Confessions of a Film Collector

This week for the first time in over 80 years American movie-goers are realizing that silence can indeed be golden and that classic films, whether silent or sound, can be priceless!

Today Bijou colleague and Festival Films founder Ron Hall  recollects how silent films first captured his imagination and led to a lifelong passion for collecting and sharing treasures from his vault. 

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The inspiring black and white "silent" movie The Artist just took the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year.  I also loved Martin Scorsese's Hugo about the great pioneer of silent movies, Georges Melies.  Both films have caused me to reflect back on turning points in my life associated with silent and early sound movies.  A fascination with silent films especially as a child and teenager truly steered my life to a hobby that turned into a vocation that continues today.

Film collectors, buffs and Cinephiles recount many of these same experiences.  I have no memory of seeing any films before I was four, which is when the family moved from Texas to Wisconsin and settled in the small town of Deerfield, population 610, that had no movie theater!  So I grew up without Saturday Matinees or any weekly trips to the theater.

Being deprived of this experience in my early years only made me want to see more movies.  The few trips to Madison to see kiddie fare like a '25 Color Cartoon Festival' which were either Bugs Bunny/Roadrunners or Tom and Jerry/Droopy cartoons, were very special.  Of course we were taken to Disney films like revivals of Snow White (1937) and Song of the South (1946), plus first runs of Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955) and The Great Locomotive Chase (1956).

Free Movies in the Park 

Deerfield did host an outdoor movie series every summer to bring farmers into town for shopping.  This is a lost piece of small-town Americana I have never read about anywhere, but I was grateful to be part of it.  The shows did not start until dark around 9:00, but I hung around the traveling showman watching him set the screen, projector and speakers.  That first summer (1950) at age five I saw the first film I recall today -- Chapter #1 of the Universal serial Junior G-Men (1940) starring the Dead End Kids.

In the first chapter ending Billy Halop and pals are fighting in an elevator out of control.  It crashes!  I remember being terrified and covering my eyes.  I even remember the park bench and how close I sat to the screen.  Too close!  I really thought the Kids had died in my first exposure to the concept of death.

The Family 8mm Projector  

It was a Revere much like the one pictured here.  My father took home movies but in order to spice up a show starring us 3 kids he acquired a handful of Castle Films.  I recall The Three Little Bruins Get Into Mischief (1945), Andy Panda in Crazy House (1940) and the superb Mickey's Buzz Saw (actually 3 minutes from the 1934 The Dognapper) with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pegleg Pete being chased by a runaway buzz saw in a lumber mill.

Crazy House was a sound Technicolor cartoon but the home version was not only black and white but silent with inter-titles like real silent films.  I never knew at the time, but was simply captivated by the images of a fun house that runs amuck.

Castle Films  

My father had a few. Everyone's dad had a few in the late 1940s/early 50s.  One day I discovered them on sale in a department store bordering the state capitol building in Madison.  I haunted that display counter for years and one day actually purchased the 200 foot (about 3 minutes) version of The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) for something like $3.95.  I never could afford the deluxe 10 minute version at $8.95.   A few drops of film collecting fever in the blood can go a long ways, like a lifetime.

Famous Monsters of Filmland

This iconic magazine entered my life in late 1960 with Issue #10.  I had never seen many horror films up to then, but here was this kindly weird adult, Forrest J. Ackerman (FMF editor), telling all the kids that sci-fi, fantasy and horror movies were FUN and OK TO LIKE. (My parents forbade horror on some quasi-religious pagan grounds.)  I ordered the first nine back issues I had missed from Captain Company, who often did not deliver.  After losing a pile of quarters and dimes and still not getting Issue #4, I wrote to Forry about my dilemma.  He not only sent me one but autographed it as well, as shown here.

1950s Television  

Though missing first run movies in theaters, I devoured TV, saw my first mysteries, serials and cartoons there, Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club, Crusader Rabbit and later Rocky & Bullwinkle, all the TV western series, One Step Beyond, Maverick and on and on.  I also exhibited good taste at times and one love was Ernie Kovacs.

Silents Please 

By coincidence or fate, in addition to his many TV specials which often featured "silent" routines, Ernie Kovacs also hosted the 1960-61 series called Silents Please that presented cut down versions of silent movies.  The introduction and closing segments featured a quick shot of Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera (1925) that particularly sparked my imagination a few years before I was able to actually see the film.

