THE EARLY SHOW

Good morning, good morning, good
morning, ugh.

 Thanks to my odd sleep cycle, lately I've been waking up as early as 4:30 a.m. Instead of wasting the pre-dawn hours on silly stuff like meditation or exercise, it's given me the chance to do something far more important: watch obscure movies and old TV shows.

Not just any obscure movies and TV shows, but those that nobody in their right mind (like my wife) would watch at any hour. That's the rebel in me. 

None of these are worth an individual write-up, but all deserve a mention, although not necessarily for good reasons. In alphabetical order:

BABO 73 (1964): Before Robert Downey, Jr., there was Robert Downey, Sr. Unlike his celebrated son, Downey pere was the writer/director of underground movies, a phrase that's just asking for trouble. His first, Babo 73, features all the traits of that genre: post-synched sound, non-linear storyline, sloppy camerawork, and alleged subversive humor, like an angry priest sexually assaulting a hitchhiker -- fortunately, offscreen.

Taylor Mead, not yet the Grady Sutton of Andy Warhol movies, plays President Sandy Studsbury. There's also a character named Chester Kittylitter. It's never a good sign when goofy names substitute for real jokes.

The "plot" appears to be about all the president's men creating a political doctrine for their boss. Much of the action takes place on a beach. Someone gets thrown in the water, but I forget who or why. 

That's all I can tell you; although Babo 73 is only an hour long, I pulled the plug after 30 minutes. Maybe you can tell me how it ends.

BONUS POINTS: Proving that just because it's on TCM doesn't mean it's worth watching.

BIG HOUSE, U.S.A. (1955): Ahh, this is more like it! Sociopath Ralph Meeker kidnaps a lost boy and holds him for ransom. When the kid accidentally dies, Meeker dumps the body down a canyon. Well, that wasn't part of the plan.

The police can't pin the kidnapping on him, so they throw him in the slammer for extortion. The leader of the big house's biggest gang hatches a big breakout, forcing Meeker to join them in recovering the hidden ransom money. Which is big.

You can smell the Dragnet influence throughout Big House, U.S.A., with an FBI agent's flat narration and location photography (Colorado instead of California). Ralph Meeker was an inspired choice to play the kidnapper, since his initially friendly good looks soon give way to his dead-behind-the-eyes life choices.

But the real stars are (left to right) Charles Bronson, William Talman, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Broderick Crawford -- without doubt the four ugliest actors ever to appear together in one movie.

It's awe-inspiring how there was a time Hollywood actually wanted guys with muggs like these to step in front of a camera; they're like Halloween masks come to life. Bronson, the youngest of the four and the only one in good physical shape, is shirtless 90% of the time. Women who were dragged to Big House, U.S.A. by their husbands or boyfriends needed something to look at. 

BONUS POINTS: An unexpectedly gruesome moment involving a blowtorch and a dead body. 

BROADWAY TO HOLLYWOOD (1933): No cliche goes untouched in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's obscure drama of three generations of a family vaudeville act. Jealousy, booze, success, failures, all ending with the grandson filming a dance number on a soundstage while grandpa dies on the sidelines. If only showbiz were really this exciting.

Extant prints of Broadway to Hollywood don't accurately represent its original release, which featured at least one Technicolor production number from the studio's unfinished 1929 musical-comedy revue The March of Time. The sequences remain, but in black and white. (M-G-M used its releases, mainly shorts, as dumping grounds for The March of Time outtakes for years.) 

Broadway to Hollywood is a wanna-be epic that crams in as many Metro contract players as possible for a scene or two before disappearing. (Jimmy Durante is onscreen for all of one minute!) As if the studio demanded they earn their salary that day, Moe and Curly of the Three Stooges briefly appear as clowns. 

Fully made-up and speaking in high voices with German accents, the Brothers Howard are initially difficult to tell apart. In fact, if you weren't already aware they were in it, you likely wouldn't even know it was them. They probably shot their scene in about an hour before returning to the loving slaps of Ted Healy. The ghost of Louis B. Mayer would be appalled that it's now Broadway to Hollywood's most -- make that only -- interesting scene.

