The Gordon Westcott Film Festival: "The World Changes" and "Private Detective 62"

"Of course you can trust me, doll! Just
hand me the briefcase with your life
savings and the money you embezzled from
the bank. I'll be right back."

Of all the actors and actresses who were in 1930s movies, Gordon Westcott (1903-35) was certainly one of them.

Born Myrthus Hickman (shame he changed it) in St. George, Utah, Westcott was a track and football star in high school. He married a woman after he graduated, but when she gave birth to a son he deserted her and ended up in Hollywood.

Westcott made his film debut in 1928, and was under contract to Paramount and then Warner Brothers. His specialty was a shifty, caddish character. In the wild 1933 film "Lilly Turner," he plays a carnival smoothie who marries, impregnates and abandons (sounds familiar) our heroine (Ruth Chatterton). In "Footlight Parade," released the same year, he plays the guy who steals James Cagney's ideas for movie prologues.

In "Heroes for Sale," also released the same year, Westcott is cowardly Roger Winston, who tricks neighborhood chum Tom Holmes (Richard Barthelmess) into single handedly storming a German stronghold during World War I. Tom is captured by the Huns, who nurse him back to health and

Bring the kids!

give him morphine for his pain. Roger doesn't know that Tom is still alive, and he receives -- and accepts -- all the plaudits for Tom's actions. When he discovers Tom is alive, he gives him a job at the family bank out of guilt. At the end of the movie, after they've long since separated, Tom and Roger are reunited as just two more homeless men looking for work.

In "The World Changes," also released in 1933, Westcott gets to spread his wings a bit. The movie is a ponderous multi-generational saga which stars Paul Muni as Orin Nordholm, a first-generation American who grows up on the plains and becomes a meat packing magnate in Chicago.

Beginning in the 1860s and ending with the Great Depression, "The World Changes" takes in a lot of territory and tries to emulate "Cavalcade," which won a Best Picture Oscar in 1933. But "The World Changes" falls short. Its main attribute is that it features a boatload of Warner regulars -- Muni, Aline MacMahon, Henry O'Neill, Donald Cook, Guy Kibbee, Patricia Ellis, Margaret Lindsay -- and we get to see them age based on the amount of chalk dust in their hair.

There is a standout -- Mary Astor plays Orin's wife, a snobbish sort who loves the wealth that meat packing brings but can't stand the smell and blood associated with the slaughterhouse. She finally loses her mind and becomes Scary Mary Astor:



Westcott plays John, one of Orin's ne'er-do-well sons. His big scene comes toward the end, when the daughter (Ellis) of Orin's brother (Cook) is scheduled to marry a fortune hunter (Alan Mowbray). But this is the same day that the family business is going belly up, and John can't wait to share the news:

At the end of "The World Changes," all is well. The family has gone completely broke, but Grandma Nordholm (MacMahon), with her commonsense ways, will lead the family back to happiness. Yay Great Depression!

Westcott plays truer to type in 1933's "Private Detective 62," a tasty little pre-code. Our hero is William Powell as Donald Free, a gumshoe who isn't quite as charming as Nick Charles in "The Thin Man" and a little more sober.

Free is a former secret government operative who's joined a detective agency that does lots of divorce work. Free lets partner Hogan (Arthur Hohl) do the sleazier jobs. Enter Westcott as shady casino owner Bandor. He wants Free to shadow Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay in one of her "veddy veddy" performances), a society dame who's winning entirely too much at roulette.

But Bandor's real goal is to frame Janet for murder. And he thinks he gets away with it, until:



When Janet is accused of Bandor's murder, Free becomes her defender. And he resigns from the agency, much to the sorrow of office manager Amy (Ruth Donnelly being Ruth Donnelly):



Westcott's string at Warner Bros. continued into 1934 and '35, including a couple of films with Bette Davis ("Fog Over Frisco" and "Front Page Woman") and Joe E. Brown ("Six Day Bike Rider" and "Bright Lights").

Westcott was a polo enthusiast, and in the fall of 1935 he was playing a match on the Disney team against MGM. There was an accident, and his horse fell on him. After several days in the hospital, Westcott died on Halloween, just a few days before his 32nd birthday.

