Saturday, December 31, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
A Very Merry Christmas to You and Yours!
In honor of the Christmas season, I'm presenting this Christmas-y two-page Film Fun comic from 1954 featuring Arthur Lucan, aka Old Mother Riley. Be sure to check out Martyn Peter Wilkinson's Old Mother Riley tribute site. It's chock full of info about Britain's most popular pre-Dame Edna drag act, but is disappointingly short on details regarding Lucan's nightmarish marriage to stage "daughter" and manager Kitty McShane. I highly recommend Frank Dello Stritto and Andi Brooks' Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi In Britain for a recounting of the filming of Lucan's last feature, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), that'll make your hair stand on end. Lucan collapsed and died in the wings just before making his entrance in Old Mother Riley in Paris at the Tivoli Theatre, Hull, in 1954.
Labels: Arthur Lucan, Bela Lugosi, cinema, Film Fun, Kitty McShane, Old Mother Riley, stage
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Bobby Clark and the Case of the Missing Skits
If you haunt eBay as regularly and as thoroughly as I do, every now and again you'll really hit the jackpot. For low-income obsessives such as myself, eBay is an absolutely indispensable research tool. My big find of the last few months is this 1944 letter from legendary Broadway clown Bobby Clark to a fan who has requested a transcript of one of Bobby's skits.
March 24th 1944
Dear Mr. Klisto,
Your letter received. Sorry I've been so long answering but I've been having trouble with my knee and have put everything to one side to try and get it back in shape again.
I have received so many letters just like yours, and have never been able to help out any of the requests and here's the reason. When the U.S.O. first went into action, almost everyone of the stage was asked to send in all the material of any kind they could. This I promptly did. I gave everything I possibly could find. So now, I am without any of the old material that I had collected for a lot of years. I was promised that all the material would be re-typed and the original sent back to me. So far I haven't seen any action on it. In fact I am now at the stage, where, if I did want to do any of the old material, blackouts, sketches, songs, etc. I would have to do it from memory.
So you see I can't be of any use to you. It seemed to me that the U.S.O. has slipped up badly in distributing the tremendous amount of material that (was) sent in to them. Where has it gone to?
With all best wishes,
Yours sincerely
Bobby Clark
What's troubling to me, at least, is that the bulk of the writing of one of America's premiere comedians has apparently been devoured by red tape. This is bad news for anyone hoping to chronicle Bobby's life and work.
Labels: Bobby Clark, stage
Monday, December 19, 2005
Geoff Collins Salutes Sid Field: "What a Performance!"
Sid Field, on the other hand, was English, a large lumbering man with dark wavy hair and wide-apart blue eyes. He didn't live very long, and he's almost impossible to find today as he only made three movies and a couple of 78rpm records - and you'd need to hire a private detective to find any of them.
Yet, in spite of being nowhere, he's everywhere. Hire that detective! Endure hours of ridiculous plot exposition and really painful musical numbers in order to view Sid's sketches in those long-buried movies. For there you will see all of Postwar British Comedy. Sid toiled away, efficiently but almost anonymously, in the British provincial variety theatres before becoming a West End Star in 1943, a movie star in 1946, and a corpse in 1950. But he influenced everybody. The evidence is all there: the plaintive, high-pitched innocence of the young Eric Morecambe (Sid's "I've never 'ad a GO yet, 'ave I?" sounds just like Eric); the crafty Cockney Spiv of Arthur English ("Play the music! Open the cage!") and, later, James Beck of Dad's Army, who had a similar-to-Sid long-overdue meteoric rise and drink-related early death ; the warmth and joy of Harry Secombe; Freddie Frinton's staggering yet curiously self-controlled drunk; any number of "camp" comedians, most conspicuously Larry Grayson; and Tony Hancock's astonishing facial range and deep inner sadness. So you don't need to "watch Sid Field" to see Sid Field.
Sid's first starring film, That's the Ticket, was made for Warner Brothers at Teddington in 1939 and was long thought to be lost because the Nazis bombed the studio in 1944 (maybe they'd seen it!). Apparently a print has recently turned up - which, due to the scarcity of Sid material, should be cause for great celebration - but where is it? Have you seen it? Where can anybody get to see it? Answers, please.
