Adventures in Blu-ray: The Quiet Man (1952)

I’ve joked on the blog in the past that the time I spent living in Morgantown, West Virginia—from January 1992 to June 2000—is referred to both by myself and the family as “my years in exile.”  My stay there was marked by my longest period of gainful employment: I worked nearly the entire time I lived in Mo-town for University Health Associates, the insurance billing arm of the West Virginia University Medical system.  Among the many friends I made at UHA was an individual who oversaw ordering office supplies for the company…I’ll keep his identity on the Q.T. and give him the nom de blog of Durwood.

Durwood was a big fan of John Wayne movies, and since I had a reputation for being somewhat of a classic film buff myself, it often gave us a subject to talk about since one of my duties was sorting the company mail in the mornings, which I did in an area adjacent to his.  (Conversation tended to break the monotony inherent in the task.)  He even lent me a VHS copy of McLintock! (1963) on one occasion—the movie had just been released to home video at that time, and I had never seen it.  Durwood was a kind of macho guy—the women in my section considered him a bit of a chauvinist, though the ones who had known him longer (as in “I-went-to-high-school-with-him”) clued me in that it was mostly an act.  Anyway, we were holding forth on The Duke one day as I was sorting, and he said to me: “You’d probably be surprised at which John Wayne movie is my favorite.”

I tossed out a few titles—Red River, Rio Bravo—and was completely gobsmacked when he replied “My favorite is The Quiet Man.”  Amazed because it’s also my favorite (though it’s in tough competition with Stagecoach and The Searchers), and I was pretty much my friend’s opposite in terms of temperament, politics, worldview, etc.  And yet…in a way it’s not too surprising.

Ex-boxer Sean Thornton (Wayne) returns to the land of his birth: the peaceful village of Innisfree in Ireland, where he’s welcomed by the populace (normally a little bewildered and suspicious of newcomers) due to his strong family roots.  He arranges to purchase his former homestead, “White O’Mornin’,” from the wealthy Widow Tillane (Mildred Natwick) …and in doing so makes an immediate enemy in “Red” Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen), who had wanted the property for his own.

The enmity Sean earns from Danaher will come back to bite him in the tuchus…because Thornton has fallen, and fallen hard, for Will’s sister Mary Kate (Maureen O’Hara).  With the help of seachrán (matchmaker) Michaeleen Oge Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald) and parish priest Father Peter Lonergan (Ward Bond), “Squire” Will is duped into believing that Sean has set his cap for the Widow Tillane, and since Will rather fancies the Widder himself, he reluctantly agrees to allow Thornton to court Mary Kate (Flynn convinces him that he hasn’t a chance with Tillane because there’s no way she would consent to sharing the Danaher home with Mary Kate).  After following custom and tradition in the “expected” fashion, Sean and Mary Kate are wed…but at their reception, Will learns of Flynn and Lonergan’s deception and he refuses to relinquish Mary Kate’s “fortune” (her dowry).

Sean argues to his bride that the dowry doesn’t matter—but he doesn’t understand that it’s of vital importance to Mary Kate; without the “fortune,” she’s little more than a servant in the House of Thornton.  What Mary Kate doesn’t comprehend (in fact, the viewer doesn’t learn this until about an hour into the film) is that her husband could confront her brother with physical violence…except that as “Trooper Thorn,” he sent a man to the canvas and that opponent never got back up again.  He’s taken a vow to hang up his boxing gloves…but as we have learned from so many Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher Westerns, there are some things a man can’t ride around.  We’ll experience that eventual donnybrook between Sean and Will in one of the most memorable brawls ever captured on celluloid.

Whether you’re a John Wayne fan or not, it’s impossible to ignore that in many of the actor’s movies John Wayne played…John Wayne.  The Quiet Man (1952) is a notable exception (as is 1940’s The Long Voyage Home, another film of The Duke’s of which I am quite fond), giving Wayne to play a role quite different from his established silver screen persona.  Wayne fans won’t be disappointed in that The Duke delivers the he-man, two-fisted heroics they’ve come to expect (with Quiet Man’s rip-roaring fight finale) …yet all the same, I think they’ll be captivated by the thespic range he demonstrates as a stranger in a strange land, swept off his feet by a lovely lass he first spots walking barefoot through the lush green pastures of “the old country.”

Though he was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 1894, director John Ford (who often insisted on calling himself by his Irish name, “Sean Aloysius Kilmartin O’Feeney”) had a deep and abiding love for Ireland (where both of his parents were born before emigrating to the U.S.A.).  It’s present in many of his movies—The Shamrock Handicap, Hangman’s House (which has a steeplechase sequence similar to The Quiet Man), The Informer—but his Irish influences also dictated many of the themes in his non-Irish works: the rituals of courtship, the loss of a loved one, the presence of a close-knit community and its traditions, etc.  Ford’s return to County Galway (his father’s home was in Spiddal) to make a movie based on Maurice Walsh’s 1933 Saturday Evening Post tale (screenplay by Frank S. Nugent) would win the director his fourth and final Oscar (Winston C. Hoch and Archie Stout would also take home a trophy for their breathtakingly lush color cinematography).

