THE EARLY SHOW. PT. 19

 No major studios here. Just the almost-finest that Tiffany-Stahl, Reliable Pictures, PRC, and Screen Guild Productions have to offer. 

THE LOST ZEPPELIN (1929):  Commander Donald Hall is leading an exploration to the South Pole when his Navy airship is caught in a storm and crashes without any means of communication with the outside world. One by one the crew dies until the only survivors are Hall and his second-in-command Tom Armstrong. Just as it looks like the two are becoming human Klondike Bars, a rescue plane lands... with room for only one of them. Oh, I forgot to mention: Commander Hall caught his wife in a clinch with Armstrong the night before the expedition started! Who's going back to the little lady now?

If newspaper ads of the time are to be believed, The Lost Zeppelin broke box office records (at one theater, anyway), likely more for the spectacle in the sky than the melodrama on land. The zeppelin-related special effects are what you'd expect from almost a century ago -- primitive by 21st-century eyes, yet charming in their own 1929 way. It's only when the action moves to the South Pole that the movie resembles a George Melies short from a decade earlier, with slide whistles standing in for the sound of wind. Another problem with studios like Tiffany-Stahl is the occasional dubbed dialogue that neither matches the actors' lips nor sounds like it's coming from the set. Despite those faults, The Lost Zeppelin could be mistaken for an early, not-bad RKO production.

While the performances of Conway Tearle and Virginia Valli (as Commander Hall and his wife Miriam) often feel like the already-vanishing silent days, Ricardo Cortez (Tom Armstrong) paves the way for a more naturalistic style of acting that sound required. He's no Brando but is still one of those actors whose movies I catch when they turn up. Outside of the zeppelin itself, he's the one thing worth watching here. If you're a Ricardo Cortez fan like me, I mean. Otherwise, you probably won't particularly enjoy anything about it. 

BONUS POINTS: Just to make sure audiences at the time got an extra thrill from sound, a lengthy montage of international newspaper headlines is spoken in about a dozen different languages, from French to Hebrew -- the latter always good for a laugh back in the day.

STEP ON IT (1936): Former motorcycle cop Larry Evans takes a job with Frank Banning to find out who's been hijacking the Banning Fuel trucks. 

There's no reason to delve further into Step On It's logline any more than there is to the Fast and Furious movies. All you have to do is look at the tagline on the three-sheet to the right to find out who was responsible for lines at the box office. The now-forgotten Richard Talmadge was a stuntman in several silent movies before becoming a B-movie action star in his own right. Talmadge isn't much to look at, and his voice would never have gotten him into A-pictures. And, oddly, the guy can't even throw a punch convincingly, his arms swinging back and forth like a rag doll; when he's not punching with the side of his fist, he's hitting people's backs rather than faces. 

But when Talmadge is required to jump from a car onto a driverless runaway fuel truck, hoist himself upside down onto the roof of a house, fly over the handlebars of his motorcycle when he crashes into a fence, or jump down an entire flight of stairs onto the bad guys, you can definitely imagine the excitement 1930s audiences felt. For once, you see an actor face-on when he risks his life, rather than the back of a stuntman's head. Take that, Vin Diesel! Fast forward through Step on It to see some genuinely impressive stunts that hold up today, even if the movie itself doesn't.

BONUS POINTS: Talmadge was 44 years old in Step on It, which to me seems kind of old for a guy doing these impressive stunts.  (Yeah, I know Tom Cruise is 60, but I'd like to see him fly down a flight of stairs.)

THE BLACK RAVEN (1943): It's a dark and stormy night at the Black Raven Inn. Over the 
course of an hour, its proprietor Amos Bradford will play host to his former criminal sidekick Whitey Cole; gangster Mike Bardoni; eloping couple Allen Bentley and Lee Winfield; Lee's father, powerbroker Tim Winfield (who wants to prevent her marriage); mousy bank teller/embezzler Horace Witherby; and the shoot-first-don't-ask-questions-later Sheriff with no name. When the storm ends, four people will be dead, including Winfield. Did Allen murder him in order to marry Winfield's daughter? Was it Withersby, because Winfield took the embezzled money? Or was it Bardoni, who wants the now-missing dough? Whoever it was, the survivors will probably book an Airbnb next time. 

You can usually count on a PRC movie to resemble a B-movie Hall of Fame, and The Black Raven is no different. George Zucco! Glenn Strange! Byron Foulger! Noel Madison! Charles Middleton! I. Stanford Jolley! Robert Middlemass! For the cast's lone femme, the oft-uncredited Wanda McKay, the Black Raven Inn must have been her own Grand Hotel. I would have been happy just to spend lunch hour with them at the PRC commissary. No doubt Zucco had a good time ribbing his co-stars that he was the only one who didn't have to get soaked under the rain and wind machines. 

