Gail Patrick For Who Am Us

This is what makes blogging all worthwhile: our good friend Who Am Us of the blog Who Am Us Anyway (check it out here) wrote in the comment section of "Carole Lombard In The Public Domain" that "Believe or no, this was my first-ever viewing of My Man Godfrey." To introduce someone to a classic movie—well, for a blogger, it doesn't get any better than that.

That he also had the same reaction to My Man Godfrey that I did, that's just icing on the cake:

And ahh, Gail Patrick as Cornelia—have you written about her before? Must check ... dang! The search button produces results in the amount of zero! Well, I'm a Gail fan starting tonight ...

That's the phenomenon known as "the hotter younger sister," which the fine, fine folks at Bright Lights After Dark wrote about at some length last year. As they so eloquently put it, "damn is she hot!"

Amen, brother.

Born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick in Birmingham, Alabama, Patrick was the dean of women at Howard College and was studying law at the University of Alabama when she entered a nationwide contest for a part in a Paramount film. She didn't win, but she was offered a film contract and moved to Hollywood.

Appropriate to a blog currently covering 1932-33, Patrick made her film debut in the 1932 film If I Had A Million, starring Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and George Raft. She typically played arrogant socialites and femme fatales and is best known for three comedic roles—Carole Lombard's scheming sister in My Man Godfrey, a haughty wannabe actress who clashes with Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn in Stage Door and Cary Grant's not-so-favored bride in My Favorite Wife.

Patrick appeared in sixty-two movies between 1932 and 1948.

She abandoned acting when she married her third husband, literary agent Cornwell Jackson. One of Jackson's clients was mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner who created the fictional defense lawyer Perry Mason. Patrick (credited now as Gail Patrick Jackson) obtained the rights to Perry Mason and for nine seasons produced one of the most successful television series in American history.

Patrick died of leukemia in 1980 at the age of sixty-nine.

The Future Katie Award Winning Beatles Stop By The Monkey On The Occasion Of John Lennon's 70th Birthday

Carole Lombard In The Public Domain

I'm putting the finishing touches on the essay about the best actor (drama) of 1932-33. It's going to clock in under 2000 words, reasonable compared to the 12,000 word insanity that was the Marx Brothers.

Unfortunately, Katie-Bar-The-Door and I have to attend a funeral tomorrow. That's three in one year (to go along with one wedding). I feel like I'm making a macabre sequel to an old Hugh Grant movie. But it means I won't be posting the best actor essay until Saturday.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that two of the Carole Lombard movies you're voting on in the current Monkey poll are in the public domain and thought I'd post them here. They are—

My Man Godfrey:



and Nothing Sacred. Just to set your mind at ease, that's not colorization—Nothing Sacred was released in Technicolor.



Enjoy.

Latest Poll Results ... And A New Poll

The latest poll results are in. "Of the five movies the Marx Brothers made at Paramount Pictures, which have you seen?" Thirty-one of you responded, with 28 saying you had seen Duck Soup, 25 Horse Feathers and Monkey Business and 21 Animal Crackers and The Cocoanuts.

Three admitted "I have not seen any of these movies!" which I choose to interpret as meaning three lucky souls still have a chance to experience their first Marx Brothers movie—or at least their first Marx Brothers movie from the Paramount Pictures era. Do you remember your first Marx Brothers movie? I do. Monkey Business on PBS one Saturday afternoon, initially because my parents insisted, but soon enough because it was so much fun to watch. And the first one in a theater? A midnight showing of Animal Crackers when I was a teenager.

As for the new poll? It's Carole Lombard's birthday. "Of these classic Carole Lombard performances, which is your favorite?" Your choices: 1) Twentieth Century 2) My Man Godfrey 3) Nothing Sacred 4) To Be Or Not To Be. As always, vote in the poll at the top right-hand side of the page.

Make us proud.

Oh, And As For Buster Keaton ...

I wished him a happy birthday last year. You're not expecting me to do it again, are you?

