Hanging Off Silent Cliffs --- Part Two

It was easy laughing off silent serials with buffer passing generations supplied. Philip K. Scheuer reviewed Days Of Thrills and Laughter for The Los Angeles Times in 1961 and chortled that they seem as funny, if that's possible, as the old comedies. Here's what shifting context could do to defang perils lots more intense when chapters were all there and emotional investment complete. If serials were so absurd as Scheuer proposes, would adults during the teens and twenties have consumed them so avidly? --- and yes, they surely did, as trade journals gave pride of place to forthcoming chapter dramas, and no one laughed at sheer volume (and profits) these generated. I looked at one called Zudora the other night. Its corps of villainy worshipped a brass ape god (Dun't Esk!) whose personnel problems were resolved in a room with closing walls. I'd aver most instruments of torture and dispatch we know from movies were introduced first in serials, and that thrill merchants since have merely copied them. Had chapter-plays survived better, we'd know far more ways to dispose of expendable characters, or at the least means of doing so more colorfully.

Women weren't just equal in serials ... they dominated. Historians say this reflected struggle in distaff patron lives. Would wing walking over canyons secure them the vote? I'd not say gals were exploited as to costuming. The Pearls, Helens, and Graces offered not a peep beneath gunnysacks they wore. Quicksand was particularly disadvantageous thanks to heavy attire invariably worn, but modesty in that age was valued perhaps over life itself, and did increase stakes already high for serial heroines. One incident in particular caught my breath. The lady ... don't remember who and does it matter? ... wades hip deep in a grotto filled with alligators. None seem bereft of appetite, and there looks to be a score swimming around her. I wondered what sort of money or promise of fame reasoned this woman into such genuine harm's way. Well, who persuaded male counterpart Elmo Lincoln to stand still for a pair of lions leaping upon him from rocks above in a Tarzan serial where such dangers were commonplace? Exciting as their adventures were, I never observed Johnny Weissmuller or Gordon Scott taking on two cats in tandem (means one after t'other). Competition between sexes in serial terms translated to who could easier walk away from vehicles spiraled over cliffsides or falls down mining shafts. No one then seems to have designated a "weaker" sex. Pearl White's resilience was a given, and with her doing all the stuntwork, who'd cry foul over situations she wriggled out of?

Make no mistake. A Pearl White functioned as heroine and even more so as role model, being a lot of people's very favorite star. An adolescent Norma Shearer jumped onto White's running board as the actress auto-toured through Canada. That was in the late teens when titles of her serials bore Pearl's name which had itself become shorthand for breathless thrills. Action got more sophisticated as writer/directors honed the chapter art. Talent on ways up began with serials. W.S. Van Dyke got to being a specialist with them. John Ford started out helping older brother Frank on ones the latter made with screen partner Grace Cunard. Pearl White's serials evolved into romantic actioners with accent on the star's increasing aptitude for comedy. In The Lightning Raider, she cat-burgles a museum and exits down drainpipes (Pearl's always preferred means of egress), then spars with a leading man after seizing his limousine for a getaway. All this plays like screwball comedy minus dialogue, and frankly doesn't need it. Pearl White and kindred alarm modern viewers who think they've seen everything along lines of girl power. Who'd expect a leading lady to bulldog a heavy off his horse and finish the job with her fists? The serial sisterhood regularly withstood hazards of fire and floods. I've looked at a half-dozen stood helpless in burning rooms where you'd think the smoke alone would get killing done. Whoever made it to old age among this bunch must have done so with full complement of aches and pains to remind them of dangerous days before the cameras.