Sid's "first film" (but actually, of course, his second) London Town, runs for over two hours - that is, if you can get to see the complete print. Its last public appearance, on Channel 4 in 1985, lacked the "spiv" sequence and Sid's "Blizzard of the Bells" routine (which was cut anyway before the original release, although a chopped-up black-and-white version of it can be seen in To See Such Fun). London Town: my God, what horrors this title evokes. This gh
Yet despite all this, it preserves intact, and in glorious Technicolor, Sid's stage sketches. Here he is, with that wonderfully sharp and intolerant straightman Jerry Desmonde, trying to learn the rudiments of the game of golf, yet secretly yearning for his music lessons with Miss Fanthorpe ("Miss Fanthorpe's kind...she can play the piano and the [tongue flipping swiftly out and back in like an adder on the next syllable] flute!"); as an outrageously camp "society photographer"; as a top-hatted drunk tantalisingly encountering a long flight of stairs (as Leon Errol did in The Jitters - more on this movie later!); and as mega-overcoated barrow boy Slasher Green happily abandoning his market stall in order to demonstate his complete lack of talent as a would-be entertainer. He's heckled by Alfie Dean and seriously underencouraged by Jerry Desmonde, yet his self-confidence remains undimmed; it's a 1940s version of The X Factor.
Ironically, yet typically for this unlucky comedian, his best routine is the one they cut out (in order to retain all those godawful musical numbers), in which his excessively polite Professor of Music, clad in oversized tuxedo, medals ("Prizes!!!!!!") and bicycle clips, attempts to play "Sleighbells Across the Sahara" ("There's no such thing...you're having me on, aren't you ?") on the Tubercular Bells. Catch this if you can, or what's left of it, in To See Such Fun, and you'll have watched the definitive Sid Field sketch. And you'll also know what all the fuss is about, and why so many comedians worshipped this man.
In conclusion, I'll just say this: watch what you can of Sid on the Pathe website (there's not much and it's all silent, but it provides a clue) and if any of you have the power to do so, GET SID'S MOVIES BACK INTO CIRCULATION, especially That's the Ticket which, to me anyway, is the Holy Grail. You'll rediscover a lovable, wistful comedian with a beautifully mobile, expressive face. Sid's rare all right, much too rare; but he's worth the effort.
Sidney Arthur Field: April 1, 1904 - February 3, 1950.
Goodbye Sid - but we'll all see you soon, I hope.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
"The best of the old comedy favorites, the brightest of the new stars"
I found this 1936 trade ad for Educat
This eclectic lineup represents Educational's last gasp. E. W. Hammons, eager to re-enter the features market ever since his 1931-33 partnership with Sennett, gambled it all and lost. In 1938, he merged Educational with Grand National Pictures just as it was sinking into bankruptcy, apparently in a bid to save it. But Grand National's situation was terminal and, when it finally folded in 1939, it took what remained of Educational with it (Fox took over distribution of the Terrytoons). Just a few years later, adding insult to injury, a vault fire at Fox's Deluxe labs destroyed a tremendous number Educational's negatives, all but wiping out the studio's (presumably superior) silent output and erasing most of the film careers of Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane, a staggering blow to the record of the silent era.
Labels: Bert Lahr, Buster Keaton, cinema, Earl Oxford, Fred Lightner, George Shelton, Joe Cook, Mary Jane Barrett, Nell Kelly, Patricola and West, Tim and Irene Ryan, Tom Howard
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Looking For Mabel
Incidentally, Marilyn Slater is the mastermind behind Fantagraphics' reprints of silent comedian-themed comic strips. There are two 32-page volumes so far, Mabel Normand and Her Funny Friends and Fatty Arbuckle and His Funny Friends, each priced at $4.95 and featuring nifty cover art by Kim Deitch (I want to illustrate these covers!). These strips starring such silent luminaries (and not-so luminescent luminaries) as Normand, Arbuckle, Chester Conklin, Ford Sterling, and others, are from the pages of the UK comic weekly Kinema Comic, sister publication of the better-known Film Fun. At $4.95 an issue, you have no excuse not to buy these.
