The Pair That Curled Your Hair --- Part One

There was once a time when giants filled the theatres. Two of these were Frankenstein and Dracula. Singly brand names, together unstoppable. Think rice and gravy, football and beer … American institutions. No, scratch that … Frankenstein and Dracula were (still are?) world institutions. Both had literary origins overseas. They’ve ping-ponged cash registers on both sides for more generations than any of us have been around. Universal draws blood yet from early thirties stones playing more profitably than anything else so old. A Frankenstein or Dracula one-sheet in your attic will buy a new house. For seven years after their initial release in 1931, showmen regarded them separately. Playdates were infrequent as Universal provided sequels (Bride Of Frankenstein, Dracula’s Daughter) beginning right where originals left off, but there were gold deposits untapped even as the mine’s route lay not hidden, but in plain sight. The magic was in combining them, but nobody thought of that until seemingly bungled reissues of Frankenstein and Dracula suddenly caught fire together in August 1938. For months running up, Universal’s salesmanship was as unimaginative as any they’d concocted for talking revivals, a concept just coming into its own by Spring of that year. To have (heavily) circulated oldies prior to this would have meant either pictures too recent, or (heaven forbid) silents. 1938 was the first season for heavy studio exploitation of vault product. A lot of that came of patron and showman requests. Demand was virtually catapulted by a shortage of new product, said the trades. Universal counted twenty-one favorites fans wanted back. Most were supplied by whatever prints an exchange might have on hand. An official re-release necessitated a fresh campaign and submission of the feature for a Code seal. Test engagements determined levels of interest in proposed titles. Universal tried out Frankenstein during March and April with three others, All Quiet On The Western Front, Lady Tubbs (a 1935 comedy with Alice Brady as a madcap crashing society), and Love Before Breakfast (with popular Carole Lombard), in both single and combo berths. Response was mixed. Harold S. Eskin, head of the Eskins Amusement Enterprises, was impressed. You may unreservedly tell your men in the field, if you wish, to sell this show (Frankenstein and Love Before Breakfast) to the exhibitor as a unit, that it did for me more than seventy-five percent in excess of business ordinarily done in my theatre. A New York booking of Frankenstein at 42nd Street’s Liberty Theatre was something else. It played off without causing much excitement (according to The Motion Picture Herald) during April. The few doors down Rialto repeated Dracula the same month, without impressive results. Owner Arthur Mayer spoke of both pictures having played (singly) every shooting gallery (a term for grind theatres) in town. Universal still regarded Frankenstein as promising enough to warrant a May 15 re-release date along with the three other tested oldies. Dracula became Number Five of these for the company’s 1938-39 season in early June. Trade ads promised accessories, including fresh trailers, but nothing was suggested with regards pairing the monsters. Showmen drawing from the list took so many pigs from a poke. B. Hollenbeck of the Rose Theatre in Sumas, Washington tried Dracula with Lady Tubbs. These two reissues were a complete flop here. Didn’t make running expenses. Is it safe to say Dracula was damned on this occasion by the company he kept? Both horrors got into some pretty horrific combinations. One theatre ran Frankenstein and Dracula on separate programs in support of "B" westerns. A lot of houses normally dark during summer months (because they lacked air-conditioning) kept lights burning with such cheaply bought fare. Universal’s monsters were clearly not being sold properly. As is so often the case, it was singular efforts of a genius showman that saved their bacon.