Color films were a positive boon to actress Maureen O’Hara, because the effect of the actress’ striking red hair is completely lost in a monochromatic movie; when we first see Mary Kate Danaher we view her just as Sean Thornton does: a virtual Eve in his ideal of Paradise.  I don’t want to get the impression that it’s all about Mo’s beauty, however; her Mary Kate is one of the movies’ most positive and strong female characters, refusing to consummate her marriage to Sean because she sincerely believes she’s not entering the union on equal terms without her “fortune.”  Yet she gives herself to her husband even though he’s not come through for her (a marked difference from, say, the unsavory association between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind) because theirs is a mature relationship—she accepts that Sean has a reason for not fighting her brother for what is rightfully hers even if she doesn’t realize why.

Because it’s a fine broth of a film, The Quiet Man has become a viewing tradition on St. Patrick’s Day…but the movie is so darn good it seems a shame to limit it to just that day; I got the opportunity to revisit it this week when Olive Films released the classic as another DVD/Blu-ray in their “Olive Signature” series (many thanks to Bradley Powell for the gratis screener) on Tuesday (October 25) of this week.  Sure, and it’s been released on previous editions before but Quiet Man gets the deluxe Signature treatment with some bodacious supplemental features: audio commentary by author-historian Joseph McBride (author of Searching for John Ford: A Life); a visual essay (“Don’t You Remember It, Seánin?: John Ford’s The Quiet Man”) from historian Tag Gallagher; and a tribute to the late Maureen O’Hara from actresses Ally Sheedy and sisters Hayley and Juliet Mills.  “The Making of The Quiet Man,” a featurette hosted by Leonard Maltin that has been making the rounds of the movie’s home video releases since 1992, has an encore appearance on this release as well as “Free Republic: The Story of Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures” (available on the Olive Signature release of Johnny Guitar).

The Olive Signature release of The Quiet Man also features a 4K master scanned from the original negative, allowing for an incredibly enjoyable viewing experience of a film that received a total of seven Academy Award nominations including Best Supporting Actor (McLaglen) and Best Writing, Screenplay (Nugent).  The Quiet Man even got a Best Picture nom…and if it weren’t for the fact that the unnominated Singin’ in the Rain (the greatest movie musical of all time) should have won the top prize that year in a saner world, I wouldn’t have any regrets declaring Quiet Man the best of all the nominees (and far superior to the film that did win, The Greatest Show on Earth).  Buy a copy of the Blu-ray (or DVD) and either squirrel it away for the next St. Pat’s or defy tradition and watch it again at your convenience.

Forgotten Noir Fridays: David Harding, Counterspy (1950)

The radio adventure Counterspy (or David Harding, Counterspy, as it was occasionally called) was the third series in what the late OTR historian Jim Harmon once described as a “Triumvirate of Tension” …because Counterspy, Gang Busters, and Mr. District Attorney were all produced by the legendary Phillips H. Lord.  While Gang Busters set its sights on police work and Mr. District Attorney on the justice system, Counterspy—which premiered during wartime, on May 18, 1942 over the Blue Network (later ABC)—took the espionage route, highlighting cases from the WW2 counterintelligence unit known as the United States Counterspies.

“Hold on, Ian!” I hear some of you saying.  (Particularly since you’ve gotten my name wrong yet again.)  “United States Counterspies?  Did I fall asleep in history class when that agency was discussed?”  You most certainly did not, my friend.  (If there was any napping to be done, your humble narrator was probably way ahead of you.)  There was no such animal; the “USC” was created by producer Lord to get around any potential conflict surrounding the series’ content (Lord had already had a tussle with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the days when Gang Busters was known as G-Men, and he was not anxious to repeat the experience).  Counterspy began in its halcyon days telling fictionalized tales of counterintelligence agents matching wits against Germany’s Gestapo and Japan’s Black Dragon…but since the U.S. of A. is constantly in a state of perpetual war (I believe there was a week in 2009 when there wasn’t a war going on—but I could be wrong), it was a cakewalk to shift the program’s focus to the Cold War once WW2 ended.

Counterspy was an ABC staple from 1942 to 1950, then moved to NBC for three years before finishing out its lengthy radio run on Mutual, calling it quits on November 29, 1957.  House Jameson (The Man Who Would Be Sam Aldrich) was David Harding in the inaugural telecast, and then Don McLaughlin took over…with Mandel Kramer portraying Harding’s assistant Peters (who, as a government employee, earned a salary so low he could not afford a first name).  (Both McLaughlin and Kramer would work together on the daytime drama As the World Turns; McLaughlin played “Chris Hughes” on that TV series for close to thirty years.)  Counterspy was a popular program on radio (aimed toward a juvenile audience with sponsors including Bit-O-Honey and Pepsi, it was also unbending in its depiction of violence) but to offer up an alternative perspective, one critic (per Jim Cox’s Radio Crime Fighters) described the show’s characters as “by-the-book, humorless, heavy-footed, hard-nosed, unromantic federal agents.”

Which brings us to David Harding, Counterspy—a 1950 Columbia picture produced to cash in on the fame of the radio program.  The studio had enjoyed much success with movies based on radio properties like Crime Doctor and The Whistler, but since many of their other film franchises (Boston Blackie, The Lone Wolf) were closing shop by late 1949, Columbia looked for new B-picture fields to plow.  Why Don McLaughlin—once described as having “the most American voice on the air”—wasn’t considered to reprise his radio gig for the new movie series is a question I can’t answer; instead, Columbia decided to use contract player Howard St. John—who, despite having appeared in four  previous Columbia features including The Undercover Man (1949) and 711 Ocean Drive (1950), receives the ever-popular “introducing” in the opening cast credits.

