Parkland Picks with Popcorn #4
PPP: Northwest Mounted Police, Diary of a High School Bride, The Black Shield of Falworth, and Battle of the Worlds
NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE (1940) --- Try tracking this in the US. So far as I know, can’t be done. There is a rights snafu on home shores, has been for years since syndication had Northwest Mounted Police, not a best of DeMilles either way, but his first in Technicolor, and there is recommendation enough. Mine is a disc import, legitimate in place of origin, as good quality as one could hope for in a Region Two DVD. Still years since watching, Northwest Mounted Police makes up in size, cast, and color what it lacks in structure and story. DeMille had tendency to sprawl --- he would have acknowledged as much --- though oft-times a grand show grand enough will compensate for weary spots along lengthy way, in this case 126 minutes. Gary Cooper takes several reels to arrive, till then Preston Foster and Robert Preston doing mustachioed duty, trouble for me telling them apart at times. Madeleine Carroll, fairly forgot by the time Northwest Mounted Police played 50’s reissue dates, stays passive and changing bandages for Mounties brought onto sound stages she occupies rather than second-unit exteriors from which she is absent. Vexatious aspect of DeMille was keeping indoors while underlings shot big sky action, albeit ably, but wasn’t spectacle supposed to be C.B.’s especial gift? Best to bask within walls the director confines himself to, admire details he designs after Belasco model, and realize that if somehow we could go back to lavish plays of a past century, Northwest Mounted Police is what the best of them would look like. There is what makes Cecil B. DeMille unique, his concept of place and people filling it was unsurpassed. No rival settings could compete. Watch if you can some of behind-scenes shorts Paramount did to pump DeMille during the thirties. Each give glimpse of his office with decorative, and functional, props used for projects gone back to the teens, and handy still for future projects. He kept enough swords and chain mail to equip legions, often had players don apparel for a first interview. Among happiest Liberty attends for me was Samson and Delilah, The Greatest Show on Earth, and The Ten Commandments. The sixties surely weren’t making them like that anymore.
DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE (1959) --- Long since solemn vow to see this and here it finally is on You Tube, reliable rescue shelter for feature obscurities. Diary of a High School Bride makes me long for drive-in life but faintly known. Oh, but to be there when AIP was aiming these toward rain-splattered screens, transport with top down where weather wasn’t inclement, and canteen treats a roofed venue would not sell (ever have ice cream at a hardtop? Not me). Diary of a High School Bride tells it in the title … she’s seventeen and he’s twenty-four, meaning jailbait and a sap inviting an active sentence, right? Depended on state residence, not sure how California saw law, “Judy’s” parents resorting to bribery rather than badges to lure daughter away from wedded bed with “Steve.” Anita Sands and Ronald Foster are the young couple. I could not recall seeing this actress in anything before, and sure enough, she did no other feature, only TV, energy lacking on my part to root out specific episodes of My Three Sons or Hawaiian Eye. Ron Foster was spawn of TV as well, and further unknown quantity. Just more eager youngsters fed into AIP chipper and acting for virtually free. Jim/Sam spent undoubted nickels to make Diary of a High School Bride, though it brought back hefty-for-them $239K in domestic rentals, more than was realized from most horror/sci-fi the company released. High School Bride fairly celebrates cheapness, opening with our couple driving against romantic backdrop of process screens, Judy clutching her stuffed animal and apprehensive over forthcoming nightfall. This picture will not take sides, says post-title scroll, and be assured nothing exploitive will happen here. Look to ads instead for what is tawdry. One Tony Casanova, “Star of American International Records,” performs the theme plus “Say Bye Bye,” done after fashion of E. Presley. High School Bride's husband earns $40 a week and “plays house” with Judy in a “one-room flat,” says accusing parents. “At least it’s clean” replies Steve. There is a coffee shop with hipsters, lots of sunglasses, modern art, and a flamenco player. Why was I born so late? Welcome and unexpected bonus for a third act is psycho menace “Chuck” (Chris Robinson) who chases Judy all over AIP soundstages at the old Chaplin studio, this after explaining to her that his father produces there and lately made piles of dough off The Screaming Skull. Talk about meta. Chuck has plenty punishment coming, but to be electrocuted, then plunged off a roof-high platform, there was pay-off plenty severe.
THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH (1954) --- A first “deluxe,” comparatively speaking, for Tony Curtis at Universal-International, The Black Shield of Falworth meant to match MGM and their so-far spectaculars, Scaramouuche, Ivanhoe, that U could not hope to challenge other than with hope and sheer bravado. Tony’s was still a bubble-gum audience, as in grown-ups not so engaged by him as they might be with Robert Taylor or Stewart Granger. Still Shield is a game bid by all and in Cinemascope as well, economies betrayed by the wide lens it’s true, but a public knew by now to deal gentle with U-I and its beginner rank of stars. Fan mags were atwitter over Curtis back with offscreen wife Janet Leigh, borrowed from Metro, and there is Herbert Marshall to remind us that class could and often did help the humble aspire upward. Black Shield was shot on castle grounds laid years earlier for Tower of London and used forever since. I played amidst surprisingly solid structures through summer 1975 and USC’s filmmaking program where three days of each week was spent at Universal. Surely the edifice is knocked down by now --- would it be any more sacred than the Phantom stage which we know for recent rendezvous with wrecking balls? The Black Shield of Falworth has vigor to sustain 99 minutes, better still where one is happily enrolled at college of U. Remember stories told by contract talent of classes taken, in fact required, at fencing, riding, dance? We see them put to tests here, yet Tony is frequently doubled, oft by David Sharpe taking Curtis falls. Can't let the ice-cream face be banged up. Delay of even days could wreck a fragile system like Universal’s. Something so storybook as The Black Shield of Falworth reminds us that what pleased youngsters early in the century could do so as effectively in the fifties, source story handiwork of Howard Pyle, who defined the age of chivalry for moderns eager to relive an era far more a romantic fantasy than any sort of historical reality. Several import Blu-Rays are available, and all appear to be multi-region.
