Fact-Checking Hollywood Babylon II

I picked up a second-hand copy of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon II for 50p. Now I have the set.

Kevin Brownlow quoted to me Anger’s answer to the question, “How do you do your research?” “Mainly by mental telepathy.” And so it has become sadly fashionable to debunk Anger’s investigations speculations lies, as in the commendable You Must Remember This podcast. Well, I never saw a bandwagon I didn’t want to jump on, even at the risk of upsetting the applecart, so I thought I’d have a go at fact-checking Anger using his own methods. Tuning my mental aerial to UHF, I leafed through the sordid pages of the discounted scandal sheet, and attempted to pick up Corrections from Beyond. This is what I come up with:

Page 96: “Meanwhile, back on d’Este Drive, left with a lonely libido in his spacious hacienda, along with his python-mistress, Elsie, a half dozen bed-trained dobermans, a talking macaw named Copulate, zoo-keeper Lionel [Atwill] maintained a rigidly disciplined schedule as a cog in the factory-studio wheel during the week.”

THE TRUTH: Yeah, none of that happened.

Page 127: “During production of Rebel without a Cause, James Dean was host to a thriving colony of crabs.”

THE TRUTH: There is no such film as REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. The sentence should probably read, “During production of A THRIVING COLONY OF CRABS, Dean Jones was host to a raven without a caw.” Or maybe “During production of THE HOST, crabby Jim Dale was cause of a rebel colony, or craved a threnody.” Or maybe it shouldn’t be there at all.

Page 185: “After a three-year absence, [Bobby Driscoll] returned to the screen in 1958, in a B-programmer–Bernard Girard’s The Party Crashers. By a curious coincidence, his co-star was the lobotomized Frances Farmer, making her benumbed comeback after sixteen years away from the movies.

THE TRUTH: it’s hardly a “curious coincidence” that two actors happen to appear in the same film. Is it a curious coincidence that WHITE HOUSE DOWN co-stars Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx? In fact, my telepathy tells me that’s probably the film Anger was thinking of. Anyway, Frances Farmer never had a lobotomy, and by a curious coincidence, THE PARTY CRASHERS also stars Doris Dowling, Denver Pile and Onslow Stevens. Uncanny, isn’t it?

Page 235: “Shapely blond Carole Landis rose to stardom in Hal Roach’s One Million B.C. in which she played a primitive cavewoman. her 1948 Fourth-of-July suicide, provoked by unrequited love for Rex Harrison, caused a hullaballoo and a half for Mr. and Mrs. Moviegoer.”

THE TRUTH: Carole was a blonde, not a blond, and the cavewoman she portrayed for Roach, far from being primitive, was really a quite sophisticated troglodyte by the standards of the time (1940). Rex Harrison did not appear in the picture. Nor do George Moviegoer and his wife Ethel (nee Theatregoer). Landis’ tragic suicide cannot properly be called a “Fourth-of-July” affair since I doubt any festive tie-in was intended and anyway it occurred the following day.

Anger tastefully has a whole chapter on suicides. On the page opposite Landis, we get the following:

“A large quantity of sleeping pills had cured [Dorothy Dandridge] of her amnesia.”

THE TRUTH: Dorothy Dandridge did not suffer from amnesia, which cannot be treated with sleeping pills anyhow. I think the word Anger is groping for is “insomnia.” I think possibly it’s Anger who’s suffering from amnesia, or maybe aphasia.

Page 312: “[…] Claudette Colbert who was said to be among the first to advise the President to invade Grenada–she was far from delighted at the prospect of an island full of Reds so near to her palatial Barbados estate.

THE TRUTH: No such person as Claudette Cobert ever existed. Anger is evidently thinking of British actor Claude Hulbert (pictured). Though Hulbert never actually invaded Grenada, he was famous for his fussiness about being filmed from the correct side. Whole sets had to be rebuilt to avoid catching him from an unflattering angle. The most famous instance of this was on HEAVEN’S GATE (1980), where an entire western town had to be razed to the ground because it was facing the wrong way. This was all the more remarkable because Hulbert was not cast in the film, but perfectionist director Michael Cimino was taking no chance of offending the powerful star, who died in 1964.

All of the Cromwells

John Cromwell cameos in ANN BICKERS as “sad-faced doughboy.”

I tweeted James Cromwell, actor and son of John Cromwell, to tell him about John Cromwell week, and he was nice enough to retweet me. And then kind enough to comment on my review of THE GODDESS.

