One problem that film comic Harry Langdon had, throughout his entire sound career, was that his big-budget films with major studios bombed. The failure of the films were not Langdon’s fault, he performed well in all of them. And the films have gained in critical popularity in the 70 to 80 years after their release. Obviously, that’s little comfort to Langdon, who died 69 years ago. The one-time Sennett/First National silent star enjoyed his best success in the sound era as a comic lead in Hal Roach, Educational and Columbia shorts, and a few acting gigs in low-budget B films. Perhaps the best of these is “Misbehaving Husbands,” from Monogram. Nevertheless, his three A films, “A Soldier’s Plaything,” “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” and “Zenobia,” with Oliver Hardy, were all flops.
The film I’m reviewing today is “A Soldier’s Plaything,” from 1930, produced by Warner Brothers. It’s one of those very early talkies that blends comic routines with musical numbers. The film involves Harry (Tim) and co-star Ben Lyons (Georgie) as U.S. soldiers in Germany during the occupation after World War I. Georgie is the lady’s man who falls for a sexy German girl/woman Gretchen, (Lotti Loder). Harry has some excellent scenes, where he plays the “little elf” character he honed as a silent star very well. He also gets to sing a song, and does so very well. He’s not the focus of the film but he’s the funniest one in it. He easily outperforms -- in comedy -- a burly, yelling Noah Berry as Captain Plover, who constantly makes Harry and Ben shovel manure; that’s a running joke in the movie.
Ben’s Georgie, Harry’s soldier pal, is carrying a secret that harms his romance with Gretchen. He thinks he killed a violent gambler/gangster back home in the USA. That’s why he joined Tim as a WW1 recruit. Naturally, this causes some harm to his relationship with the German beauty. Worried that he’ll be arrested, he tells her he’ll come back and get her. Gretchen, who wants to go to the states with him immediately, is naturally skeptical. It looks like their romance is kaput, until an abrupt ending wraps up the plot neatly.
“Abrupt” is an excellent word to apply to this Michael Curtiz-directed film. It’s only 56 or 57 minutes, and is over before you know it. There seems to have been extreme editing in the film. Example: like old silent films, titles, rather than scenes, are used to move action along. Also, when Georgie’s major dilemma with Gretchen is resolved (he discovers the man he thought he killed is a fellow soldier) there’s no reconciliation scene with his girl. She’s just with him, all happy, in the next scene. According to movie books, there is a 73-minute version of this film (now lost) that played in Europe. It’d be nice if it was found one day.
According to genre books, Lotti Loder was a European beauty that Warner Brothers was planning to groom for stardom. It’s clear though, that by the finished release cut, studio execs had abandoned those plans during filming. Although beautiful, she does not have screen presence and seems just another supporting player in the film. There is one memorable -- pre-code -- scene of her with Lyons by a creek where she shows off a pair of very attractive legs, however. According to film books, she only made a few more films before leaving the industry.
Harry Langdon, as mentioned, is the best part of this film. He’s funny and demonstrates good comic timing. The film, due to editing, is a B film that cost A money. Depression-era audiences had other films with more depth to spend money on. Curtiz uses an interesting double-exposure technique when portraying life in the USA from persons describing it in Germany. I recommend this film, particularly if you are a Langdon fan and for those interested in the evolution of the earliest sound films. Watch Langdon sing in this film below!
Above you is a Columbia comedy short from 1947. It is obscure primarily because it's not one of The Three Stooges shorts. The wonderful trio has endured, and arguably is on TV somewhere daily. But there are many, many other Columbia comedy shorts, and they are gems. Stars include Buster Keaton, Charlie Chase, Harry Langdon, Hugh Herbert, Andy Clyde (of whom we will talk about in this post) and many more.
They merit appreciation today, and at Plan9Crunch we plan to highlight the non-Stooges Columbia shorts. There are a lot. We'll also make sure when we review a short, that our readers can watch it via YouTube, or other sources. That takes me to a wonderful film historian named Greg Hilbrich, who following the fantastic research of Ed Watz, Ted Okuda, Leonard Maltin and others, has created The Columbia Shorts Department website. It's a labor of love to pay homage to all the shorts that studio released over a quarter century. We interviewed Greg on his site recently and we reviewed Watz and Ted's book on the Columbia shorts as well.
