Behind the Door (1919) Blu-ray/DVD Giveaway

It’s been a little over a month since we’ve handed out some excellent swag here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear…so I thought I’d rectify the “fabulous prizes” drought by announcing a swell opportunity for members of the TDOY faithful to win a copy of Behind the Door (1919)—an upcoming release (due out April 4) from the hardest-working folks in the classic film heritage business: Flicker Alley.

If you make regular visits to this humble scrap of the blogosphere, you know that Flicker Alley is responsible for more than a few of the movies I’ve reviewed here in TDOY’s silent film showcase on Thursdays; past feature films written up on the blog include Victory (1919)/The Wicked Darling (1919), Tol’able David (1921), and Isn’t Life Wonderful (1924).  In addition, I’ve given titles like Children of Divorce (1927), The House of Mystery (1921), and Too Late for Tears (1949) the “Where’s That Been?” treatment at ClassicFlix, and the dusty TDOY DVD shelves are adorned with past bodacious Flicker Alley releases like Chaplin’s Essanay Comedies and The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. 1.  From Cinerama to Curtis Harrington, Flicker Alley is dedicating to presenting the finest silent, classic, and eclectic film collections so near and dear to all of us.

This is why I am so pleased and honored to participate (along with so many other great silent and classic film sites) in Flicker Alley’s giveaway for the upcoming April 4 release of Behind the Door (1919) on Dual Format Edition Blu-ray/DVD.

Legendary producer Thomas H. Ince and director Irvin V. Willat made this—“the most outspoken of all the vengeance films” according to film historian Kevin Brownlow—during the period of World War I inspired American patriotism.

Hobart Bosworth stars as Oscar Krug, a working-class American, who is persecuted for his German ancestry after war is declared. Driven by patriotism, Krug enlists and goes to sea. However, tragedy strikes when his wife (Jane Novak) sneaks aboard his ship and is captured following a German U boat attack. Krug’s single minded quest for vengeance against the sadistic German submarine commander (played with villainous fervor by Wallace Beery) leads to the film’s shocking and brutal climax.

This newly restored edition represents the most complete version of the film available since 1919, thanks to the collaboration of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Library of Congress, and Gosfilmofond of Russia.

Sourced from the only two known remaining prints and referencing a copy of Willat’s original continuity script, this edition recreates the original color tinting scheme and features a new score composed and performed by Stephen Horne.  Flicker Alley is honored to present Behind the Door on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time ever.

Bonus Materials Include:

•            Original Russian version of Behind the Door: The re-edited and re-titled version of the film that was distributed in Russia, with musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

•            Original Production Outtakes: Featuring music composed and performed by Stephen Horne.

•            Restoring Irvin Willat’s Behind the Door: An inside look at the restoration process with the restoration team.

•            Kevin Brownlow, Remembering Irvin Willat: Directed by Patrick Stanbury, an in-depth interview with renowned historian and honorary Academy Award® winner Kevin Brownlow on the career of director Irvin Willat.

•            Slideshow Gallery: Original lobby cards, production stills, and promotional material.

•            12-page Booklet: Featuring rare photographs and essays by film historian Jay Weissburg, film restorer Robert Byrne, and composer Stephen Horne.

Official Release Date: April 4, 2017

Pre-order now at the special sale price of $29.95 for a limited time!

Giveaway Hosted By:

FlickerAlley

Co-Hosted By:

Nitrateville

Silent Era

Once Upon a Screen

Silent-ology

Ferdy on Films

Caren’s Classic Cinema

Toronto Film Society

Spellbound By Movies

A Classic Movie Blog

Second Sight Cinema

Sister Celluloid

Cinematic Catharsis

Classic Movie Man

Old Hollywood Films

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

True Classics

One lucky winner will receive a copy of Behind the Door (1919) on Dual‑Format Edition Blu‑ray/DVD from Flicker Alley! Giveaway is open to residents of U.S./Canada and ends on April 12, 2017.

Entry-Form

Leave a comment on this post after watching the trailer, and let me know what you think!

Book Review: W.C. Fields for President

Godfrey Daniel!  If it seems rather coincidental that this week’s Thrilling Days of Yesteryear book review earned a berth on the blog post schedule due to last week’s essay on Sally of the Sawdust (1925) …well, you’re half-right.  I mostly timed this to coincide with Election Day tomorrow, when our long national nightmare will be over…and the serious drinking can begin.  (So it’s understandable that I would think of Fields.)

I’ve tried to be good and not rant about politics on the blog this year (if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, however, those outlets honor no such rule—which has not endeared me to some of my social media colleagues) but whatever side of the fence you’re on, I think we can agree that our rotted-with-corruption political system has saddled us with two of the most unpalatable president candidates in the history of the republic.  As such, any respite from this horrible contest—be it baseball or the 50% off Criterion sale at Barnes & Noble—should be welcomed with more than just open arms…it should be invited into the house and bade sit a spell.  (There are a couple of Blu-rays calling my name at Kino-Lorber, where they’ve considerably marked down some noir titles.  Better luck next time, B&N.)

A month or so back, I got a heads-up from BookBub that the Kindle edition of W.C. Fields for President was on sale for $1.99.  So, I plopped down two wrinkly dollar bills for the privilege of reading musings from one of my comedy idols.  (Had I not already voted via absentee ballot, I might have written in The Great Man as my candidate of choice.)

