In 1914, most films ranged from one to three
reels long–half an hour or less. But as filmmakers were growing more confident
about telling longer, more complex stories, the occasional hour-long film was
released. Arguably, it was Italy that really got the ball rolling on features
that were both lengthy (even crossing the two hour mark) and epic in scale. And
in 1914, no film was longer or more epic than the twelve-reel Cabiria (1914), filmed in Turin and set
during the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC.
The film was masterminded by director Giovanni
Pastrone, a name that’s rarely heard nowadays even when Cabiria is being discussed. Pastrone grew up with a passion for
music (he even handmade his own instruments), and balanced his artistic side by
studying accounting. He was clearly attracted to grand, epic stories from
history. When he was put in charge of the newly-formed Itala Film Company, he
was soon making ambitious shorts like Henry
the Third (1909), Julius Caesar (1909)
and The Fall of Troy (1911). Likely
inspired by lengthy films such as Milano Films’ L’Inferno (1911) and Enrico Guazzoni’s Quo Vadis (1913), he apparently decided he was going to outdo them
all.
Giovanni Pastrone
Pastrone largely drew upon Emilio Salgari’s
1908 novel Carthage in Flames and
Gustave Flaubert’s 1862 novel Salammbô.
He also convinced famed Italian author Gabriele D’Annunzio to collaborate with
him, having him rewrite the title cards and name the characters (which included
“Cabiria” herself). Having D’Annunzio’s name attached to the film gave it extra
gravitas, although it did result in Patrone’s own name being overshadowed–as it
tends to be to this very day.
Told in five parts (or “episodes”), Cabiria follows a wealthy Roman family
whose home in Sicily is destroyed during the eruption of Mount Etna. They mourn
the apparent loss of their little daughter, Cabiria, not knowing that she
escaped with some of the family’s servants. Cabiria is captured by Phoenician
pirates who sell her as a slave in Carthage, and she narrowly escapes becoming
a human sacrifice during a pagan ritual to the god Moloch. Ten years pass,
during which we see recreations of such famed historical events as Hannibal
crossing the Alps and the siege of Syracuse, when Archimedes’ “heat ray”
mirrors were used to set Roman ships on fire. (A title card states: “A device,
never before seen is suddenly, divinely revealed…”)
The film is practically stuffed with
characters, from Roman spies to slaves to Hasdrubal the brother of Hannibal,
but fortunately the character of Cabiria gives the film a unifying thread.
Pastrone made his film as grand as he could, especially considering the
limitations of film technology at the time. His smooth, stately tracking shots
helped popularize moving camera techniques, and other effects included the
careful use of miniatures. Crowds of extras were enlisted and a number of
people also did their own stunts. Scenes at seaside cliffs, mountains and
deserts added grandeur and authenticity.
And of course, befitting its status as an
epic, there were some impressive large-scale sets. In the film’s most famous
sequence, the young Cabiria is sold to the high priest Karthalo and brought to
the Temple of Moloch. The enormous temple set, with its entrance shaped like
the three-eyed, bull-headed god’s massive open mouth, is still astonishing
today. Scenes showing the bronze statue of Moloch, with its chest that yawns
open so child sacrifices can be slid into its interior furnace, are among the
most iconic in early film.
Cabiria premiered in grand style at the Teatro Vittorio Emmanuele in Turin,
accompanied by an 80-piece orchestra and a choir of 70 (a special score had
been written by Ildebrando Pizzetti). In Rome, airplanes dropped flyers on the
city to hail its coming. It would end up being a worldwide hit, often playing
for weeks in theaters in a time when many films were shown for a day or two.
Critics were in awe–an article in Motion
Picture News said: “The picture well-nigh beggars description. Words are
feeble in their capacity to convey the impressions created by the series of
stupendous spectacles which are here welded together into one gigantic
photodrama by the shrewdest craftsmen of Italy’s motion picture world.” A
writer for Moving Picture World was
equally effusive: “Summing up it may well be said that Cabiria ranks in the very first flight of the masterpieces of
kinematographic art. Nor must I omit a tribute to Italy, the country which has
given us all our greatest classics in films.”
Cabiria would influence countless “spectaculars” that followed it, most notably
Intolerance (1916) with its grand
scenes set in ancient Babylon. Today it survives in good condition, easy to
find and watch on our 21st century devices. The acting seems far more stilted
than it was in 1914, and the archetypical characters seem more remote. But there’s
still elegance in its cinematography and art direction and the stunts are
timelessly impressive. Watching it today, I quickly understand what Roger Ebert
meant when he wrote: “The movie feels old, and by that I mean older than 1914.
It feels like a view of ancient times, or at least of those times as imagined a
century ago. We are looking into two levels of a time machine.”
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.
“Amelia jerked back, pulling up her legs. A shadowy form was scurrying across the carpet toward the bed. She gaped at it. It isn’t true, she thought. She stiffened at the tugging on her bedspread. It was climbing up to get her. No, she thought; it isn’t true. She couldn’t move. She stared at the edge of the mattress. Something that looked like a tiny head appeared.” — Richard Matheson’s Prey
Freaked out? Of course you are. You might even have unintentionally lifted your feet off the ground like I did reading that passage from Richard Matheson’s short story Prey.
If you find them scary on the page, wait until you see them brought to life in Trilogy of Terror, a made-for TV movie that aired in 1975 as part of the Movie of the Week series.
The three-part anthology remains one of the scariest TV horror films ever made with one of the most terrifying creatures in any film – the disturbing Zuni fetish doll that people continue to talk about today.
The face of nightmares: the Zuni fetish doll from Trilogy of Terror.
My sister first saw the film as a kid, yet she still brings up the creepy “doll” and how it scared her. (Heck, it freaked me out for years before I even saw the movie.)
Just look at him. With two rows of sharp teeth, wild black hair and a contorted face, the diminutive doll is the stuff of nightmares as actress Karen Black learned in the last short in the anthology. It comes with the very pretty name of Amelia but don’t let that fool you – there’s nothing pleasing about this episode. (The three parts are named for women, and Black plays all four females – one story has two sisters – with a unique blend of innocence, shyness, sexiness, confidence and terror.
Trilogy of Terror was directed by Dan Curtis (Dark
Shadows) and clocks in at a taut 72 minutes total for the three shorts.
William F. Nolan adapted the first two Matheson stories for the
film.
Julie was based on The Likeness of Julie from Matheson’s 1962 anthology Alone at Night.
Millicent and Therese was based on Matheson’s Needle in the Heart, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (October 1969).
Matheson adapted Amelia from his short story Prey
which first appeared in a 1969 issue of Playboy magazine.
In the first episode of Trilogy of Terror, Karen Black plays Julie, a timid professor tormented by a student.
The stories deal with surprisingly risqué plots especially for the times. In Julie, a college student (played by Black’s real-life husband Robert Burton) takes his literature professor out, drugs and rapes her, then blackmails her. Yes, it’s very uncomfortable and even unnecessary. They didn’t need to go so far for the film’s dramatic and sinister turn to work. Look for a fresh-faced Gregory Harrison at the end.
