Baer, Rosenbloom in The Champs Step Out

Review by Doug Gibson

In another of Plan9Crunch's occasional review of lesser-known Columbia comedy shorts, we take a look at 1951's "The Champs Step Out," starring a comedy team of former boxing champions, heavyweight Max Baer and light heavyweight "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom.

Both were well past their fighting days but they keep their own names and play themselves in this short. They have a detective agency called Kayo; subtle, isn't it. The short does have some impressive credits, though. The better half of Columbia's factory, Hugh McCollum's, produced "Champ Steps Out" and it's directed by my favorite Columbia director, Edward Bernds, and penned by Elwood Ullman.

The talented Emile Sitka and attractive foil Jean Willes have key supporting roles. Except for some toughs who have uncredited bit parts, it's a four-cast short. The plot: Professor Bentley (Sitka) is a nervous wreck. His collection of priceless artifacts, including a couple of "priceless" Ming vases, are unguarded. His sexy assistant/secretary Miss Pearson (Willes) tries to calm him.

The professor sees an as for the detective agency and decides to call on them. (When he hears their names he says, "that rings a bell," ... more subtle humor.) He identifies himself as a "collector." Maxie, thinking he collects bills, throws him out twice. Eventually, the boys are hired to go to the professor's home, where moronic Rosenbloom breaks one of his Ming vases. Baer flirts with Willes, who slips him a mickey. We find out that Willes is in cahoots to rob the professor with a couple of toughs and it's up to our ex-fighters, who throw their share of punches, to stop them.

This is not a bad short; it's better than I anticipated. I'm a big boxing fan, or I probably would have passed on it. It's a semi-pleasant diversion, but it's not really funny. I counted two laughs. Once, when Willes coos to Baer that she likes him, saying "I adore your type, sort of ugly good looking," which is kind of true. The second laugh comes when Rosenbloom gets his tie knocked off his shirt by an errant bullet fired by one of the baddies. He'd tossed the gun, thinking it was unloaded.

As mentioned, Sitka and Willes do their usually effective support. Baer and Rosenbloom, unfortunately, are not great actors. I was surprised the latter was not effective because he had a long career in film and was a stage comic. Baer is actually the better of the two in this short. He underplays his role, allowing the small amount of charm and gusto he has to provide humor and a quick pace.

Rosenbloom is just plain mediocre; he tries to play 60 percent Curly and 40 percent Larry to Baer's "Moe"-sh persona and it doesn't work. He does have a very small amount of "aw shucks" charm that carries him through the two reels.

According to Ed Watz and Ted Okuda in "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," Baer and Rosenbloom were the last comedy team signed by Columbia. They made four shorts. For a long time none were available but YouTube brought us this one to enjoy.

Baer won the world heavyweight championship by KOing Primo Carnera in 1934. He lost the title a year later in a huge upset to James J. Braddock. That story was told in the 2005 film "Cinderella Man." In an otherwise above-average film, Baer's reputation was unfairly impugned. He was depicted as a boorish, sadistic, sexist brute, which he was not. After losing the title Baer appeared finished after Joe Louis knocked him out but he recovered and stayed a contender for several more years, finishing in 1941.

Rosenbloom fought an incredible 274 bouts over a 16-year career that ended in 1939. He won the world heavyweight title in 1930 defeating Jimmy Slattery. There was far less money in that division than the heavyweights and Rosenbloom fought heavyweights, but never received a shot at that title. Both he and Baer were champions at the same time for a few months in 1934.

The pair never met in the ring.

Watch a fine version of "The Champs Step Out" above courtesy of The Shorts Department.

A Mormon Maid: a 1917 anti-Mormon hit movie

Review by Doug Gibson

"A Mormon Maid" is an intensely fascinating time-capsule silent melodrama. It is very. anti-Mormon, a filmed polemic against the unpopular religion. Remember its era: Professional anti-Mormon apostate Frank J, Cannon was peddling his book to magazine installments and big sales; he was also a draw on the Chautauqua circuit.

Even that more famous anti-Mormon silent, "Trapped By the Mormons," was still several years away. "Trapped ..." had played in SLC as an historical novelty. I saw it about 25 years ago at the Tower Theater.

Frankly, "A Mormon Maid," which you can watch at the top of this review, merits more ink than "Trapped ..." which was peddled more or less as an independent (meaning it was not a major release). "A Mormon Maid" was a bigger release, with a major company of the time, Lasky. It has name stars in Noah Beery Sr. and then-popular starlet Mae Murray, who takes the title role. Murray's the type of silent star who prompted tens of thousands of teenage girls to dream about moving to Hollywood and being discovered.

"A Mormon Maid" jabs at the church are more personal and cutting. Some church avengers are styled after the Ku Klux Klan ("Birth of a Nation" seems to have been an influence.) The avengers, and faithful Mormons, wear garb that is distantly related to temple garb that Mormons consider sacred. Perhaps the most jarring sight is an apron with pictures of plants sown on the aprons. I'll leave things at that. The garb, though, also looks silly at times, with a large "all-seeing eye" in the middle and the men with cloaks over their heads.