Here is his Dad, in Anne Vickers, as “the lonesome soldier,” a memorable bit. Cromwell made almost as many walk-ons as Hitchcock. Lots to enjoy in this pre-code social drama on penal reform and women in the workplace. I never realised Sinclair Lewis, the original author, went in for ridicuous names — Walter Huston plays Barney Dolphin (his wife is Mona — but then, what goes well with Dolphin>), Edna Mae Oliver is Malvina Wormser, Sam Hardy is Russell Spaulding (not an African explorer), Murray Kinnell is Dr. Slenk and Mitchell Lewis rejoices in the name of Captain Waldo.

Great montage of prison abuses, all filmed from Godlike high angle, presided over by a big floating head of Irene Dunne, regretful but powerless to intervene as she is just a big translucent head.

Apparently this movie, and SIGN OF THE CROSS, led directly to the forming of the Catholic Legion Of Decency (CLOD for short). I guess La Dunne does have extramarital affairs and pregnancies and DOESN’T DIE, which is of course the most immoral thing of all.

BLIND PIANISTS

Sightless ivory-ticklers abound. In THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE, Herbert Marshall’s sonata serves as a kind of musical narrator for the story of Robert Young (disfigured pilot) and Dorothy McGuire (plain spinster) who discover their inner beauty under the influence of the titular love nest, which serves as a kind of stone tape, imbued with the happy memories of honeymooning couples. Sophisticated schmaltz of a higher order — each moment of crass tearjerking is balanced by sequences of surprising delicacy and intelligence, Young liked it so much he retired to a little home he named after the movie.

It’s moving and strange, which is what it ought to be. As is the Hollywood way, McGuire’s supposed homeliness is limited to a wig and unsympathetic lighting but Young’s war scars, though subtle, are actually kind of upsetting. The story has an awkward circle to square, asserting the importance of inner beauty while transforming its attractive stars back and forth between dowdied-down versions and glitzy showbiz icons. Val Lewton scribe DeWitt Bodeen contributed to the script, and it has a bit of the Lewton sense of the uncanny about it.

In NIGHT SONG, Dana Andrews is a (convincing) pianist, embittered by his loss of sight. Merle Oberon seeks to overcome his trust issues by feigning blindness herself. Well, what could possibly go wrong with that bright idea? An impossible story premise enlivened by Hoagy Carmichael who redefines laconic minimalism, and Edith Barrymore, who acts for two.

This one is so set on being high-class and tony that it comes off a little dull, which I call The Merle Oberon Effect, but it’s beautifully made. David Wingrove says, “They show it all the time on Movies4Men. I’m not sure what kind of men they’re targeting.” Whenever I switch to that channel I get Cliff Robertson in a submarine.

REVENGER’S TRAVESTY

In SON OF FURY, Roddy McDowell grows up to be Tyrone Power (well, there’s a KIND of continuity in that) driven by the ambition to punch George Sanders in his gloating, spud-like face. Frances Farmer and Gene Tierney provide distractions. Cromwell worked hard with Gene to scale down her thespic efforts, resulting in a simplicity that redeemed her earlier hysterical excess in BELLE STARR and THE SHANGHAI GESTURE: from here on in, she knew what she was doing. Lovely Hawaian love song scenes, and Sanders gets duly walloped. But he won the next round: to Sanders’ horror, Power died of a heart attack while filming their duel in SOLOMON AND SHEBA.

Also: Elsa Lanchester runs a grog shop. I’ve never consumed grog but I would force myself to acquire the taste.

JC did a bit of filling-in on John Brahm’s entertainingly loopy GUEST IN THE HOUSE, previously addressed here. I think the really extreme shots evince Brahm’s expressionist bent, but who knows: Cromwell was no slouch, compositionally.

Except early on: DANCE OF LIFE is one of those early talkies where we’re always observing from the wrong distance and angle, a result of all those sound proof booths crowding round the cast like Daleks. A whey-faced youth called Oscar Levant can be glimpsed through the print scratches. At last, a pianist who can see, but wisely chooses not to.

CRIME DOES NOT

THE RACKET should be fiery and terrific, but the original play has been laden with so many unnecessary scenes, mostly expositional and undramatic, it never seems to start. Blame Howard Hughes — Cromwell did a good job of escaping directorial duties on I MARRIED A COMMUNIST, a project every director in Hollywood seems to have been threatened with at one time or another. Cromwell said yes to all demands but stalled until his contract ran out, a wise course.

At least with Roberts Mitchum and Ryan, THE RACKET gives Cromwell great shoulders to frame his shots over.

THE SCAVENGERS has sort-of interesting B-list talent (Vince Edwards, Carol Ohmart) but this Philipines thriller, from the tail end of Cromwell’s directorial career, suffers from a fairly hackneyed script and a music track that’s on random, behaving like a player piano that got hit during a saloon brawl. The dramatic cues always seem to come on seconds too late, or too early. The movie LOOKS pretty good, though, and gathers some conviction as it goes: Ohmart’s last scene has thrilling echoes of DEAD RECKONING.