What Mr. Hilbrich has done, as well as some others on YouTube (Johnny Flattire and Billie Towzer come to mind) is to upload many of the "lost" Columbia shorts on The Shorts Department YouTube page. Thanks to the Columbia Shorts Department, I have watched a 1947 Andy Clyde Columbia short, "Wife to Spare," several times in the last week. You can watch it too, it's at the top of this blog.
In what will be, as mentioned, and occasional series on Plan9Crunch, we'll make "Wife to Spare" the first Columbia short to be reviewed in 2016. (By the way, we have reviewed another a ways back, Harry Langdon in "To Heir is Human."
--- Wife to Spare, 1947, Columbia comedy short, black and white, about 16 minutes, 25 seconds, directed by Edward Bernds, starring Andy Clyde, Christine McIntyre, Lucile Brown, Dick Wessel, Vera Lewis, Murray Alper, Emile Sitka and Heine Conklin.
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What's best about this late 1940s offering is the cast. It's stellar. Besides Clyde as the fussy businessman married to beautiful Brown, and forced to live with a ne-er-do-well brother in law (Wessel) and a mother in law from hell (Lewis) you have Columbia second player stars Sitka and McIntyre in supporting roles. Finally, Conklin, a name from the comedy silents, has a small role as a janitor. It's retro movie magic, and although the tight budget and hurried script is evident, the manpower of talent, as well as above-average direction of Bernds, make this an enjoyable 1,000 seconds and I'm sure pleased theater audiences.
Clyde made hundreds of Columbia shorts. By this time he had long shaved his beard, kept the mustache and was able to play a fussy, yet determined city man, trying to solve others mistakes, get out of his own jam, and have a peaceful life with his wife and no mother in law. The plot has him trying to get his layabout brother in law (Wessel) out of a $500 jam due to activities with a sexy gold-digger, played by a very attractive McIntyre, who literally lets her hair down, chewing up the scenery as a schemer who moves to frame Clyde once she realizes he has more cash.
In a funny scene, McIntyre maneuvers Clyde into compromising photos and audio while her co-swindler husband, Alper, gathers the "evidence." Things appear bleak for Clyde; the swindlers are demanding $5,000, his wife has overheard him talking to McIntyre, and his mother in law hires a lawyer (Sitka) to have her daughter divorce Andy.
As with most of the films, before budgets were really slashed in the 1950s, there's a lot of plot for two reels. Enough of the jokes work to leave you with a smile. These actors stayed busy. Clyde had overall 390 acting roles, says IMDB, McIntyre 130, most with Columbia shorts. Wessel 301!
I'd like to focus on two "Wife to Spare" Columbia shorts regulars. McIntyre is best known as a classy co-star to the Stooges, with her hair up and manners impeccable. Like Dent and Sitka, she's achieved iconic status as a Stooges' foil. In "Wife to Spare,' she has a more prurient sexual appeal, with her hair down and trying to sweet talk Clyde with a fake southern accent (her name is Honey Jackson). The other occasional Columbia player is Wessel. He hasn't gained iconic status and while he had his moments in other shorts, he's the weak link in "Wife to Spare." His idea of comedy is to laugh hysterically (maniacally) every time Andy bumps his head or walks into something.
The opening scene sets the pace for a slightly above average short, with Clyde dressed in woman's clothes, forced to clothes model for the women in his household. Watch it above and come back to Plan9Crunch for another Columbia shorts review in the near future.
"The strange thing about television is that it tells you nothing. It shows you everything." - Thomas Newton (David Bowie)
David Bowie was truly a unique artist who constantly reinvented himself and perfromed in a range of styles and genres. His theatrical and androgynist appearance made him perfect for the role of an alien who crashes to earth in The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976).
The Man Who Fell To Earth is a strange, surreal 70s sci-fi epic. Bowie is perfect in the role of an frail alien who crashes on earth to find water for his planet to save his small family. He tells many humans he encounters that his name is Sussex, but goes by the name Thomas Newton when he starts up his own Corporation - World Enterprises.
