A Weekend Without Warren William

I guess we’ve finished with Warren William in our Friday Watch Party, though we have one LONE WOLF film saved up for a rainy day. We went out in style with LADY FOR A DAY, which was interesting to compare with its remake, POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES — it is, of course, superior in about every way, though the later work looks handsome enough. All the padding Capra added just increases the plot’s main problem, the lack of anything for Apple Annie (May Robson/Bette Davis) to do once she becomes the recipient of largesse.

The climax does solve this nicely, but the moment when AA decides to come clean startles us into realizing how passive/absent she’s been for so long.

Warren William, of course, is a zillion times better than Glenn Ford as Dave the Dude, but it’s perhaps more surprising that Robson defeats Davis in every respect. Hard to put one’s finger on why, but if there was a casting call and they both auditioned, the choice would be obvious.

Peter Falk, the best thing in POCKETFUL, is likewise beaten by Ned Sparks at his Ned Sparksiest, honking every line like a sardonic sealion, but with the outward appearance of a human halberd.

Also: Glenda Farrell’s chestydance!

Vegetable Magnetism

By Daniel Riccuito with David Cairns

Art by Tony Millionaire

Vengeance is a tool for the powerless.

And what better revenge could a 1930s movie-going public muster than the absurdist act of turning stars into nourishment?  Take that vision of hate and spittle, Ned Sparks, pulling faces never before seen on the front of a human head. Sparks was the Great Depression’s favorite specialty item: a purple carrot.

Arguably a sweet onion, Frank McHugh had bone-weary audiences drooling in the aisles.

John Litel made a fine rutabaga.

Hand-carved parsnip, Edward Everett Horton, gave our pre-Code vegetable garden nuance.  But mainly we craved cartoon food — entertainment that mixed problem-solving and problem-salving for a seventy-five to eighty-minute span. We liked excitable, doughy screen personas as stand-ins that brought our truth to new lows.

Coming Soon!

Pat O’Brien as Spud.

Mug Shots

Art by man-myth Tony Millionaire graces a new article at MUBI, co-authored by Daniel Riccuito (of The Chiseler) and I. Subject: the pre-code avatars of, respectively, slopeyness and pointyness, Allen Jenkins and Ned Sparks. Here.