Tweet Pre-1935 Fox films

Talking of watching pictures on TV reminds me of my salad days back in the 1960's when the set was primed for gorgeous black and white. (Colour didn't start in Australia until 1975).

Channel 7 in Melbourne used to show old pictures on Saturday mornings. Here I was introduced to Joe E. Brown for the first time - they must have played nearly all his pictures! I also remember watching Al Jolson pictures - in particular "Mammy" which I think was the first and only time it was ever broadcast.

Channel 9 on the other hand used to run a late show on a Saturday night starting after midnight with a presenter called Hal Todd who would interrupt proceedings every so often to present long-winded info-mercials which would sometimes last 20 minutes. I would start off say watching Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald in "San Francisco" and then doze off when Hal Todd came on. I would re-awaken with what I thought was the same picture still playing and try to work out what was going on. It would usually take me at least 10 to 15 minutes to work out that I was now in the middle of the second picture of the night. Usually Hal Todd would interrupt 3 pictures a night and I think I would see about 20 to 30 minutes of each of them in a sort of patchwork quilt effect.

Sunday afternoons also was a good time to see old pictures, and Shirley Temple used to frequent this spot more often than not.

I also remember the only silent picture I ever saw on TV in those days. It was :The Son of the Sheik" and was shown on Channel 0 as it was then (now 10) and came on at about 10.30 one weeknight in either 1969 or 1970.

The policy with Australian Commercial Stations is to now only show pictures that were made in colour after 1980.

Yes, we were quite spoiled for classic film in Australia in previous years. The advocacy of people like Bill Collins played a big part in it. Aside from a few lucky exceptions, you rarely see a pre-1950 film outside of cable TV nowadays. As a young teenager, I whiled away many happy Sunday afternoons watching every Andy Hardy movie in sequence.

On the other hand, we're also lucky that the ABC has the rights to the J. Arthur Rank catalogue. Even today, you can catch some real gems, so long as you set your recorder to 3:30am.

Do any Australian Nitratevilleans remember 'Laugh-A-Bits'? It was broadcast in the early 80s. It was a short show (a stopgap really, only about 5-10 minutes long and usually shown after shows that didn't fill a full half hour timeslot) of silent slapstick sequences, probably early Sennett or Essanay. I've never come across another reference to it. Did I hallucinate the whole thing?

I suppose how many pre-1940 films you got to see on television depended a lot on how many independent (non network) stations your market had. Growing up in the NYC suburbs, we had 3 independent stations, and 3 network station, and one public television station. Channel 9 (WOR) was owned by RKO General, part of a group of independent stations owned by General Tire, which had purchased the RKO film library when RKO shut down. They called their movie show, "The Million Dollar Movie", and played the same movie in the morning, the evening, and late at night.

Although a bit off topic at this point, I think it's interesting to note that much of the stuff being circulated to TV stations in the 1950's and 60's were often very good 16mm reduction prints. Some of them ended up being one of the sources for preservation prints when the original 35mm nitrate elements were lost, destroyed or decomposed. Some of them also ended up in the hands of collectors, which was often a good thing (there are still some excellent 16 mm prints of Betty Boop cartoons around with the NTA or C&C logos on them, for example). And some of them were hacked to pieces by station editors, in order to fit in still more commercials. Oh well . . .

But unfortunately, I also understand that a lot of these prints were distributed to TV stations under "life-of-print" leases -- so the lease lasted until the print was no longer usable, in which case it was likely junked or sent for silver reclamation. So it's still the same old story -- is it commerce or is it art, and in most cases, commerce seems to win. SETH

I saw Mary Astor in ROMANCE OF THE UNDERWORLD(Fox 1928) a couple of days ago. While it falls into a typical gangster type film, it was one of the best 16mm quality I've ever seen. You can tell the 35mm must have been sparkling. And Irving Cummings's ( who like Stroheim acted and directed) direction is improved over previous silent films of his like Chaney's FLESH AND BLOOD(1922).

When Boston's Ch. 38 was owned by the Catholic arch-diocese in the mid-60s, they had all the early Warner talkies, like the Al Jolson and Winnie Lightner films. I longed for these a few years later, but who'd have watched them? And the pre-48 MGM's were off Boston TV so long that ABC outlet Ch.5 showcased them in a series starting in '74.