So every week I tuned in Ernie and "Silents," said "Please" and hoped my best to see more of the Phantom.  As it turns out from this Silents Please episode guide the show never ran The Phantom even though it was in the public domain!  Ernie sadly died in 1962, and there was only one 39-episode season of Silents Please.  In Madison about the same time we enjoyed a similar series The Toy That Grew Up out of the PBS affiliate in Chicago, WTTW -- but I can't find any info on the web about it.  I recall seeing Johnny Hines and Rod LaRoque half-hour abridgements.

In college at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1964-1968) I attended a packed auditorium showing of When Comedy Was King (1960) in which the entire room convulsed with laughter for 75 minutes.

They also had occasional outdoor silent screenings of Laurel and Hardy shorts with live organ accompaniment.   I met Harold Lloyd when he came to the campus testing his compilation film The Funny Side of Life. (1963)   It contained most of The Freshmen (1925) and was a huge hit with the young audience.  At the reception was pioneer producer and Wisconsin resident Harry Aitken, now in his mid-90s, who had co-founded Triangle Film Corporation in 1915 with his brother Roy.  The most gracious Harold said, "You know, Mr. Aitken, I always wanted to meet you because I started my career working for your company but never got the chance until today." 

Jay Ward's Fractured Flickers introduced more mesmerizing snippets of Silents like Stan Laurel as "Dr. Pyckle" in Dr. Pykle & Mr. Pryde (1925) and the robot in Harry Houdini's Master Mystery (1920).

Blackhawk Films  

Somehow I heard about Blackhawk films during this period and traded in some old 8mm cartoons for my first Laurel and Hardy 8mm -- Leave 'Em Laughing (1928). 

This started my hobby as a film collector and I had already acquired Metropolis (1927) and Phantom from Griggs Moviedrome while still in college.  Then one day the Blackhawk Bulletin mentioned a tiny publication called "The 8mm Collector."  Sam Rubin started the paper in 1962 to find silent movies to watch and also other collectors.  I must have gotten my first issue in 1967 since I ordered a dozen or more of the early issues.

The early history of The 8mm Collector is recounted at the Cinecon Website:

The Society for Cinephiles, Ltd, was established in 1965 by Tom Seller, an avid reader of The 8mm Collector magazine, and Cinecon 1 was sponsored by Samuel K. Rubin, publisher of The 8mm Collector, in Indiana, Pennsylvania.  It was a small affair with only a handful of die hard film fans. They gathered in a small room at the local Holiday Inn and showed each other 8mm silent films from their personal collections.  This was 1965 before videos and DVDs, a time when, if you wanted to see your favorite old film, you had to wait until it turned up on TV or else you had to buy a projector and start your own film collection in 8mm or 16mm.

The following year (1966) another cinephile, Clark Wilkinson, hosted the show in Baraboo WI and Cinecon officially became an annual event.  For the next several years the Cinecon moved from city to city as a sort of moveable cinematic feast.  Today, the fanzine 8mm Collector is known as the respected Classic Images magazine, and since 1990 Cinecon has made its home in the Los Angeles area.

Ironically, in 1966 I was a 20-year-old sophomore in Madison, Wisconsin, and Baraboo was less than an hour drive away.  I could easily have attended Cinecon 2.  I saw a newspaper article after it was over but did not know about the event in advance.  In fact 17-year-old high school student Leonard Maltin flew in for the event.  I could also have attended Cinecon 3 in Chicago the following year with guest Colleen Moore but was again unaware.  I did make it to Cinecon 4 in Hollywood over Labor Day in 1968 where I roomed with Leonard on his very first trip to Hollywood and also with an adult -- Bud LeMaster -- who wrote for The 8mm Collector and who I had met in St. Louis that summer.

Wanting to see as many silent films as possible, then to own them and finally to share them with others led to attending Cinecons from 1968 on, running The Xanadu Film Festival in Minneapolis 1971-1974, meeting my future wife Chris, making friends with film dealers, fans and collectors, and eventually starting Festival Films in 1976.

Meeting Chris, who came to the film society to make audio tapes of Marx Brothers films, stands above all else.  Chris also loved Ernie Kovacs, whose Silents Please helped lure me into the hobby of collecting old movies that brought us together ten years later.

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So many of these films are at last available, renovated and uncut, over at Movies Unlimited and Alpha Video. Here is the inspirational opening to Silents Please that some may recall:

Selling an Ace in the Hole

Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951) remains as timely as today's breaking news, and this fictional account of a newspaper reporter's cynically contrived media circus delivers a powerful cinematic punch three decades after its release.

