Monday Glamour Starter --- Evelyn Keyes


Evelyn Keyes is one of those hardy survivors of the Golden Age who’s gotten to outlive other members of her club, becoming a sort of gatekeeper between here and eternity. Our modern day perceptions of classic Hollywood are based largely on what folks like Evelyn have had to say about it. If you stay around long enough in this business, you get to write the history for those of us too young to have known it first hand. For some old-timers, that’s an opportunity to settle scores of long standing and serve themselves at the expense of those who can’t answer back, but Evelyn Keyes strikes me as one of the more clear-headed and reliable diarists of that era. For most people, she provides an affirmative answer to the age-old trivia question, Who’s left from Gone With the Wind? For years, Evelyn Keyes signed whatever mementos turned up in her mailbox and sent them back … gratis. About ten years ago, requests (and photos) began returning to fans with a form demand of twenty-five dollars for each autograph. Well, if Evelyn’s going to outlast the rest of that legendary group, why should she spend all that time helping "Windies" (her phrase) bolster up their collections on a movie she made back in 1939? That question’s been lately rendered moot by health circumstances that have confined this once-dynamic veteran to a nursing facility, where she’s currently residing at age 89.



It wasn’t the movies she did, but the friends she made, that inspire our interest in Evelyn Keyes today. Her 1977 autobiography, Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life in and Out of Hollywood, is a randy tome chock full of wild and wooly anecdotes of fast-lane encounters with industry men of the world who bedded and (sometimes) married her. These swimsuit poses go at least part of the way toward explaining what attracted John Huston, Charles Vidor, Michael Todd, and Artie Shaw, but there’s an intellect at work in this book that better accounts for her presence alongside filmland’s best and brightest of that era (and you can pick up a used copy on Amazon for one penny, according to current listings). If she’d worked somewhere other than Columbia, Evelyn Keyes might have become a bigger name, but few stars emerged from Gower Street, and she stymied whatever chance she might have had at that modest address when she rebuffed the crude advances of studio boss Harry Cohn. Once the applause died down for her biggest personal success, The Jolson Story, Cohn assured Keyes she’d never be a bigger star than she was at that moment, and he seemed to have made good on the promise by consigning her to what appeared to be low-grade crime thrillers coming off late 40’s/early 50’s assembly lines. The happy irony lay in the fact that these would become some of the most notable features on her credits list --- The Killer That Stalked New York, The Prowler, 99 River Street, etc. --- a circumstance that led to Keyes’ inclusion among noir names featured in Eddie Muller’s excellent interview collection, Dark City Dames (available HERE).





After so many years fielding endless questions about Gone With the Wind, it must have been refreshing to finally take bows for those noir titles, but again, this is an actress who’s been around long enough to see one vogue discarded in favor of another. Publishers had imposed that book title on her. GWTW was still riding a crest of latter-day popularity in 1977, having recently had its television premiere on NBC. Any connection between Evelyn’s memoirs and the movie would assure sales. The thirty years since then have not been kind to Gone With the Wind. The one time theatrical stalwart that remained exclusive to big screens for nearly four decades is now filler on TCM. All the plates, dolls, limited-edition collectibles and so forth that drove the nostalgia market during the seventies and eighties have gone in search of other idols to worship, and the prospect of Gone With the Wind achieving such singular prominence again seems less likely with each passing year. Worth noting is the fact that Scarlett’s two younger sisters (Evelyn and Ann Rutherford) will have outlived her by forty years as of 2007 (Vivien Leigh having died in 1967).




I’d read that Evelyn Keyes was companion to producer Michael Todd between 1953 and 1956, but I hadn’t realized she was also involved in the financing and promotion of Around The World In 80 Days. This is one Best Picture award winner universally reviled today, proof positive, as if more were needed, that Oscars are bought, not earned (though personally, I kinda like it). Todd seems to have financed this extravaganza on a week-by-week basis, and the life he shared with Evelyn usually revolved around hustle dinners where some clueless investor was gathered into the net. It was inevitable that Keyes herself would be snookered as well, but this deal differed in that Todd pledged five percent of Around The World In 80 Days to Keyes in exchange for $25,000 and her continuing efforts on behalf of the picture. The 32.8 worldwide rentals eventually realized from the show made a lot of people rich, but not Evelyn, who by then had split with Michael Todd. By the time she smelled a rat, he’d perished in a plane crash over New Mexico and her five percent was something estate lawyers, working at the behest of Todd’s son, had no interest in discussing. The protracted lawsuit finally paid out, but for less than Evelyn had coming. She was so dispirited by the whole experience that it was enough just to salvage something from the ordeal and move on. A final marriage to one-time musician Artie Shaw was complicated by his (extreme) temperament, and once again, there was a deal between the two that put Keyes back into litigation in the wake of his death just two years ago. Their agreement had called for each to inherit the estate of the other, whichever died first, and never mind the fact they’d been divorced since the eighties. Evelyn was probably not aware of the court action on her behalf, having relocated for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Actor and friend Tab Hunter has assisted with her affairs since that time, and according to wire reports, she did receive the compensation due her from Shaw’s estate.