Mormons who view this in 2016 will appreciate that the LDS Church 99 years ago was still very unpopular. The long 20th century effort to make Mormonism more palatable to the public, other churches and businesses, was in its early stages. The church leadership did protest "A Mormon Maid" quite vigorously, and my have had some success.

According to the AFI films page on "A Mormon Maid" it reads: "that Paramount decided not to distribute the film due to pressure from the Mormon Church. Papers in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection at Brigham Young University indicate that Lasky did not feel that the film was up to company standards." Also, AFI claims that its original 8-reel production was cut to six reels, which puts it a little over an hour.

One more thing is that the Director General of "A Mormon Maid" is Cecil B. DeMille. This was long before he became one of Hollywood's greatest directors. I'm not quite sure what a director general is, but his name is prominent in the credits. The director was Robert Z. Leonard.

A PENNY-DREADFUL MELODRAMA

I'll provide a quick recap of the film: It's a classic "penny-dreadful" melodrama of the era, a dime novel translated to screen. There are virtually no characterizations; we don't get to know the characters beyond the faintest personalities. The only emotion effectively conveyed is lust, which Beery's evil apostle, Darius Burr, the power behind a surprisingly weak "Lion of the Lord, Brigham Young (Richard Cummings). Burr lusts after the beautiful, non-Mormon tom-girl Dora Hogue (Murray).

I'm digressing; the plot: We open with a faux book intro, accompanied by films of the Mormon pioneers. It's commendable at first, and there are some nice scenes of pioneer wagon teams. But eventually we learn the pioneers are exploited by Young (Cummings plays him as a constipated looking Puritan), the evil apostles, of which Burr is the most evil, and the avenging forces, which prevent any opposition and track down disillusioned members who want to leave.

In the middle of nowhere live the Hogue family, dad John (Hobart Bosworth), mom Nancy (Edythe Chapman) and Dora. A Mormon scout, Tom Rigdon (Frank Borzage) from Salt Lake City informs the Hogues, who are not members, that Indians are about to attack. Dad Hogue wants no help from the Mormons but after the Mormons save the family from an Indian attack (well filmed) they accept an offer to move to Salt Lake City.

Fast forward a couple of years. The Hogues are successful residents, and Dora and Tom are in love. But Apostle Burr wants Dora to be his polygamous bride, so oppression sets in. At a secret meeting with the avengers, family membership in the church is "offered" and Frank can either take a polygamous wife or Dora has to marry Apostle Burr. To save his daughter, Frank takes a second wife. A shocked, grief-stricken Nancy commits suicide (rather shockingly shown on screen).

Naturally, evil Burr still lusts for Dora and the remainder of the film involves the Hogues, and Tom, fleeing from, or fighting, the Mormon avengers and the leadership. I'll mention that in one scene Dora rather shrewdly avoids (for a time) coerced marriage with Burr by lying and saying she's not a virgin.

This is a fun film to watch because it shouldn't be taken seriously. It's a history lesson, a silent film polemic that focuses on an easy target. Church members should not be offended. It's a case of the film's theme revealing the vacuousness of its proponents.

Because it's 1917, much of the film plays like a stage play; all of the action is comprised on a screen and the camera work is often static. However, there are impressive shots of wagon trains and the heroes trying to escape the Mormon avengers.

"A Mormon Maid" has not been ignored by recent scholars. LDS history blogger Ardis E. Parshall recently mentioned the film in the Keepapitchinin blog, Parshall writes: "1917’s A Mormon Maid was a rude introduction to popular motion pictures supposedly about Mormonism. Heavily advertised and extremely popular, it played for months in the United States, and was exported to Europe where it also played well."

Parshall's blog is worth a read. It includes newspaper ads for the film. I searched Google for similar ads an I'm sharing one here.

In 2009, Parshall also wrote about the film, and included a review of a 1987 scholarly appraisal of the film's propaganda value. It was titled "Commercial Propaganda in the Silent Film: A Case Study of 'A Mormon Maid,'" by Richard Alan Nelson, Film History, Vol. 1, No. 2. 

A snippet: "The author examines why this particular film, of so many similar ones produced at approximately the same time,  was even more successful than the rest and deserves special study. He describes the extremely high production values, the talents of the director, cinematographer, and editor – a powerhouse crew of early movie talent which included Cecil B. DeMille. The skillful direction, filming, and editing of A Mormon Maid created practically a new genre, the docu-drama, which made the tale it told especially believable to a national audience and especially distressing to the Saints. ..."

So there's just about all you need to know about "A Mormon Maid." I'd like to learn more about it, what DeMille thought of the film, and it'd be fun to see it on the big screen; maybe Salt Lake Film Society or The Egyptian Theater might do that?

Plan9Crunch redux -- A look at Larry Buchanan and his films

By Steve D. Stones

The Films Of Larry Buchanan - A Critical Examination - by Rob Craig (McFarland 2007):

Despite what film critics and historians may think of Texas filmmaker Larry Buchanan, he is not a terrible director who produces bottom of the barrel, trash entertainment. Like any Ed Wood film, Buchanan's films are laced with political and social commentary - if the viewer chooses to look hard enough.

