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July/August, 2006 VOLUME 1 – Issue 8
The Old Movie Maven
WHOZAT;
Or, Character Actors . . . from A to Z.
The Old Movie Maven is published once a month for
film lovers of classic movies and the actors, directors,
designers, makeup artists, camera men and all the
other people who never got enough credit
for their hard work over the years.
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The Old Movie Maven
P.O. Box 54493
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Back Issue Titles are on Page 30.
FROM MAVEN’S DESK:
Maven is going to do some very different this time—I’m dispensing with the usual categories and combining June and August
July is the month we celebrate our Independence Day on July 4th and Maven would like to salute those character actors who frequently go nameless on the big screen . . . too often like our military around the world in defense of their country.
But many of these actors often showed their gratitude—either by joining up the Army, Navy, Air Corps, Marine Corps or Coast Guard or entertained our servicemen and women.
Like Bob Hope, as best they could in USO shows, Victory Bond sales drives and in movies like Stage Door Canteen (1943) keep up EVERYBODIES’ morale.
I want to thank Evan Thompson for this month’s idea, passing along the name of Bess Flowers as a good subject for “TOMM” since she was a character actor in such movies as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Blink and you’d miss her behind Paul Christian (as Tom Nesbitt) in the ballet scene.
(Bess Flowers)
Evan is another old movie fan who specializes in Charlie Chan movies and who has at least as good an eye for bloopers and such as Maven does.
Darn it!
And Evan is Maven’s Navy expert since he’s a veteran of our United States Navy, himself. Write his name down. This won’t be the last you hear from him in
The Old Movie Maven!!
EVAN, THIS ONE’S FOR Y0U!
BACK ISSUES PAGE: 30
CHARACTER ACTORS, FROM A to Z PAGE: 8
FROM MAVEN’S DESK PAGE: 2
LET’S GET STARTED PAGE: 3
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Mae West PAGE: 3
WHOZAT? CARTOON PAGE: 29
QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
It’s not what I do but how I do it.
It’s not what I say but how I say it.
Mae West may have been describing herself but she could just as easily be talking about the best character actors that Hollywood ever produced.
And it gets almost scary how often and in which roles you’ll see these people!
LET’S GET STARTED:
Would Gone with the Wind (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941) or Gentleman Jim (1952 have been the same without the likes of Ward Bond?
No Yankee Captain Tom (Gone with the Wind), Detective Tom Polhaus (The Maltese Falcon) or John L. Sullivan against Errol Flynn as James J. Corbett (in Gentleman Jim ?
(Robert Horton and Ward
Bond from Wagon Train)
Not to mention television’s Wagon Train and all the John Wayne movies he did!
Ward Bond (Reverend Captain Clayton) with John Wayne (Ethan Edwards) and Dorothy Jordan (Martha Edwards) in The Searchers (1956).
The Searchers (1956) is also a family affair, with not only Wayne’s son, Patrick as Lt. Greenhill, but Harry Carrey, Jr.
(Patrick Wayne as Lieutenant Greenhill.)
(Harry Carey,Jr., as Brad Jorgenson.)
John Wayne also pays tribute to Carey’s father in The Searchers. Harry Carey, Sr., was an old friend and frequent co-star to Wayne until Carey’s death some nine years before this movie was made. This isn’t anywhere near the quality of picture that Maven would like to use in TOMM but it’s here to let you know the scene where John Wayne spent a moment to acknowledge his old friend toward the end of the movie.
You’ll know the scene . . . They’ve just restored Debbie Edwards (Natalie Wood) to her family and Wayne is standing there, alone, reaching his left arm across to his right elbow.
(Harry Carey, Sr.)
A stance that was a Harry Carey, Sr., trademark.
The Searchers was unusual even in its using families of actors because you will seldom find the whole family, including Olive Carey.
(Olive Carey [as Mrs. Jorgenson] in a scene with Ken Curtis (Charlie McCorry].)
Of course, Maven knew she had to take a break finding all these pictures when Olive Carey started looking like Harry, Sr.’s sister instead of his wife!
Mrs. Carey had an career on her own, also acting in The Alamo with John Wayne, on TV with Ward Bond in Wagon Train; not to mention Dragnet, The Lawman, and Have Gun, Will Travel when she wasn’t at home taking care of the men in her family!
Certainly Ken Curtis had enough roles in John Wayne movies in his career as anybody else to feel like family in The Searchers.
Maven can’t begin to do justice to a man who has worked as a singer for Tommy Dorsey (replacing Frank Sinatra, no less!!) to being a featured singer with the Sons of the Pioneers (who did several movies with, again, John Wayne) to two low-budget films in Texas that have reached high camp status today:
Curtis was producer of Gordon McLendon’s independent film, The Killer Shrews (1959), and played Jerry Farrell in it.
(Ken Curtis, circa 1959)
(A plain old-fashioned gila monster)
. . . and was producer on McClendon’s The Giant Gila Monster (1959) that they made to be part of Killer Shrew’s double bill down in Texas.
Ken Curtis went on to play “Festus” on Gunsmoke with James Arness from 1964 to 1975.
Besides, Arness won a Purple Heart and Bronze Star from being wounded at Anzio (U.S. Army). Wouldn’t you rather have him on your side when you’re messing with a Giant Gila Monster—or anybody else—any day of the week?!?!
(A Texas Horny Toad.)
As far as “Gilas Monsters” go (regardless of size!), Maven would rather play with the horny toads of her childhood—the most that they ever did for her was use Maven for a potty break!!
And as for those Killer Shrews . . . those little puppies were played by Coon Dogs!
