshooting others. This where the problem starts. Lars Hanson (Gypo) was Swedish, and Lya De Putti (Katie) was Italian, and needed other people to dub in their voices after the fact and, in at least one scene, off-camera while the stars very carefully mouthed their slowly spoken dialogue. Not only is it clunky, it's incredibly distracting, as Katie now has a cockney accent, and Gypo sounds like a talking gorilla. In fact, nobody has an Irish accent in The Informer. Watch the silent version of The Informer with its new score, followed by the part-talkie, and you'll understand why many movie critics thought sound was a bad idea.

BONUS POINTS: In its favor, the sound version recorded with the RCA Photophone process has a pre-credit overture to set the mood. Things like that are important to me, dammit. 

SHAKEDOWN (1950): The cliche of the on-the-spot, lightly unscrupulous but loveable newspaper photographer from the '30s and '40s gets a literal beating in Shakedown. Freelance shutterbug Jack Early turns his newfound gig at a San Francisco broadsheet into a moneymaking machine. First by taking shock, tabloidish photos, then playing criminal kingpins Nick Palmer and Harry Colton against each other for cash. Apparently deciding this isn't dangerous enough, Jack sneaks Harry and his gang into a party with a bunch of society swells so they can rob the joint. But this is one job that won't develop as well as his photos.

It isn't often that you're rooting for the criminals, but you can't help it in Shakedown. Howard Duff makes Jack Early even more of a sociopath than the gangsters. The way Hollywood vet Brian Donlevy plays Nick, I'd have worked for him on the side and thank him profusely. Lawrence Tierney gives Harry a sinister edge, of course, but he won't give you any trouble if you don't mess with him. Now starting the downslope of his career -- he's fourth billed -- Tierney is unusually lowkey in Shakedown, making him sound almost exactly like Humphrey Bogart.

But by the end of the first reel, it's Howard Duff you loathe. He tells a drowning victim and a jumper to pose before he snaps their photos. He breaks up the engagement of photo editor Ellen Bennet (Peggy Dow) before putting the unwanted moves on Nick's wife Nita (Anne Vernon). His own editor (the underrated Bruce Bennett) hates him. In the abyss of Jack's miserable life, he watches Harry hotwiring Nick's car to blow up when he turns the ignition -- and lets it happen in order to get the shot and Nick's wife! You know a guy is despicable when you cheer as Lawrence Tierney slaps him hard on the face and, at the end, gives him what he's been asking for all along. A fast-paced drama with flashes of very dark humor, Shakedown will shake you up.

BONUS POINTS: Still in his bit part days, Rock Hudson has one line of dialogue as a nightclub doorman. 

LA VERITE SUR BEBE DONGE (1952): Sometimes it takes a while to rethink my initial take on a movie. In the case of the French production La Verite Sur Bebe Donge, it was the (over)night after seeing it. Certain images and plot twists came back to me in ways I hadn't appreciated the first time. By the time I had fallen back to sleep, it had gone from being one of those, you know, French movies where philosophical musings pass for small talk and world weariness is the default mood for the lead characters to a fascinating study of a marriage that never should have happened, with both sides to blame.

Director Henri Decoin, a fan of American movies, incorporates Hollywood noir touches throughout the film as we watch Francois Donge (Jean Gabin) dying in a hospital after being poisoned by his wife Bebe (Danielle Darrieux). Through flashbacks, we see how they got to this point -- a combination of Francois' infidelity and Bebe's blind spots concerning both his and her poor choices. (In an amusing moment, they even whisper their doubts to each other during the marriage ceremony). Going back and forth in time, we see, too, that everyone in the couple's orbit, from their family to friends, the doctor, and even a judge knows about the poisoning and can do nothing about it as long as Francois refuses to press charges. Only if he dies can the police move in.

Jean Gabin has the reputation as being one of the great French movie actors of his time, but it's Danielle Darrieux who knocked me out as the killer wife. Initially madly in love with Francois, her innocence gives way to an ice-cold heart. Such is her steely gaze and hardened exterior that Darrieux at times looks like a different woman altogether. As good a director as Decoin is, much of the credit to this transformation has to go to Darrieux herself. 

An American studio like RKO could have made La Verite Sur Bebe Donge with little difference other than a snappier pace than its 113 minutes, but it's fascinating to see a French noir with an American look. As with plenty of films francais, an anti-snob like me has to roll with La Verite Sur Bebe Donge on its own terms if they're to find any enjoyment in it. Fortunately, there's enough Hollywood in the trimmings to have made it an interesting watch. Even if I only realized it at 2:30 in the morning.

