Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
The silent era is synonymous with many things: tenderly-lit romances, wacky silent comedies, edgy German Expressionism, and, of course, big-budget spectacles. From Intolerance(1916) to Metropolis(1927), silent era epics are uniquely fascinating when we consider that only a few decades prior, entertainment had been limited to the confines of a stage. It’s easy to imagine how exciting it must’ve been to be able to film actual massive crowds, and build real towering sets, to make grandiose visions come to life like never before.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
One of the more well-known silent epics is The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), a Universal picture produced by Carl Laemmle and “boy wonder” Irving Thalberg. Taking six months to produce, using thousands of extras, and boasting a faithful recreation of the Notre Dame cathedral towers, it certainly gave audiences their money’s worth.
The choice to play the severely deformed bellringer Quasimodo was obviously, and practically predestined: Lon Chaney, who was already famous for his uncanny ability to play deformed or “freakish” characters. Chaney himself had longed to play Quasimodo well before the film was a twinkle in Laemmle and Thalberg’s eyes. He had even made plans to film a version of Hunchback for the Chelsea Pictures Company in Germany. These plans fell through in early 1922, and by September of that year Universal’s epic Hunchback feature was in production.
The cathedral set under construction.
Chaney was still fresh from his famous turns as a con man in The Miracle Man(1919) and the legless crime lord in The Penalty(1920). Quasimodo would be one of his biggest challenges, being one of the most deformed characters to appear on the silent screen. Chaney used putty to shape the cheeks and details around the eyes, put in false teeth, donned a very knotted wig and finished it all off with a hump reportedly made of leather and plaster, weighing about 10-15 pounds. He apparently met with people who had actual deformities to learn about their experiences, poured over Victor Hugo’s descriptions of Quasimodo, and carefully worked on his posture and body language to look as authentic on screen as possible.
Lon Chaney as Quasimodo
Esmerelda would be played by Patsy Ruth Miller (she had only been in films since 1921), Ernest Torrence was cast as Clopin the beggar king and leading man Norman Kerry was chosen to play Phoebus. Wallace Worsley, who had previously worked as a director with Chaney on four of his films (including The Penalty), was chosen to be the director. Rumor has it that Erich von Stroheim was the first choice for director, but he had been fired from Universal by this point.
Patsy Ruth Miller and Lon Chaney
The plot was changed quite a bit from Victor
Hugo’s 1831 novel, partly to make it less grim and partly to keep from
offending Christian sensibilities. The antagonist was changed from Archdeacon
Claude Frollo to a new character called Jehan, the evil brother of a saintly
archdeacon. Esmerelda isn’t hung at the end but is reunited with her love,
Phoebus, while Quasimodo has a tragic end.
Lon Chaney as Quasimodo
Production began with much fanfare, the studio
boasting about its elaborate sets and “no expenses spared” mindset. Elmer F.
Sheeley was in charge of set design, and Archie Hall was the technical director
in charge of getting the sets solidly built. Sculptor Finn Froelich designed
the statues, gargoyles, and other embellishments for the Notre Dame set. Old
prints of Paris were poured over to create the sprawling, 19-acre complex of
medieval streets, shops, and houses in Universal City, and of course the
replica of the mighty Notre Dame itself took center stage. A feat of
engineering and special effects, it was achieved by building the bottom sixty
feet of the cathedral to scale, while the top half was actually a miniature
hanging between the camera and the set in the background. The effect onscreen
is seamless.
Image credit: The American Cinematographer
Authentic-looking paving stones were created
with concrete sprayed with acid to make them look aged, and concrete arches
were built over a portion of the Los Angeles River to turn it into the sewers
of Paris. The painstaking work was much-admired by visitors to the sets, and
trade papers touted them as one of the industry’s greatest achievements thus
far.
One of the challenges of the productions was
hiring thousands of extras (around 3,000 in all) for the crowd scenes, all of
whom would have to be given costumes, daily pay, and meals. Many were recruited
from the downtown Los Angeles area. A 125-foot wardrobe building was built to
accommodate all the medieval garb, and supposedly some of the more visible
extras were given their costumes a couple days early so they could get used to
wearing them naturally. There was a definite desire to make the film seem
authentic to its gritty period, rather than appearing “stagey” or overly
romanticized.
Outside the Cathedral
All in all, Hunchback cost Universal a whopping $1,250,000 to produce. But fortunately the film was a megahit, ending up being the third highest-grossing film of 1923 just behind The Covered Wagonand The Ten Commandments. It generally received a good critical response as well, and while some reviews commented that the film was too dark, everyone praised Lon Chaney’s remarkable performance.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) movie poster
Today, most prints of Hunchback that circulate stem from 16mm copies, some choppier than
others, any original 35mm negatives having vanished long ago. Fortunately
better restorations have come out in recent years, allowing us to enjoy this
ambitious classic–and Lon Chaney’s landmark performance–in the most clarity in
decades.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
The Classic Connection of Warner Bros., Big Bugs and Hammer Horror
Gangster films, innovative musicals, hard-boiled detective movies and female-centered dramas. Porky Pig, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and Batman, too. That’s quite a distinct and diverse group of genres and characters that are part of the 100-year history of Warner Bros.
A word you don’t see in that impressive list? Horror.
Sure, the studio produced such noteworthy films as The Exorcist and The Shining, in addition to one of my favorites, the teen vampire flick The Lost Boys. But as a fan of classic horror movies, I was lacking a connection with Warner Bros. and the Golden Age of Hollywood.
I found it not in the number of classic horror films Warner Bros. made, but in its unique impact in the genre through innovation, the popular big-bug movies of the 1950s and spreading the gospel of Hammer horror.
Simply by distributing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Warner Bros. played a surprising role in the horror genre.
Let me explain. It appropriately started with a film called The Terror.
Journey into Terror
Warner Bros. was officially incorporated in 1923 and a four-legged actor named Rin-Tin-Tin quickly leapt to stardom. Yet by 1926, Warner Bros. was having financial difficulty and only considered a second-rate studio behind the likes of Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and William Fox. So, it did what it would do throughout its history: it took a big gamble with technology. In 1927, moviegoers watching the studio’s “silent” film TheJazz Singer were shocked – and enthralled – when Al Jolson spoke the first words heard in film:“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothing yet.”
The following year Warner Bros. released the industry’s first all-talking movie Lights of New York. Two months later came The Terror, a horror film where guests at a British country inn were stalked by a killer called the Terror. Based off the 1927 play of the same name by Edgar Wallace, the film starred May McAvoy and Edward Everett Horton.
The Terror (1927) is notable for being the first horror film made by Warner Bros. and the first horror film by any studio to use sound.
What makes The Terror special for Warner Bros. is that it was the studio’s first horror film. What makes it important in film history is that it was the first horror movie to use sound.
That use of sound led to immense profits for Lights of New York and The Terror allowing Warner Bros. to purchase the Stanley Theatre chain and a majority stake in First National Pictures. It was now alongside the big boys as a major Hollywood player.
After purchasing First National, the studio’s first film was the silent drama/comedy The Haunted House (1928). As obvious from the title, this was an early entry in the popular old dark house mystery genre. Thelma Todd and Larry Kent starred in the story of heirs drawn to a mansion for the reading of will. The film had the wonderful horror mix of a mad scientist, secret rooms and crazy characters. It was directed by Benjamin Christensen who is best known for Häxan (1922), a documentary/feature which traces the history of witchcraft and is still shown today.
