Pre-Code vs Post-Code: "Outward Bound" and "Between Two Worlds"

Sutton Vane's 1923 play "Outward Bound" takes place on a ship sailing to the hereafter, a kind of celestial branch of Carnival Cruise Lines where the passengers find out if their luggage is going to heaven or hell, and them with it. It was an unlikely stage success in London, and the 1924 Broadway production featured Leslie Howard, Dudley Digges and Beryl Mercer.

All three of them show up in the 1930 film version of "Outward Bound," though Howard's not in his original role; in the film, he plays the character played by Alfred Lunt onstage, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays the role Howard played onstage.

To say the least, "Outward Bound" is a bit of an odd duck, and the 1930 film opens with three screens full of introductory text begging the indulgence of the popcorn chompers in the audience who might wonder why they're watching a movie about people who don't seem to know much about where they are or where they're going. We're told it's "an entirely new and different imaginative conception of life, death and the hereafter," involving "strange psychology and glorious sentiment interwoven between the lines," told with "deep sincerity."

There's no such introduction in the 1944 post-code remake, "Between Two Worlds." Maybe that's because audiences were a little more sophisticated by then; also, the sad fact is that by 1944, almost everyone in the audience had lost, or knew someone who had lost, a loved one in World War II. The world was in flames -- it was easier to accept a movie about dead people. As a result, "Between Two Worlds" has a extra layer of poignance.    

There are three main characters at the center of both films -- Tom Prior, a rather dissolute young man who, it's implied, drank his life away (Howard in the 1930 film, John Garfield in 1944); and a young couple who decide to commit suicide. The couple, named Henry and Ann in both films, is played by Fairbanks and Helen Chandler in the 1930 film, and Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in the 1944 film.

We open in London.

In the 1930 film, Henry and Ann are offing themselves because they're having an illicit affair and can't stand being without each other.

In the 1944 film, Henry is a concert pianist and a former member of the Free French -- he's like Victor Lazlo crossed with Liberace! Henreid-as-Henry can't get out of London because he can't get a visa and decides to end it all. When he opens the gas pipe, wife Ann -- You betcha they're married! No affairs allowed! -- stands staunchly by his side.

Then, before you can say "What do you want on your tombstone?," they find themselves sailing through a foggy night aboard a ship where the only crew member is a white-coated steward serving cocktails to the dead. Henry and Ann quickly figure out what's up -- in the 1944 film it's even more obvious because Ann had seen the other passengers earlier. They were all in a car driving to a ship when they were killed by an aerial bomb. In the 1930 film, we don't know how the other passengers met their deaths and came to be on board, but in "Between Two Worlds" the explanation, unfortunately, is all too obvious.

The passengers include rather unpleasant representatives of the British upper classes -- a stuffy matron (Alison Skipworth in 1930, Isobel Elsom in 1944) and a blustery, Trumpish tycoon (Montagu Love in 1930, George Coulouris in 1944). Then there's Mrs. Midget, a plainspoken member of the working class (Beryl Mercer in 1930, Sara Allgood in 1944) and the Reverend Duke, a timid priest (Lyonel Watts in 1930, Dennis King in 1944). They're all served by the steward, Scrubby (Alec Francis in 1930, Edmund Gwenn (at left) in 1944), an agreeable fellow who spills the beans about the passengers' final destination with the same line in both films: "We're going to heaven, sir. And hell, too. It's the same place, you see."

In the 1944 film, the ship looks as though it's floating through the clouds rather than fog. And it has a couple of extra passengers: George Tobias as a merchant seaman -- there's a war on, you know -- and Faye Emerson as a showgirl who's accompanying Garfield. There's also Gilbert Emery as the matron's put-upon husband -- he seems to be around mostly to emphasize how beastly his wife is.

In just about every way, the 1944 film unspools the plot with more clarity, and with more effective visual touches, than the 1930 film. It isn't that Robert Milton, the director of the 1930 film, doesn't try -- there are several striking expressionistic scenes impressively photographed by Hal Mohr. But in the 1944 film, with an adapted screenplay by Daniel Fuchs, the story is much more orchestrated and, in some cases, over-explained. (To really hammer the point home, Erich Korngold's score is full of "oooo-eee oooo-eee" moments of eeriness.)