Discovering Smith and Dale: "The Heart of New York"

When teenagers Joe Sultzer and Charlie Marks wanted to form a comedy team, they got a deal on business cards from another team that had already broken up. So Sultzer and Marks became Smith and Dale, and they performed together for almost 70 years, from vaudeville to "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Their act, heavy on ethnic humor and malapropisms, and their career together were the inspiration for Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys." But despite their stage stardom, Joe Smith (1884-1981) and Charlie Dale (1885-1971) made very few movies.

And truthfully, the 1932 film "The Heart of New York" isn't their best showcase. Their vaudeville sketches were more suited to short films. But the movie is worth a look because it does offer a few glimpses of Smith and Dale, and because it's the most Jewish-flavored Hollywood film this side of "The Jazz Singer." It's another reminder that pre-code film making wasn't just about snappy dialogue and racy situations -- it also offered an open view of ethnic diversity that wouldn't resurface until the late 1960s.

Based on the play "Mendel, Inc.," "The Heart of New York" takes place on the Lower East Side, where the heavily Jewish presence is amusingly demonstrated in the opening scene:



Our hero is plumber Mendel Marantz (George Sidney), who spends all his time turning down jobs in order to concentrate on his prize invention, an automatic dishwasher. At the beginning of the movie Mendel is portrayed as being lazy and selfish -- he won't do any outside work even though his family is starving, his daughter needs clothes and his son has bad teeth. And, oy, they're two months behind on the rent!

The family pooh-poohs Mendel's dreams of success -- the only person who stands behind him is neighbor Bessie (Aline MacMahon, bless her heart, nailing a Yiddish accent).

Enter Smith and Dale as Shnapps and Strudel -- matchmakers, real estate brokers, travel agents and anything else that can help them make a quick buck. Shnapps is Mendel's brother-in-law, and he's ready to fix up Mendel's oldest daughter (Ruth Hall) with a nice attorney (Donald Cook).

Shnapps, he will be the first to tell you, is as honest as the day is long. "I don't like monkey business," he says. "I like monkeys separate and business separate." He's come to collect the rent from Mendel, who sells him a part interest in his dishwasher business instead.

Through some plot complications that aren't worth going into, Mendel still ends up in financial trouble and Shnapps and Strudel end up turning Mendel's front window into their office space. And here's where we get their only prolonged sketch together:



Mendel then sells his dishwasher idea and the family is in clover. Everyone else wants to move uptown, but Mendel wants to buy the family's tenement, tear it down and build a mansion. Through the kind of misunderstanding that would take two minutes to clear up in real life, the family thinks Mendel wants to stay in the old building and everyone abandons him -- except the loyal Bessie.

Meanwhile, Mendel's daughter and the attorney have gotten married. Shnapps tells the daughter, "I bet you're surprised I fixed something up for you, huh? That's the way I am -- I've always got something on my sleeve."

Mendel hires Strudel to be his stand-in of sorts, doing all the things that rich men are supposed to do, like playing polo and going to parties. Shnapps visits Mendel and sees Strudel in his white polo outfit. "You look like a bottle of milk," he says.



In the end, when Mendel's wealthy partner tries to cheat him out of his millions, the lawyer in the family steps up and foils the plot. The partner leaves in a huff, with this benediction:

Shnapps: Walk under a streetcar!

Strudel: And turn left!
 
Smith and Dale are more than just the spice of "The Heart of New York" -- without them, the movie would barely be worth watching. The soggy plot requires Mendel to turn from a selfish slob into an indulgent father, and neither side of his character -- or anyone in his family -- is worth caring about. Even director Mervyn LeRoy -- with "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" on the horizon -- seems at a loss. He utilizes scene fadeouts that look like a descending curtain, emphasizing the static, stage-bound quality of the story. 

As for Smith and Dale, they made a few comedy shorts in the 1940s, but their ethnic humor was going out of style. Their career lay dormant until the advent of television. Variety shows were tailor-made for their act, and they appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" 21 times between 1950-61. Legend has it that, after one appearance, Sullivan told them they needed new material and gave them some money to pay for it. They pocketed the money and went right on doing the old stuff.