From sound to visual advances
Warner Bros. then turned an eye toward color innovations. Doctor X (1932) was the first horror film to be shot entirely in color, using the two-color Technicolor process. (It was also shot in black and white which is the way many people have seen it.) The film’s talented creative trio – actors Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray and director Michael Curtiz – returned for Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). It was the last film made using the two-color Technicolor by a major studio before technology advanced to glorious three-strip Technicolor used by Warner Bros in films like The Adventures of Robin Hood. As superb as that is, the two-strip process had a unique muted beauty that gave Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum a moody atmosphere that set the tone in a horror film.
The distinct beauty of two-color Technicolor is seen in Mystery of the Wax Museum.
Both were pre-Code films that went beyond murder to include such topics as rape, pornography and cannibalism. Doctor X also had a touch of humor thanks to Lee Tracy as a reporter investigating murders that took place under a full moon. Multiple suspects are investigated at a nearby medical academy run by Doctor Xavier (Atwill), where we also meet the his lovely young daughter Joanne (Wray).
In Mystery of the Wax Museum, Atwill is a talented sculptor disfigured in a wax museum fire set by his partner for insurance money. He reappears more than a decade later with a new museum inhabited by his gorgeous wax figures that look uncomfortably real. The film was called “too ghastly for comfort” in a 1933 review by Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times, which I consider high praise.
Horror fans will recognize the same story in the fantastic 1953 Warner Bros. film House of Wax starring Vincent Price in the Atwill role. Keeping with the Warner Bros. philosophy of bringing modern advances to its audiences, it was the first film produced in 3D by a major studio. Even watching the film at home today, we can pick out scenes shot for 3D effectiveness like the bouncing paddle ball.
Getting films be seen
Beyond making movies, studios distribute films and sometimes for other studios as Warner Bros. did as part of its contribution to classic horror.
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms(1953) is an important film in horror and sci-fi. It brought stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen out of the shadows and into the spotlight. It also was the first of the atomic creature films with Harryhausen’s impressive fictional Rhedosaurus awakened by A-bomb testing and rumbling off to terrorize the East Coast.
With the help of major distribution it received from Warner Bros., Beastfrom 20,000 Fathoms became a surprise financial hit and helped create two popular horror genres: the tag team of giant monsters/nuclear testing (this includes Godzilla movies that are still part of the WB repertoire) and big-bug films. After all, if a dinosaur running amok was popular with audiences, wouldn’t multiple giant ants be even better? That’s what Warner Bros. thought.
After the success Warner Bros. had with Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it made the giant ant film Them! It was a huge financial success in 1954 and is still called the best of the big-bug movies.
In Them!, James Arness and James Whitmore led the charge against giant ants that terrorized the country. It became the highest grossing film of 1954 for Warner Bros., yet the studio didn’t continue with the trend, instead concentrating on such Cinemascope films as King Richard and the Crusadersand A Star is Born. Thankfully other studios followed the Warner Bros lead and jumped on the big-bug bandwagon, giving us such classics asIt Came from Beneath the Sea, The Giant Behemoth and Tarantula..
The studio’s influence on film history when it came to
distributing the work of other students didn’t stop there.
We think of Hammer Films for its delectable array of horror
movies in the 1950s and beyond. But without the help of U.S. studios including
Warner Bros., American audiences may never have seen these films or at the very
least, seen enough of them to make the House of Hammer the horror giant it is
in film history.
At least nine U.S. studios were involved with distributing Hammer films including Columbia, Universal, United Artists, MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox and Warner Bros.
The Curse of Frankenstein with Christopher Lee gained U.S. distribution through Warner Bros.
A huge moment in the partnership between Warner Bros. and Hammer was the worldwide distribution in 1957 of the Christopher Lee-Peter Cushing film The Curse of Frankenstein. It changed everything for Hammer as author Howard Maxford sums up in his book Hammer, House of Horror:
“Warner would also give Frankenstein the kind of
promotional campaign Hammer could only dream of affording. Consequently, when
the film opened at the Warner Bros. Theatre in London’s West End on May 2,
1957, the lines stretched round the block, despite an almost universally
hostile reaction from the press,” Maxford writes.
While the U.S. studios helped get Hammer out to the world, it remained a tumultuous time of feast or famine when it came to this support. In 1968, Hammer was without a U.S. distributor and again facing financial problems. The timely merger that created Warner Bros.-Seven Arts saved the day starting with Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), the fourth in Hammer’s Dracula series.
However, Warner Brothers also held the rights to these films and was, to say the least, very slow in putting them on home video. Even then, the movies were released without any bonus material. That’s one reason for the 2018 documentary Hammer Horror: The Warner Brothers Years which traces the important relationship between Warner and Hammer from the brief, but important, period of 1968 to 1974, while also giving fans the interviews and background information they craved.
In retrospect
Warner Bros. may not have produced a large number of classic horror films, but when it did, it was with creativity and innovation. And at the very least, this big-bug film fan is grateful for Them! and all the oversized creatures that followed.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Canada Day – formerly known as
Dominion Day and sometimes referred to as “Canada’s birthday” – is a federal
holiday that commemorates the anniversary of Canadian Confederation. This took
place on July 1, 1867, when the three separate colonies of the United Canadas,
Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single, self-governing nation
within the British Empire called Canada. (You learn something new every day,
dontcha?)
In celebration of the upcoming Canada Day observance, this
month’s Noir Nook is shining the light on a trio of noir vets who hail from Canada.
Enjoy!
Born Raymond William Stacy Burr, the actor later to be best known as Perry Mason entered the world on May 21, 1917, in New Westminster, British Columbia. He was the oldest of three children of William, who worked as a salesman for a hardware store, and Minerva (a Chicago, Illinois native), who studied music and played the piano in the local symphony orchestra as well as for the silent movies at the town’s movie theater. When he was six, the family moved to Vallejo, California, where his mother’s family owned a small hotel. In his youth, Burr participated in church plays and school productions; he later honed his craft in repertory and summer theater before making his Broadway debut in 1941 in Crazy with the Heat. The play closed after only seven shows; the production was taken over by then-newspaper reporter Ed Sullivan, who restaged it – and Burr was out. Despite this blow, Burr remained in New York, working odd jobs to make ends meet, and was back on Broadway in 1943, playing a French patriot in The Duke in Darkness. This time, his performance caught the eye of a Hollywood agent, and a short time later, Burr signed a contract with RKO. In 1946, he appeared in his first motion picture, RKO’s Without Reservations, starring John Wayne and Claudette Colbert, and he made his film noir debut the following year in Desperate. In this Anthony Mann-directed feature, Burr played Walt Radak, a local hood who’s bent on revenge when he blames an old neighborhood pal (Steve Brodie) for the conviction and pending execution of his brother.
Burr would go on to appear in numerous other noirs, where he excelled in villainous roles. In addition to Desperate, the best of these included Pitfall (1948), as a disturbing insurance investigator; Raw Deal (1948), where he was memorable as a sadistic gangleader; and The Blue Gardenia (1953), in which he played a wolfish ladies’ man.
On May 1, 1916, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born in Sainte-Christine, Quebec, Canada, the only child of Hannah and Newton, a conductor with the Canadian Pacific Railroad. His entrance had a dramatic prologue: three weeks before his mother was to give birth, a fire broke out in the store over which the Ford’s lived. As a fireman was carrying the very-pregnant Hannah down a ladder, the rungs broke, and both fell two stories to the ground. Luckily, both survived. The family moved to Santa Monica, California, for Newton’s health when Ford was young; he was first exposed to acting while a student at Santa Monica High School. After graduation, Ford performed in a variety of plays with the Santa Monica Players, and later appeared in a production of Soliloquy that first played Santa Barbara, then San Diego, and ultimately, Broadway. Although the play was a flop, Ford did a screen test for 20th Century-Fox a short time later and was cast in his first film, Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), with Jean Rogers and Richard Conte. After its release, Ford hired Zeppo Marx to be his agent and signed a long-term contract with Columbia Studios. He would be with the studio for the next 14 years and would make his first foray into film noir in 1946, with Gilda. In this popular feature, he starred opposite Rita Hayworth as Johnny Farrell, a small-time gambler-turned-right-hand man of a Buenos Aires casino owner (George Macready) – who just happens to show up on day with Johnny’s ex-girl on his arm (and a ring on her finger).