BONUS POINTS: Henri Decoin and screen writer Maurice Auberge pull a fast one by setting up Bebe's first scene to be one thing only turning out to be another at the climax. You'll understand when you see it.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 57

Three movies made during the changeover from silent to sound, and one from a decade later featuring what was briefly Paramount's B-movie stock company.

THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928): There's nothing about The Docks of New York promising greatness. A ship's stoker saves a hooker who tried to drown herself in the East River. They go to a dive bar, get married, spend the night the together before he ships off the following day. He has a change of heart and swims back to land, where he learns she's in night court for a crime he committed. He confesses, gets sentenced to 60 days. The hooker promises to wait for him.  

Would you watch such a movie? Well, maybe you should, just to see how important a great director can be. For Josef von Sternberg elevates a cliched tale into something both human and humane. The first reel or two feature situations and characters you've seen in countless old movies, particularly silents like this. Yet von Sternberg molds it all into something that you gradually come to understand and care about. Sure, George Bancroft (the stoker) is rough around the edges -- drinking beer straight out of a keg -- and Betty Compson (the hooker) has been beat around by life pretty badly. Yet each brings out something positive in the other. For Bancroft, it means a real love he's never felt for any woman. For Compson, it's a belief that it's possible to find a man who cares about her.

Von Sternberg transforms these battered people into a couple you root for even in their tawdry surroundings; it's a master class for anyone who wants to learn what an "actor's director" is. Watch the dozens of extras in the bar -- each one appears to have gotten personal instruction from von Sternberg; their action never looks forced or phony. (One funny moment comes when Bickford and Compson converse in a corner, completely ignoring a rowdy fight going on in a mirror's reflection above them.) 

There's more, much more, in The Docks of New York than is covered here, from the genuine filth covering the stokers, to how Betty Compson begins rock hard and slowly softens into the kind of woman her character probably dreamed of becoming when growing up. If von Sternberg's first movie, Salvation Hunters, was the work of a self-styled artiste trying too hard to say something important, The Docks of New York is a masterpiece of an unexpectedly mature drama from a bold, thoughtful director. Spoiler alert: the happy ending feels neither forced nor tacked on. 

BONUS POINTS: Gustav von Seyffertitz (born in 1862!) steals his five-minute scene as "Hymn-Book Harry", the priest who reluctantly marries the wayward couple in the dive bar. With a mere look in his eyes, von Seyffertitz reminds all the barflies (and us) of the solemnity of the moment. Brilliant stuff.

INTERFERENCE (1928): As you could guess from the advert on the right, Paramount's first talking feature Interference has nothing to do with football. It is, rather, a melodrama of the British upper-class involving hidden identity, divorce, blackmail, and murder. Kind of like the royal family if you dig hard enough. 

While Interference possesses many of the drawbacks prevalent during the early days of sound, its story is actually quite involving. Phillip Voaze has a chance meeting with first wife Deborah Kane a decade after his disappearance in World War I. In need of a few shillings, Deborah hatches a blackmailing scheme involving letters written to Voaze years earlier from his former sidepiece Faith. Without knowing what the others are doing, Voaze, Faith, and Faith's current husband Sir John Marlay each visit Deborah. One of them would like to kill her, another really does, while the third is arrested for it. All this hubbub for a few old "Oh baby, what you do to me" mash notes! People sure were touchy in 1928.

There are coincidences galore throughout Interference, like Voaze just happening to choose Marlay as a doctor, but that's to be expected in any movie of this type. Evelyn Brent and Doris Kenyon (as Deborah and Faith respectively) get the lion's share of histrionics. Clive Brook, the kind of distinguished Brit that talkies were created for, is agreeably lowkey as the stiff upper-lipped Sir John, the doctor whose prescription for blackmail is a dose of lethal threats. 

But it's William Powell, as the sickly Voaze, who steals Interference. His clipped, eloquent delivery, heard onscreen for the first time, must have convinced the boys at Paramount's front office that he was far more suited to leading roles than his often-villainous supporting parts in silents. No surprise that his next movie, a silent titled The Canary Murder Case, was immediately reshot with sound. Now that kind of studio interference makes sense.

BONUS POINTS: One credit reads "Dialogue Arranged by Ernest Pascal", as if the guy cut up the script, tossed the shreds up in the air, and glued them together at random like William Burroughs. Another credit, "Based on a Lothar Mendes Production", refers to Mendes' direction of the silent version of Interference, which Roy J. Pomeroy followed for his direction of the talkie version, which was shot simultaneously. As with The Canary Murder Case, those were the days when studios could pay actors once for making a movie twice.

