Stuff and Nonsense

A few goodies discovered on Ebay over the past few months.

Gallagher and Shean made a feature for Fox in 1923? This crucial piece of Broadway and vaudeville history undoubtedly sizzled along with everything else in the 1937 Fox vault fire. So many questions, so few answers.

1922 trade ad for The Reporter, the American film debut of Lupino Lane (trademark spit curl notably absent). Again, a (probable) vanished victim, along with the rest of the series, of the Fox vault fire.

Images from The Reporter (1922) starring Lupino Lane. Actually looks pretty funny. I can't find a cast list for it, but I'd swear that's Tom Kennedy as the heavy.

Beautiful, iconic ad for Ben Turpin's series for Mack Sennett. Note the emphasis on Ben's appeal to the "youngsters". Explains a lot, actually. From Pathe's 1926 exhibitor's yearbook.

In 1921, after Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was promoted to features and Buster Keaton became star of the Comique shorts, Roscoe's nephew Al St. John departed for Fox and his own starring series. Do any of these shorts still exist? Former New York Hippodrome clown Clyde Cook had made his film debut for Fox the year before and apparently didn't have St. John's audience appeal. Cook would later have marginally better luck at the Hal Roach Studios.

This 1926 ad for Charley Chase's series nicely plays up his image as a comic sophisticate. This graphic could have just as easily served Max Linder or Raymond Griffith. It still boggles my mind that Pathe was distributing Roach's and Sennett's shorts simultaneously.

Harry Langdon's first feature, His First Flame, was ultimately held back until 1927, making way for the vastly superior Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926) and The Strong Man (1927). It was a wise move.

The Florodora Boys

The "Florodora Boys" number from Warner Brothers' 1929 all-star extravaganza The Show of Shows is more remarkable for who is in it rather than for any inherent entertainment value it may have.. which apparently holds true for most of the film. The number is a reference to the musical Florodora which opened in 1899 at the Lyric in London before running on Broadway for 505 performances at the New York and the Casino between 1900 and 1902. It was revived three times, the last being a Schubert production of 1920. For reasons that are beyond me, the question of what happened to the original Florodora Boys became a common pop reference for years. A 1938 Screen Gems cartoon, Midnight Frolics, features the ghosts of the original Florodora Boys. This number is introduced by Frank Fay doing his self-depreciating shtick that probably played better in person than it does in this film. I personally think he's rather funny in small doses, but he's omnipresent in The Show of Shows. The Warners clearly felt they had a find in Frank. The number itself opens with a chorus line consisting of Alice Day, Lila Lee, Myrna Loy, Patsy Ruth Miller, Marian Nixon, and Sally O'Neil who really do nothing more than chant and look pretty (again, the novelty was in the lineup and frilly Edwardian costumes). Ben Turpin, Heine Conklin, Lupino Lane, Bert Roach, Lloyd Hamilton, and someone else I have yet to identify (he plays the plumber.. Would you help me out here, folks?) then take the stage and each gets a stanza and a little bit of business; Turpin does his forward somersault, Lane does his jackknife split, Conklin stares blankly, etc.. Lupino Lane is particularly interesting here as he crosses back over the line from silent slapstick to the world of musical comedy from which he originally came (and in which he would eventually find his greatest success, largely as the originator of "The Lambeth Walk").