CCC: Radio Revels and Reginald Denny
BREAKFAST IN HOLLYWOOD (1946) --- What’s more gone than radio? And yet we have more of it online than a lifetime’s listening could absorb, at least what survives, which I’d ask how much OTR does survive? Must be a sliver, as look how little of Breakfast in Hollywood floats freely, and this was so popular a program as to inspire a feature movie in 1946, a more-less recital of Tom Breneman’s daily show, thus precious opportunity to watch him interact with listeners turned participants. This then was fan service of most craven kind, a film less film than radio with pictures. Breneman had a restaurant from which broadcasts were heard, ham and eggs at constant fry, so a large entrance marquee promised. He would move among diners daily and engage them re lives, joking mildly at expense of eccentrics exposing themselves to Breneman scrutiny on nationwide radio. United Artists distributed the 1946 feature, for which actors were added to supply narrative where Breneman was not doing his radio thing. Comedy and heart-tug came courtesy ZaSu Pitts, Billie Burke, Beulah Bondi, Hedda Hopper as herself. Music guests were Spike Jones and City Slickers, plus the King Cole Trio. Radio got respect else these would not participate, and like with Phil Baker, we must assume there was ready viewership where on-air personalities consented to be themselves for our looking benefit. Tom Breneman struck me like Art Linkletter arrived early, bandy with sweet old ladies rather than emphasis on kids as with Art. He died sudden in 1948 (“Tom Breneman, Famous Radio Star, Drops Dead” said one tactless headline). I don’t know who ended up with the eatery, which was lavish and must have cost plenty to dress up. Did Brenaman wife and two surviving kids see benefits from that?
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT (1944) --- You wouldn’t think a class outfit like Twentieth Century Fox had brass enough to put their logo on such a cheater, yet here it was for 1944, an extended (beyond interest) capture of radio’s Take It or Leave It, a game show which later became The $64 Question. Latter title as popular expression comes down yet to moderns who know not meaning of it, but then how many care re origin of slang so far passed? Height of arrogance is recycled Fox footage, basis for “The Screen’s Greatest Radio Show” to include Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Al Jolson, plenty more … except none appear fresh, and some of relic clips go back ten years, an affront to anyone paying ’44 way in. Loew’s Warfield compensates with eight acts of vaudeville, plus small print promise of Scarface (1932) to bolster Take It or Leave It after 11 PM once live talent went home (imagine their exhaustion). Many war run theatres were a three-shift circus for harried staff and artists performing on stage. Asset of a small one for Take It or Leave It was seeing radio being staged, a process invisible to home listeners, and maybe these were thrilled to see what made broadcasts tick. Phil Baker, a voice familiar, and face too, thanks to previous The Gang’s All Here, again was Himself for banter with contestants. Take It or Leave It was popular airwave ritual, but how does that excuse padding that is clips from Tin Pan Alley, Baby Take a Bow, Sonja Henie skating in who-knows-what interchangeable vehicle, all proposed as “Guests” in ads at the least misleading. My bootleg of Take It or Leave It showed up with twenty minutes shorn and enough splices/cue marks to relive ordeal of syndication and 16mm collecting. Thankfully gone are those days, but fun being reminded of reality that was hazard watching.
REGINALD DENNY ON BLU-RAY --- We’ve come to bright horizon when three of Reginald Denny’s silent feature comedies are available on Blu-Ray, restoration for each underwritten by Universal, the company that used him most and produced the trio now before us from Kino. Denny guested on a Batman episode during the last year of his life and that may be where I first noticed the by-then veteran player, known also at the time as misleading member of Britain’s “inner counsel” in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, where Denny’s climactic switch of sides sent/still sends chills at least up my spine. Re the war, airplane hobbyist Denny, who built models expertly and had a shop, more factory, dedicated to mass manufacture, turned expertise toward defense projects and designed early incarnation of what we call drones, a male Hedy Lamarr it would seem. Between Denny drones and Lamarr’s frequency hopping, we’d see the Axis out sure. Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By with its intoxicating interior page scent which carries me always to 1968 publication date, tells of the author’s visit with Reginald Denny circa 1964 to which Parade devotes a chapter. Denny had not seen one of his silent comedies (and he made lots) “in twenty years” and was afraid they’d not click when Brownlow arranged for the actor and his family to screen one. What vivid and pleasing account this is of a silent luminary who lived to know how fresh and still enjoyable his long past work was as of the mid-sixties. For my money, Denny was the great romantic leading man of silent era modern comedy. He practically invented a style to flower fully with thirties screwball. What Happened to Jones? (1926) could easily and profitably have been remade with Cary Grant starring and Leo McCarey directing, being blue chip mirthful through all its 71 minutes.
Jones events lead to wedding ceremony payoff that reminded me much of Four Weddings and a Funeral in its final act, being plenty funny as was that 1994 success. I ask on one hand, where has What Happened to Jones? been all my life? --- simple answer being nowhere, as who could access it before now and Kino’s Blu-Ray? This one is a real discovery. If all Denny comedies are good as What Happened to Jones? and Skinner’s Dress Suit, we’ve got much to dig toward unearth of the rest. 1964 and the Denny screening with Brownlow is now several generations back of us, the films more remote, so question rises as to how Denny plays right now, answer which Kino supplies via a foursome so far made available (on two Blu-Rays). I’m discovering one at apportioned time … rich vintage humor should never be binged. What of Denny I’ve seen is at best delightful, at the least fascinating curios, being twenties tell of youth at work, domesticity, and eager play. Denny races roadsters here, moves up in business there, all and more of what we expect men of purpose to have done in era one hundred years passed. Reginald Denny was surely salve to those missing Wallace Reid. Both were athletic, engaging at comedy but falling in mud less than slapstick we associate with the period. Denny preferred a light approach and became popular enough to enforce the policy. Fun arose from situations, a young husband out of his debt depth in Skinner’s Dress Suit, the bachelor assuming false guise to salvage his engagement (What Happened to Jones?). More Denny vehicles are extant, so further releases could and should happen. In the meantime, there are these from Kino and all should please.