THE SQUALL (1929): The funniest feature of 1929 must have been The Squall. And making it even more of a hoot is that it's a drama. Ergo, if you ever want to convince your friends that early talkies get a bad rap, this is not the movie to show them. 

In a small Hungarian village, middle-aged couple hire a young Gypsy woman named Nubi as their housekeeper. She shows her gratitude by seducing every male in the household and turning all the women against one another. Money goes missing, the maid and gardener quit, Paul breaks up with his fiancée Irma, fights break out -- and Nubi the housekeeper doesn't even sweep the floor! 

Absolutely nothing else happens in The Squall, other than the audience wondering why Nubi wasn't fired after her first day on the job. As for the acting -- hoo boy. Myrna Loy -- still stuck in "exotic" roles -- is Nubi. She's supposed to be sexy but appears to be a thousand kernels short of a cob. Too, Nubi (or, rather, Loy) is stuck with 90 minutes' worth of dialogue along the lines of "Nubi not happy!" or "Nubi like diamonds!" Loretta Young, as Irma, sounds exactly what she was in 1929: a 16 year-old girl badly reciting lines for the first time. Yet nobody beats Caroll Nye as Peter, emoting his already purple dialogue to the point where his mouth probably tasted like grapes. As for the direction, Alexander Korda makes sure to keep The Squall at a dead snail's pace. 

Somehow, Loy, Young, and Korda eventually proved to be far better than The Squall would have you believe. In later years they all probably shook their heads just hearing the word "squall" in weather forecasts. As for the rest of us... the forecast for watching The Squall is a 100% chance of disbelief mixed with unceasing laughter.

BONUS POINTS: The miniature horse & wagons standing in for the travelling Gypsy camp manage to be laughable and utterly charming all at once. In fact, they give a better performance than any human in the picture.

KING OF CHINATOWN (1939): 

Paramount must have been pretty pleased with the previous year's Dangerous to Know, because they rounded up much of the same cast for this well-made crime caper. Give the studio credit, too, for trying to revive Anna May Wong's sputtering career even in B-pictures like these. 

If there's a problem for fans of top-billed Wong, it's that her character, surgeon Dr. Mary Ling, is often overshadowed by Frank Baturin, the white leader of a Chinatown protection racket, who was shot by his underling Mike Gordon on orders of the gang's accountant (nicknamed The Professor). After performing life-saving surgery on Baturin, Dr. Ling becomes his temporary live-in caregiver. As Gordon and The Professor take over the racket, Baturin decides to break up his criminal band, furthering the accountant's desire to get him out of the way once and for all. Moral: always be good to your money manager.

King of Chinatown is unique in that the sex and race of Wong's character are never a subject for conversation or contention -- she is simply a brilliant surgeon, period. But unwilling to leave well enough alone, Paramount cast white actor Sidney Toler as her Chinese father because... well, he was currently playing Charlie Chan over at Fox! And why is Armenian-American Akim Tamiroff using an Italian accent when playing a character with the Ukrainian name of Maturin? Oh heck, let's continue with busy second-rate dialect actor J. Carroll Naish using an Irish accent as The Professor for no reason other than Chinese and Italian were already taken. Mexican-born Anthony Quinn, as the red-blooded American gunsel Gordon, already lost his accent, so he gets a pass.

All this confusion helps to make King of Chinatown an even more fun 56 minutes than it already it is. And despite the odd casting (and accent) choices throughout, Anna May Wong was probably grateful for the chance to prove she could do something other than the usual Dragon Lady routine. But I still wonder how she felt about a white guy playing her Chinese father. 

BONUS POINTS: Super-annoying actor Roscoe Karns disappears from King of Chinatown before the end of the second reel, as if director Nick Grinde realized they didn't need an ambulance driver character ripped-off from MGM's Dr. Kildare movies.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "SYMPHONY OF LIVING" (1935)

Some movies tug at your heartstrings. Symphony of Living yanks at them like the Minnesota Vikings and the San Diego Chargers playing tug-of-war. Why make a movie that simply touches you when it can bash you over the head with every conceivable melodramatic plot device? If nothing else, Symphony of Living just might be, if not the birth of a bushel of cinematic cliches, at least the distillation of them.

This is how every middle class
family in New York dresses at home.

Violinist Adolph Greig lives with his two layabout adult children, Pamela and Richard, who do nothing but complain that he's not bringing home enough money. Pretty soon, he's not bringing home any, having permanently damaged his hand when accidentally pushed into a window (it happens all the time to old violinists). Richard sees this as the perfect opportunity to shove off, while Pamela has already eloped with her rich, older boyfriend, leaving their father alone with his severed tendons and a bottle of Schnapps.