Photo Captions

Evelyn Keyes and Ann Ritherford arrive at the Selznick lot to shoot Gone With The Wind
Swimsuit Publicity for Columbia Pictures
With Olivia DeHavilland and Ann Rutherford in Gone With The Wind
With Bruce Bennett in Before I Hang
With Rita Johnson and Robert Montgomery in Here Comes Mr. Jordan
One-Sheet and Lobby Card for The Face Behind The Mask
More Swimsuit Publicity
With Dick Powell in Johnny O'Clock
The Killer That Stalked New York
With Van Heflin in The Prowler
With John Payne in 99 River Street

They're Autumn Appropriate, So Here They Are

With Halloween only days off, it's only fitting that we recognize a few seasonal shots that were part of ongoing publicity efforts by the studios. Every actress eventually found herself in the company of black cats, jack-o-lanterns, and what not. Within the month, a turkey or Pilgrim pose would be on their schedule. Someone should do a compilation of Christmas themed stills. There must be thousands of them. I'll surely be digging out a few for Greenbriar this December. In the meantime, here's Deanna Durbin and Gloria DeHaven celebrating the Fall season.

Fox Starlets In Revue


Here are five Twentieth-Century Fox hopefuls around 1943. From the left, there is June Haver, who had a number of leads in musicals before entering a convent (!), which she soon abandoned to marry Fred MacMurray (!!). Mary Anderson had been in Gone With The Wind before she was twenty. Her Fox appearances included Lifeboat, The Song Of Bernadette, and Wilson. It would appear she’s still with us, at age 86. Gale Robbins seems to have made only one Fox picture during this period, In The Meantime, Darling, which was a starring vehicle for Jeanne Crain, by far the biggest name in this group. There was a brief moment during the mid-forties when she was the hottest property on the lot, thanks to shows like Margie and State Fair. Trudy Marshall is best remembered for having worked with Laurel and Hardy in The Dancing Masters. That credit gave her a seat of honor at a number of Sons Of The Desert gatherings.

The Incredibly Unsettling Shrinking Man


There used to be a cat in the yard that I shared with a neighbor. We’d take turns feeding it, which sometimes yielded four or so meals a day. Being a natural predator, T.C. (their name for him --- mine was Satan) would drag his belly over the grass in search of yet more food, usually field mice. On one occasion, I watched T.C./Satan presiding over the slow death of a rodent he’d captured in the yard, knowing full well that were I shrunken to that diminutive size, the cat I served each day would happily and unhesitatingly feed upon me. In short, I’d be Scott Carey! That frightful image of a tiny man fleeing his own ravenous pet has endured in the hearts and minds of all those who saw The Incredible Shrinking Man at an impressionable age. I had lunch last week with a longtime friend who’s now a District Court Judge. He experienced it the same day as I, in July of 1964, on a double feature with Jack The Giant Killer. His astonishing recall of that Saturday so many years ago, and the details he related, confirmed this as having been the most horrific movie encounter that six-year-old ever had. For myself, ten at the time, The Incredible Shrinking Man touched nerves hitherto impervious to the likes of Konga, Tarantula, or even The Amazing Colossal Man, for this was clearly science-fiction not to be laughed at. I was quite unprepared for that sobering finish. This may have been the first occasion for a whole generation of kids to ponder those larger life issues Grant Williams submits for our consideration as he shrinks to infinity. What I failed to recognize at that time was just how effectively The Incredible Shrinking Man tapped into adult fears as well, for this was really a movie about terminal illness and slow death, subjects mainstream Hollywood loathed to address, but ones that might be concealed deep within the framework of a modestly budgeted sci-fi movie.



All this came home to me when I watched the new DVD last week. I’ve had several friends lately who’ve gotten bad news from doctors. That happens as one gets older. Each time, you wonder when it’s going to be your turn. Scott Carey’s ordeal was no different in its essentials from a negative prognosis any of us might receive. However this movie may have dated since 1957, this is one aspect that hasn’t. Children watching The Incredible Shrinking Man need only worry about cats and spiders. For adults, there are grimmer possibilities, and they can’t be resolved with a knitting needle. Is this why I hesitated to watch it again? I’d challenge anyone who calls this a "fun" movie. That’s a domain for giant ants, Creatures from lagoons, and Metaluna mutants. They offer escapes from life, not confrontations with death. Monsters kill people in sci-fi movies and it doesn’t bother us. Scott Carey loses hope for recovery and it’s shattering. We’re all of us reasonably safe from attack by a rampaging stegosaurus, but what about that biopsy result that’s due back? It’s difficult in middle age to watch The Incredible Shrinking Man and not imagine yourself standing naked and vulnerable in a doctor's office. There are few movies so clinical in their depiction of a man doomed. The underlying theme is even spelled out when specialist Raymond Bailey refers to the anti-cancer causing a diminution of all organs proportionately, while the fear of abandonment during one’s final illness is slammed home in that unbearably sad moment with the wedding ring. Unlike a lot of movies that ultimately pull their punches, this one follows through on its despairing promise, for Scott will indeed be abandoned in the end.



