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One of the great Hollywood stories has always been (at least since sometime after 1929) that the Pickford-Fairbanks "Taming of the Shrew" contained a credit reading: By William Shakespeare; Additional Dialogue by Sam Taylor. The Matty Kemp redux version of the film put out in 1967 did not contain this credit, but the titles were remade, so there was still the possibility that the printed legend might be true. However, just this past week I saw MoMA's new print of the original 1929 version (copied from Doug Fairbanks's personal print), and the truth is there on the screen. No such credit was on the film. What it really says is: Adapted and Directed by Sam Taylor.
Another legend, long put forward by the American Society of Cinematographers, is that Mary Pickford was one of two star-producers (the other being William S. Hart) who appended the initials ASC after the cinematographers name in film credits. It is true about Hart, the ASC initials appear after Joe August's name in the credits for "Sand" (1920); but in fact (after looking at virtually all the Mary Pickford films from 1920 to 1933--the original titles do not survive for "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall") it can be said with near certainty that Mary NEVER put the ASC initials on any of her films.
Can anyone think of any other such legends that have been shot down because films are now available tht were out of circulation for many years?

Bob Birchard wrote:

Can anyone think of any other such legends that have been shot down because films are now available tht were out of circulation for many years?

The notion that perhaps the tenure of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy overlapped while in the employ of Larry Semon.

Two obvious ones are the myths that the careers of Gilbert & Bow plumeted due to "bad" voices in early talkies...absurdities that could never have taken root if these pictures had been readily available for viewing by critics.

Or that Vilma Banky was unintelligible in her talkies. Completely untrue as A Lady to Love proves. Her accent, usually described as "gutteral Hungarian" was similar to Garbo's.

The fact that a glut of film histories came out when silents were at their lowest ebb, both critically and in availability, has left us with so many inaccuracies that we can now correct. I mentioned in another thread recently that you can still find so-called credible film histories that describe Clara Bow's voice as 'high and nasal'. Clearly, it wasn't, as anyone can now hear for themselves. This is the reason I'm still baffled that there is no official release for His Glorious Night. It would be great to make the determination on that for ourselves.

Individual actors tended to suffer especially. Today, anyone can watch a Marion Davies comedy today and realise that she was talented as well as gorgeous, or say that Valentino did have some range, because we've seen other of his films than just The Sheik.

A more wide-ranging one would be the myth that all silent films ran at a comically fast speed. You'd think that better understanding of frame rates over the past few decades would have killed that one dead, but it appeared as recently as 2000 in the James Joyce biopic Nora.

Norma Talmadge and her non-existent New Yawk accent.....

Brooksie wrote: Today, anyone can watch a Marion Davies comedy today and realise that she was talented as well as gorgeous,...

Amazing that in the few years intervening between the last of her pictures and Orson Welles' character assassination in Kane, the "public" had evidently forgotten what a truly wonderful performer she'd been; how else, otherwise, could there have arisen the conflation of Welle's fictional character with the real Marion?

Not so fast, Bob. Several years ago, Kevin Brownlow acknowledged in his book Mary Pickford Rediscovered that original prints of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW do not have the legendary credit. But he goes on:

However, it seems that the credits were remade; reviews of the opening night recorded the "additional dialogue" credit, presumably sending [Sam] Taylor rushing back to the title department. In later years, Mary insisted there was never any such credit.

Jeffrey Vance also mentions in his book Douglas Fairbanks that the credit was created at Taylor's instruction "despite the pleas of Lawrence Irving." Also citing Brownlow, he adds that the credit existed in the print exhibited at the world premiere held at the London Pavilion on November 14, 1929 "and, based on audience reaction, was expeditiously altered immediately thereafter."

I've also found a few pieces of evidence that back up Brownlow's claim. See this thread and this thread.

Where are these reviews that say those exact words? None of those threads state what you claim, so without seeing them, once again, it's urban legend. The first thread you list merely says it was adapted by Sam Taylor, which matches the exact credit. It did not say that there was a separate credit. Please show these reviews that state this word for word.

If you notice in the quote you have from Brownlow, it does not say it did appear that way, it says presumably, and once again, there is no letter, no review, etc. to back it up. Find these so many reviews in the New York Times or Media History Digital Library and show us.

CoffeeDan wrote:Not so fast, Bob. Several years ago, Kevin Brownlow acknowledged in his book Mary Pickford Rediscovered that original prints of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW do not have the legendary credit. But he goes on:

However, it seems that the credits were remade; reviews of the opening night recorded the "additional dialogue" credit, presumably sending [Sam] Taylor rushing back to the title department. In later years, Mary insisted there was never any such credit.

Jeffrey Vance also mentions in his book Douglas Fairbanks that the credit was created at Taylor's instruction "despite the pleas of Lawrence Irving." Also citing Brownlow, he adds that the credit existed in the print exhibited at the world premiere held at the London Pavilion on November 14, 1929 "and, based on audience reaction, was expeditiously altered immediately thereafter."