There were guys like Charles Hutchinson known for performing with utter disregard for life and limb as ads claimed, a virtual rag doll thrown against walls for however many chapters engaged him. If you got famous dare devilling elsewhere, serial producers would surely come calling. Escape artist Harry Houdini broke bonds and doffed straightjackets over umpteen segments of The Master Mystery, which I defy anyone to explain in terms of storyline, but who cares when there's Harry with circa 1919 robots dogging his path? Gentleman Jim Corbett headlined a serial, as did Jack Dempsey. I'd guess they boxed villains silly in each, but how can we know with their handiwork gone to dust? It's best not thinking about all the serials you can't see. Consider instead ones that are available on DVD, primarily from Eric Stedman's Serial Squadron, ground zero for modern-day cliffhanging and the place I've gone for most everything my 8mm Blackhawk shelves didn't yield. An ideal start point they offer is called Lost Serial Collection, two discs made up of trailers, excerpts, and surviving chapters from over thirty subjects. This is a real lollapalooza, as are serials offered in fuller form. These include The Jungle Princess and Adventures Of Tarzan, thumpingly scored with jungle themes and sound FX that enhanced both for me. There are more silent chapter-thrillers the Squadron has forthcoming, Trail Of The Octopus and The Hope Diamond Mystery (Boris Karloff again!), plus long-awaited sound rarities Daredevils Of The West and Drums Of Fu Manchu, the latter from original elements (and on Blu-Ray). Looks like months ahead will be rich with cliffhangers on DVD, thanks to The Serial Squadron.

Hanging Off Silent Cliffs --- Part One

A woman tied to railroad tracks pretty well sums up what many think movies were before talking rendered such action obsolete. But what of said woman bound to rails with an all-too real locomotive bearing down and apparently past point of being able to stop? This was landscape serials navigated before dialogue rubbed serrated edges off. Think monster movies gave kids nightmares? Those were pink teas compared with mayhem that drove chapter-plays of way yore. They called these cliffhangers because it was real people hanging off genuine cliffs and yes, sometimes they fell (deaths among performers and stunt folk were studiously underreported). A freewheeling teens and twenties hosted them, when anything went and before rules crystallized. Can't squeeze action into twelve chapters? Then go to twenty as Universal often did after cabling exhibs to expect more of a profiting thing. Thrill seeking 40's youth would groove on Spy Smasher, but knicker-clad forebears worshipped Riddle Riders, Flame Fighters, and Wolves of Kultar. These were wildest game and preserves stayed open week round, serials being fully integrated into prime playing time in best venues nationwide. Newspapers from the start (1913) ran print companions for chapters unspooling downtown, screen and page each promoting the other through breathless months of unfoldment. Mark down silent serials (mere handfuls survive complete) as most grievous loss of America's film heritage, with fact so few care making it sting all the worse.

Here I'm going again to lament fact that ones for whom these mattered most have passed beyond final chapters of their own. Who will write today (let alone after) of Allene Ray and Walter Miller with passion Edward Connor brought to The Serial Lovers, his look back at their exploits for August/September 1955's Films In Review? Won't be me, for I'd never heard of the team before reading Connor's heartfelt piece, but then ... I didn't grow up during the twenties like he did ... and those great serials Ed described are mostly gone to decomp reward same as his generation that loved them. For the record, Ray and Miller co-starred in ten chapter-thrillers between 1925 and 1929, being a fun couple dangled off airplanes, traversing lion dens, and generally doing things I'd lots rather watch than what archives these days save off nitrate. Are all the old serials gone? Well, maybe not if you dig. Robert Youngson did for Days Of Thrills and Laughter and salted close calls into his 1961 porridge that surely put blood back racing among boys now men too long deprived of a proper action fix. Forgotten (but not by them) Walter Miller was glimpsed there in frenzied pursuit of pre-being somebody Boris Karloff as the two engage fisticuffs over a lion pit. What was it between voiceless serial heroes and lions? Hanged if it doesn't seem almost sexual. Never mind that Miller goes directly from here to encounter with a giant lizard (no explanation given or required). All this and near-boyish Karloff too. Just when are we going to get our preservation priorities straight?