While speculating on why Paramount changed the film's title to The Big Carnival we discovered that Bijou friend and fellow-cinephile John McElwee has written a fascinating account of this history over at his always captivating Greenbriar Picture Shows. We are grateful for John's permission to reprint his article, along with some splendid images he uncovered associated with the film's release.

Paramount Has a Tough Sale

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article originally posted at Greenbriar Picture Shows on February 1, 2007. Since that time, Paramount licensed Ace In The Hole to Criterion for a long-awaited DVD release, and Turner Classic Movies has broadcast the film on several further occasions. Instead of updating Greenbriar's text to reflect all this, I decided to leave the post as is, to show if nothing else how a classic once abandoned can sometimes come roaring back. We now have Ace In The Hole on disc, satellite TV, and streaming over the Net. A happy ending for what seemed for years a lost film.)

TCM showed Ace In The Hole last week, which was the cinematic equivalent of raising the Titanic, though this treasure was less lost than unwanted. Satellite customers of Paramount TV Sales have long preferred safer Sabrina /Shane alternatives when time came to lease features for assorted Encore or Cinemax outlets, and in that sense, Billy Wilder’s poison pill maintains repute it acquired sixty plus years ago.

Leave us face truth, Ace is a bummer movie and general audiences have never been crazy about it. Maybe someday there’ll be enough Billy-philes and dyed-in-wool cynics to rehabilitate it, but until then, I wouldn’t expect much exposure for Ace In The Hole. TCM ran it after all at 2:00 in the morning.

Cultists would make a martyr of Wilder’s film. Maurice Zolotow got balls rolling with a first published bio of the director (1977) --- "Ace In The Hole was castigated by the critics and shunned by the public. Wilder was called a cynical man. The film was denounced as an untruthful attack on the integrity of American newspapers and on the new medium of television." Subsequent writers picked up and ran with Zolotow's spin: "A disaster at the box office," said Ed Sikov in his 1998 Wilder book, "but in the early 1950’s, with faith in the nation’s ideological institutions assuming fanatical religious proportions, Wilder was offering a vision of Americans and their news media that few Americans themselves wished to confront, let alone applaud." Indeed, the director himself was eventually persuaded. "They never gave it a chance," Wilder said. I only hope Billy wasn’t referring to Paramount, because evidence indicates they gave it every chance, with a campaign as aggressive as any mounted during 1951.

As to its box-office disaster, Ace In The Hole no doubt took a loss, but no more so than a lot of other features the company was distributing that year. With $1.2 million in domestic rentals, it equaled The Last Outpost and Submarine Command, while outperforming Hal Wallis’ production of Peking Express ($936,000) and a comedy sequel thought to be promising, Dear Brat ($890,000).

The thing that was killing Paramount and other majors was television. By mid-1951, there was a set in millions more homes than even one year before, and Hollywood movies were beginning to surface there. Republic had announced imminent sales of its backlog, and hundreds of independent features were dumped on airwaves with each passing week. You had to have something really special to entice people away from all that free entertainment.

Paramount kept a man in the field by the name of Rufus Blair. He’d been with newspapers and was a crack merchandiser. You might classify him as a Chuck Tatum with ethics. Rufus spent April and May canvassing thirty-four cities on behalf of Ace In The Hole. He had an open door with publishers, having worked with a number of them, and his mission was to target media folk --- editors, reviewers, radio personalities, whatever. Armed with a print of the feature, Blair knew Ace would click with newshound colleagues. Trade critics were already flipping over Wilder’s trenchant drama, and Paramount brandished raves among the trades at least two months prior to release.

They played it up as a tough show in the tradition of The Public Enemy and Kirk Douglas’ previous Champion. News dailies swarmed over it. Ace In The Hole's journalist was rugged and ruthless after fashions of Cagney, Bogart, and Ladd. He grabbed a story by the throat and took no guff from bosses and women-folk. Rufus Blair knew reporters would dig Chuck Tatum and they sure enough did. The character’s tenacity flattered them and made them feel movie star cool.

Further promotion in advance of the play date found Jan Sterling getting a New York build-up on behalf of Ace In the Hole.

Paramount tied in with Royal Desserts for recorded ads with Sterling, all of which concluded with a pitch for the feature, while millions of pudding packs and gelatin boxes went out with her picture emblazoned thereon. The Hallicrafters Corporation, then one of the big three radio/television manufacturers, continued their mutual sales push with Paramount that had begun with The Mating Season earlier that year. Field men for both companies linked up with local dealers, and Hellicrafter’s equipment was featured onscreen during Ace In The Hole. 