AND THEN

There’s more, much more, to be enjoyed, often in convenient pairings: LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY and TOM SAWYER would make a fine double-feature, as might THE FOUNTAIN (Ann Harding) and UNFAITHFUL (Ruth Chatterton), while Canadian backwoods drama JALNA could pair up with the misbegotten SPITFIRE, in which Katharine Hepburn boggles every instinct known to man by playing a hillbilly (Appalachia by way of Bryn Mawr). Tex Avery did a pretty good Hepburn caricature, so I’m imagining this crossed with his LITTLE RURAL RIDING HOOD, La Hepburn opening doors with her prehensile toes, etc… Cromwell, of course, was well aware this casting was insane, but he was at RKO, so what could you do? Campaign for Ginger Rogers?

THE WORLD AND THE FLESH still seems to mark the moment when Cromwell really engaged with cinema, and it may have been motivated by his absolute contempt for the script, a farrago of Russian Revolution clichés and fantasies he knew to be utter bilge. Desperation breeds inspiration, and like Sidney Furie stamping on the script of THE IPCRESS FILE before making a masterpiece out of it, Cromwell energized his dormant stylistic powers, and increased in stature forthwith.

I came, I saw, I got it

COME AND GET IT, directed by Howard Hawks and William Wyler, begins with a dinner-bell ringing over the main title. I admired its obviousness. When, as the second line of the film, a kitchen boy cries, “Come and get it!”, my admiration increased. A couple of scenes later, espousing his philosophy of TAKE-TAKE-TAKE, aspiring oligarch Edward Arnold says, “Who’s going to pass up a million bucks just lying on the ground saying ‘Come and get it!'” I knew I was in the company of a film that would spare no effort to ram its points home. This extended to the way the world of the film sometimes seems to contain just the one song, “Alma Lee”, which is sung automatically whenever anybody suggests a bit of music, or whenever Frances Farmer shows up, or whenever Edward Arnold thinks about Frances Farmer.

For the third auteur of COME AND GET IT (maybe the second, since Wyler took the job under protest, and concentrated on following orders in a workmanlike manner) is Sam Goldwyn, and for some reason when a producer takes creative charge of a project, the obviousometer rises until the needle is in the red, swinging back and forth and bludgeoning the viewer with every plot point.

The story goes that Hawks departed from the script prepared, a faithful rendition of Edna Ferber’s tale of rampant capitalism, concealing this from producer Goldwyn, who was ill abed with an infected gall bladder. When the boss was well enough to view rushes, he flipped, firing Hawks, and calling in Wyler. Wyler refused the job and Golwyn flipped further, becoming so hysterical that his wife rushed into the room and set about his legs with a fly-swatter, hoping to calm him. (This gives us a charming insight into life with the Goldwyns, I feel.) Deciding that if he valued his career he’d better show willing for once, Wyler agreed to take the job. Nobody seems to know how much of the finished film is Hawks and how much Wyler.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE II.

Certainly the opening half-hour feels like Wyler, with Arnold as Barney Glasgow, a macho tough guy like Victor McLaglan in A GIRL IN EVERY PORT, only more driven and ambitious, like John Wayne in RED RIVER. To Hawks, this kind of ruthless go-getter is essentially positive, although he may need to have his egocentrism tempered by calmer friends. Arnold’s best pal, Walter Brennan, is the same Walter Brennan you always get in a Hawks film, only here he has a yumping Yimminy Swedish accent (he actually does say “Yumping Yimminy” at one point).

While we’re on the subject of stereotypes, the infamous Snowflake actually turns up as a train porter, and is referred to as “Snowflake” by Arnold. Well, if you can’t have any lines, at least getting referred to by name by the star is something, I guess. It’s weird because I was just discussing Snowflake with Diarmid Mogg of The Unsung Joe, and he’s kindly passed on some Snowflake research he’d done, which will form the basis of an upcoming post.

Snowflake (far right) does his thing.

The early scenes of logging feel very Hawksian — manly men and tough women, engaging in dangerous work without complaint, drinking and fighting and singing and loving. In fact, the spectacular logging scenes are the work of the second unit, and constitute the best stuff in the picture. While the score is playing sweeping romance and adventure, we get image after image of death-defying lumberjacks dynamiting colossal frozen stacks of logs into the river — Wisconsin is being massively despoiled before our eyes, but Goldwyn’s composer doesn’t seem aware of it, even though one of the things Goldwyn was mad at Hawks for was his neglect of the novel’s environmental theme.