The 1930 film is probably more faithful to the play and has a kind of pre-code take-it-or-leave-it simplicity. It doesn't feel the need to lay everything out so neatly. But it also takes its own sweet time in revealing the big twist that we've long since figured out. In the 1944 film, the twist is revealed in a more striking way -- Garfield-as-Prior knows the group is dead, and to get the point across to everyone else he stages a magic show that involves the tycoon:

Once everyone on board realizes that the limbo contest really IS a limbo contest, it's time for the ship to sail into its heavenly port and for the "examiner," Thompson (Dudley Digges in the 1930 film, Sydney Greenstreet in 1944), to start processing the passengers. Thompson is gruff but kindly for the most part, and he doles out what might be called afterlife lifestyle packages the way the Wizard of Oz gives out hearts, brains and courage.

The tycoon tries, of course, to buy his way into heaven, and Thompson treats him with the contempt you'd expect: "You'll suffer ... as you've made others suffer. That's all." Same goes for the matron, but the 1944 version offers a nice twist -- Thompson gives her a luxurious home, but she can never have visitors. And her husband decides to ditch her and live with his lifelong friends instead.

Then comes Prior and Mrs. Midget. Prior is offered a place in a not-so-hot part of heaven, but it beats the alternative of a very hot part of hell. Mrs. Midget is given her lifelong dream -- a seaside cottage with a garden. But for some reason, she's more interested in staying with Prior as a kind of -- mom. Even if it means giving up her cottage. Thompson knows her secret, and in the 1944 version this leads to a beautifully played scene with Sara Allgood, who also played the family matriarch in "How Green Was My Valley":

The different ways that Howard and Garfield play the same character are direct reflections of their acting styles -- Howard is introverted and haunted, while Garfield is cocky and confrontational. Garfield's character also has more dimension -- he's a newspaper reporter (as was the film's producer, Mark Hellinger) who was fired for being too good at his job, namely in the exposes he wrote about our friend the unpleasant tycoon, a war profiteer.

The minister's realization is handled with a striking difference in the two films. In the 1930 film, we see him praying silently and solitarily. But in the 1944 film -- again, perhaps because there's a war going on -- religion is much more on display as he leads the other passengers in a prayer:

The 1944 film then comes to Musick, the seaman played by Tobias. In many ways his is the movie's most tragic story -- like many servicemen, he has died without being able to see his newborn daughter. He pleads his case to Thompson the examiner, and he seems pleased with Thompson's explanation that everybody has to die sometime, but the underlying sadness makes the scene ring hollow.

Finally, we come to the couples. In both films, they're the only ones on board who have attempted suicide. Because of that, we're told, they will remain on the ship as "half-way" passengers. But Henry keeps hearing something, and as the ship pulls away it's clear that he's being pulled back to life. Will Ann make the leap back as well?

"Outward Bound" has had a life on stage beyond the film versions. In addition to the 1924 Broadway production, there was a 1938 revival with Vincent Price, Laurette Taylor and Helen Chandler, reprising her role from the 1930 movie and undoubtedly giving it the same tremulous treatment. There was also a 2012 revival in London.    

The Louise Fazenda Film Festival: "Loose Ankles" and "Wide Open"

Of all of the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s films, Louise Fazenda (1895-1962) was certainly one of them -- and certainly the only one of them who has a tangential connection to "Reservoir Dogs," of all things.

We'll get to that connection in a few paragraphs.

First, here's a little information about Louise Fazenda's early years, in a section I like to call "A Little Information About Louise Fazenda's Early Years."


Born in Lafayette, Indiana, Fazenda moved to Los Angeles with her parents as a child. In 1913 she made her movie debut in short comedies, and by 1915 she was playing opposite the likes of Fatty Arbuckle at Keystone.

In 1919 Fazenda was voted
"Most Likely to Hit Ben Turpin
on the Head with a Chicken"

Louise Fazenda and Fatty Arbuckle in 1916's
"The Unfortunate Flatulence Incident"

Unlike other Keystone actresses such as Marie Prevost and Carole Lombard, Fazenda was never one of the studio's Bathing Beauties. Her specialty was more along the lines of straight-laced spinsters or gawky country girls.