The Regina was an 800-seat theatre at Wilshire and La Cienega in Los Angeles. It had opened on April 21, 1937 with a combo of Black Legion and That Girl From Paris. Seats were twenty-five cents for adults and a dime for children. The Regina got by mostly on sub-runs and reissues. Peter Lorre dropped in once to catch M, the German thriller that had made him famous. It was third on a bill with The Black Room and White Zombie. Lorre fell asleep in his seat waiting for M to start. A lot of patrons slept through parts or all of such double and/or triple bills at the Regina. Their booking of Frankenstein and Dracula, along with RKO’s Son Of Kong, was intended to be a four-day run beginning Thursday, August 4, 1938. I’m specific about that date because it made history. Crowds jammed the front and manager Emil Umann found himself adding late (and later) shows to accommodate them. Legend persists that Umann rented long neglected prints of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" at a film warehouse, but these titles, having been available on reissue for several months, were less neglected than mishandled. The inspiration, and a brilliant one, lay in combining them for the first time with a marquee (shown here) challenging the audience: Dare You See? Umann’s master stroke was no one’s idea but his own. Universal bookers driving to work watched him smash records daily with pictures they’d sold the Regina at flat rate. Within a week, trades were carrying accounts of the theatre’s smash biz and nightly stop-ins by Bela Lugosi, invited by Umann to appear with his star-making (once again) hit. I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre. I was dead, and he brought me back to life, said Lugosi of his showman benefactor. A belatedly alerted Universal began laying plans of its own. Following the local stint, Lugosi will go on a prolonged personal appearance tour with the horror films, first taking in the west coast, then extending it throughout the country. Being a company without its own theatre chain, Universal’s reach was exceeding its grasp. Bookings, let alone favorable ones in "A" houses, came hardest to companies below the "Big Five's" integrated radar, which included Paramount, MGM, 20th Fox, RKO, and Warner Bros. They each owned theatres and together dominated every worthwhile territory in the nation. Universal faced its usual booking challenge with Dracula and Frankenstein, despite the combination’s remarkable success at the Regina. A second August run at Seattle’s Blue Mouse Theatre disabused notions that monsters in tandem were a fluke. Unable Handle Crowds Opening Day, reported manager John Hamrick in a telegram. Combining These Pictures Showman’s Dream Of Good Times Here Again. The Seattle Board Of Theatre Censors crabbed the party somewhat when it barred children under fifteen from attending on grounds that the intense excitement was harmful, a minor bump in Universal’s road toward a profit epidemic (per their ad) now confirmed. A September 3 trade ad shown here promised runs for Denver, Salt Lake City, and hundreds of other cities. Terms were generous to start as the company continued seeking wider traction. They got it after riots at Salt Lake City’s Victory Theatre all but necessitated that state’s militia. The house was sold out by ten o’clock in the morning. Four thousand frenzied Mormons milled around outside, finally broke through the police lines, smashed the plate glass boxoffice, bent in the front doors, and tore off one of the door checks in their eagerness to get in and be frightened. Management was forced to rent an empty theatre across the street to seat the overflow. Reels of Dracula and Frankenstein were bicycled back and forth in twenty-minute intervals throughout the day. The Victory’s triumph was bittersweet for Universal, as this theatre, like the Regina, booked its monster rally at a flat rate and therefore kept a lion's share of bounties. With their fad blossoming for a lucrative autumn, Universal would stiffen its terms and swing for the fences.