He'd be a 115, by the way. Here he is looking a tad flustered in the arms of one-time girlfriend, Dorothy Sebastian.

Nominees For Best Actor Of 1932-33 (Drama)

The all Marx Brothers all the time blog-a-thon comes to an end. Here are the nominees for best actor of 1932-33 (drama).

Nils Asther (The Bitter Tea Of General Yen)

Charles Laughton (The Old Dark House, Island Of Lost Souls and The Private Life Of Henry VIII)

Paul Muni (I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang)

Claude Rains (The Invisible Man)

Paul Robeson (The Emperor Jones)

Note: I've had trouble figuring out whether Charles Laughton belongs in drama or comedy—I had initially nominated him in the category of drama for his performance in The Private Life Of Henry VIII, but as Erik Beck of the Boston Becks pointed out, it's really a comedic performance (though it does, I think, have dramatic elements). I tried him out for a while in comedy, but then I took a second look at two more of his performances from 1932-33—The Old Dark House and Island Of Lost Souls—decided they were also nomination worthy, added them to list of credits and found that overall, he had tilted back into the category of drama.

Of course, the other solution would be to nominate him in both categories, in comedy for Henry VIII and in drama for the two horror classics, but I prefer to limit actors to one or the other in any given year. Leaves more slots for other actors and lets me spread the wealth. You're free to approach the question differently.

Some Movies To See In October

I've mentioned a lot of movies in this blog over the course of a year and a half, some of them tangentially, some with full-blown essays. Turner Classic Movies is showing many of them this month. Check them out if your cable system carries TCM. All times are Eastern Daylight Time.

Especially timely is tomorrow evening's showing of I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. Check out Paul Muni's Katie nominated lead performance then check back later in the week to read about why I am choosing him as the best dramatic actor of 1932-33.

3 Sunday
4:30 AM Farewell To Arms, A (1932)
An American serving in World War I falls for a spirited nurse. Cast: Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou. Dir: Frank Borzage. BW-89 mins, TV-G

4 Monday
9:45 PM Skyscraper Souls (1932)
A ruthless financier will stop at nothing to control a 100-story office building. Cast: Warren William, Maureen O'Sullivan, Verree Teasdale. Dir: Edgar Selwyn. BW-99 mins, TV-G
1:30 AM I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)
A World War I veteran faces inhuman conditions when he's sentenced to hard labor. Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC

8:00 PM Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932)
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a scientist who unleashes the beast within. Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart. Dir: Rouben Mamoulian. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC
5:45 AM Anna Karenina (1935)
Adaptation of Tolstoy's classic tale of a woman who deserts her family for an illicit love. Cast: Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone. Dir: Clarence Brown. BW-94 mins, TV-14, CC

6 Wednesday
6:15 PM Twentieth Century (1934)
A tempestuous theatrical director tries to win back the star he created and then drove away. Cast: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly. Dir: Howard Hawks. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, CC

8 Friday
11:30 AM Queen Christina (1933)
Romantic tale of the 17th-century Swedish queen and her romance with a Spanish diplomat. Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lewis Stone. Dir: Rouben Mamoulian. BW-99 mins, TV-G, CC

9 Saturday
2:00 PM Public Enemy, The (1931)
An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime. Cast: James Cagney, Edward Woods, Jean Harlow. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-84 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
4:00 AM Grand Hotel (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache. Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford. Dir: Edmund Goulding. BW-113 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

13 Wednesday
8:00 PM General, The (1927)
In this silent film, a Confederate engineer fights to save his train and his girlfriend from the Union army. Cast: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender. Dir: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman. BW-75 mins, TV-G

14 Thursday
6:30 AM Broken Blossoms (1919)
In this silent film, an Asian man in London falls in love with an abused child. Cast: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp. Dir: D.W. Griffith. BW-89 mins, TV-PG
8:00 AM Orphans of the Storm (1921)
In this silent film, two sisters, one of them blind, fight to find each other during the French Revolution. Cast: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut. Dir: D.W. Griffith. BW-151 mins, TV-G

