Watching From What Could and Should Be More
My idea of rare remains the pre-49 Paramount library, eclipsed only by Fox now that they've been subsumed by Disney. Are we to see the latter again apart from licensing of mainstreamiest titles from the library like Planet of the Apes and Wall Street? (two lately arrived on Amazon Prime). You can rent or own The Mark of Zorro to stream, buy the Blu-ray from Kino, but where it’s Chan or Moto, let alone early thirties Fox Film Corp, seek on. The Paramounts exist to extent of key titles or whatever Kino has so far leased (from owning Universal). I just got two, basked in both, am here aglow over Love Letters and Lucky Jordan, till now known if at all as “On-Demand” DVDs which meant transfers old as what TV broadcast when we came first to know these titles. I ponder less the movies than how first-run crowds got them, specifically in Chicago as ads here attest, days when crowds spilled onto streets and months-long engagements were norm. Love Letters saw five weeks at least at the State-Lake, appeal of gothic-flavored romance evident from day-before-open ad where Jennifer Jones regards her carving knife and blood-spattered blouse. You’d think from this that Love Letters was more about murder than JJ and Joseph Cotten getting together, and it’s but final reel flashback to put us wise as what/why happened and who wielded the blade. Cotten was male face of forties dreamy romantic, being that way about Claudette Colbert in Since You Went Away, Love Letters pursuit of ideal that is Jones, again her escort in Portrait of Jennie, where painting becomes his expression of ardor. Did as many men identify with Joseph Cotten’s kind of longing as with a Gable, Flynn, or Bogart? If so, I bet few acknowledged it.
| Third Week Ad, Then the Fifth, for State Lake's Crowded Run |
Love Letters is very much of 1945 moment. Even a year later, such milk might have curdled. Why do certain films “date”? Well, maybe because they calibrate precisely moods of a moment, that in many instances lasted but a moment, reason why we must project ourselves near as possible to what and who embraced them when a theatre like the State-Lake ran them, and patrons stood patient by thousands for seating within. Ads come closest to telling what worked, or better what would work if viewers showed up and surrendered themselves to spell a Love Letters would cast. We feel it still via isolated moments where magic of then affects emotions of now. Exposure to enough of the old makes palatable a Jennifer Jones and whether her amnesia was caused by bloody deed she, or someone else, committed. Were there such women as this during the forties? If so --- or not --- who is left? --- or future born --- to identify with them? Riddle that Jones and others left are answered to extent by advertising their films inspired. Love Letters was a variety of things to infinity of people, which State-Lake management catered to by appeal to all potential comers, those who’d take “Intimate” and “Intriguing,” plus stars, as enough, or ones who wanted romance “Sealed with the madness of Murder.” Something for seeming everyone. To modern-meet Love Letters needs acceptance of amnesia as thing that could happen to anybody. We assume forties folk to have had at least one if not multiple amnesiacs among acquaintance, like a friend with eyeglasses or a hearing aid. Dream state might be best to accompany Love Letters, which ideally means home alone watching, for few belong so resolutely to when they were made.
Still of Paramount wont, I next chose Suddenly It’s Spring, sprung from TCM savings, a lone broadcast from years back of a comedy unavailable otherwise. This was of 1947 vintage, Fred MacMurray and Paulette Goddard law-and-marriage partners who decide pre-war to get a divorce, only now she changes her mind from which merriment ensues. Fred kept doing comedy despite Double Indemnity. Maybe he felt safer with the genre. I'm challenged to take him serious/straight anyway. Something about Fred’s face and expression seems goofy to me. Excess exposure, and from earliest on, to his work for Disney? Mitchell Leisen directed Suddenly It’s Spring. Book on him by David Chierichetti has co-worker quotes as to how impossible it was to get good takes out of Paulette Goddard. Seems she had no gift for timing and could not be taught. What we see seems OK, but those in know said initial-cast Claudette Colbert would have been better, a little unfair as Colbert would probably have better than most any actress in any film. Suddenly It’s Spring spars verbal plus physical. Fred falls lots. Somewhere he must have learned to do that without wrecking joints and bones. Regard please the Chicago Theatre’s more than lush opening day ad for Suddenly It’s Spring, a sure place for us to “get” what was there to offer. “Five-alarm charm” Goddard was settled-upon truth through the forties, her offscreen a known man-tamer. Note she’s billed above MacMurray, and imagery suggests her public will care less over Paulette’s timing, or lack of it. Among bonus treats is Georgie Price, “foremost singing comimic” who went back to vaude and Vitaphone. The forties was enchanted meld of old biz with new, room always for either.