Makes Maven wonder what the writers were inhaling while they were
working on these scripts!
Either that or they were writing about some killer shrew ex-wives!
Gunsmoke provided steady jobs for other young actors of the time like Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in such episodes as “My Father, My Son” (as Ike Jeffords), “The Pariah” (as John Hooker), and “Old Fame” (as Rad Meadows).
(Lee Van Cleef)
Van Cleef had already made an impression (of sorts!) in 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms as Corporal Stone. He’s the guy that Professor Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) assigns the job of shooting their only “radioactive isotope” to bring down “The Beast” in the Battle of the Rollercoaster Ride.
Which Maven not only views as unfair because Beastie Boy was injured at the time
in the movie and didn’t even have a water gun to use to protect himself!
By now you will probably have forgotten that the lady sitting behind Nesbitt (Christian) in the ballet scene was . . . . You got it!
(Bess Flowers)
Bess Flowers was born in Sherman, Texas, in November 23, 1898,
She eventually earned the title of Queen of the Extras by appearing in some 712 movies, from 1923 to Disneyland in 1969.
This was back in the days when actors not only knew how to dress, they frequently wore their own clothes and makeup to the employment offices because that’s how the studios chose who to hire on as extras—when their “look” would fit in with the rest of actors in that set. That’s how Lon Chaney, Sr., got his start.
OTHER CHARACTER ACTORS, A to Z
ATWILL, Lionel – One of the top character actors in Hollywood because of his versatility who was ultimately his own worst enemy.
Atwill knew how to play fiends and/or mad scientists, varying from the top of the line The Mystery of the Wax Museum to the low-budget Vampire Bat (both 1933) to one of the silliest (but just as good) The Gorilla (1939) with the Ritz Brothers, Patsy Kelly, and Bela Lugosi.
One role that frequently got him sympathy was his role as Inspector Kroh in
Son of Frankenstein (1939), a memory from his first encounter when the Frankenstein Monster tore out his arm from his shoulder socket.
What didn’t get him sympathy with any of the studios of the time was his arrest springing out of his showing pornographic films at a party at his home (allegedly one of many such parties). Atwill compounded his problem by perjuring himself during the trial to protect his guests.
Maven regrets that Atwill would get away with selling his story and pictures to the highest bidder today, not to mention the DVD and cable channel release rights!
We won’t even discuss what all is included in today’s movies!
(Louise Beavers)
BEAVERS, Louise – Louise Beavers was sometimes described as the genteel version of Hattie McDaniel.
And neither one got the parts they so richly deserved.
Even doing her patriotic duty by appearing in Follow the Boys (1944), all you saw of Ms. Beavers was in the scene at the beginning of the movie with all the other actors offering what she could do for our boys, “from singing to cooking!”
That’s presuming that they let her do that much!
Three of her best-known roles were as Delilah Johnson in Claudette Colbert’s Imitation of Life (1934), Estrillita in Shadows of the Thin Man (1941), and Mamie in Holiday Inn (1941) with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire—all maids.
Her portrayal in Imitation Life was a confounding mix, given the time. Beavers’ “Delilah” took up much of the screen time as an important thread of the plot.
Her part was written to actively PREFER keeping the status quo of her secondary role to Claudette Colbert when they hit the big time and money on her “Aunt Jemima”-like pancake mix.
The audience is supposed to accept what amounts to a continuation of the Antebellum South with these two women growing close but continuing the separate living quarters and social lives and all that you’d expect more from 1939’s Gone with the Wind.
This movie does give the more powerful emotional toil on the screen as we watch Beavers’ Delilah try to deal with her light-complexioned daughter, Peola (Fredi Washington) who wants to “pass” as white throughout the movie.
On the other hand, Beatrice “Bea” Pullmam (Claudette Colbert) and her daughter, Jessie (Rochelle Hudson), just come off like hissing kittens at worst.
Maven saw 1959 remake with Lana Turner, Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner and was reduced to tears at the end but they had the help of Mahalia Jackson’s as the choir soloist at the end.
Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington’s turn with just a better-written script blow you completely away throughout the entire movie in comparison.
(Susan Kohner [center] with her parents)
[A Hollywood-Marry-Go-Round: Kohner’s parents were the Mexican actress, Lupita Tovar, and Paul Kohner, associate producer on the Spanish version of Dracula (1931) that brought them together. They married a short time thereafter.]
(Mel Brooks)
BROOKS, Mel—Okay, Maven fudges putting Mel Brooks in the category of character actor but what he did in World War II deserves promoting, even at this late date!
He became a combat engineer when he entered the army and “cleared German mines after the Battle of the Bulge. He organized shows for the troops, and when the German army began transmitting propaganda over loudspeakers, Brooks is said to have replied with a version of Al Jolson’s ‘Toot-toot-toosie.’” (Information from www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A650594)
Don’t you wish you could have seen the faces on the Germans, wondering
what new insidious weapon the Allies had let use on them?!
CAVANAUGH, Hobart – The perfect Casper Milquetoast.
Period.
How much can you write about an actor whose career can be so succinct?!
Maven does get a kick out of his part of Professor Jasper Quinley in Horror Island (1941).
It’s an old dark house involving Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, a map, a castle and a phantom. . . .
Cavanaugh’s Quinley is an antique map expert who goes along on a trip to a “haunted castle” just for the heck of it, only to find out that the guests are being knocked off a la Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
Maven is still trying to get somebody to teach
that trick on some of her relatives!!
(Marlene Dietrich whole and in her costume for Welles’
Mercury Wonder Show and a Harley Davidson—
What more could GI’s ask for ?!)
DIETRICH, Marlene – See WELLES, Orson