Fazenda left Keystone in a salary dispute with Mack Sennett in the early 1920s and spent a year or so in vaudeville. Then she returned to movie making at Warner Bros., where she stayed until retiring from the screen in the late 1930s.

In 1929, Fazenda was one of about, oh, eight million contract players appearing in Warner's talkie extravaganza, "The Show of Shows." Free of a spinster or hillbilly costume for once, she wears an evening gown and does a comic number with Beatrice Lillie, Frank Fay and Lloyd Hamilton that includes the slicing and dicing of four different poems into one naughty-sounding one. Here it is:



(Click here for the second part of this number, where the quartet lampoons the song "Your Mother and Mine.")  

In two 1930 films, "Loose Ankles" and "Wide Open," Fazenda does something kind of sneaky -- she steals the show, or at least provides some lively moments, with her spinster characterizations.










Like a lot of early talkies, "Loose Ankles" is ten minutes of plot played out over 65 minutes of celluloid. It opens with Loretta Young getting some attentive tootsie time ...



... from her elderly butler? Kinky.

But such is life for Loretta, a carefree example of flaming, or at least smoldering, youth. How carefree? Well, she has just inherited a million dollars, but care? She is free of it. The will stipulates that to get the money she must remain untainted by scandal, but instead Loretta puts an ad in the newspaper specifically seeking taint.

Meanwhile, over at the Gigolo Arms Apartments, fledgling fancy man Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is pressed into service to answer the ad. He meets Young, and they go through flirtatiousness that involves him losing his clothing:



(Seeing Fairbanks in that dressing gown calls to mind Cary Grant in "Bringing Up Baby.")

But enough about plot! You should be able to figure out that Young and Fairbanks get together toot suite and scandal-free. Most of the rest of the movie takes place at a nightclub, where Young's tight, um, fisted aunts (one of them played by Fazenda) have gone to keep track of their niece and end up with two of Fairbanks's gigolo bros. The aunts are served strong drink, and Fazenda starts doing her stuff, with the help of Eddie Nugent:



Next we move to "Wide Open," a film that proves positively that you should never, ever give Edward Everett Horton a romantic lead. In supporting roles with the likes of Fred Astaire, or under the direction of Ernst Lubtisch, Horton could be a delight. But when he's the befuddled hero at the center of the story, well, that's a lot of stammering.


Horton plays Simon, a meek bookkeeper who works at a phonograph company. Fazenda plays Agatha, a fellow employee who loves Simon from afar. At one point, she corners Simon in a recording studio. He accidentally flips the "on" switch, and their conversation is captured on vinyl, only to pop up embarrassingly when the boss is trying to impress a client:



But the real plot of "Wide Open" is that Simon shelters a young woman (Patsy Ruth Miller) who gives him a sob story about being homeless. Somehow word gets around that they've gotten married, and the employees throw a party for the newlyweds at Simon's house. Agatha attends, and sings the blues:



The plot is wrapped up when it is revealed that Simon's young woman visitor is actually the plant owner's daughter, and with Simon's help she uncovers financial foolery at the phonograph factory. The boss rewards Simon, he marries the daughter, and Fazenda does a fast fade.

In real life, Fazenda married producer Hal B. Wallis in 1927, leading to jokes that he was "The Prisoner of Fazenda," haw haw. She made her final film, "The Old Maid," in 1939, and spent the rest of her days collecting art and performing philanthropic acts. As part of her work in a prison outreach program she befriended Edward Bunker, a convicted felon with a long record, and encouraged him to write. Bunker wrote a book, "No Beast So Fierce," and ended up co-adapting it into the 1978 Dustin Hoffman film "Straight Time." Bunker collaborated on a few other screenplays and ended up playing small roles in several movies, including "Reservoir Dogs," in which he was Mr. Blue.

Fazenda wasn't around to witness any of this -- she died in 1962 at age 66.

Here are full credits for "Loose Ankles," and for "Wide Open."

"Morning Glory," or All About Eva

Katharine Hepburn won a Best Actress Oscar for the 1933 film "Morning Glory," but you could be forgiven for asking if the film hurt her career as much as it helped it.

