Thelma Todd

[Mike Gebert]

So, we're having an argument between those who appreciate Thelma Todd for her steady and delightful career despite not becoming a household name in her day, and those who appreciate Thelma Todd for her steady and delightful career despite not becoming a household name in her day?

Let me know how it comes out.

[drednm]

No argument, Mike, but some people should have learned some manners years ago.....

[Harold Aherne]

Doing primarily short subjects back then didn't invalidate one's stardom, and it didn't necessarily mean less prestige than being a contract player at one of the major studios. For example, in the Motion Picture Herald poll of money-making stars for the 12 months ending in September 1936, several Roach stars are included: Laurel and Hardy were in the "Blue Ribbon" category, among Ronald Colman, Bette Davis, Richard Dix, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard and Loretta Young. Charley Chase and Our Gang were in the "White Ribbon" category (along with Spanky McFarland as an individual) among notable players like Ralph Bellamy, Randolph Scott, Warren William and up-and-coming Errol Flynn.

(No, Thelma Todd wasn't there, but her death limited the opportunities for her to *be* profitable, and may have meant that she wasn't uppermost in theatre owners' minds when the poll was conducted. She may very well have scored in earlier polls.)

Paying attention only to feature films also gives Charley Chase and Lloyd Hamilton deceptively small resumes, but their stardom, as well as most of their genius, wasn't based on longer films.

-HA

[drednm]

You omitted the Three Stooges.....

Given her druthers, I'm sure Thelma would rather have been in features at a major studio. But druthers don't matter.

[JFK]

For example, in the Motion Picture Herald poll of money-making stars for the 12 months ending in September 1936, several Roach stars are included: Laurel and Hardy were in the "Blue Ribbon" category, among Ronald Colman, Bette Davis, Richard Dix, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard and Loretta Young. Charley Chase and Our Gang were in the "White Ribbon" category (along with Spanky McFarland as an individual) among notable players like Ralph Bellamy, Randolph Scott, Warren William and up-and-coming Errol Flynn.

I've always wondered how such polls were conducted back then, especially for short subjects.
If I went to see The Passionate Plumber at an MGM-owned movie palace,
and a Pete Smith short shared/darkened the bill,
would my attendance be included in Smith's box office results?
How did they calculate Charley Chase's numbers when he moved from Roach/MGM to Columbia?
Did he have greater distribution, or more prints in circulation, when releasing through MGM?
If so, would The Motion Picture Herald folks take this into account with their polling?
Did they figure out dollars earned per showing/theater?
Or take into account how many films a performer had in release any given year?

[Richard M Roberts]

You omitted the Three Stooges.....

Given her druthers, I'm sure Thelma would rather have been in features at a major studio. But druthers don't matter.

Druthers smuthers. Given his druthers, William Shatner world have loved to be the Worlds Greatest Canadian Shakespherian Actor, instead, he's a fat, rich old actor whose immortality and wealth comes from a TV show that was basically WAGON TRAIN in space. By your standards, that makes him a failure too.

No one famous gets to choose what the Public remembers them for, and so few are lucky to be remembered for anything at all. Thelma Todd could have done all the A Features in the World, and still be remembered for nothing but what she is remembered for now. Christine MacIntyre was a trained soprano and dramatic actress with lots of opera and stage credits, and it galled her to the day she died that all anyone knew her from was the Three Stooges shorts she made. Poor Girl. She was damn lucky to have worked with some true immortals who took her along for the ride.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[fwtep]

If you want possibly the best example of not being able to choose what you're remembered for, look no further than Alec Guinness. I know WE remember him for more than Obi Wan, but the other 99.9999999999% of the population doesn't. For what probably amounted to no more than 5 or 6 weeks total of shooting for all three films combined, he is remembered more than he is for the work he did in the prior 30 or so years.

Back on-thread, Thelma definitely makes me want to HOT CHA CHA CHA.

[momsne]

Speaking of William Shatner, maybe 20 years ago I saw a rebroadcast on WLIW of Clive James' UK talk show. His guest on this particular show was Joan Collins. She mentioned that, years earlier, she was in a make-up room getting dolled up for an appearance on a show. In a chair near her, she noticed a fat bald headed guy with a pasty face getting make-up put on before he went on stage. She did not recognize him. So, Joan Collins' segment on the show is over and out comes the next guest, William Shatner, with a tanned complexion and a full head of hair. The guy who was in the make-up room with her earlier. Collins then says to Clive that maybe she shouldn't have told that story. Yeah, right.