15 Friday
6:30 AM Five Star Final (1931)
An unscrupulous newspaper editor searches for headlines at any cost. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, H.B. Warner, Marian Marsh. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-89 mins, TV-PG, CC

16 Saturday
12:15 AM Morocco (1930)
A sultry cabaret singer falls hard for a Foreign Legionnaire. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou. Dir: Josef von Sternberg. BW-92 mins, TV-14, CC
3:45 AM Blue Angel, The (1930)
A stodgy professor falls from grace when he's seduced by a nightclub singer. Cast: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron. Dir: Josef von Sternberg. BW-107 mins, TV-PG

17 Sunday
12:00 AM Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1923)
In this silent film, a deformed bell-ringer gives sanctuary to a beautiful gypsy accused of witchcraft. Cast: Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry. Dir: Wallace Worsley. BW-117 mins, TV-G

18 Monday
6:00 AM Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932)
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a scientist who unleashes the beast within. Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart. Dir: Rouben Mamoulian. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC

19 Tuesday
8:00 PM Design For Living (1933)
An independent woman can't chose between the two men she loves. Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper. Dir: Ernst Lubitsch. BW-91 mins, TV-G
12:00 AM Barretts of Wimpole Street, The (1934)
An invalid poetess defies her father's wishes to marry a dashing young poet. Cast: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton. Dir: Sidney Franklin. BW-109 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

20 Wednesday
6:30 AM Nothing Sacred (1937)
When a small-town girl is diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an ambitious newspaper man turns her into a national heroine. Cast: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Walter Connolly. Dir: William A. Wellman. C-74 mins, TV-PG
11:00 PM Last Flight, The (1931)
Four disillusioned Army buddies roam post-WWI Europe. Cast: Richard Barthelmess, David Manners, Johnny Mack Brown. Dir: William Dieterle. BW-76 mins, TV-G

22 Friday
8:45 AM What Price Hollywood? (1932)
A drunken director whose career is fading helps a waitress become a Hollywood star. Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton. Dir: George Cukor. BW-88 mins, TV-G

24 Sunday
12:00 AM Nosferatu (1922)
In this silent film, a beautiful woman risks her life to end a vampire's plague of death and pestilence. Cast: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroder. Dir: F.W. Murnau. BW-89 mins, TV-PG
2:00 AM Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey (1932)
Classic tale of a young traveler finding himself in a sinister castle. Cast: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel. Dir: Carl Theodor Dreyer. BW-72 mins, TV-PG

25 Monday
3:15 AM 42nd Street (1933)
The definitive backstage musical, complete with the dazzling newcomer who goes on for the injured star. Cast: Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Warner Baxter. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

27 Wednesday
1:15 AM Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933)
Three chorus girls fight to keep their show going and find rich husbands. Cast: Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-98 mins, TV-G, CC

29 Friday
7:30 AM Mystery Of The Wax Museum, The (1933)
A disfigured sculptor turns murder victims into wax statues. Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell. Dir: Michael Curtiz. C-77 mins, TV-PG, CC

30 Saturday
12:45 AM Mad Love (1935)
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists. Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive. Dir: Karl Freund. BW-68 mins, TV-PG, CC
2:00 AM Cat People (1942)
A newlywed fears that an ancient curse will turn her into a bloodthirsty beast. Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway. Dir: Jacques Tourneur. BW-73 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

31 Sunday
6:15 AM Freaks (1932)
A lady trapeze artist violates the code of the side show when she plots to murder her midget husband. Cast: Wallace Ford, Olga Baclanova, Harry Earles. Dir: Tod Browning. BW-62 mins, TV-PG, CC
1:30 AM Phantom of the Opera, The (1925)
In this silent film, a hideously deformed man haunts the sewers beneath the Paris Opera. Cast: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry. Dir: Rupert Julian. BW-90 mins, TV-G

And The Nutshell Version Of The Nutshell Version, Marx Brothers Edition

Only a maniac would call a 1500 word essay the "nutshell" version of anything. So here, finally, is the Marx Brothers story in fewer than 100 words:

Groucho, Harpo, Chico = funny
Zeppo = not funny
Gummo = who?

