Variety (Jan 1949)

Wednesday, January 5, 1949 forty-third P^S^O^Ti' Anniversary 15 Pictnres Hake Paragmphsi By SID GARFIELD Doinr Broadway column pub- licity for a movie company has its compensations. Digging data on many of the real life and flctiorial characters brought to life pn our Burbank sound stages stands you in good stead when that grim note from Varikty arrives: "Get your Anniversary piece, in early — and make it interesting!" The following essay is a modest little answer. . Warners made "Mark Twain" in 1944. Hustling for radio tieups, we found there was no existing record of Twain's ■ actual voice, allhougli many of his wnetrating epigrams vfere delivered in the film by Freddie March. Twain did visit Tilomas. Edison ona time and, ■while they sat around in the lat^ ter's laboratory cutting up con- versational touches, Edison had his talking machine record Twain's voice.-A fire in the plant in 1914 destroyed the only record of the famous writer's speaking stj-le— and, bang, there went a tieup with '•'Luncheon at Sardi's" or Joe Franklin. if ^ i)t When we filmed "Saratoga Trunk," with Ingrid Bergman, some of us Tecalled that Edna Ferber likes to get her friends into the pages of her books. She did it to Franklin. P. Adams in her .toine called, "The Girls," describ- ing the character in question as ''Rutherford Hayes Adler." An- other Ferber Algonquin crony furnished' literary ammunitions They'll tell you that Nej»sa Mc- Nein was the one Miss Ferber had in mind when she created the heroine "Dallas: O'Mara" in her best-selling "So Big." .*..■.«, And it doesn't end there^ of course. Floyd Dell was supposed to have had Upton Sinclair in mind when he penned . "An Old Man's Folly." Ben Hecht could never deny all the rumors that he caricatured Maxwell Bodenheim in "Count Bruga." Bodenheim scratched back at Hecht in "Ninth Avenue." P. Scott Fitzgerald and Edmund Wilson played literary patty-cake with each other in "The Beautiful and Damned" and "The Crime in the Whistler Room." ■.:, :* .* ., *, ■, Another Warner film. "Devo- tion," was the saga of the scrib- bling Bronte sisters who ran up And down the best-selling lists of their day. Alec Woollcott always insisted that, given a little more time, the girls could have conie up with some real masterpieces for the all-time shelves. And that re- minded a few of our researchers that several writers were cut down right smack in the middle of what niight have been a classic. Charles Dickens succumbed in the midst of putting "The Mystery of Edwin Urood on paper. Thackeray never completed "Denis Duval." Frank Noms never 5ot to the last page of Vandovenand the Brute." His brother, Charles, finished it for mm. Joseph Conrad, De Maupas- sant, and Blasco Ibanez passed away trying to get completed tomes to their publishers. . • ♦ * Came the fabulous "Life With ifather, and all of us at Jack War- ners command labored night and oay — Clarence, of course. There were many father-and-soh stories to send along for columnists to ponder. A favorite at that time around the sixth floor in 44th hlreet was of the night George M. Lohan took his beloved dad to a swank Fifth Avenue cafe for din- ner. The food was eminentlv sat- isiying, the wine perfectly chilled, and nearby a violinist ca.ioled per- lect Victor Herbert music from his instrument. ul'^^^" said George, dreamily. It you hadn't taken me traipsing around the country in vaudeville, 1 might have been playing here tonight." . "True. Georgie," said the elder t-olian, "you might — but you wouldn't be eating here!" Another little anecdote to serve «s concerned Eddie Foy, Sr., vvlio ^Vas fond of naming his children alter friends. Once, onlv a few boups after a Foy addition. Lee '•ni^tt was on the phone asking: 'Eddie, yrill you name this one for me?" Foy thought a minute, tlien ex- ploded: "Are you crazy? People will tnmk the kid's Chinese—Lee Fov!" :■■■■*• *•,■*.■.■ Then David Butler did "My Wild Irish Rose" for us. And before you could say Mort Blumenstock, I was scurrying around to the Lambs Club for • material on the late, golden - voiced Chauncey Olcott. And on Bernard Dunn and Bill Scanlon, Andrew Mack, Fiske O'Hara, J, K. Emmelt, Alari Doone and the others. . ■>- '■■ ■■'X Olcott, I learned, was a first- rate American, as well as enter- tainer. Once a report persisted that Olcott was Jewish. When asked, he said: "What difference does it, make? Can I sing, or can't 1? Jew or Gentile, a man's religion is ^uch a a private afi'air it seems to me to be the height of bad taste to afiirm or deny in public that you're one thing or the other. It simply isn't anybody's business but your "own. My mission in life is to entertain my people. I have no other." Ike