Ford was a standout in six other noirs, including Framed (1947), with Janis Carter and Barry Sullivan; Convicted(1950), the remake of a 1931 pre-Code starring Phillips Holmes; and my favorite Ford film, The Big Heat (1953). In this feature, helmed by Fritz Lang, Ford stars as a detective determined to bring down the mobsters responsible for his wife’s murder.
John Ireland
John Ireland in Railroaded! (1947)
A native of Victoria, British Columbia, John Benjamin Ireland was born on January 30, 1914. His mother, Gracie Ferguson, was a piano teacher from Scotland; he never knew his biological father, but Grace later married Irish vaudevillian Michael Noone and had three other children – one of these would grow up to be actor Tommy Noonan). When Ireland was still a child, the family moved to San Francisco and later to Harlem in New York City. His introduction to acting reportedly occurred by happenstance years later when he entered Manhattan’s Davenport Free Theater one day, simply planning to take in a free show. Instead, he learned that the company offered free acting training, and the directionless, financially strapped young man signed up. After a year with the Davenport Theater, Ireland gained experience from a variety of companies, including Clare Tree Major’s Children’s Theater and a Shakespearean company in Delaware, before debuting on Broadway in the 1941 production of Macbeth. His stage successes ultimately caught the attention of Hollywood and Ireland was seen in his first big screen outing, A Walk in the Sun, in 1945. He stepped into the realm of film noir two years later, in Railroaded! (1947). Anthony Mann directed this picture, where Ireland was a standout as a psychopathic hood with a proclivity for perfuming the bullets of his gun.
After Railroaded, Ireland was featured in The Gangster (1947), playing a gambling addict named Karty; Raw Deal (1948), as a gunman known as Fantail; and Party Girl (1958), a rare color noir where he portrayed the sleazy henchman of a 1930s-era mobster.
I wish a Happy Canada Day to all Canadian residents and expats – why not join in the celebration by taking in a noir by one of these Canadian natives? You only owe it to yourself.
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
Silver Screen Standards: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Many remakes have followed in the wake of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the iconic science fiction film adapted from a serialized novel by American sci-fi writer Jack Finney, but the first outing for this terrifying tale of soulless pod people remains the most multi-faceted, with even author Finney and director Don Siegel offering different interpretations of the picture’s message. The later movies, with varying degrees of fidelity to the source material, lean into the science fiction and horror elements of the story, but the original adaptation is compelling partly because of its extensive use of the tropes and style of classic film noir. While I’m not the first person to note the importance of noir style to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I think it’s worth discussing at some length because the classic noir themes add so much to this film and help it to remain relevant and thought-provoking for viewers today, nearly 70 years after its theatrical release.
Exhausted and afraid, Miles has to resort to extreme measures to avoid being captured.
The plot of the picture follows the spiraling experience of Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), a doctor in the small California town of Santa Mira who returns from a conference to find strange problems troubling his patients and friends. At first, Miles dismisses the complaints as psychological in nature, but he soon comes to realize that the townspeople really are changing into perfect but not quite human copies of themselves. Along with his friends, Jack and Teddy (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones) and his love interest, Becky (Dana Wynter), Miles tries to escape the clutches of the transformed pod people and alert the outside world to the danger humanity faces, but time is of the essence because the changelings take control once their victims fall asleep.
Miles and Becky elude the pod people by hiding in a cave, where they splash their faces with water in an attempt to stay awake.
Throughout the movie, the cinematic and narrative conventions of noir rachet up the tension the audience feels. Miles is a doctor, not a detective, but he functions as the clue-finding protagonist struggling to uncover a murderous, sinister plot before it’s too late. His efforts also make him a man on the run from the law because the aliens have already replaced the local police. The scenes of pursuit that ensue employ the same camera angles and visual vocabulary seen in many classic noir films; we watch Miles and Becky drive, run, and hide with increasing desperation as the changelings close in on them. Their exhaustion and panic are palpable, with their faces framed in lights and shadows that highlight their emotions.
Miles (Kevin McCarthy) and Becky (Dana Wynter) go on the run to escape being turned into pod people.
On my most recent viewing, these elements called to mind noir classics like The Third Man (1949), Night and the City (1950), and even the influential proto-noir, M (1931). The wraparound scenes, which were added later and against Siegel’s wishes, might offer the audience more hope than the original ending, with Miles vainly shouting on the freeway, but they also contribute to the noir sensibility of the whole. Miles doesn’t start the movie already dead or dying, as we see in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and D.O.A. (1950), but, as he recounts his story to the authorities, we feel increasingly unsure about the way the final scene will unfold. Like Larry Ballentine (Robert Young) in They Won’t Believe Me (1947), Miles has no reason to think his account will convince others, but there’s a very good chance that the pod people have already replaced the doctors and policemen in the room. The ending is less grim than Siegel originally wanted, but it’s still a tense place to leave a story, with the world in immediate danger and no guarantee that the audience won’t go home to find their loved ones strangely different than they were before.
Is it Miles’ true love, Becky, or is it a heartless pod person wearing her face?
Finney, Seigel, McCarthy, and others have debated the
movie’s message over the years following its release, with some arguing that it
depicts the dangers of McCarthyism, others reading it as an anti-Communist
metaphor, and Seigel insisting that it portrayed a more general loss of
humanity. The noir elements of the movie allow each of these claims to have
their merits, but they also permit a modern reading of the narrative about the
ways in which our increasingly diverse American society is being violently
suppressed in favor of enforced conformity and homogeneity. Post-war noir
questioned the shiny surface and middle-class values of American culture, which
left no room for drifters, losers, outcasts, dreamers, or anyone else who
didn’t fall into line politically, culturally, racially, or sexually. It took
us into the dark corners of a corrupt, capitalist culture where fat cats ruled
and little guys were always already doomed, no matter how much they struggled
against the machinery of the system. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
argues that forced conformity to a rigid social structure deprives individuals
of everything that matters about them; they lose their emotions and capacity
for empathy, what some might call their very souls. As citizens succumb to the
insidious forces that transform them into pod people, they turn on their
neighbors, their friends, even their once beloved family members. Outwardly
they seem like the same people, but less human than before. It’s a
terrifying prospect, whether we watch it unfold in 1950s Santa Mira or in our
own hometowns today.
The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was most notably remade in 1978 with a cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy (Kevin McCarthy has a great cameo, and Don Siegel also makes a brief appearance). Body Snatchers (1993), The Invasion (2007), and Assimilate (2019) all owe their origins to Finney’s source material and the influence of the original film, as does the very funny 2013 Edgar Wright comedy, The World’s End. Other science fiction films that explore enforced conformity include THX 1138 (1971), The Stepford Wives (1975), and They Live (1988). If you’re interested in the fertile intermingling of science fiction and film noir, have a look at Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Alphaville (1965), Soylent Green (1973), Blade Runner (1982), Dark City (1998), and Minority Report (2002).