[Mike Gebert]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

[entredeuxguerres]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

Perhaps heavenly Norma can take a wee bit of solace in the knowledge that those who remember only those names are also at the very bottom of the pecking order, intellectual & culturally cognizant.

[drednm]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

Perhaps heavenly Norma can take a wee bit of solace in the knowledge that those who remember only those names are also at the very bottom of the pecking order, intellectual & culturally cognizant.

[Gene Zonarich]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

Perhaps heavenly Norma can take a wee bit of solace in the knowledge that those who remember only those names are also at the very bottom of the pecking order, intellectual & culturally cognizant.

Doesn't this all come down to the endless/ageless divide between comedy and drama, a kind of prejudice, with drama assumed to have intellectual heft and therefore worth of cultural exaltation? Erich von Stroheim thought "The Pitts" to be the finest dramatic actress he'd seen, and most of those who like to think of themselves as cognizant of film history probably think of "Greed" when we see the name ZaSu Pitts, while the majority of those know of her at all likely think comedy in film and TV. I love Norma Shearer (for the most part), and when I watch Thelma Todd I don't think of her unfortunate early death, but rather how good she is. When we start setting up our own arbitrary hierarchies, the discussion, and probably this thread as well, becomes pointless.

[drednm]

The "point" to this thread was merely asking how Todd could have been at the "height of popularity" when she died given that she had being doing lousy films and shorts for years. What gauge is used to determine her "popularity"? Was she seen as being at the height of her popularity at the time of her death in 1935? Or is this just modern-day hyperbole?

The point to this thread was not to dismiss Todd as an actress. Every career declines one way or another. My guess is that contemporary reports of her death and reactions to it were more caught up in the seamy possibilities rather than seeing an ascendant career cut short.

[momsne]

Any thread about Thelma Todd is fine with me. Whether an accurate transcription of a conversation or cobbled together by "Hot Toddy" author Andy Edmonds, Edmonds writes of a meeting that Todd had with Hal Roach where he told her she needed to lose some weight before he signed her to a contract and she told him that it wouldn't harm Roach if he lost a few pounds himself. Todd was no pushover, when she said that she wanted no drugs from Lucky Luciano sold in her Sidewalk restaurant, she meant it.

In the 1930s, Hollywood studios considered stars as their property and, except for MGM, studios would toss stars under the bus if the performers could not make money for the studio. I know, MGM dumped Lee Tracey after that incident in Mexico during the making of "Viva Villa!" I am thinking about what Warner Bros. did with Richard Barthelmess and Ruth Chatterton, big movie stars with plenty of fans whom Jack Warner tossed off the studio lot when their contracts were up.

For moviegoers back then, it was take it or leave it, the film studios figured most stars were replaceable by new and cheaper talent waiting in the wings. In the case of Thelma Todd's murder, Hal Roach was probably most upset at not being able to farm Todd out any longer to other studios at a handsome profit for Roach. Like Marilyn Monroe, no one came along to replace Todd. Unlike Monroe, Todd is almost completely forgotten today because Todd never had a chance to star in a string of "A" Hollywood pictures. Jean Harlow and Carol Lombard were stars in movies for major studios, so they are better remembered today.

Still, if you made "man in the street" type interviews with a dozen people asking them to name three famous actresses from the 1930s, I doubt more than two people could correctly give you one name. When the Warner Archive Collection releases its old movies as made on demand DVD-Rs, Warner knows that, with very rare exception, old movies don't sell. So Thelma Todd movies, along with the beautiful Thelma Todd, today remains forgotten to most film fans.

[Gene Zonarich]

The "point" to this thread was merely asking how Todd could have been at the "height of popularity" when she died given that she had being doing lousy films and shorts for years. What gauge is used to determine her "popularity"? Was she seen as being at the height of her popularity at the time of her death in 1935? Or is this just modern-day hyperbole?

The point to this thread was not to dismiss Todd as an actress. Every career declines one way or another. My guess is that contemporary reports of her death and reactions to it were more caught up in the seamy possibilities rather than seeing an ascendant career cut short.

Fair enough. I'm not saying there wasn't a point to it, at the beginning. But it did get sidetracked just a bit from "Thelma Todd" to something a lot more divisive that goes to the heart of what some people value and how they judge the past.