Labels: cinema, Mabel Normand
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Jack Pearl, The Baron Munchausen of the Air
BARON: Vunce I vas traveling through the Sahara desert, und I met a man mit two heads!The premise of his 1932-33 series was slight, but it allowed Pearl ample opportunity to display his appealing personality, his skill at dialect, and his razor-sharp timing, no more or less than was demanded of other early radio stars such as Eddie Cantor and Ed Wynn (and Joe Penner got away with even less). In 1933, Jack Pearl's fame had reached such heights that he was summoned to MGM, the most prestigious studio in Hollywood, to star in his first feature, Meet The Baron. MGM, in a radio comedy two-fer, had just recently signed Ed Wynn, also at the peak of his radio fame, to appear in The Chief. Of MGM's two 1933 radio-movies, Meet the Baron is the better. The Chief, as abrasive and contrived a comedy as MGM ever made, was so soundly panned by audiences and critics that Wynn wouldn't appear in another live-action film until The Great Man in 1956. Meet the Baron, on the other hand, had charm and some genuine laughs, easily one of the best comedies MGM made in the early 1930s. Pearl plays the Baron as a phony named Julius who, egged on by his pal Jimmy Durante (a teaming that made sense!), cons his way into a speaking engagement at the all-girl Cuddle College. MGM surrounded Pearl with better
CLIFF: A man with two heads? That's ridiculous, Baron.
BARON: Vass you dere, Sharlie?
After appearing in this critically-denounced curiosity, Pearl returned exclusively to the airwaves where he found himself rapidly fading from favor. By September of 1934, his second series, pulling in half the audience of his first, was cancelled. For the next seventeen years, Pearl would struggle to regain the fame he had enjoyed but to no avail. Although he was never really out of work on radio, new series such as Peter Pfeiffer (1935), Jack and Cliff (1948), and The Baron and the Bee (a Munchausen-themed quiz show, 1952), weren't exactly the kinds of vehicles Pearl needed to make his mark in the new character-driven radio comedy world of Jack Benny and Bob Hope. While Ed Wynn found new fame in the 1950s and Joe Penner continued in B comedies until his death in 1940, Jack Pearl was consigned to the radio doldrums for the rest of his career. Pearl's biggest handicap as a performer was his apparent insecurity. Reluctant to give up a "good thing", he continued to fall back on the "liar and stooge" format even as audiences were tuning him out in droves. He refused to exp
PEARL: Un dere in the middle uv de ocean vas my Aunt Sophie! (waits for straight line, doesn't receive it) Und vat do you think she vas doing there?At the end of the clip, Pearl becomes so frustrated that he growls and grabs Buster's face in mock violence. In the coming years, I imagine he felt much the same towards the audience that had deserted him.
KEATON: I haven't the slightest idea...
PEARL: Light-housecleaning! (angrily) Vy don't you say something??
Jack Pearl died December 25, 1984.
Labels: cinema, Jack Pearl, Jimmy Durante, OTR
Monday, December 12, 2005
Geoff Collins Says: A Big Hand For Archie Andrews!
Archie's "operator" Peter Brough (1916-1999) was a huge success on British radio in the 1950s with Educating Archie** and Archie's the Boy. Ventriloquism on the radio may be a ludicrous concept, but at the time it worked - and it had worked for many years in the States with Edgar Bergen. Archie was a cheeky schoolboy forever causing disruption for the exasperated Brough and a series of "tutors" who comprised, over the years, a Who's Who of Postwar British Comedy: Robert Moreton, Max Bygraves, Harry Secombe, Beryl Reid, Hattie Jacques, Bruce Forsyth, Tony Hancock, Sid James....
First question: Sid James as a tutor? Yes - you could learn a lot from Sid James. [Insert Sid's distinctive laugh: yack yack yack.]
Second question: Robert Moreton? Never 'eard of 'im! An occasional bit player in British movies - he has a nice close-up and one line in In Which We Serve: "an efficient ship, Sir!" - Moreton developed a hesitant, apologetic upper-class style all his own. Think Derek Nimmo, or Cyril Fletcher without the self-confidence. Sadly his career dipped a bit in the mid 50s and he took his own life. As a consequence he's vanished from comedy history and needs a reappraisal. Perhaps we'll do one.
