THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 51

 The three features discussed here are admittedly more interesting as artifacts rather than straightforward entertainment, while the 30-minute short is either remarkably intellectual or a bunch of hooey. Or both.

THE VALIANT (1929): A young woman named Mary visits a convicted murderer in prison, believing that he is her long-lost brother James. The prisoner denies the accusation but says they served together in the Canadian army during World War I, and assures her James died a hero. Mary leaves just before the prisoner keeps his date with the hot squat, not realizing he really was you know who. And that's all, folks.

Well, not quite all. Everything about The Valiant is a little odd -- it feels like a short expanded to one hour. And for good reason, seeing that it's based on a one-act play. Only in opening it up for the movies, its makers added what amounts to a 30-minute prologue -- the killer's confession to the cops, and his elderly mom and younger sister back home in Ohio gradually being convinced of the killer's real identity. Further mucking up things, The Valiant's corny opening theme music played on a silent movie organ, flowery intertitles setting each scene, and even the actors' make-up make me think it was sitting on the shelf a year before its release. (A 1928 calendar at the police station is a giveaway.) 

While The Valiant  received 

positive reviews in its day, the only thing of interest now is that it marks the movie debut of Paul Muni, one of the most acclaimed stage actors of his time. As usual with Muni, you get an idea what the big deal about him was on Broadway, while still realizing the guy never figured out how to act for movies. (Unlike his later scenery-chewing antics, here he's damn near comatose.) Strictly for completists, The Valiant's second half at least gives an idea what a night at an honest-to-gosh Broadway show was like almost a century ago. 

BONUS POINTS: Early on, a stereotypical Irish policeman warns a priest, "You want to watch out for the cop on the next corner. He's not one of us!" Gee, I wonder what that could mean.

MADAM SATAN (1930): If you want to see a musical comedy-drama-romantic farce-aerial spectacle directed by Cecil B. DeMille, you're in luck! But be warned: C.B. doesn't have the touch for satiric, proto-screwball comedy.  As for the score, the forgettable songs range from not-so hot jazz to shrill operetta (the latter typical of early movie musicals). 

So what's all the hubbub about Madam Satan being a pre-code classic? It all comes down its legendary second half, consisting of a masquerade party aboard a zeppelin tethered to a tower in what appears to be New Jersey. Starting with the bizarre, art deco "Ballet Mechanique", the festivities devolve into women auctioned off to the highest bidder, guests getting sloshed on illegal liquor, and the leading man's wife and sidepiece vying to see which one will eventually go home with him. But this being a DeMille picture, Madam Satan wouldn't be complete without a humdinger of a climax, as the zeppelin breaks loose from its mooring during a violent thunderstorm and gradually falls apart thousands of feet in the air, sending its passengers into a Titanic-style panic. 

As for the first half, only the risque bedroom scene featuring stars Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young gets laughs, even as it lacks the lightning-fast pacing these things require. If the antics aboard the zeppelin sound interesting, go here, enlarge the screen and fast forward to 51:00. I can honestly say you've never seen anything like it.

BONUS POINTS: Reginald Denny, the philandering husband, played King Boris on two episodes of Batman a year before his death. 

FOLLOW THRU (1930): Okay, so maybe a semi-operetta climaxing with an airship disaster is too blase for your tastes. Then you're just the right person for Follow Thru -- the only musical about woman's golf in two-strip Technicolor you'll ever see (or avoid). 

Expectant father "Mac" Moore has bought a set of golf clubs for what he hopes will be his son-to-be. When learning his wife has given birth to a daughter, Mac decides the girl will break into the male-dominant sport. Jump cut a couple of decades. Lora Moore (Nancy Carroll) is on her way to becoming a pro golfer. But upon losing a tournament to the snooty Ruth Van Horn (Thelma Todd), Lora is forced to get lessons from instructor Jerry Downes (Charles "Buddy" Rogers). Before you can say "Fore", Lora finds herself competing with every woman at the country club for Jerry's affections. In other words, Follow Thru reneges on its original proto-feminist concept in favor of "a jane isn't complete without a man". Sounds par for the course, but at least Lora gets a mulligan to win Jerry's heart. 