Once Arnold is rich, and we jump forward twenty years so that the first Frances Farmer (saloon-singing floozy with a heart of gold) is dead, and her daughter (sweet but scheming) is grown up, the film enters a more civilized phase, and Hawksian echoes become harder to detect. This oddly-inflected shot of Frances Jnr ironing seems more like the work of Wyler, but a Wyler who is struggling to engage with the material. His habit of cutting straight down the line from master shot to medium shot is in evidence, so it does seem like the first 40 minutes are mainly Hawks and the last hour mainly Wyler/Goldwyn.

(Goldwyn’s “perfectionism” has strange, arbitrary limits — when Brennan’s niece, a waitress, serves Arnold in a hotel, we cut to a shot excluding her, and Arnold remarks, “She’s a nice girl.” Since as far as the audience knows, she’s still standing right in front of him, this seems weird behaviour. In fact, she’s left. I can’t imagine a blunder like this in either a Hawks or a Wyler movie.)

“Come and get it!” cries Arnold, inviting his friends to lunch in the dining car. He’s taking his old logging chum Brennan back to Chicago, mainly so he can keep the young Farmer around. Smitten with the first Farmer, whom he passed up in favour of a rich society wife, he’s equally smitten with the younger, and she’s prepared to exploit the married older man’s affection in order to get ahead. It’s not certain if Hawks could have found sympathy for Farmer’s character here, and he was notoriously loathe to deal with characters he didn’t like, so this may have been the part where he started messing with the plot.

In fact, the key to her character is that while she realises at once that Arnold finds her attractive, she does NOT realise that it’s because of his suppressed love for her late mother. Not knowing of the earlier affair, she has no way of suspecting this, so she doesn’t realise how emotionally vulnerable the old fellow is.

“You have a paper cup and my daughter wants to marry you.”

In Chicago, where Arnold has an opulent office that throbs with the ERASERHEAD-like thrum of industry, sounding like Arnold’s heart trying to explode, there is Arnold’s family, including his son, Joel McCrea. In another irony (this film is choked with them), the more environmentally-minded son’s big idea for the family business is, wait for it, paper cups. McCrea has a thankless role, though not as embarrassing as his part in BARBARY COAST, the other Wyler-Hawks-Goldwyn mash-up. (BARBARY COAST is a near-classic, though, thanks to Miriam Hopkins, Edward G Robinson and Walter Brennan — as a portrait of a wild and lawless land, it’s like the film GANGS OF NEW YORK could have been if it had a plot worth caring about. SATYRICON is the film GANGS could have been if Scorsese had been allowed to dispense with plot altogether.)

“You know, the more I think about that paper cup of yours, the better I like it!”

McCrea is soon smitten with Farmer, leading to the undignified sight of father and son sparring for the girl’s affections. It’s pretty obvious that Hollywood morality will prevail, with the soap opera resolved happily for the youngsters, perhaps less so for Arnold, and any pro-environment or anti-capitalist message swept discretely under the rug. THERE WILL BE BLOOD this ain’t.

Arnold’s daughter (the lovely Andrea Leeds from STAGE DOOR), with whom he also has an oddly flirtatious relationship, come to think of it, gets a subplot of her own, adding to the film’s sense of fragmentation, although at least her story reflects on Arnold’s — like him, she has to choose between a socially advantageous marriage and true love. And impressively, she tells Arnold that if she’s forced to marry the rich schnook, she’ll cheat on him. (it’s 1936 and the Production Code rules supreme, so this is a surprising statement.)

What seems likely is that Hawks realised that the first part of the story made excellent material for him, but the later developments had no appeal, either for him or the audience — since Hawks had what moguls like Goldwyn always liked to imagine they had, a genuine visceral sense of what the public wanted. And since Hawks, like a few of those moguls, notably Zanuck, had a writer’s appreciation of story and character, that sense was actually grounded in craft.

Wyler, who had just made a great film (DODSWORTH) about the emotional travails of a successful capitalist, was now forced to participate in a mostly mediocre one. I don’t blame him for any of the film’s weakness. All he can do, without having been involved in casting or choosing of costumes or setting up the script, and evidently feeling no affinity for the material, is work on the visual values, so the film becomes more pictorial, and Frances Farmer gets some beautiful closeups with her lace hat shading her face. Although moments later, there’s a nicely dramatic composition as Arnold catches his son with his prospective mistress.

This is followed by another, and then another, as if Wyler was putting all he could into at least making the ending play like something you might want to see. It’s vintage W.W., big, emphatic and architectural shots that express oceans of dramatic tension and barely-suppressed violence. Then Arnold’s wife (the same one from EASY LIVING) talks sense into him, and we get A SHOT TOO FAR, this rather amusing fake deep-focus effect, where a gigantic triangle vibrates in the foreground as Arnold pretends to strike it from four feet away.

“Come and get it!”