Youngson made his gesture for mine and several generations that had missed serials at their peak, but he'd be among last who'd bother. There was Kalton C. Lahue and a book he called Continued Next Week that came along in 1964. It remains standard text on a topic scarcely revisited since. Pretty discouraging to venture down research tunnels with so little surviving film to light the way. Lahue's access was limited as our own, having missed the glorious era in question, but he was assisted by fans still conversant and even serial queens Helen Gibson and Grace Cunard, among other principals who'd been there. A forward to Continued Next Week was penned by Blackhawk Films chief Kent D. Eastin, a fan turned rescuer who probably did more on cliffhanging's behalf than anyone before or since. Eastin described serial-going delights from half a century out, sure enough evidence of impact these had when new. Lamenting still the fact he'd missed final installments of Hands Up back in 1918 (because of the flu epidemic!), Eastin undertook a mid-life mission of putting chapterplays back in circulation through Blackhawk. You'd have to call his a labor of love, for how much profit could one realize selling 8 and 16mm prints of woefully incomplete The Lure Of The Circus, a WWI-period relic printed off odd (and mildewed) 35mm reels? I came across a print (on Standard 8) for a ten spot at Cinefest from a dealer not altogether sure of what it was (he and me both). Not unlike other Blackhawk subjects, this one spent miles of footage summarizing sections gone, the plot of those original eighteen chapters so labyrinthine as to defeat closest observance. Star Eddie Polo was, like so many others, a big noise silenced by flames his output was consigned to, and The Lure Of The Circus made no more sense than any subject of which less than twenty percent remains, but credit Eastin for making available that portion that does. Blackhawk released a fair number of serials through the sixties and seventies, with probably everything Eastin laid hands on ending up in his catalogue, a sentimental journey for which we're forever in this distributor's debt.

The best silent serials are exotic and often incoherent celebrations of modern life, close in ways to what patrons were experiencing in a rapidly changing culture, but inside out enough to keep them always guessing. Chapter-thrillers doted on planes, trains, and automobiles. These were exciting, if unpredictable, modes of travel for viewers many of whom were yet to sit aboard such conveyances, and in some cases, never would. Choo-Choos are everywhere in serials. Helen Holmes had a thing for them like male counterparts with beloved lions. Locomotives billow up like smoke-breathing dragons and I'm guessing an early 20th century public was at least somewhat wary of them (I am just from watching). Women (not stunt guys dressed as such) are forever doing transfers from atop boxcars to planes careening overhead, or attempting to board from speeding autos alongside. No sooner would serial folk embark upon trains than they'd want to get off ... and fast. Filming chapters in the east saw snow decoratively aground for much of the action, plus backdrops pleasingly drab and suggestive of fact these dreads could be visited anywhere and upon any of us. Occult elements were rife in serials, the dead frequently revived and pagan sites of worship dotting neighborhoods otherwise unpresupposing. Storylines were complicated and surprisingly adult. Scenarios got written barely ahead of chapters to be filmed, anything being possible as sleep-deprived creative brains raced against distribution clocks. Francis Ford and Grace Cunard plunged through serials wearing all hats needed to get done in time for Universal shipment. Where was chance for formulas to take root? Of silent serials I've looked at, no two are alike. They all play out of left field and are not to be confused with movies abiding by convention. If just half of them survived, we'd see a lot of film history necessarily rewritten.

Don't Miss the Next Exciting Chapter Later This Week ...

Fairy Dust Blown Off

The headline reads Emma Thompson: Hepburn Couldn't Act. Nothing so unusual in that. Re-makers often defame originals they're set upon improving. My Fair Lady is what Thompson intends to overhaul, pledging to give her script a feminist makeover. The actress makes no bones re Audrey Hepburn being overrated, referring to her as fantastically twee. I was saved Googling that by a Thompson supplied definition: Twee is whimsy without wit. It's mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that's not for me. She can't sing and she can't really act, I'm afraid. I'm sure she was a delightful woman -- and perhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I don't and I didn't, so that's all there is to it, really. Interviews like this are always fun for reaction they provoke online. Comments so far (hundreds) have been swift and barbed. Audrey Hepburn is a legend and Emma who?, one asked. Another swore off in advance any crappy remake of "My Fair Lady." I'd figure Thompson's daft on one hand for attacking such a revered icon, but maybe she's read a larger tea leaf the rest of us are yet to divine. Could it be the whole Audrey thing is done? I wrote before about college girls loving her, but those were vibes off shows we ran five and more years ago. Has the Hepburn tide gone out since, never to return? Based on what's happened lately, it's beginning to look that way ...