Third question: What happens when a ventriloquist spends too much time on the radio? You've guessed it: he gradually loses the ability to hide the lip movements - resulting in this apparently genuine exchange, which Ivy heard on the radio only a few days ago :
Brough: Can you see my lips move?
Beryl Reid: Only when Archie's talking...
The early 60s were golden years for ventriloqy, and many of the top names, old and new, began to appear on TV variety shows. We had Saveen and Daisy Mae (excellent; I saw them
In the midst of all this technical virtuosity, Brough did a TV version of Educating Archie in 1958, not for the BBC, but for the commercial channel. This series probably doesn't exist any more and I can't comment on it because (a) I was a baby at the time and (b) my dad didn't get us a television set until January 2, 1959, thereby just missing Christmas and my third birthday.
Thanks, dad.
Don't think I'm still bitter about this or anything....
However I definitely saw Brough and Archie on a later programme; this was probably the Billy Cotton Band Show, in about 1963. What was Brough like? Hopeless! He attempted to hide his flapping lips behind a cigar, but the game was up. I was about 7 or 8 at the time and clearly remember saying to my dad "You can see his lips move!" It was probably this sort of thing that inspired dear old Sandy Powell to develop his "terrible old vent" act; when his hand comes up through the dummy's neck he mutters audibly "I think I've given the game away..."
Peter Brough's gone now, and his little friend has been silent for many years. But the sale has now taken place, and we can be assured that, someday soon, a new arm will be thrust up inside Archie.
It's exactly what he deserves.
Something else I forgot: it's one of Arthur Brough's dummies that gives Michael Redgrave such a hard time in Dead of Night. I'd like to think Archie was a bit like this offstage.
Just a cotton-pickin' minute. Can you actually believe that I managed to complete an article without mentioning Cyril Fletcher (oops, I did mention him didn't I?), the Finest Art Gallery Outside London, my computer-literate pal Kristian who's ready to give Rubberlegs, my computer, the once-over, and the PATHE WEBSITE???
As I seem to have mentioned the Pathe website, I might as well point out that they have a pre-Archie clip of Brough, from about 1943, and yes, even then he was using the cigar to hide his lips. Let's face it, he was very, very lucky.
Good-gye, Grough.
* ed. note: aside from America's Favorite Teenager, of course.
**ed. note: a free sample episode of Educating Archie is available here. It's like The Goon Show with more catchphrases and less wit. Be nice and buy something, you cheapskates.
Labels: OTR, Peter Brough, stage, ventriloquy
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Geoff Collins presents Eddie and Bobby - a Music Hall Mystery
Students of Music Hall and theatre history may be able to shed some light on the following letter, which was recently discovered under a floorboard during renovations to the Primark store in Northampton. The previous building on the site was the New Theatre, which was demolished in 1959-60, although fragments of the original structure remain.
The New Theatre was well known in its time as a Music Hall and variety theatre. Many famous names appeared there, including, on one memorable occasion, Laurel and Hardy.
The identity of the author and the intended recipient of the letter are not at present known, although research is under way.
The subsequent pages are missing.
Clearly the letter was never sent and may have been left uncompleted as the artistes moved on to another town.Many questions remain unanswered. Was "Bobby" able to escape from the dreary provincial tour with "Mr. Collinson" and return to his former employer "Eddie"?
Who were these people?
We may never know.
The New Theatre was well known in its time as a Music Hall and variety theatre. Many famous names appeared there, including, on one memorable occasion, Laurel and Hardy.
The identity of the author and the intended recipient of the letter are not at present known, although research is under way.
New Theater, Northampton, England
3/25/47.