Joseph “Joe” Frank Cobb was among the many children cast in the early iteration of Our Gang, spending his tenure in the hit comedies from 1922 to 1929. He was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, on November 7, 1916, to James Cobb and Florence “Flossie” Jewel McComas Cobb. By age five, he was discovered as a new talent when vacationing with his father in Los Angeles, California. There, his father sent him to audition for Hal Roach’s Our Gang, leading him to appear in some of the earliest shorts, including The Champeen (1923) and The Big Show (1923). Notably, he would appear in the last silent short in the series, entitled Saturday’s Lesson (1929). In the same year, he appeared in the first Our Gang sound short, Small Talk (1929).
By age 12, he was phasing out of the series. Essentially, his replacement would be Norman Chaney as “Chubby,” with both Chaney and Cobb appearing in Boxing Gloves (1929). His final appearance as a regular in the series was in Lazy Days (1929), though he did make three additional cameo appearances in the years to come.
Our Gang Celebrating New Year 1925
In the 1940s, his acting career came to a close after carrying out various minor film roles. He worked as an assembler for North American Aviation in Downey, California, for several decades, retiring in 1981. During those years, he was also a master of ceremonies for Our Gang publicity tours and made appearances for the Sons of the Desert Laurel and Hardy fan society. He passed away in a convalescent home on May 21, 2002, in Santa Ana, California, at age 85. Cobb was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park —Glendale.
Cobb building B-52 bombers for North American Aviation
In the 1930s, Cobb and his family resided at 836 S.
Spaulding Ave., Los Angeles, California. At this point, he was an established
child actor. His mother had just passed away in 1929. Here, he resided with his
father, siblings Loretta and Lucile, as well as his great aunt and uncle,
Arvila and Charles Mechler. His father worked as an attorney. The home stands
today.
Cobb’s 1930s residence at 836 S. Spaulding Ave., Los Angeles, California
In the 1940s, Cobb lived at 2175 Broadview Terrace, Los
Angeles, California, per his draft card, which also listed him as unemployed. This
home still stands.
Cobb’s 1940s residence at 2175 Broadview Terrace, Los Angeles, California
In the same decade, he resided with his uncle and aunt,
George and Mattie Cato, at 4328 W. Normandy Ave., Dallas, Texas, as well as
with lodger Joe Goldstein. In 1950, he lived at 4353 S. Bonnie Brae, Los
Angeles, California, while working as an assembler. Both of these homes have
since been razed.
Today, Cobb’s grave marker cites him as a member of Our Gang.
Annette Bochenek, Ph.D., is a film historian, professor, and avid scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the “Hometowns to Hollywood” blog, in which she profiles her trips to the hometowns of classic Hollywood stars. She has also been featured on the popular classic film-oriented television network, Turner Classic Movies. A regular columnist for Classic Movie Hub, her articles have appeared in TCM Backlot, Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, The Dark Pages Film Noir Newsletter, and Chicago Art Deco Society Magazine.
Western RoundUp: Western Film Book Library – Part 7
Every year or so I share some interesting titles on the Western film genre in this column. Here’s my 2023 look at a mixture of brand-new and vintage books on Westerns!
There’s an exciting new series of paperback books on Westerns, “Reel West,” which has recently debuted from the University of New Mexico Press.
Blood on the Moon by Alan K. Rode and Ride Lonesome by Kirk Ellis
The
publisher describes them as “short, well-designed volumes exploring
individual films across the whole history of the Western,” also calling
them “smart, incisive examinations.” Having now read the first two
books in the series, I found the descriptions accurate. I’m enthused about the
titles I’ve just read, and I’m looking forward to reading forthcoming titles.
Blood on the Moon by Alan K. Rode
Blood on the Moon is a 99-page book on the 1948 film of the same name. It was written by film historian Alan K. Rode, whose other books include excellent biographies of Michael Curtiz and Charles McGraw. Charles McGraw, incidentally, appears as a rancher in the film, memorably wearing a bearskin coat.
The new book concisely yet thoroughly details the history of the 1948 Western, doing an admirable job recounting details of the movie’s production while also placing the film in a wider context. Readers will come to understand how the movie fits in Western, film noir, and RKO studio history, as well as in the careers of filmmakers such as director Robert Wise and rising star Robert Mitchum.
The book
also delves into the history of author Luke Short, whose book was the basis for
the screenplay; over the years his novels were filmed on numerous occasions.
There
are detailed chapter notes and a bibliography, though not an index. The book
contains numerous interesting black and white photos, many of which were new to
me. While an index would have been handy for referring back to the book in the
future, I felt it lived up to the publisher’s promise of a “well-designed
volume,” including a three-page spread neatly detailing the film’s
credits.
Blood on
the Moon is a very engaging read which I devoured over the
course of a single airplane flight. Fans of Westerns and classic films alike
should find it quite enjoyable and informative.
Ride Lonesome by Kirk Ellis
It was a pleasure to unexpectedly meet Kirk Ellis, the author of Ride Lonesome, at a recent film festival – all the more so as I happened to have the book with me and was able to have him sign it!
At 207
pages the Ride Lonesome book is about twice the length
of Blood on the Moon. It follows the same style, with chapter
notes, bibliography, and a number of black and white photos, but no index.
The 1959 film Ride Lonesome is my favorite of the seven Westerns in which Budd Boetticher directed Randolph Scott, and I’ve also been to the film’s Alabama Hills locations several times, so it was quite a treat to read an entire book on this beloved Western. I also appreciated that Ellis describes trekking to the Alabama Hills himself to see the locations firsthand.
In his introduction Ellis describes Ride Lonesome as “one of the starkest, leanest, and most unrelenting films in any genre of the period.” It certainly is all that – I love the short 73-minute running time and the memorably bleak ending — though I also find it rather optimistic in the way that outlaw Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts) ends up working with Randolph Scott’s Ben Brigade, and just maybe going on to a better life after “The End.”
The
author’s personal relationships with both Boetticher and screenwriter Burt
Kennedy gives his knowledgeable text an added dimension. He shares both men’s
personal stories along with the production history of the film; he places Ride
Lonesome in the context of the other “Ranown” Westerns and
also offers excellent critical analysis of both Kennedy’s script and the
finished film. He offered so many insights that I’m anxious to pull this film
off the shelf again in the near future and watch it with this fresh
perspective. In short, I loved and recommend this book.
Heroes, Heavies and Sagebrush is a 1972 book by Arthur F. McClure and Ken D. Jones. I discovered it thanks to my friend, film historian Toby Roan; I immediately sought a copy, as the authors’ 1970 book The Films of James Stewarthas been on my bookshelf since I was a pre-teen, when I found it on a closeout table in the attic at Pickwick Books in Hollywood.
Heroes, Heavies and Sagebrush by Arthur F. Mc Clure and Ken D. Jones
It’s a
photo-filled 351-page hardback packed with biographical information and credits
for a wide variety of Western supporting players. Examples of a couple pages
are seen below. While a considerable amount of the biographical data —
especially death dates — has become outdated in the half century since it was
published, the book still contains a great deal of value.
Heroes, Heavies and Sagebrush by Arthur F. Mc Clure and Ken D. Jones
Heroes, Heavies and Sagebrush by Arthur F. Mc Clure and Ken D. Jones
The many
photos are useful to help identify Western players by name, and for me such
photos have also always sparked interest in films to search out for future
viewing. This is a delightful read and reference source for Western fans.
Sweethearts of the Sage: Biograhies and Filmographies of 258 Actresses Appearing in Western Movies by Buck Rainey
This
632-page book by Buck Rainey, published by McFarland, is truly remarkable, and
it was certainly worth what I paid, as I’ll be referring to it for years to
come.