World Enterprises starts out as a camera and electronics business, but later evolves into a space program. Newton builds a spaceship to get back to his dry planet. The film is filled with interesting flashback sequences with Newton on his planet in a space suit surrounded by his family and a flying house.
While on earth, Newton becomes obsessed with American television and spends lots of time watching many TVs in a room all by himself. His behaviors evolve into drinking heavily and wild sex with Mary Lou, a housekeeper he met in a hotel elevator.
Mary Lou helps Newton after he faints in the elevator with a nose bleed. She nurses him back to health, and the two become lovers who purchase a cabin in the woods with a giant telescope so Newton can watch his planet.
The film is said to be a commentary on the dangerous excesses of the American lifestyle and the greed of capitalism - a message which resonates more broadly in today's world of bank bailouts, a shrinking middle-class and income inequality.
The film also dares to suggest that perhaps no one is strong willed enough to resist the temptations and distrations of television, greed, sex and alcohol consumption, which may be a bit naive and arrogant.
Based on Walter Tevis's novel and later remade for television in 1987, The Man Who Fell To Earth may have borrowed its plot from Robert Heinlein's Strangers In A Strange Land.
Plan 9 Crunch is pleased to have a conversation with film scholar Frank J. Dello Stritto, author of many genre articles and three books: "A Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore" (a collection of his fine articles), "I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It" (his memoir of life as a "monster boomer) and the recently published a second edition of "Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain," that he co-wrote with Andi Brooks, who runs the best Bela Lugosi blog.
Dello Stritto's work is priceless to the cult film lover. "Vampire Over London" (our review of the book is our second most popular post) places Dello Stritto and Brooks with Gary Don Rhodes, Robert Cremer and Arthur Lennig as the Lugosi biographers one must read.
A while back, Plan9Crunch interviewed another fine genre scholar, Tom Weaver, about his book, "Poverty Row Horrors." Read it here. After we published it, I thought of interviewing Frank on the low-budget film career of Lugosi, who, it is perfectly just and fair to say, outlasts any other early horror star in prominence in the low-budget chillers of that era. Frank graciously agreed to the interview. We hope you enjoy it; we sure did. By the way, you can buy the three books mentioned above at Cult Movies Press.
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1) Was Bela Lugosi (a) initially an A-actor
who descended to Poverty Row roles as his career continued.
or, (b) a Poverty Row actor who through his career
occasionally enjoyed roles in A productions.
Dello Stritto: Definitely
(A). Bela Lugosi gave outstanding performances when given half a chance. The
few A-films in which he had sizeable roles are all enhanced by his presence. He
was trapped by his stereotype and by his accent.
But he was a great presence in Poverty
Row films, probably the greatest of the Poverty Row stars.
2) What was Bela Lugosi's top performance in
a Poverty Row movie role in the 1930s and why?
Dello Stritto: “Poverty
Row” did not really come into its own until the 1940s. In the 1930s, the films
are “the low-budget independents,” e.g., those films not associated with a
major studio (like Universal) or producer (like Samuel Goldwyn). Lugosi’s best among
these has to be White Zombie. While
it has the shortcomings of most such movies — mainly bad acting by supporting
players — it sticks to a simple story and plays almost as a fairy tale. Lugosi’s
role, the sorcerer/zombie master, is one that he could play like no other. The
weakness of a lot of Poverty Row films is that they are so hurried. Though White Zombie was filmed on a tight schedule,
effort was made to bring in some very effective cinematic touches. The editing
is surprisingly good. That was all the help Lugosi needed to give one of his
most memorable performances.
3) Why did Bela Lugosi find it so hard to
find movie roles in low-budget films in 1937-38, during the British ban on
horror, while in contrast his rival Boris Karloff thrived at Monogram and
Columbia?
Dello Stritto: Boris
Karloff was a more versatile actor, a better handler of his career, and was
acting in his native language. And his most famous horror roles had been
beneath layers of make-up, while Lugosi’s face was the face of Hollywood
horror. His voice was the voice of Dracula. When horror went out of fashion,
Lugosi went with it. If he had landed a solid role in a good, non-horror movie,
he might have broken horror’s hold on him, but that never happened. No producer
wanted to take the chance.