William Claude wrote his presidential manifesto in 1940—the same year that his former movie nemesis Gracie Allen (from International House and Six of a Kind) also threw her chapeau into the ring as a candidate for the Surprise Party (insert gratuitous Radio Spirits plug here).  It’s been reprinted many times in the interim (in several editions as, if I may quote friend of the blog “Mr. Television,” an actual book), because its parody remains timeless.  “I am truly a candidate with both feet on the ground,” Fields writes in President.  “I take no fol-de-rol from any man, much less any fiddle-faddle.  And when, on next November fifth, I am elected chief executive of this fair land, amidst thunderous cheering and shouting and throwing babies out the window, I shall, my fellow citizens, offer no such empty panaceas as a New Deal, or an Old Deal, or even a Re-Deal.  No, my friends, the reliable old False Shuffle was good enough for my father and it’s good enough for me.”

What I have always revered about The Great Man is his love of the English language (I’m constantly using Fieldsian exclamations in real-life, like “Mother of pearl!” and “Suffering sciatica!”) and it’s this affection for words that makes W.C. Fields for President an entertaining read.  The book is divided up into several sections:

1. Marriage: Since approximately half the population of the United States is made up of the fairer sex, any President worthy of the name should be familiar with the intricacies of the matrimonial problem—unless he wants to change his residence from the White House to the château de la chien (doghouse).

2. Income Tax: The major responsibility of a President is to squeeze the last possible cent out of the taxpayer; thus he should be at least familiar with the intricacies of the ransom notes that the Internal Revenue Department sends out each spring.

3. Resolutions: If the chief executive is not an expert in the art of making resolutions, how can he hope to break his (Ivan’s note: Or her) campaign promises gracefully?

4. Etiquette: At a state dinner, should the Nazi ambassador be served Chateaubriand a la Marseillaise?  Failure to understand this delicate question might well plunge our nation into war.

5. Physical Fitness: There is no room in the White House for a man who is afflicted with barber’s itch, spots before the eyes, hang-nails or housemaid’s knee.  A President must now how to keep himself fit—else who would throw out the first ball at the Washington Senators’ opening game?

6. The Care of Babies: Shall didies be folded square or triangular?  This is the burning question of the day, and the better the candidate understands the little darlings, the more competently he can decide the issue.

7. Business Success: If he knows nothing else, a President should at least understand the secret of success in the business world.  For, after all, what is the Presidency but a glorified business—or, at least, a fine racket?

Topicality in comedy is always endangered by an expiration date…so some of the humor in the Fields book doesn’t wear well (the Nazi ambassador gag is a good example) and there are inarguably jokes that will sail over the heads of readers who took a lot of naps in their high school history classes.  But as Shakespeare wrote in King Lear: “Jesters do oft prove prophets.”  There is much truth in W.C.’s political humor, including one of my favorites: “At any rate, here is my best advice on the matter of deductions: just count off on all your fingers all the items you suspect might be deductible…and then forget them, because they aren’t.”

This latest edition of W.C. Fields for President was re-released in February of this year from Taylor Trade Publishing (Rowman & Littlefield) and features a foreword by the “Raconteur to the Stars,” Dick Cavett.  I have a lot of respect for Dick, but I’ll admit he doesn’t endear himself to me whenever a major celebrity passes on…because they usually collar Cavett for a TV program to remember the deceased and he has difficulty shutting the hell up when needed.  But this bit in Cavett’s introduction did produce a rather audible snicker: “The late Dorothy Kilgallen, best known for being the ‘What’s My Line?’ panelist who reportedly punched a tiny hole in her blindfold to more easily identify the ‘Mystery Guest’ before anyone else could…”  (I laughed at this—and I realize this is going to make me sound like Cavett—because it reminded me of an observation Fred Allen once made to a friend about Kilgallen and Arlene Francis on Line: “They really want to win this thing!”)  Dottie wasn’t a fan of Fields, remarking “Friends keep telling me how funny W.C. Fields is.  I looked at two of his movies.  He is not funny.”

I suspect Kilgallen would get on famously with my mother—as for me, I agree with Mr. Cavett that Dot’s observation vies for “Dumbest Remark Ever Made About A Comedian.”  (Though Dick’s memory is jogged by a letter received at The Jack Paar Show—where he toiled as a joke writer—from a viewer asking why Paar kept inviting Jonathan Winters on.)  My point—and I do have one—is that if you’re a fan of W.C. Fields, you will love this book.  If not…well, I can’t help you.  In the immortal words of our candidate: “Remember, folks, cast a vote for Fields and watch for the silver lining.  Cast several votes for Fields and watch for the police.”  I thank you.

Montego eBay

It pains me to have to relay this bad news…but our weekly Serial Saturdays foray will have to be postponed this week, and it looks as if we’ll lose Doris Day(s), too.  When I explained that the one-day delay in Doris’ misadventures was due to that puzzling dresser drawer incident on Facebook, many of you used the occasion to demonstrate that while 10,000 comedians might be looking for work you were more than willing to do it for free.  So I hope what I’m about to transcribe here releases your inner Henny Youngman, good people.