The introduction of Method acting was all well and good, but something was lost: the sheer delight of getting what you were expecting when slapping down your quarter at the box office. Zucco & company didn't know from sense memory, unless they were remembering how they played their last 50 roles. No one, save Lionel Atwill, could deliver a line like, "He's suffering from rabid delusions aggravated by a moronic mentality" like Zucco and make it sound classy. When Byron Foulger -- the actor who looks like his name -- explains his embezzlement by whimpering that he was tired of riding to work in subways that smelled like "sweat and garlic", you believe he's a little guy with too-big dreams. Are movies these days better today than The Black Raven? OK, sure, fine, whatever you say. But they aren't better. 

BONUS POINTS: In a reminder that there was more to life in 1943 than double features, a message at the end of the credits calls on "30,000,000 Moviegoers" to purchase war bonds at the theater. Remember when Americans pulled together for a good cause? Me neither.

THE CASE OF THE BABYSITTER (1947): If there's such a thing as a C-picture, this is it.  Private eye Russ Ashton sends his idiot sidekick Howard "Harvard" Quinlan to keep an eye on the valuables -- and the baby -- of a visiting Duke and Duchess while they're out to dinner. The "royal" pair are actually a couple of jewel thieves named Phil and Mamie who are in possession of a stolen diamond very much wanted by another criminal gang. A couple of knockout drops later, the diamond is stolen yet again -- or so people think -- leading to Russ, his girlfriend Susie, and Harvard to try to figure out why this script was even written.

The only reason I bothered watching The Case of the Babysitter is because it's the sequel to a movie discussed a while back, The Hat Box Mystery (did producers think these titles would bring in audiences?) and felt compelled to complete the Russ Ashton trilogy duology. Tom Neal, Allen Jenkins, Pamela Blake, and Virginia Sale (as Harvard's hash-slinging girlfriend Veronica) repeat their roles from Hat Box; all are as IQ-deficient as ever. Ashton still appears to be the worst gumshoe in town; neither Harvard nor Susie make any attempt to hide their contempt for him, even as they, too, are equally incompetent. 

Movies like The Case of the Babysitter never played the first-run theaters; I'm not even sure they hit the second-runs, either. Like The Hat Box Mystery, this seems to have been made for the bottom of a triple-bill for the more undemanding winos looking for a place to nap before getting thrown out to the street. Ace character actor Allen Jenkins was probably happy to collect a paycheck for dreck like this, secure that there would be quality work from time to time to balance things out. But the ill-fated Tom Neal must have known it would never get any better than starring in a movie that no person in their right mind would sit through without one or two better ones at the top of the bill. Which explains all you need to know about me. (Further proof: I paid 15 bucks for an original Babysitter one-sheet!)

BONUS POINTS: At 39 minutes, The Case of the Babysitter is 180 seconds shorter than The Hat Box Mystery. If only it seemed like it.

                                                      ****************

THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 17

The WGA strike has allowed me more time to catch up on movies and TV shows I've missed, didn't know existed, or shouldn't have seen to begin with. Fortunately, none of these four falls into the latter category.

ELSTREE CALLING (1930): Because Hollywood was showing off the newfangled sound system with musical/comedy revues, it was inevitable that the idea would catch on in the UK. Elstree Calling, named for its studio, differs from its US counterparts by spotlighting stage performers rather than its contract players. If nothing else, we get a good idea of what a night in an English music hall was like.

Unfortunately, these entertainers are likely as unrecognizable and dated in their homeland nearly a century later as they are here. So instead of Noel Coward, we get the likes of Will Fyffe and his incessant stingy Scots jokes, and the army boot-wearing Lily Morris singing about being a bridesmaid and never a bride. (You can imagine audiences at the time cooing, "Isn't she a dearie?"). A scene from The Taming of the Shrew featuring an anachronistic runaway motorcycle and pie fight may amuse you, but I doubt it. To my eyes and ears, the most entertaining performers are (coincidentally?) American by birth: obese xylophonist Teddy Brown, and The Three Eddies, a dizzying trio of tap dancers who, as was not uncommon at the time, wore blackface over their real black faces. Don't ask. 