In David Harding, Counterspy, the titular “United States Counterspies” head has radio commentator Charles Kingston (Alex Gerry) brought in after hearing Kingston broadcast a criticizing story about scientific information being stolen by a foreign government.  Kingston naturally wants to know why the USC has put the snatch on him…and instead of simply explaining that the outfit can do whatever the hell they want (and often did on the radio version), Harding tells him an anecdote of a 1943 incident involving a California torpedo manufacturing plant, where naval officer Phil Iverson is contacted about the possibility of enemy agents obtaining top secret information and sabotaging plant operations.  Iverson agrees to pass along any information he digs up to Harding…but not long after his initial contact with the USC, Iverson dies of asphyxiation after a fire breaks out in his apartment.  His widow Betty (Audrey Long) accepts the coroner’s jury verdict that the death was accidental…but Harding has his doubts.

As such, Harding taps Lt. Comdr. Jerry Baldwin (Willard Parker) to take Iverson’s place…with Betty, who was Phil’s secretary before and after they tied the knot, persuaded to come back and work as Baldwin’s secretary.  (There’s a little romantical history between the two as well…with Jerry nobly allowing Phil to have Betty despite his strong feelings for her.)  With Baldwin’s help—and the dedication of the straight-shootin’ agents of the USC, who are humorously chewed out by Harding for screwing up from time to time—those saboteurs will soon be brought to heel and the United States of America will once again be the yardstick by which truth, justice, and the American Way are measured.

There’s not a lot of “noir” in David Harding, Counterspy; the only saving grace of the film is that as a Cold War relic, it’s a fascinating look at the political tenor of the times.  Facebook chum Hal Erickson writes in From Radio to the Big Screen that the movie has difficulty matching its “powerhouse opening” with what follows: “If all this [Harding’s lecturing Kingston] seems incredible to modern viewers inured by the whistle-blowing, tell-all journalism seen on the various cable news channels, remember that David Harding, Counterspy was made in the middle of the Cold War, when you just plain didn’t question any action perpetrated by the U.S. Government (at least not out loud).”  While I disagree with Hal’s point about “journalism” (personally, I don’t think people on the tee vee machine tell-all or whistle-blow enough), I am in concurrence that the flashback to the earlier war incident robs Counterspy of a great deal of potentially interesting filmmaking.

St. John’s portrayal of Harding kind of makes the character a bit of a wanker, to be honest; at one point in the movie he tells Baldwin—after Jerry admits he doesn’t like him very much—“My boy, you'll find very few human beings who do.”  (Mother Harding: “It’s true…my boy has been a douchenozzle since the day he was born.”)  It’s been a while since I’ve listened to any surviving Counterspy broadcasts…but I don’t remember David Harding being such a tool as interpreted by Don McLaughlin.  (And really: would you entrust Howard St. John with a government agency after his bad guy turns in Born Yesterday or Li’l Abner?  I sure wouldn’t.)

Audrey Long is best-remembered for the film noirs Desperate and Born to Kill (both 1947), and she acquits herself nicely here as the sympathetic Betty; Willard Parker (who played Joel McCrea’s role in the TV version of Tales of the Texas Rangers) is an okay if obnoxious hero; and I smiled when I spotted Raymond Greenleaf (as the company doc)—last seen in this space as the crooked governor in FBI Girl (1951).  The best asset in David Harding, Counterspy is the presence of Mister John Dehner as one of Harding’s agents (Frank Reynolds); which lets Mr. D trot out both Swedish and Southern accents during his undercover work.  (“I’m a Southerner,” he declares to nurse Jean Willes, who retorts drily “I never would have guessed.”)  The movie also has a carryover from the radio show in a character referred to as “Peters” (still no first name), played by future Earth vs. the Flying Saucers director Fred F. Sears.

Columbia’s Counterspy franchise was short-lived: the studio released one more title in Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard that same year before abandoning the idea (we will visit with this movie in a future edition of Forgotten Noir Fridays, with the good news being that Dehner is in that one, too).  Directed by B-Western veteran Ray Nazarro with story and screenplay by Clint Johnston and Tom Reed, David Harding, Counterspy is worth a look for those of us who enjoy seeing radio properties brought to the silver screen.  Oh, there’s a notification on the Forgotten Noir Vol. 7 box informing us that with the VCI DVD release, this is the first time David Harding, Counterspy has been shown since 1961.  I will leave you to make the appropriate joke.

B-Western Wednesdays: The Omaha Trail

“In the days before the railroad, it was the ox train that moved our mighty empire to the fabled gold coast,” reads the title credits of the 1942 western movie The Omaha Trail.  “Some men saw in the new era of the railroad the end of their own ox train regime.  They fought a stubborn, bloody battle of resistance. This is a story of those times, of those trains, of those men.”  Yes, indeed.  Our starting point in this cinematic journey is Habersford, Missouri—where “Pipestone” Ross (Dean Jagger) operates a successful ox train bidness, assisted by his partner Ben Santley (Howard Da Silva).  Ben’s sister Julie (Pamela Blake) is Ross’ fiancée, his proposal sealed by a diamond engagement ring with more karats than Bugs Bunny.