The Monkey's Top Five Marx Brothers movies:
1) Duck Soup
2) A Night At The Opera
3) Animal Crackers
4) Horse Feathers
5) A Day At The Races or Monkey Business or maybe The Cocoanuts. But definitely not Love Happy.

Now go to it.

(The Marx Brothers wallpaper is courtesy of Stephanie Willey.)

Happy Birthday, Groucho Marx

I've been writing about him for six weeks. Might as well wish him a happy 120th birthday while I'm at it.

For those of you who didn't want to wade through the eight-part, 12,000 word essay about Groucho and his brothers, here's the nutshell version (the rest of you can safely skip it—but you might like the pictures):

Born in New York to Jewish immigrants Sam "Frenchy" Marx and Minnie nee Minna Schönberg, Leonard, Adolph, Julius Henry, Milton and Herbert Manfred—better known to the world as Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo—the Marx Brothers first hit the vaudeville circuit as singer/musicians but quickly found their niche as masters of a unique brand of quick-witted improvisational comedy that bordered on anarchy.

On stage and in the movies, Chico played an Italian immigrant (he copied the accent from his barber) whose fractured English was the source of many jokes. He also played the con man on stage, alternately sharp or dim depending on whether he was conning brother Groucho or someone else. In real life, he was also a compulsive gambler and womanizer who stuck with the act mostly to make enough money to gamble and chase women.

Chico's on-stage accomplice in crime, Harpo was the pure id of the act, a hyperactive puppy, as innocent as a child, as easily distracted and just as destructive. Although Harpo was a scene-stealing machine who would wreak havoc whenever he was on stage, off stage he was a gentle man with a serious passion for the harp, an instrument he worked hard to master and he admitted later that those moments playing the harp are when you see the real man.

"Harpo was the solid man in the family," Groucho said. "He inherited all my mother's good qualities—kindness, understanding, and friendliness. I inherited what was left."

Groucho served to bridge the gap between the audience and his brothers. Where Chico and Harpo were usually off in their own worlds, motivated by impulses clear only to themselves (and often not even then), Groucho played recognizable members of society—teachers, lawyers, hotel owners, even petty dictators—who wanted the sorts of things the audience wanted, in Groucho's case, sex and money. Yet paradoxically, while acknowledging the world around him in ways his brothers rarely did, Groucho was the most hostile to the existing order, and he used his lacerating wit to keep the world—and the audience—at arm's length.

"I do not care to belong to a club," he famously wrote to the Friar's of Los Angeles, "that accepts people like me as members."

As for Gummo and Zeppo, neither developed stage characters as well defined as their brothers. Gummo was a quiet man with a childhood stammer and was never much interested in performing; he left the act in 1917 to join the army and never appeared in a movie with his brothers. Zeppo replaced him, but being so much younger than his brothers and coming so late to such a well-established act, wound up as something of an afterthought, usually singing and sometimes playing the lead in a romantic subplot. In 1934, he also left the act.

After nearly twenty years of honing their act in vaudeville venues all over the country, the Brothers finally broke into "legitimate" Broadway theater in May 1924 with the musical comedy I'll Say She Is! A blend of standard song-and-dance numbers and the Marx Brothers biting comedy, the play was an immediate sensation. The Brothers followed up a year later with an even more successful musical, The Cocoanuts. inspired by a speculative land boom then underway in Florida, The Cocoanuts was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright George S. Kaufman and featured a song score by Irving Berlin, but primarily it proved to be another winning vehicle for some of the Brothers' best improvisational gags.

Such success quickly came to the attention of Paramount Pictures producer Adolph Zukor of who initially balked at the Brothers' asking price of $75,000, then wound up offering $100,000 after dinner with the always eloquent Chico Marx. The Brothers filmed a movie version of The Cocoanuts in New York even while performing their next play, Animal Crackers, on Broadway in the evening. Premiering just two years after Al Jolson had first spoken in a motion picture, The Cocoanuts was a smash hit at the box office.

