THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 7

"Early" can be applied to any time of day -- morning, afternoon, or before my wife returns from her gym class. So why change the name of these entries when it works so well? Besides, you're not paying for perfection, are you? You're not paying anything at all!  So pour yourself a drink and behold these four fine examples of entertainment that will never appear on any "Top 100 Greatest" but maybe should be.

THE MIRACLE MAN (1932): Doc Madison, the leader of a gang of con artists,

takes it on the lam after believing he's killed a man in a fight. He winds up in the small town of Meadville, when he learns of a local faith healer known only as The Patriarch, who allegedly works miracles on the sick and the lame. Coming up with the ultimate con, Doc sends for his cohorts -- Harry, a phony cripple called The Frog, and his girlfriend Helen -- in order to fleece the rubes. Visiting the Patriarch in front of the locals, The Frog pretends to be cured... only to see two real cripples cured as well. While Doc is intent on pulling his con, his companions gradually decide to mend their ways. And when Helen is courted by the older brother of a cured woman, Doc has to decide whether he's going to abscond with the money he's raised to allegedly build a chapel for the Patriarch, or do the right thing after all.

A movie like The Miracle Man would be a definite no-go at any major studio today; I'm not sure if even one of those Christian-themed indies would take the chance on a story about a faith healer who really heals. But that's why it works so well here, made a time when such a production (a remake of the 1919 version of the same name) could it wear its heart unashamedly on its sleeve. I'm a sucker for such things, as are, eventually, the con artists who gradually become psychologically healed just by witnessing genuine miracles.

The actors who play the scammers -- Chester Morris, Sylvia Sydney, Ned Sparks (here with an "A" as a middle initial for some reason) and John Wray -- are as an ace bunch of character actors as you can find. I especially liked Sparks's reaction to the crippled kid's healing. Pretending to be actually shocked by such a thing is no mean feat (Lon Chaney did it to perfection in the one surviving scene of the original), but Sparks pulls it off -- an especially impressive moment since he's usually such a cynic in his pictures. OK, I have to say it: The Miracle Man is a miracle of filmmaking. (Maybe I can be healed of writing such a lame comment.)

BONUS POINTS: The always-reliable Irving Pichel pulls off his role as the atheist-turned-believer father of the cured crippled kid, and Boris Karloff as Nikko, the conman who Chester Morris throws over a staircase at the end of reel one and is never seen again. A British actor playing the Greek owner of a Chinese antique store but speaks with something of a Mexican accent -- I love this guy.

SUCCESS AT ANY PRICE (1934): Joe 

Martin, the younger brother of a slain gangster, decides to become a big shot himself, only legally. When his girlfriend Sarah arranges for him to get a job at the cosmetics company where she works, Joe rises the ladder of success despite his cocky, often nasty demeanor. As his fortunes rise, so does his ego. Over time, he dumps Sarah, marries his boss's glamorous but shallow mistress Agnes, and eventually takes over the company. Just as he thinks he's on top of the world, it starts to crash around him, first at home, then at the office. Joe finds himself at the end of his rope, with only one way out.

Anyone used to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as a suave swashbuckler with the vaguely continental accent will likely find Success at Any Price a little shocking. Not only is his character unlikeable, his Lower East Side punk delivery is spot on. Just the way he chews gum at work is a key to his character. He's thoroughly convincing as an amoral louse who will do anything make dough but doesn't realize he's losing his soul until it's almost too late. (A tacked-on scene in the closing seconds, likely ordered by the studio, had me booing the screen.)

The rest of the cast is fascinating, too, for various reasons. Casting former silent screen star Colleen Moore as Sarah was odd; at 35, she's obviously a decade older than Fairbanks. At least Genevieve Tobin as Agnes is supposed to be older (she's 35 but appears at least 40). Agnes, you see, has no interest in the immature Joe, but cynically agrees to marry him for a million dollars. Frank Morgan does a good job as Joe's boss; he plays it straight, years before becoming a self-caricature. And it's always amusing to see Edward Everett Horton in love with a woman as he is here.

