This past weekend was like visiting an oasis. It brought back memories of attending the annual Cinefest in Syracuse, New York, where every day was packed with screenings—and lots of chatter with like-minded friends in between. I proposed to the folks who run Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles that we show a selection of early 1930s Universal Pictures, using pristine prints the studio struck over the past twenty years.
My colleague Dave Kehr at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, took advantage of this goldmine eight years ago and framed it as a tribute to Carl Laemmle, Jr., the unsung namesake of the studio’s colorful founder. But until I thought of trying the New Bev, as its denizens call it, I couldn’t find any institution in L.A. that wanted to reprise this series. The hearty attendance all weekend proved that there is an audience for such fare here in Movieland, and it was great fun to see so many old friends –and meet many fans—from the film buff community.
I first had an opportunity to view many of these features when Bob O’Neill, who is now retired, set up informal screenings to pass judgment on the “answer prints” that local labs like YCM and Fotokem made from the original 35mm negatives. I kept careful notes and referred to them (and Dave’s candid opinions) to winnow my program down to three double features. I am grateful to the wonderful folks at the New Bev for giving me this opportunity, and I hope to do more very soon.
Here’s how they played this weekend:
ONCE IN A LIFETIME (1932) is as sharp and funny as it was the day it debuted on Broadway in 1930. It marked the first collaboration of playwrights Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. You couldn’t ask for a better cast: Aline McMahon, Russell Hopton, and Jack Oakie play small-time vaudevillians who descend on Hollywood when panic has taken hold because of the arrival of talkies. The ex-performers present themselves as elocution experts and convince studio chief Herman Glogauer that he can’t function without them. Gregory Ratoff is sheer perfection as the mercurial mogul, and Oakie is equally good as dimwit who is lionized as a genius—not unlike Chauncey Gardner in Being There. McMahon has many of the sharpest lines of dialogue and delivers them effortlessly. One of the actresses in desperate need of voice training is played by Carol Tevis, who later costarred in RKO’s Blondes and Redheads shorts. Her baby-ish speaking voice was used for gags in cartoons and comedies throughout the 1930s.
COHENS AND KELLYS IN HOLLYWOOD (1932) I told the audience that we were about to make a great leap into the unknown together by showing this film—the sixth of seven in a series of Abie’s Irish Rose ripoffs that Universal launched in 1926. George Sidney, who stars as Cohen, also played the quintessential working-class Jew in Clancy’s Kosher Wedding and other ethnic comedies, often opposite Charley Murray, his Irish costar in this series. (Incidentally, they call each other “Cohen” and “Kelly,” never using first names.) The lure of this 75-minute programmer was the promise of cameo appearances by Universal stars Lew Ayres, Gloria Stuart, Boris Karloff and Tom Mix. They are all seen at the glamorous Cocoanut Grove nightclub—in shots so brief that you’re not certain you actually saw them. Couldn’t they have lingered for one or two more seconds of screen time? Friends in the audience agreed with me that this film features the worst use of the fabled Broadway crane in motion picture history—a wobbly dive from above to a music store sign and an equally shaky reverse of the same shot. I thought the crowd was incredibly patient with this unredeemable time-killer.
AFRAID TO TALK (1932) Randy Haberkamp contacted director Edward L. Cahn’s son David, who brought his daughter along for a double-dose of his father’s finest work. Eric Linden is the nominal hero of this melodramatic saga of corruption eroding a major city government. (Chicago is never named but there are at least two references to Swift’s slaughterhouse.) Louis Calhern is pretty smooth as the district attorney who lets nothing stand in the way of good, honest graft and Berton Churchill, never known for nuance, is as blustery as ever as the crooked Mayor. Edward Arnold, at the outset of his long career, plays a racketeer who thinks he’s too smart to get caught. This quickie was photographed by the great Karl Freund, who got a chance to direct The Mummy that same year. And what can you say about a picture where perennial villain Gustav von Seyffertitz is cast as a good guy?
LAW AND ORDER (1932) is director Cahn’s finest hour, a rendering of events leading up to the gunfight at O.K. Corral, as recounted by author W.R. Burnett in his novel Saint Johnson. Walter Huston is the man who tamed Wichita and now comes to Tombstone, Arizona with his pals Harry Carey, Russell Hopton and Raymond Hatton—determined not to wear a badge again, but talked into it by another stalwart of this genre, Russell Simpson. Andy Devine plays a dumb bunny who faces a hangman’s noose, and his real-life pal Walter Brennan has quite a few scenes as a saloon worker—but no screen credit. The screenplay was co-written by John Huston, who worked with Edward Cahn again in 1935 on a quickie called Death Drives Through. The climactic gunfight is set at daybreak and is an absolute tour-de-force, a master class in montage that ought to be better known. My hero and (unwitting) mentor William K. Everson thought this film was in the same league as William S. Hart’s austere silent Westerns. “It is slowly paced,” he wrote, “never exploiting action for its own sake, but it comes to its climax…with one of the most savage and exciting gunfights ever put on film. Its flawless construction, photography ,,.,and editing quite outclass the similar, more highly touted yet inferior climactic battle in High Noon.” The audience fully appreciated what they witnessed on Saturday night.
ONLY YESTERDAY (1933) kicked off our final show, a Margaret Sullavan double-bill. This loose adaptation of the novel by Frederick Lewis Allen marked her screen debut. She is luminous as a winsome ingenue who has one tender night of romance with John Boles before he is shipped overseas to fight in World War One, never dreaming that she has borne him a son. Ten years go by but her heart never mends, especially after learning that he is married and prosperous—at least until the Wall Street crash of 1929. To call this a soap opera is to belittle its skillful storytelling, under the direction of John M. Stahl, who already had Back Street to his credit and would go on to make Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, and Leave Her to Heaven. John Boles is no one’s idea of a great actor but his underplaying of the final scene—which I won’t spoil here—is absolutely perfect.
THE GOOD FAIRY (1935) has an impressive pedigree: Preston Sturges adapted the play by Ferenc Molnar, and it was directed by William Wyler, arguably the most talented of Carl Laemmle’s many relatives. Sullavan plays an orphan who is chosen by smooth-talking Frank Morgan to be an usherette at his movie palace. Naturally he has designs on her, but an observant waiter (Reginald Owen) appoints himself as her protector, even when she reaches out to a poor but honest lawyer (Herbert Marshall) to pretend to be her husband. Snappy dialogue and a brisk pace make this a delight to watch. Of the six films we ran, this is the only one available on DVD, from Kino Lorber.