We’re in the middle of a dodgy financial patch here at Rancho Yesteryear—well, it’s really not as dire as it sounds, though…I mean…we’re not having to eat out of garbage cans yet.  But Mater has suggested to me that it might be prudent if we had a little extra spending money to alleviate the pain of a couple of looming expenses crises…and if you’ve been reading the blog a while, you know what that means.  Yes, it’s back to the environs of eBay with my tin cup in hand, selling off bits and pieces of the dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives.  I’m not wild about doing this, seeing as how my DVD library has really taken a hit in the past few years…but I’m also not crazy about watching my parents stand outside of Publix and dance for change.  So I’ve spent the past few days familiarizing myself with the phrase “Sophie’s choice,” and believe you me—as a dedicated cinephile and DVD collector it is often heartbreakingly tragic parting with movies I’d much rather keep.

I’ll be introducing items to be sold later this evening at 9pm EDT (6pm PDT), and then in the ensuing days adding more and more discs as soon as I’m able to organize a little better.  There’s a lot of used Warner Archive product that you can capitalize on, as far as discounts go…and of course, because I have a bad habit of buying DVDs and then being painfully slow to getting around to look at them, a lot of the discs remain in an unopened state.  (I will put up a “button” on the right side of the blog that will whisk you away to my eBay auctions with winged feet once the first one starts.)

Because I have to do this, it means that the normal blogging will slow to a temporary trickle whilst I juggle my outside assignments (blogathons, RS, CF, etc.) so I hope you will be patient until these storm clouds pass.  In closing, I’d like to wish my sister Debbie the happiest of birthdays and leave you with a selfie of her and my niece, brandishing her new braces.

The Doris Delay Show II: Texas Blood Money

I had every intention of having a brand-spanking new edition of Doris Day(s) completed and up today…and then a series of unusual incidents unfolded that kinda sorta distracted me from getting it done.  Just…unusual sitcom-like incidents—for example, over the weekend some person or persons unknown left a dresser drawer in our front yard.  Not an actual dresser, just…the drawer.  The ‘rents and I have no freaking idea how it got there; we speculated that perhaps it fell off a truck while someone was moving (and once it was discovered missing, the individuals involved said “Damn if I’m going back for that”) but that didn’t make sense to me because the drawer was laying perfectly on the ground—it wasn’t tipped over or at an angle or anything.

When I pointed this out to Ma and Pa Shreve, the ensuing conversation sounded a little like an edition of that Hee Haw soap opera, The Culhanes…

ME: Did either of you notice that there’s a dresser drawer on our front lawn?

DAD: I haven’t been out today—my leg has been botherin’ me somethin’ fierce…

MOM: It’s been there all weekend…but I wasn’t about to lean over and pick it up, only to risk being hit by a beer truck…

(I should point out that one of my mother’s gravest concerns is that one day either she or I will be hit by a beer truck as we venture across the road to collect the mail.  This despite the fact that I have never even seen a beer truck on our street in the time we’ve lived here.)

ME: So…what do we do?  Leave it for the squirrels to make a house?

MOM: If you want to risk being hit by a beer truck, go right ahead…

DAD: I’d go after it…but my leg has been botherin’ me somethin’ fierce…

The drawer finally got moved by the landscaping people, who tossed it in a wooded area near the house so the lawn mowing could commence.  Which was a shame as we were starting to get used it; if it was melting, it would have been like living in a Dali painting.

So…no Doris today, but I will do my darndest to get it done and up tomorrow unless something else wacky happens.  As long as I’ve rented the hall, I will let you know that Barnes & Noble has got one of their Criterion Collection 50% off sales going on until July 28th; I know you’ll find this stupefying to believe but I actually bought just one title—the Blu-ray of A Hard Day’s Night (1964).  (I know, I couldn’t believe it myself.)  I told myself I’d be good this time because I’ve got a couple of Blu-ray orders out already; I could not fight off the temptation of pre-ordering Flicker Alley’s The Mack Sennett Collection, Volume One nor was I powerless to resist a pre-order of Sleeping Beauty (1959), which Disney is dragging out of the “vault” again in October when they release Maleficent (2014) to disc.  (I missed getting it the last time it was released.)

I also ponied up some couch cushion money for Ben Model’s latest Kickstarter campaign—a DVD of ten rare silent comedy shorts starring Marcel Perez, with new scores by Mr. Model and gleaned from 35mm archival prints.  I have to come clean here—I had to do a little research on Perez because I honestly haven’t been exposed to any of his work.  But that’s the great thing about these discs from Ben’s Undercrank Productions—I’m able to make contact with funnymen that have slipped off my radar; an excellent example of this is another recent effort by Ben and author-historian Steve Massa to bring some of the “Mishaps of Musty Suffer” comedies starring Harry Watson, Jr. to the attention of silent comedy/classic film fans.  Ben and Steve used original 35mm prints from the Library of Congress for that release, and I can’t adequately express in words the gratifying feeling I received in knowing that just a few spare shekels went towards this rewarding film preservation project.

So mosey on over to Ben’s campaign and see what you can do to help the cause, hokay?

Getting a jump on the season

Well, with only a little more time before we officially hit the month of December, I figured I’d take this opportunity to gloat about the fact that I put more posts up here on the blog in November than any other month since January of this year...which probably makes sense, since it was at the end of that month that I was hired to write and edit for ClassicFlix.  I had time to get a chapter of Riders of Death Valley finished and I can also promise a new Doris Day(s) for Monday as well.  (I think I’ve finally got this “balancing of time” thing licked.)