Even for this gotta-see-every-early-talkie guy, Follow Thru was a chore, forcing me to focus on its historical "importance". First, I got to see the dishy Thelma Todd in color. Second, it features two supporting actors from its original stage cast, Zelma O'Neil (sort of a young Martha Raye, and that's no compliment) and Jack Haley (the Tin Man in that Oz movie), both of whom are still playing to the back row of a Broadway theater. BUT... Haley's goofy shtick of going into a seizure whenever he's in the company of a pretty woman had me laughing out loud each time, which means no one else will find it funny. Otherwise, Follow Thru never makes it to the majors due to its handicap of a bad script, likely driving contemporary audiences to the 19th hole.

BONUS POINTS: As with many stage-to-screen musicals of the time, Follow Thru features some new songs written for the movie. One of them, "Button Up Your Overcoat", became more popular than one of the original love songs bleated repeatedly throughout the movie.

TRUTH AND ILLUSION: AN INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS (1964): I find that any movie with a title like that to be an invitation to a deep nap. Truth and Illusion is an exception. First, it's only a half hour. Second, it appears to have been shot on 16mm Kodacolor film, which makes it resemble a home movie from six decades ago. Third, it was written, produced, filmed, narrated and directed by King Vidor (under the nom-de-film Nicholas Rodiv), acclaimed for legendary movies including The Big Parade, Hallelujah, Our Daily Bread, and The Crowd. On the other hand, he also directed The Fountainhead and Duel in the Sun, which shouldn't stop you from seeking out the others I mentioned.

By the time Vidor made Truth and Illusion, five years had passed since his final feature Solomon and Sheba. Now 70 years old, perhaps the semi-retired moviemaker had become interested in things greater than movies (as if that even exists). Sounding very much like an aging college professor, Vidor clearly explains to even numbskulls like me the difference between truth and illusion, using the concepts of sunrise and sunrise, and even the very movie you're watching. 

By the end of Truth and Illusion, Vidor will have you questioning everything you've ever read, listened to, or were taught. When he advises, "The world was formed by each one of us in his own mind", you know his former boss Leo B. Mayer wouldn't have known what the hell he was talking about. You tell the guy who championed the wholesome, easy-to-digest Andy Hardy pictures that a guitar doesn't make a sound unless somebody is around to hear it and see what he says. Truth and Illusion is available on YouTube if you want to go down the metaphysical rabbit hole with the director of Stella Dallas as your guide.

BONUS POINTS: King Vidor was also the uncredited director of the black & white Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz, which I nominate as the average child's first metaphysical experience. 

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "BORDERTOWN" (1934)

As with I Confess! and one or two other movies, Bordertown on its face shouldn't be a subject of this blog. Studio production, A-list stars, serious theme -- well, maybe a crackpot like me should take it apart, if only to show how a 1934 drama made with the best intentions can look mighty illiberal today. Because what starts out as poor boy makes good through hard work is really stay in your place poor boy -- because poor boy is Mexican American.

After being disbarred, lawyer Johnny Ramirez hoofs it down to Mexico with the intention of acquiring money -- and the power that comes with it. Rising from bouncer to co-owner, with Charlie Roark, of a gambling joint, he fends off the affection of Charlie's wife, Marie, while falling for Dale Elwell, the woman his client was suing at the time of his disbarment.

As you can tell by their names, the women in this triangle are about as Mexican as Barry Fitzgerald. And two decades before I Love Lucy, the idea of a Latino man being coupled with one white woman, let alone two, was just not accepted in polite (i.e., racist) society. Even if the Latino man is, in reality, Paul Muni, a white Austro-Hungarian-born actor who got his start in Yiddish theater. In 1934, you had to pretend to be Latino to get near an Anglo woman if you were doing anything other than serving her a drink.

Another woman who hasn't learned that
insanity isn't a turn-on for most guys.

You also had to give the white women unacceptable reasons for showing interest in a -- gasp -- Mexican. For Dale Ewell, it's just a wild fling with someone who, financially, has now entered her league, but is otherwise what was referred to as "the other". 