Ross is going to have to slow his roll…because Patrick Candel (James Craig), a drifter Ben picked up on his return trip to Habersford, has also developed an interest in the fair Julie.   After a donnybrook with one of Ross’ henchmen (Morris Ankrum) in the town saloon, Pat attracts the attention of a man named Vane (Edward Ellis)—who has a business proposition for the scrappy young man, liking the cut of his jib.  Vane wants Candel to transport a locomotive engine to Omaha by oxen, and is prepared to pony up 15 large for his services…and knowing that a fat bankroll like that will put him in excellent stead where courtship with Julie is concerned, he accepts the deal.  There’s just one snag: Candel soon discovers there’s not a stray ox to be had in town; Ross has bought up every available steer…but being a reasonable man, he agrees to sell Pat and Vane a team for—wait for it—$15,000.

So why has Ross demonstrated such agreeability—particularly when his ox team business would be jeopardized by competition from the railroad?  Hard as it is to believe, “Pipestone” is all for progress and is convinced that there’s plenty of room for both the ox train and the choo-choo train.  Okay, I’m just jinkin’ ya—Ross is most displeased with this turn of events, and informs Ben that they will accompany Pat and Vane to Omaha while scheming for a way to (bad pun ahead) derail Vane’s burgeoning venture.

To be honest—I’m never entirely comfortable tackling an M-G-M programmer because the gloss of that studio always makes their B-pictures look like A-minus pictures.  As such, that’s what The Omaha Trail has going for it; sure, it’s a routine shoot-‘em-up with Indians on the warpath and the like, but it has one hell of an impressive cast—who nevertheless treat the humdrum material as if it were Stagecoach (1939).

Future Academy Award-winner Dean Jagger is in fine fettle as the iniquitous Ross, who shows his cowardly colors at the end during the eventual showdown with Craig’s Candel.  Personally, I thought Da Silva ran circles around him in the thespic department; his villainy isn’t in black-and-white and despite recognizing the threat that is Vane’s locomotive to his future business model, he’s squeamish at the thought of people being killed (chiefly his sister, who’s accompanying Ross to Omaha) in the process.  Pamela Blake, whom we last visited in Kid Dynamite (1943), makes for a most beguiling ingénue (I enjoy watching her in serials like The Mysterious Mr. M [1946] and Ghost of Zorro [1949]).  It’s just a shame that her marriage choices are between the oleaginous Jagger and the cardboard Craig.

Yeah, I said it.  I’m not a fan of James Craig’s…and to be even more brutal, I’m perplexed as to how he ever had a movie career in the first place.  Most of his gigs at M-G-M in the 1940s were obtained due to his resemblance to studio “King” Clark Gable, who was “doing his bit” in the U.S. Army Air Force.  This is not to say the actor stunk up every movie he appeared in; he’s surprisingly first-rate in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), mildly tol’able in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) …oh, yeah—he’s also in While the City Sleeps (1956)—though I obviously adore watching that movie for other reasons (Howard Duff, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, George Sanders, etc., etc., etc.).  When Clark was demobbed, Craig went back to B-picture city and later did quite a bit of TV before calling it a wrap, eventually become successful in real estate.

Chill Wills and Donald Meek provide Omaha Trail with the comic relief; the future voice of Francis, the Talking Mule sings an infectious little ditty entitled ‘Taters and Corn (that’s later reprised by Craig’s character on a pump organ, accompanied by the cast) while Meek effectively plays against type as a cantankerous Scottish engineer in the employ of Ellis’ Vane.  Harry Morgan (still being billed as Henry) also channels his inner goon as Nat, a stooge who works for Ross (and who carelessly causes an incident that brings down the wrath of a Sioux tribe the party meets on the trail).  Iron Eyes Cody and his brother J.W. are the two Native Americans befriended by Candel (before Nat goes on to demonstrate why we can’t have nice things), and there are bits from familiar Western vets like Bud Geary and Ethan Laidlaw.

The Omaha Trail was directed by actor-songwriter Edward Buzzell—who’s a bit out of his wheelhouse with this Western (the only other oater I could find on his resume was 1940’s Go West…and that Marx Brothers romp is stretching the definition of “Western” a bit); he’s better known for M-G-M musicals like Best Foot Forward (1943) and Neptune’s Daughter (1949).  I was more intrigued by the producer credit; I know Jack Chertok mostly for his small screen contributions like The Lone Ranger, Private Secretary, and My Favorite Martian.  Short and sweet (it’s over and done with at 61 minutes), try and catch it the next time it airs on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ (it’s not on DVD).

Book Review: 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories

I have heard your pleas, members of the TDOY faithful.  You have been clamoring for more reviews of books dealing with pre-Code motion pictures, and I am here to acquiesce to your demands.  The spotlight in the TDOY Book Club (motto: Oprah who?) today will be on Cliff Aliperti’s 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories: Early Depression-Era Melodramas, Adaptations, and Headline Stories.

What’s that?  You say you made no such request?  Well…this is awkward.  Also a case of “tough toenails,” because I took time to read this Kindle selection, dadgummit, and…I guess we’ll just have to make the best of it.

My fellow Classic Movie Blog Association compadre Cliff Aliperti is a Lawn Guyland-based writer who trims the hedges at Immortal Ephemera, celebrating the best in 1930s cinema since 2002 (in addition to offering up nifty vintage memorabilia and collectibles).  The Immortal Ephemera brand is emblazoned on two e-books—Classic Movies Monthly #1 and #2 (a Halloween special!)—and his other published works include Helen Twelvetrees: Perfect Ingenue and Freddie Bartholomew: An Informal Biography.  However, a spending spree at the Kindle Store brought me into contact with 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories, which I purchased at the same time as a previous tome spotlighted in this space, Sin and Vice in Black & White.