A couple other differences from the American revues: Elstree Calling features a linking story with a guy at home trying to watch the movie on his television (yes, in 1930). And instead of using Technicolor in the big musical numbers, Elstree opted for the way-cheaper hand-tinted Pathecolor, a technique not widely used in years, giving it either a dreamy or cheesy look depending on your point of view. The audio isn't a whole lot better, either -- while the music comes across fine, many actors often sound distant from the microphones. While nicely restored, Elstree Calling has gone from being a must-see to a who's-he and a why-that. But have you heard the one about the Scotsman who hailed a taxi to the hotel?...

BONUS POINTS: Alfred Hitchcock, on the cusp of being recognized as the UK's preeminent moviemaker, is credited as directing "the sketches and other interpolated items". One of his sequences, a husband catching his wife and her lover in the act, not only has his unmistakable touch, but gave me the one laugh in the whole picture.

THE WIZARD'S APPRENTICE  (1930): A young, smartass student of magic decides to impress a woman by making a broom carry water from the basement. And if you've seen Fantasia, you know how that little stunt worked out.

Things didn't go any better over a decade earlier in this one-reeler designed by the legendary William Cameron Menzies. A silent short accompanied by Paul Dukas's famous musical piece, The Wizard's Apprentice can't possibly live up to the Disney version (which had the title of the poem it's based upon, The Sorcerer's Apprentice). Yet the 1930 film, in its own modest way, is more bizarre. 

The Wizard's Apprentice, you see, is live-action, meaning those really are miniature brooms creating havoc. And unlike Disney's, these brooms are upside down (or rightside up -- it's up to you). The film's creators don't hide the fact that the props are connected to wires which have some kind of spring contraption to crudely move the legs from side to side. Between that not-so-special effect and the (all together now) faded print, The Wizard's Apprentice has the uncanny resemblance to a genuine nightmare. The question remains: was this the inspiration for the more-famous remake? Hey, Walt Disney needed to see a rodent scurrying around his office to get the idea of Mickey Mouse, so why the hell not?

BONUS POINTS: The title character is played by Fritz Feld. If the name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you know him as an older character actor who made a career of playing maître d's, and ended every comment by popping his open mouth with his hand. Now do you remember?

FLAXY MARTIN (1949): Mob mouthpiece Walter Colby goes on the lam after being framed for murder by his no-good girlfriend Flaxy Martin and his client Hap Richie. Hap's gunsel Roper tracks Colby to the home of kindhearted Nora Carson, and kidnaps the pair. Colby and Nora escape and make their way back to Manhattan. After making sure Nora is safely ensconced with a friend, Colby tracks down the real murderer, only to find him dead at the hands of Roper, who tries to do the same to him. A visit by Colby and Hap Richie to the two-timing Flaxy looks like it's going to be lights out for everyone involved, but only one bites the dust, while another has to face the music. 

For a movie called Flaxy Martin, the title character doesn't stick around very long after the second reel. Perhaps screenwriter David Lang was trying to remind audiences of the 1942 hit Roxy Hart, about a similar no-good dame (and the basis of the musical Chicago). Virginia Mayo does a good job as the self-serving, two-timing doll who pits the lawyer and the gangster against each -- her subtle sneers are a wonder to behold -- but Zachary Scott is the real star as Colby.

One of those actors I've heard of but whose movies rarely watched, Scott here bounces back and forth between slimy and heroic and back again. Maybe it's the thin moustache, or his occasionally bombastic delivery. But what really distracted me was how often looks identical to the caricatures of John Barrymore in old Warner Brothers cartoons. On the other hand, Douglas Kennedy (as Hap) resembles Bishop Fulton J. Sheen if the latter had lifted weights and enjoyed the occasional glass of scotch. Happily, the ever-reliable Elisha Cook, Jr. as the slimy Roper looks like himself, which is nothing but positive. Though there are better noirs than Flaxy Martin to be sure, it's worth it for the callbacks (how many times have I seen that apartment balcony?), cliches (wet streets at night, cinematographer's delight!), and cars (by 1949, they were designed the way a nine year-old would draw them). You might not watch it a second time, but you'll get a kick out of it the first.

BONUS POINTS: As usual in these New York-based movies written in Hollywood, the apartment building of the first murder victim -- 652 East 86th St. -- would place it in the middle of Carl Schurz Park.

HEDDA HOPPER'S HOLLYWOOD (1960): Along with her rival Louella Parsons,
gossip columnist Hedda Hopper was the original Twitter scold. Stars trembled when she put poison pen to paper exposing their randy love lives or left-leaning politics. But by 1960, she had become an anachronistic, impotent symbol of everything that was wrong with so-called journalism.