As Eva Lovelace, who's come from small-town Vermont to New York City to be a capital-A actress ("I'll never, under any circumstances, play any part with which I don't feel a sincere congeniality"), Hepburn is by turns irritating, vulnerable, affected, passionate and pretentious. And even though she's acting, her characterization became such a part of the Hepburn persona that you have to think that audiences at the time wondered where the real personality left off and the performance began. When you see those Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1930s with a parody of Hepburn saying things like "I'm so happy to be here -- rally, rally I am," this is the performance they're referring to. Maybe even Hepburn realized the problem -- after being labeled "box office poison" by theatre exhibitors in the late 1930s she worked with Philip Barry to puncture her screen image in "The Philadelphia Story."

"Morning Glory" begins in the office of theatrical producer Louis Easton (Adolphe Menjou). Into the waiting room walks the guileless Eva, who strikes up a conversation with Robert Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith), a kindly character actor. Eva wastes no time in telling him her story:



Inside Easton's office, the producer is meeting with playwright Joe Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). It isn't long before Eva ends up cornering them as well, and they're intrigued, but they have no part for her. Sheridan is working on a new play, but temperamental actress Rita Vernon (Mary Duncan) already has the lead wrapped up.

Hedges takes Eva under his wing, and as he comes out of the theatre one night he sees her having a cup of coffee. He doesn't know it, but she's starving and she's too proud to tell him. He invites her to a party at Easton's apartment. There she sees Joe again, as well as other literary lights she's only read about. She also drinks a couple of glasses of champagne on a very empty stomach, and starts doing Shakespeare.

Lowell Sherman directed "Morning Glory." He's probably better known for his roles as a wisecracking drunk in several pre-code pictures, including "What Price Hollywood?" and "Ladies of Leisure." Sherman knew his comedy, but he directs "Morning Glory" with a brave sensitivity. When a sauced Eva is doing Shakespeare at Easton's party, we're not sure how to feel. Sherman doesn't tell us how to feel about her, and refuses to undermine the scene -- or any of Eva's dreams -- with easy laughs. When Eva finishes her performance at the party, the verdict comes from Hedges, her guardian angel -- "Beautiful. Childishly beautiful, impossibly beautiful."

The next morning, Eva is still at Easton's apartment, and the producer sheepishly tells Joe that he and Eva had a romantic rendezvous. He gives Joe a check to give to Eva to ease his conscience. But she's on cloud nine and dreaming of their future together. For Joe to tell her otherwise would be like waking a sleepwalker:



See what I mean? Is that good/bad acting or bad/good acting?

Easton doesn't respond to Eva's overtures. Rejected, she takes a series of job in stock companies and vaudeville. Then comes the opening night of Joe's new play, and leading lady Rita Vernon makes impossible demands just before going on. Joe thinks he knows who can step in and fill her shoes -- Eva, who's playing a small role in the play. Easton calls Rita's bluff, Joe gives Eva a pep talk, and a star is born.

Backstage afterwards, Eva is surrounded by her three male supporters -- Easton, Hedges and Joe. "The three of you make me very proud," Eva tells them, "and I'm going to make you so very proud of me. I'll be wonderful." She starts to get romantic thoughts about Easton again, but he stops her cold by calling her "the most valuable piece of property I've ever had." Joe confesses his love for Eva, but she can't listen right now. She's comforted by her new wardrobe mistress, a former actress herself who was a "morning glory" -- a flower that faded before the sun was very high. Eva swears she won't be like that in a very ambivalent ending:



It's always interesting to re-watch a movie after a long period of time. When I first saw "Morning Glory," I was in my late 20s, a bit of a know-it-all, and easily irritated by Hepburn's performance. Now I'm in my mid-50s and I find it very touching -- and brave. Rally I do.

Here are the complete credits for "Morning Glory"

The Henry Kolker Film Festival: "I Like Your Nerve" and "The Crash"

"I wonder what she meant by that?"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s films, Henry Kolker (1870-1947) was certainly one of them.

He had a long stage career and directed several silent films, including a 1921 production of "Disraeli" with George Arliss, who repeated the role in an early sound film. In talkies, Kolker most often played older, pasty white men of power and/or wealth, often with younger wives and/or girlfriends who run rings around them -- the kind of guy who says, "Something wrong, my dear?" a lot because he doesn't know that his significant other is making whoopie with another guy.

