THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 65

Frank Capra makes his Early Show debut, an honor he likely would have refused, while Bela Lugosi, Walter Huston, and Edward G. Robinson return to join an antediluvian vaudeville act in their first (and last) appearance. 

THEY LEARNED ABOUT WOMEN (1930): Here's a story you've never seen before: two lifelong friends are torn apart by a no-good dame. The twist: the friends are professional baseball players who moonlight as vaudeville entertainers. Or the other way around, it's never made clear.

One doesn't watch a picture like They Learned About Women for entertainment any more than archeologists explore pyramids to find a new place to live. It's strictly historical study, for this is the only feature starring Gus Van & Joe Schenck -- in their time (c. 1915-1930) the most popular singing duo in show business, who are now as au courant as the allosaurus. 

And here's where it gets fascinating for nerdy amateur showbiz historians. Put aside for a moment that Van has the face of a human bulldog, and Schenck possesses the voice of Neil Sedaka turned up to 11. They are great at what they do if -- and this is important -- you remember what audiences enjoyed a century ago, like harmony as loud as the lead voice, or songs featuring dialect humor. They Learned About Women feature three of the latter: African-American (despite the potential offense, a fantastic number you can watch here), Irish, and Italian, (You can find Van & Schenck shorts where they do their "tributes" to Jews and Chinese as well.)

Not all the music in They Learned About Women is culturally unacceptable in the 21st century; it's artistically unacceptable as well, although I enjoyed them tremendously. Without Van & Schenck, They Learned About Women would be an exercise in ennui. It's best to fast-forward through the "drama" and go straight to the songs -- IF you have any interest in the kind of pop music that was already going out of style by the time of the movie's release (Schenck himself died six months later). Don't miss leading lady Bessie Love's jazzy solo "I Got Me a Real Man", either. She's kind of a hot mama in her own innocent way.

BONUS POINTS: Authentic footage of the old Yankee Stadium is featured in the climactic ballgame. 

AMERICAN MADNESS (1932): For a director remembered for uplifting movies, Frank Capra had a pretty cynical (meaning accurate) eye for corruption, unbridled capitalism, and the sheer idiocy of the average American. His movies' tacked-on happy endings are nothing more than fairytale codas meant to make you forget the reality you just experienced. 

American Madness may be the first entry in that quasi-genre, and is definitely better than its forgotten status would have it. It also plays like the blueprint for It's a Wonderful Life, seeing that it focuses on a down-to-earth bank president facing a hostile takeover and a hostile clientele when hysterical rumors lead to a run by panicked depositors. 

Walter Huston, as usual, knocks it out of the park as Thomas Dickson, the big city bank president with a heart of gold and a knack for seeing the good in everybody -- even when one of them, cashier Cyrill Cluett, engineers the bank's robbery to pay off a debt to a gangster. Pat O'Brien is Matt, a colleague who believes Cluett is fooling around with Dickson's wife, winds up being the prime suspect in the robbery. But it's Huston who's the star of the show; his casual chit-chat and gangly walk suggest a friendly small-town businessman who goes by his gut feeling when it comes to loaning money. He's the boss you've always dreamed of having yet has never existed in real life. 

Strangely, American Madness feels at times more like a Howard Hawks picture, with realistic overlapping dialogue and fast paced action, leading an eye-popping climax with what looks like the biggest group of extras since the Babylon scene in Intolerance.  Brimming with humor, drama, and outright misanthropy, American Madness is the work of a moviemaker still questioning the so-called wisdom of both the ruling class and middle class. 

BONUS POINTS: American Madness is one of the last movies to feature the credit DIRECTED BY FRANK R. CAPRA. Maybe he dropped the "R" because it didn't have the same ring as Darryl F. Zanuck or Louis B, Mayer. 

THE DEATH KISS (1932): Gangsters are setting up a hit. As the target exits a nightclub, their moll gives him an unexpected kiss, allowing the hitmen to ready, aim, fire. CUT! It turns out we're on a movie set. As the director arranges for a second take, the crew realizes the actor was killed for real. Is Alec Baldwin on the loose again?

Cheap joke aside, The Death Kiss is actually quite a decent picture, reuniting the stars of the previous year's hit, Dracula: Bela Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan, and David Manners. Disappointingly, Lugosi, as studio manager Joseph Steiner, doesn't have a lot to do other than seem awfully anxious to pin the murder on the leading lady, who had been divorced from the now-dead actor. Van Sloan (as director Tom Avery) merely wants the set locked down, while Manners (wisecracking scriptwriter Franklyn Drew) wants to find the real killer since he's in love with the sexy suspect, as all scriptwriters are.