Sweethearts of the Sage: Biograhies and Filmographies of 258 Actresses Appearing in Western Movies by Buck Rainey
Sweethearts of the Sage: Biograhies and Filmographies of 258 Actresses Appearing in Western Movies by Buck Rainey
As seen
in the page spreads above, the book features biographies of varying lengths;
some are quite detailed, and in all cases the book is a great way to learn more
about Western leading ladies. The book also contains an extensive film title
index at the back.
While I’m on this topic, I’d like to remind readers of books about Western heroines which I’ve covered in the past: Westerns Women and Ladies of the Western, which I wrote about here in July 2019, and The Heroine or the Horse, which I wrote about last summer.
I’ll
wrap up this month’s column with two books on Randolph Scott, who
coincidentally starred in the previously discussed Ride Lonesome.
This
time around Nott explores Scott’s entire career, beginning with bit parts. He
provides film credits and plot outlines, production history and critical
response, as well as including his own takes on the titles. Examples are seen
in the page spreads below.
The Films of Randolph Scott by Robert Nott
The Films of Randolph Scott by Robert Nott
Some of
the information necessarily overlaps with Last of the Cowboy Heroes,
but it’s all very useful and I quite enjoyed reading about Scott’s other films
and placing his Westerns in the context of his full career. Nott pulls together
facts about each film to provide a smooth and interesting read about each
title, and the book is nicely illustrated with high-quality black and white
reproductions on the book’s pages. Scott fans will want this book, especially
if they don’t have the earlier title.
The other Scott title, Randolph Scott: A Film Biography, is an older book, originally published by Empire Publishing in 1987. Empire also published David Rothel’s book Tim Holt which I shared here in November 2019.
Randolph Scott, A Film Biography by Jefferson Brim Crow III
Randolph
Scott: A Film Biography was written by Jefferson Brim
Crow III and runs 303 pages. It’s a heavy book with glossy pages.
The text is lighter than Nott’s book, with a strong focus on photographs. There are also several pages of reprints of original Scott movie reviews which are fun to peruse — those with aging eyes may want a magnifying glass – and there’s a lengthy section of film credits at the back of the book.
\
Randolph Scott, A Film Biography by Jefferson Brim Crow III
The
photos are very enjoyable and make this book a nice supplement to Nott’s
writings on Scott.
Thanks to the University of New Mexico Press and editor Andrew Patrick Nelson for providing review copies of Blood on the Moon and Ride Lonesome.
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
Silents are Golden: Silent Superstars – The Sensational Pola Negri
We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the flamboyant silent film actress: the lavishly-dressed temptress being chauffeured around Hollywood in gold-plated automobiles, stalking through the most exclusive parties, leaving a trail of ex-husbands in her wake. If there’s one actress who conforms the most closely to this image, it’s probably the “exotic” Polish-born Pola Negri. Savvy at keeping her name in the press, it was her acting skills and undeniable charisma that ultimately kept audiences coming to her films.
Pola Negri
Her backstory was a publicist’s dream, being
the sort that could be easily tweaked to emphasize either privilege or
pluckiness at will. Believed to have been born in 1897 (exact dates have varied
according to source), Barbara Apolonia Chalupec was raised in the town of
Lipno, Poland. (Her screen name “Pola” was based on her middle name, and
“Negri” came from an Italian poet.) She claimed her mother’s family were former
aristocrats who had lost their fortune due to their support of Napoleon. When
her father turned revolutionary, the Russians exiled him to Siberia and an
impoverished Negri and her mother moved to Warsaw. (Later in life she would
claim her mother was a “noblewoman” and her father a “Gypsy violinist,” or said
that both parents were revolutionaries, or some variation of the above.)
Fortunately, Negri was a talented girl and was accepted into the Imperial Ballet Academy and then the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts. By 1912 she had made her stage debut in Polish theater, and in a few years she had gained enough popularity to move to Germany to work at Max Reinhardt’s prestigious Berlin theater. She first met future film collaborator Ernest Lubitsch in 1917 during Reinhardt’s production of Sumurun (1920). While Lubitsch wasn’t acting he was directing films, and this apparently piqued Negri’s interest in acting in moving pictures.
A postcard for one of Negri’s early films, Carmen (1918).
She initially appeared in six films for Saturn Films, then started working for Germany’s UFA studio. Her famed collaboration with Lubitsch began in 1918, when he created the big-budget Die Augen der Mumie Ma (The Eyes of the Mummy Ma) to showcase Negri’s fiery talents and striking beauty. This was followed by Carmen (1918) and then the influential Madame DuBarry (1919), released in the U.S. as Passion. Madame DuBarry was an international hit and a major boon for the German film industry, which had been largely shunned during World War I. It even threatened to knock Hollywood’s dominance in the film market down a peg or two.
A trade ad for Passion.
But not for long–Hollywood soon invited both Lubitsch and Negri to make pictures in the U.S. Negri arrived in 1922 with much fanfare, making her one of the first major European stars to be “imported” to Hollywood. Her first features were Bella Donna, The Cheat (a remake of the 1915 classic starring Sessue Hayakawa), and The Spanish Dancer, all filmed in 1923. (Lubitsch, in the meantime, was busy making Mary Pickford’s Rosita.)
In costume for The Spanish Dancer (1923).
These were followed by a string of big-budget films like the acclaimed Forbidden Paradise(1924), her last collaboration with Lubitsch. Her talents were well-suited for Spanish dancer and seductive lover roles. She also starred in the cheekily self-aware A Woman of the World(1925), which toyed with her “exotic temptress” image.
Pola in A Woman of the World (1925)
The dramatic-looking diva, with her black hair, porcelain skin, and penchant for flashy red nail polish and expensive jewels, fascinated the public. She bought a swanky Beverly Hills mansion modeled after Mount Vernon and was chauffeured about in a cream-colored Rolls Royce or a limousine, depending on the occasion. When audiences weren’t flocking to her films they were hearing about her exploits in the press (although a supposed feud with fellow beauty queen Gloria Swanson was fabricated). She was described as “the eternal Carmen… passionate, elemental, primitive.”
Negri in 1937
Divorced from Count Eugeniusz Dąbski since 1922, any real or potential love affairs were fawned over in the tabloids – especially an early 1920s romance with Charlie Chaplin. Other lovers included Rod La Rocque and, most famously, Rudolph Valentino. Negri had met the great Latin Lover at a Marion Davies party in 1925, around the time Valentino was divorcing Natasha Rambova. The two had an affectionate, if somewhat tempestuous relationship, given Negri’s willingness to cause the occasional public scene.
The costumed couple.
When Valentino tragically passed away in 1926, Negri made headlines for her appearance at his funeral bier in New York City – and not in a positive way. Reporters were on hand to see her emotional arrival at Grand Central station, wearing expensive black widow’s weeds and a veil, with a nurse and publicist in tow. After fainting into the arms of her friends, she made her way to Valentino’s bier, where she prayed and wept copiously and then fainted again. Apparently she tried to have a $2000 flower arrangement draped on the coffin for the funeral, with white roses spelling out “POLA.” While some friends later claimed her histrionics were genuine, the public felt they were attention-seeking and in bad taste.
Pola arriving in New York.
Negri’s reputation fell further when she married “Prince”
Serge Mdivani, of Georgian descent, less than a year after Valentino’s death.
In 1928 Negri discovered she was pregnant and considered retiring from the
screen to raise a family. But to her lasting grief, she had a miscarriage. The
marriage to Mdivani, who turned out to be a heavy gambler, would only last a
few more years. She would not remarry.