Now about that spider scene. There have been noises among online discussion groups that some of it may have been trimmed from the DVD. You recall the noxious creature hovers over Grant Williams for what seems an eternity before being impaled by his intended victim. The flow of blood that spews from the monster’s wound still inspires universal (and international) cringing among audience members. Posted complaints said there was much more blood in theatrical prints, but could these rose (or crimson) colored memories be an exaggeration of what we really saw? I can only relate the moment as it unspooled before me in 1964: The spider was preparing to seize Grant in its fearsome jaws. Grant thrust the needle into that soft belly. Torrents of blood gushed out. It not only covered Grant’s arm, but his entire body. The man was drenched. He had to swim through this muck as the beast’s foul carcass threatened to settle upon him. It was the most violent and explicit sequence in the entire history of motion pictures. The Liberty’s 35mm print was seized by federal authorities and offending footage removed by editors equipped with sidearms. No one has seen it since. How’s that for an enhanced recollection? Minus the gory river, armed officials, and disappearing reel, here’s what I do remember --- Yes, there was a little more blood in the scene and some of it ran down Grant William’s arm and on to his chest. Did I actually see it, or is this too an embellishment, albeit an unintended one? This is one movie argument that will never be settled.




What a great still of director Jack Arnold and producer Albert Zugsmith being denied access to the Shrinking Man set! Why don’t they do shots like this anymore? Must current movies take themselves so seriously. Zuggy was hanging his hat at Universal during the mid to late fifties, and some of the credits he accumulated were pretty impressive. Written On The Wind, The Tarnished Angels (was Zugsmith the real architect behind that fabled Sirkian touch?), Man In The Shadow (Jeff Chandler as a conflicted western sheriff!), Star In the Dust (John Agar as a conflicted western sheriff!), and TOUCH OF EVIL!! Do we owe Orson Welles’ mid-career triumph to Zuggy? After all, he gave O.W. a nice supporting role for one show (Man In The Shadow) and arranged for him to direct another (Touch Of Evil). The least Orson could do is lend his mellifluous voice to A.Z.’s trailer for The Incredible Shrinking Man. Too bad Universal included only a teaser version on the DVD. The full-length theatrical preview is a real treat, and Welles delivers his narration with gusto. How about these product placements? I hadn’t realized Fire Chief Matches, Superior Paint & Varnish Company, and Authentic Furniture Products had men in the field poised to take orders for this stuff, but I guess there were patrons inspired to buy an extra box of lights after seeing Grant Williams use one of them for a residence. I particularly like that Captain’s Chair they’re touting, but can’t help wondering if some potential customer might have called in a request for an oversized version similar to the one that swallows up poor Scott Carey. Do you suppose any of these gigantic props still exist in a Universal storage warehouse? I read most of them were too flimsy to use for promotions at the time, but who knows? There may be a few left. I'd love to have that giant pencil standing against the wall in my den, but I guess it got ruined during Scott's basement flood.

Three Cheers For The Vanishing Legion!


There are varying endurance levels when it comes to watching movie serials, usually depending on who produced them. First, there is Republic, the slickest outfit of the lot, and certainly the most efficient in its day. Their serials call to mind the precise movements of a fine watch. Stuntwork, music, special effects --- all out of the top drawer. If anything, Republic chapterplays are too polished. Then there is Universal and Columbia. These were not companies dedicated to serials, but they maintained units for manufacturing them, and most were slick affairs. Beneath this level, we have the independent and poverty row output, and this is where we separate Iron Men from those mere dilettantes who but casually watch serials. The stoutest chapterplay completist might boast of having seen all the surviving Mascot serials, a feat requiring epic patience and an appetite for primitivism in movies at least the equal of screening twelve Edison silent shorts end-to-end. I like Mascot serials. I enjoy the sound of horse’s hooves as they race past prehistoric recording equipment. Scuffling noises during fight scenes have a raw and realistic flavor. Sound effects and dialogue are seldom, if ever, dubbed in. You often hear things clearly not meant to be heard. Lines are muffed or altogether forgotten. Actors stand and wait for cues that are not forthcoming. Sometimes stunts go wrong, or else guys don’t mind crashing open roadsters and having the things flip over on top of them. You always get the feeling there were people killed on these shows and nobody said anything because these were, after all, fringe productions. Nat Levine was the mastermind behind Mascot serials. He shot The Vanishing Legion in 18 days for three thousand dollars a chapter (with the exception of a lavish opening installment at five thousand). If you can get through all twelve, there’s a G.M.B. (Greenbriar Merit Badge) waiting for you in our lobby …




Mascots are the only serials that look as though they were shot in my Grandmother’s backyard. Austere is the operative word here. Harry Carey chases miscreants down streets and through buildings that appear as though they’re still waiting to be wired for electricity. There are no paved roads in this serial, even in the face of its "modern" setting. The town where much of the action takes place is devoid of extras. It’s like everyone either died or cleared out. All the backgrounds have a look of utter desolation. Whatever object or advantage is being fought over could have little monetary or spiritual value against such a bleak void. As with so many serials, you lose track of who’s pursuing who, let alone why. The chase becomes the end in itself, and men exist merely to fall out of windows or be shot at. The alternate Mascot universe never acknowledges ordinary concerns in life. To maintain the pace of a Harry Carey in this show (53 when he made it), you must submit to bullet wounds (Only a scratch, Jimmy), topple off rockbound cliffs (I’ll be all right, Jimmy), and plunge from atop oil derricks (That was a close one, Jimmy!). You can do this sort of thing in the cartoon world of Republic because their chapterplays offered a comforting remove from any sort of recognizable reality, while Mascot serials are all the more unsettling because they suggest that much of this is actually happening to their harassed and underpaid cast. Good God, is that poor old Harry being thrown backward down a flight of stairs? Will someone among the threadbare crew drive him to a hospital in the event he really gets hurt? The tension these cliffhangers create is sometimes too real for comfort. You imagine a secret burial on location for some luckless stuntman with a family back in Oshkosh that hasn’t seen him in eighteen years. Who would ever be the wiser?