The one-shot TV special Hedda Hopper's Hollywood reflects her yearning for the good old days, providing, at times, a surprisingly poignant trip down memory lane. To her credit, Hopper stays out of the way, allowing the actors to speak for themselves. Stephen Boyd, fresh from co-starring in Ben-Hur, chats with the stars of the original 1925 version, Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman. In an unusual case of an actor giving credit to somebody else, Bob Cummings describes how director Ernest Lubitsch saved his career 20 years earlier. An unsteady Marion Davies welcomes the audience to her home before likely returning to her sick bed. Bob Hope (no surprise) treats his appearance as an excuse to try out new material for his next special, while, in a genuinely emotional moment, the dying Gary Cooper makes one of his final TV appearances to speak fondly of the Western genre he loved.

Young Hollywood gets its turn, too. John Cassavetes obligingly sucks up to Hedda, appropriately on the set of The Phantom of the Opera. Anthony Perkins's opinion of Hollywood is mildly negative, something Hopper would have decried a decade earlier. Nepo-babies Jody McRae and Teddy Rooney make zero impression. But leave it to 14-year-old Liza Minnelli to steal the show with her rendition of "Over the Rainbow". Hedda Hopper might have been a bitch in real life, but she unwittingly presented an hour of television that's become even more bittersweet with time.

BONUS POINTS: Ricardo Cortez takes a few minutes off from his new career as a stockbroker to offer a tribute to his one-time leading lady Greta Garbo. Not only is Cortez's voice unchanged from his movie days, he still has that wonderfully sinister smile!

                                                                             ************

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THIRTEEN WOMEN" (1932)

 If you ever have the urge to take revenge on a bunch of old schoolmates who wouldn't accept you into their little clique, send each of them a series of phony horoscopes predicting their imminent deaths by accident or suicide. Or, even better, warning them  they're going to commit murder -- and watch them fall for it! 

Hey, it worked for Ursula Georgi in Thirteen Women! Up to a point.

I guess the novel upon which it was based was a big deal in 1932, because both the poster and opening credits are in the form of a book cover, which always promises a cool movie. 

And you know what else does? Myrna Loy in one of her many yellow-face roles before she was finally allowed to stick to her own ethnic lane. 

Ursula weighs down upon the Swami's trigger.

It's Loy who brings Ursula Georgi to life in Thirteen Women, knocking off one by one the sorority girls who made her life hell at a private school years earlier because of her Indian/Asian background. Gen Z would probably make her their poster girl (I mean woman!). 

Having teamed up with Swami Yogadachi, a real astrologer (an oxymoron, to be sure), Ursula has been sending out horoscopes that literally drive her former tormentors to their deaths. Since the actor playing the Swami, C. Henry Gordon, usually played gangsters, she might have waited until his next movie so he could just mow them down with a tommy gun.

That'll teach you to be a bitch.

Whether falling from a trapeze bar, blowing their brains out, or sticking a shiv into their husbands, the one-time snooty school girls get what's coming to them, at least by Ursula's eyes, which, of course, are made up to look slanty like all those "exotic" women in pre-code dramas. And while she's at it, Ursula hypnotizes the Swami to jump in front of a subway train. This girl's got power!

"Bomb? What bomb?"

 

Ursula decamps to Los Angeles by train, on which she drives yet another ex-schoolmate to suicide. The unfortunate woman was en route to visit Laura Stanhope, a widow with a young son named Bobby. Stanhope, another ex-sorority girl, has been receiving threatening horoscopes, just so she doesn't feel left out of all the fun. 

What Laura doesn't realize is that her mononymous chauffeur Burns is secretly in Ursula's employ as well. His main function appears to be arranging for Bobby's violent death. Looks like there was gig economy even in 1932.

"OK, kid, you might as well start calling me 'daddy'."

Enter Police Sgt. Barry Clive, who, as usual with these things, seems to start falling hard for Laura Stanhope. And even though he's got those police stripes, he doesn't even remember having met Ursula at the train station while investigating the suicide. Some cop! But since Clive is played by one of my favorite forgotten actors, Ricardo Cortez, he gets a pass from me.

Gentlemen, buy the lady in your life one
of these outfits. Better yet, get both of them.

Much of Thirteen Women centers around Laura Stanhope. Just by the name, you know she, like the other former sorority girls, comes from money. She's played to wealthy perfection by Irene Dunne, who seems to have been born articulating as if educated at Bryn Mawr. 

Dunne also appears pre-mature. That is, no matter what age she was in her life, she always carried herself off as if a decade older. And in Thirteen Women she really is a decade or so older than the actresses playing her college chums.