BATTLE OF THE WORLDS (1961) --- The single time Col. Forehand gave me a pressbook for a film he was not disposed to show was Battle of the Worlds. It had a lush color cover and I noted right away that Claude Rains starred. Since then (1964), Battle of the Worlds was high quest to see, but who owned it, or even ever saw it? Italian produced, Battle entered the US under “Topaz Corporation” auspices, its companion feature Atom-Age Vampire. Not sure how good distribution was for Topaz product, only that the Liberty never got further than Battle's pressbook. My interest was of course Claude Rains, so welcome came The Film Detective with its Blu-Ray, doing best as could be with elements some steps down from what went through cameras, curiosity yet satisfied by what was salvaged. Battle’s ubiquity at You Tube leads me to believe PD status attached some while back. Show is reminiscent of TV sci-fi like Rocky Jones or Space Patrol where interplanetary hoppers talked their way through galaxies, rolling about space stations on office chairs with little wheels on them. What special effects there are do not convince, but maybe I’d enjoy them less if they did. Rains is there to lend stature and earn money at undoubted behest of a wife, who had spending to do and insufficient means for doing it. Our (sole) star starts off at irascible pitch and has nowhere to go but up. By the end, we are as exhausted as him. Don’t know if Claude had crib cards around the set, but either way, he spews techy monologues like a Roman fountain. I caught him a few times rolling R’s. Did Rains figure no one would see this farrago? If so, he was nearly right. Till the Film Detective came to rescue, I never figured Battle of the Worlds would enter my universe.
posted by John McElwee at 6:55 AM
9 Comments:
I never thought I'd live to see Claude Rains as an astronaut.
The rights issues regarding North West Mounted Police have made it the only one of De Mille's twelve talkie spectacles to not have a home video release in Region One. However a couple of years ago Umbrella Entertainment had a DVD release of it under its Six Shooters Classics label. The back cover says it plays in all regions. I can tell you it plays on my Region One player and it's an excellent image.
Big cast cast stars, nice Technicolor, too little action, NWMP can be enjoyed but is clearly a lesser effort from the showman director. And the hokey dialogue is something else (even though that is true of most De Milles). I think my favourite whopper occurs when Akim Tamiroff, as a dying Metis fur trappers, intones, "The Big Trapper got me by the neck."
I remember catching 'Northwest Mounted Police' on a British movie channel. I would see a fair number of Paramount/Universal titles on UK television that I knew I had no chance of finding in the States. It was interesting to see Robert Prestion in his 'matinee star' days before he became indelibly linked to Professor Harold Hill.
Amazingly, I saw 'Battle of the Worlds' around 20-21 years ago on a cheesy Pittsburgh-area TV show (akin to Mystery Science Theater) called 'It's Alive!' Surely one of the last of that quirky brand of low-rent programming unironically using public domain material. As I was already a classic movie buff who watched as much TCM as I could, I remember feeling a bit bad for Claude Rains. He might not have been phoning it in, but he had to been tired at that point.
"Black Shield of Falworth" is available stateside as a no-frills "Vault" dvd. I'd rank it below "Prince Valiant" and ahead of Columbia's bargain costumers.
"Prince Valiant" deserves some love; I was surprised to not find it in the Greenbriar archive. Blessed with A production values, it plays like a unusually lavish B thanks to blatantly American accents and Janet Leigh's bullet bra. Also, the fact that it's based on a comic strip -- admittedly an exceptional one more sophisticated than the movie -- may have tagged it as Saturday matinee fare. But it's still great unironic pleasure.
In another age it would make a nice double feature with the Disney / Warren Beatty "Dick Tracy", a wildly outsized would-be franchise starter also based on a comic strip. In the end it's a playful B, albeit one with buckets of color and makeup effects.
Agree completely regarding "War of the Worlds." It was included in a DVD collection "50 SciFi Classics" I found in a bargain bin. I kept waiting for something to happen- which didn't- and it was a dud. Really not worth the time reviewing.
I've got "North West Mounted Police" on VHS, recorded off AMC some twenty-odd years ago. An eventual DVD release was anticipated, I suppose, but that never happened (at least on this side of the Atlantic). Whatever the reason, it's apparently been banished to the vaults at Universal. But then, so have almost all of the pre-1950 Paramounts. At least those that don't star the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, or Hope and Crosby.
There are so many great (or at least interesting)1930s Paramounts on YouTube in subpar condition that deserve restoration and release but never will.
For all the epic qualities imbued by DeMille, 'North West Mounted Police' is stubbornly stuck in the studio back lot. Compare and contrast with the freshness of MGM in 'Northwest Passage' around the same time. DeMille's Technicolor films have a storybook quality, by being both unreal and like pulp fiction at the same time.
Was Universal-International intentionally cheap with CinemaScope and/or Technicolor? When the studio opted for EASTMANCOLOR, 'Scope seemed to have found it's match in 1957 for a few years, until U-I decided to opt BACK to TECHNICOLOR, IN 1964.Lots of B&W CinemaScope seemed terrific, but could it be also construed as 'on the cheap' as well? My point here in interesting, I believe; and that is that for the entire DECADE of 1950-60, the Studio produced ONLY around 20 FEATURES that were filmed in TECHNICOLOR -and-CinemaScope. What a lousy track record for a Studio that should have known better than to think that, for such a wide-screen and colorful audience decade at the movies, we wouldn't?!
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