Eisenhower said practically the same thing years' later, as Quentin Reynolds reported in a recent Col- lier's story. ■ You .iust couldn't write about "My Wild Irish Rose" without mentioning Johti McCormack. John, himself, scored a great suc- cess in the film, "Song in My Heart." Later, he was invited to contribute a bit to another movie. The role called for him to be seen singing at a party whereupon his host and a guest stroll from the room to a terrace, the camera fol- lowing them. McCor;mack saw the rushes in the projection room and said: "That's the first time an au- dience ever walked out on Wie!" We, discovered that, talented though he was, Fiske O'Hara was a temperamental artist who got into many arguments with his as- sociates. At one time, he was not speaking to his accompanist, his arranger, his agent, and his pit conductor. Somebody asked Cohan if O'Hara had made a curtain speech at the opening performance of a new vaude bill that week. "Nope," said Cohan, "O'Hara's not talking to his audience, either!"' Joe Laurie, Jr., bless his ency- clopedic little heart, wrote "April Showers" for us andJbe vaudeville researching was Y^ctic. Elbert Hubbard, we discovered, got: off the most touching! tribute ever penned to twora-dayers, to wit: "Vaudeville performers are all children. They never grow up. The, Gods love them, for they die young, no matter how long they live!" Winchell surely must have-writ- ten aWut the acrobat who always closed the early Palace bills, when audiences were hustling towards' the exits, their backs against this straining gymnast. After half-a- dozen years, the acrobat went to his agent at the start of a new season and asked for more com- plete time. "Can't," snapped the agent, "you need a new finish." "New finish," screamed, the tum- bler, "nobody's seen the old one yet!" ■ ■ ■ I wish Warners would hurry up and make the life stories of such friends of mine as John Garfield, Phil Silvers, press agent Eddie Jaffe • and Jaeger, • ,the waiter in Lindy's. Have I done research! Wanted: A Hollywood Abbey Noted Author Urges Some Permanent Shrine for the Film Greats Akin to ' All the Other Arts By RUPERT HUGHES r Rupert Hushes ■ .■■ Hollywood;. ■ , - It is high time that the motion picture people should begin'to take themselves, their art and their industry, seriously. By "seriously," I mean, •^vith statuary, memorials, pantheons and museums, {Re- claiming the high dignity which is due their living and their dead. There are statues and shrines to^ famous poets, painters, play- wrightsy, actors, • singers, com- posers, sculptors, architects— men and women in all fields of entertainment. But moving pic- ture people are always either bragging: or apologizing for the wrong things.' Say what you will of the de- tails, the motion picture is one of the greatest , achievements and influences of man's devising. When Will Rogers died I was appointed chairman of the GaUfornia branch of the WiU Rogers Memorial Fund. The New Yorkers and others of the central committee refused to honor him with a monument : or anything of the sort.: : I am ashamed to say that 1 raised only $50^000 in California, almost entirely from Hollywood. The condition was made, that the money raised here should be spent here where Will spent his last years as a motion picture actor and an author. For a time he was a motion: picture producer, of all tilings! Yet when it came to deciding what form the me- morial to him should take-r-what do you suppose the committee decided? One of ; them: said that Will was a great "philosopher.'' Which he ,w4s, of course, if you make up your own definition of ''Philoso- pher." Well, that $50,000 was devoted to endowing schol- arships for boys and girls who wanted to study phil- osophy in the universities here! I screamed, "Bloody Murder! You'll have to do that over my dead body!" And they did. I was trampled in the dust. I voted unanimously: against- it. The rest voted unanimous- ly for it. And now, if you want to see the monument to Will Rogers in his Hollywood, home town, you have only to telephone one of the universities and find out where the Will Roger Scholar is reciting or studying. Then you can go see Kim or her. It is the only monument I ever heard of that takes regu-; lar vacations and has only certain hours of visibility. In Claremont, Okla., there is a memorial, hall and museum, but it celebrates ^Will^ the cowboy, the Oklahoman, riot the motion picture figure. Of Will's so vivid memory there is: absolutely nothing visible in this man's town. Nor is there a memorial to any one else. ; Now Pix Must Pass 'Wiggle Tesf to Get Sat. Mat M Dates Motion Picture Assn. of Ameri- ca is attempting to promote