In Chicago, the local ABC affiliate, WBKB (now WLS) purchased the "C&C Movietime USA" package in 1957 which consisted of virtually the entire RKO catalog. The rights to the films were given in perpetuity and are still being shown by Ch. 7 late nights on Saturday. Among the rarities shown include Street Girl (1929) The Vagabond Lover (1929) and Dance Hall (1929). In the case of Dance Hall, which features Arthur Lake of Blondie fame, there are moments where the sound was very carelessly dubbed over non-moving lips. Entire sentences are "spoken" by the Mother character with her being as tight-lipped as a WW2 serviceman being interrogated. How this film, which got fairly good reviews back in the day, escaped criticism for this is beyond me. This is a fault of the dubbing since other parts within the same scene are perfectly synchronized.

WITI-TV, Ch. 6 in Milwaukee, also picked up the C&C package in perpetuity in 1957. Until the mid-1980s, the station ran the same worn-out C&C prints in their Late Late Show slots. Now, however, the prints are relatively new with the original RKO logo where available. The station (formerly ABC and CBS, now Fox) runs a late-late movie weekly at 2:05 AM on Saturdays, almost invariably an RKO, but seldom the obscurer titles that the station used to show incessantly.

Channel 9 (WOR) was owned by RKO General, part of a group of independent stations owned by General Tire, which had purchased the RKO film library when RKO shut down.

I seem to remember that they showed not only King Kong (every year on Thanksgiving afternoon for a long time) but Citizen Kane and the Astaire/Rogers films as well.

Channel 5 (WNEW) was owned by Metromedia, a group of independent stations comprised mostly of former DuMont network affiliates. I don't remember them being known for showing old movies, but then it was a long time ago. Channel 11 (WPIX) was owned by the Tribune company, and in addition to "Chiller Theatre", they ran a lot of great old movies.

One of of these stations - I think it was WNEW - played a great number of Warner Brothers films, when I was a teenager I became a big Bogart fan and saw everything from Action in the North Atlantic to All Through the Night to Casablanca (of course) and more when his movies were run. This would have been before cable came along. There was definitely more to see in New York area, though mainly with well known stars as I recall.

Weren't the C&C Movietime Television prints of some RKO library owned by Howard Hughes? WJZ in Baltimore played these round robin, that's where I first got to know Lowell Sherman, Rod La Rocque, and Betty Compson. La Rocque appeared in an early talkie THE DELIGHTFUL ROGUE which basically was a sound version of one his pirate themed movies that could have been filmed as a silent. Indeed this film still had intertitles. Sherman was in several RKOs, the two Mae Murray costarring vehicles BACHELOR APARTMENT(DVD or Blu Ray please!) and HIGH STAKES and the earlier HE KNEW WOMEN and THE ROYAL BED. Turner when he acquired the RKO and MGM pre 1950s library, struck new prints of these titles(broadcast initially on the old AMC/Dorian channel) and the films benefit from it compared to the old C&C Movietime presentations.
WNUV, another Baltimore station would occasionally give us some MGM,ie Garbo in QUEEN CHRISTINA or a Paramount such as TOVARICH with Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert. TOVARICH and THE SOUND OF MUSIC, I remember were amongst the first films I ever recorded when I first bought my VCR. It was like magic!

Weren't the C&C Movietime Television prints of some RKO library owned by Howard Hughes?

No, Howard Hughes sold the RKO Library to C&C, which was a cola and soda pop company, when he was dismantling and selling off the Studio he had bankrupted. C&C then put the films on the syndication market (and a lot of their prints start with the title "C&C Movietime" logo because they were sold as a special TV program sponsored by them). Their 16mm prints were all cheaply printed by a lab down in Mexico, and print quality was all over the map (and as a collector, I may add that this lousy labwork has also meant that C&C TV prints seem to have a higher tendency to develop vinegar syndrome as well). C&C sold their packages on a life of print lease, which is why some TV stations ran them for decades, oddly enough giving C&C free publicity long after the company had gone bye-bye.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

This is why things like JUST IMAGINE actually exist in versions longer than their original release, (the print found was a rough cut)

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Wow, I didn't know that at all, must be why there are so many issues with the soundtrack.

Absolutely. Fox tracks very early on (Sunny Side Up for example) were quite sophisticated, but what survives on many of the pre-1935 Fox sound titles are single-system work prints with no post-production sound work. Apparently Fox had a policy of keeping its work prints as the studio copies. Also, when the Little Ferry fire happened in 1937, Fox apparently made some effort to pull "in service" pints back to the studio. This is the only way one can explain something like "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1931) surviving in such execrable shape. It had to be a release print pule in from an exchange, no studio print would get that beat up with the few showingss in might have had in studio screening rooms.

