Comedy Curiosities --- Part One --- The Facts Of Life

High-Definition exposure of library titles is pretty haphazard. Ones on DVD are limited to settled classics (so far), but with satellite TV, things get looser. Random Showtime and MGM/HD scheduling put The Facts Of Life and subject of Part Two's Boeing, Boeing on last week's viewing plate and since I'd seen neither before, it seemed good opportunity to check both off to accompaniment of a wide screen and much increased clarity. High-Definition has a way of melting resistance to shows I'd ignore otherwise, and usually, I'm glad to have taken flyers (except when it's a dog like Taras Bulba, which despite HD, invited bailout after a first and excruciating half-hour). My policy says any Bob Hope is worth a glance. Most will reward as time capsules even if the comedy doesn't. Hope's intent was always to stay current. During a thirties start and forties peak, that took less effort. By 1960 and The Facts of Life, a strain was evident. Bob was by now game to vary his formula, but not to any radical extent. He'd gone a last decade making same sorts of movies over and again to diminishing boxoffice. Radio ended for Hope, but television covered that loss and then some. His name was never bigger despite fewer paid admissions. One or two features per annum was a norm, none of them exceptional, but all readily financed by partners who figured Bob for a reliable, if not windfall, profit. Teaming with Lucille Ball was wish realized for free-vee fans of both. She hadn't done movies since a last (and dire) vehicle with recently ex'ed Desi Arnaz, and given remote possibility of their co-starring again, a parlay with Hope seemed natural, especially as they'd top-lined two (Sorrowful Jones and Fancy Pants) prior to both's airwave dominance.

The Facts Of Life was about close-call adultery among suburbanites. That struck home for Lucy who'd recently closed marital accounts with oft-straying Desi. Their shared business interests were too lucrative to bust up, however, so here they were side-by-side on a dais crunching Desilu numbers and planning Lucy's performing schedule. Good sport Desi even kicked in seed dollars for The Facts Of Life. Hope got along with both sides of this couple no longer a couple and doubtless recognized conviction the divorce might lend to The Facts Of Life. Patrons would be curious to see LB for a first time since the final Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour broadcast in mid-1959. Headed toward fifty now, it seemed promising too for her to explore a serio-comic side. Director Melvin Frank wanted The Facts Of Life to play straight with dashes of humor, and Lucy was good with that, but Bob was for bending it toward funny and more funny, thus dialogue (his) got polluted with quips Hope-ful writers slipped under the star's dressing room door, wisecracks and slapstick denuding what amounted to a Brief Encounter for tired old comedians. Was Hope afraid to let go the happy face? Director Frank thought so and argued as much. Lucy said later it was a shame Bob had played things safe instead of exploring dramatic talent untapped. A disadvantage of star control is potential to wreck a project on caprice or misjudgment. Hope had been getting laughs too long to forfeit them now. Was he burnt by the disappointing $1.4 million in domestic rentals his previous dramedy, Beau James, had earned?

Lucy was by the sixties too show-biz hardened to play audience identifiable characters. So was Bob, for that matter. Not for a moment do we believe in them as plain folks. Hers is a dour mask that smokes constantly. It was suggested Lucy ducked out for cosmetic work as preliminary to The Facts of Life. Her looks get by, assuming one found her appealing to begin with (I never did), but who needed to see this woman plunged head-first into a river of mud as dictated by The Facts Of Life's contradictory narrative? Lucy claimed she never inhaled smoke, but needed the fags to relieve nervous tension. Still, the voice betrayed nicotine, too much libation, or both. She could summon moods, maybe laughs, but not warmth. As for Hope, if a line was funny, it stayed in, and never mind fitness, or lack of same, to the character he played. Bob could act given the impulse, but The Facts Of Life was past point where he'd imagine himself as anything other than laugh of the party. Was it too many years since this man was just a human being as opposed to an ongoing Trendex rating? Dialogue and situations in The Facts Of Life reflect Hope's writing crew being around too long, guys still miffed over prohibition having cramped their style. There was even a joke about Francis X. Bushman, for pity's sake. Bob wears stocking garters (so when did men finally give those up?) and keeps a maid in crisp aproned uniform (Louise Beavers' final role --- wonder what she thought of all this). A New Frontier was upon the rest of us, but never Hope. For presumed old time's sake, even Walter Winchell visited the set and gave Bob favorable ink in a column few still read. Still, The Facts Of Life had moments where its stars calmed down and let the story reveal itself, too little and way late for Hope and Lucy, but withal the last really interesting feature either would appear in.