Cult film writer Rob Craig has written an excellent book examining Buchanan's films and career. Craig makes a good case for the legitimacy and importance of Buchanan's work, and examines many of the recurring themes in his films. Themes such as the oppressive nature of patriarchy, the curse of fame, historial revision, the rebel outsider and government conspiracy are all addressed in many of Buchanan's films. Craig is detailed in pointing out how each of these themes are addressed in each Buchanan film.

Like any great low-budget, independent filmmaker, Buchanan worked in a number of genres in film - such as the western, exploitation, science-fiction, horror and the bio-pic. He created a series of TV movies for Azalea Pictures that were homages-remakes of 1950s horror and science fiction films.

The first in this homage-remake series for Azalea was The Eye Creatures (1965), which is based on Invasion of The Saucer Men (1957). Next up was Zontar, The Thing From Venus (1966) - based on Roger Corman's 1957 film - It Conquered The World. Another Corman remake Buchanan filmed was the 1967 film - In The Year 2889 - based on Corman's The Day The World Ended (1956). Creature of Destruction (1967) is Buchanan's remake of The She Creature (1957). Most of these films are direct scene-by-scene remakes of their original source with some changed dialog.

Buchanan addressed the media's obsession with fame and the curse that comes with it in a number of his films such as - The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964), The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde (1968), Goodbye, Norma Jean (1976), Hughes and Harlow: Angels In Hell (1977), Beyond The Doors (aka Down On Us - 1984) and Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn (1989).

The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald is a film that takes the stand-point of what would have happened if Jack Ruby had not shot and killed Oswald in a Dallas parking garage in 1963, and instead his case went to court. Shot in Dallas shortly after the assassination of JFK, many critics felt it was too early at the time to release a film addressing the accused killer of the president.

Both Goodbye, Norma Jean and Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn are about Hollywood sex icon - Marilyn Monroe - although one addresses her orphaned life before fame, and the other at the time of her death.

Perhaps Buchanan's most famous and loved film is Mars Needs Women (1967). The film is Buchanan's treatise on the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Three male martians come to earth to seek out young women for breeding purposes. One of the martians, played by teen idol Tommy Kirk, falls in love with a sexy, brainy brunette scientist.

For further reading by Rob Craig, see his book about grindhouse director Andy Milligan - Gutter Auteur: The Films of Andy Milligan and his interesting book about Ed Wood - Mad Genius: A Critical Study of The Films. Happy reading. 

The Conjuring 2 - A Roller Coaster Ride of Scares

Review by Steve D. Stones

The Conjuring 2 may not be the great classic of the original film, but as sequels go - it is a well-made, well-directed effort in the series that puts the viewer on a wild roller coaster ride of scares and chills. Prepare yourself to be even more jolted out of your seat than the first film.  This film comes in at 133 minutes.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise their roles as paranormal researchers Lorraine and Ed Warren. Early in the film, Lorraine expresses to Ed her desire to not get involved with any more paranormal investigations, at least not for a little while. Ed makes her a promise that they will lay off the investigations for a while.

This of course changes when the Warrens are approached by a priest of the Catholic church to look into a home possession in Northern England. Ed promises Lorraine that they will go to England only to observe. Lorraine fears that Ed will be killed in their next investigation based on dreams she has had.

Peggy Hodgson, played by Frances O'Connor, is a single mother of four children whose home in Enfield, England is plagued with spirits and strange paranormal activity. Her youngest daughter, Janet, played by Madison Wolfe, has become possessed by Bill Wilkins, the former owner of the home - a seventy-two year old man who died of a brain hemorrhage while sitting in his lounge chair watching TV. The Hodgson family kept Wilkins' chair and other possessions after the home was sold following his death.

There's lots of smashing glass, slamming doors, loud pounding sounds and furniture flying across the room, which continually jolts the viewer out of their seat.  Like the first Conjuring film, many of the scare tactics employed are from vague outlinings of a figure standing off in the distance of a dark room while a main actor stands or sits in front of the ominous figure.

One particularly scary sequence shows a strange painting Ed Warren has created of an evil nun he has seen in his dreams. Lorraine enters Ed's study to look at the painting as the shadow of the nun walks up to the painting and aligns her shadow with the shape of the figure in the painting. Creepy stuff indeed.

In a scene reminiscent of The Exorcist (1973), Ed Warren tries to communicate with the spirit of Bill Wilkins through the body of little Janet Hodgson. Janet sits in the old, worn-out chair of Wilkins while he communicates through Janet. Ed later reviews two tape recordings of Wilkins and discovers that Wilkins himself is possessed by the evil nun in his painting.

Most horror movie fans are in agreement that sequels to box office hits are often stinkers and not worthy of their predecessors. The Conjuring 2, however, will not disappoint. The scares in this film are ten times what was seen in the first film. Director James Wan always intensifies the scare level when he creates a new film in any of his series, such as the Saw and Insidious films

Strap yourselves in and hold on tight for one wild ride in The Conjuring 2. Happy viewing!