I often get the feeling that WE in our age tend to overlook and underestimate the work of those who made B movies and shorts, when they were quite popular with audiences of the time. With respect to Todd, I think the "modern-day hyperbole" can be traced largely to Kenneth Anger's garbage-pail work, "Hollywood Babylon," which infected an entire generation of movie fans in the Seventies. I think that enough time has passed to allow a more accurate assessment, without the distorting influence of sensationalism that tend to plague the discussion of popular arts in general.

[Jim Reid]

The "point" to this thread was merely asking how Todd could have been at the "height of popularity" when she died given that she had being doing lousy films and shorts for years.

I think this perfectly illustrates Gene's comments. You are judging all of her feature films as lousy and shorts as unimportant. This is where I think you're losing a lot of us.

[Richard M Roberts]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

Perhaps heavenly Norma can take a wee bit of solace in the knowledge that those who remember only those names are also at the very bottom of the pecking order, intellectual & culturally cognizant.

Hmm, two film snobs who also seem to think themselves responsible for the pecking order of tastes, typical and pathetic, definitely running in their own little worlds.

Again boys, stick with your MacDonalds and Tibbetts, bore yourselves into thinking you're better than any of the folks around here, most of whom do, contribute, and apparently know far more in and about the actual film history biz than you do. And also have way more fun.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Mike Gebert]

Yes, that's so totally me, I'm all over Jeanette McDonald! And Tibbett J. Farquhar! Because that's totally what I said, that I set the pecking order at MGM in the 30s.

Richard, do you even read before you come out a-swingin'? Because nearly every argument in this thread has been with someone who was agreeing with you more than not. (So if their point was snobbery, and you agree with it and attack it by painting them as snobs for failing to appreciate Tons of Fun enough, aren't you being a snob and a reverse snob simultaneously? Don't we run the risk of a singularity?) Maybe you could at least try to be fighting in the same conversation as the people you're attacking? Seems only courteous.

Anyway, I have plenty of fun just fine introducing my kids to this stuff. It's a simple joy... unlike incessant oneupsmanship.

[Richard M Roberts]

THe irony of all this is that while there was definitely a social hierarchy in old Hollywood, with MGM stars at the top, it has been completely overthrown. Norma Shearer weeps bitter tears in Heaven seeing that the only old stars everyone knows today are from the very bottom of the pecking order-- the Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny.

Perhaps heavenly Norma can take a wee bit of solace in the knowledge that those who remember only those names are also at the very bottom of the pecking order, intellectual & culturally cognizant.

Doesn't this all come down to the endless/ageless divide between comedy and drama, a kind of prejudice, with drama assumed to have intellectual heft and therefore worth of cultural exaltation? Erich von Stroheim thought "The Pitts" to be the finest dramatic actress he'd seen, and most of those who like to think of themselves as cognizant of film history probably think of "Greed" when we see the name ZaSu Pitts, while the majority of those know of her at all likely think comedy in film and TV. I love Norma Shearer (for the most part), and when I watch Thelma Todd I don't think of her unfortunate early death, but rather how good she is. When we start setting up our own arbitrary hierarchies, the discussion, and probably this thread as well, becomes pointless.

Zasu Pitts was a terrific actress and comedienne, made obvious by the fact that she was one of the busiest actresses of the 20's and 30's, and worked steadily (and actually, way longer than Norma Shearer did)until her death in 1963 . She and Thelma Todd made some very funny short comedies together, and were a great team.

There has always been this divide, mostly among film snobs (the type who'd like to call themselves "cineastes") that drama and length somehow makes "Art" more important, yet they can never understand how their idols become forgotten and neglected by the public while these "low" comedians or mere "entertainers"continue to earn cash long after their dead. The rest of us know where the real "Art" is.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

Yes, that's so totally me, I'm all over Jeanette McDonald! And Tibbett J. Farquhar! Because that's totally what I said, that I set the pecking order at MGM in the 30s.

Richard, do you even read before you come out a-swingin'? Because nearly every argument in this thread has been with someone who was agreeing with you more than not. (So if their point was snobbery, and you agree with it and attack it by painting them as snobs for failing to appreciate Tons of Fun enough, aren't you being a snob and a reverse snob simultaneously? Don't we run the risk of a singularity?) Maybe you could at least try to be fighting in the same conversation as the people you're attacking? Seems only courteous.

Anyway, I have plenty of fun just fine introducing my kids to this stuff. It's a simple joy... unlike incessant oneupsmanship.