Millicent and Therese are two very different sisters – one prim, one lewd – whose diverse personalities cause violent conflicts. Black has a heyday with the two personalities. Look for handsome, young John Karlen (Dark Shadows, Cagney & Lacey) and a very serious George Gaynes (Tootsie, Police Academy films) in this story.
Then there’s Amelia, a woman who is trying to break
free of her controlling mother.
While the first two short films are interesting and have a
twist (Julie has a killer of one), Amelia is unforgettable.
* * * * *
Amelia arrives home to her high-rise sublet apartment with a long brown box wrapped with twine. If it wasn’t such a dingy color, it almost looks like a flower box. She smiles as she opens it despite unveiling a creepy statue-like figure with a spear. It has a cryptic scroll that explains how “He Who Kills” (great name) has an evil spirit trapped inside it by a tiny golden chain. (Don’t let that chain come off – or else!)
A scroll explains the history behind “He Who Kills,” a Zuni fetish doll that has an evil spirit trapped inside.
“Boy, are you ugly … Even your mother wouldn’t love you,” Amelia says to the doll. Those words will tug at the viewer a few minutes later during a phone call with her mother when we understand her own mother issues.
The Zuni fetish doll is a birthday present sure to please her new boyfriend, an anthropology professor. But first she calls her overbearing mother to say she can’t make their weekly Friday get together because of his birthday. Although we only hear one side of the conversation, it’s clear that mom is not happy.
Mother, we see each other 2-3 times a week.
Mother, I’m not sick.
Mother, there’s a man.
Mother, I’m not being cruel.
Mother, please stop treating me like a child!
A tiny chain wrapped around the warrior’s body is all that keeps evil from getting loose.
In just a few minutes, Amelia is unraveling and moved to tears. But that’s not enough for her mother, who hangs up on her. A dejected Amelia sets the doll on a coffee table to bathe.
Returning fresh in a white robe and bare feet, she looks especially vulnerable and notices the doll is gone.
“What ‘cha do, fall off the table?” she asks looking around,
then sees the chain on the table. This is where I would have been running from
the room, but she is weirdly calm.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” she says – and darn
if it doesn’t listen as we hear the pitter-patter of tiny footsteps scurrying
about. Instead of leaving, she slowly walks through an increasingly dark
apartment talking to herself.
Fresh from her bath, Amelia (Karen Black) isn’t dressed properly to be trapped by a killer doll.
“Don’t get spooky on me Amelia,” she says.
“C’mon Amelia.”
Even when a light goes out, she doesn’t panic – until the
first slash of her leg. Then she shrieks in excruciating pain from the tiny
spear hacking at her ankles.
This is where all hell breaks loose.
For the next 10 minutes, there will be ear-piercing screams
(from her) and terrifying garbled sounds (from it). The attacks are relentless
and vicious, filmed at a chaotic pace with frenzied editing. We can’t quite see
everything that is happening because of the blurry images, but the ungodly
sounds are unsettling enough.
Amelia (played by Karen Black) suffers relentless attacks by a spirited Zuni fetish warrior doll that was meant as a gift for her boyfriend.
The attacks move to different rooms as Amelia runs into her
bedroom, then bathroom and closet but that little menace has a way of slashing
under the door with a large knife, getting past locked doors and cutting its
way even through a suitcase.
It’s one of the most terrifying – and exhausting – sequences I’ve ever watched and it goes right up to the final seconds with a nightmarish ending that will stick with you.
Attacks by tiny things have always freaked me out (like in the 1936 film The Devil-Doll). You can see the big monsters coming, but not the littles. The next time you feel a weird sensation around your ankles, you should probably look down.
Trilogy of Terror may have turned 50 in 2025, but it hasn’t lost its bite.
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
and board chair of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and led 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 or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
Western RoundUp: Western Film Book Library – Part 9
Once or twice a year I share a roundup of books on the Western movie genre here, most recently in November 2024.
This month’s book column was prompted in part by some
wonderful discoveries I made during recent travels.
A June road trip took us briefly through Lone Pine,
California, where we made a stop at the giftshop in the Museum of Western Film
History. Later in the month I visited my favorite used bookshop, Smith Family
Bookstore, while visiting family in Eugene, Oregon.
I’ll start with one of my finds in the Lone Pine gift shop, The Art of the Classic Western Movie Poster!, edited by Ed Hulse. It has a forward by Jay Dee Witney, son of the late Western director William Witney.
What was rather amazing was that just a few weeks ago I
reviewed Ed’s new book The Art of Classic Crime and Mystery Movies at
my personal blog, yet at that time I didn’t notice the same author
had also published a book on Western poster art just last year. Both books are
from Schiffer Publishing and are heavy hardbacks clocking in at 320 pages.
As seen in these photos, the glossy pages feature many
beautiful posters from Westerns of all types, including silents, series, and
spaghetti Westerns. Hulse provides insightful commentary; he’s a Western film
expert I’ve heard speak at the Lone Pine Film Festival numerous times over the
years, and he knows his subject matter inside and out.
Another book I discovered in the Lone Pine museum shop
was Cowboys, Creatures, and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures by
Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian. It was published by Lyons Press in 2018. It
has 252 heavy, glossy pages.
Cowboys, Creatures, and Classics covers
all aspects of Republic’s history, including chapters on topics such as
stuntmen and leading ladies. No one familiar with my columns will be surprised
that my favorite chapter was titled “The Second Hollywood,” about
movies Republic filmed in Lone Pine, California.
The book contains many beautiful photographs, including one
I’d never before seen from one of my all-time favorite films, Angel and
the Badman (1947). I’m sharing the photo below as an example of the
quality of the book’s beautiful illustrations.
This is a good place to mention another book on Republic which is in my collection, Republic Studios: Between Poverty Row and the Majors by Richard Maurice Hurst. It’s a 262-page book published by The Scarecrow Press in 1979.
This book was first purchased by my late father; he later passed it on to me for my reference library with a note which says, in part, “Well done with lots of original research – reading 1st chapter is worthwhile.” That chapter is “The Rise and Fall of Republic: An Historical Overview,” which details the studio history over 34 pages of fairly small print.
In addition to its overview of the studio, the book contains useful appendices with listings of things like all the titles in the Three Mesquiteers series and Republic’s serials, many of which were Westerns. There are no photos, but those interested in the studio will appreciate the history packed in this little book’s pages.
One of the books I found last month in Oregon was a unique
history rather similar to the Republic Studios title: The
Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927-1935 by Jon Tuska.
It was published by McFarland in hardback in 1982 and was later reprinted in
softcover.
This book has a couple nice inserts of glossy photos included in its 2015 pages. A sample is below.
I haven’t had time to read The Vanishing Legion yet, but it looks very interesting, as many of Mascot’s films were Westerns, with stars including Tom Mix and a young John Wayne. The author was able to interview many Western stars and filmmakers over the years, and the book contains insights from those interviews. I anticipate learning a great deal about this lesser-known, relatively short-lived company.