Hope could always rely on help from a compliant media. Even critics put away brickbats they'd used on recent Alias Jesse James and Paris Holiday. Lucy in particular got kind notices for exemplary work in the face of private adversity. The Facts Of Life may not strike us as sophisticated now, but time of release reviews compared it favorably with 1960's Best Picture hit, The Apartment, and LIFE magazine lauded Bob's smash-hit comedy in a pictorial celebrating he and Lucy's new direction (the fact Hope had just hosted an NBC 25th birthday bash for LIFE may have enhanced their appreciation for The Facts Of Life). United Artists unleashed what was surely the ugliest poster art yet devised for any film (two variations shown here), so unflattering that you'd have to assume neither Hope nor Ball vetted them. UA also put the stars in Santa suits for a trade ad (above) to encourage holiday bookings, as The Facts Of Life was the distributor's bet for Christmas receipts. Those plus business into 1961 would total $2.997 million in domestic rentals and $893,000 foreign, the best money for a Hope since The Seven Little Foys and impetus for another decade of big screen foolery.

More at Greenbriar Archives: Bob Hope's Mad, Mad Comeback and The Ghost Breakers. Lucille Ball in The Long, Long Trailer, Forever, Darling, and Easy To Wed.

Buried Treasure --- Standing Room Only

We all find out eventually how subjective humor is. I learned long ago never to guarantee an audience laughs, as there's no faster route to a hosting Waterloo. One comedy I'll always walk the plank for, however, for fact it's so utterly forgotten if nothing else (especially by owning Universal) , is Standing Room Only, a delight worthy of revival on TCM, if not DVD release through their Vault Collection. This wartime frolic (released 1944) enjoyed underground renown among 16mm collectors who called it hilarity's improvement on better known The More The Merrier, which has run on TCM and is available via Sony disc. Maltin's Movie Guide gives Standing Room Only but two stars and calls it "dated." Well ... duh. That's half this movie's charm. How does SRO play to an audience? Mine have liked it lots. Given a crisp digital alternative to the milky spliced-up print I had to run this weekend for lack of anything better, they'd have cheered more. Presentation is crucial to enjoyment, but what can you do when a thing's not available save battered 16mm remnants someone snuck out of a warehouse thirty years ago? And how many signatures would adorn petitions to exhume a farce about Washington housing shortages during WWII? It's when advocating on behalf of a Standing Room Only that I realize how alone in the world we fully-vested fans are. No wonder civilians think we're a little cracked.

Is anyone at TCM or Universal listening? I sometimes wonder if those behind corporate walls read movie blogs, let alone GPS. Maybe one of you in contact with decision makers can forward my earnest plea. As it turns out, Standing Room Only as a 16mm option sort of crashed when my take-up reel froze and a thousand feet of film cascaded onto the projection booth floor, a reminder as if one were needed of why I stopped collecting film in favor of DVD. We did get through the show, but only just. A big disconnect between folks that live with old movies and those that don't is fact the latter can't know character faces as we do, recognition of these being well past adjustment to conventions of dialogue, pacing, and fashions long out of fashion. Linger enough on TCM and shows like Standing Room Only wear as comfortably as fleece robes (all the more reason it would fit ideally there). Hey, there's Roland Young ... we know pretty well what he'll be up to, having seen Topper, The Philadelphia Story and two-dozen others where he's type-cast ... and here comes Edward Arnold, a known quantity welcome for us as surely he was to 1944 audiences. Still, I can't blame people who reject past Hollywood. There's nothing familiar for them to latch onto, and it's worse now than even a few decades ago when at least a handful of veterans were alive to stir memory of work they'd done more recently. I was able to sit Ann down for Standing Room Only largely because of Fred MacMurray being the lead, his name and face she'd recall from My Three Sons, but how many others as of 2010 still know My Three Sons?