The title characters in Thirteen Women hang around the house in dresses that most women would be afraid to take out of the closet for fear of spilling coffee on them. You'd think everybody during the Depression lived in mansions and wore tailor-made clothes while doing nothing more exerting than traveling cross-country first-class on the Super Chief. I have a feeling a lot of audiences at the time enjoyed seeing these dames getting knocked off their pedestals.

Hollywood's go-to image for making
audiences spooked by Asians was
any statue with more than two arms.

For today's audiences who know Myrna Loy (if at all) by Thin Man movies with William Powell, her early work in stuff like Thirteen Women must come as something of a shock. Typecast early on as Asians (or, as Ricardo Cortez says here, "Half-breed type. Half  Hindu, half Javanese, I dunno."), Loy doesn't fool anyone today, and likely didn't then. 

But you know what? People went to the movies during the Depression the same reason they do now: to escape reality. Why do you think RKO cast an ofay as an Asian anyway? Well, that and racism. And if you think anything has changed, count the number of A-list Asians in movies nearly a century later. 

 

 

"Could you speak up, please? I'm afraid I'm
having trouble hearing your tirade."

So the climax comes as a welcome surprise as Loy lambastes Dunne, explaining how every white person she ever encountered, from the two sailors raped her when she was 12, right up to her snobby college classmates, did everything they could to ruin her life. 

It's a remarkable speech, one that could fit quite well in any anti-racist protest march today. But it's made by a white lady in yellow-face! Well, they had to start somewhere.

Spoiler alert: If you see this hurtling toward
you, get your affairs in order, pronto.

As with similar casting choices in The Hatchet Man and Daughter of the
Dragon, the yellow-face trope in Thirteen Women provides a look at a time when such a thing was not only acceptable, but likely demanded by audiences and studios alike. Myrna Loy didn't live long enough to be forced to apologize for her crimes against humanity, even if she does pay the ultimate price at the end here. 

Frankly, I was sorry to see her go. There must be more sorority sisters who have it coming to them.

PS: Two days after the premiere of the suicide-crazyThirteen Women, one of its costars, Peg Entwistle, made news:

 The 50-foot sign from where she jumped:

    Thirteen Women was Peg Entwistle's only movie.                                               

                                                          

                                                  **********

To read about The Hatchet Man, go here.

To read about Daughter of the Dragon, go here. 

 

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "POSTAL INSPECTOR" (1936)

The 1935-1936 movie season marked something of an apex with Hollywood's hagiographies of federal investigators. Warners' G-Men and Grand National's Tough Guy (which chronicled the "adventures" of a Weights-and-Measures inspector), both starred James Cagney. Universal got into the act with Postal Inspector, but settled for Ricardo Cortez in the lead role of Bill Davis.

Probably realizing that there's nothing inherently exciting about a guy whose primary job is listening to saps who've been suckered out of their money by mail-order scams, Postal Inspector's producers padded out the movie's screentime by throwing in three songs (one of which is performed three times), a romantic subplot involving the postal inspector's brother and a nightclub singer, and newsreel footage of a Midwest flood, and endless speeches about how important it is listening to saps who've been suckered out of their money by bogus mail-order scams.  A voice-over impersonation of President Roosevelt gets into the act as well, reminding us how important it is listening to saps who... Well, you know. And the damn thing still runs only 56 minutes!

Ricardo Cortez looks for a loophole in his
contract to get out of this movie.

With everything but postal drama taking charge, the story proper doesn't really kick in until about the 30-minute mark. Bill Davis' brother Charlie, another fed, is in charge of delivering worn-out currency to the Treasury Department for eventual destruction. His girlfriend, nightclub thrush Connie Larrimore, innocently spills the beans to her boss, Gregory Benez, who steals Charlie's $3,000,000 shipment. If the producers had been honest, they'd have called this movie Treasury Guy with the The Big-Mouth Girlfriend. 

To jazz things up further, a flood of Biblical proportions threatens to destroy the city. (That's where the newsreel footage comes in.) Super Inspector Bill Davis risks his life by flying to a neighboring town to help move the contents of a post office to the second floor of another building, just so people can continue receiving junkmail. Thanks, Bill. The flood, however, offers the unique chance to watch a climactic motorboat chase in the middle of downtown, which looks as weird as it sounds.

"So, you re-used a one-cent stamp, hunh?
It's curtains for you!"

Ricardo Cortez, as usual, is better than the material he's given here, probably having choked on lines like "A postage stamp is the best insurance in the world" during the first read-through. He must have suffered some unfortunate deja vu as well, when warning Connie Larrimore, "You're in this, too, up to your neck" -- a line almost identical to one he recited as Sam Spade in the original version of The Maltese Falcon four years earlier. It's quite a comedown from ace private eye to mailman cop.