The Albuquerque location premiere followed in mid-June with a simultaneous opening in three theatres, attended by Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling, who passed out autographs from their vantage point on a chuck wagon. New York’s opening at the Globe Theatre on June 29 would be a benefit of the Newsdealer Associations welfare fund, the 1,475 seat Globe having been chosen for its long-run potential. "Paramount execs compare "Ace" to its "Lost Weekend" in type and not suitable for linking with a stage show," said Variety, which also noted the company's hope for at least a six week Broadway stay for Ace In The Hole. Billy Wilder was in town as well for TV appearances and con-fabs with home office ad-press-publicity staff.

Eleventh hour title changes were not uncommon prior to releasing a feature. Such an action post-release was almost unheard of. An embarrassment for marketing, publicity, and distribution, it suggested a botched campaign. "Isn’t there somebody in the studio organization who can yell murder when an un-showmanship title comes through the ordinary routine of production?" asked The Motion Picture Herald, after two Metro 1951 offerings sputtered on release. "Wouldn’t it be possible to learn these facts a little earlier?" Two Weeks With Love and Inside Straight represented good product badly sold. The Herald felt both could have benefited from exhibitor input on the front end. "Inside Straight fell flat on its title during Easter week on Broadway because people assumed it dealt with card playing," whereas this was actually a period show about the California gold rush. Ace In The Hole was also adjudged misleading. Was it too about gambling? If so, women weren’t interested. Many patrons had no idea as to the meaning of the phrase. Would they wait until after paying an admission to find out? Circuit heads thought not, and these were men charged with getting pedestrians off the street and into their theaters.

By mid-August, it was obvious Paramount had a problem. A picture with Kirk Douglas in the lead and reviews as positive as Ace In The Hole garnered should not be playing to empty houses. Obviously, they needed a new title. Showman (as well as editor-publisher of Motion Picture Exhibitor) Jay Emanuel spoke to the controversy in a letter reproduced in trade ads.

Latter-day cultists would consign Emanuel to the role of philistine, but I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing --- "I personally supervised the campaign in each city to make certain it was proper and adequate. I also checked the comments of our patrons. The results can be summed up briefly. The people who came to see the picture enjoyed it immensely but the picture did not roll up the gross to which I felt it was entitled." This was a sort of grassroots movement on the part of exhibitors from which a newly re-christened The Big Carnival emerged.

Paramount tested bookings with the new title and claimed business got a lift. Prints already in exchanges had to be physically amended to reflect the switch. Paramount found this a costly procedure. "Ace In The Hole was a bit too smart a title," admitted the company to Variety, "Despite its perfection in describing a story of a man trapped in a cave and efforts of an ace reporter to tie up the story."

The tab would be $20,000 to redo pressbooks, accessories, and physical prints of what was now The Big Carnival. "Most important is loss of coin spent in getting audience penetration of the original title," added Variety. No doubt a few Ace In The Hole stragglers continued playing through 1951, much like that last rattlesnake Chuck Tatum described as having gotten away in the feature. Billy Wilder spoke to a still-sore topic years later --- "Behind my back, because I was making a picture in Paris at the time, Mr. Freeman, head of the studio, changed the title from "Ace In The Hole" to "The Big Carnival" --- like this is going to attract people. Without asking me! It was one of the reasons I left Paramount."

All well and good for a director wanting to distance himself from an event well after the fact, but Freeman wasn't the one to call this shot. New York would have made such marketing decisions. I’m betting too that Wilder was consulted, and ultimately bowed to sales department wishes. These weren’t the idiots and troglodytes he liked to portray before adoring interviewers taking his anecdotes at face value. They were capable merchandisers who knew how to campaign on behalf of their product. Wilder just handed them sour fruit this time, and neither exhibitors nor customers were sure how to digest it.

So what happened to The Big Carnival when it got into the general release market? "For my money, the title would not change box office," was the report from Hollister, California’s State Theatre. "The picture is different, but drawing power, in spite of exploitation, is limited --- the second and third day died." Could this have been the result of bad word-of-mouth among locals? The Booth Theatre’s manager in Rich Hill, Missouri spoke to that --- "Our patrons thought it a little heavy. Got a bunch of kids who did not know what the show was about." No, it sure wasn’t for kids, but really, was it for anyone? "OK picture, but did poor business," was curt appraisal from the Jackson Theatre in Flomation, Alabama. Well, you couldn’t bring them into theaters at gunpoint after all, and Wilder’s line in nihilism really wouldn’t come into fashion for at least another twenty years.