Negri would weather the transition to talkies well, but the material she was given tended to be subpar. She would return to Germany for a few years to make films for the old UFA studio, but returned to the U.S. when the Nazis took over. Largely retiring from the entertainment business in 1945, she would be approached by Billy Wilder for the title role in Sunset Boulevardin 1948. Despite her silent era image arguably being the closest to the fictional Norma Desmond, she turned it down. After the death of her mother in 1954, Negri moved to San Antonio where she quietly spent her remaining years.
Pola circa the early 1940s.
Negri’s last film appearance – in full color – was the Disney mystery film The Moon-Spinners(1964). In 1970 she released an autobiography titled Memoirs of a Star. A devout Catholic in her later life, she also fundraised for Catholic charities. She would leave sizable portions of her estate to the Polish nuns of the Seraphic Order in San Antonio, as well as St. Mary’s University in Texas, which was also fortunate to receive her memorabilia from her glory days in Hollywood.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
Halley’s Comet is on its way, and people are terrified. They buy gas masks to save themselves from poisonous fumes and take anti-comet pills for protection from other bad things. They pray in the streets and seek shelter in caves.
The comet comes – as close as 13.9
million miles from Earth or about one-fifteenth the distance between Earth and
the sun – but leaves the Earth safe and untouched. Yet it has a lingering
effect.
In 1916, fears are revived by director August Blom in his Danish silent film Verdens Undergang (or The End of the World) where a comet passing too close to Earth brings poisonous smoke, flooding and fire – the same things feared from Halley’s Comet.
Welcome to the birth of the world’s first doomsday movie. Verdens Undergang was a hit.
More than a century later,
moviegoers still enjoy the “giant object is getting too close to Earth”
doomsday subgenre which includes decades of films and TV movies including The Green Slime (1968), Meteor(1979), Deep
Impact (1998) and Moonfall
(2022). Most deal with the impending doom by going on the offensive and
attacking the incoming object with bombs and rockets, even sending brave
citizens into space to meet it head-on.
That’s not what happens in When Worlds Collide (1951), one of my favorites. In that film from visionary producer George Pal, the mission is to build a spaceship – a Noah’s Ark in space – to take a small group of survivors to a new planet, leaving everyone else behind. Don’t blame them – they did try to save the world but weren’t believed until it was too late. And if that sounds familiar, it should. It’s among the disaster film tropes that When Worlds Collide brought to sci-fi movies.
Add the movie’s nifty Oscar-winning special effects and that explains the full house more than 70 years later to watch When Worlds Collideat the Hollywood Legion Theatre/Post 43 in Hollywood during the 14th Turner Classic Movie Film Festival in April of 2023. The audience was enthralled witnessing the mass destruction of Earth by fire and water as a thunderous sound rumbled under foot and the theater doors blew open. This extra movie magic was courtesy of Oscar winners Craig Barron and Ben Burtt who brought 14 additional subwoofers to add special sound effects during a presentation for the film. The audience cheered Burtt’s “Bensurround,” as it was humorously called as a nod to Hollywood’s Sensurround of the 1970s. It was a blast – and so was the movie.
The space ark that’s the last salvation for humans in When Worlds Collide. The question is whether it can it make it up the runway ramp into space.
* * * *
When
Worlds Collide is based on the 1933 sci-fi novel co-written by
Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie. The sequel After Worlds Collide, was written but never adapted
into a movie because of Pal’s lack of success with a later project (fickle
studios!).
The film opens with a bit of humor
as we watch a couple cuddled in the cockpit of a small plane. It’s our intro to
brash young pilot David Randall (Richard Derr, a dashing
Danny Kaye lookalike). He’s a smooth operator and a great pilot whose world is
about to change.
Cut to a laboratory in South Africa where scientist Emery Bronson (played by Hayden Rorke, the first of our familiar faces from his time on I Dream of Jeannie) has discovered the star Bellus is on a collision course with Earth, bringing with it the planet Zyra.
Pilot David Randall (Richard Derr, center) looks on as scientists Joyce Hendron (Barbara Rush) and her father Dr. Hendron (Larry Keating) discover bad news in When Worlds Collide.
Bronson hires David Randall who
thinks he’s going to pilot a delivery, but instead is handcuffed to a briefcase
he must hand-deliver to Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating) in New
York.
David, who is only in it for the
money, is met by Hendron’s daughter, Joyce (played by Barbara Rush) and
immediately falls for her. That fact that she’s engaged to the nice Dr. Tony
Drake (Peter Hansen), doesn’t matter.
Inside the briefcase are photographs and Dr. Bronson’s calculations predicting the collision which Dr. Hendron and his team confirm. In eight months, the planet Zyra will pass perilously close to Earth messing with our gravitational pull and causing all sorts of natural disasters; Bellus follows 19 days later and obliterates the planet.
With the end near, handsome pilot David Randall (Richard Derr) makes a grand gesture by burning money to light a cigarette for lovely scientist Joyce Hendron (Barbara Rush) in When Worlds Collide.
They present their findings to the United Nations and the government to ask for help (money) to build spaceships in hopes of rebuilding humanity. They are rebuked and laughed at by all but two wealthy humanitarians who offer funds while knowing they will be left behind to die. But it’s not enough to build even one ship, and they are forced to take money from the despicable businessman Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt), in exchange for a seat on the spaceship. It’s clear the entitled business tycoon is going to be a problem, but his money is desperately needed.
So they build. Hundreds of people – mostly students in engineering, agriculture and the like – create the space ark dubbed “Stanton’s folly” in record time. And that’s basically the rest of the film. The workers keep building the ship and doing other “save our civilization” tasks like copying pages of books that will be too heavy to bring along; Stanton grows crankier and more demanding, and the love triangle plays out. (I can’t help but always feel sorry for poor Dr. Drake who is a good man, but no match for the charismatic pilot.)
Time is counted down on a paper calendar – the type where you rip off the days – for the arrival of Zyra and Bellus. On the calendar and elsewhere you’ll see the motto: Waste anything except time … time is our shortest material.
Dr. Tony Drake (played by Peter Hansen, left) and Harold Ferris (played by Frank Cady) hold on as the room shakes when Zyra gets too close to earth in When Worlds Collide. We know that’s what happening because the wall calendar reads that it’s Zyra day.
Finally, it’s Z-Day and we witness the reason we’re here: mass destruction. (I apologize for my giddiness.) As Zyra passes earth, it causes tidal waves, fires, flooding, earthquakes (cue those subwoofers) and ruin. Survivors try to help others knowing the end is near. Even romantic rivals David and Tony team up in a helicopter to drop supplies and rescue a little boy from a rooftop. It’s one of the moments that gives the film a dash of hope and humanity as does the subplot of two sweet young-and-in-love workers (played by Rachel Ames and James Congdon). Watch what happens when the lottery numbers are chosen.
It’s time to pick the lottery numbers out of a box to see who gets to fly to Zyra and who will be left behind in When Worlds Collide. I hope young lovers Eddie (James Congdon) and Julie (Rachel Ames) will both pick winning numbers.
Meanwhile, our disagreeable
millionaire Stanton warns that those left behind will revolt while Dr. Hendron
trusts in the goodness of people. “You spend too much time with the stars. You
don’t know anything about living – the law of the jungle – the human jungle,” Stanton
says. Sadly, he is right, but the film prefers to focus on the positivity and
hope for humanity and that’s what we’re left with by the end.
Now if you think When Worlds Collide is all
sci-fi, think about this: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has an asteroid watch dashboard
that shows the next five objects passing within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million
kilometers) – the danger zone – of Earth. I am creeped out but will try not to
think about the reality while enjoying my treasured doomsday movies.