Another book found in Eugene was The Versatiles: Supporting Character Players in the Cinema 1930-1955, by Alfred E. Twomey and Arthur F. McClure. McClure also cowrote Heroes, Heavies and Sagebrush, which I shared here in May 2023.
The Versatiles was published by
Castle Books in 1969. It’s 304 pages, with many well-reproduced photos printed
directly on the book’s pages.
I’m always happy when I can find older film books such as
this one; sometimes they’re missing information because in those pre-Internet,
pre-home video days the authors didn’t have ready access to the films or all
the relevant information.
That said, as with The Vanishing Legion,
authors of older books were sometimes able to interview their subjects or had
other advantages writing in closer proximity to when movies were originally
released. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that many actors’ death dates are
missing from this book, given that it was published in the ’60s!
The book contains brief biographical sketches, selected
credits, and photos for a great many actors. As one might imagine, many of the
actors in this book appeared in Westerns, and I find books such as this can be
very helpful “putting names with faces.”
I’m including a sample below of a page with Western
character actor Fuzzy Knight.
Used editions of the older books mentioned above can
sometimes be found online for reasonable prices.
In closing I want to mention some forthcoming books from the University of New Mexico Press. I reviewed that publisher’s Reel West books on Blood on the Moon, written by Alan Rode, and Ride Lonesome, by Kirk Ellis, here in May 2023.
Rode has an upcoming Reel West book on Shane,
for which the publication date has not yet been announced. In the meantime,
coming in October 2025 are books on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
written by Chris Yogerst, and Broken Arrow, authored by Angela
Aleiss. I’m looking forward to reading them!
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.
If you’re familiar with Cathy O’Donnell, with her sweet
smile and gentle demeanor, you may associate her with her first speaking role,
Wilma Cameron in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). In this post-WWII
classic, O’Donnell played the loyal and loving girlfriend of a veteran who’d
lost both hands in combat. Or you may remember her as Tirzah in her last film, Ben-Hur
(1959), where her character is healed of leprosy during the crucifixion of
Christ.
But for me, O’Donnell falls into that category of Unlikely
Ladies of Noir – those actresses whose feet you’d never expect to see firmly
planted in the world of noir . . . but they are. This month’s Noir Nook takes a look at
O’Donnell’s life and her features from the noir era.
O’Donnell was born Ann Steely on July 6, 1925, in Siluria,
Alabama (which is no longer a town, but a neighborhood in Shelby County). As a student
at Oklahoma State University, she was bitten by the acting bug, appeared in
several productions, and later got a job as a stenographer, saving up enough funds
to finance a trip to Hollywood. (“I only had enough money to last for a couple
of weeks,” she recalled. “If I didn’t break into the movie business by then, I
was going to have to go back home to Oklahoma City.”)
Luckily, shortly after her arrival in Tinsel town, while sitting at the counter at Schwab’s Drug Store, she was discovered by an agent who introduced her to producer Sam Goldwyn. After a screen test (which Goldwyn reported did even view), the future actress secured a contract and a name change, and began work with a coach to lower her voice and lose her Southern accent. Goldwyn gave her a part as an extra in a 1945 Danny Kaye vehicle, Wonder Man (1945), and she also appeared in a few stage roles – in one of them, Life With Father, she was spotted by directed William Wyler, who cast her in her credited screen debut, The Best Years of Our Lives. And just a few years later, O’Donnell entered the realm of shadows with a starring role in her first film noir.
…..
They Live By Night (1948)
Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger, They Live by Night
In this Nicholas Ray feature – which is one of my favorites
from the era – O’Donnell played Keechie Mobley, whose uncle Chickamaw (Howard
da Silva) has recently busted out of prison with two fellow inmates, T-Dub (Jay
C. Flippen) and Arthur “Bowie” Bowers (Farley Granger). When the trio hides out
at the home of Keechie and her father, she finds herself falling for Bowie, who
isn’t a hardened criminal like his comrades. But when Bowie and Keechie get
married and find themselves on the lam from the law, she discovers that she
might not wind up with the rosy future she dreams of.
O’Donnell turns in a touching, unforgettable performance
here, bringing to life a character with a tough and cynical exterior, but who’s
equally loving, loyal, and sentimental beneath. She and co-star Granger were
praised by critics, but the film was shelved for nearly a year by RKO Studio
head Howard Hughes and by the time it was finally released, according to
Granger, “the bloom was off the rose . . . no one at RKO really understood it.”
…..
Side Street (1950)
Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger, Side Street
O’Donnell and Farley Granger were re-teamed the following
year in Side Street, where they played Joe and Ellen Norson, newlyweds whose
shaky finances are further strained due to the fact that they have a baby on
the way. The couple’s ends are barely meeting with Joe’s part-time letter
carrier job, but things appear to be looking up when Joe “borrows” a folder from
an attorney’s office that he thinks contains $300. Unfortunately, the amount in
the pilfered folder is actually $30,000 and Joe’s in a whole lot more trouble
than he knows.
In this feature, which was helmed by Anthony Mann, O’Donnell was a sweet, loving, and understanding wife, but in the vast scheme of things, she really didn’t have much to do. She was singled out by a few critics, though, including one who labeled her as “poignantly moving.”
…..
Detective Story (1951)
James Maloney, William Bendix, Cathy O’Donnell and Craig Hill, Detective Story
O’Donnell’s final noir, Detective Story, was based on
a 1949 play by Sidney Kingsley and set almost exclusively in a New York
precinct. The story revolves around highly principled, thoroughly inflexible
detective James McLeod (Kirk Douglas) and the variety of criminals, would-be
criminals, families, and friends who pass through the precinct station on a
single day. These include a pickpocket experiencing her first arrest (Lee
Grant), an unscrupulous abortionist (George Macready), and Arthur Kindred
(Craig Hill), a young man accused of embezzling funds in an effort to impress a
high-priced model. O’Donnell plays the model’s younger sister, who’s secretly
in love with Arthur and is determined to ensure his release – even dipping into
her own savings and pawning personal items to pay back his employer.
The critic for the L.A. Times praised O’Donnell’s
performance, writing that the actress “invest[ed] her role with simple and
genuine feeling,” and she was singled out as “notable” in the New York Daily
News. Her role wasn’t a showy one, but her devotion and quiet determination
were memorable.
—-
Sadly, the career of O’Donnell – who was married to producer
Robert Wyler (director William Wyler’s older brother), was cut short when she
fell ill in the mid-1960s and she died of cancer in 1970. She was only 46 years
old, but she left behind an impressive body of work, and all three of her noirs
are more than worth your time.
Treat yourself and check ‘em out!
…
– 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 he was a major celebrity of the
silent era–and we’re talking “Major” with a capital “M”–Douglas Fairbanks
tends to be more overlooked than his contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Mary
Pickford. If you’re curious enough to comb through the filmography of this
energetic, all-American star (and you should!) you might be surprised by how
much there is to choose from, especially circa 1915 to 1920.
“Doug” in a still for His Majesty, the American (1919).
Wondering where to begin? Everyone will find something unique about Doug to appreciate, of course, but here’s a few of my own suggestions.
…..
