johnnyweekes70

I do hope you get well soon, Madge, your absence is noted.

Indeed, Ed, the vindictiveness behind the monster that was MGM is probably why I prefer the Warners pictures from the time anyway. Not that I don't like MGM's early sound work, but I just don't see a lot of serious intelligence at work in some of those pictures. Sticking poor Keaton into mindless drek with Durante and I really don't blame the man for getting bombed day and night. But such is the fate of those who don't stand a ghost of chance is keeping a career going when the company you work for is more interested in a Robert Montgomery than an old has-been like Gilbert. I think you brought up the what-if Gilbert had been shifted into characters parts (regardless of ego) and maybe slightly more sinister roles. The Secret Six, The Beast of the City, even Day of Reckoning (with Gilbert in the Dix part), there were a lot of decent pictures coming out of MGM in the early thirties and that something Gilbert came up with himself, Downstairs, turned out to be a decent film is a testament to Gilbert's retention of creativity and that, maybe, if left to his own devices, he might have found a niche for himself in the writing and starring department. Maybe that's a stretch.

But what about John Barrymore's Raffles? I saw a few snippets of it once in a documentary on Barrymore that Mike Wallace of CBS narrated and it looked darn near exciting. Has it ever been made available?

And feaito, next time TCM runs The Affairs of Anatol, you should check it out, if you like silents, I can't remember if you do. The print I've got on DVD is, I think, the same one TCM has shown. It's full of amazing colour-tinted title-cards and tinted sequences and is, as the back blurb about announces "in itself, a striking work of art." The film's a bit cheesy, most DeMille's are, but it really is something to see. And Reid's pretty good in it, too, so close to his end.

Thanks, Larry, for sharing the Mae Murray story. If I ever see that guy again on the beach, or in town, I'll just have to ask him about his heritage.

I think Cagney and Blondell outshone Grant Withers and Evalyn Knapp because they were simply better, or more original actors. I don't mind Withers in the Mr. Wong films but I'm not surprised his career ended up in the B's. I missed Other Men's Women, also with Withers, when TCM showed it a year or two ago as part of a William Wellman day. I was miffed. Cagney utilized those little bits, which I can't remember what he called them, or did he call them little bits, but you know what I mean, those little things he'd do to ingratiate himself with the audience. Withers could only dream of that level of performing. I particularly like Cagney's physical handiwork in The Doorway to Hell as he tells some guy about the handful clouds that come with a gun and what he does in the background of others scenes just to steal them. Brilliance from the get-go, though he'd learned so much on the stage. His pre-code work is so fascinating, I think, because most of his characters are basically unsavory types and probably not entirely ethically decent but Cagney make us care about them, and their fates, with that peculiar human element he brought to everything he did throughout his career, even the lackluster These Wilder Years in the scene where he meets the son he abandoned years ago. A very touching scene, even though the guy who plays the kid is awful. The bit in Blonde Crazy where he labels his behaviour mercenary should really turn us off him but it doesn't. Yanking Mae Clarke across the floor by her hair in Lady Killer should really turn us off his but it doesn't (although I don't know any feminists who've seen it or studied early Cagney vehicles). Sinners Holiday should be far more readily available than it is just to see the young Cagney shine and bring out the best acting in others as great actors usually do, particularly Lucille La Verne in the scene where he breaks down in front her on his knees. Of course, I only think it should be more available because one of my kids accidentally taped over it and Here Comes the Navy another time. Darn brats couldn't have picked Madame DuBarry or Night Must Fall to record over, no.

This afternoon I was at the beach with my kids and a guy strolled past us who looked a little like Wallace Reid. My first thought was that I'm probably the only guy who's ever thought this fellow looked like Wallace Reid. My second thought urged on several more about Wallace Reid himself. The first time I saw a picture with Wallace Reid, and the picture was Cecil B. DeMille's Joan the Woman, I thought Reid reminded me of Robert Mitchum. He looked half-asleep through every scene he was in. Then I saw DeMille's Carmen and thought Reid was probably overtired while he made it because he looked half-asleep. Then I saw another DeMille extravaganza, The Affairs of Anatol, and Reid looked a little more awake than he did in the previous two but still a far cry from the usual wide-eyed leading man of the time. I figured Reid's style of acting was simply low-key, that he eschewed the dramatics and the theatrics others so happily employed. Then I found out Reid was something far more than just a leading man. Still in his early twenties, he wrote and directed, or wrote or directed, many shorts that he also acted in that truly surprised me. I know Lon Chaney helmed a few but I think it's amazing that he did so much, achieved such hefty stardom, yet has almost been washed away into obscurity except for a chosen few who probably frequent this website. Of his work, I've only seen those I've mentioned. I suppose my point is that if more of his pictures survived, the number of which I don't know, would he be more fondly remembered or was his talent just a momentary glimmer in Hollywood's convulted history? I haven't really investigated the man too much and I can't remember if his addiction problems negatively affected his work's longivity following his early death, but I would suppose they did. Hollywood certainly seems to shame those whose personal demons became public knowledge. Today, Reid seems an enigma, a somewhat tired and sleepy one, whose wife's later work is far more accessible than his own. For such a talented guy, his fate, at least how I perceive it, is a tragedy. Am I wrong?