I wasn't arguing with you MIchael, I was arguing with the ones who like to think themselves superior over the ones who like The Three Stooges, Bela Lugosi, and Bugs Bunny, which is basically two people on this thread. They are also distorting the histories in general of several very fine actresses out of general ignorance of their actual careers and work and if you think they're agreeing with me or anyone else arguing with them, YOU don't know what you're talking about.


RICHARD M ROBERTS (who actually likes Jeanette MacDonald too as long as she's singing in lingerie, when she starts singing fully clothed, it's back to Thelma Todd)

[drednm]

The "point" to this thread was merely asking how Todd could have been at the "height of popularity" when she died given that she had being doing lousy films and shorts for years.

I think this perfectly illustrates Gene's comments. You are judging all of her feature films as lousy and shorts as unimportant. This is where I think you're losing a lot of us.

Not quite. I never said all her features were lousy; I said her career in features was downtrending (5th billing in a Crosby flick, etc.). As for shorts, yes my personal opinion is that shorts are not generally as important in film history as features. And yes there are exceptions. But I think these exceptions have more to do with our looking back on and reclaiming certain players (perfectly valid) as opposed to how contemporary filmgoers viewed shorts. I mean do you really think adult audiences flocked to the theater and sat through a double feature to catch the latest short by X? Seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible.

[boblipton]

As for shorts, yes my personal opinion is that shorts are not generally as important in film history as features. And yes there are exceptions.

There I have to disagree with you, Ed. Although it's a common view of history in all its branches, it's not just the big, noisy expensive things that are important. Important things always start small with cheap skunkworks experimentation, and the shorts and Bs were a place for people to get their starts and try out new ideas.

Bob

[drednm]

Yes, Bob. I understand that. That's why I said GENERALLY and said there are EXCEPTIONS. Every short did not produce a big career or lead to anything other than the THE END.

[Jim Roots]

So, we're having an argument between those who appreciate Thelma Todd for her steady and delightful career despite not becoming a household name in her day, and those who appreciate Thelma Todd for her steady and delightful career despite not becoming a household name in her day?

Let me know how it comes out.

They/We won!

Jim

[Jim Roots]

(sighs, looks at watch)

OK, to begin with, Thelma Todd didn't "freelance", she was under personal contract to Hal Roach from 1929 onward after Paramount dumped her and he made a nice chunk of change (way nicer than Thelma ever got) leasing her services to every studio that wanted her no matter what the role or studio for that matter, all this while using her in support of all his own comedians, then putting her in her own series of two-reelers teamed with Zasu Pitts and later,Patsy Kelly. Though he was concerned about her work in his own comedies, Roach really cared nothin about her career outside of the Lot of Fun, and worked her into the ground on loanouts, pocketing the cash, and paying her her weekly contracted salary regardless of how much he made off her. Thats why she's doing MONKEY BUSINESS with the Marx Brothers one week, then a walk-on in something like THE MALTESE FALCON with Ricardo Cortez the next, then KLONDIKE for Monogram the next. She had no say in what she did, she just went and did it. Her friend Roland West tried to help her break through with CORSAIR, even changing her name to Alison Loyd because the name ThelmaTodd was already associated in the Public's mind with comedy, but it was too little too late, and Thelma couldn't get out from under her contract with Roach.

In short, exactly what Budd Schulberg did to Clara Bow.

Jim

[Mike Gebert]

I mean do you really think adult audiences flocked to the theater and sat through a double feature to catch the latest short by X? Seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible.

Sure it's possible, at the very least for Chaplin and Mickey Mouse. I think it's pretty well established that, given a choice between two full evenings of programming which might sound more or less the same, Mickey's presence could draw you to one or the other. Not if you were determined to see Movie X, but apparently, that's not how people went to the movies then so much as just going to the movies. It's kind of like the "Least Objectionable Programming" theory of network TV in the 70s, which held that the TV would stay on CBS as long as nothing was bad enough to make you switch. And so, for a time, shorts were as important as features (but that time surely peaked around the late silent era, and Todd died right around the time Disney switched his attention to features, which will do for the last moment when shorts had a star at the top).

Now, I'm sure there was a whole descending hierarchy of shorts stars who were draws in their own right. And Thelma Todd was probably not terribly high on it, but high enough that she could have a career. That said, I don't think she was ever going to be a star. She's a game comedienne and always fun to watch, but that indefinable thing that makes you want to know what's going on her head and curl up with her-- Carole Lombard had that, Jean Harlow had that. Todd was more like Carol Cleveland with the Monty Python, hey look, a beautiful woman is willing to play along with our crazy jokes.