Here in Oz, I understood that when our TV stations bought a new picture from the major studios, they had to take a whole pile of older pictures with it. This would account for the number of screenings of 1930's films in the 1950's through to the late 70's.

I don't know for sure how the rights issues worked out but TCM (Asia) told me that they cannot screen a lot of old pictures because the rights to them are still held by the Nine Network - even though that network has no intention of ever showing them.

Perhaps someone who has some more detailed knowledge on this subject could elaborate?

What exactly are the issues with the JUST IMAGINE soundtrack? I discovered JI in 1985 via fuzzy antenna reception from a small local station (I actually had to get on the roof to adjust), and saw what looked like a pretty battered print. I later assumed it was a 16mm print, since I've read little else of what elements survive. The Mars sequence seems musically truncated; is this one of the issues?

By the way, Marjorie White is the ultimate comedy goddess.

What exactly are the issues with the JUST IMAGINE soundtrack? I discovered JI in 1985 via fuzzy antenna reception from a small local station (I actually had to get on the roof to adjust), and saw what looked like a pretty battered print. I later assumed it was a 16mm print, since I've read little else of what elements survive. The Mars sequence seems musically truncated; is this one of the issues?

By the way, Marjorie White is the ultimate comedy goddess.

The most obvious sequences that demonstrates that the sound track to the surviving version of JI is not finished are the opening with the bare narratiion without music or sound effects and the scene with the "infernal machines" in which the hum of the electronic gear cuts is and out to allow for dialogue. There are also, as I recall, instances where sound efects are absent, also where dialogue is upcut at edits because single-system editing (where the track is married to the picture) lops off the last twenty frames of sound due to the picture/track offset--thus not allowing for smooth sound transitions on tight cuts, etc. Also, as Richard Roberts noted, the film is longer in its surviving form than in its released version. Oddly, the number that may be the best thing in the picture, "Never Swat A Fly," was apparently cut just before release, and there may have been other excisions as well.

I have fond memories of "Just Imagine" in part because I first saw around 1970 when it was first discoovered at Fox. It was in one of David Bradley's classes at UCLA and he had Fritz Lang visit the class for a screening of "Metropolis". Then, after a Q&A with Lang, he insisted that the director stay to watch the newly-found "American Metropolis" (obviously Bradley had only seen stills from JI before this), and the nitrate single-system work print of "Just Imagine" was projected. Students were dumbfounded, Lang was polite enough not to make any comment, and even the there was evidence of Nitrate decomp along the edges of the frame in several reels.

When I was a young film fan and talking with fimgoers of my parents' geneartion, there were pretty consistenly two films that lingered in their memories and that they said they'd like to see again (and that had never been on TV to that point). One was Harold Lloyd's "The Cat's Paw" and the other was "Just Imagine"--and they would always cite El Brendell's line "Give me the good old days!" as one of the funniest moments the movies ever offered. Go figure.

Thanks Bob.

"Never Swat a Fly" IS the highlight of JI as far as I'm concerned, the quintessential Marjorie White number (along with "Sing to Me" in DIPLOMANIACS and "Pluckin' Petals Off a Daisy" in SUNNY SIDE UP). Classic moments, all.

Also, as Richard Roberts noted, the film is longer in its surviving form than in its released version. Oddly, the number that may be the best thing in the picture, "Never Swat A Fly," was apparently cut just before release, and there may have been other excisions as well.

As much as I respect both Richard and your film history knowledge, as the resident El Brendel "expert", I have to say the above information about "Never Swat A Fly" being cut is erroneous. I have multiple reviews, including the November 22, 1930 one from Mordaunt Hall at the New York Times which is easily found on-line, which mentions the song by name as being in the picture.

Also, any idea where the story of the "longer version than was originally released" originated? I am trying to find out, so I can read what scenes were originally "cut" so I can fact check that.

they would always cite El Brendell's line "Give me the good old days!" as one of the funniest moments the movies ever offered. Go figure.

When you look at the whole scene with the food and booze pills, then the baby comes out of the chute and you see his reaction, I think it's pretty damn funny.

It IS pretty damned funny and smutty enough that you couldn't have done it a few years later.

I think the sharpest bit is "Someone got even with Henry Ford!"