Nat Levine used faded names and anxious beginners. Harry Carey had been around since Biograph days, but his kind of westerner had gone out with Bill Hart, and despite a recent success with MGM’s Trader Horn, he couldn’t be choosy. Edwina Booth was another Trader Horn veteran, though her inept dialogue delivery here caused even producer Levine to blanch with embarrassment. Twelve-year-old Frankie Darro served as audience identification figure and got one thousand dollars for doing this serial, while Rex, King Of The Wild Horses was coming off a series of silent westerns for Hal Roach. Stunt pioneer Yakima Canutt supervised the riskier action, and much of the footage was purloined from features going back ten years. The Vanishing Legion was enlivened by a mystery villain known as The Voice, so-called because we never glimpse his face, at least not before the unmasking in Chapter Twelve. Pre-stardom Boris Karloff supplies the unseen, but oft-heard, presence throughout the serial, and it’s a credit sometimes omitted from the actor’s filmography. The Voice commands the titular legion. We’re never briefed as to how he imposes his will upon such a large body of men, since they seem to be the only henchmen available to him. Perhaps his sinister intonations are sufficient in themselves to assure loyalty. I’m ashamed to say I failed to guess the identity of Mister Big prior to his unmasking (it isn't Boris but another actor who's revealed at the end) --- that may be the result of sheer indifference on my part, as the numbing effect of the glacial narrative over twelve seemingly identical chapters left my head swimming with befuddlement. Based upon the foregoing, you’d not think I’d seek out further Mascot encounters, but something in me longs for The Devil Horse, Mystery Mountain, The Lightning Warrior (Rin-Tin-Tin’s final film!), and all the rest. The only problem, and it’s a major one, is the lack of quality DVD’s available. Insofar as that goes, The Vanishing Legion is a remarkable exception. There is a concern known as The Serial Squadron that offers restorations of many chapterplay favorites. Their transfer of The Vanishing Legion is all digital, and by far the best quality DVD of any Mascot serial I’ve seen. Here's hoping they’ll continue mining these treasures (and you can check out The Serial Squadron’s website HERE).

How To Fill Your Lot On a Friday Night in 1952


Just a sampling of the kind of shows that used to pack them in during the early fifties. This one, from November 1952, was typical of combinations that catered to audiences out in the hinterlands. Columbia and Republic used to service a lot of these. Westerns were steady reliables for exhibitors and dependable merchandise for producers. 184,000 in domestic rentals may not seem like a lot for Gene Autry’s Indian Territory, but it was money you could count on, and as long as budgets stayed within prescribed limits, profits were virtually guaranteed. Truly a well-oiled machine, and it ran successfully until television flooded homes with the same stuff for free. Pictures like these died hard in the south, though. In the wake of The Beverly Hillbillies’ success on the home screen, our local Starlite Drive-In booked several nights of Judy Canova oldies in the hopes such relics would sate our presumed appetites for all things country --- and those Columbia Autrys were still kicking around our area right through the mid-sixties. A lot of these westerns have been released on DVD, by the way, and all of them sparkle, having been made from negatives retained by Autry's estate. The ones I've watched have been outstanding.

Jean Harlow --- Part Two














Code enforcement signaled the end for Jean Harlow’s established image as surely as it had for Mae West. The character may have been played out in any case, but clearly something had to be done to accommodate the Code and maintain Harlow as a viable ongoing attraction. Hold Your Man was produced and released before the crackdown of mid-1934, but already MGM was softening content, perhaps in response to outcry over Red Dust. This second Gable/Harlow co-starring vehicle was like two wildly disparate movies under a single wobbly umbrella. The first thirty-five or so minutes was bare knuckle pre-code hijinks we could all appreciate (and still do), but that final half doled out excessive punishment to both the actors and their audience, as if to chastise us for having enjoyed what went before. It was a harbinger of worse things to come, not only for Jean Harlow but for a generation of actresses who’d defined themselves in terms of pre-code freedom of expression. Things would never be the same for any of them after this. The Girl From Missouri was the final selection from a menu of titles --- Born To Be Kissed clearly wouldn’t do under the new order, 100% Pure was someone's idea of sarcasm, while Eadie Was A Lady sounded like a Stay Home warning to Harlow’s fan following. August 1934 was the release date, and The Girl From Missouri proudly displayed its PCA seal before the opening credits, assurance for local censors otherwise inclined to apply their own scissors. We’re briefed within minutes as to the rules, and by Harlow herself. I have ideals … I’m a lady … etcetera … a whole new declaration of principles from an actress whose characters had gotten along nicely without them. Harlow was swimming against a new tide, and 1934 audiences had to wonder if they weren’t being sold mislabeled product.