Here are the complete credits for "The Heart of New York," and a trailer:        



And here's another glimpse of the boys in a 1931 short:

"Heroes for Sale," or Happy Days Aren't Exactly Here Yet

Richard Barthelmess had a face suited to sadness, and as the hero of "Heroes for Sale" (1933), it fits his character perfectly. He's Tom Holmes, a World War I veteran who faces prison, poverty, death, drugs and depression. He ends the movie with his ethics intact, but not much else.

But although "Heroes for Sale" is downbeat, it's also a textbook example of couching social commentary in a well-made, fast-moving story, enhanced by a supporting cast of pros including Aline MacMahon, Robert Barrat and Loretta Young.

We first meet Tom during wartime. He and Roger Winston (pasty-faced Gordon Westcott), who happen to be from the same hometown, are sent on a suicide mission to storm a German machine gun nest. At the crucial moment, Roger freezes and lets Tom go it alone. Tom is shot and Roger thinks he's dead -- then he's hailed as a hero because of Tom's courage.

Then on the ship back home, just as a blind soldier (James Murray, the tragic star of King Vidor's "The Crowd") is fingering Roger's Distinguished Service Cross, up pops Tom. He was saved on the battlefield and nursed back to health by the Germans. Just one catch -- his pain is so extreme that he's become addicted to morphine.


Back home in Gooberville, Roger gets a hero's welcome at the palatial family manse, while Tom goes back to his mother's bungalow, locks the bedroom door and pops a pain pill.

Out of guilt, Roger finagles a job for Tom at the family's bank, but Tom's drug habit gets the better of him and he's sent to rehab. Once he's released, Tom heads for Chicago. There he rents a room where the landlady is good-hearted Mary (MacMahon), who also runs a lunchroom and sees to it that no one is denied a meal. Also renting a room in the same place is Ruth (Young), who Tom likey.

Another tenant is Max (Barrat), a Communist ("When you get to be my age, you'll have a bomb in every pocket") who nonetheless is a whiz with machinery. 

Tom and Ruth begin a romance, and Tom gets a job at the same laundry where Ruth works. He starts as a deliveryman and builds his route up so quickly that the kindly boss gives him a promotion. With the help of Max (Barrat), Tom sells his boss on a new, more efficient laundry system. Max explains his turnabout thusly -- "I despise them (bosses)! I spit on them! But I'm willing to get rich with them."

Tom turns to his co-workers to raise money to finance the new washer prototype, so everyone profits. And he gets the boss to promise that there will be no layoffs as a result of the new machines.

Time flies. Tom and Ruth have a child, prosperity prospers, Max starts wearing spats. Then comes the depression, and kindly laundry boss passes on. The new owners, represented by the weaselly Douglas Dumbrille (Of course!), see no reason to keep such a large laundry staff, and the layoffs begin. An angry mob gathers at Tom's house and they prepare to storm the laundry. Tom tries to stop them, but gets swept up in the mob, as does Ruth, who is killed. Tom is wrongly imprisoned as one of the organizers. Max is still wearing spats.

Five years later, Tom is released from prison. He goes back to the lunchroom, where Mary has been raising his son. He's rich -- the laundry system is still making money, and Max has been depositing Tom's share into the bank for him. The depression is in full swing, and to Tom the laundry money is tainted, so he gives it to Mary to help feed the jobless, who are crowding outside the lunchroom window.     

But there's no peace for Tom -- he's been branded as a Communist, and he gets a visit from the police department's "Red Squad." They let him know that his every move will be shadowed as long as he stays in Chicago.

So Tom hits the road, with what seems like all the rest of America. And one rainy night in a Hooverville, he meets a familiar face -- Roger the rat. He's been ruined by the crash, and he's done a little embezzling on his own. Roger remarks that, despite everything, Tom seems oddly optimistic.

"It's not optimism," Tom responds, "just common horse sense. Did you read President Roosevelt's inaugural address? He's right. You know, it takes more than one sock on the jaw to lick 120 million people."

To get technical about it, Tom has gotten more than just one sock on the jaw. And "Heroes for Sale" leaves a lot of questions unanswered. But it at least raises points that not many other Hollywood movies were daring to raise -- and wouldn't be raising again until the 1960s.

Here's the trailer for "Heroes for Sale":