addi- tional speciill Saturday matinees for kids in theatres throughout the country by sending out about 2,500 one-sheet lobby, posters on the Children's Film Library to houses holding the weekend matinees. Children's Film Library is an MPAA-s p o n s or e d organization through which all member com- panies: provide specially-suited product: out of their vaults for the special shows. One-sheets now going out,'which will fit into a lobby frame, repro- duce a picture feature in Parade magazine recently on the "wiggle test." Latter is a scheme devised b.v Mrs. Marjorie Dawson, of the MPAA's community^ relations, de- partment, for choosing CFL films by observing how much a kid test audience Wiggles. Headline on the MPAA poster states: "Parade magazine shows how youngsters like yours select movles' your kiddies are bound, to enjoy." D. W. Griffith When David Wark Griifitli died, I persuaded Forest Lawn to offer him special ceremonies and a place of honor; but his will said that his body should be, buried in Kentucky, and his wife had his last rites celebrated in a funeral parlor. This city is \a Mecca for tourists crazy to see a studio and a scene being shot; Our actors and ac- tresses are mobbed and bruised and almost stripped in the frenzy for autographs or souvenirs of their sacred persons and pensonalities. Numerous motion picture figures are more widely known-and more beloved than any other human be- ings in -the world's history, not excluding your Na- poleons, Shakespeares, Alexanders the Great, Czars or Emperors and Empresses. "Vet where are their statues, their shrines? What placards on their birthplaces? What streets or parks or cities are named after them? The slaughterers and oppressors of millions are immortalized everywhere by their effigies and,their -names. But the entertainers and delighters who - have made billions weep and laugh and glow^ forget for: a while their woes, and .understand their fellow beings better—they are anonymous and overlooked in sculpture, painting, architecture and nomencla- ture. For this the motion picture people themselves are to blame. It is not for them to demand that-other cities and nations put up visible tokens of their in- debtedness and their homage. But it is up to Holly- Wood to :set the example and lovingly perpetuate the brilliant men and beautiful women who have brought prosperity here and gone about the world like visiting angels, bringing love, laughter, beauty, and all the uplifts of all the emotions. : When many years ago a Boston clergyman spoke Of "that horrible HoUywoodi" nobody answered him by citing the horrors of Boston history. Yesterday and tomorrow the rain of abuse goes on and wiH go on, but why must, Hollywood take it lying down? Sometimes I get pretty discouraged about Holly-, wood and the movies; and they arc discouraging if' you are looking for perfection in art and conduct. But if you compare us with any other art or business, or place or period, and deal as frankly with the other end of tiie comparison as:people do with us, we shall not come out so badly. .Take London for instance and the drama in :'*the spacious days" of Queen Elizabeth. The plays look pretty grand from here and we are always being told how wonderf ul they were. But if you get closer to them, they begin to look more and more like Hollywood. The playhouses, for instance, were permitted to', exlM only on the wrong side of the river among-the; bawdy houses. And actors were classed with male prostitutes and the practicers of other illegal activi' ties;' The highest figures in high society patronized, them, but so they did the light ladies of the evening. But their artistic and social rating were of the lowest. I Yet Shakespeare Is perhaps the greatest name of rail English names, and at his birthplace they have , & statue and a shrine and a memorial theatre: Pil- :grims flock tliither to pay homage as to a sacred city» : Yet, if you are honest enough to admit it. Shakes^ peare's plays, like our successful films (including "Henry V" and "Hamlet," not to mention Orson's [ Orsonian "Macbeth") were nearly all of them taken from best sellers changed beyond recognition, and from older plays that were re-adapted to the tastes of the time: We are incessantly humiliatea l)y the bad actions of some of our good actors on the screen who are such "bad actors" off it. But it has only recently come out that "Gentle Will" Shakespeare had to bo put under bonds to keep him from cutting the throat of a couple of other fellows who had promised to cut his. That great playwright, , "The Mighty Marlowe," was killed in a tavern :brawl while trying to kill another man. ■ ■■ j'' The wonderful Ben Jonson was fof a while a tutor to