7. Manhattan Madness (1916)
Doug was a stage star before bounding into the
movies, bringing his ready grin and enthusiasm for physical stunts to the big
screen. 1916 was his second year of being in films, and he’d been paying close
attention to what his audiences enjoyed and what they didn’t. The farce Manhattan Madness (1916) was probably
the first “ideal” Fairbanks feature. Doug plays a rich young New Yorker who’s
been living on a Nevada ranch. Upon a return trip to the city he declares that
urban life is a bore compared to the wild west. His friends bet him $5000 that
he’ll soon experience a thrill, and then plot to trick him with a fake
kidnapping.
The East vs. West plot–very relevant in that evolving era–and the many stunts atop city buses, rooftops and bucking horses make this not only a memorable Fairbanks film but a harbinger of exciting things to come.
…..
6. His Picture in the Papers (1916)
This light comedy holds a particular charm for
me, not only because of the charismatic Doug himself, but because of the
abundance of period details. Every silent film has them, obviously, but some
are blessed with more than others, from unique clothing to busy set decorations
to shots taken in real city streets. For instance, in a scene where Doug ends
up in jail his cell is covered in graffiti–which includes a cartoon of Kaiser
Wilhelm (remember, this came out in 1916!).
Doug plays the son of a wealthy manufacturer of vegetarian food products. He wants to marry Christine Cadwalader, the daughter of an equally wealthy family friend, but he’s accused by his father of being lazy–too lazy to even “get his picture in the paper” to help promote the family products. Realizing that he might be cut off from the family fortune–losing Christine in the process–he decides to do whatever it takes to get himself in the papers. Naturally this is much easier said than done…!
…..
5. When the Clouds Roll By (1919)
By 1919 Doug had gotten his film formula down
pat: always revolve the plots around their star, add in plenty of light comedy
and have opportunities for those signature athletic stunts. When the Clouds Roll By has a
doleful-sounding plot, but don’t be fooled–it handles dark material with a
surprisingly light touch. Doug is a superstitious young man who is unaware that
the psychiatrist he’s seeing is deranged. In the name of “scientific
experimentation,” the psychiatrist decides to drive Doug crazy to the point of
suicide. However, he doesn’t count on Doug meeting his dream girl.
With surreal special effects such as a sequence where Doug walks on the ceiling decades earlier than Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding, and an exciting climax with a floating house that may have inspired scenes in Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr, When the Clouds Roll By is a 1910s gem. It’s certainly worthy of any Fairbanks marathon.
…..
4. The Mark of Zorro (1920)
Not long after marrying fellow superstar Mary
Pickford, Doug embarked on a new type of film project that would marry his
signature formula with costume adventure. His true goal was to play D’Artagnan
in The Three Musketeers, but he
wasn’t sure if a “Fairbanks period piece” was what audiences would accept. As a
test, he decided to make The Mark of
Zorro. It was a smashing success, and he happily moved on with his
D’Artagnan dream.
The swashbuckling, the secret lair, the hero’s double identity, the excitement, the romance–it was a perfect mix, and Doug’s masked Zorro became a huge influence not only on adventure films in general but even on the superhero genre–especially Batman and Superman comics.
…..
3. Robin Hood (1922)
Once you’ve been introduced to Swashbuckling
Doug it’s almost hard to decide what to watch next, but I’d go with the
ambitious and well-regarded Robin Hood. Beautifully
filmed and full of charm and romance, it also features the largest physical set
built at that time–even bigger than the mighty Babylonian hall in Intolerance (1916). Hundreds of workers
labored on the giant castle and Nottingham village, Doug having insisted that
the picture “be made lavishly or not made at all.” The resulting spectacle was an
immense achievement and an immense hit with both audiences and critics
alike.
…..
2. The Black Pirate (1926)
At the time this feature was in production,
Technicolor had been used sparingly in cinema, being expensive and usually
reserved for a few sequences in “prestige” pictures. Even after being used for
a full feature in 1922, Anna May Wong’s The
Toll of the Sea, manufacturers had a hard time convincing filmmakers to
invest in it. Douglas Fairbanks, however, knew Technicolor would work perfectly
for his latest swashbuckler.
Another big-budget adventure, The Black Pirate had every pirate trope a heart could desire along with sophisticated costuming, full-sized ship sets, and a beautiful color palette inspired by Rembrandt paintings. Doug himself is in magnificent form, as is his physique, confidently displayed by the tattered costumes.
…..
1. The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
Lastly, this is a feature I’d recommend not
just as an excellent Fairbanks film, but as an excellent silent film in
general. Based on the Arabian Nights tales,
it leaned into the 1920s’ fascination with the Far East and featured stunning,
ethereal art direction that is practically unrivalled even today.
As Ahmed, a trickster thief who falls for a
princess and goes on a quest to win her hand, Doug is a joyful, bounding
sprite–with a dash of stylization in his gestures to add to the fairytale
atmosphere. The film as a whole, with its dreamy special effects and Art
Nouveau-style beauty, is a masterful fantasy and is certainly one of the finest
examples of silent era escapism.
An important source for this post was Tracey Goessel’s book The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks, the most well-researched (and extremely readable) biography on the star to date. I recommend it just as highly as the above Fairbanks films!
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.
Summer is a time when we’re drawn to oceanfront vacations with sandy beaches, rolling waves and endless sunsets. It’s a sanctuary of fun in the sun. Or is it?
For 50 years, Jaws has made us afraid to go in the water, but other films showed us it’s not even safe to sit on the beach.
Those scurrying little crabs that look so cute on the beach can grow larger than people if we believe Roger Corman’sAttack of the Crab Monsters – and we do. Something is clawing people to death in Beach Girls and the Monster (1965) and a subterranean creature is loose in Blood Beach (1981). More recently, we watched in shock and awe as the half-shark, half-octopus title creature of the Corman-produced Sharktopus walked out of the water and right up the beach to its claim victims.
What are we to do? Run!!
The googly-eyed creature that is The Horror of Party Beach.
Some might also say to run away from The Horror of Party
Beach, a 1964 B-movie relying on some of the worst guys-in-monster-suits
you’ll see on film.
But I don’t run from B-movie creature features. Plus, The Horror of Party Beach is a surprising example of eco-horror films of the 1970s where pollution had horrific effects on animals as depicted in Frogs, Day of the Animalsand Food of the Gods.
The Horror of Party Beach takes that environmental concern and lightens it up with elements from biker flicks and musical beach party movies. There’s a band of nerdy-looking musicians in matching shirts, bikers in black, girls in teeny bikinis (and close-ups of those teeny bikinis), plenty of shenanigans and murderous creatures – all on the beach.
* * * * *
Flirtatious teen Tina (Marilyn Clarke) and her shirtless blonde boyfriend Hank (John Scott) are driving in his MG convertible to the beach. But it’s not all hugs and kisses. Tina wants to party, but the more serious Hank isn’t happy about it. When a leather-clad motorcycle gang arrives, Tina cozies up to the leader. Guess who isn’t happy about that, either? The two guys throw some punches, tussle on the sand, then hilariously get up, shake hands and walk it off as an embarrassed and humiliated Tina runs into the water away from everyone.