I’m gambling that in December I’ll be able to keep posting tidbits at least every two days; frequent guest reviewer Philip Schweier has also made some contributions that you’ll see beginning this week, plus I have made some DVD purchases (please don’t everyone be surprised at once) that I hope will result in essays soon.  This week, the Classic Movie Blog Association will host a blogathon entitled Film Passion 101; it will consist of personal essays from participating members on the films that made them ga-ga over movies.  My love affair with the flickers has sort of been told and retold ever since construction began on this little scrap of the blogosphere but I’ll be contributing a piece on The Greatest Monster Movie of Them All, King Kong (1933).

Chris at Family Friendly Reviews will also be hosting a blogathon from December 20-22 that will showcase Christmas movie favorites; and seeing that The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ has stockings full of holiday-themed classics on tap it seems only fitting (get it?  Stockings?  Fitting?  Bueller?).  Thrilling Days of Yesteryear has already RSVP’d on this one, and my spotlight will be on one of my favorite Christmas comedies, The Lemon Drop Kid (1951).  (You are definitely encouraged to participate in this one if you so desire; the CMBA ‘thon, however, is a members-only deal.)

In the Look-What-Else-Santa-Is-Bringing-Me Department, this little Jim Dandy…

…is currently on sale at Amazon.com for $39.99, as I discovered to my delight whilst making a humble Christmas purchase for my nephew who’ll be spending his very first Yuletide out in the Pacific Northwest.  (It combines two of his kid passions: trains and Lincoln Logs.)  I can’t swear that the price on the Essential Laurel & Hardy Collection is the lowest it’s ever been but it’s definitely the lowest I’ve seen, and I would have been a fool not to snap one of these up.  (When I told my mother the news she was positively thrilled, it says here.)

No, even the thought of more discs crossing the threshold of Rancho Yesteryear cannot shake my mom’s good mood because my beloved sister Debbie and her husband (and niece Rachel) will be visiting for Christmas, and that’s all a mother could ask for.  (And when mi madre is in the best holiday spirit, she bakes a metric ton of cookies…and that’s all a son could ask for…)

An additional story in the Naked City

No one is as more surprised as I to see the flurry of activity on the blog this week…but since TDOY’s been on a roll since Monday, I figured I’d continue running the table.  (Particularly since a fallow period is headed for the blog soon, as I have a couple of Radio Spirits projects on my plate.)  But today, I’d like to indulge in a bit of bragging.

Back in May, I mentioned in passing that TVShowsOnDVD.com had posted an announcement in which RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) had plans to release all 138 episodes of the seminal police drama Naked City in a 29-disc set that, at the time of the announcement, had no official street date (it was later announced that the set would be released on November 5) but was available at Amazon for a pre-order tariff of $99.99 (the set itself retails for $179.98).  Even though I painstakingly parted with the wherewithal to buy the previous not-quite-complete collections/sets released by Image…and even though my religion has strict rules against “double-dipping”…I told myself that I would have to have the set, because Naked City is seriously one of my all-time favorite television shows.

My mother and I have a conversation a month or two after this announcement is made.  She asks me if there’s anything I have my eye on for Christmas, and I tell her the only thing I really want is this set.  After groaning about yet another portion of discs making their way into Rancho Yesteryear, she acquiesces and has me pre-order the set…then issues strict instructions that I am to be surprised on Christmas.

Now…here’s where the story takes an amazing turn.  I do not know for what reason I happened to stop by DVDPriceSearch.com that fateful day in October—lately I’ve been trying to avoid the site because I’m weak when it comes to temptation—but I cannot ignore an entry on that site that says the Naked City set I’ve pre-ordered from Amazon is available from Walmart…

…for $25.48.

My eyes leave their sockets for a brief second as if I were in a Tex Avery cartoon.  I could not believe it—it had to be some sort of error.  So I mosey on over to Walmart.com…and sure enough, the set is selling for $25.48.  I even read the description, just to make sure they haven’t misidentified the collection.  Same one they’re selling at Amazon (and by this stage of the game, a few other places as well).

I was convinced that this was a huge mistake, and that Walmart was going to find some way to weasel out of this…but I was also convinced that if I didn’t avail myself of this deal of a lifetime, I would hate myself for the rest of the time I have on Earth.  So I ordered a copy, and set aside enough time to wait until I was sure I would be getting this deal before I canceled the Amazon pre-order.  The last week in October, the Amazon order was cancelled.  I figured, what the hell—if it does turn out to be a boo-boo, I can always re-order…and what’s more, I’ll shop around to see if there’s a better deal (as I said earlier, a few more places had started selling it since my initial order).

The package arrived yesterday—and it’s the same set as the one advertised on Amazon.  I am convinced Baby Jeebus loves me, because I cannot believe my good fortune—even my mother high-fived me, and we all know how she feels about DVDs.  The word on this apparently got out on Facebook—I know Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas shouted it from the rooftops—and after who-knows-how-many-people capitalized on this deal, the $99 price eventually returned to the listing.  I checked the site the other day and I couldn’t even find the set in the inventory; somebody must have removed it after the company took the bath they did on the discounted sets.  (The imp in me wants to believe that the poor schmendrick responsible was demoted for this fox paw and is now on greeter duty.)