Lugosi gives the day's special:
blood pudding.

Most fans of obscure movies know Postal Inspector only because of fourth-billed Bela Lugosi as Benez. It's a nothing role for a guy who, five years earlier, was Universal's biggest draw in Dracula. Still, it's a treat to see Bela in a non-horror role for a change, even if he doesn't strike one as a nightclub owner. Never explained, however, is why a guy with a Spanish surname has a Hungarian accent.

Never explained, either, is why the songs featured in Postal Inspector survived the final cut. Connie Larrimore (Patricia Ellis) sings the pseudo-rhumba "Hot Towel" while taking a shower:

When you're through with your shower,
Do you shiver? Do you quiver?
Well, you're wrong.
When you're through with your shower,
You should treat it, you should heat it
With a song!

If only she met her fate before the musical numbers.

What is this, a first-grade glee club? (The best part of the number is the maid -- who else but Hattie McDaniel? -- using bottles of bathbeads as makeshift maracas.) Nothing, however, beats the song with quite possibly the worst title in music history, "Let's Have Bluebirds on All Our Wallpaper":

Let's have bluebirds on all our wallpaper
Decorating our dreams.
Shy little rosebuds on the chinaware,
Murmurs of love from the Frigidaire...

Either someone at Universal thought this was going to be a big hit or he lost a bet, for this song is performed three times -- twice accompanied by an obnoxious kid playing a harmonica. The incompetent hack responsible for such atrocious lyrics? Frank Loesser, who would go onto write Guys and Dolls and the Pulitzer Prize-winning How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Forget about Robert Johnson; I think Loesser met the devil at the crossroads of 44th and Broadway. There's no other way to explain that kind of improvement.

It's tempting to speculate just what the guys who ran Universal really thought of nonsense like Postal Inspector. They didn't have to make this for financial reasons; unlike Warners, M-G-M and Paramount, they didn't own a chain of movie theatres that needed a constant supply of product. If they wanted to jump on the federal agent bandwagon, why not the Secret Service? Surely there's some real drama involved in protecting the president, rather than... well, listening to saps who've been suckered out of their money by mail-order scams -- or by ridiculous movies like Postal Inspector.

                                                        ******************

For more of Ricardo Cortez, go here for The Maltese Falcon, and here for Rubber Racketeers.

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE BIG SHAKEDOWN" (1934)

Sporting a title more appropriate for a '50s crime picture, The Big Shakedown asks the question: What happens to the bootleggers now that Prohibition's over? Gangster Dutch Barnes, impressed by pharmacist Jimmy Morrell's way with chemicals at the local drugstore, comes up with the brilliant idea of hiring him to manufacture bootleg toothpaste. Desperate times call for desperate measures -- like coming up with a movie that takes the concept of bootleg toothpaste seriously.
 
Soon, Dutch's goons are strong-arming local druggists to buy their product, just like the good ol' days. But perhaps realizing such a conceit would eventually make him the laughingstock of his fellow criminals, Dutch soon orders Jimmy to whip up cosmetic knock-offs. Naturally, the lipstick-happy dames can't tell the difference. Then, instead of making the logical move to, say, pseudo-Brioschi, Dutch decides to go into the medical-supply business, blackmailing Jimmy into creating bogus antiseptics and, eventually, digitalis -- a dose of which causes Jimmy's unsuspecting wife, Norma, to suffer a miscarriage. The moral of the story: toothpaste is a gateway drug.

She's a good actress, but not good enough
for those Bette Davis eyes to hide her contempt.

You just know that ingenue Bette Davis (Norma) was secretly praying for studio head Jack Warner to keel over with a shot of phony digitalis himself for forcing her into melodramatic hooey like The Big Shakedown, roughly her 20th movie in three years. Still a few years away from being treated like the royalty she always thought herself to be, Davis can't completely mask her disgust with the ridiculous script or her milquetoast leading man, Charles Farrell, the kind of actor she'd happily chew up and spit out before breakfast.

"...And next week I want you to make a vat of
interferon, or else!"

However, the ever-reliable Ricardo Cortez plays Dutch Barnes with his usual oily, clenched-teeth style. A well-dressed sociopath, Barnes has no problem flooding the city's hospitals with phony medicine if it means keeping the money rolling in. As Rand Paul would urge, let the marketplace decide what to do with him. 

"How can I be anti-
Semitic if I'm Jewish?"