Tina and the leader of the biker gang (center) are surrounded by throngs of happy young dancers in The Horror of Party Beach.
What she doesn’t know is that a 55-gallon barrel of gook screaming “DANGER – RADIOACTIVE WASTE” has been dumped in the water. We’ve seen this before in movies and expect the radiation will turn the fish into giant creatures – but not this time. Instead, a long sequence with bad eerie music and looking like there’s gauze over the camera lens, shows how a human skull (from a shipwreck), is transformed into a googly-eyed creature.
As the kids on the beach dance and sing to “Zombie Stomp,” Tina is screaming her head off as the creature attacks. Though she’s in full view of her friends, no one notices.
Later, a few admit to police that they did see something coming out of the water. But the adults won’t have anything to do with reports of a “sea monster” until multiple creatures attack a slumber party killing more than 20 girls who were mourning Tina’s death through sing-alongs and pillow fights.
Now people will believe there are monsters on the beach – and beyond!
By now TV, radio and newspapers shout warnings about the “invasion from the sea.”
Still, that doesn’t stop the kids from walking on the beach, driving down dark roads and asking “What’s that fishy smell?” when it’s too late.
One of the young ladies who has escaped the horror is sweet Elaine (Alice Lyon). She clearly has eyes for Hank, who works for her dad, Dr. Gavin (Allan Laurel).
There’s also the Gavin’s housekeeper Eulabelle (played by Eulabelle Moore) who is a painful caricature of how movies portrayed black servants. At least she has some ideas about what’s going on, even if they relate to voodoo and and human evil. “Lurking and creeping and crawling around out there,” she says, only to be told by the rational doctor that there is a reasonable explanation.
These four will somehow team up to try and save the world.
Answers come from the film’s best scene as a frustrated creature sees a female mannequin in a store window and attacks it. It’s funny but also excellent in its own way. It also moves the story forward since the creature severs its arm when it breaks the window and that arm offers clues to what’s going on.
Don’t worry, Dr. Gavin will explain it all during the patented “mumbo-jumbo” scene. Expect to hear about protozoa, parasites and sea anemone and how they relate to human organisms.
“They are the living dead – they’re zombies,” Elaine says – which is exactly what Eulabelle was telling them all along, if people would only listen to the hired help.
The saviors of the world include Hank (played by John Scott in the light sport coat, second from left), Eulabelle (Eulabelle Moore), Dr. Gavin (Allan Laurel) and Elaine (Alice Lyon).
And it’s Eulabelle who will accidentally finds an important clue. But first we’re treated to a montage of the good doc doing more research as the creatures – they are multiplying at a high rate – continue a reign of terror. (Again, it’s time to run, people.) There is a frantic search for supplies that includes Hank driving to New York City while the others test the local water for radioactivity in search of creatures.
The buildup to the end is paved with more questions. Will they find the creature habitats? Will Hank get what he needs and make it back in time? Will Elaine become fish bait like all of her friends? What is going on with Eulabelle and that voodoo doll?
The Horror of Party Beach creature model.
And will any of it make sense?
For the answer to that final question, we have the words of director Del Tenney from a 2013 interview with the Stamford Advocate of Connecticut.
(He was a long-time Connecticut resident and filmed the movie there.)
Tenney, who was in his early 30s when he made the film, was surprised at the movie’s enduring popularity (there is a Horror of Party Beach action figure) partly because he understood the limitations of his film.
“It’s amusing, but it is a terrible movie, ” Tenney said. “But it turned into a cult thing, and people have fun with it.”
Fun – isn’t that what movies – and googly-eyed monsters – are about?
The creatures multiply in The Horror of Party Beach.
FUN FACTS
Production: It was filmed in two weeks with a budget of about $50,000. Director Del Tenney’s other low-budget films included Violent Midnight (1963), The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964) and I Eat Your Skin (1971).
Sign the waiver: The film was half of a double bill with Tenney’s Curse of the Living Corpse and had a William Castle-like warning where moviegoers had to sign a “fright release” waiver before seeing the film in case it scared them to death.
The bikers in The Horror of Party Beach were real-life members of Charter Oaks M.C. from Riverside, Conn.
They’re not actors: That’s a real band in the movie! And a real motorcycle gang, too! The New Jersey rock band The Del-Aires play themselves and perform six songs. The too-cool bikers were the real motorcycle club called Charter Oaks M.C. from Riverside, Conn. – which has multiple chapters today.
The actors: Outside of Eulabelle Moore who plays the voodoo-fearing Eulabelle, there’s not much of a cast resume. Moore starred in 15 Broadway productions and was known for her comic skills. John Scott, who played Hank, was also known as John Lyon but his credits are hard to find.
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 and board president of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led 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 or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
The summer
of 2025 marks the arrival of the new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando,
Florida, which prominently features an entire land, Dark Universe, dedicated to
Universal’s iconic movie monsters. The Universal monsters have been around for
a full century now, if you start with the 1925 appearance of The Phantom of
the Opera, and even longer if you begin with the 1913 version of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so it’s truly impressive that they still have the
cultural appeal to warrant their own segment of a theme park, where visitors
can meet characters like Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein,
and Frankenstein’s Monster, and also experience thrill rides that retell their
stories in various ways. Of course, Universal and other studios like Hammer
have rebooted the monsters many times since their original movies, but it’s
clear from the attractions at Dark Universe that the classic incarnations of
these monsters retain their popularity. This moment seems like a perfect time
to reflect on the history of the classic Universal monsters and their enduring
legacy.
Bela Lugosi mesmerizes his victims and the audience in the 1931 adaptation of Dracula.
Most of the Universal monsters trace their origins to literature, some more directly than others. Several of them were created by imaginative 19th-century writers and were already celebrated characters long before they hit the silver screen. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published in 1818, Robert Louis Stevenson released The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886, and Bram Stoker’s Draculamade his bloodthirsty debut in 1897, the same year that saw the arrival of H.G. Wells’ novel, The Invisible Man. Gaston Leroux’s French novel, The Phantom of the Opera, was actually one of the last to be written, as it appeared in 1909. The popularity of the literary adaptations led Universal to introduce new, more original creatures for The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and, finally, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Mummies and werewolves also have their own literary histories, with mummy stories written by Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and werewolf tales going back centuries, including the influential story, “Bisclavret,” in the 12th century Lais of Marie de France. Today, the movie versions of these monsters are so famous that they sometimes overshadow the originals, especially where Dracula and the Frankensteins are concerned, with the film incarnations inspiring even more films, television series, music, and literary works.