It was a testament to her public’s confidence that Harlow maintained popularity despite the neutering, though a 125,000 loss on Reckless and 63,000 down with Riff-Raff suggested patience might be wearing thin. Metro’s answer was to polish off some rough edges. First, the hair had to change, which was good because it was nearly gone anyway, having been coarsened and ruined over years of mistreatment. The new brownette look went hand in hand with gentler Jean, no longer the barbed wire that wrapped herself around leading men, but an unassuming helpmate, best exemplified by a subdued turn in Wife vs. Secretary. This was 1936, and the adulterous games she’d played onscreen during pre-code years was now a deadly serious business with grave consequences for those who transgressed. Jean’s secretary was a nice girl living at home with Mom and Dad, her gelded suitor a just beginning James Stewart. Whatever sizzle audiences recalled with co-star Clark Gable was lost in the mists of time, as PCA prohibitions against re-issues of forbidden titles kept embargoes firmly in place. Harlow’s compensation was now increased (3,000 a week), but the suffocating mother was a continuing problem, and the star never girded up sufficient will to fight back. Alcohol became the hidden crutch, though it seldom interfered with work, but what about nagging health problems that plagued her? Impacted wisdom teeth led to a procedure that almost proved fatal, and photographers who’d once tabbed hers the flawless face and figure now applied retouching to both. Romance with urbane William Powell held the promise of eternal commitment, only Bill didn't want to commit, and that resulted in public embarrassment for Jean. This was the world’s most desirable woman, after all.




The image modification seemed to have worked. Profits for the next several were up. Suzy (498,000), Libeled Lady (1.1 million), and Personal Property (872,000) promised glad tidings to come. Jean was still young enough to sustain at least another decade of success, unlike older thoroughbreds in Metro stables. As Shearer, Crawford, and Garbo were maturing out, Harlow ascended to first chair among female talent. A forthcoming loan to Fox for their spectacular In Old Chicago would team her with man of the hour Tyrone Power. That she would die at this moment was unimaginable, but that’s what happened on June 7, 1937. Her kidneys had been degenerating since that scarlet fever episode in 1926. The crisis point was upon her and nothing could undo years of cumulative damage. A lot of friends and co-workers blamed the crazy mother and her Christian Science-inspired determination to avoid doctors, but Mayo Clinic couldn’t have saved this girl. The shock was all the more palpable because Harlow was genuinely liked among peers, and no one imagined such a dire outcome for her. Death was lingering and painful. The official cause was uremic poisoning --- total organ shutdown and a ghoulish tableau for visitors they’d never get over. She was just 26.




Would Jean Harlow have sustained her popularity into the forties? You ask these questions when pondering the Valentinos, Lombards, Deans, Monroes --- all those who exited early and took promise with them. I suspect Harlow would have aged uncomfortably. She might have been fated to play June Allyson or Gloria DeHaven’s mother, maybe in one of those wartime boosters where she objects to Van Johnson as a suitor or helps put on a camp show with Gene Kelly. Would they have made her do a Lassie? Reunions with Clark Gable would have been unlikely with Lana Turner about, unless it was a character cameo like Mary Astor had with him in Any Number Can Play. Imagine Harlow doing television --- teaming up with Robert Taylor on an episode of The Detectives for old time’s sake. Sometimes a long life isn’t necessarily the best life when it comes to preserving myths. Harlow’s was shattered, then rebuilt, on several occasions after her death. Iconic status was immediately conferred with Metro’s posthumous release of the unfinished Saratoga, which offered the spectacle of both Jean’s final footage and a name-that-double exercise in studio sleight-of-hand. The girl standing in behind glasses, binoculars, and floppy hat was Mary Dees, who died only last year after (nearly) seventy years refusal to discuss Saratoga. Was she haunted by Harlow’s restless spirit? Opportunistic re-issues supplied their own post-mortem. Hell’s Angels was back, but much of her footage was trimmed, while Columbia sustained interest with a Platinum Blonde revival in the late forties. The big noise arrived in the sixties, when writer Irving Schulman offered up a largely fictionalized bio that lit the fuse of many Harlow co-workers who’d loudly declare his perfidy. Even long retired William Powell issued a statement. Two movies were adapted from Shulman’s speculations, but the three million in domestic rentals Paramount realized from its Harlow had to have been a disappointment for them. A few of Jean’s originals made theatrical rounds as well, but Red Dust and Dinner At Eight were mostly there for a handful of repertory bookings and old-timer matinees. The real Harlow comeback would have to wait for TCM and home video, and here was where long buried treasures like Beast Of The City and Libeled Lady reasserted their presence among fans. As for DVD prospects, Red-Headed Woman is slated for next month, and word is a Harlow box will follow.

Photo Captions

Jean Harlow in Platinum Blonde
Jean's Picture Personalities Profile
MGM Publicity Portrait
With Wallace Beery in Dinner At Eight
Poster Art for The Girl From Missouri
Reckless Insert
Jumbo Lobby Card from Libeled Lady
MGM Publicity Portrait
With William Powell in Reckless
With husband Harold Rosson, unrepentant gigolo step-father Marino Bello, and her mother.
Publicity for Harlow's new Brownette hair-style
Filming Saratoga with Lionel Barrymore, Walter Pidgeon, and director Jack Conway --- this may have been her last day on that set before she died.