I've also found a few pieces of evidence that back up Brownlow's claim. See this thread and this thread.

"Even at that, Shakespeare does not get all the credit. Director Sam Taylor is listed as aiding in the dialogue. These improvements appear to consist principally of inserting Petruchio's comment, "What a wench!" here and there." is that the evidence you're citing from the Liberty review? Not very convincing. The credit "Adapted by Sam Taylor" would easily cover the statement "Director Sam Taylor is listed as aiding in the dialogue."

An "additional dialogue" credit, in any event, would not have added to Taylor's prestige in the way an "Adapted by" credit would have at the time.

The story is that the credit was laughed off the screen and replaced, but this has all the trapping of an urban legend. I won't be convinced unless you can cite a reliable first hand contemporary source (such as a review) for the exact phrase "additional dialogue by Sam Taylor." Much as I respect Kevin B., and I've known him for over 40 years, I suspect that he and Jeffrey Vance may have been attempting to explain why the credit is not on the film, when in fact the notion of it was always a wag's gag.

I like myths. They are the basis of storytelling. Stop shooting them to hell....

I'm with Bob on this one. Until we find a primary source that says the credit was there, the burden of proof rests with the people who say the 'additional dialogue' was there, not the other way around.

Do people even read all the posts in the thread? Excuse me, but I think I was the one to suggest that someone put up the money first, not Bob.

missdupont wrote:Do people even read all the posts in the thread?

Or in any other? Only as an exercise in speed-reading, apparently, & as one of several other simultaneous multi-tasks.

Wow, I think I'll have to hire an editor, spell checker and fact checker before I post anything on this list. Okay, I should have said: I'm on the side of the people who think that the burden of evidence should be on those who believe in the humorous intertitle.

Now I'll go off and watch another movie starring vaudeville star and headliner, Marion Davies.

Lokke Heiss wrote:Wow, I think I'll have to hire an editor, spell checker and fact checker before I post anything on this list.

Sign me up too for the fact- & spell-checker; for the latter I'll pay in advance.

For what it's worth, I did some research on the Sam Taylor story (after being shouted down for trying to declare it a myth here on Nitrateville, I seem to recall), but it was inconclusive.

I have seen that exact phrase 'Directed and adapted by Sam Taylor' in original publicity for the picture. It's entirely possible that this credit alone amused some folks, and I don't believe that the reviews Brownlow referred to disagree with this. I have also found some evidence that a story did get around - advertising that deliberately states "Every line of dialogue used in the picture stands as written by the Bard himself," - but it's circumstantial at best.

The first definite reference I found to the 'Additional dialogue by ...' story comes earlier than I would have expected, during publicity for Max Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream. (1935). The context is important here. Whenever the story crops up over the years, it's usually in connection to Shakespearean production we're supposed to regard as more authentic and highbrow than Taylor's. There's a certain snobbery at play. The implication is "That was directed by some slapstick shmoe - we're the proof that Hollywood can do better."

Yeah, like direct Mickey Rooney as a giggling Puck. Cripes.

Looking at myths and legends tends to tell us more about ourselves than the people they're told about. The flourishing of the "Additional dialogue by Sam Taylor" story is not due to its truth, but to its appeal to the preconceptions of its audience: the image of a smug early Hollywood that placed its hacks above the Bard of Avon and were smote by the talkies because they all had squeaky voices with Brooklyn accents; nor could they act, just make grotesque faces with huge gestures. It feeds the egos of the present to think that we are so much more evolved. Movies are still better than ever!

Is it true? It doesn't matter. It's a myth and matters no more than George Washington's axe. Oh, I appreciate the attempt to find evidence, but I'm weird that way.

Bob

Any chance of the original version appearing on the next Milestone release (assuming there's going to be one)?

Until I started work on my new book in February, I was trying to post at least one discredited showbiz legend per day on Facebook. The one I'd really like to see eliminated is the "longest kiss in the movies" from the 1941 Jimmy Durante comedy YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW. As far as I can determined, the legend of the "3 minute, 5 second kiss" came from a publicity release that appeared just before the film's premiere. This release was also the source of Ronald Reagan's congratulation to Regis Toomey for keeping Jane Wyman quiet for so long. But if you see the film, the kiss is nowhere near as long as 3 minutes and 5 seconds. It's barely one minute long, and at any rate is broken up by cutaways to supporting actor Donald MacBride. Yet, this legend continues to be printed and reprinted as fact.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) is probably the most available classic film there is, and yet some people still trot out that story about the hanging Munchkin!

Another Oz-related one I'd really like to knock on the head is the story that MGM were going to lend Gable and Harlow to Fox in exchange for Shirley Temple. It comes up so often, including in Temple's autobiography, yet MGM didn't even buy the rights to the book until after Harlow's death. If any such deal was discussed, it must have been in very preliminary terms.