BONUS POINTS: Unintended laughs when actors are filmed tapdancing in such a way that you know their feet belong to somebody else.

CELL 2455, DEATH ROW (1955): The best movie of the bunch, Cell 2455, Death Row is based on the autobiography of career criminal Caryl Chessman. Surprisingly lowkey, the movie begins with Chessman (renamed for reasons unknown as Whit Whittier) looking back on his life from prison as he awaits execution. 

His perfect childhood is ruined by a car accident that leaves his mother a cripple, gradually sending him on a criminal trajectory. In and out of prison, his crimes escalate until arrested for sexual assault and kidnapping -- a capital crime in California -- despite his victims not being able to agree on a description of their abductor. Chessman (or Whittier) uses his time on death row to study law, and winds up postponing his execution several times. 

The most impressive thing about Cell 2455, Death Row is its lack of grimy exploitation. While the movie never absolves Chessman of his crimes, it shows how literally a wrong turn can lead a good kid to a bad life. Willam Campbell gives Chessman just enough depth to make you understand why he became the cause du jour for many celebrities, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Steve Allen (shows you what being a good writer will do for a criminal). In real life, Chessman's luck ran out in 1960 when he finally kept his date with the hot squat. 

BONUS POINTS: A pre-Ben Casey Vince Edwards shows up in the final third as Chessman's wingman -- the only actor who looks familiar. That is, if you're my age. 

THE COMEDY HOUR (1951): Better known as The Colgate Comedy Hour, this early TV series reverted to a more generic title every fourth week when saddled with another sponsor. This particular episode, subtitled "Michael Todd's Revue", is hosted by Broadway legend Bobby Clark.

"Legend", that is, if you're over 100 years old. Otherwise, his surviving movie and TV appearances will either baffle or bug you, Clark being one of those stage actors who didn't translate to the screen very well.

Puffing a cigar, wearing his trademark painted-on glasses, outsized overcoat, and porkpie hat, Bobby Clark is a comedic creature from a different age. His motto seems to be, If it was funny once, it's funny forever. He was wrong.

Between Clark's wKoheezy jokes and the show's hoary musical numbers, this Comedy Hour doesn't seem like it will live up to its title -- except for two sets of guests. 

Australian siblings The Maxwells are a bizarre sloth-like duo wearing too-small suits and the expressions of clinical morons, whose act initially seems to consist solely of moving a pile of crates around as if drugged. The routine, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, starts to pay off when it turns into an unexpected acrobatic bit, which, thanks to them appearing under the influence of fentanyl, makes it look even more dangerous than it already is. Genuinely entertaining stuff.

The Comedy Hour's other comedy act is Willie, West and McGinty, whose career, going back to -- get this -- 1900, consisted of one, count 'em, one routine: three idiots trying to build a house. 

While certain details were added and subtracted over the years, the bit is essentially unchanged from the one audiences saw a half-century earlier. Slips, pratfalls, and Rube Goldberg-style gags are performed with atomic-clock perfection, with dialogue consisting of little more than the occasional "Hey!" Having done absolutely nothing else over the decades, they probably could have performed it blindfolded in a dark room. I think they're hilarious.

And if you're wondering how these guys were still able to pull it off when they started this act in the 19th century, that's easily explained. As each of them retired or died, they were replaced -- two of them by their sons. Over time, they went through seven members. So, the Willie, West & McGinty we see here aren't the same ones their original audiences saw, or who appeared in their only starring movie short, Plastered, in 1930. It's like how Saturday Night Live replaces its cast from time to time, until it's completely different. Just not as funny as these guys, who finally rang down the curtain around 1960. 

BONUS POINTS: Knowing that with some people, if it's funny once, it really is funny forever.

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Moe and Curly's scene from Broadway to Hollywood: