THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 64

There are actually actors you've heard of here. I must be slipping.

BEHIND THE MAKEUP (1930): Thanks to copyright expiration laws, a treasure

trove -- make that a pile -- of movies released in 1930 are appearing on YouTube every day. Most of them have been forgotten, and for good reason. But any starring William Powell is always a good bet, for he stands out in his early talkies like an ICE agent at a Quinceanera. But in a good way!

Still transitioning from character actor to leading man, Powell is Gardoni, a comedic entertainer from Italy stuck in New Orleans (why? how?) who teams up with third-rate vaudevillian Hap Brown. Even if you've never seen another movie in your life, you know what's coming. Gardoni steals Hap's material, his girlfriend Marie, and money, but eventually gets dumped by his sidepiece named Kitty. Drowning in gambling debts, Gardoni drowns himself for real, allowing Marie to return to Hap. Frankly, had I been that sap Hap, I'd have said "No sloppy seconds for me, lady!" and let her wallow in misery for the rest of her life.

Powell, per usual, towers over his co-stars, even with an Italian accent that sounds like... William Powell doing an Italian accent. As for his comedy partner/romantic rival, Hal Skelly's Hap doesn't come across well; you feel more contempt than empathy for allowing himself to be humiliated. Same with Fay Wray as Marie. Sure, Hap is a third-string vaudevillian, but how can she not see through Gardoni's "amore mio" routine? 

Likely the best thing to come out of Behind the Makeup was teaming William Powell with Kay Francis for the first of several times. Francis gives Kitty her usual chilly rich bitch style, taking delight in wooing Gardoni and ditching him for a millionaire. It's interesting to see Powell in the rare role of a rejected lover -- Myrna Loy never threw him overboard at MGM. As much as I like Powell, I say good for Kay Francis for giving what Gardoni deserved. Now if Hap had only done the same to Marie.

BONUS POINTS: Someone at Paramount's promo department played it cute, billing William Powell third in the posters and lobby cards, but second in the "cast of characters". 

FAST AND LOOSE (1930): The title of the goofy romantic comedy Fast and Loose seems to refer to the characters' behavior, their way with the truth, and the story itself: Spoiled rich kids fall in love with people beneath their class. Rich mother panics, rich father investigates for himself. Most of them wind up in the clink after a police raid at a restaurant. Stern talking-to, followed by love and kisses all around. You've seen it before, and are probably asking, So what?

This what. While Fast and Loose is predictable, the dialogue is... on the witty side. Sophisticated. Very often chuckle-worthy, going from Not bad to Hey, this is some funny stuff! The people credited with the original source material and screenplay are unfamiliar, but the "Dialogue by" goes to Preston Sturges. Ah ha, that explains it!

In only his second screen credit, Sturges is already displaying his talent for writing upscale dialogue that the average moviegoer could appreciate. Fast and Loose flirts with pre-code situations and conversations while never quite crossing the line -- or if it does, it's so subtle that many people wouldn't quite notice. And as with every Sturges movie I've seen, there's one moment that had me laughing loud and long, causing me to miss several subsequent lines of dialogue. It concerns the use of the word "cremated", which gives you a sense of what I find funny.

Oh, there's a cast, too. Miriam Hopkins (in her first feature), Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan are the famous faces; they and the forgotten Charles Starrett, Ilka Chase, Barry O'Moore, and Henry Wadsworth all do a splendid job with Sturges' words. Had he written and directed Fast and Loose in the 1940s, it would have starred Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea, William Demarest, Rudy Vallee, and Eve Arden. It would have been even funnier, but the Fast and Loose that we have is more than good enough. 

BONUS POINTS: Miriam Hopkins resembles a 1970s model with her frizzy hair, while the pre-glamorous Carole Lombard is unexpectedly cute and innocent. 

LET US LIVE (1939): At the risk of being accused of heresy, I've never been a big Henry Fonda fan, He usually strikes me as flat and chilly, with cold, steely eyes that signals a hot temper seething underneath. 

Well, you can forget that for now, because the forgotten drama Let Us Live knocked me out of my chair thanks to Fonda's astonishingly emotional performance as Brick Tennant, who, along with his friend Joe, is wrongly sentenced to death row for murder. An upbeat, patriotic guy, engaged to his girlfriend Mary, Brick gradually loses his faith in the law, justice, and America itself as the public, the police, and the D.A. are hellbent on killing the two men even when Mary finds proof of their innocence. Only Lt. Everett, the original cop on the case, believes her, as they race the clock to prevent Brick and Joe from going to the chair.

Fonda's transformation from optimist to bitter cynic is remarkable in its believability. While Alan Baxter's Joe was already a skeptic, Fonda is shocked that everything he believed in America was a lie, making Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

look like a MAGA production (It also lays the groundwork for two future Fonda classics, The Grapes of Wrath and The Wrong Man.) Even the happy ending really isn't happy after all, because it's quite clear that the once-sanguine Brick has been changed forever, and nor for better. 

Credit needs to go to director John Brahm and his technical team for their splendid work with Let Us Live's proto-noir cinematography and lighting. A round of applause as well for Maureen O'Sullivan as Mary (this is the best acting of hers I've seen), and Stanley Ridges as the death-happy D.A. As with his other roles, it took me a few minutes to realize it was him -- he's absolutely the most underrated character actor of his time. And let's give Ralph Bellamy a pat on the back as Lt. Everett just because his character is essential to proving the guys' innocence. Let Us Live comes highly recommended from this movie dork. And it runs only 68 minutes!

BONUS POINTS: You'll get lockjaw from saying, "Oh, that guy!" due to all the recognizable character actors. In addition to the perennial Charles Lane, there's Byron Foulger, Dick Elliot, Henry Kolker, Charles Trowbridge, Clarence Wilson, John Qualen, Sam McDaniel...

CLIMAX!: "NO RIGHT TO KILL" (8/9/1956): It seems to be go-to idea for movie and TV writers: when in doubt, churn out an update of Crime and Punishment. If you're unfamiliar with the details -- other than there was a crime followed by punishment -- the TV Guide outline on the right will suffice.

John Cassavetes was still riding high on the previously discussed live TV play Crime in the Streets as a juvenile delinquent. His performance here as the doomed wannabe writer Malcom McCloud is more age-appropriate but less believable. He seems way too smart to declaim his grandiloquent dialogue ("I shall leave!") even though his character probably would likely speak that way to prove he's more intellectual than his Greenwich Village neighbors. Cassavetes is also saddled with direction that screams I killed the pawnbroker!, which only arouses the suspicion of District Attorney Profear when they meet at a party. (Just how McCloud has a friend who knows the D.A. goes unexplained.)

The two main costars come off better than Cassavetes because they're better fits for their roles. Terry Moore makes her cliched character of the dumb but kindhearted waitress sympathetic and kind of believable. She can't help feeling something for McCloud, who's different from the grabby guys who populate her restaurant. (Climax! host Bill Lundigan reminds us that Moore "appears through the courtesy of 20th Century-Fox and is currently starring in Between Heaven and Hell, a 20th Century-Fox production in Cinemascope". Thanks for appearing on the 15-inch TV screen, Terry!)

No offense to John Cassavetes, but Robert Harris comes out on top as D.A. Porfear. Without anything but a gut feeling to go on, the sly, witty Profear gradually allows McCloud to confess without using the third-degree. I will bet a C-note that Harris patterned his performance on that of Edward Arnold, who played the role in the 1935 version of Crime and Punishment opposite Peter Lorre. While Cassavetes is the draw today in No Right to Kill, Harris is the one you wind up remembering.

BONUS POINTS: The commercials for the 1956 Chryslers are impressive, seeing there are up to five on stage at one time, and have pretty cool windows, too! 

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 57

Three movies made during the changeover from silent to sound, and one from a decade later featuring what was briefly Paramount's B-movie stock company.

THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928): There's nothing about The Docks of New York promising greatness. A ship's stoker saves a hooker who tried to drown herself in the East River. They go to a dive bar, get married, spend the night the together before he ships off the following day. He has a change of heart and swims back to land, where he learns she's in night court for a crime he committed. He confesses, gets sentenced to 60 days. The hooker promises to wait for him.  

Would you watch such a movie? Well, maybe you should, just to see how important a great director can be. For Josef von Sternberg elevates a cliched tale into something both human and humane. The first reel or two feature situations and characters you've seen in countless old movies, particularly silents like this. Yet von Sternberg molds it all into something that you gradually come to understand and care about. Sure, George Bancroft (the stoker) is rough around the edges -- drinking beer straight out of a keg -- and Betty Compson (the hooker) has been beat around by life pretty badly. Yet each brings out something positive in the other. For Bancroft, it means a real love he's never felt for any woman. For Compson, it's a belief that it's possible to find a man who cares about her.

Von Sternberg transforms these battered people into a couple you root for even in their tawdry surroundings; it's a master class for anyone who wants to learn what an "actor's director" is. Watch the dozens of extras in the bar -- each one appears to have gotten personal instruction from von Sternberg; their action never looks forced or phony. (One funny moment comes when Bickford and Compson converse in a corner, completely ignoring a rowdy fight going on in a mirror's reflection above them.) 

There's more, much more, in The Docks of New York than is covered here, from the genuine filth covering the stokers, to how Betty Compson begins rock hard and slowly softens into the kind of woman her character probably dreamed of becoming when growing up. If von Sternberg's first movie, Salvation Hunters, was the work of a self-styled artiste trying too hard to say something important, The Docks of New York is a masterpiece of an unexpectedly mature drama from a bold, thoughtful director. Spoiler alert: the happy ending feels neither forced nor tacked on. 

BONUS POINTS: Gustav von Seyffertitz (born in 1862!) steals his five-minute scene as "Hymn-Book Harry", the priest who reluctantly marries the wayward couple in the dive bar. With a mere look in his eyes, von Seyffertitz reminds all the barflies (and us) of the solemnity of the moment. Brilliant stuff.

INTERFERENCE (1928): As you could guess from the advert on the right, Paramount's first talking feature Interference has nothing to do with football. It is, rather, a melodrama of the British upper-class involving hidden identity, divorce, blackmail, and murder. Kind of like the royal family if you dig hard enough. 

While Interference possesses many of the drawbacks prevalent during the early days of sound, its story is actually quite involving. Phillip Voaze has a chance meeting with first wife Deborah Kane a decade after his disappearance in World War I. In need of a few shillings, Deborah hatches a blackmailing scheme involving letters written to Voaze years earlier from his former sidepiece Faith. Without knowing what the others are doing, Voaze, Faith, and Faith's current husband Sir John Marlay each visit Deborah. One of them would like to kill her, another really does, while the third is arrested for it. All this hubbub for a few old "Oh baby, what you do to me" mash notes! People sure were touchy in 1928.

There are coincidences galore throughout Interference, like Voaze just happening to choose Marlay as a doctor, but that's to be expected in any movie of this type. Evelyn Brent and Doris Kenyon (as Deborah and Faith respectively) get the lion's share of histrionics. Clive Brook, the kind of distinguished Brit that talkies were created for, is agreeably lowkey as the stiff upper-lipped Sir John, the doctor whose prescription for blackmail is a dose of lethal threats. 

But it's William Powell, as the sickly Voaze, who steals Interference. His clipped, eloquent delivery, heard onscreen for the first time, must have convinced the boys at Paramount's front office that he was far more suited to leading roles than his often-villainous supporting parts in silents. No surprise that his next movie, a silent titled The Canary Murder Case, was immediately reshot with sound. Now that kind of studio interference makes sense.

BONUS POINTS: One credit reads "Dialogue Arranged by Ernest Pascal", as if the guy cut up the script, tossed the shreds up in the air, and glued them together at random like William Burroughs. Another credit, "Based on a Lothar Mendes Production", refers to Mendes' direction of the silent version of Interference, which Roy J. Pomeroy followed for his direction of the talkie version, which was shot simultaneously. As with The Canary Murder Case, those were the days when studios could pay actors once for making a movie twice.

THE SQUALL (1929): The funniest feature of 1929 must have been The Squall. And making it even more of a hoot is that it's a drama. Ergo, if you ever want to convince your friends that early talkies get a bad rap, this is not the movie to show them. 

In a small Hungarian village, middle-aged couple hire a young Gypsy woman named Nubi as their housekeeper. She shows her gratitude by seducing every male in the household and turning all the women against one another. Money goes missing, the maid and gardener quit, Paul breaks up with his fiancée Irma, fights break out -- and Nubi the housekeeper doesn't even sweep the floor! 

Absolutely nothing else happens in The Squall, other than the audience wondering why Nubi wasn't fired after her first day on the job. As for the acting -- hoo boy. Myrna Loy -- still stuck in "exotic" roles -- is Nubi. She's supposed to be sexy but appears to be a thousand kernels short of a cob. Too, Nubi (or, rather, Loy) is stuck with 90 minutes' worth of dialogue along the lines of "Nubi not happy!" or "Nubi like diamonds!" Loretta Young, as Irma, sounds exactly what she was in 1929: a 16 year-old girl badly reciting lines for the first time. Yet nobody beats Caroll Nye as Peter, emoting his already purple dialogue to the point where his mouth probably tasted like grapes. As for the direction, Alexander Korda makes sure to keep The Squall at a dead snail's pace. 

Somehow, Loy, Young, and Korda eventually proved to be far better than The Squall would have you believe. In later years they all probably shook their heads just hearing the word "squall" in weather forecasts. As for the rest of us... the forecast for watching The Squall is a 100% chance of disbelief mixed with unceasing laughter.

BONUS POINTS: The miniature horse & wagons standing in for the travelling Gypsy camp manage to be laughable and utterly charming all at once. In fact, they give a better performance than any human in the picture.

KING OF CHINATOWN (1939): 

Paramount must have been pretty pleased with the previous year's Dangerous to Know, because they rounded up much of the same cast for this well-made crime caper. Give the studio credit, too, for trying to revive Anna May Wong's sputtering career even in B-pictures like these. 

If there's a problem for fans of top-billed Wong, it's that her character, surgeon Dr. Mary Ling, is often overshadowed by Frank Baturin, the white leader of a Chinatown protection racket, who was shot by his underling Mike Gordon on orders of the gang's accountant (nicknamed The Professor). After performing life-saving surgery on Baturin, Dr. Ling becomes his temporary live-in caregiver. As Gordon and The Professor take over the racket, Baturin decides to break up his criminal band, furthering the accountant's desire to get him out of the way once and for all. Moral: always be good to your money manager.

King of Chinatown is unique in that the sex and race of Wong's character are never a subject for conversation or contention -- she is simply a brilliant surgeon, period. But unwilling to leave well enough alone, Paramount cast white actor Sidney Toler as her Chinese father because... well, he was currently playing Charlie Chan over at Fox! And why is Armenian-American Akim Tamiroff using an Italian accent when playing a character with the Ukrainian name of Maturin? Oh heck, let's continue with busy second-rate dialect actor J. Carroll Naish using an Irish accent as The Professor for no reason other than Chinese and Italian were already taken. Mexican-born Anthony Quinn, as the red-blooded American gunsel Gordon, already lost his accent, so he gets a pass.