For a Poverty Row production from Sono Art-World Wide (the abhorrent Lucky Boy and Peacock Alley), The Death Kiss is a quite the meta-mystery in that it gives a behind-the-scenes look at the picture business, making good use of the equally-low-budget Tiffany Studios (where The Death Kiss was filmed) as we visit the sound stages, screening room and back lot. And typical of "inside" movies of the time, the guy running the studio is a malaprop-slinging Jewish caricature. (His response upon hearing about the murder of his star: "Oy, that's going to cost me a fortune!"). Figuring out whodunnit is beside the point; The Death Kiss is a fun watch, with some clever camerawork and familiar character actors helping to speed things along -- literally. You won't realize until the end that it all takes place in one day.

BONUS POINTS: As with The Vampire Bat, The Death Kiss uses the occasional hand-tinted sequences for cheap but interesting effects, especially when a movie reel goes up in flames. And did you know that the iceman often slid his delivery into the icebox through a special door in the wall of the house? The things you learn in old movies!

NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948): Sometimes a movie can make you rethink
your admiration of an actor (like Robert de Niro in most movies not directed by Martin Scorsese). Night Has a Thousand Eyes, on the other hand, increased my appreciation for Edward G. Robinson.

Its story isn't anything new, A phony showbiz psychic named Triton acquires a sudden gift (if you can call it that) of real prognostication which eventually sets off a chain of events that prevents the death of one person and causes the death of another --an idea previously explored in The Clairvoyant with Claude Raines. And as with The Clairvoyant, Night Has a Thousand Eyes deliberately makes you wonder if the tragic climax was inevitable or caused by the psychic's own actions: a cop-out ending to please the censors, I'd say. 

None of this negates my belief that Edward G. Robinson was the best of the major tough-guy actors of his time, including Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Because while those two gentlemen are great at what they do, Robinson goes one step further by creating enormous empathy for characters like Triton. You can picture Robinson in, say, The Caine Mutiny or White Heat, but neither Bogart nor Cagney could have starred in Night Has a Thousand Eyes -- or Scarlett Street, The Woman in The Window, Tales of Manhattan, and other dramas where Robinson shows a side painful in its melancholy. Kind of lost in the shuffle among the "classic" Robinson movies, Night Has a Thousand Eyes needs a million more viewers.

BONUS POINTS: William Demarest has a rare "straight" role as Police Lieut. Shawn, occasionally cracking wise as a sop to his fans.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 44

 One movie from each decade from the '20s to the 50's, with only one starring an actor you might be familiar with. Hey, I've got to offer something to the masses

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929): As a 12-year-old fan of old horror movies and
young dishy starlets, my heart raced at a black & white still of a bizarre creature with unkempt hair and bad teeth towering over Thelma Todd (seen below). I had no idea what the movie was about, nor did I even care. All I wanted was to see the production, tantalizingly titled Seven Footprints to Satan. 

Alas, this was an impossible dream, for it was apparently lost, or at least misplaced. Then, very recently, a restored version became available for a mere $8.99. I waited for the right time (the 75 minutes my wife would be out of the house), put it on and prepared to be scared witless by monsters and seduced by a sexy actress.

Well, at least I got the sexy actress. As with nearly every rediscovered "lost" movie, Seven Footprints to Satan --originally a silent/talkie hybrid now lacking its original Vitaphone soundtrack --proved to be two footsteps to disappointment. Not that it's bad. The general idea of a couple kidnapped and taken to a strange mansion where they are put through their paces by Satan's minions, monsters, and eventually the host himself, is a good one. But I quickly figured out that the whole thing was a ruse, and that all the "monsters" were actually people paid to scare the male half of the couple (Creighton Hale). 

It's not like I'm giving anything away. You'd figure it out, too, even if 1929 audiences didn't. I realize the comedy/thriller genre was a big thing at the time, but come on. You've got to have genuine thrills mixed with the chuckles. While the actors' make-up and the art design are impressive, conceptually Seven Footprints to Satan isn't much different than one of those pop-up "horror houses" that appear in your neighborhood every Halloween. Is it worth $8.99? For a quasi-legendary once-lost picture, sure. Is it worth watching again? With Thelma Todd in a lowcut dress, absolutely. But not until next Halloween. Or the Halloween after.