Made near the end of the pre-code era, The Big Shakedown has plenty of little moments that would never have made it in a movie a year or two later. A dumpy housewife is humorously portrayed as a cough syrup addict. Sidney Miller, Warners' go-to whiny Jewish kid, is obsessed with keeping track of his money. The scientist who eventually shoots Dutch gets away with it because 1) Dutch stole his formula, and 2) Dutch had it coming. In order to further protect the killer, Jimmy dumps the murder weapon into the same vat of bubbling acid where Dutch's body falls. Very Shakespearean stuff.

One gag probably baffles most contemporary viewers. A mousy middle-aged guy enters Jimmy's store and asks for a druggist. When Bette Davis informs him that she's the druggist, the guy gulps and, thinking fast, asks for a bottle of aspirin. Davis smirks knowingly. Audiences in 1934 would have immediately caught the unspoken subtext: the guy had come in for condoms but didn't want to ask a woman for them. Now you can find them at any bodega next to the Milk Duds. I'm not certain we've made progress.

"And I ain't talkin' soda!"

Most unexpected of all is a line of dialogue spoken by the great Allen Jenkins. When informed that the gang is moving from beer to drugs -- pharmaceuticals, that is -- Jenkins misunderstands. "Not me," he replies. "I got a brother doing twenty years for going into the drug business and all they found on him was two decks of coke." There's nothing better than drug references in old movies. Except maybe sex references.

Bootleg toothpaste, Jewish stereotypes, a murderer getting off scot-free, drug humor, cough syrupholics -- it's just another day on the Warner Brothers lot. If not the best pre-code picture, The Big Shakedown is certainly one of the more entertainingly absurd. On the other hand, the next time you visit New York's Chinatown district, stay away from the exotic-looking toothpastes. Many contain diethylene glycol, a substance usually found in, among other things, heating fuel and brake fluid. As least Jimmy Morrell's stuff cleaned your teeth without killing you.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "RUBBER RACKETEERS" (1942)

World War II introduced a new breed of movie character: the unpatriotic gangster. Up 'til then, moviegoers watched Cagney, Bogart and their brothers-in-Tommy guns with a certain thrill. Sure, they were criminals -- but by and large they were just swindling and killing each other. And during Prohibition, they were selling the booze that everybody wanted. When you think about it, they were actually providing a public service far greater than today's hot-air politicians claim to be doing.

The Axis changed that equation. Everyone was expected to do their bit, and those that didn't were as bad as Adolf & company. By trafficking in rationed goods, hoodlums became really bad guys.

No joke, I swear I saw this same set
in another rubber racket movie.

Restrictions on rubber certainly provided an abundance of similarly-themed B-movies. The stories were all the same: criminals cash in on the shortage by manufacturing "new" tires out of old, worn-out ones. Fatal traffic accidents ensue. In Rubber Racketeers, the good guys are working stiffs from a munitions factory. This was another war-themed concept -- civilians putting their lives on the line instead of calling the cops. In fact, one newspaper headline in Rubber Racketeers screams FDR ASKS CITIZENS TO APPREHEND RACKETEERS! What the hell were we paying policemen to do, steal apples? 

If that were me, I'd apologize for getting
in his way, but that's the kind of a wimp
I am.

Don't try telling that to these Untouchables-wannabes. Now, say you were cut off in traffic by a guy who just got out of prison. And he's identified in the newspaper as FORMER PUBLIC ENEMY. Would you visit him to complain that his insurance company didn't offer enough of a payment on the damage your car incurred? I think not. Yet that's what Bill Barry does, thus setting off a chain of events that leads to his future brother-in-law getting killed in a car accident (those lousy tires again!), and his co-workers forming their own little vigilante group to bring down the rotten racket once and for all. Even when Bill's socked in the breadbasket by a couple of gunsels, he refuses to call the police, because, you know, this time it's personal. That's why I try not to take things personally. You never know when it might lead to a shootout at a makeshift tire factory.


Gilin, the titular rubber racketeer, is a first-class villain, but hits a real low near the climax. His Chinese-American servant, Tom (Tom?), had earlier joined the Army only to return on a 24-hour leave to serve him coffee. (I don't know about you, but if I were on leave, that wouldn't be the first thing I'd think of doing.) Now Tom was cool when Gilin was in the bathtub gin racket or hijacking other gangsters' goods -- that was business. But when he gets wind of Gilin's new operation, he tries playing to his boss' patriotism. In return, Gilin shoots him dead. That's right, an American citizen kills an American soldier. If you listen carefully, you can still hear 1942 audiences hissing. By then, even Gilin's moll Nikki starts waving the flag; at the fadeout, she's taken a job at the munitions factory where Bill works. Yup, another dame taking work away from a man. (I kid!)