Also, as Richard Roberts noted, the film is longer in its surviving form than in its released version. Oddly, the number that may be the best thing in the picture, "Never Swat A Fly," was apparently cut just before release, and there may have been other excisions as well.

As much as I respect both Richard and your film history knowledge, as the resident El Brendel "expert", I have to say the above information about "Never Swat A Fly" being cut is erroneous. I have multiple reviews, including the November 22, 1930 one from Mordaunt Hall at the New York Times which is easily found on-line, which mentions the song by name as being in the picture.

Hey, keep me out of this. I said the surviving prints were longer, which they are, I didn't say anything about "Never Swat a Fly", Birchard's out on his own limb on that one, and I doubt that's true because the song was actually a pretty good-sized hit. I have a number of period recordings of it all indicating that it's from the film JUST IMAGINE. Now, in all fairness, the AFI Feature Films 1921-30 book does say the song was cut in their notes on the film, but they indicate that this might have been for the New York presentation only, and this is according to a Variety review dated November 26th, 1930.

The reason I know the surviving prints are longer than the release version, is that my print of the film clocks in very close to two hours, and the release version clocks in somewhere around 110 minutes. I think the film got majorly tinkered with after previews, and there are plenty of things Fox could have removed apart from the best song in the picture. I think it's entirely possible that folks in each part of the Country saw different versions of it than the others saw. It was a picture Fox had to rework very hard to make a success out of, and amazingly, considering how much it cost, it did finally earn its money back.

The sad thing about JUST IMAGINE today is that it gets a really bad rap by folk who have tried to watch it by themselves, and don't really know what in the hell they are looking at (It gets some of the most uninformed IMDB reviews I've ever seen,and that's definitely saying a lot). The irony is that, with an audience, especially one that has been clued in to the prints defects and the films problems, it does come to life to some degree. When it became available again in the early-mid 70's I programmed it for several Science-Fiction Conventions (a group that makes even film-nerds seem more normal by comparison), and it went over rather well in a camp sort of fashion, which really seems to be the way the makers intended it. El Brendel does indeed get a good-sized laugh with his "Give me the Good Old Days " line, and the whole Trip to Mars sequence got plenty of laughs. Where JUST IMAGINE really sags is with the leads, Maureen O'Sullivan and John Garrick, who even make Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell (who were apparently the original planned stars) seem full of gusto by comparison. Yards of their footage can be removed without damaging the picture one whit.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Garrick's song "Something about an Old Fashioned Girl" would be a complete snore except for the accompanying film clips which turn the whole song on it's head.

Harrison's Reports clocks in the film at 107 minutes. Harrison was very fastidious about running times, and clocked prints himself (even writing articles about how studio releases were giving wrong running times).

The Fox Movie Channel print that is run is 109 minutes. It could be assumed that the missing two minutes may have been New York State Censhorship Board cuts.

Regarding the possibilty that the song "Never Swat a Fly" was cut from the movie JUST IMAGINE (which I'd actually never heard of before) I thought I'd check the original 1930 music cue sheet to see what it can tell us.
The Fox Movietone Cue Sheet, dated October 27, 1930 does indeed list the song (at #14 in sequence of appearance in a total of 23 selections).

What is interesting is that in the Foreign Version's cue sheet (dated Dec. 22, 1930) the song is not listed, and also missing is Marjorie White's immortal "Mothers Ought to Tell Their Daughters" and El Brendel's "The Romance of Elmer Stremingway". It sure would be fun to see (and hear) this version of the movie anyway, as it includes a lot of new music written just for it, with a total of 112 selections.

Regarding the possibilty that the song "Never Swat a Fly" was cut from the movie JUST IMAGINE (which I'd actually never heard of before) I thought I'd check the original 1930 music cue sheet to see what it can tell us.
The Fox Movietone Cue Sheet, dated October 27, 1930 does indeed list the song (at #14 in sequence of appearance in a total of 23 selections).

What is interesting is that in the Foreign Version's cue sheet (dated Dec. 22, 1930) the song is not listed, and also missing is Marjorie White's immortal "Mothers Ought to Tell Their Daughters" and El Brendel's "The Romance of Elmer Stremingway". It sure would be fun to see (and hear) this version of the movie anyway, as it includes a lot of new music written just for it, with a total of 112 selections.

From the description you provide, this "foreign version" would seem to be an "international version"--with music and titles replacing dialogue.