Mind you, I’m a little uncomfortable comparing both books…but I will say this: both of them would make splendid additions to your movie book library, for the simple reason that there’s no duplication in the content.  I don’t know if this was by design (“Rupe?  Cliff Aliperti here…you aren’t writing an essay on Only Yesterday, are you…?”) or just plain happenstance, but I think it’s dan-dan-dandy that it turned out that way.  Aliperti reviews a number of titles that tend to limbo underneath the pre-Code radar, notably For the Defense (1930) and Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932); on the whole, Cliff’s selections bypass better-known feature films from that era and concentrate on vehicles that are most worthy of rediscovery.

What surprised me most about 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories is that Cliff included only one selection from his favorite performer (and beloved pre-Code cad), Warren William.  Aliperti started the first Warren William fan site in 2007, and I’m not going to lie to you—I gambled that Histories would be a little top-heavy with the Warren.  But there’s only one W.W. vehicle reviewed in the book, and it is a goody—1933’s Employees’ Entrance.  It’s an excellent essay—it might be my favorite of all the entries in the book—and despite my disagreement with Cliff’s analysis of William’s character (he sees Warren’s ruthless department store manager as a hero; my lifelong skepticism of capitalism/corporations just won’t let me embrace this) it will persuade you to see the movie in a new and challenging light.

Cliff also has novel takes on a number of movies that have been discussed here at TDOY, including Call Her Savage (1932), City Streets (1931), and The Sin of Nora Moran (1933).  He supplements the essays with colorful background material to put the films in their proper historical context, while offering up tidbits on the film’s stars and other people behind-the-scenes.  Good reviewers tantalize you into wanting to seek out those films you haven’t crossed off your “Must See Movies” list, and Aliperti’s entries on Merry-Go-Round and Only Yesterday (1933—I’ve read the book that inspired this one, but haven’t seen the silver screen version) succeed admirably in that mission.

I’m probably a bigger fan of Hell’s Highway (1932) than Cliff (though I do like how he contrasts it and the better-known I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang [1932]), mostly because I’m fascinated by the small oeuvre of Rowland Brown, who directed my favorite of all the pre-Codes, Blood Money (1933).  11 Pre-Code Hollywood Histories rounds out with essays on Show Girl in Hollywood (1930—which aired on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ recently), Gentleman’s Fate (1931—I’ll have to see this one the next time it makes the rounds), and Jimmy the Gent (1934—this one I did see…meh).  Cliff is also generous enough to inform the reader as to the availability of the movies on home video (the e-book was published in 2014, so there have been a few new developments on that score: City Streets is coming to MOD the first of November, which means I’ll have to retire my old Vintage Film Buff copy).

“My name is Cliff Aliperti and I write about old movies when I’m not watching them,” the author declares in a passage at the end of 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories; an all-too-familiar mission statement of those of us who blog about classic films because it keeps us out of strip clubs.  (Okay…maybe not all of us.)  “I grew up in a house where black and white movies were every bit as good as color.”  While I wasn’t as fortunate to be raised in similar circumstances (though I don’t have time to get into that right now), it won’t escape your notice that Cliff clearly loves the movies he writes about, and his background in historical research helps immeasurably in making Movie Histories a sensational read and worthy purchase.

Forgotten Noir Fridays: Tough Assignment (1949)

The honeymoon of L.A. newspaper reporter Dan Reilly (Don “Red” Barry) and his wife Margie (Marjorie Steele) is apparently in full sway…because Marg is stoked about preparing their first home-cooked meal in their new home.  She needs to get a few things at Schultz’s (Leander De Cordova) butcher shop, and she insists that Dan snap a photo of her outside the entrance for one reason or another.  As Dan trips the shutter, three men walk out of the jernt…and are notably perturbed that they had to smile for the camera.  The Reillys soon learn the reason why—old man Schultz was beaten up by the three goons, much to the dismay of Mrs. Schultz (Edit Angold).

Later, at Casa del Reilly, two of the thugs (Marc Lawrence, Ben Welden) rudely interrupt the couple’s domestic bliss by administering a pummeling to Dan and snatching the undeveloped film from Margie.  What gives?  Well, Dan does a little investigative reporting (I know, it was like this movie from another era or something) and learns from Patterson (Stanley Andrews) at the Bureau of Livestock Investigation that there’s a “bootleg beef” racket in full force—unsavory criminals are selling meat without state or federal inspection (this is why it’s good to have regulations, kids).  Reilly decides—with the approval of his editor Hutch (Michael Whalen)—that this would provide the grist for a good story, and it soon makes front page headlines.

The “boss” of the racket, Morgan (Steve Brodie), is not particularly jazzed about the publicity—so Vince (Lawrence) and Sniffy (Welden) are instructed to collect Reporter Dan and bring him in for a chinwag about dropping the story.  The tenacious Reilly isn’t so easily scared off, and after he and Margie conduct surveillance on a delivery truck outside of Schultz’s they soon find themselves on a ranch that’s the center of operations for the bootleggers…so they pose as a impoverished couple (they go by “Jim and Amy Hill”) in need of work in order to blow the racket wide open.  (That’s reporter talk.)