The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) and the Creature (Boris Karloff) meet in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
The actors
who first played the monsters gained tremendous fame for their roles, sometimes
even to their frustration. One of the most interesting, and perhaps surprising,
aspects of Universal monster history is the way that specific actors became
indelibly associated with a particular role, even though Lugosi, Karloff, and
Chaney all played different monsters in a mix-and-match series of films. Bela
Lugosi would forever be associated with Count Dracula after 1931, even though
he played other roles in Universal horror films like Son of Frankenstein
(1939), The Wolf Man (1941), and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
(1943). Boris Karloff’s version of Frankenstein’s Creature, far different from
the articulate being Shelley envisioned, would influence all later incarnations,
with Karloff returning to the role for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
and Son of Frankenstein before other actors, including Lugosi and Chaney,
took turns with the part. Karloff, however, also originated the undead Imhotep in
The Mummy (1932), a role that made much more effective use of his acting
ability and fantastic voice. While Lon Chaney Sr. helped to usher in the age of
Universal monsters with his performance in The Phantom of the Opera in
1925, it was his son, Lon Chaney Jr., who became an anchor to the franchise
through the 1940s. The younger Chaney played the tragic werewolf, Larry Talbot,
in The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House
of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), and he also played the Creature in The
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), the title mummy in The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)
and two of its sequels, and Count Dracula in Son of Dracula (1943). Even
actors with more limited associations would be permanently yoked to their
roles, including Elsa Lanchester as the shock-haired Bride and Dwight Frye as both
Renfield to Lugosi’s Dracula and the original henchman to Dr. Frankenstein (who
wouldn’t be called Ygor until Lugosi was playing the role).
Lugosi plays the Creature while Lon Chaney Jr. returns as Larry Talbot in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
While The
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and its two sequels brought Universal
a final iconic monster for its collection, the classic age of the franchise
ended with the Gill-Man’s rampage. Other studios, especially Hammer in the
1960s and 70s, would carry the legacy forward, until Universal eventually came
back to its beloved monsters, starting with director Stephen Sommers’ 1999 hit remake
of The Mummy. The rebooted Mummy series spawned several sequels, but
attempts to create a new cinematic universe faltered with Van Helsing
(2004) and yet another reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise in 2017. Universal
is still trying to revitalize the franchise, most recently with Leigh
Whannell’s versions of The Invisible Man (2020) and The Wolf Man
(1925), and, to some extent, the 2023 horror comedy, Renfield. Other
studios, meanwhile, have capitalized on the familiar monster characters for
their own films, including Tri-Star Pictures’ 1987 cult classic, The Monster
Squad, the animated Hotel Transylvania series from Sony (2012 to
2022), and Guillermo del Toro’s Best Picture winner for Fox Searchlight, The
Shape of Water (2017).
With The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and its sequels, Universal introduced the most original of its monster characters.
As a longtime fan of the classic Universal monsters, I’m delighted to see them alive – or at least undead – and well in the new Dark Universe park. I’m looking forward to meeting them in person when I finally get to visit the park for myself. Check out videos of the incredible headliner attraction, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, if you want to see some of the animatronic characters in action. For even more classic Universal monster movies, look for The Invisible Man (1933), Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and The Phantom of the Opera (1943).
Sylvia Sidney was born Sophia Kosow in the Bronx, New York,
to Rebecca and Victor Kosow on August 8, 1910. Her parents divorced in 1915 and
she was later adopted by her stepfather, a dentist named Sigmund Sidney. Her
mother worked as a dressmaker under the name Beatrice Sidney.
Sidney became an actress by the age of 15 to combat her
shyness. She studied at the Theatre Guild School for Acting, where she appeared
in performances and garnered praise from theatre critics. She made her first
film appearance as an extra in D.W. Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan (1926).
During the course of the Great
Depression, Sidney appeared in many films in which she typically portrayed a working-class
heroine or a woman affiliated with a gangster, working with the likes of
Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and more. She appeared in An American Tragedy (1931), Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), Sabotage (1936), in addition to many
others. She also performed in the early three-strip Technicolor film, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936).
Sidney married publisher Bennett
Cerf in 1935 and they divorced in 1936. In 1938, she married acting teacher and
actor Luther Adler. They had a child named Jacob. Sidney and Adler divorced in
1946. Her third and final marriage was to radio producer Carlton Alsop, which
ended in divorce in 1951.
After being one of the
highest-paid actresses in the 1930s, her roles waned significantly in the
1940s. In the 1950s, she took on the role of Fantine in Les Misérables (1952). Though the film flopped by the studio’s
standards, Sidney received critical praise. Sidney appeared on television
frequently during this period on shows such as Playhouse 90, Route 66, and
My Three Sons.
In addition, Sidney was active on
Broadway, with a stage career that spanned roughly five decades. Some of her
stage credits included appearances in Prunella,
The Fourposter, and Barefoot in the
Park.
Sidney received an Academy Award
nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Summer
Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973). As the years went on, she played supporting
characters in Beetlejuice (1988) and Mars Attacks! (1996)—both directed by
Tim Burton, who was a fan of Sidney.
Aside from her work as an
entertainer, Sidney was gifted in needlepoint and published two books on the
subject. She also raised showed pug dogs, her favorite breed.
Sidney passed away on July 1,
1999, from esophageal cancer at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was 88
years old.
Today, some of Sidney’s residences
remain. In 1925, she and her family lived at 201 W. 11th St., New
York, New York. This building stands.
201 W. 11th St., NYC
In 1930, she resided at 33 5th
Ave., New York, New York. This building also remains standing.
33 5th Ave., NYC
In 1936, Sidney resided at 120 E.
39th St., New York, New York, which also remains.
120 E. 39th St., NYC
In the last years of her life,
she resided at 22 Valerie Ln., Danbury, Connecticut, where she bred and raised
her pugs. This home also remains.
22 Valerie Ln., Danbury, CT
Sidney is further remembered with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring her work in motion pictures. Her star is located at 6245 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, California.
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.
Silent Superstars: John Gilbert, Idol Of The 1920s
John Gilbert
There are certain silent film stars who, for
whatever reason, are mainly remembered for the myths about them. A prime
example is John Gilbert, the darkly-handsome idol of countless moviegoers. When
he’s remembered at all, it’s usually for the rumor that the talkies revealed
his supposedly “squeaky” voice, sinking his career as one of the silver
screen’s great lovers. But like so many old Hollywood tales, this was not only
far from the truth, but it has unfairly obscured the career of the likable and
talented “Jack” Gilbert.
Garbo and Gilbert
Gilbert’s upbringing was less than ideal. His
mother, a stock company actress, was mentally unstable and flitted from
boyfriend to boyfriend; his real father wasn’t in the picture. Young John would
eventually get the surname “Gilbert” when his mother remarried. Touring kept
the Gilberts constantly on the move, with John only getting the barest of
education until they settled in California and sent him to a military academy.
When he was 14 his mother died, and Walter sent him to San Francisco to fend
for himself with only $10 in his pocket.
The teen would find odd jobs and eventually
work with stock companies on the west coast. While spending his free time going
to movie theaters, he had an epiphany: why not try to become a film star?
Wasting little time, he soon made his motion picture debut as an extra in the
Wilfred Lucas short The Mother Instinct (1915).
By a stroke of good fortune, his stepfather Walter knew a director working for
renowned producer Thomas Ince and sent him a letter with a couple headshots of
Gilbert. Surprisingly, the humble introduction worked and Ince sent the teen an
offer to work for him at fifteen dollars a week.