Dear Eddie
I had intended to write you earlier but I've been very busy rehearsing new material for this comedy act I'm doing with Mr. Collinson. Didn't you come to England once, in '37 or '38 ? I remember you telling me how damp and rainy it was, even in the summer, but nothing prepared me for the cold. It's freezing everywhere. The snow's about a foot deep outside the theater - so we played last night to about twelve people - and there's no heating; and it's been like this here for over two months, which doesn't do much for Mr. Collinson's temperment.He drinks too much and has the most appalling bad breath. He refers to me disparagingly as "Sonny" and never misses an opportunity to compare me unfavorably with his former partner: "Alfie was a lot funnier" - "Alfie would have timed that better" etc. etc. I betcha Alfie was glad when the war started and he had to leave the act. He must have been bored out of his mind.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. We both know I brought this on myself. How I wish I'd heeded your warning. I had a great time on your show. You warned me many times about England, and I should have listened. "Bobby my boy" you said, "don't go. They'll get tired of you, and then what ?" But I didn't care. Two weeks at the London Palladium was too good to resist. I never thought I'd be dragging myself around these awful English hick towns in a crummy double act with a sixty-five-years-old straightman. I'm dressed like some runty little soldier in a huge overcoat, with an outsize walrus mustache - completely unrecognizable. The janitor could play my part. Don't get me wrong - Mr Collinson has been very kind to me but sometimes those stage slaps are hard to take, especially when it's so cold or we have a bad week and he's been drinking. How in the world did I get hooked up with this guy? I guess I took pity on him and let myself get talked into it. Let's face it, a straightman without a comic is pretty desperate.
Last week, for example, we played the Glasgow Empire. Mr Collinson told me about the audience's opinion of English comics: "If they like you, sonny, they'll let you live." We played the entire act to hostile silence, except for the occasional beer bottle or sharpened coin hitting the stage. We did the whole fourteen-minute routine in four minutes and walked off to the sound of our own footsteps. Yet the next act, Dorothy Reid and Mackenzie, an accordion and dancing act, got huge applause. I just don't get it. It wouldn't be so bad if Mr. Collinson let me sing some of my old songs. "Forget it, sonny" he says. "Costs too much. Anyway, it's broad comedy they want, not sentiment." That's not really apparent when he's slapping me all over the stage and the audience doesn't react at all. I mean, some of these people are like neanderthals. We play it as broad as possible but they just don't understand comedy - they're all miners, or auto workers, with caps on and tiny little foreheads.
They make shoes in this town - but the people have no sense of humor at all. Unless it's some sort of "community singalong" - nothing. You might as well be in Siberia. It's cold enough.
Eddie, you've got to get me out of this. Couldn't I come back on your show? We listen to it over here - the one with Jolie was great; I'm surprised he let you say so much. I really miss you and Ida and the girls and Dinah and Bert and all the gang. I can't even get a flight home. Everything's been grounded for weeks due to the bad weather and I haven't saved enough out of what Collinson pays me to buy the ticket anyway. You've got to help me, Eddie, please. I'm stuck here in this godforsaken
The subsequent pages are missing.
Clearly the letter was never sent and may have been left uncompleted as the artistes moved on to another town.Many questions remain unanswered. Was "Bobby" able to escape from the dreary provincial tour with "Mr. Collinson" and return to his former employer "Eddie"?
Who were these people?
We may never know.
Labels: Collinson and Dean, stage
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Bert Wheeler's Worst Movie?
Poor Bert Wheeler. Is it possible that he was so neglected by 1939 that studios had completely forgotten how to cast him in a movie? Last night, courtesy of Bill Sherman, I watched Bert Wheeler's next-to-last feature, The Cowboy Quarterback (1939), for the first time. It is actually worse than I'd expected.. and I've never read anything positive about Cowboy Quarterback. In fact, it may be the most meritless thing Bert Wheeler ever blew his talents on (and, yes, I've seen Too Many Cooks (1931)). One mystery has been solved, however. I'd long wondered who could have been so wrongheaded as to cast Bert Wheeler as a half-wit Nevadan in a football remake of Joe E. Brown's Elmer, the Great (1933). Now it's clear that no one was thinking at all. CC smells like a contractual obligation or a half-assed favor. I can just imagine some Warner's executive saying "Just put him in something cheap and get him out of here!" Whatever the studio's motivations may have been, the film is so slapdash that it seems obvious no one really cared if Bert sank or swam. And it doesn't speak well for Bert's personal fortunes in 1939 that he would have agreed to appear in a 60 minute sub-B comedy in which he has to deliver every line with an absurd drawl.