BONUS POINTS: One of the "scary" creatures is Angelo Rossitto, the dwarf from the previously-discussed Old San Francisco and Scared to Death. Sheldon Lewis, the guy in the memorable still with Thelma Todd, plays the title role in the genuinely terrible, not-worth-watching-even-once The Phantom. Oh, and a naked woman is tied up to a pole and whipped.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND (1937): Squire John Meadows is a malevolent, vindictive justice of the peace in a small town he holds in the palm of his hand. When he's not bribing people to break the law on his behalf, he runs the local prison, taking glee on doling out physical and psychological punishment on the inmates -- men, women, and adolescents alike -- with an alarmingly sadistic glee. His latest scheme is to win the hand of the lovely Susan Merton by framing her fiancé George for poaching. When the real poacher, George's friend Tom, confesses to the crime, he is imprisoned. George, meanwhile, goes to Australia to seek his fortune but promises Sue he'll return. Seizing his opportunity, Meadows pays off the postmaster to give him George's letters so they don't get delivered. Deciding that isn't enough, he spreads the rumor that George has married another woman in Australia.

If you want subtlety, you've come to the wrong movie, for It's Never Too Late to Mend -- not the most understated title, either -- stars Tod Slaughter, usually called Britain's answer to Bela Lugosi. You want scenery chewing? Slaughter chows down with the manners of a starving hyena, with his co-stars not very far behind. Even the lovebirds George and Susan engage sweet nothings that went out of style two decades earlier. But that's the whole idea behind Slaughter movies, as they deliberately recreate the over-the-top melodrama of 19th century British stage plays (which is likely why they were never released in the U.S.). And once you get into the groove, your oh-so-sophisticated attitude and heh-heh snickering will give way to emotions you'd rather not admit to possessing. 

Go ahead, you laugh at the  15-year-old boy, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving mother, dying in a metal straitjacket. You chortle at the chaplain protecting the prisoners with only the power of his faith. You giggle as Squire Meadows slips the heroic George a mickey in order to steal his newly-won fortune and fiancé. 

Trust me, It's Never Too Late to Mend -- considered one of Tod Slaughter's more "serious" movies --will have you hissing and booing the same way British audiences did when such behavior in the theater was not just accepted but demanded. And wouldn't it feel better to do that at an old, low-budget movie rather than the evening news?

BONUS POINTS: The 19th-century novel and play on which It's Never Too Late to Mend is based so moved Queen Victoria that she demanded the reform of the British penal system.

THE MONSTER MAKER (1944): PRC's The Monster Maker plays like a celluloid Mad-Libs game of countless poverty row movies: A PHONY DOCTOR from EASTERN EUROPE, who keeps a GORILLA in his LABORATORY, injects a CONCERT PIANIST with a dose of ACROMEGALY in order to marry THE PIANIST'S DAUGHTER, who resembles THE DOCTOR'S LATE WIFE, despite HIS ASSISTANT being IN LOVE WITH HIM. 

Credit the three(!) writers for coming up with the acromegaly angle to separate The Monster Maker from other low-budget B's of its type, even if its title damns anyone with the disease as, well, a monster. Very few people had likely even heard of it had it not been for actor Rondo Hatton, a real acromegaly victim. Here, Ralph Morgan has the honors, and only because we needed to see his before-and-after visage. Once a star at MGM (as in the adaptation of Eugene O'Neil's Strange Interlude), Morgan wasn't the only former A-lister who found himself slumming in stuff like The Monster Maker a decade later. A pro to the end, he gives his all for a concept that probably had everyone on the set dizzy from rolling their eyes.

Speaking of one-time A-listers on the skids, Bela Lugosi must have been busy making Voodoo Man at Monogram in order for J. Carrol Naish to win the lead role of Dr. Igor Markoff. Strictly in support throughout his career, he was probably thrilled to get top billing for a change. Hollywood's idea of a linguist, Naish played a wide variety of ethnic roles equaled only by his limited

talent. Italian, German, Russian, Sioux -- you can't tell one from another without the wardrobe and make-up departments cluing you in. (One of Naish's most absurd roles was in The Hatchet Man where his portrayal of a Chinatown resident consists of squeezing his eyelids nearly shut and over articulating his dialogue even more than usual.)