Time goes by. So disgusted is Pamela by the memory of her father's career, she refuses to allow her music-loving son Carl to continue with his violin lessons, driving her husband to pay her $75,000 to get lost in exchange for custody of the kid. (This being the middle of the Depression, most people would've said, "Where do I sign?") Meanwhile, Adolph becomes a music teacher, and... oh, hell, I don't have to tell you what happens next and next and next, do I? I mean, I figured it out by the end of the second reel.

Pamela's son wants to know why she
insists on dressing like Nefertiti.

Just to make sure we know whose side we're supposed to be on, the characters have been written with all the nuance of a short-circuited pile-driver. Adolph isn't just a nice man -- he makes St. Augustine look like Ted Kaczynski. Pamela and Richard aren't just ungrateful -- they're a full-fledged bitch and larcenist-in-waiting respectively. And did I say they were adult children? Make that middle-aged. Evelyn Brent, who plays Pamela, was 36 at the time of making Symphony of Living. Sheesh, lady, you don't like living with your old man, move out! Richard, meanwhile, hangs around the house all day in three-piece suits. Well, if you're going to do nothing, you might as well look good not doing it.

You want nasty? It isn't enough that Pamela asks her father to turn off his classical records; she has to sneer, "Muzzle that dirge, will ya?" When Richard, now a full-fledged crook, shows up at his father's music studio after 13 years, his first words are, "Nice little layout you got here" like an underworld enforcer. (He describes himself as "kind of a promoter," code for "crook.") One line of dialogue may be the first example of a particular kind of wisecrack that became de rigueur among jokesters several decades later. Noting the contempt he and Pamela have for Adolph, Richard scoffs, "Nice pleasant little family this is -- NOT!" Had he been born in another time, he'd have been a writer for Friends.

Those kids are actually
40 years old.

Like a lot of low-budget indies of the '30s, Symphony of Living plays fast and loose with its time frame. While the cars, fashion and even radio are vintage 1935, ten minutes into the movie we learn that it's supposed to be 1922. Although it seems like only a few months pass before Adolph becomes a music teacher, it's actually been eight years... until somebody says ten years... before reverting to eight again. Then I think a few more years pass after that, but it's difficult to say, especially when the main characters look the same throughout. Forget about teaching music, Adolph should bottle what ever it is that keeps these people from aging.

So invincible, it went out of
business a year later.

What cut-rate high class
looks like.

Symphony of Living is a poverty-row double-header, being an Invincible Picture released by the Chesterfield Motion Picture Corporation (no relation to the cigarette). The New York-based studios give Symphony of Living a low-rent, if ultimately artificial, feel. Adolph and his kids live at 170 W. 210 St., which, while referred to as "uptown," you'll never find on any map of Manhattan. His studio's address is 232 Christopher St. -- which would put it in the middle of the Hudson River. He performs at the Cosmopolitan Concert Hall, located in real life on the Invincible Pictures' soundstage. Pamela's 10 year-old son, however, has a genuine New York accent, despite being raised by parents with impeccable diction. Watch Sweet Smell of Success if you want authenticity.

The big draw here, if you can call it that, is Al Shean as Adolph Greig. Unknown today by anybody except kooks like me, Shean was, from 1912 to 1925, one-half of Gallagher & Shean, one of the most popular stage acts of their time. His portrayal of Greig, a

Al Shean refuses to allow his
grandson steal the spotlight
 like his damn nephews.

washed-up musician who guides his grandson to greatness, might have hit home just a little too hard. In real life, Shean was the uncle of a bunch of poor, rowdy siblings who entered show business when they saw how much dough he was raking in. Many years later, those same kids were conquering Broadway as the Four Marx Brothers -- just as Uncle Al's career was going into eclipse. (Look closely at Shean in Symphony of Living and you can see a resemblance to Harpo.) 

Four posters and ten lobby cards were
 created for the movie --
probably three and nine more
than were used.

Perhaps thinking he was still doing 1920s comedy shtick, Shean insists on speaking with an exaggerated accent (German? Viennese? Ottoman?) that positively screams old-hat vaudeville. This would be fine if Symphony of Living wasn't so intent on being a melodramatic tearjerker that melodramatically jerks your tears. In other words, a tearjerking melodrama.


I couldn't find any reviews of Symphony of Living from its original release, which isn't surprising. Mawkish pieces of entertainment like this were made for the masses who wanted a good, cheap cry, not the elites over at the Times. Maybe that was good enough for Al Shean, now that his salad days had wilted. But he must have wondered, after toiling away at the bargain-basement Invincible Pictures, how his nephews wound up making the classy A Night at the Opera at M-G-M the same year. Symphony of Just Existing would be closer to the mark.

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