There is one bright spot between all of this nonsense about Bert Wheeler being a football player from Nevada. About three-quarters of the way through the picture, Bert momentarily drops his "character" and does a variation on his signature vaudeville routine, the "singing a sad song while eating a sandwich" bit. It's a brief if genuine Bert Wheeler moment, but even this pales in comparison with Bert's performance of the same routine in The Diplomaniacs (1933).
Poor Bert. I still think that the one film he could have turned his career around with would have been a musical remake of Charley's Aunt. No comedian ever went wrong with Charley's Aunt.
There is one bright spot between all of this nonsense about Bert Wheeler being a football player from Nevada. About three-quarters of the way through the picture, Bert momentarily drops his "character" and does a variation on his signature vaudeville routine, the "singing a sad song while eating a sandwich" bit. It's a brief if genuine Bert Wheeler moment, but even this pales in comparison with Bert's performance of the same routine in The Diplomaniacs (1933).
Poor Bert. I still think that the one film he could have turned his career around with would have been a musical remake of Charley's Aunt. No comedian ever went wrong with Charley's Aunt.
Labels: Bert Wheeler, cinema
Friday, December 02, 2005
Harry Langdon's Poverty Row Curtain Call
In 1940, Harry Langdon was given his first starring role in a feature since Heart
The billing for Misbehaving Husbands is peculiar. Unquestionably the star, Langdon gets first billing in the film itself (although not above the title), but he takes third billing behind Ralph Byrd and Esther Muir on the poster and in promotional materials. While Byrd was a draw in 1940, Muir was most certainly not. In England, where the film was well received, Misbehaving Husbands was not only promoted as a full-blown Harry Langdon comedy, but also as his first talking picture!
"Who is telling this story, anyway?" "He is.."
The following year found Harry Langdon at a little further
Harry: Hey, Alf.. Sorry to disturb you, but did you ever have a nightmare?
Charley: Yes. I had one in London before we left.
Harry: Did it like you?
Charley: Did it like me? How do I know?
Harry: Well, its followed you over here. Look up and see if you recognize it as the same one.
At the brothers flee, the now clearly lighter-than-air (and possibly possessed) toy becomes attached to Harry's nightshirt. Hilarity ensues. While hardly approaching the quality of Langdon's silent work, Double Trouble has a lot of charm, exemplified by the Music Hall-themed opening credit sequence in which you can hear the orchestra warming up before kicking into the overture. And thanks to Monogram's legendary laxity, it also features Harry flipping the bird. Can't beat that!
While this was the last feature Langdon starred in, it wasn't his final appearance in features. He turned up in supporting character roles in three more features for Monogram, Spotlight Scandals (1943), Hot Rhythm and Block Busters (both 1944), and his last, Swingin' On a Rainbow (1945, released after his death), for Republic. The decision to withdraw from starring roles in features likely rested with Langdon and not PRC or Monogram. Harry Langdon was still a audience draw in the early 40s, if a minor one, and his three B features could not have lost money for either studio, considering their shoestring budgets. As Langdon's continuing work for PRC and Monogram testifies, he was more than welcome to stay. But it's highly likely that Langdon was paid scarcely more for these features than what he was receiving at Columbia for work in short subjects which required less time to shoot (although probably not much less). The meager salary and the extended shooting schedules would have made this a simple economic decision for Langdon, who continued to appear in more financially reasonable supporting roles. But it's a pity that Rogers and Langdon didn't continue as a team. Undeveloped as their partnership was, the spark for something better was there, something that cannot be said for Langdon's notorious teaming with Swedish dialect comic El Brendel at Columbia. And, as threadbare as these final starring features may be, they show that Langdon was in fine form well past his accepted prime. Despite weak stories, cheap sets, and lousy gags, Harry Langdon was funny to the end. Take that, Capra.
Happily for we obsessive comedy obscureologists, both Double Trouble and House of Errors are available on DVD from Grapevine Video for a mere 9.95 each. Even better, Misbehaving Husbands is available at archive.org for free. Truly, we live in a age of wonders.
Labels: Charley Rogers, cinema, Harry Langdon, Laurel and Hardy