First Wave Musicals (2)

[Derek B.]

"The Vagabond King" was screened twice at UCLA's Festival of Preservation (1991 & 2000) with at least two other "non-Festival" screenings at Melnitz Hall. UCLA most recently ran it in August 2013 at the Billy Wilder.

It has been screened at Film Forum (twice), The Museum of Modern Art and Eastman House. The film festivals that have screened it include Capitolfest 6, Cinecon 30 and Cinevent (not sure which one).

The Vagabond King also played at The Stanford Theatre in 1990 and 2001. I wasn't around for the first showings but saw it on a double bill with Viennese Nights on the latter occasion during a marvelous program of Hollywood Musicals 1929-1939. I had read generally negative comments about the former and positive ones about the latter but, perhaps because of relative expectations, liked The Vagabond King quite a bit better. Since I thought the chances of seeing them again any time soon were small I went back the second night and still felt that way afterwards.

[entredeuxguerres]

I had read generally negative comments about the former and positive ones about the latter but, perhaps because of relative expectations, liked The Vagabond King quite a bit better.

My feeling also--and I have quite a good color print of Viennese Nights...far superior to my copy of Vagabond King. A "marvelous" experience, indeed.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Finally crossed Call of the Flesh off my to-see list.

I know the Technicolor for Novarro's "Vesti la giubba" is lost, but I was wondering if the audio has ever turned up.

[Gloria Rampage]

Harlett O'Dowd
OK. I get it. It's a joke.

Yeah, some posts make me laugh too.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

The current arguments regarding restoration / dvd availability of films reminds me of the scene in YOUNG MR LINCOLN where Henry Fonda settles an argument between two litigants, played by Russell Simpson and Charles Halton. At the risk of getting my hair parted by an imaginary musket-ball it seems that both sides are right to a degree, the main problem being that we don't live in an ideal world and not all of us live in / near or can afford the time / money to travel to see older films shown properly - me included!

Restoration clearly costs a lot of money, as does storage and preservation, not to mention costs in shipping 35mm prints across country. It also involves a lot of specialised, skilled work which money won't always buy. Also, this does not necessarily mean the organisations have the right to show the films or charge for film hire / dvds. In addition, not all dvds are commercially viable, tho' some companies do make an effort to provide films of minority interest, and other organisations do not always look at the profit motive, tho' they need to be financially stable.

It's a pity that some of the correspondents here should get so personal - surely a simple point or two of argument will do. And although there are gaps in all our collections, we should be happy that so much has been made available over such a few years which previously was difficult, not to say impossible to see. Here's a few I have seen in the last couple of years or so which previously I would have had to travel to London to see:-

STRAIGHT SHOOTING (1917), BUCKING BROADWAY (1917), FIG LEAVES (1926), THREE BAD MEN (1926), WHAT PRICE GLORY? (1926), LIGHTS OF NEW YORK (1928), FAZIL (1928), RILEY THE COP (1928), HANGMAN'S HOUSE (1928), WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS (1928), FOUR SONS (1928), THE SINGING FOOL (1928), SADIE THOMPSON (1928), RIO RITA (1929), LUCKY STAR (1929), THE BLACK WATCH (1929), THE DANCE OF LIFE (1929), SPRING IS HERE (1930), LILIOM (1930), THE LIMEJUICE MYSTERY, OR WHO SPAT IN GRANDFATHER'S PORRIDGE? (1930), A NOTORIOUS AFFAIR (1930), PARADISE ISLAND (1930), SONG O' MY HEART (1930), VIENNESE NIGHTS (1930), DIXIANA (1930), JUST IMAGINE (1930), FOLLOW THRU (1930), MEN WITHOUT WOMEN (1930). That's just for starters, and doesn't include ones waiting to be watched or ones I had seen before or later films...

Certainly when I compare what is available now to what was available on vhs or the choices presented by television stations (years ago I had cable-tv when TNT as it was used to show unusual films [early MGM and Warners movies] over here rather than the endless recycling of the same old stuff) there is no comparison. The problem is living to a ripe enough age to see them all... Nice as it would be to have excellent Technicolor copies of KING OF JAZZ (1930), THE VAGABOND KING (1930) etc, etc, it is good to know they are being attended to and have a chance of being seen by us eventually...

[Donald Binks]

I think that earlytalkiebuffRob talks quite a lot of sense.

We are all extremely grateful to be (still) living in these enlightened times. I remember when I had to trek all over the place to try and see interesting pictures. They were just not available. I didn't see, for example, "Frankenstein" (1931) until the early 1970's.

Television used to be a source for watching retrospective cinema. We used to have programmes like "The Golden Years of Hollywood" - but that has all disappeared because television executives have decided now that the only pictures to be screened are colour ones made this century - whether they are rubbish or not.

I would love to be able to be in America and go and see a screening of "The Vagabond King" when it is let out - but that would depend on whether such a screening would fit into a period when I would be in America attending to other matters. I am not rich enough to go all that way just to go to the pictures. (I wish I were!)

I am extremely appreciative of all those wonderful people and organisations who go to so much trouble to restore old pictures. I am just an eternal optimist I suppose hoping that someday there may be a way for all the issues to be overcome which might see all this wonderful work be respected by achieving a wider audience.

[entredeuxguerres]

Television used to be a source for watching retrospective cinema.