Over the next few years the energetic Gilbert
would be an extra in films like Civilization
(1915) and Hell’s Hinges (1916)
and work his way up to bit parts, which quickly grew more substantial. Hopping
over to studios like Kay-Bee, Triangle, Universal, Paramount and more, he
co-starred with major names like Mary Pickford and William S. Hart and dabbled
in screenwriting as well. A 1921 contract with Fox established him as an
official new star and he embarked on a number of romantic leading roles.
Romantic roles fit Gilbert like a glove. With
his wavy dark hair and large eyes that almost seemed to glow under his striking
eyebrows, he was one of the most dashingly handsome figures on the screen, at home in both
tailored suits and embroidered period costumes. His acting was confident,
sensitive, and impressively sincere. It wasn’t long before MGM, then the
biggest and most ambitious studio in Hollywood, offered him a contract–before
Fox’s had even ended.
Sadly, nearly all of Gilbert’s early 1920s
features are lost, but fortunately the MGM films making up the remainder of his
‘20s filmography are largely intact. He would star in Erich von Stroheim’s
prestige picture The Merry Widow
(1925)–despite knocking heads with the eccentric director–and gave a powerful
performance in the World War I drama The
Big Parade (1925), the silent era’s biggest blockbuster. But it was his
partnership with the beautiful Swedish actress Greta Garbo that practically
became the stuff of legend. Paired for the first time in Clarence Brown’s
romantic drama Flesh and the Devil (1926),
their chemistry was nothing short of extraordinary–both onscreen and off.
Falling head over heels for each other during the production, Brown would
recall that the two were so absorbed by their love scenes in his film that he
was embarrassed to call “Cut!”
GIlbert and Garbo, Flesh and the Devil
Gilbert would propose to Garbo more than once,
and even planned to hold a double wedding alongside director King Vidor and
actress Eleanor Boardman. The story goes that Garbo never showed up for the
ceremony, and Gilbert, despondent and several drinks in, ended up hitting Louis
B. Mayer after the producer made a crass remark about her. While it’s sometimes
rumored that Mayer vowed to sink Gilbert’s career in retaliation, the actor
would go on to earn millions at MGM for the next few years–a testament to his
box office stature.
Gilbert’s last silent film was Desert Song (1929), followed by his
infamous first talkie His Glorious Night (1929).
A romantic drama directed by Lionel Barrymore, its main weakness had nothing to
do with John Gilbert’s voice–which had a perfectly normal and pleasant
timbre–but its old-fashioned style of doing love scenes that came across as
awkward in sound. The repetitive dialogue, especially Gilbert’s repeating “I
love you, I love you” reportedly made audiences snicker, although his
performance as a whole received praise.
John Gilbert and Catherine Dale Owen in His Glorious Night (1929)
His
Glorious Night turned out to be the beginning of the
end. Gilbert’s talkies weren’t drawing audiences the way they used to, and the
actor himself was getting a reputation for being headstrong and difficult on
the set. While offscreen “Jack” was known as a kind and witty friend, his
growing dependence on alcohol was taking a toll, and his disappointment over
the subpar talkies MGM gave him was hard for him to bear. His personal life was
also rocky, having had four marriages to four different actresses all end in
divorce–although he did have two daughters, Leatrice and Susan Ann.
Gilbert’s final pairing with Garbo in Queen Christina (1933) was a hit, and he
attempted a comeback of sorts in the comedy The
Captain Hates the Sea (1934). But by now alcoholism had ravaged his health
to the point of no return. He would pass away from a heart attack in 1936 at
the young age of 38. It was a tragic end to a career that can easily be
described as glorious. While it’s a pity that he’s mainly remembered for a
Hollywood myth, it’s also gratifying to know that in his surviving films the
charismatic “Jack” still shines.
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.
Summertime
means travel time for me, and that in turn means it’s time for my annual
“B” Western sampler!
I find “B” Westerns, which often run under an
hour, the perfect thing to relax with after a long day of travel and
sightseeing. The portable DVD player I bought a decade ago continues to be one
of my very favorite entertainment-related purchases.
I watched four films during my recent vacation, all from
different studios and featuring different Western stars. In addition to being
diverting entertainment, “B” Westerns often give viewers early looks
at up-and-coming stars, which was the case with a couple of these films.
All of these films are readily available on DVD, with the sources noted below.
…..
Frontier Horizon (George Sherman, 1939)
New Frontier, also known as Frontier Horizon
This movie, also known by the title New Frontier,
was John Wayne’s last ’30s “B Western. It was filmed after the release of
the star-making John Ford Western Stagecoach (1939) earlier
that year.
Frontier Horizon was part of the
long-running Three Mesquiteers series, with the trio being completed by Ray
Corrigan and Raymond Hatton.
John Wayne, Raymond Hatton, Ray Corrigan
The movie was filmed at Southern California locations including Corrigan’s namesake Corriganville, which I wrote about here in 2021, and also at Iverson Movie Ranch, which I wrote about here in 2022.
Except for a brief prologue, the movie ostensibly takes
place circa 1915, but it actually mixes multiple time periods, a practice I’ve
termed “Roy Rogers Land.” Much of the movie seems firmly set in the
Old West, with transportation by horse and buggy, yet some characters also
watch movie footage.
Stock footage of the modern-day construction of a dam is
included; incidentally, it’s said by references to have been one of the Van
Norman dams in Granada Hills, California. The dams were later abandoned after
damage in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. It’s fascinating how often these brief
“B” Westerns lead to my learning more about California history.
John Wayne, Raymond Hatton
The plot, focusing on the condemnation of a Western
community to make way for said dam, isn’t especially scintillating. There’s
plenty of drama inherent in the conflict over land and water rights, yet
there’s little character development in this film’s scant 57 minutes, and Wayne
is surprisingly underutilized, given that his star was on the ascent.
What made the film especially interesting to me was the
cast. In addition to the stardom-bound Wayne, Frontier Horizon features
the film debut of 20-year-old Phylis Isley. There’s nothing at all notable
about Isley here, in a standard-issue ingenue role; Isley made a couple other
film appearances in 1939, then left the screen for four years.
Sammy McKim, Jennifer Jones
When Isley returned to the movies in 1943, it was under a brand-new name, Jennifer Jones, and she immediately won a Best Actress Oscar for The Song of Bernadette (1943). Jones, of course, went on to a stellar career, with additional notable films including Since You Went Away (1944), Cluny Brown (1946), and Portrait of Jennie (1948), to name just three.
The movie also features 14-year-old Sammy McKim, who was
part of a large family of child actors. McKim left acting in the ’50s, turning
down a role in John Ford’s The Long Gray Line (1955), in order
to take an opportunity to work as an artist at 20th Century-Fox.
Jennifer Jones, John Wayne
In short order McKim moved on to Disney, where he had a long career as an accomplished Imagineer; he was honored as a Disney Legend in 1996. Sammy McKim passed away in 2004, but I had the wonderful opportunity to chat about his career with his son, Matt McKim, at the 2024 Disney D23 Expo. The family celebrated Sammy McKim’s centennial with multiple events in late 2024.