All this confusion helps to make King of Chinatown an even more fun 56 minutes than it already it is. And despite the odd casting (and accent) choices throughout, Anna May Wong was probably grateful for the chance to prove she could do something other than the usual Dragon Lady routine. But I still wonder how she felt about a white guy playing her Chinese father. 

BONUS POINTS: Super-annoying actor Roscoe Karns disappears from King of Chinatown before the end of the second reel, as if director Nick Grinde realized they didn't need an ambulance driver character ripped-off from MGM's Dr. Kildare movies.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 45

From the dawn of sound to Beatlemania -- for you youngsters out there...

THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1928): The first of Paramount's mysteries with amateur detective Philo Vance, who's always happy to help the NYPD solve a murder. Here, The Canary is an entertainer, not somebody's pet. There's no shortage of suspects, starting with rich kid Jimmy Spottswoode, with whom she had a brief fling, and his fiancée Alice LaFosse; Jimmy's father; three other men she's been having a go at; and a husband fresh out of prison. When Jimmy later confesses to the crime, Vance knows he's lying but has to figure out how to prove it when the real killer dies in an auto accident. 

More than any other movie detective, Philo Vance is dependent on his portrayer. Sure, he's an effete intellectual smarty-pants like Sherlock Holmes, but otherwise he has no personality to speak of. At least William Powell provides the proper panache, style, and what have you. He and Eugene Pallette (as the corpulent police Sergeant Heath) handle their dialogue like the longtime stage actors they once were, with their contrasting personalities providing plenty of amusing moments. 

It's the first 20 or so minutes that are problematic. Filmed as a silent in mid-1928, the Paramount execs quickly ordered it reshot as a talkie. Louise Brooks, as The Canary, had already sailed for Germany to make Pandora's Box and refused to return. Since the Canary is killed early on, another actress was hired to dub in Brooks' dialogue. Not only is what we're hearing obviously not Brooks' voice, it doesn't match what her lips are saying. And when certain very short parts of her scenes had to be reshot rather than merely dubbed, the other actress is conveniently (and awkwardly) offscreen as she speaks. A few other brief silent portions of the movie are jarringly voiced by the real actors but lack ambient sound effects of, say, slamming doors and auto engines. 

Simply as a murder mystery, The Canary Murder Case isn't bad. The suspects all have reasons to kill the dame. It keeps you guessing until the end. But between the dubbing and the solution to the murder being as absurdly convoluted as any ever dreamed up -- typical for the Philo Vance movies I've seen so far -- it's surprising that The Canary Murder Case didn't murder the series almost before it started.

BONUS POINTS: Whether by accident or not, one of the suspects, played by Gustav von Seyffertitz, is a double for Lenin.

GRAND EXIT (1935):  Former investigator Tom Fletcher is rehired by his old employer Interoceanic Fire Insurance Company to figure out who's behind the string of fires at buildings they cover. Over time, he and his sidekick John Grayson run into Adrienne Martin, who happens to be at each fire they investigate. Adrienne lights a fuse in both men. Sparks fly. Flames of love grow. But does smoke get in their eyes?  It's a match made in hell! (Thanks to one-sheet on the right for inspiring all that hype.)

Grand Exit really does keep you guessing, as Tom and John have plausible motives to be the firebugs. Tom was previously fired by Interoceanic and replaced by John. Sure, Tom arranges for John to stay on the payroll -- so his junior partner can be proven to be the arsonist as he suspects. And if not John, then Adrienne could be a good fall guy, considering her unusual interest in his investigation. On the other hand, Tom could be exacting revenge on the company for getting fired in the first place and needs to frame somebody to pin the fires on, like Adrienne. 

