Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

Muffling ''The Racket }} Sing Sing Snickers ABOUT two years or so ago I made a 2x ^fip to Sing Sing, as a reporter this time, and interviewed one of the inmates on his confreres" tastes in pictures, .\mong other things, he told me that to them the most side-splitting of all slajjstick comedies were the supposedly realistic dramas of prisons and the underworld. As an example, he cited a Tommy Meighan opus for which, in their search for realism, they had come to Sing Sing itself for their interiors. Now we have Meighan in another underworld drama for which realism is claimed. But if scenes taken within the actual walls of Sing Sing did not seem real to the inmates of that place, will the hiring of a few gunmen, no matter how bona fide, guarantee the genuineness of this? It would seem so, for this picture has been judged as altogether too realistic by the verj men it tells of. Their testimonials have come in what is perhaps the most unique form in screen history. The \-ery types of men it deals with have done their best to stop its showing. Thomas Meighan, as the star and thus seemingly the most responsible member of the company, received five anonymous letters and many phone calls threatening his life unless he saw to it that the film was never released. Gus Eyssel, manager of the Metropolitan Theater, where 'The Racket" got its Los Angeles premiere, also recei\-ed an anonymous letter and several phone calls. Howard Hughes, the producer, and Louis Wolheim, who plays the part of Scarsi the boss racketeer, got their mystery calls, too — and so also did our friend John Doe, warning him of the fate of those who turn stool. A publicity gag? That was the first reaction of everyone. The theater men called the studio, and called them names for trying to get away with anything as raw as that. And the studio said, "Vou're another!" Our friend John Doe was the only one who did not laugh it off. Chief Jailer Frank Dewar told me, when I visited him in the county jail, that he, too, had thought it only a gag at first. But, on second thought, he appointed himself Meighan's bodyguard, and advised a change of hotels pronto. "I changed my mind the minute I laid eyes on this guy John Doe. I knew that guy well : and I also recognized other members of the cast as Chicago racketeers. If the friends or enemies of them babies had sent these letters, I knew it meant business. "I called Doe down to the office here and put him on the grill. But I couldn't get anything out of him except that he thought the thing real enough, and not a stunt. Tasked him who he thought the letters could have come from — but that guy's too damn "conwise," he wouldn't turn stool. 66 {Continued from page 6j) "5o we dusted the letters and took the finger prints, but couldn't find any that would check with them. Three of the letters were typewritten, and two were in longhand. Of the latter, one was written by a man and the other by a woman. They seemed to have been written by piersons of an ordinarj' education, but who misspelled and mispunctuated purposely. They are so hiterviewing with alarm: Cedric Belfrage, come to Clara Bow's home in Hollywood to get material for an article, fails to find the door-knobs made of solid gold and fears he cannot actually be in a film star's abode filled with obscenity as to be unfit to print. We ran down all the clues we had, but couldn't find where they came from. "Maybe Doe could have told, if he'd wanted to; maybe he couldn't. He and the rest of the boys used in that picture came from Chicago. Ten racketeers were picked up after a gun-fight on North Broadway last week. They were all from Chicago; their cars still had the Illinois license plates, even. That's all I know." Precautions and Alarms SO, on Dewar's advice, Meighan was ver>' careful for several days. He was warned especially against bombs that might be planted in his car, warned never to start the car without first raising the hood and making a careful inspection of the engine and its wiring. On one occasion, the chauffeur pressed the starter and there was no respwnse. He tried again, — and again an ominous nothing happened. Waiting for absolutely nothing more. Tommy opened the door and — lit out! But it was a false alarm. Nothing happened, either then or later. Meighan has now gone East, and the others who were threatened are still alive. Los .Angeles gangland seems to have lost its bid kick now that Marco, its alleged leader, is in jail. And the name of Marco brings up a little ptoint that will show why this picture comes a little too close to home. In the picture, Scarsi. killing a man, hands the gun to his chauffeur and lets the latter take the bumpw. In his trial now running in Los Angeles, NIarco is accused of exactly the same thing. .And the scene in the picture was shot before the charge at the trial was made. Is it surprising if there are several other little things that some people would rather not have shown? So much for the gangsters. There still remaiq the politicians, without whose help the racketeers might have rough sledding. In the picture, when Scarsi is arrested, a bailbond shark appears with a writ of habeas corpus signed by the judge before the arrest. When Meighan, as a police captain, refuses to recognise the writ, Scarsi orders the district attorney to phone the "old man" — presumably the mayor. And there is enough of similar character to show that this well-organized, large-scale racketeering gang could not have lived unless the city administration had been with it. So far, the picture has been banned in Chicago, Dallas, and Portland, Oregon. In Dallas an appeal was made and granted. But in the other two cities it still cannot be seen. A Portland newspaper, speaking of the ban in that city, says: "This was app>arently a political decision, the chief reason offered being that the film showed city officials as being crooks. Pure minded Portland must never see an oflScial on the screen who was not honest. It might begin suspecting the home folks." Although New York did not ban the picture, it emasculated it to the extent of cutting twenty-five titles. On the whole, the picture has practically no sex stuff; and the great majority of the titles cut had absolutely none. Thus there can seemingly be little or no argument as to the motive for the cuts. Bartlett Cormack, the author of the play, is frank in his interpretation of it: "Twenty were purely political, and the board, being political, was inspired by the same protecti\-e and probably self-conscious, indignant motives that succeeded in barring the play in Chicago. I suppose the suggestion that a district attorney could be in league with an underworld baron is too much for a politician to let the public see." Consider some of the titles cut, and then form your own opinion. For instance, there is the one where the district attorney tells Scarsi: "We can't carry you and this election both." Or where the racketeer defies the district attorney: "Do you imagine I'd let any lousy politician who'd knock his own mother over the head for a vote tell me what to do?" And the newspaper reporter's explanation of why the district attorney's assistant finally shot Scarsi when the latter threatened to spill the works: "So that government of the professionals, by the professionals, and for the professionals, shall not perish from the earth." Can you think of any but political reasons for the cutting of such titles?