THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 70

 

BEYOND BENGAL (1934): The 1930s were a prime era for jungle documentaries,
perhaps for audiences to take their minds off the Depression. Harry Schenck, Beyond Bengal's alleged hero, is credited as director or A.D. on only three other movies. This made him as qualified as anybody else churning out these things, especially when it came to padding it out with phony footage shot in Florida. (You can figure out the Florida scenes because they're in focus and, well, look phony.)

In fact, you can bet your last poisha that anything in focus is as fraudulent as Harry's on-camera friend Joan Baldwin almost dying of jungle fever (no, not the Spike Lee kind). Not even the footage of a native guide almost eaten by a crocodile trying passes the smell test. On the other hand, another guide almost getting squeezed to death by a python looks genuine -- but if it is, why didn't the cinematographer help the poor schmuck instead of cranking the camera? 

The only Bengali segments that are definitely for real are when Harry's pals shoot animals. (At one point, the narrator gloats, "Boy, this is gonna be good!" as one poor victim is about to bite the dust.)  When the narrator describes a panther as "the most dangerous and hateful creature on the planet," it's clear nobody involved with Beyond Bengal ever went beyond 5th grade to learn the definition of "ironic". 

BONUS POINTS: Beyond Bengal ("Produced in cooperation with HIS HIGHNESS THE SULTAN OF PERAK F.M.S." as the credits read) was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1934 Venice Film Festival. Do they give that out anymore?

TRAIL OF THE VIGILANTES (1940): Tim Mason, a reporter from back East, goes
undercover out West to expose the murder of a colleague by Mark Dawson, a cattleman ripping off locals by running a protection racket.

If you think that's a fairly standard plot for a run of the mill oater, so did director Allan Dwan. That's why he hired someone to do a rewrite and turn Tral of the Vigilantes into a sly parody of the genre while still maintaining its serious throughline. From the moment Tim Mason shows up in the ironically named dusty town of Peaceful Valley -- a scene awfully similar to anyone who's seen Blazing Saddles -- you know this is not going to be your typical B-western. 

Luckily, the cast is game, starting with Franchot Tone as Tim, the tenderfoot who doesn't convince anybody he's an old cowhand, with a funny running gag of continually hurting himself while trying to heroically jump on his horse. As two ranch hands, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine send up their usual screen roles, while the great Mischa Auer gets the most laughs as a con man impersonating a Native American chief, Spanish bullfighter, Russian Cossack, and Southern shyster. When you see him in Trail of the Vigilantes (or any of his movies), it's depressing to realize there is nobody quite like him in movies today. 

And talk about out of the box casting -- Warren William plays straightman as the no-good polecat Mark Dawson. At 46, he carries the bearing (and the looks) of a man a decade older but looks as good in his elegant Western finery as he did in tuxedos in his pre-code days at Warners. Trail of the Vigilantes doesn't always hit the mark -- a scene at a mudhole is straight out of one of a latter-day Three Stooges short -- but provides a ranch-sized number of genuine laughs while still providing the action and dramatic arc that comes with the (Western) territory.

BONUS POINTS: Co-star Peggy Moran later recounted Trail of the Vigilantes did good box-office with "New York's sophisticated audiences."