Small-timer Umann took the brunt of Universal’s bounce when they yanked the Regina’s prints after a fourth week. Frankenstein and Dracula were moving up to downtown palace digs with more seats and percentage payoffs. It seemed a raw deal for the man who’d conceived such a winning plan. Universal sale staffers were given (and taking) credit for the company’s monstrous success as newspapers began recognizing the phenomenon. Throw Away The Rule Books! said trade ads on October 15, You Play Them Together! You Dare Them To See It! --- And Then The Crowds Break Down Your Doors! Salt Lake's fulfillment of the latter helped get the big circuits on board as of that month. Dracula and Frankenstein played Fox West Coast theatres plus major houses nationwide, and at last Universal was in for a piece of the action. The New York Times wrote up that town’s opening at Broadway’s Rialto Theatre and expressed the mainstream’s customary bemusement over a public’s frenzy for horror. Rialto manager Arthur Mayer was Harvard educated and knew how to milk the press for coverage of goings-on at his all day and night grindhouse. Those six hundred Rialto seats provided refuge for kids playing hooky, husbands who were supposed to be out looking for jobs, and guys on the run from the cops. They had an entrance door from the subway and through a basement arcade known as a hangout for troublemakers. Mayer was called The Merchant Of Menace and relished the tag (his Rialto premiered Universal chillers since Bride Of Frankenstein, which had bowed at the Roxy). Can You Take It? ads for Frankenstein and Dracula (one shown here, and note modesty of the Rialto's ad as compared with those for biggies like Suez and Young Dr. Kildare), plus imaginative front ballys, delivered $12,000 in the first week against an average weekly gross of $5,500. It was inevitable that others would try scaling Universal’s castle walls. Lacking names the equal of Frankenstein and Dracula, they nonetheless copied selling tactics of the We Dare You sort with results satisfactory but nowhere near what the first team was delivering. RKO came closest with its first major revival of King Kong since 1933, but most competing shows ran along lines of one shown here, with its doctor and stretcher attending game efforts to squeeze coin out of pretenders Revolt Of The Zombies and The Walking Dead. Exhibitors who knew better clung to the originals, however. These two pictures together (Frankenstein and Dracula) have all the rest of the horror pictures cheated a mile, said P.G. Held of Griswold, Iowa’s New Strand Theatre. Halloween meanwhile provided another surge for Universal’s monster merchandise. The Orson Welles War Of The Worlds broadcast on October 30, along with upset conditions in Europe and the Orient, further whetted a public’s appetite for shudder pictures, according to The Motion Picture Herald. Universal announced Son Of Frankenstein for production starting November 9, with January 1939 release to follow. A pastiche culled from a Flash Gordon serial was hurriedly prepared and titled Mars Attacks The World in the wake of Welles’ newsmaking event. This went into many theatres right behind Frankenstein and Dracula where it often scored eighty percent of the combo’s business. To maintain flows of reissue cash, Universal test ran a merger of Dracula’s Daughter with Bride Of Frankenstein at the Uptown Theatre in Kansas City during November. Results were sufficiently gratifying as to earn them a nationwide re-release later that month. Everything horrific was hot again, but how long were legs for 1938's monster boomlet?

Explanation for much of Universal’s success was the dearth of new horror films during 1937 and 1938. Patrons frankly missed being chilled and wanted that old goose-bump feeling back. December saw Dracula and Frankenstein still harvesting the money tree. Universal boasted of a thousand bookings for the combo so far, and it expects four thousand more before the trend has run its course. This was really unprecedented, as most reissues stalled well below twelve hundred playdates. Crowded theatres served to benefit still in production Son Of Frankenstein as a duly impressed Universal increased expenditure for its sequel way beyond amounts previously invested in the genre. According to trades, the company had doubled its budget on "Son" to over $500,000, exclusive of large advertising appropriation. Final figures revealed exaggeration on Universal’s part, as negative costs on Son Of Frankenstein totaled $385,000, still a generous outlay for a monster pic. As to still playing originals, an order for five hundred new prints reflected confidence that both would run well into 1939, as Dracula and Frankenstein remained in service even after Son Of Frankenstein was released on January 13 and in some situations competed with the new attraction. If nothing else, the stunning success of Universal’s combo revealed the unique position these characters held in the public’s imagination, for combining them formed, at least in moviegoing parlance, as compelling a brand name as Coca-Cola and Kleenex tissue. Certainly it was Dracula and Frankenstein together that ushered in the second major horror film cycle at Universal. Sequels continued unabated through the war as monsters became more and more the exclusive province of kid and teen audiences. Bleak austerity of early 30’s incarnations seemed all the more so beside mid-forties monster rallies with their non-stop action and wall-to-wall musical scores, yet Dracula and Frankenstein maintained cache right through succeeding decades, and generations of fans. When time came for Universal to again try a thriller combo in 1947, their pick was not surprisingly those standbys that had delivered so well nine years before. "The Horror Boys" had long since been declared the safest bet for filling midnight tandem bills. Dracula and Frankenstein would go on delivering as Realart leased distribution rights in both after the 1947 run. That subject and greater popularity the two enjoyed on television and as revered objects of an even bigger monster boom will be covered in Part Two.