I've noticed that MGM reserved the 'stardom' in the films they handed Gilbert to himself, with maybe Way for a Sailor an exception, co-starring Beery, but never cast him alongside Shearer or Crawford but Leila Hyams and Madge Evans. To me, that suggests MGM was sliding Gilbert into second-rate films to gently ease him out of the limelight into an early grave. His talents weren't diminished, Downstairs and Queen Christina are proof of that, but I wonder if Gilbert would have survived better if he'd been snagged by Warners and given the parts George Brent slept through. I know it's a come-down from the lofty MGM but he certainly deserved better, and they couldn't have come up with anything decent for him, they should have let him go to begin with. I haven't seen The Captain Hates the Sea but it's hard to accept a man with such chemistry with the camera, a decent voice and physical charm could just fade to nothing within three years. Hard drinking certainly helps but, if MGM really wanted to keep Gilbert going strong, then decent, first-rate co-stars would have supplied. Chester Morris got better roles than Gilbert did during this period, and better co-stars. But sticking Gilbert in a picture with El Brendel?!? Providing Catherine Dale Owen as his co-star for His Glorious Night after appearing with Shearer in the Revue?!? Smells like predetermined doom to me.

Out of the Past?

"He liked to eat more than anything else." I don't remember writing that. What on earth was I thinking??

Cagney's autobiography was ghost-written by John McCabe, I think. It's not bad but Sanders' book is hilarious. When he was discussing how he'd hole himself up in his workshop in a separate residence from Zsa Zsa, I was splitting with laughter. In fact, I think I laughed my way through the whole book. Very witty (but hugely troubled) man that fellow but there were some pertinent observations about actors and acting and the whole film industry in general. He liked to eat more than anything else. Memoirs is certainly one of the better, and more geniune, autobiographies, I think. Flynn's My Wicked Wicked Ways is one of the most enjoyable but I'd rate it as an inspired novel more than an autobiography.

How could you not? There is one mystery to me about Cagney, though it doesn't apply to his pre-code films. It's Frisco Kid. I've never seen it, and I notice TCM rarely, if ever, runs it. I've always wondered about that film. As with a lot of films that have been critically lambasted over the years, I wonder it's really as bad as it's supposed to be.

featio, Raffles is a hugely enjoyable film and Colman is simply marvelous in it. He coasts through the picture with that trademark easy-going charm that leaves you in awe of him. That easy-going charm might seem quaint to the modern eye but, as anybody who likes Colman knows, that's what made him so unique. Raffles was issued on VHS but it's pretty pricey now. I was lucky to tape it off cable TV years ago. Maybe TCM will someday air some of the Goldwyn early talkies. I've never seen a Colman silent either, I'd certainly love to.

I think he was cured in House of Dracula but that doesn't explain his regression in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Thanks, Larry. Disagreements are what makes the world go 'round. I love 'em when they're good. Even I disagree with myself. I wrote that I've seen every film she made except the two stated. Oops, I forgot about the lost The Divine Woman, of which I've only seen the reel that TCM occasionally shows and will be included on the TCM Archives disc in the new boxed-set. I think my fascination with Garbo comes from my impressionable days of youth when awe stood in for developing powers of critical thinking. If I was presented the challenge of understanding Garbo's stature, or popular position, now, I'd probably wonder what all the fuss was/is about. Personally, I prefer Carole Lombard anyday...

I've seen every film she made outside of Peter the Tramp and The Saga of Gosta Berling and I do see how one could assume she overacted but I do believe Garbo was a breath of fresh air when she came along and that generally goes over big in Hollywood. Add to that tremendous beauty, individualism, mystique and all that jazz, and you got a fairly unique woman who entirely deserves to be remembered fondly for having to hold her dignity while appearing in silly, derivative vehicles again and again. If it appears she overacted, think of the scripts she was roped into making then re-examine the performances. Her work in Ninotchka, a fresh, original film for Garbo, is anything but overdone. Garbo was no dummy; she got out and stayed out when others suffered years of steadily declining crap. Garbo appeared in her share and that she holds the position she does for such generally melodramatic work is certainly something to be impressed by. Or maybe I'm just easily impressed.

