coffeedan1927
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Posts posted by coffeedan1927
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The old Trivia discussion is still here, and can be accessed in the new Archives section. However, we can't add anything onto it, so to clear up any confusion, I'll repost Monday's question and answer here:
Q: In the Marx Brothers movie DUCK SOUP, what is the name of the dear departed husband of Gloria Teasdale (Margaret Dumont?
A: Chester V. Teasdale, ex-president of Freedonia -- correctly answered by bradf519, whose bifocals must be at least as strong as mine!
We now return you to the newly scheduled Trivia folder already in progress . . .
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You got it right, Laura! Great job!
Just to make sure everybody knows, there's an announcement in this folder that the Trivia discussion is going to be moved to its own folder on the Forums page on Monday! Thanks, everybody -- it wouldn't have happened without your participation. Thanks also for all the support you've given to me and Mongo. And lastly, thanks to Cindy, wherever you are -- without you this whole thing wouldn't have started! We miss you!
Okay, time for me to shut up and let Mongo take the wheel -- see you all on Monday!
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I stand corrected on this one. A few months back, I found a couple of articles describing Richard Barthelmess's voice doubling in WEARY RIVER in detail. Johnny Murray, a cornetist with the Cocoanut Grove orchestra, sang for Barthelmess, and Hollywood theatre pianist Frank Churchill played the piano for him. Barthelmess and Murray rehearsed by singing together, but when the scenes were filmed, only Murray and Churchill were singing and playing into the microphone off the set. (Barthelmess was "playing" a piano that was deadened with felt so it would make no sound.)
When it was revealed that Barthelmess did not really play and sing in the film, it touched off a firestorm of protest in the press over his "deception" (probably because it was done so well!). Barthelmess was embarrassed enough to issue a public apology, saying essentially that any voice coming out of his mouth in subsequent films would be entirely his own.
Incidentally, WEARY RIVER was based indirectly on the career of Fred Garrison, an inmate in a Missouri prison who had a regular radio program on one of the local stations, where he sang and led a band. Upon his release, he also toured on a regional vaudeville circuit for eight months. Like Barthelmess in the film, Garrison was also billed as "The Master of Melody."
And there were practical reasons for making WEARY RIVER a part-talkie. In a Variety article from late 1928, Warner Brothers announced they were going to cut the sound content in their films from 100 percent to no more than 75 percent, because they found that audiences tired more easily watching all-talking films. (At the time this article appeared, Warner Brothers was the only studio making all-talking feature-length films.) This is one aspect of the talkie revolution that has yet to be adequately covered -- the studios not only had to learn how to make talking films, but audiences had to learn how to watch them.
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The exact day varies, but they usually post the new schedule sometime during the last week of the month. The June schedule just went up yesterday. Go to the Flash 5 schedule, click on the forward arrow under the calendar until you come to June, hit the "PRINT MONTH" key at the top of the page, and you'll see it.
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You're right in there, Laura! A lot of people still don't guess this one, but the title character in the movie (as in the book) is actually the elusive inventor Clyde Wynant, played in the film by Edward Ellis. The association of detective Nick Charles as the Thin Man seems to begin tenuously in ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939) and definitely in SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN (1941).
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First of all, a correction: A friend of mine, who follows my exploits in this discussion, called me last week and told me that Marie Dressler's dog in DINNER AT EIGHT was named Tarzan, not Mussolini.
Well, I watched the movie this weekend, just to be on the safe side -- and sure enough, Marie did call him Tarzan. Mea culpa -- it shows what can happen when you use the stage play as a source . . .
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Trivia -- Week of April 7, 2003
in Trivia
Posted
At the suggestion of the TCM web staff, I'll be starting a new trivia discussion each week in this folder. Apparently, the old discussion was hard to archive because it was so long, so TCM asked us to break it up in some way to make that job easier.
So look for a new discussion here each week!