Kay-Rations at TCM

Somebody at Turner must have a big yen for Kay Francis. They’ve shown her a lot over years I’ve watched. This month is another marathon of her Warner (and Monogram!) pics. Last night I watched Raffles off the DVR. This was a Goldwyn/Colman new to me. It’s not as good as The Devil To Pay or The Masquerader, but fun withal and happily precode in letting its crook hero get away at the finish. Colman has this way of keeping at least three quarters of his face before the camera at all times, never mind dialogue directed toward others frequently standing behind him. He’s pleasingly vain and entirely justified in being so. Surely his parents foresaw a future upon Ronnie’s first spoken words --- Now there’s a natural for talkies. Raffles has that measured pace of theatre faithfully transcribed before we realized sound needed fresh tempos. It revels in a Mayfair weekend party milieu familiar to 30’s audiences not yet dismissive or contemptuous of upper class characters with attendant chauffeurs and footmen. There’s even a cricket match played in some detail, a segment I realized was my first sustained exposure to the game in movies. It looks like a weird kind of baseball. I thought of Boris Karloff playing it during hours off around this period. In fact, there’s much cross-pollination between Raffles and classic horrors being made across the valley at Universal. Frederick Kerr (Frankenstein), Frances Dade (Dracula), and Bramwell Fletcher (The Mummy) are all here, their parts a seeming continuum from (or to) those they assumed in the monster pics. Whiney Fletcher might as credibly be working his way out of the Raffles mess he’s in before dashing off to Egypt and a fateful Field Expedition, with straight-jackets to complete his odyssey. We take for granted the wondrous continuity supporting players brought to films then, a thing so lacking today when every show exists like an island divorced from other screen fare (unless it's sequels!). Raffles thievery is a lark practiced by gloved aristocrats who leave teasing notes for working class Yard men we enjoy seeing trumped. Imagine how such a thing would play now! Heists are committed without gunplay or characters getting bashed in the head. As no one's hurt, it’s easier to be good sports at the end and let miscreants make off with jaunty farewells (and sometimes the loot). Obviously Raffles was no vehicle for Kay Francis, as here I am just now getting around to her participation, and there are long sections where she opts out and leaves exposition to Colman. Reliably slinky and butched out hair-wise, Kay’s so flattered by the look as to make me wonder when it might be coming back.

Jewel Robbery is again a celebration of elegant thieves and how they (should!) prosper fleecing dense diamond merchants and dumb gendarmes. You can’t help speculating upon depression-era viewers, already short of bread at home, so inspired by such rascally goings-on as to hold up boxoffices on their way out (and indeed, theatre robberies, often at gunpoint, were rife during the early thirties). This is precode beyond mere lacking of moral and legal compensation so soon to be (rigorously) enforced. Jewel Robbery frankly applauds crime and artful means of getting away with it. Casting William Powell as said purloiner guarantees rooting interest on our part for whatever he does. This actor could drown puppies and make us like it. The great thing about Powell at Warners is how blithely he walks away from consequences of behavior egregious even to modern sensibilities. Adultery and rogueing are games he manages as adroitly as others play checkers. He must have been some role model for young men on already uncertain ethical footing. What a pity he’d spend future years bound up in Code chains at righteous Metro, that strident dispenser of justice to characters blurring societal edicts (watch sometime how the poor guy suffers in 1942's Crossroads!). Kay Francis would soon enough be wiped out by her own market crash of censorial intervention. Where was fun seeing KF tiptoe about post-Code drawing rooms when patrons remembered ones she’d heated up in Jewel Robbery? Always the fashion goddess, Francis in precode also modeled the latest attitudes with regards marriage (preferably open), fidelity (optional), and that eternal expediency of trading sex for gifts (diamonds preferred). Once you took these away, there was nothing left for her but clothes (assuredly staying on), a burden groaning beneath scripts with all semblance of reality siphoned off. Audiences listened to Kay Francis prior to 1934. After that, they merely watched (how many cared about fashions without red meat stories behind them?). Her struggle with the "R" enunciation gets laughs yet, but then and now it served as endearing equalizer for a woman who'd have seemed too perfect otherwise. When she answers Powell’s flawless diction with talk of "wobbers" making off with gems, we’re reassured these are mortals after all. Such impediment registered strongest, if unconsciously, among fans who stayed loyal even as Kay frankly took money and ran, as here was a woman who served less art than bottom lines, a refreshing variant on actress locomotives forever charging studio battlefields.