I do feel bad about buying this from Walmart, though…because there’s no love lost between me and a corporation who represents everything I despise about corporations, and I try not to patronize the business as a rule.  But I simply couldn’t pass this up, and I’m sure if I light a few candles and say a few novenas during the holidays that will right the situation.  (I just need to be able to remember where the church is.)

In other DVD news, Barnes & (Ig)Noble are running their annual 50%-off Criterion sale as of this post…and because B&N appears doomed to be crushed under the boot heel of the gigantic behemoth known as Amazon, I figured I’d drop a few shekels (okay, it was more like a lot of shekels) into their coffers and buy a few nice things for myself (including The Uninvited, which Laura has sold me on with her latest ClassicFlix review).  (Brandie proved to be a first-rate saleswoman as well, since I grabbed I Married a Witch while I was at it.) I also pre-ordered the City Lights release, which is being sold as a Blu-ray/DVD combo…so on the off-chance I eventually do acquire a Blu-ray player I’ll have something to play in it.

The very “Model” of a successful Kickstarter project*

Back in November of last year, I wrote a post about a Kickstarter campaign entitled “Accidentally Preserved”—a project initiated by silent film historian-accompanist Ben Model to raise funds ($3,600) for the production of a DVD that would showcase silent film rarities from 16mm sources…which, in many cases, are the only extant versions of these comedies and other novelties that have succumbed to both neglect and the ravages of time.  (As I said in the original post, Ben’s mission was to “get these films out of cans and onto peoples' screens so they can be enjoyed and studied.”)

For a pledge of $25 or more, you could make a little film preservation history by seeing this project to fruition—and you’d also get a mention in the closing credits…

Holy smoke!  That's meeeeeeeeee...

And if you sit patiently through the list of people who ponied up for this project, you'll see a bonus abstract ("A Friend in Need") from a 1925 Clyde Cook comedy, Starvation Blues.  Blues was co-written by Stan Laurel, who recycled the "musicians-freezing-their-tails-off" idea in the classic L&H comedy Below Zero (1930).

…the DVD shipped a week or two back, and is available through the MOD Create-A-Space at Amazon.com.  It’s gotten some nice write-ups from good movie folk like cartoon guru Jerry Beck and NYT critic Dave Kehr, as well as other influential blogs…and seeing as I finally got the opportunity to sit down with it Sunday night and early Monday morning, I thought I’d offer up a few Thrilling Days of Yesteryear impressions of the disc.

It’s extremely well-produced, for starters—a lot of time, effort and professionalism went into the making of this DVD.  A major plus is that a lot of info about the shorts on the disc is included on screens preceding each presentation…and in the case of three of the shorts—The Lost Laugh (1928; with Wallace Lupino), Wedding Slips (1928; with Monte Collins) and The Water Plug (1920; with Billy Franey)—Ben and silent film historian Steve Massa (author of Lame Brains & Lunatics, just released by BearManor Media) provide audio commentary choc-a-bloc with tantalizing tidbits of history for silent comedy geeks like me.

A good bit of the DVD's content consists of one-reel “Cameo” comedies—these one-reelers were distributed by Educational Pictures (“The spice of the program”) as a companion to their two-reel “Mermaid” comedies.  I’m going to go on record here and say that while one-reel comedies aren’t my particular cup of Orange Pekoe (I tend to agree with historian David Kalat, who once opined that one-reel shorts are “the ugly stepchildren of silent comedy”) the more of them I watch, the more I’m being won over.  If a one-reeler has particularly strong gags—like Preserved’s Cheer Up (1924), which features an almost forgotten comedian named Cliff Bowes—I’ll generally overlook the shortage of time to develop character.  (Bowes’ Cheer Up has a riotous bit where he’s spun around and left upside down when his rival attacks him with a hand drill.)  I also enjoyed a comedy on the DVD entitled Loose Change (1928), starring Jack Duffy as a thrifty Scotsman who solves his reluctance to take cabs by employing a bit used by Harold Lloyd in Safety Last (1923)—bumming a ride from an ambulance.

Another favorite: an abstract from a Clyde Cook comedy (the full version is a two-reeler), The Misfit (1924), which features a funny gag in which Clyde paints himself into a predicament...

...but ingeniously finds a way out. (Well, for the time being anyway.)

There are additional items included on the Accidentally Preserved disc besides silent comedy: The House of Wonders, a two-reel industrial short from 1931 touting Elgin watches (you might be familiar with Elgin as the people who sponsored Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life before he started telling prospective DeSoto customers “Tell ‘em Groucho sent you”) and an Out of the Inkwell cartoon from 1922, Mechanical Doll, which will be of major interest to animation buffs (they really are inventive cartoons, and Doll is no exception).  Three Stooges devotees will be intrigued by a one-reel Monte Collins comedy, Wedding Slips (1928), directed by future Columbia Shorts Department head Jules White.  This comedy is also an example of how fragile many of these treasures are: the emulsion of this print started to buckle a few months before the DVD went into production and a transfer was made in the nick of time (the decomposition is noticeable in the main titles and in the last few minutes of the short).