[Richard M Roberts]

drednm wrote:
Jim Reid wrote:
drednm wrote:The "point" to this thread was merely asking how Todd could have been at the "height of popularity" when she died given that she had being doing lousy films and shorts for years.


I think this perfectly illustrates Gene's comments. You are judging all of her feature films as lousy and shorts as unimportant. This is where I think you're losing a lot of us.


Not quite. I never said all her features were lousy; I said her career in features was downtrending (5th billing in a Crosby flick, etc.). As for shorts, yes my personal opinion is that shorts are not generally as important in film history as features. And yes there are exceptions. But I think these exceptions have more to do with our looking back on and reclaiming certain players (perfectly valid) as opposed to how contemporary filmgoers viewed shorts. I mean do you really think adult audiences flocked to the theater and sat through a double feature to catch the latest short by X? Seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible.

Again, Lorusso needs to do a lot more research.

Basically the whole reason Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, and others went into features was because it was the only way they could extract more revenue when it became obvious that their short comedies were being used by Exhibitors as the bait to prop up less than popular features that they were actually paying more money for. All one needs to do is start looking at Movie Ads in newspapers to see many instances where the short comedy is billed above the main feature.

This even continued into the 50's, where The Three Stooges continued to win all sorts of Exhibitor Awards as box-office favorites, basically why Columbia kept their shorts department running way longer than any of the other Studios because the Stooges were still a cash cow for them.

Lorusso might also do a bit more research into the concept of "double features" and "full programs", which, in the pre-1948 days of the Anti-Trust suit which broke away the Theater ownership from the Movie Studios ownership, meant that most Film Companies offered one or the other, and the "double feature" was no way as prevalent as the full program, which meant one feature supported by a number of shorts and/or even live Vaudeville. The full program continued to be the standard, especially in the first-run and major cities houses into the late 40's/early 50's. The "double features" became more of a second-run and small-town house concept where there were more independent exhibitors and fewer screens to book more than one Studios product at a time. This is why the frequently incorrect term "B Feature" gets bandied about today way too much by the uninformed, fine recent example is Larusso's use of it towards the 1935 MGM feature SHADOW OF DOUBT. MGM held to the "full-program" presentation longer than many and most Studios, by their standards, they made NO B FEATURES. That film would have first-runned as the main feature with a newsreel, cartoon, and several selected short subjects, most likely a Laurel and Hardy or gee, even a Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly short, and you can bet there were a number in the Audience who were there more to see those than Ricardo Cortez.


One more time, more education is recommended, it tends to remove the Snob Factor from a lot of writing about film. The "longer and serious is better" concept works no more effectively talking film than it does prose, or television (the hour-long drama is more important than the half-hour sitcom!).


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

Caught up with CHEATING BLONDES last night while we had dinner after getting back from Los Angeles, average independent product of the time, nothing particularly hideous about it (unless you haven't seen enough of this kind of product to have a real good opinion about it). Cheap yes, but some of the first words you see are "A Larry Darmour Production", which is all the warning on that score you need. Plot silly, but fun, and a lot of Hal Roach and Comedy connections involved with it, Lewis Foster co-wrote it, and it is worth watching just for the cast: Thelma of course, looking fabulous and making the silly dialogue work, Ralk Harolde, Inez Courtney, Dorothy Gulliver (who looks a bit like Olive Borden here), Earl Mc Carthy (Hairbreadth Harry himself, in his last film before his tragic death at 26), Mae Busch (someone said she looks awful in the film, well, she's playing a battered wife, I think she's supposed to look a bit mussed up, but looks pretty good otherwise, and it's interesting to see her playing the abused spouse for once, where's that fryin' pan she put to Oliver Hardy's head a time or two!), Brooks Benedict, Harry Bernard, Bobby Burns, Billy West, Dorothy Vernon, Eddie Fetherston, Edna Murphy, a solid group of pros make the nonsense worth seeing. Not as fun as KLONDIKE, there's a great cast and a truly whack-job plot (and my favorite selling line for a film: Thelma Todd-----in the Arctic-----in a nightie.), but certainly nothing to pull ones hair and gnash ones teeth about. Definitely worth the 4.99 from Alpha to put it on the shelf.


RICHARD M ROBERTS