In order to pad out The Monster Maker to 65 minutes, co-star Wanda Blake (the object of Naish's affection) often repeats dialogue spoken to her, only as a question ("Your father visited me for a consultation." "My father visited you for a consultation?"). And we can't forget the ol' gorilla-in-the-lab gag, which serves no purpose other than for Dr. Markoff to try killing his love-starved assistant Maxine. These kinds of things make me love movies like The Monster Maker. It's short, utterly predictable, wildly implausible, and perfectly entertaining.

BONUS POINTS: They don't even try to convince us that the first scene in a Carnegie Hall-style theater is just a faux-loge 20 feet away from the faux-stage

BLACK TUESDAY (1954): The exceptionally violent Black Tuesday shows Edward G.

Robinson at age 61 still in all his glory as Vince Canelli, the star inmate of a West Coast prison where he and his fellow death row resident Peter Manning await their turn in the hot squat. One of the prison guards has been forced to help facilitate the escape of Canelli and others on death row in exchange for the freedom of his kidnapped daughter. But while the guard gets plugged anyway, the criminals look forward to splitting $200,000 in stolen loot Manning has hidden in a place only he knows -- even after he's been shot.

There's something poignant about Edward G, Robinson in Black Tuesday, still speaking with the N'yeah, see? delivery that made people sit up and take notice 25 years earlier. As for his character, Canelli's at an age where he should be enjoying his ill-gotten fortune by lounging on a beach in Acapulco, not breaking out of stir again with guns blazing. Not like Canelli's the reincarnation of St. Jude. While on his getaway from prison, Canelli kicks three of his death row pals to the curb in order to make sure he gets more of the stolen dough. He's willing to risk the life of the badly-wounded Manning for the same reason. Not even Father Slocum, the prison priest he's taken hostage, is safe from his threats. Maybe poignant isn't the right word after all.

Robinson overshadows his Black Tuesday co-stars, although the older, familiar character actors manage to hold their own. (No point in naming names -- you'd only know them by their faces anyway.) But the younger, less impressive supporting actors are straight out of a baby-boomer's Emmy Award "In Memoriam" segment. In addition to Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) as Manning, there's Milburn Stone (Gunsmoke), Russell Johnson (Gilligan's Island), William Schallert (Patty Duke Show), and Stafford Repp (Batman). Black Tuesday is unlikely to be considered a classic in the Robinson canon like Little Caesar, but it still makes for fine entertainment and demonstrates how commanding an actor he was throughout his entire career.

BONUS POINTS: Sylvia Findley as Ellen Norris, one of the few actresses who looks like she would be Edward G. Robinson's girlfriend (which might be why her imdb profile lists only two movies).

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE HATCHET MAN" (1932)

As with our previous movie,

Old San Francisco, The Hatchet Man presents
Hollywood's take on Chinatown, its residents, customs, and, most importantly, crimes. 

In something of a Greek tragedy-meets-Warner Brothers, professional assassin Wong Low Get is assigned to kill his lifelong friend (and tong rival) Sun Yat Ming. 

Wong inherits Sun's business and six year-old daughter, Toya, who eventually grows up to be his wife -- yes, he marries his stepdaughter! So you kind of understand when she gives it up to Wong's young bodyguard Harry En Lai. (I know: weird name Harry, right?)

Filled with a murderous fury, Wong nevertheless lets the two lovebirds run away, although promising revenge if Harry ever hurts Toya. And boy does he ever get revenge. To quote Confucius, Don't fuck around with someone whose job title is the hatchet man.

Robinson looks more Chinese here than he
does in The Hatchet Man's 74 minutes.

The Hatchet Man multiplies by several times Old San Francisco's "yellowface" trope by casting white actors in all the lead parts, the most egregious to modern day audiences being Edward G. Robinson in the title role.

Now, I take a back seat to no man in my enjoyment and admiration of Edward G. Robinson, an actor whose face -- whose eyes -- can register more emotion in one scene than most actors can in a dozen movies combined. His lifelong adeptness in playing any character -- criminals, chumps, newspaper editors, cops, etc. etc. etc. -- almost made one take him for granted. He always delivered the goods no matter what the role or genre.

"What's the password?"
"Swordfish teriyaki."

So now that we have that off the table... not for one second does Robinson convince as a Chinese character. He doesn't even attempt an accent, and wears only the barest "slant-eyed" make-up. Director William Wellman likely knew audiences were paying to see Little Caesar, not a "Chinaman", and he was going to give it to them. 