In his write-up for Accidentally Preserved at the Paper of Record, Dave Kehr remarks: “This compilation is aimed at specialists, but it is a sterling example of the kind of home-brew work that is now possible in film preservation, and where much future effort will doubtlessly lie.”  If you’re as passionate about this as I am, maybe you can shift some of those funds you were planning to pony up for that Zach Braff movie (seriously—a follow-up to Garden State?) towards the eventual sequel (Accidentally Preserved II: Texas Blood Money), which I will keep you posted about when it is announced.  In the meantime, you can purchase the original disc over at Amazon…and take it from me, it will be money well-spent.  There’s additional information (including notes on the films) at the DVD’s website.

*I took liberty with Ben’s last name to make a small pun; it’s actually pronounced “Mow-dell”...like the Paul Reiser character in Diner who kept glomming onto every one’s French fries.

Friday’s sticky note

One hundred and three years ago today on this date, one of radio’s most prolific playwrights was born in the Windy City…and that individual also became a force to be reckoned with in films, television and the legitimate the-a-tah as well.  Mention “Arch Oboler” to any old-time radio fan, and it’s likely they’ll conjure up the sound of a giant beating heart (“Chicken Heart”) or a particularly nasty woman who is transformed into a cat (“Cat Wife”).  Arch didn’t create radio’s celebrated Lights Out (that honor belongs to Wyllis Cooper, who also fashioned a similar radio horror classic in Quiet, Please) but it would be hard to deny that he concocted most of its best-known fright tales.  Moviewise, there was a lot of talk on both the Facebook and Twitters about TCM’s recent airing of the 1953 cult oddity The Twonky…that film that sprung from the fertile imagination of Mr. O himself.

I wrote up a little something over at the Radio Spirits blog to commemorate Arch’s natal anniversary—the blog has been kind of dormant of late due to some shenanigans from Hurricane Sandy, and also my own bone laziness.  But we are back in business now.

While I’m on the subject of TCM and the Twitter, it’s been kind of an amazing week in that I’ve actually had the opportunity to watch a couple of flicks on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™.  Last night, my BBFF Stacia and I traded quips during the channel’s screening of one of our favorite films (Stacia, believe it or don’t, owns three copies of this movie), The Third Man (1949).  Monday night, while I wasn’t able to see the 1924 version of Captain January (my father usually has a rendezvous with kindly Doc Maddow about that time), I did wrest hold of the TV set in time to see three of the “Baby Peggy” shorts, followed by the documentary Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room (2012).

Let me go on record as saying Elephant in the Room is a first-rate documentary, a fascinating and at times poignant presentation of the child star career of Diana Serra Cary, who as “Baby” Peggy-Jean Montgomery was second only to Jackie Coogan as the most popular kidlet at the box office during the 1920s.  But I also want to go on record as saying that on the basis of seeing the three shorts—Carmen, Jr. (1923), Peg o’the Mounted (1924) and Such is Life (1924)—I couldn’t quite figure out what all the fuss was about.  I have established a reputation on the Internets as a person who’s not a big child star fan (as witnessed by my teasing referrals to a certain actress as She Who Must Not Be Named) but I don’t dislike all juvenile performers.  The esteemed Scott C. of World O’Crap once jokingly accused me of not liking any kiddie thesp who wasn’t in Our Gang; an insinuation which I resented.  (I didn’t deny it…I just resented it.)

Be that as it may, I kind of made a Twitter enemy or two with my candid assessment of Peg’s cinematic talents…which I’m more amused than mad about, really.  My pal Page of My Love of Old Hollywood has joined me in pariahdom, and like myself disdains most child actors but for some odd reason worships at the Temple of Shirley.  (Page has even invited the saccharine little moppet to comment on her pictorial posts from time to time, leading you believe that sweet little Shirley somehow got possessed by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.)

Back in May 2009, I did a post that mentioned a petition started up by comedy historian Stan Taffel, asking to convince Sony Home Video to release the twenty two-reel comedies that comedy legend Charley Chase did for the Columbia studio from 1937-40.  Sony had struck up new 35mm prints from the original masters of these shorts and had planned to release a collection after the success of their 2006 box set of Buster Keaton comedy shorts…but then that darn ol’ anemic economy put the kibosh on that.

Three years later, Sony has a volume of Chase comedies ready to go that will be released on January 1 of the new year (a great way to usher in 2013, I think) and though it’s one of their MOD releases (which means that the shorts will be on DVD-R), it’s encouraging to even get them out to the public…and in brand-spanking-new prints as well.  All of the Chase Columbias I own are on DVD-R anyway, but according to Stan the first volume set will contain three Chase shorts I have not seen: The Awful Goof (1939), The Chump Takes a Bump (1939) and South of the Boudoir (1940).  The remaining shorts on the disc will be the Charley Chase classics Rattling Romeo (1939) and The Heckler (1940), the not-so-classic Man Bites Lovebug (1937) and The Mind Needer (1938) (two of the worst, in my opinion), and a short I like but I may be in the minority, Skinny the Moocher (1939).  (There’s also a bonus short, 1939’s A Nag in the Bag, that while directed by Chase stars vaudeville legends Joe Smith & Charlie Dale.)

The SRP on this disc is $20.95 but Amazon has a pre-listing for it at $14.67, and while the money situation is non-existent here at Rancho Yesteryear (we’re so broke we can’t even pay attention) I hope to put this little baby in my shopping cart before its January release.  (If I can swing it, I will make sure that the November Milestone release Cut to the Chase: The Charley Chase Comedy Collection accompanies it so it will not be lonesome.)  For those of you unfamiliar with this amazing comedy talent—might I suggest a purchase of Kino’s The Charley Chase Collection 2?  They have it available for a limited time at $7.99—a steal, my friends, and worth every penny.

