We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
George Marshall’s career lasted 60 years from 1915 until 1975. My own most consistent period of familiarity with his movies began with 1946’s The Blue Dahlia [Laddie] and continued with many low to modest prestige 1950s films: The Savage [Chuck] Off Limits [aka Military Policeman – Bob Hope] Destry [Audie Murphy]and a run of 6 Charlie Bill Stuart flicks between 1958 and 1964- The Sheepman, Imitation General, It Started with a Kiss, The Gazebo, Cry for Happy and Advance to the Rear, most of which were popular.
I rate your video 98% and here are my pick of the posters [FL=Foreign language/LC= lobby card]: 1/two FL ones for Boy/ Wrong Number 2/Sad Sack 3/two for Pillars of the Sky [aka Tomahawk and the Cross] 4/1st one for My [saucy] Friend Irma 5/In Old Manchester 6/Imitation General 7/1st one for Duel in the Jungle 8/FL for Guns of Fort Petticoat 9/two foreign language ones for Destry 10/two for Houdini 11/The Savage 12/FL one for Scared Stiff – Carmen Miranda’s final movie 13/two for The Sheepman 14/raunchy one for Mating Game 15/the first FL one for How the West Was Won 16/both the first and the FL one for Blue Dahlia [one of Laddie’s biggest ever hits].
Fave STILLS 1/Leslie Townes 2/LC for Advance to Rear 3/The Savage 4/Chandler & Malone 5/Scared Stiff 6/Fancy Pants 7/Jason Sweet 8/Laurel &Hardy 9/How the West Was Won 10/Ladd & Lake 11/Ghost Breakers [earlier version of Martin & Lewis’ Scared Stiff – my own fave M & L movie 12/two for Destry Rides again – “See what the boys in the backroom will have!” 13/Texas starring the 2 Bills, Golden Bill Holden and Charley Bill Stuart, great friends in real life – indeed possibly in many lives: who knows?
Having enjoyed this video, I’m glad that asteroid missed Manchester. Let’s hope it landed in the back yard of Jean Claude Junker or Donald Tusk!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating and info, it is appreciated.
Glad you enjoyed the posters, stills and lobby cards.
The Blue Dahlia at no.3 is quite high. I think only This Gun for Hire and Shane are rated more on my video charts for Alan Ladd. But there are some that prefer The Glass Key.
I’m guessing you watched a bunch of these westerns when they were brand new and on the big screen, Destry? The Sheepman? Whoa. I do remember seeing a few westerns at the cinema when I was a kid including Mackenna’s Gold and Butch Cassidy. Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles I watched a number of times at the cinema during the 70s on reruns and double bills.
Two George Marshall films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Pack Up Your Troubles and Destry Rides Again.
There are two 9s – How the West Was Won and You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man. 15 more scored 8 out of 10 inc. The Blue Dahlia, Ghost Breakers and The Sheepman.
From IMDB – “If the situation arose Marshall would play a small part in films. When a bit actor didn’t turn up for Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), he put on an apron and played a mess sergeant.”
HI STEVE:
Thanks for the feedback. Yes I did see many of George’s films when they were initially released. For example
1/Destry as a supporting feature to Curtis’ So This Paris.
2/Curtis’ Houdini on the same bill as Chuck’s Arrowhead
3/The Sheepman on a double bill with Cry Terror starring James Mason and Rod Steiger.
4/Martin & Lewis’ Scared Stiff was the main feature to John Payne’s western The Vanquished
It would be unusual if you and I didn’t agree at some stage: I thought that Glass Key was the weakest of the 4 Ladd/Lake vehicles. Its case isn’t helped in my estimation by the fact that Laddie [who hadn’t yet consolidated his newfound stardom when Glass key was released] was 3rd billed to Veronica and Brian Donlevy. The latter’s parents were like me born in Portadown Northern Ireland so I suppose I couldn’t argue that Brian deserved a 1st billing spot!
NB: Laddie was billed before Lake in their 1st two films and HE got top billing in the final two, proving again that enhanced status in films heightens a star’s billing. Some day even WH may admit that!
Take care.
It’s been a while since I watched The Glass Key so I don’t know why some people would prefer that to The Blue Dahlia. When I first uploaded an Alan Ladd video a few years ago I got a couple of comments saying the ranking on those two films should be reversed – Key above Dahlia. I think it was John that favored Key, remember John?
Anyway the top two on my Ladd video was Shane followed by This Gun for Hire, I didn’t get any arguements about those two. You’ll be surprised how upset people get when their favorites aren’t ranked exactly where they expect them to be.