I mean, he wears a fedora with his Chinese clothing in his earliest scenes before switching to the kind of suits he wore in gangster pictures. Every time he speaks, you expect him to say, "Look, you muggs!" And, speaking as an old white guy, that's what makes him so entertaining in The Hatchet Man. 

The light shining off Young's sequined dress is
capable of causing temporary blindness.

Robinson being a white actor, it wouldn't make any sense to for him to have a real Chinese woman play his daughter. Enter Loretta Young, only 19 and still four years away from giving birth to Clark Gable's bastard child, to play his stepdaughter/wife. 

Hollywood having a thing for "exotic" Asian women, Young is a little more realistic than Robinson, although in the way that Chico Marx makes a more convincing Italian than, say, Barry Fitzgerald. You'd have to try to be less realistic.


As with other movies featuring young

Harry hopes he's not making love to a
mannequin.

Chinese characters raised in the good ol' USA, Toya and her beau Harry speak exclusively in American slang, making Charlie Chan's hipster #1 son sound like Christopher Plummer. (When was the last time you heard someone say, "I'll tell you what let's do!"?) 

Between his make-up and naturally unusual looks, Leslie Fenton, as Harry, can almost pass for the real thing. But again, I'm an old white guy who's totally out of touch with today's woke generation, so don't go by me. 

Robinson's about to wipe that smirk off Naish's face.

But you know who definitely can't pass for Chinese? J. Carol Naish as the ill-fated victim of Robinson's hatchet. Naish stuffs as many Chinese cliches as he can into his  brief role of Sun Yat Ming. Shuffling walk, hands stuck into the opposite sleeves, tight lips... He doesn't even open his eyes, apparently believing that looking like he was asleep made him more authentically Chinese.

In trying so hard to be Chinese, Naish winds up giving The Hatchet Man's most ridiculous performance, which was pretty familiar territory for him. Naish made 40-year career of cultural stereotypes: Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Native American, Irish -- no culture was safe from his endlessly insulting virtuosity. His biggest pejorative success was in the title role of the radio sitcom Life with Luigi from 1948-1953. He had less luck with the TV version, which so outraged Italian-Americans that he was fired and replaced midway through its first (and only) season. How you like, pisan?

Now that I think of it, the prologue could have been a little
more respectful, too.

Yet for all of Hatchet Man's derogatory portrayals, the character who probably comes off worst is a white interloper, Jim Malone, who tries reviving the hostility between the now-peaceful tongs for his own nefarious ends. Powerful white guy trying to bust up a minority? That ain't a stereotype -- that's reality.

Attending a sit-down between the two factions, Malone registers his displeasure  thusly: "Cut out this Chink lingo! Talk United States!" And if you think we've made progress since then, you could go on YouTube right now and find cellphone footage of somebody saying the same thing. 

This guy literally has an ax to grind.

The most interesting bit of Chinese culture -- one that really allows Robinson to remind you what a great actor he was -- comes when Wong and tong elder Nog Hong Fah catch Toya and Harry in an embrace. 

As Nog looks on in respect, Wong is ready to take his hatchet to Harry's skull. But when Toya assures him that Harry makes her happy, Wong lets them leave together. 

Disgusted that Wong didn't do his murderous duty as a husband, the tong, in today's parlance, cancels him. Almost overnight, Wong loses his business, home, and,

The movie was retitled The Honorable Mr. Wong in Australia,
where The Felling Axe Man wouldn't have had the same ring.

worse the respect of his community. Forced to sell all his worldly goods, he can find work only as a simple field hand, no better than the peasants surrounding him.

It almost physically hurts to see Robinson's characters reduced in stature because their pain feels so authentic. Even a movie as culturally-dated as The Hatchet Man allows him to register human emotions that everyone can empathize with. Sorrow at killing his best friend, love for his wife, fury at the man breaking up his marriage, shame at his rejection -- all are strong and convincing. 

Robinson is 38, Young is 19; they're in "yellowface"and ripping off
Chinese culture; he playing her stepfather and husband -- yeah, the kids
wouldn't go for this movie these days.

Ultimately, The Hatchet Man's greatest irony is if it had starred Chinese actors, it would have been culturally fascinating, but not nearly as (and here's that dirty word again) entertaining, particularly with Edward G. Robinson in the lead. And as with Old San Francisco, Generation Z or whatever they are today would likely call for its destruction. 

It is written in the hand of our ancestors: you kids don't know what you're missing.

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