One last minute reminder: voting for TDOY’s next Serial Saturdays cliffhanger is about to end, and so if you have an important say in what chapter play will torture me next be sure to cast your vote in the poll up in the upper right corner.  At last look, it appears that Don Winslow of the Navy has got the narrow inside track…but we’ll know for certain when Adventures of Sir Galahad concludes tomorrow afternoon.

"I know a sniveling coward when I see one...hiya, sniv..."

VCI Entertainment, the home video company that’s been catering to the eclectic tastes of classic movie and nostalgia fans over these many years with bodacious releases of movies, serials, cartoon collections and vintage TV shows, introduced a series of DVD’s under the aegis of “Nostalgia Film Factory” in September this year.  The first six releases spotlighted such vintage classics as The Most Dangerous Game, A Star is Born, Scarlet Street, My Favorite Brunette, The Inspector General, and Three Came Home …and there are future titles in the pipeline, like A Farewell to Arms, Father’s Little Dividend, and Lady of Burlesque.

“So what?”  I can hear you saying, and it can’t be the voices in my head because I detect a faint New England accent.  “These are all public domain titles, available in any nearby Target bargain bin.  Hell, I can go over to YouTube right now and fire one up before you can finish typing this sentence!”  True, the public domain can be a wonderful thing, cowboys and cowgirls…but it can also be a harsh mistress.  Since the concept of public domain means that any shmoe with a print of a P.D. film can slap it on a DVD and reap all resulting sales as pure gravy…there’s less incentive to make sure that print is watchable as long as those 99¢ Target buys keep racking up.  (Another potential hazard: some mook might have the audacity to colorize this stuff.)  Granted, there’s a lot of shite in the public domain—but there’s also some fine film classics in with the dross.  The six Nostalgia Film Factory releases mentioned in paragraph one are all pretty good movies, and many film fans would be willing to go the extra mile for a nice print of same, particularly in this age of DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Most Dangerous Game, a 1932 film that had the distinction of being filmed at night on the same sets as King Kong, got the Criterion nod in 2001 (though unfortunately, several unscrupulous P.D. companies started using that print for their own nefarious releases).  Kino-Lorber released a remastered version of Scarlet Street in 2005, using a spiffy Library of Congress print.  Kino has also put out a number of titles listed under “The Selznick Collection,” including A Farewell to Arms and A Star is Born.  I was the lucky winner of the Star is Born DVD during my friend Jill’s (at Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence) March on March blogathon, as a matter of fact…so with the VCI disc I now have two copies of the film.  Do I really need two copies?

A wiser man than I once said that the secret to sales success was selling the sizzle, not the steak.  (He just said this to make me hungry, by the way.)  Nostalgia Film Factory’s A Star is Born release is jazzed up with a few extras: you get the 1937 film starring March and Janet Gaynor, but you also get a Betty Boop cartoon, Housecleaning Blues (1937), a short subject, News Parade of 1937, and the inaugural chapter of Jungle Jim, a serial released in that same year.  VCI and Nostalgia Film Factory have taken a page from the Warner Bros. playbook by creating a fun-filled entertainment package that tries to recreate what it might have been like walking into your local movie palace to see Star is Born, plus selected short subjects.  Warner Home Video did the same thing with many of their DVD box set collections, and to my admittedly limited knowledge was one of the first major companies to do this with a series of VHS releases entitled “A Night at the Movies.”

I’ve had these Nostalgia Film Factory discs sitting next to my computer for a while now, and yesterday I decided to open one up to look at the presentation.  I chose My Favorite Brunette because it’s a film I can have on in the background while I work on other things (I was doing yesterday’s “Coming Distractions” post) and the disc starts off with a Noveltoon released that same year (1947), Super Lulu—in which Marjorie (Marge) Henderson’s famed comic strip creation dreams her way into the Jack and the Beanstalk tale and rescues her father from the mean ol’ giant by tapping into her inner Clark Kent.  (Or perhaps that should be Clarice Kent.)  It’s an amusing little time-filler; I personally think Little Lulu was better served in comic books (and I’m not really a huge fan of the Famous Studios’ cartoon product) but it made me smile a couple of times.  This was followed by a Sports Parade (“Thrill a Second”) newsreel that had a similar novelty value.

The serial chapter included on this DVD is cheating a bit…it’s actually the inaugural installment of a 1946 cliffhanger entitled Lost City of the Jungle.  Lost City has earned a little infamy in that it featured as its evil mastermind famed character actor Lionel Atwill, playing a no-goodnik named Sir Eric Hazarias, a foreign spy battling hero Russell “Lucky” Hayden (as Rod Stanton, an operative for something called “the United Peace Foundation”).  Now…the infamy wasn’t due to the fact that Atwill was slumming in a serial (he also appears in three other chapter plays, Junior G-Men of the Air, Captain America and Raiders of Ghost City)—it was that he died during the production, and Universal was forced to get around that by promoting one of the characters (played by John Mylong) to chief villain status, alibing that he was actually Atwill’s boss.  Lionel’s departure also dictated the use of a double (the henchmen of Sir Eric would take their orders from a man whose back was always to the camera) and insertion of stock footage featuring the actor.  VCI released this serial to DVD in 2006…and seeing that I own a copy I kinda had already watched it; it’s indisputably a mess (the missing Atwill seams are hard to ignore) but it has its moments.