The special effects
Chesley Bonestell was a pioneering
and influential painter and designer, credited with inspiring the American
space program. In his later years, the work of the “father of modern space
art,” was seen in many films including Pal’s Destination Moon, The War of the
Worlds and Conquest of Space.
For When Worlds Collide,
Bonestell designed the space ark, coming up with the idea for it to take off
horizontally instead of vertically, and created the pre-production sketches
that depicted the destruction when Zyra passed closest to the Earth.
Those sketches were used by Oscar-winning special effects artist Gordon Jennings, who led the Paramount team, for such scenes as the flooding of Times Square. To create it, a scene from a Samuel Goldwyn film was used. They freezed the frame and built a replica in black of the buildings; later dumping water from two tanks. Pal said each frame was rotoscoped and hand-painted mattes were used. The sequence cost $1,800.
At the TCM Film Festival, Oscar winners Craig Barron, left, and Ben Burtt share a photo of the “unsung heroes” of When Worlds Collide, the rocket operators group. (Photo by Toni Ruberto)
In the presentation at the TCM Film
Festival, Craig Barron and Ben Burtt discussed these effects, explaining how
they were done, sharing rare behind-the-scenes photos, videos and outtakes.
They showed a photo of the “rocket operators’ group” – the men who created the space
ark in the film – calling them “the unsung heroes of When Worlds Collide.”
In one outtake, the miniature
rocket had a bit of a hard time moving up the runway ramp. “There was no chance
of CGI then,” Barron said. “This is pioneering stuff, so we will have to
forgive a bit of wobble.”
Behind the scenes
For all its great work in special effects, When Worlds Collide had some shortcomings that areoften mentioned (but that I forgive).
Though the mass destruction scenes are great, we don’t see the collision promised in the film title, but instead see two small circular images – the Earth and Bellus – move closer on a small screen in the space ark and then there’s fire. Anticlimactic is an understatement.
Another complaint is that the space ark flies over snow-capped mountains and icy terrain on Zyra, yet when the doors open it’s all green and beautiful with an obviously painted backdrop. Although it could have been handled better, it’s not quite as bad as it seems. Look closely at the bottom of the screen in some shots and you’ll see part of the ark has landed on snow and the rest is on grass.
Now that painted backdrop ruins it for many viewers because, well, it looks like a painting. Blame that on the studio.
Yes, it’s clearly a painted backdrop but look closely for the intriguing items added to the Martian landscape by notable science-fiction artist Chesley Bonestell for When Worlds Collide.
In the book The Films of George Pal by Gail Morgan Hickman, Pal describes how Paramount made him rush the final days of shooting and scrap his original ending to get the film out for preview and take advantage of the newly announced Oscar for his film Destination Moon. “We wanted to have a miniature for that ending shot, but Paramount was anxious to preview the picture. We had a painting by Chesley Bonestell from which we were going to build a miniature, so we just cut the painting into the picture for the preview,” Pal is quoted as saying.
The preview did so well that Paramount refused to give Pal the time or extra $5,000 needed for the miniature to finish his film. So instead of criticizing what was out of the control of Pal & Company, let’s take a closer look at the picture and allow our imagination go wild. See those pyramids Bonestell painted in the background along with another interesting structure on the left? They are clearly the work of an alien race that did the same thing on Earth. That would have made a great sequel if only the studio allowed.
The familiar faces
You may get a kick out of spotting
the large number of character actors in this film. Here are a few.
Six of the familiar faces you’ll see in When Worlds Collide.
Rachel Ames as Julie Cummings (she was half of the young couple) and Peter Hansen as Dr. Tony Drake. I’m putting them together for their notable reunion in the 1960s on “General Hospital.” For decades, Hansen played Dr. Lee Baldwin and Ames was Nurse Audrey Hardy on the soap, each earning accolades and awards.
Frank Cadyas Harold Ferris. Cady plays the put-upon manservant to the nasty Sydney Stanton. Watching him go bad is a surprise for viewers who know Cady as the comical Sam Drucker on TV shows Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Larry Keating
as Dr. Hendron. He was known for such comedies The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and Mr. Ed, along with the
films Monkey Business, Daddy
Long Legs and The
Mating Season.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at
The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a
member of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie
Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in
the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You
can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Last month, here at the Noir Nook, I served up the first
half of my top 10 bad boys of noir. I’m finishing up the list this month with
another spate of dastardly dudes. Watch yourself – they’re up to no good!
This feature centers on private dick Jeff Markham (Robert
Mitchum) turned filling station owner Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), whose past
catches up with him in the form of a gorgeously nefarious femme, Kathie Moffat
(Jane Greer), and a ruthless gang boss, Whit Sterling. Out of the Past
boasts one of those labyrinthine noir plots that you’d rather disregard than
figure out, but in a nutshell, Whit hired Jeff to find his girl, Kathie, who’d
stolen forty grand and took it on the lam, leaving Whit with a bullet in his
side as a parting gift. Jeff finds Kathie, but instead of returning her to
Whit, he falls for her and the two enjoy an idyllic sojourn – until they don’t.
In Whit Sterling, we have one of noir’s scariest characters –
he’s smart but ruthless, refined but lethal, genial, with an affable façade that
masks a monster. Whit isn’t in many scenes, but he dominates each one with a
frightening air – you never know what he’s liable to do or say, or what duplicitous
intentions are bubbling behind his pleasant and uber-calm comportment.
Favorite quote: “You’re gonna take the rap and play along. You’re gonna make every exact move I tell you. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. And I’ll promise you one thing: it won’t be quick. I’ll break you first. You won’t be able to answer a telephone or open a door without thinking, ‘This is it.’ And when it comes, it still won’t be quick. And it won’t be pretty. You can take your choice.”
Criss Cross – one of my very favorite noirs,
incidentally – tells the story of Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster), who returns
to his hometown after a lengthy absence only to find himself getting mixed up with
his irresistible and combustible ex-wife Anna (Yvonne DeCarlo) – and local gangster
Slim Dundee. In an extended flashback, we see how Steve and Anna reconnected
(despite Steve’s attempts to convince himself that he wasn’t interested); how,
without warning, Anna married Slim; and how Anna and Steve schemed to reunite,
double cross Slim, and wind up with a big payday in the bargain.
Slim is a hothead. Suspicious. Jealous. Mean. Abusive. Merciless.
And you can’t take your eyes off of him – because he’s also cooler than the
other side of the pillow. Take my favorite scene, when Slim returns home early
from a trip and catches Anna and Steve together (with Steve in his undershirt,
yet!). Silently declining the offer of a beer from one of his underlings, he
greets Anna, then calmly offers: “You know, uh, it don’t look right,” he comments.
“You can’t exactly say it looks right, now, can you?” But beneath that composed
exterior, Slim is like a caged tiger, just waiting to pounce.
Favorite quote: “Is that polite? Is it hospitable? Tell me, Stevie, what kind of a job is this you need crooks?”
White Heat gives us a straightforward story – government
agent Hank Fallon (Edmond O’Brien) goes undercover to infiltrate a gang headed
by Cody Jarrett (James Cagney. Also along for the ride are Big Ed Somers (Steve
Cochran), Cody’s right-hand man (until he stabs him in the back), and Cody’s gorgeously
duplicitous girlfriend (Virginia Mayo).
An undeniable psychopath, Cody isn’t your everyday,
garden-variety mobster: he suffers from debilitating migraines and an unnatural
attachment to his mother (Margaret Wycherly). Ruthless, fearless, and utterly
remorseless, Cody ultimately fails to get away with his crimes, but his
comeuppance is particularly explosive, if you know what I mean.