4) What is your personal favorite of
Lugosi's Monogram films, and your least favorite, and why?
Dello Stritto: That’s a
tough one. When I was a kid, I liked them all, but in truth there is not a
really good movie among them. Lugosi’s roles in the Monograms fall in two
categories: those where he is purely a cardboard villain, and where his
character has more depth than the film cares to deal with. He is on his own in
them, and sometimes overcomes the mediocrity of the rest of the movie. My
narrow winner is Black Dragons.
Lugosi plays a plastic surgeon, betrayed by his Japanese clients and seeking
revenge. The movie has its absurdities, but Lugosi does rather well as a
basically lonely man working through his obsession before the law gets him.
Bowery
at Midnight, Voodoo Man (both
which give Lugosi’s character more potential than the movie can ever realize)
and Return of the Ape Man (not much
depth there, Lugosi is evil through and through) are close second. Except for
the two East Side Kids movies, the other Monograms are closely packed in third.Lugosi’s two East Side Kids are distant
last place holders. Neither makes good use of him.
5) Is The Devil Bat, from PRC, superior to the Monogram films, and why?
Dello Stritto: It is
certainly better than most of the Monograms, and may well stand above all of
them. The touches of humor that often simply don’t work in the Monograms, work
well enough in The Devil Bat. Lugosi’s
part suits him quite well. Dr. Carruthers is a bitter loner, secretly plotting
revenge on those who, in his mind, have crossed him. Lugosi has a lot of scenes
alone in his laboratory, and his over-the-top acting works well in that
setting. The contrast between the hateful man in the laboratory and the charmer
when he meets his victims is perhaps over-done, but it is well-done. Lugosi was
great at overacting, which sometimes fits in Poverty Row better than in
mainstream films.
6) How did RKO, where Bela had a three-film
deal, square in the 40s movie world? A productions, Bs, or somewhere in
between?
Dello Stritto: RKO may be
my favorite Hollywood studio. It is different from the other majors. It was not
founded and run for decades by a mogul. It was cobbled together by bankers (one
of them Joseph Kennedy) in the early 1930s, and handed off from one production
head to another (such as David O. Selznick and Merian C. Cooper). So, it was
often saw hard times, and wound up owned by Howard Hughes. But 1940s RKO turned
out Citizen Kane and Orson Welles’s
early films, and Val Lewton’s nine horror films. It was in the vanguard of film noir, and was the distributor of
choice for major independent producers Goldwyn and Selznick. Cary Grant,
perhaps the most important star not under contract to one studio, did some of
his best 1940s work at RKO. So, RKO may have struggled to stay among the
majors, but its output includes as many enduring films as any of its
competitors.
In the mid-1940s, Lugosi made three
films at RKO: The Body Snatchers, Zombies on Broadway, and Genius at Work. The Body Snatchers is by far the best of them, but Lugosi has a
minor role, as he does in Genius at Work.
I have great affection for Zombies on
Broadway. I loved it as a kid, and my sons when they were eight or so loved
it, too. As light entertainment, which is all it tries to be, it dates quite
well.
7) Of Lugosi's four films, Mother Riley
Meets the Vampire, Bela Lugosi Meets
a Brooklyn Gorilla, Glen Or Glenda, and Bride of the Monster, where he was mentioned as a star, which is
his best performance?
Dello Stritto: The best of
performance among them is Dr. Varnoff in Brideof the Monster. It is a true “Lugosi film” built around his character and
persona. Again, and for the last time, he is an angry outcast working his mad
schemes in secret. The movie has all the incompetence of most Ed Wood films,
but Lugosi does quite well with his part. And he has the famous scene where
Varnoff bemoans his mistreatment by the world on which he plans vengeance.
Glen
or Glenda needs a separate interview. As filmmaking, it is a disaster. But
it is such a personal film (by Ed Wood) that I have to give it a nod. It is like a dream — its parts don’t quite fit
together, characters come and go, wild images bubble up from nowhere. Lugosi as
whatever he is supposed to be, is quite fine in it.
Mother
Riley Meets the Vampire and Bela
Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla are intentionally silly movies. As he
always did, Lugosi tries his best. You can either enjoy the nonsense, or just
turn them off. I have done both.