young Sir Walter Raleigh, and once, when Ben got dead drunk, Raleigh put him in a pushcart and pushed him up: and down the London streets for th«- entertainment of the crowds. Yet Ben Jonson, has his bust in Westminster : Abbey, and is honored in the highest universities as - a classic. Shakespeare never saw an actress Jn a play of his; so the theati'e was spared the scandals some of our Hollywood queens have developed for the delighted^ horror of the public. In Sliakespeare's day the women roles were played by pretty boys.' And w« all know what can be accomplished in the way of : gossip by pretty boysi v One of the very first actresses on the English stage was a Mrs. Hughes, who was the mistress of Prince: Rupert. I have sometimes- claimed to : b« their lineal descendant; but there are a few gaps in-' the genealogy. Among the most frightful atrocities of Hollywood are the story conferences; the number of writers it takes to chop the life out of a boughten mastei'piece; and to substitute whatever they can compromise on after days and nights of wrangling at the company's expense-^not to mention the expense to the original , work of art. ■ - : ■ But most of the Elizabethan plays were written or carpentered by gangs: of hired playwrights whom the managers kept on small'salaries and much liquor. The proof of a man's greatness in art is not tha purity of his life but his achievement of works that last a long while and so give pleasure to: millions. Well, the films don't have to wait centuries to reach their millions: They can do it in a week. On the same night they can give truth, beauty, excite- ment, laughter, pity,: poetry, romance, imderstand- ing, what not? to Eskimos; Zulus; Chinese, Java- nese, Japanese, Senegambians, Hindus, Turks, Eu- ropeans, North and .Soutli Americans, Australians^ almost everybody but the Russians. " We spend billions of words and billions of dollars trying to bring about One World and the United Nations; but the films are the only universal lan- guage understood and responded to by the people of any race and clime. Yet its producers and performers slink about in be-diamonded humility like the Hindu untouchables. They admit that they are somehow beyond the pals of art or even respectability. They let the "artists" in other fields of art define"art" and '^artists" so . as to shut them: out. Self-Slylcd Artists The painter of some hideous "abstraction" calls himself an artist because he puts both of a woman's eyes on the same side of her nose, and makies her face a study in drunken geometry. A selfrstyled poet messes up a pack of words and calls himself an artist A sculptor talces a block of stone, makes-it look liks a seasick elephant, trying to rest his head on his behind, calls it a madonna and calls himself an artist. A composer hits all the notes at once except those that would be in accord and makes his music sound as if all the instruments were out of tune and all the players epileptics, and calls himself an artist! Ask any of tliem if a moving picture author or actor or art director or cameraman has anything to do with art, and he will make a sound resembling a seasick walrus. That is natural enough from motives of jealousy and bigotry and narrowness of mind, but the. silly thing is that motion picture people accept the labeU and dare not call themselves artists. : Nobody will ever call them artists till they call :. themselves: by that well-earned name, and pay dua reverence to^ the masters living and dead of their great and-:glorious. World-shaking; worldrhealing art. So let us raise statues of the great beauties and the great heroes, the wonderful clowns and imperson- ators. Let there be libraries where the enormously successful scenarios may be shown, their costume designs and their scene plots and the mechanical marvels they invent.: Let the names and deeds of great producers be shown as benefactors of humanity. Let us-name : streefs and squares and plazas after our great souls. Let us make Hollywood a shrine of memorials ahd souvenirs of the great people who have passed this way and lingered-here while scattering about the world the blessings of their magnetism, their charm, : their intellect, their understanding and portrayal of human nature, their miraculous ability to be almost everywhere in the -world at the: same, time and to make; life more beautiful, moi'e romantic, more ex^ citing, pitiful, diverting, all-sympathetic. Who, else has so demonstrated the oneness, the brotherhood and jiisterhood,' and familyhood: of all mankind? Where are the memorials of the infinite debt;of gratitude we owe them?: What holidays do we de^ vote to the men and women who: have made Hdlly- wood a world-word? i