Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Marion Davies, Cosmopolitan Star, Whose Admirers Number Millions -- May 31, 2022



Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Beautiful and talented actresses Marion Davies was the inamorata of media tsar William Randolph Hearst. He directed and sometimes misdirected her career, and paid for plenty of expensive advertisements, like this elaborate set for Beauty's Worth.

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

The Young Diana featured a story about reversing age. 

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922



Monday, May 30, 2022

The Great Dictator -- May 30, 2022

www.listal.com

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. I thought this was a good day to write about Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. On 15-October-1940, United Artists released what was expected to be a controversial movie from Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator.  Chaplin played two characters for the first time since "The Idle Class" in 1921.  He played a nameless Jewish barber who had been shell-shocked during the First World War.  After twenty years, he wandered away from the hospital and no one wanted to look for him.  He returned to his barbershop in the ghetto.  Chaplin also played Adenoid Hynkel, the cruel dictator of Tomania.

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I always enjoy Jack Oakie's performance as Napoloni, the bombastic dictator of Bacteria.  I think he captured the way people had come to perceive Benito Mussolini.

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Paulette Goddard was spunky as Hannah.

My favorite part of the movie is the final speech.

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Saturday, May 28, 2022

The Serial Tremendous -- May 28, 2022

Moving Picture Weekly, 27-May-1922

William Desmond prepares to clout a hungry wolf. Perils of the Yukon is touted as "The First Alaskan Chapter-Play Ever Made." Perhaps chapter-play sounded classier than serial.

Film Daily, 06-May-1922

Universal jumped on the latest American fad and produced a serial called The Radio King. If I read the Morse Code correctly, it says "BEWARE. I AM THE VOICE IN THE AIR." in both ads. I added the punctuation.

Film Daily, 09-May-1922


Moving Picture Weekly, 13-May-1922

Universal established its own radio station. This item also says that William Desmond was injured while making Perils of the Yukon.

Moving Picture Weekly, 27-May-1922

This ad lists all of Universal's chapter-plays that were presently in release, including two with Eddie Polo.

Film Daily, 13-May-1922

Colonel William Selig was using the residents of the Selig Zoo in The Jungle Goddess

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Eddie Polo, who had gone independent was releasing Cap'n Kidd on a States Rights basis. 

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Friday, May 27, 2022

Sir Christopher Lee 100 -- May 27, 2022

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Sir Christopher Lee was born 100 years ago today, on 27-May-1922.  He was a veteran of World War II.  He was the only person involved with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies who had met JRR Tolkien.  He had a long career and worked nearly until his death in 2015.  He could act, sing and write.  He played all the great movie monsters in Hammer films with his good friend Peter Cushing.  He was a villain in a Bond movie. 

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Thursday, May 26, 2022

Mr. Bram Stoker's New Story 125 -- May 26, 2022

London Daily News, 27-May-1922

125 years ago today, on 26-May-1897, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula was published. He we see an early review. "Bloofer Lady" = "Beautiful Lady."

MR. BRAM STOKER'S NEW STORY.*

[PUBLISHED TODAY.]

What has become of the "general decay of Faith" of which Parson Holmes reproachfully discoursed at Francis Allen's that night when the poet read aloud his fragment, "Morte d'Arthur," the noble precursor of "The Idylls of the King"? Have old beliefs really ceased to impress the imagination? It may be so ; but our novelists are clearly experiencing a reawakened faith in the charm of the supernatural. Here, for the latest example, is Mr. Bram Stoker taking in hand the old-world legend of the Were-wolf or vampire, with all its weird and exotic associations of blood-sucking and human flesh devouring, and interweaving it with the threads of a long story with an earnestness, a directness, and a simple good faith which ought to go far to induce readers of fiction to surrender their imaginations into the novelist's hands. Of course the secret lies here. The story writer who would make others believe must himself believe, or learn at least to write as if he did. There must be no display of meaningless rhetoric, no selection of faded terrors out of the dusty scene-docks of the suburban theaters. The more strange the facts, the more businesslike should be the style and method of narration. Some there be who, in handling such themes, prefer to take shelter in a remote time ; but the supernatural which cannot stand the present day, and even the broad daylight of the world around us, stands a half confessed imposture. Mr. Stoker has not been unmindful of these canons of the art of the weird novel writer. His story is told in sections, in the form of letters or excerpts from diaries of the various personages, which is in itself a straightforward proceeding, investing the whole narrative with a documentary air. Ships' logs and medical practitioners' notebooks of cases also come in aid, with now and then a matter of fact extract from the columns of our contemporaries, "The Westminster" and "The Pall Mall Gazette," about mysterious crimes attributed to an unseen destroyer popularly known as "the Bloofer Lady," the victims of whom are mostly little children whose throats are found marked with two little punctures, such as of old were believed to be made by the "Vampire Bat," who lives on human blood. These details are not the mere background of the story; for the mysteries of Lycanthropy, once devoutly believed in throughout Europe and the East, permeate the whole narrative and give their peculiar colouring to the web of romance with which they are associated. The author's artistic instincts have rightly suggested that the first step must be to attune the mind of the reader to the key of the story, for which purpose nothing could be more effective than the opening chapters, which are given up to the journal kept in shorthand by the hero, Jonathan Harker, the young solicitor who, leaving his fiancée, Mina Murray, behind in England, starts on a mission connected with the purchase of some estate and an ancient manor house in this country to the mysterious Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman, who lives in a lonely castle in the Carpathians. The long drive from Buda-Pesth is graphically described, while a constantly-growing sense of some vague impending trouble is cleverly made to intensify the interest and curiosity of the reader. Sometimes it is the strange, anxious glances of innkeeper and attendants, who know that the traveler is on the way to sojourn at the Count's gloomy and almost inaccessible abode; at others it is a word let fall, which, though in the Servian or Slovak language, conveys to the mind of the traveler a sinister idea. One worthy old landlady at a post-house puts a rosary around her guest's neck, reminding him that it is the eve of St. George's Day, when at midnight all evil things have full sway, and after vainly imploring him to consider where he is going and what he is going to, places for protection a rosary around his neck. Even the crowd about the inn doors share in the worthy hostess's solicitude:

"When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the Cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat -- 'gotza,' they call them -- cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey. I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily."

Strange, unearthly experiences indeed are in store for the young traveler in the chateau of the Count before this opening, which may be regarded as the prologue of the story, is concluded; but interest in a narrative whose effect depends so much on the feeling of curiously must not be forestalled. For details, therefore, of how Jonathan Harker finally escaped from the castle and its terrible inmates to the shelter of a friendly convent in Buda-Pesth, where he is found by the faithful Mina suffering from brain fever; and also for the more marvelous incidents after their return to England, which form the chief substance of the narrative, we must send the reader to Mr. Bram Stoker's volume. Few stories recently published have been more rich in sensations or in the Websterian power of "moving a horror" by subtle suggestion.

* "Dracula." By Bram Stoker. (Constable and Co.)

Booksellers' Review, 13-May-1922

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The book has inspired a few movie adaptions.

Moving Picture Weekly, 06-December-1930

Film Bulletin, 21-July-1958


Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Nanook of the North -- May 25, 2022



Moving Picture World, 13-May-1922

In 1922, Robert Flaherty released Nanook of the North, a film that he produced, wrote and directed. The film would be considered a docudrama today because many of the scenes were staged or reenacted. Aside from wartime propaganda films, it may have been the first feature-length documentary.

The movie featured the Inuit Allakariallak, nicknamed Nanook, and his wives, Nyla and Cunayou. The family wore European clothes and Allakariallak hunted with a rifle, but for the movie they made and wore traditional clothing and Allakariallak hunted with traditional weapons. The movie became popular. People today argue with the way the Inuit are depicted.

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922


Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Give Comedy a Chance! -- May 24, 2022

Motion Picture Classic, May, 1922

Baby Peggy Montgomery grew to become Century's biggest comedy star, even surpassing her old comrade Brownie the Century Wonder Dog. Universal released Century Comedies.

Moving Picture Weekly, 13-May-1922

The rest of the Century lineup included Brownie the Century Wonder Dog, Lee Moran, Charles Doherty, Harry Sweet and a new kid, Johnny K Fox. Johnny Fox's film career lasted until 1929.

Moving Picture Weekly, 27-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

The Christie Film Company was a major producer of short comedies from 1911 to 1933. Al Christie was the director and Charles Christie ran the business. The Christies featured situation comedy more than the slapstick favored by Mack Sennett and Hal Roach.

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Snub Pollard and others starred in one reelers for Hal Roach.

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Australian Billy Bevan was Sennett's busiest star. 

Moving Picture World, 06-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922

Joe Martin was an every-day average orangutan who was frequently billed as a chimp. With his wife, Mrs Joe Martin, he starred in a series of short comedies for Universal-Jewel. Lee Moran had been a member of Lyons and Moran, with Eddy Lyons.

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

Lloyd Hamilton, who had been the Ham of Ham and Bud, starred in a series of Mermaid Comedies distributed by Educational Comedies. Most of them were destroyed in a vault fire.

Moving Picture World, 13-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

Stan Laurel launched a new series of comedies. I like the image. 

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

"Laurel is not an imitator of Chaplin."

Monday, May 23, 2022

Wonder Theater of the World -- May 23, 2022

Dallas Express, 27-May-1922

I greatly admire John Harris, owner and manager of the Grand Central Theater in Dallas, who had a policy of showing race films. I have never heard of For His Mother's Sake, which starred ex-heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Oscar Micheaux wrote, directed and produced The Dungeon in 1922. My Baby was produced in Dallas by the Benroy Motion Picture Corporation. So far, I have found nothing about the movie or its stars William Lee and Annie Valley. The co-feature was a mainstream western starring Frank Mayo.

Dallas Express, 06-May-1922

The Benroy Motion Picture Corporation of Dallas was looking for investors.

Dallas Express, 06-May-1922

The Benroy Motion Picture Corporation of Dallas also opened a free dramatic arts school to look for new talent. 

Kansas City Kansan, 14-May-1922

A group of students at Western University in Kansas City, Kansas, an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) were watching The Lure of a Woman, produced by the Afro-American Film Exhibitors Company, when the film in the projection booth caught fire. No one was killed or injured. Western University closed its doors in 1942.

Washington Evening Star, 14-May-1922

The Burden of Race was a made by Reol Productions in 1921.

Moving Picture World, 20-May-1922

On the other hand, I was happy to see that Kansas banned a KKK recruiting film. 

Moving Picture World, 27-May-1922

And then there is this odd situation. Noble Johnson, one of the founders of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, is listed as the producer. He is also credited with writing the movie. But this is a non-race film.