Paramount couldn’t be bothered with a reissue, and the death march to television opened with a berth on NBC’s December 4, 1965 broadcast of Saturday Night At The Movies. From there, The Big Carnival was shuffled off to syndication as part of the company’s Portfolio One package, where it would share late show dates with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I Married A Monster From Outer Space, My Favorite Spy --- some fifty Paramount titles that became available to local TV markets in April, 1967. You could rent it through Films, Inc. during the seventies on a sliding scale. Titles in their catalog were ranked by stars --- anywhere from one, two, three, to "special." ---based on perceived merit. The Big Carnival got a one, which means you could have it for anywhere from $15 a day for schools and convents (!) with less than 100 in your audience (probably a cinch with this one) to a maximum $100 for colleges and film societies with over 1251 heads in the room.

Paramount passed on a VHS release, and has remained deaf to DVD availability. Bootlegs are occasionally intermingled on eBay with a 2005 docu-drama entitled Ace in the Hole, wherein it's Saddam Hussein instead of the films Leo Minosa who's buried. One enterprising VHS peddler offers attractive box art likely to fool the unwary, while the rest of us go on waiting for Paramount to pull the trigger with an authorized release. Let's hope it won't be too long.

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Turner Classic Movies will be airing Ace in the Hole on Feb 24 at 10:00 pm ET. The Criterion DVD, that includes the original theatrical trailer, a featurette and other extras is available for purchase at Movies Unlimited. And here you can enjoy the original theatrical trailer for Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole.
 

Celluloid Christmas Cheer

As 2011 comes to a close, the elves at the Bijou are working overtime putting together the final pieces that will soon deliver the Matinee at the Bijou sequel series, in HD and hosted by America's cinematic sweetheart Debbie Reynolds. Watch for some exciting news here early in the coming New Year!

During this season of warmth and festivities, we at the Bijou are saddened by the plight of rare cinematic shorts which, orphaned by copyright, are too often left out in the cold. The rise of the Internet has been a boon to lovers of these cartoons and short subjects, providing multiple means of introducing new generations to their merriment and, in some cases, just plain strangeness.

Much to our joy we have recently discovered such a resource of rarities in plain sight: XmasFLIX’s YouTube Channel, “Vintage Christmas Film and Music.” According to the channel description, it is “Vintage and obscure Christmas films, music, commercials and more. For those who appreciate the glamor (sic), style, innocence, cheese and kitsch of the earlier years of the 20th century.”

We say; if Santa were a cinephile, this would be his YouTube Channel! (And looking at the profile information, perhaps he is.)

The ten different playlists contain short films, cartoons, and sing-alongs. Fair warning: this channel contains a broad range of content. However, the PG-13 offerings are clearly marked.

While the videos are excellent, mostly very good prints, what really makes them stand out are the notes (viewable when the videos are played on YouTube, under "more info") containing biographical information about the animators and the historical context of the film. It quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary film fest, but also a labor of love.

Looking for those vintage Christmas classics, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Christmas Comes but Once a Year, and Jack Frost? Vintage Christmas Film and Music has these and so many more!

However, we at the Bijou want to wish you all the Joy of the Season by offering a glimpse at some of the stranger festive fare available on XmasFLIX’s YouTube Channel, including one provocative short film that you won't find telecast anywhere -- including in Matinee at the Bijou's own programming. Please accept "a cup of kindness yet" as we ring the New Year in!

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For many, the 1940s were a decade of rationing, war, and uncertainty. Can you imagine the excitement of welcoming in the 1950s? Check out the lyrics to this 1949 theatrical Happy New Year celluloid wish to movie audiences, served up with a cheerful rendition of Auld Lang Syne -- and never again be stuck for the words to Robert Burns' poem! (And if cigarette ads are bothersome, please focus instead on the wonderfully decorated Christmas tree behind Santa.)



In this age of vaccines and antibiotics, people forget how truly frightening "common" diseases once were. In Quiet Heroes James Cagney reminds viewers how far tuberculosis research had come and how far it had yet to go. The notes provide an historical look at Christmas Seals, those once ubiquitous additions to everyone's holiday mail.