With an uncredited turn as a student in a Cecil B. DeMille oddity entitled This Day and Age (1933), Donald Barry officially launched his movie career.  Barry appeared in small roles and bits in films like Dead End (1937), The Last Gangster (1937), and Young Dr. Kildare (1938) before going to work for Republic Pictures and receiving featured parts in films like Wyoming Outlaw (1939—with John Wayne and the Three Mesquiteers) and Days of Jesse James (1939—with Roy Rogers).  It was at Republic that Barry would get the film role that made him a household name (and inspired him to add to his own); he starred in that studio’s 1940 serial, The Adventures of Red Ryder, and soon started being billed as Don “Red” Barry.

Barry is often described as “the poor man’s James Cagney,” and his onscreen persona resembled Jimmy’s in that he may have been short in stature but his cockiness/pugnaciousness more than made up for it.  Barry’s B-Westerns at Republic were very popular with theatergoers, with titles like Ghost Valley Raiders (1940), Wyoming Wildcat (1941), Two-Gun Sheriff (1941), Death Valley Outlaws (1941), and Outlaws of Pine Ridge (1942).  Unfortunately for “Red,” he took himself a little too seriously as a Cagney wannabe and alienated a lot of the directors with whom he worked at the studio.  (Red Ryder co-director William Witney derisively called him “the midget” and the other director on that serial, John English, vowed never to work with the star again after 1943’s Black Hills Express.)

Barry’s career was dealt an ace of spades as the 1940s came to a close, since B-Westerns were slowly dying off (they would be resurrected on the small screen soon after…since television could make them even cheaper).  Determined not to go gently into that good night, Don signed a contract with Lippert Pictures, and made some fairly decent oaters like Red Desert (1949) and Border Rangers (1950).  At Lippert, Barry also got the opportunity to don a producer’s hat—one of those pictures was today’s “Forgotten Noir,” Tough Assignment (1949).

Tough Assignment really isn’t much of a noir to me…but I did like the modern-day Western aspect of the picture, which takes hold about twenty-three minutes into the film. (It’s not a great movie, but it kept me entertained for its sixty-four-minute running time.)  The supporting cast in this one is Assignment’s most valuable asset, with noir icons like Steve Brodie and Marc Lawrence present…and as always, Lippert’s “good luck charm” Sid Melton is on hand for comic relief.  (Suffice it to say, I am somewhat more tolerant of Mr. Melton’s shtick than my good friend Scott C. at World O’Crap.)  Lawrence and Melton have an amusing scene where Sid finds out that Marc has been making time with Sid’s girlfriend (played by TDOY fave Iris Adrian in an all-too-brief appearance), and Sid’s response to Marjorie Steele’s news that she’s going to cook a meal “just like Mother made” is a riot: “Nuh-uh…that’s why I left home in the first place!”

Sadly, Lawrence doesn’t really come off as too menacing in Tough Assignment—which might be because he’s paired off with Ben Welden (who was the go-to guy for comic gangsters).  There are also contributions from familiar faces like Stanley “The Old Ranger” Andrews, Stanley Price, Fred Kohler, Jr., and Frank Richards—with Dewey Robinson providing Assignment with an amusing closing bit.  The film was directed by the indefatigable William Beaudine, and at the American Film Noir website there’s a section on “Bad Film Noirs” where the authors comment: “Beaudine, one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood history, was known for delivering cheap films with a fast shooting pace.  He certainly didn’t disappoint us with this effort.”  (Ouch!)

I didn’t think Tough Assignment was too terrible (the site also lists Fingerprints Don’t Lie [1951] …which definitely is) but discriminating viewers may not take to it…which is kind of a sad commentary on my existence if you think about it.  I chuckled at the cover of VCI’s Forgotten Noir Vol. 5 because Assignment receives the appellation “Co-Hit” alongside what appears to be the DVD’s “main” feature, FBI Girl (1951).  As for Don “Red” Barry, he became one of the busiest actors on the small screen (he had a regular role as “Lt. Snedigar” on TV’s Surfside 6) yet continued to experience difficulty with his personal life and he committed suicide in 1980.

B-Western Wednesdays: Treachery Rides the Range (1936)

For Native Americans, the buffalo was of vital importance in the Old West.  It was a source of food, clothing, shelter, and weapons—and the relentless hunting of that wild range bovid by the white man put it perilously close to extinction.  In an effort to foment peace, the U.S. government signs a treaty with the Comanche to make it illegal for buffalo hunters to shoot the beasts on Indian lands.  Negotiating the peace is U.S. Cavalry Captain Red Colton (Dick Foran), who shares a kinship with the tribe (he’s an honorary “blood brother”) presided over by Chief Red Smoke (Jim Thorpe…All-American).  Red Smoke agrees to meet with Colonel Drummond (Monte Blue), Colton’s superior, by “the next moon,” and promises to bring both of his sons—Little Big Wolf (Carlyle Moore, Jr.) and Little Big Fox (Frank Bruno)—along for the powwow.