The follow-up movie, Animal Crackers, was an even bigger hit and features the most quoted routines of Groucho's career.

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."

In 1931, with no Broadway commitment to keep them in New York, the Marx Brothers moved to Hollywood where they filmed their third movie, Monkey Business. Even for a Marx Brothers' movie, the story is tissue thin—four stowaways wreak havoc on an ocean liner, meet a couple of gangsters, go to work for them and wind up thwarting a kidnapping plot—but the first forty-five minutes of Monkey Business are as good as anything the Brothers ever did, sagging only once the Brothers leave their shipboard setting.

The idea of placing the Brothers in an academic setting for their fourth film, Horse Feathers, was an old one—twenty years before, Groucho had played a teacher to Gummo's and Harpo's students in the vaudeville show Fun In Hi Skule—and a team of writers led by ex-collegian S.J. Perelman set to work a script before Monkey Business was even in theaters.

Here, Groucho plays Professor Wagstaff, the newly-appointed president of Huxley College. The school's in trouble—it's been neglecting football for education, or possibly the other way around—and at the urging of his son (Zeppo), Wagstaff sets out to get better football players, starting with the two who hang around a local speakeasy. Of course, he confuses Harpo and Chico for the star players, who proceed to turn Huxley College into chaos. Along the way, the Brothers butt heads with a gambler who's put his money on the opposing team, Harpo and Chico try to kidnap Darwin's star players only to get themselves kidnapped instead and everybody serenades the college widow with variations on "Everyone Says I Love You," but the real point of the movie is to serenade the audience with hilariously shameless wordplay and anti-social anarchy.

Randy Williams, writing for ESPN in 2008, ranked the film's finale as "the greatest scene in football movie history."

Their fifth film, delayed for nine months by a contract dispute with Paramount, proved to be the best of the Marx Brothers' career.

Duck Soup is the story of a nation in crisis: its economy in a shambles and on the verge of war, Freedonia is desperate for a savior and riding to the rescue is that fearless man of the people, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho). The film features some of the funniest and most famous scenes in the Marx Brothers canon. Many factors are responsible for Duck Soup's greatness, but primary among them are the performances of Groucho, Chico and Harpo themselves. Groucho, of course, was already without peer in terms of comic timing, and Harpo, though not quite as anarchic as in previous movies, is tighter here, with his antics leading directly to two of the movie's best moments—the mirror scene and Chico's trial for treason. And Chico, whose role had been limited largely to malapropisms, piano solos and translating for the silent Harpo, led entire sequences—the meeting with Louis Calhern, the peanut vendor scenes with Edgar Kennedy, the scene in Margaret Dumont's bedroom, and the trial for treason—showcasing a comic talent the equal of his brothers.

In terms of box office, Duck Soup wasn't quite the flop of legend, turning a profit, but nevertheless grossing less than any of its predecessors. Of course, Duck Soup's reputation as a masterpiece is now secure, consistently ranking as one of the greatest comedies ever made.

Soon after Duck Soup's premiere, the Marx Brothers and Paramount parted company. The Brothers signed with Irving Thalberg at MGM and made two of their best movies, A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races, but after Thalberg's death in 1937, never again hit those heights. Groucho went on to success on television and the Marx Brothers experienced a revival of interest in their films in the 1960s.

In 1974, the Academy finally acknow- ledged Groucho with a honorary award "In recog- nition of his brilliant creativity and for the unequaled achievements of the Marx Brothers in the art of motion picture comedy."

"I wish Harpo and Chico could be here to share it with me," he said.

In 1999, the AFI listed the Marx Brothers as one of the fifty greatest stars in the history of American cinema, the only group so honored.

Speaking Of Jean Harlow And The Marx Brothers

... and if I wasn't, I should have been.

This year's Katie winners for best performers in a comedy get together to laugh about good times. Read about them here and here.