And then…on to the main event!  Back in 2010, I mentioned that My Favorite Brunette was second only to Son of Paleface as my favorite Bob Hope comedy.  It’s a first-rate send-up of film noir conventions: Bob plays a baby photographer who’s mistaken for a private eye by damsel-in-distress Dorothy Lamour (the titular dame), and she asks for his help in dealing with some bad guys who are holding her uncle prisoner.  Bob’s a little reluctant at first; the villains—which include Charles Dingle (channeling his scoundrel in The Little Foxes) and John Hoyt—convince him that Dottie’s off her trolley…but Hope changes his mind when he snaps a photograph that the baddies desperately want back.  In the running time of 87 minutes, Bob ends up framed for a murder and tangles with henchmen Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. before arriving at the happy ending.  (There are two other cameos in this film that I’m going to spoil for you in the next few paragraphs, so if you haven’t seen the picture you might want to stop here.)

The secret ingredient to a successful Bob Hope comedy was placing Bob’s antics against a background of menace, and many of my favorite vehicles of the comedian—including The Great Lover and the two other “My Favorite” films, Blonde and Spy—make good use of this formula.  Brunette ups the ante with the participation of Lorre and Chaney; Peter is a knife-wielding psycho who dislikes the nickname Bob’s character has bestowed upon him (“Cuddles”) and Lon, Jr. is basically Lennie of Of Mice and Men redux.  (Bob even references this in a funny throwaway bit: “I’ll buy you a rabbit later.”)

In one hilarious scene, Bob is being held prisoner by the bad guys in a sanitarium and he gets a visit from Lon, who’s brought him food on a tray.  Bob gets an idea that Lon might come in handy when it comes to, say, bending the bars on his window:

RONNIE (Bob): You know, Willie?  I like you, too…

WILLIE (Lon): Y-Y-You do?

RONNIE: Yes, sir!  What a physique!  Boulder Dam with legs!  And look at those shoulders…and that arm!  Mmm…like a sack of doorknobs… (Willie flexes his arm, trapping Ronnie’s fingers underneath) Oh!  Recess!  Recess!  Recess! (Willie unflexes) I’m just kidding…huh…

WILLIE: Hey, Chummy…d-d-do you care if I feel your muscle, too?

RONNIE: No!  Go ahead… (Willie feels his arm) Look around…it’s there someplace…

WILLIE: Oh—there it is!

RONNIE: That’s it…

WILLIE: I-It’s just like a woman’s…

RONNIE: Yeah… (He shoots him a look, and then Willie squeezes his arm) Easy!  Easy!  Easy!  (As Willie lets go) Every thing you touch turns to rigor mortis!

Willie is goaded by Ronnie into showing off and bending the bars outside the window…but just when Willie says his goodbyes he stops…and puts the bars back into their previous position.  “Y-Y-You gotta be neat, you know,” he explains to his “chum.”  Chaney’s performance is one of my very favorites, and he worked so well with Bob that he appeared with the comedian again in another top-notch Hope comedy, Casanova’s Big Night (as Hope’s dungeon cellmate in that one).

“All my life I’ve wanted to be a hard-boiled detective,” explains baby photographer Jackson to the man who rents the office next to him, shamus Sam McCloud.  “Like Humphrey Bogart, or Dick Powell…or even Alan Ladd.”  The joke is that McCloud is played by Ladd (he has his back turned to Bob during this scene, but Ladd’s voice gives him away) in a funny cameo—but the best surprise comes at the end when a prison warden (Willard Robertson), who’s just saved Hope’s character from the gas chamber, remembers he forgot to tell “Harry,” the executioner.  Harry is Bing Crosby, who’s clearly ticked off at this turn of events, and the story goes that Hope promised to pay his “Road” compadre $5,000 to do the cameo (which was later donated to charity).  This final scene is one of my favorite wrap-ups in any Hope film—though you can argue it’s similar to the ending in The Princess and the Pirate: leading lady Virginia Mayo runs to Crosby’s arms at the end of the movie, prompting Bob to grouse: “How do you like that? I knock myself out for nine reels, and some bit player from Paramount comes over and gets the girl!  That’s the last film I do for Goldwyn.”  (And it was.)

Because My Favorite Brunette reverted to the public domain in 1975, finding a nice print of the movie has always been a bit of a chore (my friend Dorian—I get to call her “Dor”—at Tales of the Easily Distracted lamented this in a piece on the film back in 2010).  Though there are a gazillion versions of the movie available on all kinds of home video, a nice print of the movie can be found on a 2010 Shout! Factory set entitled The Bob Hope Collection (which also features two of the Road films, Rio and Bali, as well as The Lemon Drop Kid and The Seven Little Foys) which was taken from the original negative stored at Sony.  And yet…the print of Brunette showcased on the VCI-Nostalgia Film Factory disc is in amazingly good shape; it’s definitely the best one I’ve ever seen on a P.D. release at any rate.  If you’re looking for an inexpensive disc that will deliver the goods—and includes a short or two in the bargain—you’ll want to throw it in your online shopping cart.  (The SRP is $9.99, but DVDPlanet currently has the best price.)