One Way Passage may rank among better precodes just for being well remembered by people who saw it new (said positive vibes passed down as received wisdom to generations since). Much as we like raw energy of shows from the early-30’s, there’s realization of sameness creeping in with ongoing exposure to them. It’s like a hard time you have recalling individual flavors after eating a roll of LifeSavers. Seen it all scenarists out of city room universities preferred fast and cynical, which explains why love seldom found Lee Tracy. So many precodes were about putting over sock openers, then peppering rest with verbal gagging. How much genuine emotion was managed in running times of seventy minutes or less? I watched my trio of Kay Francis pics in under three and three quarters an hour. Among these One Way Passage puts over romance and tragic dénouement in less time than Ken Maynard took quelling rustlers and runs a straight line contrary to so many Warner precodes where it writers routinely failed sobriety tests in coherent narrative. WB figured serious romance was indulgence better left to novelists and richer studios. Expanded length allowed Paramount to faithfully engage A Farewell To Arms and Universal drew tears over Mae Clarke’s fate in Waterloo Bridge. Both these and One Way Passage were talked about years after most titles of like vintage were deep-sixed. A part of us hates seeing Bill Powell gallows bound on a bum rap, and indeed, any other vehicle from that period would have spared him the rope, but unlike post-code morality lectures, One Way Passage isn’t about necessity of justice being served. The point, and an accurately observed one, is how easily chance and rotten luck can make us pay up for actions justified or at least understandable. Powell forfeits opportunity to escape out of love and/or decent impulses we never feel are imposed upon him (and us). One Way Passage won't patronize viewers in that way post-codes would. It surely traumatized 1932 viewers (jaded ones most of all) to see Bill so close to freedom, only to sacrifice all in a selfless act atypical of precode heroes (he plays it beautifully). No wonder Robert Osborne called One Way Passage the best of many pics Powell and Francis made together (and just because I like Bill and Raffles co-star Ronald Colman so much, here’s a rare shot of the two (who were best friends) relaxing during time off).

Warners and The James Dean Cult --- Part Two

It took Elvis Presley to wash away tears we’d shed over the loss of James Dean. Love Me Tender began the healing with saturation bookings in November 1956. Unlike Warners’ slow rollout of Giant, Elvis and company surged in with a (for Fox) record of five hundred prints to make sure everyone wanting Presley got him then and there. Love Me Tender came into many theatres right behind Giant and lines announced youth’s embrace of a new teen idol. Should 1956 Hollywood go forward with that proposed Dean biopic, why not let Elvis play Jimmy? It was considered, perhaps not seriously, but few concepts flew higher than a newly minted sensation enacting another just departed. Presley was a known Dean acolyte, but too fresh and untried a face to haul burdens of a posthumous image darkening with sad and sadder stories of how life and people had let Jimmy down. "Kansas City filmmaker" Robert Altman (so identified by the trades) went in search of loner Dean with scriptwriting George George in a spec documentary project they’d begun in November 1956. The James Dean Story was (so far) sixty-five minutes of profile and interviews with Jim’s relatives back in Indiana. Months passed with bankrolls depleted (by $20,000) as Altman and George shopped their project around for distribution. Would the Dean cult last as long as these two would take setting up a deal? TV networks were better able to strike while Dean irons simmered. He’s hotter than anybody alive!, said one NBC exec. That web was repeating a Robert Montgomery Presents that Dean had done with Ed Begley and Dorothy Gish called Harvest, while CBS was giving third broadcast go round to The Unlighted Road, a Playhouse Of The Stars featuring Dean. CBS also reran I’m A Fool with Natalie Wood among Jim’s support. All these were scheduled during a Dean-heavy month of November when old anthology product with the actor regularly Trendex-trounced competing stations. All three shows exploited the Dean legend for frankly commercial purposes, said TIME, but as any JD footage was so many ribbons of gold, how could you blame networks for mining them? Warners meanwhile noted awards and nominations still coming Dean’s way. Golden Globe "Henriettas" went to he and Kim Novak in March 1957, while the Academy tabbed Jimmy among possible Best Actors for his work in Giant. It was time for WB to get serious about their backlog. No more limited engagements and catch-as-catch-can bookings for East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause. In response to the overwhelming demand, said advertising, both would be reissued with a new campaign for nationwide combo runs in 1957. Let kids pose with Dean standee. Tie in with local photog or use personal camera, said new pressbooks, Offer free pictures between five and seven PM. Still taboo was mention of the actor’s death in publicity kits. A psychologist or member of the clergy could give talks at the theatre on the meaning of James Dean to teenagers was closest they’d come to dealing with the cult and its cultural ramifications (but what right-minded showman would furnish a lectern for such?). Flip-books of the chicken run sequence from Rebel Without A Cause were made available to whet darker patron appetites, while taglines trumpeted the Academy nomination for Giant. Eden/Rebel played percentage and fattened many an exhibitor’s purse, in addition to enabling recent Dean converts to catch up with his limited output (not unlike later James Bond fans turned on by Goldfinger acquainting themselves with earlier 007 via the Summer 1965 encore of Dr. No with From Russia With Love --- I was one of those!).