Shows like Standing Room Only were customized for theatres aspiring to SRO conditions of their own. On-screen players paused for laughs same as if they were on a stage. Paramount especially paced their comedies to the rhythm of packed houses. Modern viewers wonder why Bob and Bing halt a beat after sock lines. Well, it's because they didn't want two thousand then-patrons to miss the next sock line. There are moments in Standing Room Only that I'll bet took roofs off flagship venues like the Chicago Theatre (ad below). SRO played mid-May 1944 as part of an entertainment smorgasbord that headlined live-appearing Gil Lamb, eccentric comic of much Paramount exposure (having been in Riding High, Rainbow Island, others), along with the Glenn Miller Band's crooner Ray Eberle, a frequent attraction on Chicago's stage (clicked well with the femmes and begged off after four curtain calls, said Billboard). Broadway's Deluxe Tapsters Lathrop and Lee rendered "Darktown Strutter's Ball," with plenty of flash and high-class stepping, followed by Lamb joining harmonica whiz Bob Coffey for a go at Rhapsody In Blue to accompaniment of a farcical jitterbug dance. There was also the Glenns, whose remarkable acro (batic) work ... stopped the show. Bandleader Lou Breese had signed a year's contract to front the theatre's orchestra and was performing a record eight shows a day (imagine his fatigue at conclusion of that). Buying a Chicago seat to Standing Room Only yielded 83 minutes of feature plus such gravy to swell entertainment well past two hours, surely a bargain at whatever the price.

Few remember Paulette Goddard beyond appearances as Chaplin's leading lady (offscreen as well), but war years saw her emblazoning marquees in crowd pleaser A's that vaulted PG to most valued distaff name on Paramount payrolls. Fred MacMurray never forgot her wangling favored billing in Standing Room Only, even if the film itself was more or less a blur. Paulette had ways of managing ... always ... what was best for Paulette, and talent or lack of it figured but lightly into equations. Her birthdate was cited as 1910, but closer scrutiny, done after stardom's closure, suggested 1905 as likelier date of arrival. Goddard might well have been easing toward forty by time of Standing Room Only, but looks wouldn't betray age until a few seasons later and 1947's Unconquered, her last of consequence for Paramount. She'd got by with va-voom and ready willingness, although insiders swore Goddard had ten times said appeal behind cameras. There may be sauce beyond even that if visiting friend Dan's randy interpretation of a certain "whipping cream" line she utters in Standing Room Only is correct, though I'd prefer thinking that's just D's baser instincts at work yet again. All this yammer, by the way, and I'd forgot to mention what SRO is about. The set-up, not simplicity itself, but productive of much misunderstanding, close calls, and prat-falling, has hard-charging Fred and pretend secretary Paulette forced to become butler and maid for "hen-pecked wolf" Roland Young. Now a kicker here, though not one felt until a decade later, is fact Fred plays a toy manufacturer, just as he would in There's Always Tomorrow (1956), a foolproof companion for Standing Room Only that I'd hereby commend to TCM and revival house programmers. Book these end-to-end and put your own reading to go-getter Fred's 1944 character beaten down by 50's conformity and family obligation as calendars roll round twelve years --- and all the while he's moving toys. There's got to be monograph potential there for Sirk (and maybe Sidney Lanfield!) scholars.

Some more nice images of Paulette Goddard at Greenbriar Archives here.