I think that she's a guy thing, says Emma Thompson of Audrey Hepburn's contested appeal, but there's where I'd submit Emma's twee, for Hepburn always came across as anything but a guy thing, that demographic seldom opting for waifish and gamin. Unlike a generation of critics who'd given her a pass, Hepburn's now roasted, and often, by modern scribes considerably less gallant. David Thomson used a book review to lower his boom, writing that Hepburn's appearing in Breakfast at Tiffany's ensured its dishonesty and its fabricated air. There's no coincidence I've yet to run Tiffany's for an audience, as there's too many cracks in veneer of a show whose idea was always more appealing than its reality (I'd hate watching sans Mancini's music). To put such before modern viewers courts disappointment and perhaps distrust of my future choices. Now that I think of it, there were never that many trustworthy Audrey Hepburns from which to choose. Would programmers among you serve The Unforgiven or The Children's Hour to nineteen-year old co-eds? Both these have points of interest, but there are expectations Audrey fans have of her, and they are rigid ones. My safe show options included Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, Charade, and My Fair Lady (even a good one like Two For The Road was too edgy, too 60's, too British ... just too too). I admit running these as sops to boost patronage, knowing they'd fill most seats. Reality of college exhib-ing will get you 138 bodies for a Charade and three (two of those instructors) for a Kiss Me Deadly. So much for autuerist appreciation on 2005 campuses, and I've no reason to think it's changed much since, except to extent of lower numbers should I attempt Charade again.

After scanning Emma Thompson's and other broadsides, I got out Green Mansions, late of Warners' Archive, and one I'd not seen till now. Words fail effort to describe torture those 104 minutes entailed. You know it's trouble when eyes focus more on a remote's Time Left option than action (precious little) on screen. I had steered clear these fifty years for Audrey's playing "Rima the Bird Girl" with Anthony Perkins in romantic pursuit. South American locations were captured by traveling units, then matched with Audrey/Tony on Denny Miller-ish backlot Metro jungles. Perkins seems absurd in retrospect as vengeance/gold seeker, thanks largely to a target the following year's Psycho would paint on his back. As of 1959 and months up to (moment of) Hitchcock's helping, there was hope in abundance of Perkins consolidating lead man status. His serenading The Song of Green Mansions to Audrey Hepburn plays peculiar to us, but was not so to then-followers of Hit Parading Perkins, who'd scored with Moonlight Swim and The Prettiest Girl In School (spinning yet on my satellite radio). Did any single role upend an actor so thoroughly as Psycho did for (or better put, to) Anthony Perkins?

But it's Audrey Hepburn's fall from Olympus we're about this day. I still like her OK whatever others think, and find these recent deconstructions puzzling ... yet there they are ... and who knows the real extent of a culture's defection? Is Hepburn a precious metal not so precious anymore? Poster dealer/collectors tell me her stuff plateaued awhile back and is plunging now. It appears some of us waited too long to unload Breakfast At Tiffany's one-sheets we'd been hoarding. Such turning on a vintage star often reveals deeper resentment. With Hepburn, it's as though her kind of femininity no longer suits prevailing definition of what modern women should be (cue Emma Thompson). Do they object to her being thin (minus purging lately required), or fact that she dressed so well (surely a lost art)? Could be Audrey's image suffers from an excess of perfection. There must have been hypocrisy there that needs to be unmasked. She set a high enough standard for young women to aspire to in her own day that now seems beyond unattainable. Is this what's getting our goat? I tried revealing the human (and likably imperfect) face behind a retoucher's mask with pre-tampered proofs in a February 2006 post that got some interesting comments in response (a few brought Stanley Kubrick into the conversation!). There has always been mixed reaction where Audrey Hepburn is concerned (my own Fair Lady Ann can't stand her and won't watch her), even as it seems we're tilting toward negatives as of late. Is there love left for this unique actress and personality?