If Success at Any Price seems to burn down capitalism, you can thank its writer John Howard Lawson, a genuine card-carrying member of the Communist party, and later one of the infamous Hollywood Ten. Why were Commies drawn to the glamorous, capitalistic world of Hollywood anyway?

BONUS POINTS: In a not-so in-joke, the bartender seen twice sullenly shaking cocktails is played by Arthur Houseman, who was better known for portraying drunks.

MR. WASHINGTON GOES TO TOWN (1940): While in jail, Schenectady Washington learns that he's inherited an upstate hotel. He dreams that he and his cellmate Wallingford are now working there as a bellman and desk clerk respectively. When they're not trying to obtain the hotel's deed from mortgage owner Brutus Blake, Washington and Wallingford deal with a succession of strange guests. And that, folks, is the entire plot.

One of the thousands of low-budget features made exclusively for black audiences, Mr. Washington Goes to Town plays like an extended Three Stooges short. The thin story is merely an excuse to trot out all the standard haunted house gags -- an invisible man, a vaudeville entertainer with a tuxedo-clad gorilla, a body that carries its head under his arm. The only reason there isn't a wolfman is because the producers probably ran out of money. 

How meager is the budget? The hotel lobby set appears to have been left over from a cheap monster movie. Much of the score is played on a skating-rink organ. The opening credits misspell Mantan Moreland's first name! 

For all its two-bit silliness -- you like wisecracking parrots, right? -- sooner or later Mr. Washington Goes to Town will win you over, if only because of Mantan Moreland, the funniest of the 1940s black movie comedians. (He's great as the chauffeur in the otherwise unwatchable Charlie Chan movies at Monogram.) The routines he and stage partner F.E. Miller (as Wallingford) share here are so engaging that you eventually lose any reservation about enjoying allegedly "problematic" jokes. (The actors' delivery and dialogue is little different from that of the reviled Amos 'n' Andy.)  I mean, if you don't think "Uh oh" is funny, you haven't heard Mantan Moreland say it. 

These days, Mr. Washington Goes to Town would probably go over with an audience who understood movie history -- unfortunately, an ever-diminishing group. You might not bust your sides a-laffing as the poster promises, but you'll get some belly laughs whether you want them or not.

BONUS POINTS: Black actor Charles Hawkins in his brief role as a lawyer named Goldberg, speaking with a Yiddish accent. Now that had me busting my sides a-laffing.

TOAST OF THE TOWN (12/18/1949): So associated is Ed Sullivan with the
American debut of the Beatles that it's easy to forget his program, originally titled Toast of the Town, had already been on the air 16 years. While here Ed is, of course, younger and dressed in his finest 1949 duds, he's only slightly less awkward than the livelier-than-average zombie he would later become famous for.

In addition to the usual guests you'd expect -- acrobats, comics, singers, dancers -- a few others stand out. In a brief salute to old pop music, songwriters Harry Armstrong and Maude Nugent bellow "Sweet Adeline" and "Sweet Rosie O'Grady", which they each respectively wrote in 1896! Just as mindboggling is the legendary W.C. Handy playing his classic "St. Louis Blues" -- it's like a time machine within a time machine.

Now, it wouldn't be a Sullivan show without something "for the youngsters". But since this is several years before rock & roll, they had to make do with an eight year-old girl lip-synching to a Judy Garland record, and Tommy Trent's  astonishingly violent Punch-and-Judy puppet act. The audience gasps more than laughs as Punch relentlessly beats up his wife and stretches their baby to the literal breaking point. I guess it's kind of funny in a shocking way, and it's definitely impressive that Tommy manipulates five puppets in all. Just don't expect to see this kind of thing at kids' birthday parties anymore. 

It should be noted that both  the aforementioned W.C. Handy and comic impressionist George Kirby were likely the only African-American entertainers on TV that week; many Americans must have blown their tops when the very white Ed Sullivan shook Kirby's very black hand in 1949. Sullivan would showcase black entertainers on an almost weekly basis for close to a quarter-century. It made up for violently misogynistic puppets.

BONUS POINTS: The commercials for Lincoln-Mercury, the cars not much smaller than your typical SUV, which mention every aspect of the products except what must have been the ridiculously low gas mileage rate.

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