The great thing about my movie scores is that they are fluid, they change from video to video, never the same twice, well, some of them. 😉
HI STEVE: Thanks for your further thoughts on Ladd and his top movies. Here are the averages of the ratings that I have seen for the 4 Ladd/Lake movies:
This Gun for Hire 77.5%
The Blue Dahlia 75.5%
The Glass Key 72.5%
Saigon 65%
I don’t have the skills of Icons like you, WH and Hirsch for assessing the finer technical details of movies; but here is my own ranking of the 4 movies based on the personal satisfaction that each has given me:
1/The Blue Dahlia
2/Saigon
3/This Gun for Hire –In my perception this one has dated badly whereas Blue Dahlia has not.
4/The Glass Key
Of course I am a Laddie buff and the difference in the pleasure that the idolater receives from each of his/her idol’s movies is normally hair-splitting. Proof of that lies in the fact that as we all know WH worked himself up into a lather until he reached a crescendo over Willis’ walk-on part at the tail end of 2016’s Split.
However beauty is ultimately “in the eye of the beholder” because I thought that the gimmicky appearance of Mr Gimme More [whom I too normally very much like] almost spoiled what was an otherwise a good film.
Also my son thinks all 4 Ladd/Lake vehicles are “rubbish” and he refers to the Alan/Veronica partnership as that of “Mickey and Minnie Mouse”! Anyway, take care.
Hi Bob, I thought you might enjoy this short youtube clip from Dead Poets Society – Robin Williams reciting Shakespeare to his class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3c2KDaAsO0
HI STEVE: Thanks for the Robin Williams link. Good – and very funny – impersonations of The Duke and The Great Mumbler – or at least of the way YOU perceive Mr M as speaking! Thanks for sharing it with me – much appreciated. However
(1) please see para 3 of my 11.25am post today on Gielgud’s page.
(2) I have mentioned before on Cogerson that Special Educational Learning Centers that teach deaf people how to understand others via lip-reading and physical expressions, use as a teaching aid Brando films because The Great Mumbler is perceived more than any other actor as being able to communicate his meanings via gestures and mannerisms independent of speech
(3) in the latter connection, Richard Burton in his own diaries records his opinion that if Mr M had been a silent era star so special would he have been as a communicator in THAT era that he may well have turned out to be historically regarded as “the greatest thespian that ever lived.”
Bob, many people make fun of the way ‘they think’ Brando speaks in his films but would be shocked at how effective he was as Mark Anthony if they actually bothered to watch the movie.
Sir John Gielgud liked Brando and talks about him in this short youtube video –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eH-Jlb_IY0
HI STEVE: Twice in the one day I am indebted to you for sharing with me some very interesting U tube material. I have been reading for years that Sir John tutored Mister M on the set of Julius Caesar, but never before have I heard Gielgud himself confirm it.
Also of interest to me was Sir John’s comments about Streetcar and particularly how Brando brought comedy to it among all the heavy drama. Sir John’s opinion contrasts with that of Richard Harris who said in an interview which I saw that The Great Mumbler couldn’t do comedy.
Appreciate seeing that video and of course the Robin Williams one earlier.
“Only seen three of his movies…but they are the Top 3…..and all are classics. Glad to see Bride of Frankenstein having the top spot. I have also seen Gods and Monsters….but that is a movie about his passing versus a movie he directed. Great looking posters. I figured he was coming son…..when I saw Browning’s video earlier this week. Voted up and shared. Good video.” – My reply found on Steve’s You Tube channel…..his James Whale video has been added to this page.
Hi Bruce, I was considering including Gods and Monsters on the video but thought it better to stick to James Whale’s own films, plus a lot of that movie was fictionalised.
Well the top 3 are his most famous films but The Old Dark House is worth a look too. Your tally 3, mine 5 and Flora 6. Thanks again for commenting, always appreciated.
HI STEVE: Yes: Brexit is again delayed and it is frustrating, but not surprising. I voted “Leave” because I didn’t like the EU; but I was under no delusion that I personally would ever be allowed to “take back control” or that many of the politicians who said they would honour the “will of the people” really meant it or, if they did, they had patriotic motives in mind. Politicians will usually play the patriotic card even when they have their own covert agenda. I understand that some Biblical scholars interpret the scriptures as classifying politicians as being among those who are “the beasts of the field.” Within the context of what I have been saying two stories come to mind.