China Clipper and A Star That Crashed

I've learned to appreciate Frank "Spig" Wead beyond his life story being adapted by the Johns Ford and Wayne for 1957's The Wings Of Eagles. Wead was in fact a crack story man whose service yarns became industry staples during a thirties' boom for aerial actioners. We've largely forgotten what excitement the concept of flight aroused in moviegoing forebears. Charles Lindbergh achieved godlike status for exploits that inspired airmen to come. There wasn't a surer bet to quicken pulses than putting wings under men and setting them aloft. Did any male star outside George Arliss not do a aero-thriller? China Clipper was one I most recently watched, for a first time as it turns out, for I'd always classified the 1936 release among initiation rites for Humphrey Bogart completists and left it at that. Turns out China Clipper's a corking good account of quests to trans-Pacific fly during opener days of passenger servicing and I'd guess (without knowing) fairly accurate as to obstacles visionaries faced. Ruthlessness was forgiven those first to carry us (or the mail) over oceans, thus Pat O' Brien gets away with conduct unbecoming to screen go-getters. How we must have rooted for flight promoters in those days when the world was being linked by air for a first time! China Clipper endorses whatever it takes to get that job done, reflecting blank checks America was issuing to achieve mastery in the skies.

I like watching old planes heaving upward. Flying stories achieved stature for charting up-to-the-moment progress being made in the air. Trouble is the movies dated fast as planes they celebrated. China Clipper became yesterday's fish wrap within scant years of its 30's release. Now of course we appreciate historical values accumulated since. I'd call this one and others like it valuable primers of what went on with aerial development between the wars, and submit most would stand inspection despite Hollywood glossing over technical details (though China Clipper surprises for delving into specific challenges builders and designers had). The movie lauds private enterprise as agency that will put US flying supremacy over, this just seasons before the military assumed dominion with regards planes and men developing them. China Clipper has not the look of an economy model; Warners made its $345,000 negative cost look like twice as much. You only realize in hindsight how little actual flying we see, for the larger struggle is overcoming intransigent bankers and wives/sweethearts trying to impose domesticity on restless sky hawks. As to sense or desirability of its race to horizons, China Clipper's case is closed. Few films from any period exhibit such confidence over rightness of missions at hand. The film demonstrates if nothing else that post-Lindbergh flying and designing was as near exalted status as mortals could attain during the 30's.

Bogart and ill-fated Ross Alexander are pilot pals in China Clipper. HB's success might have been Alexander's had the latter lived longer and been luckier (and note their physical resemblance). As things turned out, Alexander would die within months of a self-inflicted shot to the head. A lot of people who worked with the young actor (age 29 at the end) spoke of his promise and that tragedy for years to come. They're mostly gone now too. Among the last was China Clipper's female lead, Beverly Roberts, who died July 2009 at ninety-six. 1936 appraisal of Bogart prospects versus those of Ross Alexander would likely have found HB wanting. Alexander worked alongside Warner stars who'd prosper for many years after he was forgotten. I found myself liking RA's way with dialogue and appreciative of his offbeat flavor in character support, even if he never seemed quite leading man material. Ross Alexander was promoted to romantic vis`-a-vis´ with Ruby Keeler for what proved his last, Ready, Willing, and Able, but death and circumstances of same moved Warners to diminish the actor's billing and remove him altogether from the trailer (not even a glimpse of Alexander, or his name, appear there). The musical was released three months after the actor's suicide, and mentions of him in virtually all promotion was erased. It's sad looking at Ready, Willing, and Able's pressbook wherein Ross Alexander is nowhere except obligatory cast listings. Not one publicity story includes him. Despite having far less to do in the film, eccentric dancer and film neophyte Lee Dixon (his second credited role) is elevated to co-star billing with Ruby Keeler and is prominent beside her in all the ads (as illustrated here). The sad story of Ross Alexander is well told in a Classic Images article by John R. Allen, Jr., and available online here.