Monday Glamour Starter --- Jean Harlow --- Part One
Jean Harlow scares me when she shouts, and she shouts a lot. People have said Red-Headed Woman is a funny movie. I'm not one of them. To my mind, it’s the Fatal Attraction of the thirties. Harlow yells in Wallace Beery’s face throughout Dinner At Eight, and cheats on him besides with poor Edmund Lowe, whom she also berates. She’s up more decibels in Bombshell, and later stalks Gable in China Seas (more about that one HERE). When she crashes Spencer Tracy’s Libeled Lady office in her wedding gown, he and we are reaching for the earmuffs. None of this enhances her sex goddess standing in my mind, and though tastes vary, I wouldn’t recommend her to guys with low thresholds for assertive women. The fact she was anything but this sort offscreen adds to her legacy’s paradox, but how many actresses can boast of a husband allegedly committing suicide because he couldn’t satisfy her? The platinum hook cleared peroxide bottles off many a pharmacy counter, but when did a star hopeful last employ this gimmick? Mamie Van Doren, perhaps? If anything, it distances us from Harlow today. There’s something ghostly about that chalk white hair, with a pallor suggesting imminent collapse. Is it just our advantage in hindsight knowing how tragically things would turn out? Harlow had the misfortune of coming up during those final plague years before modern medicine developed treatments so easily applied to her maladies today. But for the absence of antibiotics, dialysis, and transplants, she might still be with us, a venerable icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age at ninety-five. I realize I’m out of the mainstream in thinking Harlow’s early work was her best. Andrew Sarris talks about inept line readings and an unconvincing British accent in Hell’s Angels. For my money, this is where she fully justifies the sex label. To my untrained ears, her delivery is certainly no worse, and maybe a little better, than a lot of those celebrated names from early talkers, but who at Metro encouraged her to crank up the volume once she got there? Her neophyte performances are more relaxed and appealing to these tired old eyes.


You’d never think she came from money, but Jean rode many a pony cart in her youth, and was the apple of a privileged family’s eye. She contracted scarlet fever at summer camp when she was fifteen and that essentially sealed her fate, as kidney disease initiated a deadly ten-year plan that would go undiagnosed until its progress was way beyond reversal. The last days of silents found her adorning extra ranks, with the occasional rewarding bit. One look at Double Whoopee in 1929 and you knew she was going places. Clara Bow recognized the new line of It even as her own was approaching decline. Harlow’s merely background in The Saturday Night Kid, but commanded attention on those primitive sound stages, even if transition movies weren’t yet equipped to best exploit her. The Hell’s Angels momentum seemed doubtful for those uncertain years Howard Hughes had her contract. Imagine a sensational debut followed by months of forced idleness. Hughes had neither the time to develop her, nor the inclination to let others do so. Profitable (for H.H.) loan-outs put her in two Metro law-and-order pics, The Secret Six and Beast Of The City. Both these are red meat thrillers, particularly the second, and that hair photographed strikingly. Too bad for Harlow, as the barbaric ritual necessary to maintain the unnatural look poisoned her scalp with horrific combinations of peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux flakes, these applied during weekly torture sessions at the hands of inaptly named "beauticians." Again I’m at odds with Sarris about another of her loaners, Columbia’s Platinum Blonde. If this is a stiff and stilted performance, then he and I must have been watching different movies. Frank Capra knew how to package her sex lure --- we’d most of us succumb as readily as leading man Robert Williams does here (a subdued Lee Tracy type --- how tragic he died so young). Hughes finally sold her to Metro, opening doors for the studied merchandising she’d needed all along. If you watch her first starring vehicle, Red-Headed Woman, from her character’s point-of-view, it’s a pre-code sex romp worthy of that outlaw reputation, but looking at it through Chester Morris’ beleaguered eyes, the thing plays like Olivier’s Carrie ordeal, with Jean’s shrieking harpy as opposed to Jennifer Jones’ softer temptation. Writer Anita Loos must have felt those men had it coming, because they sure bear the brunt of Harlow’s malevolent gold-digging here.




The suicide of second husband Paul Bern was either the worst calamity, or the best break, she ever got, depending on one’s personal/professional viewpoint. Marrying this guy, even for the career boost it promised, was adjudged sheer lunacy by those who knew both parties, as Bern was one of those still water run deep types. In his case, the water got plenty murky when it came down to secret common-law wives and a seemingly non-existent libido. Clear enough as to what Harlow expected of him, but what in the deuce did he want with her? The ultimate trophy bride, perhaps, but Bern appeared to have no intention of consummating the union, and insider talk was rampant. The studio build-up was well in progress anyway, so she needn’t have bothered. David Stenn’s definitive biography says the former "wife" crashed the gates one night and confronted the couple. The scandal that promised left Bern no alternative but to press a gun to his temple, Harlow downstairs all the while. A note he left fit nicely with a Byzantine cover story Metro publicists cooked up during the several hours they ruminated over the bloody corpse before calling police. Jean would be packaged as the unknowing siren for whom this impotent parody of manhood crashed upon the rocks over that terrible wrong he’d done her (his cryptic note having also ignited public imagination by referring to the previous night's events as having been only a comedy). Anxious days followed, but Harlow’s public stood fast, her standing actually enhanced in the aftermath. A pre-code peak was achieved with her next, Red Dust, one of a handful of titles best able to convey for modern audiences what the fuss among us Forbidden Hollywood devotees is all about.