As time passed, Dean cultism was eased toward the margins. Kids were ready to ease up and have a little fun with it. Enter the spook showman. If fans were so anxious to bring Jimmy back, well, that was simple enough. New York’s Jefferson Theatre offered "The Materialization Of James Dean" as part of a stage show wherein JD shared residency with Count Dracula in a so-called "House Of The Living Dead". So much for respectful tribute. The press reported a teen girl found slumped and writhing in her seat in the wake of shock and convulsions sustained during the show’s climax. Two male rowdies had been fighting in an adjacent aisle. One of them kicked her in the head while the lights were out. All this followed said materialization, which consisted wholly of the showing of an illuminated photograph of Dean’s face during one of innumerable blackouts. Hooliganism was an increasing problem as youth patrons emulated anti-social behavior they observed on screens playing The Blackboard Jungle, American-International delinquency pics, and yes, Rebel Without A Cause. Increasingly raucous spook rallies did little to restore calm. A dozen uniformed NYC police were needed on this occasion to quell effects of electric shocks, face-slapping from invisible hands, and a roving gorilla named Gargantua. Ushers with luminous painted features chased up, down, and between rows as screen attraction Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy unspooled. Others were poised meanwhile to exploit gothic possibilities of ongoing Dean fascination. Faded from airwaves Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira) saw profit potential in one-time association she’d had with JD. They’d been friends, maybe more, she implied. Anyhow, the Dean factor fleshed out an act gone stale on fading memories of Vampira’s single year hit doing Los Angeles television, and she’d make the most of it. Maila claimed to be in communication with Dean through the veil and not adverse to on-stage discussions regarding the black magic curse she’d placed on the departed actor for having spurned her. Jimmy’s fans called out to me: "Did you kill him?" I didn’t answer them. The Vampira act was useful adjunct to shilling she’d done up and down the California coast during April 1957 for United Artists’s double chiller bill of Voodoo Island and Pharoah’s Curse (here she’s posed with Bel-Air producer Ed Zabel and a Fox West Coast Theatres manager). The restless spirit of James Dean was now inexorably linked with carny-inspired freak fairs and low-budget horror-thons. All this as someone else picked up the Academy Award for which he'd been nominated.