So is Joan Blondell...sexy, that is. While I'm thinking of it, I think the best pre-code Cagney is Picture Snatcher. Racy, funny, extremely fast-paced, a film that should be more available than it is, which goes for all of Cagney's films come to think of it.

Gilbert as Cyrano? That would be fascinating to watch. Would the reason why Renee Adoree got more space than Gilbert in the Liberty story be because The Big Parade was really his launching point, though he'd been around for alomst a decade? I think Gilbert's quick rise and lingering descent is probably one of the saddest stories of old Hollywood. Too little, too soon, I think. From what I've seen, I'm impressed; I would love to see Downstairs slipped into the rumoured pre-code boxed set. That would be a real surprise!

Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, one of my wife's favourite films (but not mine).

Tracey---And isn't there a younger version of the Brats as well? What's with that?!? Our 10-year-old girl loves the Brats, but I think she's more into the animation-factor, if that's an excuse. I notice there isn't an average-sized or slightly 'beefy' member of Brats. That suggests to young girls one can't be attractive if one doesn't have big puffy lips, stick-legs and curvy other things. Ugh. And yeah it's off topic but it's still relevant and somehow connected to films. I phoned up the local movie-house to see what's playing and everything came with a mature-content or violent-content or nudity warning, all except Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I think the problem of soaking up violence and gender-specific modes of behaviour goes far too deep than simply what we allow or not allow our kids to see. It's an industry thing, and it's everywhere, and I just hate the idea of corporations tinkering with future generations' developing ethics and morals for the sake of cold hard dough but, then again, I can't wait for the Garbo boxed-set, even though I've got all her films, and I just love to keep putting money in the Warner machine coz I've got a problem and don't know if I'll ever not. If you're a hypocrite coz you love Tex Avery or the Looney Tunes, so am I, and so are a lot of people. Education, as you say, is really the only tool to fight the problem with or, at the very least, diffuse it. Johnny

Greta Garbo and John Gilbert's initial rendezvous in Flesh and the Devil. Very passionate; very real. Also, the remembering-the-room scene in Queen Christina. Nothing beats Garbo wandering around the bedroom as Gilbert studies her every move. Very romantic.

Cigarette cards are fascinating relics. I've got a couple featuring Basil Rathbone and Esther Ralston, though I don't remember the brand name off-hand. I saw a whole set of oval silent-screen performer cards once but couldn't justify paying the price the guy was asking.

But hasn't it always been about battles and fighting? Sgt. Rock, cowboys and indians, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, everything's always seems to revolve around violence at its core. I'm not yet a teacher, in training as I write, but one thing I find extremely depressing now more than ever, moreso than the level of violence contained in programming aimed at children, or youth, is simply the amount of sexually-oriented commercials and TV-programmes children are exposed parents have zero control over unless the darn thing's completely unplugged. Our visually-hyperactive, media-driven society (terms I use again and again) are sexing our children FAR too young, and don't get me started on Barbie or all those stupid army/cop dolls for kids with muscles bugling out everwhere, and commercials just can't be censored and what they're containing these days is simply outrageous. I wrote a paper awhile ago about negative gender stereotypes in commercials and really felt like up-chucking when I really thought about it. Teaching kids, as a parent of several, or teaching kids as a paid educator to have a proper sense of self and enough self-respect is difficult enough beside teaching them how to spell properly (which is a seriously dying art) in the face of "ax" for "ask", "libary" for "library", "probaly" for "probably" and too many more to mention. I don't where old films comes into this, or the showing of old films to children, but the more I think about it, there's a potential for danger there too, regarding sex and sexual stereotypes. I really believe most parents these days could care less what their children see. I'm appalled at what I find out children have seen, authorized by either one or the other parent, or both. Film ratings, as much as game ratings (and that's a whole other rant!!), seem to not mean anything these days. And The Simpsons is not a kids' show!! I love my little ones and they love Teletubbies and Dora, for now. The 13 year-old loves war films and war-games. For every war-glorifying spectacle I show him (because some of them are pretty good), I'll show a Paths of Glory or Pork Chop Hill to put into perspective. Kids need to be educated about the persuasive power of violence as much they need to learn about the consequences for leaders who fail to come through when the chips are down. What a rant! Johnny

Key Video's a subsidiary of Fox so maybe it will turn up at some point as a Fox release.

I don't know about the best smile but Joe E. Brown certainly had the biggest.