1/William of Orange asks a boatman to ferry him and his horse across to the Battle of the Boyne and when they reach the other side William tells the boatman to await his return; then brandishing his sword he gallops off on his white horse to join the battle. Ultimately he returns and asks the boatman to take him back to the original point of collection. On the way over the boatman asks “Who won your majesty?” to which William replies “Never mind. You’ll still be rowing the boat!”
2/ In the TV sitcom Frasier, Cam Winston is a tenant of the apartment above Frasier’s and is Frasier’s rival. The two frequently clash and compete over parking spaces, apartment board placement, and balcony rights. The two have a history of trumping each other tit-for-tat via the apartment board: while Frasier convinces the board to ban Cam from parking his Humvee in the provided garage, Cam, in passive protest, hangs an enormous American patriotic flag over Frasier’s balcony, covering Frasier’s view.
Frasier appeals to the board against Cam and at the hearing Winston plays the patriotic card that as a ‘true American’ he wants the national flag to drape from his own apartment. Frasier jumps up and exclaims to the board members “I leased that apartment because of the view of Seattle that is now being covered up,” to which Cam quickly gets on his feet again and contradicts Frasier “No you didn’t! You bought that apartment because you are FREE!” Cam then leads the applauding board members in a chorus of The Star Spangled Banner [I have wonderful recording of that by John McCormack] and Frasier has to back down. [Frasier episodes 12 and 13 aired 8 and 15 Jan 2002 called “Mother Load” parts 1 and 2.]
Where are you getting all of these marvellous lobby cards and other smashing vintage material? Another 99% satisfaction video for my money despite its brevity The following is my own pick of the best entries.
POSTERS: 1/1st one for Sinners in Paradise 2/first one for Green Hell 3 & 4/foreign language ones for Wives under Suspicion and Port of 7 Seas 5/set for Road Back 6/two for Kiss before the Mirror [a title that has always intrigued me] 7/first one for By Candlelight 8/1st one for Great Garrick 9/set for Man in the Iron Mask 10/set for Showboat 11/The Old Dark House 12/All the Frankenstein posters 13/two for Waterloo Bridge
STILLS 1/Dough Jr [aka Jamar] 2/Impatient Maiden 3/Remember Last Night 4/Man in Iron Mask 5/Old Dark House 6/Invisible Man 7/all related to Frankenstein 8/Lew Ayres as Dr Kildare.
LOBBY CARDS: 1/Sinners in Paradise 2/They Dare Not Love 3/Impatient Maiden 4/Rod Back 5/Kiss Before the Mirror 6/Waterloo Bridge 7/Show Boat 8/Bride of Frankenstein.
Lots more were nearly as good in my estimation. Many of Whales’ flicks were so short that audiences today probably would not accept them: Kiss Before Mirror 69mins/Old Dark House 72 mins/Invisible Man 71 mins/Frankenstein 71 mins/Bride of Frankenstein 75 mins/Wives under Suspicion 65 mins/They Dare Not Love 75 mins/Sinners in Manchester 65 mins. These are the sort of films that would have been gobbled up by the down-market cinemas of yesteryear that I mentioned yesterday for inclusion in double bill re-runs.
In my perception the likes of the Frankenstein and Dracula movies, made as they were when the talkies were in their infancy, don’t date very well: creaky photography; infantile and/or lame plots; stilted or overblown acting that was a carry-over from the silent era when, to be understood, mannerisms and expressions had to be exaggerated.
I’m told that when Bela stared out at audiences back in the 1930s/1940s with those piercing eyes of his people were terrified. A clip of Bela doing that was on television one night years ago and my son who was 13 at the time laughed at it almost as much as he still does at a Ladd action sequence.
However, as you have clearly demonstrated, those old horror movies do yield some fantastic posters and stills. Indeed ironically it could be argued that the artwork in the kind of materials that you reproduce does create more terrifying images than the movies themselves do today. Possibly that’s because the artistic skill that goes into providing the static materials airbrushes out the ‘ham’ styles and the defects that often seem obvious to me at least when one watches the actual movies.
I still regard Hitch’s Psycho as the most realistic horror film that I’ve ever seen and far more frightening at least on first viewing than any of the 1930s/1940s horror films. Not only was Hitch a great technical master at building fear and suspense, but what you saw in that film reflected a serious disturbance of the mind of the type that can manifest itself brutally in real-life acts of madness.
“I’d love to be invisible.” A co-worker of mine in the British Royal Air Force in the 1960s. He was obsessed with re-runs of the TV series The Invisible Man of 1958-1960.
Sadly by drinking bleach a friend of mine committed suicide in 1986 [the night that Diego Maradona of Argentina used “The Hand of God” against England in the quarter-final of the World Cup football] and at the inquest neighbours testified that my friend could often be spotted, at times just a shadowy figure on the blinds, pacing his living room late at night and be heard talking to, and arguing with, himself in different voices.