Many celebrities spoke for this cause, including John Wayne and Frank Sinatra.

Christmas Seals, 1940

For our last film, we respectfully suggest Parents may wish to watch this before exposing innocent eyes to the comic brutality of a Punch and Judy puppet show from the late 1940s - including some very non-PC scenes.

Santa Claus, Punch and Judy is certainly not considered modern holiday fare, and yet the tradition of the Punch and Judy puppet show is centuries old. XmasFLIX's notes describe the history and origin of the characters in 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte.

Is Punch and Judy a trivialization of domestic violence, or all in harmless fun? The question is not new, and even Charles Dickens weighed in on the matter:

In my opinion the street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life… I regard it as… an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct. It is possible, I think, that one secret source of pleasure very generally derived from this performance… is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstances that likenesses of men and women can be so knocked about without any pain or suffering…

A description that very nearly sounds like a Tom & Jerry cartoon. (Take heart: Punch beats Judy, but the cat, monkey, and the aliigator give it to him right back!)



Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress reminds us:

 "Our film heritage

is America's living past."

These are among the celluloid images that have shaped our consciousness and described our experiences.

We salute the secret-Santa behind XmasFLIX’s YouTube Channel and all the other Celluloid Patriots out there who dedicate their time and often considerable personal resources in helping preserve America's living past!

The Big Country: A Big Mess

In the 1950s movies had to be big to compete with the rival challenge of television, and nobody could make big movies like director William Wyler, the guiding light behind such blockbusters as Ben-Hur, Funny Girl, Friendly Persuasion and The Best Years of Our Lives.

In fact The Big Country is so big it takes two blogs to spotlight it! Join us now as Bijou Blog's Victoria Balloon discusses big backlot drama, then mosey on over to Movies Unlimited for more, but don’t get lost on the way — it’s a Big Internet!

William Wyler’s The Big Country (1958) is one of the epic films of the 1950s, and a thorough departure from the two-reel Westerns of his early career at Universal Studios. The film also differs thematically from those early oaters — Jim McKay’s (Gregory Peck) imperturbable temper is unfathomable to his fiancée Pat (Carroll Baker) and her father Major Terrill (Charles Bickford), but as the drama of two clans fighting each other for water rights unfolds, McKay must decide just how much violence a pacifist must use to keep the peace.

Despite The Big Country having an all-star cast and a two-time Oscar-winning director (Wyler filmed Ben-Hur the following year), reviews of the film ranged from hand-clapping to raspberries. Many praised the cinematography and the Jerome Moross score, but box office returns barely put the $3.1 million film back in the black, though it did rank 11th in Variety’s annual listing. The New York Times called it “the most bellicose hymn to peace ever seen.”

From the outset the film did have one huge fan: President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He gave it four consecutive showings at the White House and called it “simply the best film ever made. My number one favorite film." The Big Country has been described as an allegory of Cold War politics, with the role of Major Terrill as Eisenhower, but more than likely Eisenhower identified more with McKay — stuck in the middle of warring nations, trying to keep the peace.

Everything about the film was big. Shot in “Technirama” with an aspect ratio of 2.55 to 1 on the negatives (the highest ratio ever used in film), it had a runtime of 168 minutes. Interior shots were done at the Goldwyn Studios, but exterior shots were done in the Mojave Desert and a 3,000 acre ranch east of Stockton. (Because apparently, California is more “Texas” than Texas.) The principle cast members were stars at the top of their game, the budget was there, the reputations were there… And so was the big behind-the-scenes drama.

The studio system that had created the Hollywood illusion of the 1930s fell apart in the 1950s through a combination of legal action against monopolies and actors, writers, and directors wanting more control over their work. Big name actors and directors formed production companies to become producers of their own films. After his successes in Roman Holliday (1953) and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), Gregory Peck formed Anthony Productions (named after his son) in order to work on a project with his friend, director William Wyler. Peck and Wyler became close while making Roman Holiday, and the two men and their wives often dined out together, their families taking vacations in Sun Valley.

Creating the screenplay for The Big Country quickly became a problem. There were a total of seven writers who worked on the project (including Leon Uris), but the resulting script was overlong and unsatisfactory to both producers; however, shooting had to begin. In addition to being the star, Peck and the original author Donald Hamilton also worked on the script at night after the day’s shooting, but neither was a screenwriter, and other writers needed to be brought in.