That's certainly where I discovered it. Local network affiliates in this country used to broadcast LOTS of "old movies"...though less, I greatly suspect, from love of such films than from the good deals offered by distributors. A "Late-Night" or "Night-Owl" show was almost invariably part of every weekend schedule & I recall some stations showing them all day long on Sat. These, of course, were defaced by commercials, but TV viewers of the '50s & '60s had to be resigned to that punishment as the cost of viewing. (As You Tube viewers must be today.) Then the god-send of PBS came along, the local affiliates of which offered the same kind of late-night programs--the veritable summum bonum I thought at the time, never in my wildest cinephile dreams imagining the miracle of home-video.

Most of that kind of TV programing withered away toward the end of the '80s--evicted, I suppose, by the miracle I mentioned above. Instead, my local PBS station shows re-runs of Downton Abbey just about continuously.

[coolcatdaddy]

You have to remember that the 60s and 70s were the prime years for the "nostalgia boom". The folks that came of age in the 30s, 40s and 50s were approaching middle age and looking back. Old movies, tv shows and old time radio were a hot commodity then and period films - "Paper Moon", "Chinatown", "American Graffiti" - were all the rage.

That group has aged out, so currently we're seeing programming of 80s and 90s films aimed at the audience that came of age in that era.

[Donald Binks]

Television used to be a source for watching retrospective cinema.

That's certainly where I discovered it. Local network affiliates in this country used to broadcast LOTS of "old movies"...though less, I greatly suspect, from love of such films than from the good deals offered by distributors. A "Late-Night" or "Night-Owl" show was almost invariably part of every weekend schedule & I recall some stations showing them all day long on Sat. These, of course, were defaced by commercials, but TV viewers of the '50s & '60s had to be resigned to that punishment as the cost of viewing. (As You Tube viewers must be today.) Then the god-send of PBS came along, the local affiliates of which offered the same kind of late-night programs--the veritable summum bonum I thought at the time, never in my wildest cinephile dreams imagining the miracle of home-video.

Most of that kind of TV programing withered away toward the end of the '80s--evicted, I suppose, by the miracle I mentioned above. Instead, my local PBS station shows re-runs of Downton Abbey just about continuously.

In Melbourne (Australia) on Channel 9 there used to be "Night Owl Theatre" on a Friday and/or Saturday night, with a host called Hal Todd - who used to work as an announcer on the wireless, so had the gift of the gab.

Anyway, this delightful little programme filled to the brim with old pictures used to start off at midnight and there were usually three feature films played.

In the advertising breaks (yes, we used to put up with them, didn't we!) Hal Todd managed to get around the time limit restrictions by doing an "interview" with the proprietor or some other bigshot from the company he was advertising. This I daresay was the pre-curser to that abominable thing called "advertorials" which now consume the insomniacs' hour. Some of these little chats would go on for ten or twenty minutes - much to the chagrin of the viewer.

It was therefore possible to start off with Clark Gable and Carol Lombard in something highly romantic, only to come next to Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet involved in something dire, followed a little later with Bela Lugosi chasing Abbot and Costello. What had occurred of course was that this viewer had dropped off and awoken again in to a completely different picture without a by your leave or beg your pardon by way of explanation. No wonder the plots seemed far-fetched and ridiculous!

I hope this little bon-mot has given you slight amusement.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Nice to have a positive response. Plenty of mouth-watering showings out there, but travel / cash / family / work restrictions rule a lot of these out. And cinema / rep showings not always ideal as have plenty of stories of inadequate prints and presentations of films, not to mention the occasion when I was sat next to (I hope!) the smelliest man in the cinema.

I've sometimes griped at silent films deprived of music or with dreadful / repetitive / unsuitable soundtracks, sometimes due to music copyright. Again, there are ways round this problem and am extremely grateful for chances to see HEARTS OF THE WORLD (1918), TRUE HEART SUSIE (1919) amongst others so should cease grizzling!

A particularly ludicrous incident took place before a showing of the Griffith WAY DOWN EAST at the local Polytechnic many years back. The print being shown was a 1930 reissue with soundtrack, but the lecturer announced it would be shown silent "as it would have been shown originally"!* Fortunately the film survived this mistreatment, but such a ridiculous comment defied description from one who should have known better

* may not be exact words

[BGM]

t. Indeed until recently I had no idea that SWEET KITTY BELLAIRS (1930) was extant until recently, though at present shorn of its Technicolor.

It is quite charming even without it's Technicolor.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Yes, I saw a rather fuzzy YouTube upload (lacking opening and closing titles and credits) on my laptop a while back, but if the trailer is anything to go by, the Region 1 copy is nice and clear and on my wish list. Even with these drawbacks it was tuneful and fun, with amusing characters and satire and a charming, gay score. I particularly liked the dance at Bath, the sedan-chair duel and some of the over-ripe acting.

Until then, I had feared it was lost as one found mentions of it in some books with little evidence of the authors having seen it, tho' Barrios (again!) gives it hearty praise.

[Jim Reid]

What killed movies being shown on local tv stations was the invention of the infomercial. In the old days, stations would have to pay for the movies, which usually ran in low-rate timeslots. It was difficult to make much money from a movie airing. I remember running some Sunday afternoon films in the 70s where all the breaks were promos and PSAs. No money coming in at all, just filling time.

Then, when infomercials showed up, they took all that time and bought it in blocks. Not only did the stations not have to pay for movies, but they were paying them to fill that dead time.

As for not showing B&W. I think that was just a progressive thing where tv stopped showing B&W, so that when younger people saw it, it was foreign to them and they usually say no to those things without trying them.