Marie Roark's excuse is more direct: she's crazy enough to murder her husband -- by making it look like he fell asleep in the garage with the engine running -- in order to make herself that much more available to Johnny. She even gives him money to open his own 5-star casino. I'm sorry to say no woman has gone to that much trouble for me.

When her little scheme still doesn't win Johnny's corazon, Marie tells the police that he confessed to killing Charlie. And even in Mexico, the word of an obviously crazy white woman is enough to bring him to trial. It's only when Marie is dragged out of the courtroom after babbling incoherently on the stand is it clear to all that Johnny's been framed. And even then, he has to tell his lawyer to demand that the trial be dismissed on grounds of Marie's insanity. Maybe the mouthpiece should have gone to Johnny's law school.

The condescending bitch or the crazy lady: which to choose?

With Marie out of the way, Johnny drives to L.A. in his new car to propose to Dale Ewell. Her response is stunned laughter. Sure, he was good enough to screw -- but marry? "There's such a thing as equality," she reminds him -- meaning he's not her equal. Running out of his car, Dale heads straight into traffic and gets what's coming to her, all over the pavement. Johnny just cannot get a break.

So there's nothing more Johnny can do than sell his casino, donate the proceeds to fund an endowment for future lawyers, and return to his poor Los Angeles neighborhood -- and, more importantly, his mother and his church, where he promises the padre that he's back "where I belong: with my people."

They even made his face whiter than Bette's.

No more white folks for me! Barrio, here I come! Warner Brothers probably thought it was a tragic yet necessary message. Look what good trying to join white society did Johnny: one dead business partner, one dead woman, and another woman headed for the madhouse. And did I say they were white?

Over and over, we're told that Johnny just isn't couth. Hell, he was disbarred for socking a white lawyer in the jaw during a trial. Even Dale Ewell's nickname for Johnny is "Savage." In fact, every white woman in Borderline is interested in him because he looks like a brute due to his skin color. Maybe it's a good thing they hired Paul Muni to play Johnny in tanface, because I'm not sure any Latino actor could have gotten behind Bordertown's message, even in 1934.

The Warners publicity department probably was a little nervous regarding Bordertown's promotion. The image atop the page features Muni in a sombrero, which he never wears in the movie. In the poster on the left, the sombrero has been ditched for a white tux, with the sideburns the only clue that Muni might be one of those people.

I would love a headshot like this.

As with Al Pacino in Scarface and Carlito's Way, Muni's accent sounds acceptable until he's paired with a real Latino; then you immediately discover the artifice. In fact, he sounds like Tony Camonte, his Italian character in the original Scarface from two years earlier -- which is to say, not Italian. Or Mexican, either. In fact, I still can't figure out what accent he's doing.

Muni was still considered ***A GREAT ACTOR!*** at the time of his death in 1967, even though he made his final movie almost a decade earlier. So it's  something of a surprise that most of his performances are delivered with a slice of ham -- or, to be fair, a dose of theatricality. Like his Warners colleague George Arliss (with whom, early on, he shared the honorific "Mr." in movie credits), Muni was considered one of the premiere stage actors of his time. Arliss, however, learned to act for the movies while Muni never quite shook his stage training. While he's often entertaining, He appears to be telling us, Look at me! Now this is acting!

Paul Muni meets his match twice over.

In Bordertown, though, Muni goes toe to toe with Bette Davis. Eyes popping out like golf balls, brandishing a sick smile that rivals that of Charles Manson's groupies, speaking her lines as if she's just downed a couple tablets of speed, Davis chews the scenery as if she hadn't eaten in weeks. And as Charlie Roark, Eugene Pallette's steals every scene from Muni by notching up his already scratchy bullfrog voice enough to make it sound like he's snacking on barbed wire between takes.

Only Margaret Lindsay, playing the allegedly classy Dale Ewell, keeps it lowkey throughout -- that is, until informing Johnny that he isn't her type -- then she goes haywire and walks in front of a speeding car. It's interesting to speculate if audiences at the time thought it a better fate than being married to a Mexican. Thank God the U.S.A. has evolved from those pre-enlightened times, right? Right?!

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