This meant that each morning the actors could be presented with lines and scenes completely different from those they had memorized the night before. Jean Simmons in particular found this taxing. “We'd have our lines learned, then receive a rewrite, stay up all night learning the new version, then receive yet another rewrite the following morning. It made the acting damned near impossible.”

Peck was not satisfied with the ending of the film, but Carroll Baker was pregnant, with a contractual stop-date. Even after shooting the ending, Peck was not satisfied with the story, but Baker was no longer available. Her character seems to literally disappear from the film, and the loose ends bothered both Peck and reviewers.

Wyler was an excellent director whose three Oscars are second only to John Ford’s four. More actors won Oscars under Wyler’s direction than any other director (14 out of 36 nominations), yet “90 take Willy” was terrible at giving actors input. Take after take, his only directions or comments were “Do it again.” Wyler seemed to believe that when actors got angry after multiple takes, they played their parts without artifice on a “truer” level.

He got results, but tempers flared. Jean Simmons said “The atmosphere [on set] felt very dodgy — the sort of prevailing tension that invites paranoia, causes you to wonder, ‘What have I done?’ … I guess Willy was in a position to know what it took to achieve great performances, but he also seemed bent on making things difficult.”

Charlton Heston recalled a fight scene with Carroll Baker in which Wyler secretly told him not to let Baker go. As Heston was 6’3” to Baker’s 5’ 5”, this was not difficult; at one point, he literally holds both her wrists in one hand. After multiple takes with bruised wrists, in tears Baker complained that Heston would not let her go. “I don’t want him to,” replied Wyler, “I want you to get out of it yourself.”

Wyler was in charge of directing with the final say in artistic matters, while Peck secured the cast, script, publicity through United Artists, wardrobe and makeup, and technical personnel. But script issues, the remote location, direction problems with Baker, Simmons, and Bickford, and running over schedule took their toll on the two men’s friendship.

The final straw was when Peck wanted to reshoot a scene in which Peck felt he looked like “a cretin.” Strangely, Wyler was unwilling to reshoot, and Peck literally walked off the set of his own movie. His agent finally coaxed him back, but the damage was done — Peck and Wyler were no longer on speaking terms. Eventually Peck broke the silence and congratulated Wyler with his success on Ben-Hur (1959), but Wyler’s only response was “Thanks, but I’m still not reshooting the scene.”

The one principle actor who seemed to have no problems with Wyler was Burl Ives. Indeed, Ives won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and almost stole the show in the role of Rufus Hannassey, mirroring his earlier performance that year in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as a sort of rustic Big Daddy of the trashy Hannassey clan.

Over fifty years later The Big Country is still absolutely worth viewing. Modern audiences have a greater appreciation for the ambiguity and unresolved conflicts in the film that bothered initial reviewers. The behind the scene drama only underscores the monumental task of making such a movie and, despite some displays of temper, the skill and professionalism of those involved. Possibly the most amazing thing about the movie is that it turned out as well as it did.

Bijou writer Victoria Balloon muses further on the movie’s many merits beyond the mess over at Movie Fanfare, the Movies Unlimited blog.

Here you can watch an incisive interview with Gregory Peck, who discusses the troubles on the set of The Big Country between himself and William Wyler. Afterwards, be sure to check out what John McElwee has to say in "Shrunken Epics Reclaimed" over at Greenbriar Picture Shows.

Money Madness and Movies

Many Americans are feeling outraged by what they see as the vast inequalities manifested by Wall Street. We at the Bijou try not to express political leanings (although we will lean left or right to reach for the popcorn), but we do want to point out that banking and finance make for some wonderful films. Join Bijou blogger Victoria Balloon as she takes a look at movies that are snapshots capturing corporate politics and banking history in America.

Then read on as Bijou colleague Bob Campbell offers up a second look at an archived post on Richard Ney. Perhaps not well-remembered as an actor (Mrs. Miniver (1942), Midnight Lace (1960)), Ney was extremely successful as an investor, money manager and investment advisor. His analysis of the stock market and the manipulation used by inside traders at the New York and American Stock Exchanges is still discussed today, and in light of recent news, continues to be relevant.

In recent weeks Gallup analysis showed that in October of 2010, Americans expressing a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in banks fell to an all-time low of 18%. Hollywood, however, has always known that “corporate fat cats” and “banking plutocrats” make for crowd-pleasing villains. Every now and then a film shows a banker as a mild-mannered upstanding pillar of the community, such as George Benedict, father of Andy Hardy’s love interest, Polly, but more often than not bankers in film bring to mind Lionel Barrymore’s portrayal of Henry F. Potter, whose underhanded schemes threaten to bring down Bailey Building and Loan in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

Although many of the movies seem dated because of their references to past cultural practices or then current events, it is the films’ datedness that makes them fun to watch. We have some inside tips on four films you can take to the bank.