Regarding the possibilty that the song "Never Swat a Fly" was cut from the movie JUST IMAGINE (which I'd actually never heard of before) I thought I'd check the original 1930 music cue sheet to see what it can tell us.
The Fox Movietone Cue Sheet, dated October 27, 1930 does indeed list the song (at #14 in sequence of appearance in a total of 23 selections).

What is interesting is that in the Foreign Version's cue sheet (dated Dec. 22, 1930) the song is not listed, and also missing is Marjorie White's immortal "Mothers Ought to Tell Their Daughters" and El Brendel's "The Romance of Elmer Stremingway". It sure would be fun to see (and hear) this version of the movie anyway, as it includes a lot of new music written just for it, with a total of 112 selections.

From the description you provide, this "foreign version" would seem to be an "international version"--with music and titles replacing dialogue.

Yes, I'm sure that's what it is. I just used the term "Foreign Version" as that's what it's called on the Cue Sheet.
I have hundreds of these International Version cue sheets from various studios and they look fascinating as there is so much additional music recorded for these versions to cover dialogue.

By the way, it was nice chattin' with you at Cinefest!

Hey, keep me out of this. I said the surviving prints were longer, which they are, I didn't say anything about "Never Swat a Fly", Birchard's out on his own limb on that one, and I doubt that's true because the song was actually a pretty good-sized hit. I have a number of period recordings of it all indicating that it's from the film JUST IMAGINE. Now, in all fairness, the AFI Feature Films 1921-30 book does say the song was cut in their notes on the film, but they indicate that this might have been for the New York presentation only, and this is according to a Variety review dated November 26th, 1930.

The reason I know the surviving prints are longer than the release version, is that my print of the film clocks in very close to two hours, and the release version clocks in somewhere around 110 minutes. I think the film got majorly tinkered with after previews, and there are plenty of things Fox could have removed apart from the best song in the picture. I think it's entirely possible that folks in each part of the Country saw different versions of it than the others saw. It was a picture Fox had to rework very hard to make a success out of, and amazingly, considering how much it cost, it did finally earn its money back.

Interesting......I'm on the detective trail with this one. There must be an archive somewhere which has the inter-office details of the journey of this film, any ideas?

The sad thing about JUST IMAGINE today is that it gets a really bad rap by folk who have tried to watch it by themselves, and don't really know what in the hell they are looking at (It gets some of the most uninformed IMDB reviews I've ever seen,and that's definitely saying a lot). The irony is that, with an audience, especially one that has been clued in to the prints defects and the films problems, it does come to life to some degree. When it became available again in the early-mid 70's I programmed it for several Science-Fiction Conventions (a group that makes even film-nerds seem more normal by comparison), and it went over rather well in a camp sort of fashion, which really seems to be the way the makers intended it. El Brendel does indeed get a good-sized laugh with his "Give me the Good Old Days " line, and the whole Trip to Mars sequence got plenty of laughs. Where JUST IMAGINE really sags is with the leads, Maureen O'Sullivan and John Garrick, who even make Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell (who were apparently the original planned stars) seem full of gusto by comparison. Yards of their footage can be removed without damaging the picture one whit.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Agreed!

Harrison's Reports clocks in the film at 107 minutes. Harrison was very fastidious about running times, and clocked prints himself (even writing articles about how studio releases were giving wrong running times).

The Fox Movie Channel print that is run is 109 minutes. It could be assumed that the missing two minutes may have been New York State Censhorship Board cuts.

What's nice about the NYS Archive is you can order their files on line. While some of the files contain censorship info (the one on Wheeler and Woolsey's SO THIS IS AFRICA is HUGE) on what problems the film had with the Censorship Board, the file on JUST IMAGINE contains just the "dialogue taken from the screen" script dated October 17, 1930, which leads me to believe it passed as-is as nothing else was in the file. They list the film as being 10,200 feet.

What's nice about the NYS Archive is you can order their files on line. While some of the files contain censorship info (the one on Wheeler and Woolsey's SO THIS IS AFRICA is HUGE) on what problems the film had with the Censorship Board, the file on JUST IMAGINE contains just the "dialogue taken from the screen" script dated October 17, 1930, which leads me to believe it passed as-is as nothing else was in the file. They list the film as being 10,200 feet.

If the 10,200 footage listed in the NYS archive record was measured picture-to-picture (as is proper in measuring footage) and not leader-to-leader, that translates to 113 minutes plus, so I guess it's time to measure the footage on the surviving material and see how it conforms to this 113.3 minute figure.