Yet with all these conflagrations, Grand Exit is surprisingly lighthearted. Edmund Lowe, on the cusp of the end of his leading man days, and Ann Sothern at the beginning of her career, get plenty of laughs in roles appearing to be influenced by William Powell and Myrna Loy in Thin Man, right down to his penchant for day drinking.  Onslow Steven makes for a good straightman of the trio, thanks partly to his offbeat good looks. Lowe is undeniably the star, though, thanks to his fast-paced delivery and pulling shenanigans like impersonating a nut in order to follow a lead in a psych hospital. Never quite as charismatic as Powell, there's nevertheless a certain style about him that catches me off-guard every time I see him (The Gift of Gab notwithstanding). He was probably forgotten by the time of his death in 1971 but deserves a second look. But I still don't know what the title Grand Exit has to do with arson.

BONUS POINTS: One of the newsreel stock footage of fires features a brief shot of a building with a sign reading PLYMOUTH CHURCH. Just for what I consider fun, I did a Google search, and discovered it's located in Brooklyn and was part of the Underground Railroad during the 19th century.

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (1959): Looking at its American promotional material like the one-sheet on the right, you'd get the idea that Shake Hands with the Devil was a gangster picture. This was merely to fool people who would otherwise have no interest in watching an historical drama from the UK about Northern Ireland, circa 1920. 

Janes Cagney plays Sean Linahan, an erudite medical professor by day and the second in command of the Irish Republican Army by night. All of the actor's familiar mannerisms are with him, right down to the way he stands with his arms not quite at his sides, looking like he's preparing to throw a punch or break out into a dance routine. 

At 60 years old, Cagney resembles a paunchy, aging bulldog who still has it in him to rip your face off, as his character's "cause" isn't so much freeing Ireland but a psychopathic urge to commit violence for the sake of violence -- kind of like Kenneth Branagh's Belfast meets Warner Brothers' White Heat, but with different accents. So it's a real downer that his co-star, Don Murray, is such a wet sock in comparison as the American-born Kerry O'Shea, drawn into the cause when his roommate is killed by British forces. 

Murray is totally at sea in a role that should have gone to someone who could convincingly play a confused young man while still holding his own when surrounded by the likes of Cagney, Michael Redgrave, Glynis Johns, and Richard Harris (as a nasty IRA member). Not even the fine director Michael Anderson seems to have been able to draw anything more than average from Murray, even as he frames and lights every scene to perfection. A step or two away from great, Shake Hands with the Devil is still a riveting drama, giving an idea of where Cagney's career could have gone had he not retired two years later.

BONUS POINTS: In what was likely a daring bit of drama at the time, graffiti scrawled on a wall reads UP THE REPUBLIC. That's tellin' 'em!

THE MUSIC OF LENNON & MCCARTNEY (1965): Way too many people thought a little of the Beatles magic would rub off on them if they recorded the band's music. Way too many of them were wrong, as proven in this 1965 British special hosted (as if at gunpoint) by John and Paul themselves. The singers here who had been given Lennon & McCartney songs not recorded by the Beatles -- Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, and Billy J. Kramer (all managed by Brian Epstein) -- come off quite well because their versions are literally incomparable. It's only when you hear remakes of Beatle recordings by the likes of a baroque-style orchestra or someone named Antonio Vargas you realize how important the Beatles themselves are to this music. And don't get me started on the allegedly groovy choreography by bleached blondes in go-go boots, which is the antithesis of what the Beatles were all about.

The interesting moments are few. American soul singer Esther Phillips' "And I Love Him" could have been a minor hit had it been written for her. At the piano, Henry Mancini's version of "If I Fell" demonstrates how strong their melodies could be. But the most memorable moment in The Music of Lennon & McCartney is "A Hard Day's Night" orated by Peter Sellers as Laurence Olivier playing Richard III. In addition to being pretty funny, it (deliberately?) makes the lyrics to the original recording sound really, really silly. Sellers and Mancini, by the way, are the only guests who perform live.

The hacks responsible for the subpar script put the naturally witty John and Paul on the same level of the atrocious Beatle cartoon series. (John's opening smirk immediately gives the game away.) It isn't until they're joined by George and Ringo to perform lip-synch their latest single, "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" are you reminded that these guys revolutionized the music world. These two moments alone prove The Music of Lennon & McCartney would have been a better showcase had it featured the Beatles and nobody else. Except maybe Peter Sellers.