Break for further ad oddities, and this being stream-of-consciousness day at Greenbriar, do look at an ad I found for The Uninvited and observe policy re “malignance of the undead.” Weak of heart are warned against attending, device not unknown, as the gag was used endless before and after 1944, but here’s clause for concern: “So ethereal in theme --- suggest no attendance by unaccompanied children.” Thinking maybe I’ve been wrong about that word all these years, I looked it up: “Extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world.” Shouldn’t youngsters be getting more of that? For myself, I’ll take all of ethereal they’ve got. Is The Uninvited’s theme ethereal? Seems so after repeated viewings and more surely to come. Note too Denham Theatre policy of admitting no one during the last fifteen minutes. I can see a family of four or more showing up at the boxoffice, Dad with toll for all, plus more to buy concessions. Will management bar entry? As once we said sarcastic in the thirties, Yes he will. Along further ad line, pipe the above for Metro feature (Design for Scandal), a latest March of Time (“How the USA will hit back at Japan”), and capper for strangeness, Melville the Famous Venetian Glass Blower demonstrating his ancient art daily in the lobby. Speaking from mere memory mind, but I’d state with certainty we never had Venetian Glass Blowers at the Liberty. Did any of you? The 1942 ad for Keith’s vaudeville, plus screen show (Girl from Alaska) suggests again that vaude did not die. It merely relocated, much as it would later to TV.
Loew’s Grand and Jean Harlow had a New Year’s gift for 1936 customers, Riffraff her latest for MGM release. Stuff like this is why I’ve chased theatre ads for all so far of life. We wonder why stars posed for silly holiday-theme publicity. Here is how it served practical function. Suppose this was explained to Harlow and others who beefed over such obligation? Loew’s was a Metro house just coming off A Tale of Two Cities, looking down the road to Ah Wilderness and Rose Marie. Midnight premiere of Riffraff rings in with '36 arrival, but policy at the bottom reads “New Year’s Eve at 12 P.M.,” boner for which someone I'm sure got an upbraid. Shadow over gaiety is 1936 being final year Jean Harlow would live through, fact no one saw coming, least of all I suppose her, but hold … Harlow had scarlet fever as a child, kidney disease an adult companion. She surely recognized seriousness of that. Did Harlow know she was not long for this world? From sublime to that which was outrageous, here is “Rocking the World” Ingagi at the Pantages, “100% Sound and Talk,” which was the least they could do. Make no mistake, Ingagi was a smash. There really aren’t records to show how much it made, for this was an outlaw attraction few wished to be seen coming in or out of. “The Monarch of All Adventure Pictures” they called Ingagi, and who knows but what King Kong was dubbed “Mighty Monarch of Melodrama” as bid for Ingagi comparison. Not sure, but I’ve got a hunch Ingagi outgrossed King Kong. Just a guess, mind, not a hope. Ingagi is bitter fruit of You Tube play. Find it and be appalled. “Infuriated” lions and “maddened” rhinos are here, which begs question as to whether lions and rhinos are any less dangerous when they are not infuriated or maddened.
| Above Ads: Lucky Jordan First and Later Run at Chicago Sites |
Lastly and back to Blu-Ray, there is Lucky Jordan, another Paramount fewer saw till recent, Alan Ladd’s first starring role and brisk at just over eighty minutes. He runs horse parlors and is shady overall, icy cold to dames rightly not to trust, an unwilling draftee who deserts but catches spies toward last reel redemption. Hope I haven’t spoiled suspense for anyone. I like Ladd and have spoke it plain here, pleased then to have this and Saigon in offing, plus R-2 of The Great Gatsby due soon. Ladd’s persona was a done deal early on, his popularity immense, especially among women. He was a “sigma male,” lone wolf, possibly, in fact hopefully, dangerous, because that’s how fans liked him. Sigma males are hot again thanks to John Wick, who if you go on a hundred or so places at You Tube, is celebrated as an ultimate sigma male. Every man likes to think of himself a little bit sigma, if not altogether so. Takes less energy or commitment than being an alpha male, which seems to me burdensome, having to order so many people around and having less time to watch movies like Lucky Jordan and then write about them. Point being everything new is more-less recycled old. John Wick is Alan Ladd with darker outfits and inclination to kill scores more than Ladd even on his moodiest day. Maybe it's hearting Ladd that makes me also enjoy John Wick. Having seen the first three Wicks, I am even tempted to walk in a theater for recently released JW --- Chapter Four, a first such admission-paying venture since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