Sensing perhaps a need to dignify, if not honor, Dean’s memory, Warners lent support to an (at last) worthy gesture in his name. 1956 had been recorded as California’s blackest year from the standpoint of traffic deaths. An exhibitor who was also Public Information Director for the California Traffic Safety Foundation submitted a script to WB for a short highlighting the problem. Would they consider making a public service film with Cheyenne’s Clint Walker as on-screen host? Television division exec William Orr volunteered studio resources for a subject which would ultimately go to National Screen for distribution. 150 California first-runs got it free for a week beginning June 26, 1957, with drive-ins and other venues to follow after the July 4 holiday (host Walker is shown here taking delivery of a print). Within the week, another Presley feature opened. Loving You would further chip away at Dean’s youth idol preeminence. An Elvis craze was sweeping the country and it was bigger than Jim’s ever was. Jailhouse Rock would be along in October with the promise of many more to come. Warners had meanwhile dragged feet committing to distribution for Altman and George’s documentary. The James Dean Story was finally announced for WB release in June 1957, but they’d first need to polish it up with industry sheen missing from the barely over an hour’s content submitted by the Kansas City filmmakers. A musical score was added and rocker of the moment Tommy Sands sang a theme tune (Let Me Be Loved) penned by veterans Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. A heavy score by Leith Stevens and doom-laden narration by actor Martin Gabel emphasized downer aspects of Dean’s life, as though early death were just another sad chapter laid atop those many preceding it. Warners fleshed out the running time to 83 minutes with screen tests Dean had made for East Of Eden and at last permitted public scrutiny of that road safety spot with Gig Young intended for Warner Brothers Presents. There would be an August 13, 1957 (near) hometown premiere for The James Dean Story at the Paramount Theatre (shown here) in Marion, Indiana. The state governor and Indiana’s US senator were in attendance. Eveready Nick Adams flew in from Hollywood and opening festivities were coordinated with the annual County Fair in full swing. A huge night parade featured school bands, saddle clubs, girl and boy scouts, plus the Strategic Air Command in flight. Nick Adams, then reigning Miss Fairmount and other dignitaries visited Dean’s old high school and his grave, with a barbecue for all capping festivities at the Winslow Farm where Jimmy had lived with his aunt and uncle. A twelve foot monument unveiled for the premiere may or may not still be standing (anyone know?), though WB presumably stood good on its pledge to donate opening proceeds to a Fairmount school for aspiring actors.

Seventy-three Indiana theatres played The James Dean Story after its regional premiere. Then business fell off. Hindsight suggests Warners waited too long to get the documentary out. New York’s double feature playdate at their Paramount Theatre found The James Dean Story supporting The Black Scorpion, while other situations put it in second position behind A Face In The Crowd (as shown here). TIME’s review was expectedly dismissive. It exploits a ghoulish clamor for Dean’s voice to echo once more from the grave, but it does so with a mortician’s lugubrious solicitude for the living. Soft domestic rentals of $335,000 for The James Dean Story suggested a cult having run its course. Warner’s modest pickup cost of $50,000 assured they’d get a profit, and that in the end amounted to $200,000. This would be the third and last James Dean released since his death. There was nothing left to sell. By mid-1958, WB had Jimmy’s dramatic successor launched in a western slated originally for Dean. The Left-Handed Gun is one of those where you can shut your eyes or ears and summon up JD doing said part. Paul Newman seems to me to have had much the (early) career Dean would have enjoyed if not for 9/30/55. The two even screen-tested together for East Of Eden. Would Warners have given Newman such late 50’s opportunities with Dean still living? The sad dispersal of East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause to televised oblivion happened in Summer, 1960. Both were dumped into late shows and ninety-minute berths nationwide. For these two pictures carefully composed for Cinemascope projection, the loss was especially ruinous. It would be years before either would be seen properly by audiences discovering Dean. Giant was held back for theatrical reissues. The first of these in 1963 played Dean’s participation way down. The trailer spotted him fleetingly and near unrecognizable in a scene where he's covered with oil. That seven years later campaign was all about Liz and Rock (their names towering high in previews). Why promote Dean and give emphasis to the fact you’re peddling an old movie? The cult of yore was surely a spent thing by 1963. It would echo if faintly when Warners’ 1970 reissue trailer appeared. By then, a culture of disaffected youth had thrown its net over most filmland product, as witness narration: The star who became a legend, who spoke for all the restless young as no one has before or since (domestic rental take for Giant that year was $539,000). Marketing of Giant since has been given over altogether to Dean’s image. Kino’s 1982 reissue featured him alone on its one-sheet (shown here), while Warners DVD distribution finds Giant absorbed into a box set tribute to the actor.