I should emphasise though that those personal reservations that I have expressed mainly apply to the Frankenstein/Alucard-type movies of the early decades of sound and that there are many horror/sci-fi films that have enthralled me: John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing, Sol Siegel’s 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers for example.
Nevertheless I feel it adds an extra twist to the terror when a screen horror plot can actually happen in real life. After the formal inquest on my unfortunate friend, people in private conversation made comparisons between him and Norman Bates, which showed how to the credit of Hitch his Psycho had ingrained itself on the culture of its time and long after and as I suggested in Part 3, for me and probably many others Psycho is still the “one to beat” in the horror genre.
I mean, the only person whom I’ve ever known in real life who could slip in and out of invisibility like Claude Rains on the screen is The Work Horse. He had vanished again this morning when I checked the site – but then the Greats always were permitted to break all kind of rules!
“I’ve got news for you son,” screams an exasperated Martin Crane at Frasier “THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ZOMBIES!” [“Tales from the Crypt” episode 5 season 10 of TV sitcom Frasier, aired 29 Oct 2002]
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooh), info, trivia, anecdotes, quotes, observations and reservations, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
I agree, actors in the early 1930s did tend to go over the top a bit in facial expressions, mannerisms and gestures, and not just in the horror genre.
Paul Muni as Scarface was manically all over the place, no one complained back then.
Looking at the posters I’ve noticed an interesting anomaly on one of them – the large poster for Green Hell credits producer Harry Eddington as the director and James Whale as producer, while on the smaller poster this is corrected. That doesn’t happen very often, I wonder If Whale noticed this or that if anyone really cared?
Four films scored 10 out of 10 in James Whale’s filmography – Show Boat, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.
One scored 9 out of 10 – The Old Dark House. (was it Bruce that had it listed as The Old Dark Horse at one time? my memory’s fading)
Whale on Karloff – “His face fascinated me. I made drawings of his head, adding sharp bony ridges where I imagined the skull might have joined.”
Whale on hearing Paul Robeson singing “Ol’ Man River” in Show Boat (1936) – “The spine-chilling effect of that one song was something I shall never forget.”
Oh btw Bob I’ll be uploading my Halloween video in about an hours time. Yes it’s that time of year again. Brexit never happened. Will it ever happen? 2020? The will of the people my a**e.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the feedback, encompassing as always from you additional information and interesting quotes. I will respond to you on the following points-
1/Whale maybe didn’t care about himself getting proper credit on a poster. Spencer Tracy and McQueen certainly would have cared; and The Thin Woman would have had to grin and bear it.
2/I agree with you that back in the first decade of sound audiences were probably just so pleased about at last HEARING as well as watching movies that they didn’t care about over-the-top acting.
On the latter point you may recall us discussing Vincent Price as ham actor Edward Lionheart in 1973’s Theatre of Blood. Lionheart is going around massacring critics who have panned his [awful] theatrical performances and who have given that year’s prestigious award to “a mumbling twitching boy” [a clear reference to your own Mumbling Idol].
Lead critic Ian Hendry is discussing with Milo O’Shea’s detective the murders and Lionheart’s possible connection to them when Hendry asks Milo if he had ever seen Lionheart acting and if so what O’Shea thought of it. O’Shea [not wanting to be too critical of the theatre in the presence of its lead critic] answers guardedly “Yes-a rather strong actor, Sir!
At the time of his death James Whale had a reported net worth equivalent to $16 million in today’s money. In 4 polls of the greatest directors Whale is ranked 6th 9th, 12th and 12th, a fine average placing of 13th. However he has attracted no Cogerson love.
In the 1998 film Gods and Monsters Sir Ian McKellen plays James Whale. The title of the film comes from a line in Bride of Frankenstein, in which the character Dr. Pretorius toasts Dr. Frankenstein, “To a new world of gods and monsters!”
The film is a partially-fictionalized account of the last days of Whale’s life and tells of his relationship with his gardener, Clayton Boone a former marine; in real life Whale was a member of the gay community. Boone is played by Brendan Fraser and Brit Lynn Redgrave plays Wales’ housemaid.
James Whale [to England’s Princess Margaret]: Ma’am, may I introduce Mr Clayton Boone, my gardener.
Clayton Boone : How do you do? Clay Boone.
Princess Margaret : Quite. I adore gardens.
James Whale : He’s never met a princess, Ma’am – only queens!