"Stop! Or I'll shoot the ceiling!"

History lessons abound in Rubber Racketeers. We learn, for instance, that the only way you could get tires in waritme was to buy a whole damn car. Now that's a racket! (What do you think the odds were a cheapskate like Bob Hope couldn't get his hands on a couple of Goodyears on the QT?) You want slang? Rubber Racketeers is a veritable dictionary. "Don't let anyone get hep." "If anything goes wrong, I know from nothing." "What goes?" (The actor who spoke that last line might have misspoken, since in context of the conversation, what he means is, "What gives?" When you were shooting B-movies on tight budgets, retakes were necessary only when necessary.) Just to remind audiences what they were watching -- as if they didn't hear the word "rubber" in every line of dialogue -- radio announcers are forever reminding listeners of the shortage, and to drive under 40 MPH to make their tires last longer. You try telling that to commuters on the 405 today, see the look they give you.

As with many B-movies of the time, Rubber Racketeers makes use of location shots in downtown L.A., always a pleasure for a guy like me still waiting for that time-travel machine to become available at Costco. Minimal traffic, big mountains, tall palm trees, clear skies, no smog -- this was heaven, with or without ration cards. One scene takes place on the corner of Hazelhurst and Findlay -- two honest-to-gosh Los Angeles streets. Gilin and Nikki stop off for a nightcap at the Club Tally Ho, which appears to be authentic, and orders a round of French 75s. That's what I'm asking for the next time my moll and I bend elbows at our favorite watering hole. I just want to see how quickly we get thrown out. 

Rubber Racketeers showcases two actors on the way down, with two others biding their time before gaining TV immortality. For reasons unknown, Ricardo Cortez (the star of the original Maltese Falcon) had gone from starring in A's to coasting in B's by 1942. Still, his thin, sneering lips and dark eyes made him perfect for a hood like Gilin. Perhaps it's just my perception, but he seems to be fully aware he's better than the material he's given here, while giving it his all anyway. That's a pro.

As for Rochelle Hudson (Nikki), she should have gone on to big things after co-starring with W.C. Fields in Poppy six years earlier. Instead, movies with titles like She Had to Eat, Babies for Sale and The Stork Pays Off were in her future. Yet these are exactly the kind of pictures I'd watch anytime; in fact, I've seen Babies for Sale, so I know from whence I speak. I'm sure Ms. Hudson is looking down gratefully at me from that big soundstage in the sky.

Then there's Gilin's henchman Angel, played by Milburn Stone (left). Stone was just a journeyman actor until landing a 20 year-gig as Doc on Gunsmoke. Alan Hale, Jr., son of the great Warner Brothers character actor (both pictured right), and who plays Bill's friend Red, had a similar CV by the time he signed on to play the Skipper on Gilligan's Island. (Note to all aspiring actors: Stone and Hale had been making movies a combined total of 45 years before landing their hit series.)

But without doubt the most arresting supporting actor of the bunch is John Abbott as the, er, mentally-slow henchman who answers to the name Dumbo. Actually, he doesn't answer at all, since he seems incapable of speech. Looking like Pat Paulson's deranged great-uncle, Abbott spends most of the time twisting rubber around his fingers while his eyes appear to stare in two different directions simultaneously. Suffice it to say, he's a striking presence, although I don't know what good he'd be as a gangster's sidekick. And talk about bad luck -- the actor was blacklisted for a spell because fellow-blacklistee Dalton Trumbo used the name "John Abbott" as a pseudonym. Sorry 'bout that, John!

I'd been waiting for Rubber Racketeers to turn up since buying the poster back in my more carefree days. I can't say it lived up to my expectations, since I'm not sure I had any to begin with.  But from the clever opening credits, divided by rolling tires, to the finale when Nikki machineguns a V (for Victory) around a caricature of Hitler, Rubber Racketeers proved a fine hour's entertainment, and a reminder that when the rubber meets the road, it better be real. 


And the recipe for a French 75, according to Esquire magazine:

• 2 ounces London dry gin
• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 5 ounces Brut champagne

Shake well with cracked ice in a chilled cocktail shaker, then strain into a Collins glass half-full of cracked ice and top off with champagne. 

See you at the bar, Gilin -- and don't forget the tires!

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For more about Ricardo Cortez and his original version of The Maltese Falcon, click here.

For more about my ridiculous movie poster collection, click here. 

For more B-movies, click the B-MOVIES label below.