BONUS POINTS: Ever have the desire to hear a Beatle song sounding machine-gunned out by a flamenco dancer? This is your chance.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "TOO MANY KISSES" (1925)

Richard Gaylord, Jr. has been shipped overseas to the Basque region by his rich businessman father. It seems Jr. keeps getting in trouble with the ladies, a hobby Daddy finds expensive after each break-up. Jr. has been assigned to find the valuable mineral turidium. If he stays away from the dames for six months, he gets 50% ownership of the company. Who needs sex when you're the turidium king?

When was the last time the phrase
"Breach of promise" was heard in a courtroom?

 

 

Enter stage left Yvonne Hurja, the beautiful daughter of the Spanish guy that Jr. is working with. Enter stage right, the cruel Captain of the Guards, Don Julio, who has his eyes on Yvonne. And if this what made the movie interesting, it would be exit off the couch for the viewer right then and there.

Made in late 1924, released in 1925, lost until 1971, and restored in 2020, Too Many Kisses is six reels of silliness mixed with romantic comedy and melodrama. It likely would have remained forgotten had it not been for one unlikely piece of casting. For despite the presence of Richard Dix and William Powell as Jr. and Don Julio respectively, Too Many Kisses is known only for the screen debut of Harpo Marx.

Harpo celebrates breaking into movies
before his brothers.

 

What Harpo had over his siblings regarding silent movies was his own silence -- even if, in Too Many Kisses, he has two lines of dialogue (via subtitles). Yet if you watch closely, he stands with his mouth agape in typical Harpo-style when he's supposed to be talking. My guess is that he had become so used to almost 20 years of doing a dumb act that talking just didn't  come naturally in performance. Or maybe he forgot what he was supposed to say.

Laddero Marx.

It's nice to see that Harpo's persona was fully-formed by now. His first appearance, sound asleep and snoring so hard that he's moving straw back and forth, wouldn't have been out of place in any of his subsequent movies. And while there's no chance (or need) for him to play his usual instrument, Harpo does get another Harpoesque moment when he's accompanying Don Julio's musical wooing of Yvonne by "playing" a ladder like a guitar. (His character is billed in the credits as "The Village Peter Pan", which I suppose is nicer than "Village Idiot".)

It would take almost a century for Harpo (right)
to be considered stealing a scene from
William Powell.

Harpo stays primarily in the background for most of the movie; he might not have been even noticed in many scenes by moviegoers who weren't familiar with his stage work. But he's there enough, particularly in the second half, so that a Marx fan doesn't go away entirely disappointed.

More observant (i.e., boring) people like me will notice that not only does he walk like the Harpo we've always known, but that he's playing more like his overly-sympathetic MGM character rather than the earlier, anarchic style at Paramount. Ironic, then, that Too Many Kisses is a Paramount picture.

Richard Dix would lose that silly look in his noirish 1940s dramas, while William Powell
wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like that again.

 

So what of Too Many Kisses' real stars? Being more familiar with their sound movies, I could "hear" Richard Dix and William Powell speaking their subtitles. But either they improved by the end of silents, or director Paul Sloane instructed them to overact whenever possible. Dix's reaction to sitting next Frances Howard (as Yvonne) is strictly Jerry Lewis. Powell is more subtle, yet appears to be the template for every sneering villain of the time.

Despite being beautifully restored with its original tints -- and a lovely piano score by Harpo's son Bill -- Too Many Kisses is strictly for the diehard Marx Brothers fans who need to see everything they ever did, whether it's worth watching or not. And after they see this the first time, they can rewatch it to see if, as rumor has it, Zeppo Marx really is an in-joke extra. It'll take their mind off the rest of the movie.  

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To read about how good Richard Dix could be, click his name below.