Back at the fort, Drummond and Colton get a visit from buffalo hunter Wade Carter (Craig Reynolds), who requests permission to hunt buffalo on Comanche lands to meet the demand for buffalo meat and pelts.  Drummond says “No dice, Chicago”; he’s determined to make sure the treaty is enforced—which doesn’t set at all well with Wade.  (When Colton tells him the last of the buffalo are on Native American land—and once the buffalo are gone, so goes the tribe—Carter whips out the familiar western film excuse that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”  He seems nice.)  So Carter, in tandem with bidness partner Burley Barton (Henry Otho), orders his henchmen—headed up by Monte Montague as “Nebraska Bill”—to disguise themselves as Cavalry soldiers and pay Chief Red Smoke a friendly visit.  They convince the Chief that Drummond wants a chinwag earlier than scheduled, and so the Chief’s sons journey back with the “soldiers” where they are killed along the trail.  Well, one of them is—Little Big Wolf, though wounded, manages to make his way back to the tribe and report the treachery riding the range.

Dick Foran’s (billed as “The Singing Cowboy”) third Warner Brothers western is short and sweet (it calls it a wrap after 56 minutes), and therefore it’s painless to take…but although it’s a fast-paced oater this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one.  (I was kind of critical of Trailin’ West [1936] when I covered that movie earlier on the blog—Treachery Rides the Range [1936] makes West look like Citizen Kane.)  Paula Stone, who also played the love interest in West, doesn’t get a lot to do in this one other than damsel-in-distress (her character of Ruth Drummond is on her way to the fort when the Indians start putting on the war paint…and though Colton is able to stop her stagecoach from getting her to the fort, she winds up in the clutches of Carter and Barton).  Foran’s musical numbers—Ridin’ Home and Leather and Steel—are also pretty uninspiring…though director Frank McDonald does attempt to make Leather interesting by having the star perform as he rides with his fellow Cavalry soldiers.  (I kept hearing Stout Hearted Men in my head the entire time.)

One bright moment in Treachery—and I realize this will only amuse those of us who are fans of the Hal Roach comedies…so I’m guessing everyone, right?—is seeing Don “Thank you gigantically!” Barclay as one of Foran’s men, Corporal Bunce.  Colton and Bunce have to rescue Ruth Drummond from the Comanche…because Chief Red Smoke has decreed that Ruth must die to avenge the death of Little Big Wolf.  Colton gets an idea: he’ll leave Ruth and Bunce with Red Smoke while he and several members of the tribe ride off in search of the Colonel so everything can be ironed out.  Bunce reluctantly agrees to this, but tells his superior officer to be careful in that trademark fruity manner of his: “I have no desire to be parboiled by these Indians...”  (It is indeed a shame that no one thought to bring Barclay back for additional Foran oaters—though the two did work on 1937’s Black Legion.)

With a story and screenplay by future producer William Jacobs (he would also script the first and second entries in the Foran Western series, Moonlight on the Prairie [1935] and Song of the Saddle [1936]), Treachery Rides the Range is pleasant enough but doesn’t really have the “oomph” needed to be a first-rate programmer (even the villains in this one are ho-hum).  It’s available on the Warner Archive MOD DVD set Dick Foran Western Collection (though I DVR’d this one from The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™).

Book Review: Lou’s on First

It was my very good Facebook friend (and fellow Jaw-jan) Shiksa Ravelli (whom I affectionately call ‘SKR”) that alerted me to a price decrease in the Kindle edition of Lou’s on First, a biography on the comedic great Lou Costello written by his youngest daughter Christine (Chris) and Raymond Strait.  (Grabbed it for $3.99—there you go, can’t be bad.)  Released three years after the publication of Bob Thomas’ Bud and Lou in 1978 (which became a justly derided TV-movie starring Harvey Korman and Buddy Hackett), Chris wanted to set the record straight with regards to her famous pop…because Thomas got most of the first-hand information in his tome from Eddie Sherman, Abbott & Costello’s longtime business manager.  (This probably won’t come as much of a surprise—but Sherman had an axe to grind on the subject of Lou.  Chris is fairly even-handed when it comes to talking about Eddie…but you kind of get the idea they weren’t swapping Christmas cards after her father’s passing.)

Most of the books that I have read on the famous comedy team are those dealing with their movies; I’d highly recommend Bob Furmanek and Ron Palumbo’s Abbott & Costello in Hollywood as the best, and I dimly remember Stephen Cox & John Lofflin’s The Abbott & Costello Story: Sixty Years of “Who’s on First?” being a good read as well.  (If you’re limited to one purchase, however, go with the Furmanek/Palumbo book.)  Chris’ book, however, offers a much more personal look at her father’s career: a multi-talented funnyman whose life wasn’t always filled with the laughter that he received from grateful audiences.

Paterson, NJ said “hidy” to one of its favorite native sons on March 6, 1906 when Louis Francis Cristillo made his debut in this world.  A gifted high school athlete, Lou at first considered a career in the sweet science, boxing as “Lou King”…but he really harbored a desire to try his luck in Hollywood and the motion picture business.  He worked as a laborer, extra. and stuntman (he did stunt work in 1928’s The Trail of ’98, and can be spotted ringside in the Laurel & Hardy comedy The Battle of the Century [1927]—yet when it became clear that the movies weren’t exactly clamoring for his services, he decided to head for home.  Costello got sidetracked in St. Joseph’s, MO when he landed a job as a “Dutch comic” in a burlesque show.