Harlow’s ascendancy to stardom was firmly acknowledged by her Bombshell title casting and her character's identification as the biggest name on the fictional Monarch lot. Only a name with real stature would be assigned a part like this, and by now, Harlow was it. A tendency to brass things over the top begins to reveal itself here. Bombshell is less funny than frantic, and though Harlow’s effective at the lower registers, she’s too often drawn into rat-a-tat competition with seasoned co-stars Lee Tracy and Pat O’ Brien. When it comes to this kind of accelerated dialogue, she’s just not in their league. I’d not mentioned the dominating hell-spawn of a mother that bled Jean white as her fabled hair. Mama Jean was universally despised among Harlow husbands, both actual and intended. Several marriages went on the shoals as a direct result of her meddling. Maniacally possessive, she was herself possessed by a gigolo scoundrel who curried favor with gangland overlords and introduced Jean into bad company. In this, the daughter’s judgment was no less impaired than the mother’s, as witness a romance of some duration with one Abner Zwillman, a mob confederate of notorious "Bugsy" Siegel. Prizefighter Max Baer was another conquest. His wife was all set to name Jean as co-respondent in her divorce action, until Metro got busy and arranged for Jean to propose marriage to a shocked and delighted Harold Rosson, her favorite studio cameraman. Hal must have thought he’d fallen into that proverbial field of four-leaf clovers, but their marriage lasted not even a year. Pretty cynical arrangement, and it would appear she was, at least on this occasion, less a passive victim than a willing participant in such studio machinations. Drat such nuance when we’re casting our rose-tinted romances of celluloid, but Harlow, like anyone in the business, did what it took to remain on top. She’d not be half so interesting otherwise. Whatever the compromises, Harlow didn’t have coming what happened to her within a few short years. Of all the exits any star ever took, this had to be one of the roughest.

Photo Captions

Jean Harlow with Laurel and Hardy in Double Whoopee
With Clara Bow and Jean Arthur in The Saturday Night Kid
In the Two-Color Technicolor sequence from Hell's Angels
With Edward Woods and James Cagney in The Public Enemy
With Warren Hymer and Spencer Tracy in Goldie
Color-Tinted Portrait Courtesy Tom Maroudas of Dream Pin-Ups
With Anita Loos on the set of Red-Headed Woman
With husband Paul Bern
Lobby Card from Platinum Blonde
MGM Publicity Photo
With Lee Tracy in Bombshell

Your Radio Guide For A Few Thousand Weeks Ago


Here are some programs you could be listening to this week if you were living in 1941-43. Actually, there are radio stations that still play these shows as "nostalgia" features, though after all these years, I wonder who listens. Old radio seemed to have peaked two or three decades ago when its original listeners were still young enough to enjoy looking back. Now it’s a matter of another generation recalling the golden age of radio nostalgia. Those who experienced it all first hand are fast disappearing from the scene. Have young people come along to take up the banner of radio fandom? There’s a lot of activity on the Web --- many fine websites are devoted to vintage radio. It’s like serials. Unless you grew up experiencing these things new, there’s just no way of understanding what the effect was like. You have to imagine the initial impact when you listen to old broadcasts. Still, there are many treasures to be found in these old programs. Thousands, in fact. The Sirius satellite radio group has recently added a station devoted to old radio. I should take more time to listen. The problem is, I’m just not oriented toward radio as a regular habit. It was all over by the sixties when I was growing up. Kind of a shame, really. I know I’m missing out on a lot.

Metro's Class Of 1954


Here’s a remarkable assemblage of MGM players gathered on a Brigadoon soundstage at the twilight of Hollywood’s studio dominance. You can check the name captions to identify these faces (a few on one side were clipped off, but only a few --- this was a big image to scan!). It was probably made around the beginning of 1954, as films in production (judging by costumes and actors present) include Deep In My Heart, Executive Suite, Green Fire, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Rogue Cop, Jupiter’s Darling, and no doubt more. Metro wanted to emphasize their status as a healthy, bustling concern, even in the midst of studio decline. This may have been the last such gathering to take place on the lot, unless someone knows of a group photo from a later date.

Is The Lost Patrol Still Lost?