The Frontier Horizon cast also features
Eddy Waller, Jody Gilbert, LeRoy Mason, and Betty Mack. It was filmed by Reggie
Lanning. The screenplay was written by Betty Burbridge and Luci Ward, based on
characters created by William Colt MacDonald.
This film is available on DVD and Blu-ray from the now-defunct Olive Films. I’d recommend anyone interested pick up a copy soon, given that Olive is no longer in business.
…..
Across the Sierras (D. Ross Lederman, 1941)
Across the Sierras
This Bill Elliott film, released by Columbia Pictures, was my favorite of the quartet. It combines well-sketched characters with a substantive, surprisingly tough story written by Paul Franklin. A lot happens in 59 minutes, but there’s also some real depth to it.
Wild Bill Hickok (Elliott) rescues his childhood friend
Larry (Richard Fiske) from a lynch mob, after which the two men arrive in the
community of Arroyo.
Across the Sierras Cast
Hickok plans to settle down as a “peaceable man”
and hopes to convince Larry to do the same, but Larry is swayed by the easy
money that comes from crime. Hickok remains on the side of law and order but
finds it hard to give up his guns, which interferes with his plans to wed
straight-laced Easterner Anne (Luana Walters).
This is a surprisingly brutal film, including the
cold-blooded murder of an older man, an accidental killing, and the wounding of
the film’s comic relief (Dub Taylor) along with the attempted lynching. There
are story elements reminiscent of Owen Wister’s The Virginian, with
Wild Bill’s Easterner sweetheart and “Trampas”-like
“frenemy,” but unlike the original Wister novel, Across the
Sierras builds to a surprisingly bleak ending.
Bill Elliott, Richard Fiske
The movie, which doesn’t really have anything to do with
the Sierras, was filmed by George Meehan, with locations including Columbia
Ranch and Iverson Ranch. I especially appreciated that the filmmakers created a
waterfall for a single sequence shot at Iverson; they went to a lot of effort
in order to create additional visual interest. As a frequent “B”
Western viewer who’s also familiar with many locations, I’ve come to appreciate
things like that!
Bill Elliott, Dick Curtis, Luana Walters
The villain is played by Dick Curtis, one of the founders of Pioneertown, which I wrote about here last month. One of his henchmen was played by LeRoy Mason, who was also a villain in Frontier Horizon. One tends to see the same actors and locations turn up among “B” Westerns, despite their being made by a variety of studios.
It’s a sad side note that some members of this cast died
fairly young. Curtis was only 49 when he passed in 1952, and Walters died at 50
in 1963.
Across the Sierras
Fiske, who effectively plays Elliott’s troubled friend, joined the army in 1942 and was killed in action in France in 1944, age 28. He was posthumously awarded several military honors.
The cast is rounded out by Ruth Robinson and Milt (Milton)
Kibbee, who was the brother of the better-known Guy Kibbee and the father of
Emmy-nominated soap opera star Lois Kibbee.
Across the Sierras is available as part
of a three-film Elliott DVD from Mill Creek.
…..
Boss of Bullion City (Ray Taylor, 1940)
Boss of Bullion City is a
61-minute Johnny Mack Brown Western released by Universal Pictures. Like Frontier
Horizon, there’s a rather unexpected surprise in the supporting cast.
It was also the third film in a row I watched on the trip
which was shot at Iverson Movie Ranch!
Boss of Bullion City
Tom Bryant (Brown) and his pal Burt (Fuzzy Knight) arrive
in Bullion City to start a newspaper. Tom quickly deduces the town sheriff
(Western villain extraordinaire Harry Woods) is behind major thefts in the area
and sets out to stop him.
This is a fun little film, written by Arthur St. Claire and
Victor McLeod from St. Claire’s story, though it has more characters than it
knows what to do with. The film’s main problem is it doesn’t seem to know which
of its ladies should end up with Brown.
Fuzzy Knight, Johnny Mack Brown, Maria Montez
Nell O’Day plays Martha, a spunky Western heroine who can
ride and shoot as well as any man. O’Day, who appeared frequently opposite
Brown, is an engaging leading lady.
The real surprise, though, is the actress who plays Linda,
the daughter of peddler Mike Calhoun (Earle Hodgins): She’s played by future
Universal Pictures adventure film star Maria Montez. Montez was fourth-billed,
in her film debut, and she’s cute pining after Brown.
Nell O’Day, Johnny Mack Brown
Montez was later known as “The Queen of
Technicolor,” but though she was filmed here by William A. Sickner in
black and white, she remains gloriously beautiful. This is also said to have
been the only film in which Montez speaks Spanish, which adds a fun side to her
character.
The cast was rounded out by Kermit Maynard, George Humbert,
Melvin Lang, Estelita Zarco, and the Guadalajara Trio.
Maria Montez, Fuzzy Knight
This film is available on DVD from VCI Entertainment; it’s
part of an eight-film set featuring a variety of Western stars. For those few
still using VHS players (I do!), VCI also put this film out as a single-title
video release.
…..
The Brand of Hate (Lewis D. Collins, 1934)
The final film of this recent batch of movies seen
was The Brand of Hate, a 63-minute Bob Steele Western from Supreme
Pictures.
Young sweethearts Rod (Steele) and Margie (Lucile Browne)
have their plans to wed complicated when her father Joe (William Farnum) has
his outlaw brother Bill (George “Gabby” Hayes) and evil nephews
(James Flavin and Archie Ricks) unexpectedly show up and demand to move in.
The Brand of Hate
Bill and sons are very dangerous — indeed, they shoot
Rod’s father (Charles French) and threaten that Margie will have to marry one
of them — so Margie feigns a lack of interest in Rod in order to keep him out
of harm’s way. But eventually, thanks in part to Margie’s brave little brother
Bud (Mickey Rentschler), Rod learns the truth and sets out to rescue Margie.
Gabby Hayes, Lucile Browne, Bob Steele and cast
The acting in this film, written by Jack Natteford, is
often akin to an old-style melodrama, yet it has a certain charming innocence
which I found quite agreeable. Steele and Browne are sweet together, and I
really appreciated Steele’s athleticism. It’s great fun simply watching him
mount a horse! I think he may have done some of his own stunts.
James Flavin, Bob Steele
Ironically, leading lady Browne had married Flavin, who
plays one of the villains menacing her, the year before this film was released.
They were wed until Flavin’s death in 1976.
Lucile Browne, Bob Steele
The movie was filmed by William Thompson. References
indicate it was shot in Lone Pine, but my husband and I didn’t recognize any of
the film’s locations as being from that area, which we know well. We also
couldn’t figure out where it was actually shot!
The Brand of Hate
The Brand of Hate is available on DVD
from VCI Entertainment, released as part of a four-film Bob Steele collection.
…..
It’s hard to believe, but this month marks my seventh anniversary writing the Western RoundUp column here at Classic Movie Hub. I continue to be deeply appreciative of the opportunity to share my love for all things related to Western movies here, and my thanks to all who read and comment!
…
– 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.