His success in burlesque led him to New York, where he continued to perform in both burlesque and vaudeville…and eventually made the acquaintance of Bud Abbott, another veteran performer.  Abbott had established himself as one of burlesque’s premier straight men, and teaming up with Lou in 1936 would produce comedy gold—notably in their timeless baseball comedy routine, “Who’s on First?”  The duo would eventually conquer Broadway (in Streets of Paris in 1938), radio (they became regulars on The Kate Smith Hour at the same time), and movies—Universal hired them to be the comic relief in 1940’s One Night in the Tropics…which led to their first starring feature film, Buck Privates, in 1941.  It’s no exaggeration to say that their comedies—cheaply filmed yet highly profitable—kept Universal out of the red in the 1940s (though the same thing has also been said about everyone under contract at the studio from Deanna Durbin to Francis the Talking Mule).

Most of the information on Costello’s (and Abbott’s) career I had read from other sources…so I was pleasantly surprised by revelations that I did not know.  A team that created the miracle of laughter when in front of audiences, both Bud and Lou were cordial to one another off-stage—but not what you would call close buddies.  (In their early days, Bud got 60% of the take due to his straight man status…but once they were America’s #1 movie comedy team, Lou renegotiated their contract to get the bigger split.)  The duo made money and spent it like no tomorrow, which later led to much scrutiny from the IRS…and sadly, their breakup in 1957.  (I wrote liner notes for a Radio Spirits Abbott & Costello collection one time, and was advised to ix-nay on the IRS-way to avoid any trouble with the estate.)

The devastating section of Lou’s On First arrives on that fateful November 4, 1943 date when Lou’s son Lou, Jr. (affectionately known as “Butch”) managed to work his way out of the crib he was in and fell into the family’s swimming pool, drowning as a result.  (Butch was two days’ shy of his first birthday.)  Lou had looked forward to doing his and Bud’s popular radio program that evening because his son was going to get his opportunity to listen to his famous pop clown in the team’s weekly half-hour.  In the tradition of “the show must go on,” Lou fought back tears and wisecracked with his partner that night; it wasn’t until the program’s close that Bud Abbott informed the studio audience of the devastating tragedy that had happened to his better half.

The death of Lou Costello, Jr. haunts the rest of Lou’s On First (I knew it was coming, and even after reading about it I felt like I swallowed a sno-cone): many of Costello’s colleagues have observed that the funnyman was never the same after the incident, and Chris Costello bravely relates that the tragic death of her brother took an immeasurable toll on the family—particularly her mother Anne, who blamed herself till the end of her days in 1959 (she passed away about nine months after her husband).  (The reader will learn that Lou’s family blamed her as well, and it was this family ugliness that led to her mother’s alcoholism.)

It is not an easy subject to talk about, and yet Chris is able to regale the reader with anecdotes of happier occasions with the Family Costello; her description of how her father loved (I mean loved) Christmas and her dirt-dishing on sisters Patricia (“Paddy”) and Carole''s tumultuous lives will give you a delightful idea of how despite the setbacks, the Costello clan met adversity at every turn and gave it a proper ass-whooping when needed.

My mother’s stepmother (my step-gran) couldn’t stand Abbott & Costello.  She asked me one time when I was watching one of their movies at her house: “How can you watch that nonsense?”  (I seem to recall stronger language used, but I’ll refrain from it.)  The truth is—I enjoyed the heck out of the team’s antics growing up (The Abbott & Costello Show ran like tap water when I was a kid, and when the once-proud AMC showed their movies I made it a point to never miss any of them).  I’m the proud owner of all of their films in the dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives, and every year it’s a Halloween tradition to run my favorite in their oeuvre, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (a movie even my mother will watch—and she hates the team almost as much as did my step-gran).  I’ve stated here and elsewhere that despite whether you love them or hate them (and there are a lot of people who feel the latter) they’re an important part of comedy history because their movies and TV shows are a virtual encyclopedia of American burlesque.

If there’s a downside to the Kindle edition of Lou’s On First it’s that it doesn’t contain the photos from the print edition (I knew this going in, of course, but it still would have been nice) and apart from a pin prick of a nitpick (Chris says Bud and Lou’s radio program started in the fall of 1941…but it was actually a year later; the duo were appearing on The Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy Show in 1941) it’s a wonderful book about a man who never really received his due as one of the true comedy greats.  Grab yourself a copy.

“Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant

I just wanna tell ya (in my best Bob Hope impression) the number of entries for Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s “Inner Sanctum/Lights Out” giveaway was pretty darn impressive.  Again, nothing on a Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar scale (here’s where I plug Radio Spirits’ upcoming Dollar compendium—Medium Rare Matters—the liner notes were not written by your humble narrator, but rather the indefatigable Liz McLeod) but very encouraging all the same.  (Pimping these contests on Facebook certainly doesn’t hurt, either.)

I wish I had sets to give away to everyone who did enter…but that would cut into RS’ bottom line, I imagine.  So it’s my great pleasure to announce that the winner is member of the TDOY faithful Britt Reid, the proprietor of the great nostalgia blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video.  (He not only has a “secret sanctum”…now he has an “inner sanctum.”  Seriously—check out his blog when you get a chance.)  The editor of The Daily Sentinel will be sending me his snail-mail address soon (I’m told the paper is no longer accepting packages…for obvious reasons), and I will mail his prize posthaste.

Keep an eye on this space—because in two weeks, I’ll have another bodacious swag giveaway scheduled (and this prize will also be a “bundle”—very, very cool!).  Remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!