In American Madness (1932) Tom Dickson, the President of Union National Bank, has always been fair in his handling of the bank, its employees and its clients, but the bank's Board of Directors accuse Dickson of being soft in approving “questionable” loans and want him removed from his position—at any cost. When the bank is robbed of $200,000, loyal employee Matt Brown is implicated as the thief. Despite the cashier’s shady past and reluctance to defend himself, Dickson believes Brown is innocent. Dickson must both save the bank and come to grips with what he discovers about his marriage.

This film was made in the last year of the Herbert Hoover presidency. In 1933 one of the landmark reforms of the first hundred days of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which guarantees the funds of depositors (currently up to $250,000 per depositor per bank). Banks have failed since 1933, but the disastrous “bank runs” that characterized previous times, shown so graphically in this early Frank Capra film, have not been repeated.

Veteran stage actor George Arliss plays both father Mayer Rothschild and eldest son Nathan in The House of Rothschild (1934), the story of the rise of the Rothschild financial empire and the five brothers who guided its international success. The film is an excellent example of the kind of big-budget production offered by producer Darryl Zanuck and 20th Century Fox as well as a pre-World War II look at anti-Semitism. In addition to Arliss, the film features a notable cast, including Boris Karloff, Loretta Young, Robert Young, and C. Aubrey Smith.

Despite the film being a period piece, one must remember that Hollywood has always valued cinematic effect over historical accuracy. Still, it is a glimpse into the kind of power struggles that happen when money meets politics. Even to this day the Rothschild family is the target of many conspiracy theories regarding world wealth, financial institutions, and government influence.

Considered by many W.C. Fields’ finest feature film, The Bank Dick (1940) (released as The Bank Detective in the UK) showcases Fields in his prime as grumpy alcoholic Egbert Sousé (accent on the “e”). Unemployed and endlessly tortured by his family, Sousé is given the job of bank detective when he unwittingly catches a bank robber. Con men, phony mining companies, embezzlers and bank examiners are no match for the acerbic side-of-the-mouth utterances and inebriated wit of Sousé.

Fields wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Mahatma Kane Jeeves (“My hat, my cane, Jeeves”), giving free-rein to his brand of loosely-jointed slapstick. Director by Edward F. Cline had been an actor in Sennett's Keystone Kops films, and it shows in the film’s climactic car chase. We can’t lie – this film is in no way educational, but it is lots of fun!

Judy Holliday is unstoppable in The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956). When the board of directors of multi-billion dollar company International Projects gets chairman of the board Edward L. McKeever (Paul Douglas) an advisory position at the Pentagon, they’re thrilled at the possibility of lucrative government contracts. They’re not so thrilled by the questions small stockholder Laura Partridge (Holliday) keeps asking, such as why the board has such high salaries. The board hopes to distract and silence her by giving her a job as a secretary, but Laura has other ideas!

It’s a bit far-fetched to think that global capitalism can be overthrown so easily, but this Hollywood treatment of the corporate and financial culture of the Eisenhower years is an upbeat look at the power of one vote. Holliday is vibrant in one of her last films, and her wide-eyed honesty pitted against cynical politicking makes for sweet escape.

It’s ironic that, with its multi-million dollar budgets, movie moguls, and trading of actors like commodities, Hollywood should point fingers at the corruption and greed of banking and big business. Eventually Hollywood explored its own ethical failings with movies like Sunset Blvd (1950) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). It seems that wherever money and power are, there will always be temptation.

You can watch three great clips from The House of Rothschild over at Turner Classic Movies. Please note that Producer Darryl F. Zanuck did not shy away from controversy, and he meant for the portrayal of anti-Semitism to be villainous.

In the past 30 years there have been some great movies about banking and finance. All Top Movies.com has a Top 10 List of Classic Banking Movies, all of which are available for purchase at Movies Unlimited, along with American Madness and The Bank Dick. Most of these films deal with the inner workings of Wall Street, which by the sheer size and complexity of its operations seems opaque to all but those well-versed in finance. Read on to find out about an actor turned investor who revealed those inner-workings – to the dismay of many.