Got in a mood last night for one of those hopeless siege pictures where men get picked off one by one, and realized I hadn’t checked out The Lost Patrol, John Ford’s 1934 actioner from Warner’s recent DVD box dedicated to his films. I’d once seen a truncated 16mmじゅうろくみり print long since come and gone, but this DVD was supposed to be a restoration of sorts, including footage not seen for decades. All of that piqued my interest, so I watched. The running time of the DVD was 71 minutes and around thirty seconds. If this was the complete version, it was still coming up a little short, according to information available in various 30’s publications. Variety clocked The Lost Patrol at 74 minutes in an April, 1934 review. The Motion Picture Almanac indicated 75 minutes in its 1935-36 annual. The movie was re-issued in 1939, from which time subsequent editions of the Almanac were amended to reflect a running time of 73 minutes. Were those first cuts made in 1939? Certainly there were revisions made later. Television prints generated for syndication were down to 66 minutes. This seems to have been the length of 35mm prints prepared for the 1949 re-issue as well, when The Lost Patrol played tandem bills with a revival of Gunga Din, another film notoriously cut at the time. The great film historian William K. Everson played The Lost Patrol in January 1969 as part of his ongoing Theodore Huff Film Society program. Everson prepared notes that are still definitive references today. On this occasion, he called upon another expert, Richard Craft, to provide background on the differing versions of The Lost Patrol he'd encountered over years of Manhattan moviegoing. Kraft’s contribution is a priceless account of one fan’s ongoing dedication toward keeping the record straight on films that were otherwise dismissed as ephemeral. He wrote of having gone to see The Lost Patrol at the Beacon Theatre in 1940-41. He recalled that it was "complete" at that time, but in light of that entry in The Motion Picture Almanac, is it possible he saw a 1939 re-issue print with those apparent initial edits?



Kraft spoke of seeing The Lost Patrol several more times throughout the forties. He was satisfied that the picture was intact. The point at which he began to notice cuts was when he saw the film again in the early fifties with Gunga Din. RKO began to nibble away at it, he said, and after a handful of disappointing 42nd Street encounters, he stopped going altogether. There seemed to have been about eight minutes removed at this point, Kraft recalled, and he cited a still he’d seen depicting a fight scene between Sammy Stein (playing an ex-prizefighter named Abelson) and Alan Hale (as the troop’s cook). This highlight was in the source novel, and appears to have been filmed, but Kraft could not remember ever having seen it, not even in those 1940-41 engagements. Could this missing sequence account for that two-minute difference between the 1935-36 Motion Picture Almanac entry and later editions of same? Kraft did provide specifics as to what scenes had been excised from the 1949 re-issue prints. There was major dialogue between Victor McLaglen and Wallace Ford, as well as several incidents involving Boris Karloff’s character. Having been deprived of this footage for so many years, it’s no wonder the film’s critical reputation has suffered somewhat. I wonder if John Ford was aware in later years of what RKO had done to The Lost Patrol. Certainly, if he ever caught the film on television, he’d have noted the loss. The director did go public with bitter complaints about the horrific butchery perpetrated by local stations when they ran old movies. Ford felt that the viewing public had a right to see these intact on TV. Satellite and cable subscribers often forget what a dreadful circumstance it was between the fifties and eighties when you’d tune in to watch a favorite, only to find the mutilated husk that remained. Ford did own 16mmじゅうろくみり prints of many of his films. I understand The Lost Patrol was one of these, and that he screened it from time to time. Chances are if Ford requested his print sometime in the thirties or forties, which is more than likely, it would at least have been the more complete 1939 version. Indeed, he may not have even had an occasion to watch The Lost Patrol on television.




John Ford did happily realize a nice profit from his film. The initial fee for directing The Lost Patrol was a modest (even then) 15,000, but his contract also called for 12% of all net profits generated after twice the negative cost (262,000) had been recovered. Domestic rentals totaled 343,000, and foreign was 240,000. Profit for the 1934 release was 84,000. Additional return on Ford’s participation came in 1939 on the occasion of the first re-issue. At that time, The Lost Patrol earned 61,000 domestic, with additional foreign of 13,000. Profits were 52,000. The director would, of course, receive his 12% of that action. Again in 1949, Ford saw a payday from The Lost Patrol, this time more substantial than any of the money he’d received thus far. Being an evergreen action show, The Lost Patrol had a ready audience in grindhouses and small-town situations where bargain rentals usually dictated booking policy. This time, the movie brought back 225,000 domestic, and 50,000 foreign. Profits added up to a hefty 135,000, of which presumably Ford got his share. Unfortunately, when RKO’s library went to television in 1956, all those 16mmじゅうろくみり C&C prints derived from the cutdown 1949 negative, and this was the version home audiences would endure for the next fifty years. Longer prints of The Lost Patrol became mythical and sought-after objects. There was a 16mmじゅうろくみり screening at the 2001 Cinefest in Syracuse, NY, but that was a one-time event for a comparatively small audience. As to the origin of that print, it was most likely one of those generated for the benefit of a cast or crew member, much like what Ford had. I’d guess that Merian C. Cooper had one of these, and possibly Victor McLaglen. It’s remarkable how many such estate prints survived. Some of them are the only surviving record of complete versions otherwise lost (The Sea Wolf of 1941 is a notorious example of this --- John Garfield’s 16mmじゅうろくみり keepsake was made for him before the film was hacked up for subsequent re-issue --- now it appears to be the only one left intact). Warner’s recent DVD of The Lost Patrol is likely as complete as any version seen since 1939. With its running time at just under 72 minutes, there are probably scenes missing that were there in 1934, though we are lucky to have at least a lion’s share of this outstanding Ford classic. If you’ve hesitated on picking this up, by all means grab the whole set. Warners turns in the usual exemplary job on presentation, and considering what's included here (five features in all), this is one incredible bargain.