Favorite quote: “Did I ask you for any advice? Look Pardo, I’ve been watchin’ you. And up to now you haven’t done anything I can put my finger on. And maybe that’s what bothers me. But I don’t know you. What I don’t know, I don’t trust. To me you’re just a face and a number and let’s keep it that way for now. When I want your help, I’ll ask for it.”
This film stars Steve Brodie as Steve Randall, a newlywed
truck driver whose wife, Anne (Audrey Long) is expecting the couple’s first
child. All is sweetness and light in the Randall household until Steve is
contacted by an old school chum, Walt Radak, who offers him a lucrative job
hauling freight. When Steve learns that the freight consists of stolen goods,
he tries to alert the authorities, but a gun battle results in a dead
policeman, the arrest of Walt’s kid brother for the murder, and Steve and Anne
on the run from both police and a vindictive Walt Radak.
Walt Radak was a hood with a one-track mind. Once he decided
that Steve Randall was responsible for the arrest, conviction, and ultimate
execution of his brother, he had Steve in his sights like a deer during hunting
season. And he tracked him across the country with vengeful glee. Steve didn’t
have a chance.
Favorite quote: “I’m sorry I can’t give you a choice of food, Steve, but it won’t make much difference. You’re not going to live long enough to get any nourishment out of it.”
A gang of criminals takes over a hotel in Florida’s Key
Largo, led by exiled gangster Johnny Rocco, who has plans to conduct a
transaction involving counterfeit cash with some of his former crime cronies.
Held captive by Rocco’s gang in the midst of a hurricane are the hotel’s
feisty, wheelchair-bound owner James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), his
daughter-in-law Nora (Lauren Bacall), Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart), a war
hero who’d served alongside Nora’s late husband and is in town visiting the
Temples, and Rocco’s former moll, Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor), who’s now a rather
pitiable alcoholic.
Rocco possesses a multifaceted personality. He’s capable of
tossing off a humorous quip, but he’s clearly afraid of the powerful storm
raging outside the hotel. He’s mean-spirited, as he demonstrates by forcing
Gaye to warble a tune in exchange for a drink, then refusing to keep his part
of the bargain. He’s wily, as we see when he rattles off a smooth lie to the local
sheriff seeking the killer of his deputy. And he’s overflowing with arrogance
and egotism: “Thousands of guys got guns,” he says, “but there’s only one
Johnny Rocco!”
Favorite quote: “After living in the USA for more than thirty-five years they called me an undesirable alien. Me. Johnny Rocco. Like I was a dirty Red or something!”
— Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocco
…..
That’s the end of my Top 10 list of Noir’s Bad Boys. Who would you add to this corrupt crew?
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
Although it’s not as iconic as films like The Women (1939) or Mildred Pierce (1945), I really enjoy the George Cukor murder melodrama A Woman’s Face (1941) because it gives us a different view – quite literally – of star Joan Crawford. When we imagine Crawford today, we usually think of the heavy eyebrows, smear of red lips, and shoulder pads version, an image crystallized by Faye Dunaway’s embodiment of Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981), but classic film fans already know that Crawford’s long career took her through many incarnations, from flappers and chorus girls to diva of grand dame guignol. In this Hollywood remake of the 1938 Swedish picture starring Ingrid Bergman, Crawford gets to play a truly dynamic character, one whose face is only the most obvious thing about her that changes. In many ways, it’s a perfect Crawford companion piece to Bette Davis’ Now, Voyager (1942), and, in fact, Davis starred in a 1942 radio version of A Woman’s Face with Crawford’s costar Conrad Veidt. If you want to see as many aspects of Joan Crawford as possible in one picture, A Woman’s Face is an excellent choice.
Joan Crawford stars as Anna Holm, a woman caught between the possible lives represented by her criminal partner (Conrad Veidt) and a kind plastic surgeon (Melvyn Douglas)
Crawford plays Anna Holm, a woman whose childhood facial injury has always prevented her from being part of normal society. She turns to crime to survive and punish those who have ostracized her, but her blackmail business eventually leads her to a fateful encounter with plastic surgeon Gustaf Segert (Melvyn Douglas), who commits to repairing her damaged face. After a series of painful operations, Anna has the chance to begin a new life, but her old partner, Torsten Barring (Conrad Veidt), refuses to let her leave the past behind. Those who have known Anna both before and after her transformation reveal the circumstances through which Anna becomes embroiled in the murder trial that forms the frame tale of the story.
Dr. Segert tells Anna that he can repair her damaged face with a series of operations
Like Grand Hotel (1932) and The Women, A Woman’s Face features an impressive ensemble cast, but Crawford is absolutely the star. Her performance is supported by two leading men, Melvyn Douglas as the generous but unhappily married surgeon, and Conrad Veidt as the charming but unscrupulous schemer. The two male leads play angel and devil to Crawford’s Anna, one urging a path to righteousness and the other luring her back into the dark. The rest of the cast includes Osa Massen, Reginald Owen, Marjorie Main, Donald Meek, Connie Gilchrist and even George Zucco and Henry Daniell filling small roles as lawyers in the murder trial. Richard Nichols is a tiny scene-stealer as Lars-Erik, which makes it even worse that Torsten, his uncle, wants the child dead. Each of the characters offers a different take on Anna as part of the testimony, while the flashback scenes allow us to see how each character has interacted with her in the past, bringing out anger, longing, grief, hope, and tenderness depending on the circumstances. Each witness brings us a little closer to understanding Anna and her actions, although the film carefully holds some of its secrets until the climactic end (and I won’t spoil them here).
After the operations, Anna pauses to admire her own reflection in a mirror
Facial disfigurement frequently appears as a plot point in movies, often in problematic ways that use a scar or other marks to signify villainy, but A Woman’s Face pushes back against that reading to a certain degree. Anna is scarred because her drunken father accidentally set her room on fire when she was just a child, and she was also orphaned as a result of the incident. In a society where women must have pretty faces or strong protectors to survive, Anna has had neither. She is the victim of a system that failed to protect her, which makes her even more vulnerable to Torsten’s seductive powers. Gustaf, however, sees her as either his Galatea or his Frankenstein’s monster, a creation that he brings to life, which makes him a problematic love interest, too. Although the film argues that Anna’s hardness was always a façade put up to defend her from the world’s cruelty, it still ultimately depicts scarred Anna as a criminal and beautiful Anna as a kind governess, so it’s not nearly as radical a reading of the disfigured protagonist as The Man Who Laughs (1928), which naturally comes to mind because it also stars Conrad Veidt. On the other hand, A Woman’s Face offers a much more nuanced depiction of the theme than Stolen Face (1952), in which Lizabeth Scott’s character is just a terrible person no matter how she looks. It’s also a narrative that centers the experience of the scarred character without being a horror story, which is something of a rarity, especially for a female protagonist. The most iconic example from the horror genre is, of course, Eyes without a Face (1960), which ends in a nihilistic blaze of gory glory that we’re happily spared in A Woman’s Face.
Anna takes the stand in her own defense at the murder trial
Joan Crawford starred in A Woman’s Face toward the end of her time at MGM; she would eventually leave the studio for Warner Bros. and her Oscar winning success with Mildred Pierce. She also earned Academy Award nominations for Possessed (1948) and Sudden Fear (1953), but if you want a full tour of the many faces of Joan Crawford, start with silents like The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). In addition to the big hits already mentioned, savor the variety represented by films like Dancing Lady (1933), The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), and, of course, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).