In the course of a very prolific career -- including a mind-boggling 28 films in 1934 -- Kolker played judges, doctors and attorneys. He played the president of the bank that Barbara Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top of in "Baby Face," and he was the stodgy father of Katharine Hepburn in the 1938 film "Holiday." He also played the cuckolded husband of Kay Francis not once, but twice -- in the 1933 film "The Keyhole" and in the 1932 film "Jewel Robbery." In this scene from "Jewel Robbery," Kolker is the guy in the straw hat who watches impotently as William Powell slickly robs a jewelry store and enthralls Kay Francis in the process:

In the 1932 film "The Crash," Kolker plays a character who's more in control. He is John Fair, a successful Wall Street trader who kicks off the movie by calling it quits with his selfish mistress, Linda Gault (Ruth Chatterton):



But Linda's husband, Geoffrey (George Brent), is taking a beating on Wall Street. And he knows that Linda and John have had an af-Fair (Get it?) so he tries to blackmail Fair with Linda's letters, which receives a chilly response:

In the odd little 1931 film "I Like Your Nerve," Kolker slicks his hair with what looks like black shoe polish and adds Rudolph Valentino-style sideburns as Areal Pacheco, the minister of fiance in the small Central American country of Sao Pedro. Pacheco has embezzled funds, but to repay the debt he has engineered a marriage between his stepdaughter Diane (Loretta Young) and a piggish, priggish Englishman Clive Latimer (Edmund Breon) who happens to be very rich.

Diane has reconciled herself to the loveless match, but then she meets brash American Larry O'Brien (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), who sweeps her off her feet by giving her a ride home -- after spreading broken glass across the road where her limousine will travel and causing four punctured tires. Pacheco regards the American coolly:



O'Brien's devotion to Diane includes engineering a kidnapping so that Latimer will pay a ransom, which O'Brien then passes on to Pacheco, thus earning the affection of his future stepfather in law:



Kolker stayed active in movies right up to his death at age 77 -- his last film was 1947's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

Here are complete credits for "I Like Your Nerve," and a trailer:



Here are complete credits for "The Crash," and a trailer:

"It's Tough to Be Famous," or Media, Myself and I

As the scion of one of Hollywood's first families, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was born in the spotlight, and in the 1932 film "It's Tough to Be Famous," he spends all his time trying to get out of it.

YOU'RE hot! I'm wearing a turtleneck and wool blazer! 

Fairbanks plays Scotty McClenahan, a submarine commander whose ship is dead in the water -- actually, UNDER the water, eighty feet of it. There's no ventilation, and oxygen is running out.

On the surface, help is on the way with search planes flying, phones buzzing, flotillas flotilla-ing -- every producer of stock footage in the country is swinging into action! But in the submarine on the ocean floor, the mood is lower than a submarine on the ocean floor. Then Scotty gets an idea -- he starts shooting the crew, one at a time, out the torpedo tubes to the surface. Finally, it comes down to Scotty and Stevens (David Landau). They can't both escape because someone has to stay behind and pull the trigger:



When Scotty comes to, he's a hero -- and waiting to see him at the big welcoming ceremony is mom (Emma Dunn) and girlfriend Janet (Mary Brian). There's someone else waiting as well -- magazine publisher Chapin (a perfectly cast Walter Catlett), who is to ballyhoo what Crosby is to crooning:

  


"From now on," Chapin tells Scotty, "you're America's sweetheart!" Since Scotty was on the verge of being discharged anyway, he lets Chapin take him under his wingtips -- I mean wing. Scotty starts fielding offers from vaudeville and radio, and he starts endorsing things he doesn't know anything about. The phoniness and constant attention starts to get to him, and he can't even go to the movies without seeing his puss in the newsreels:

 


Scotty finally has a job, but he wants to be an engineer, and all his boss wants him for is the publicity value. And when his verbal faux pas make nationwide headlines, he finds his marriage to Janet crumbling as fast as his celebrity status. Finally, he tells Chapin, "We're all trying to get rich because I had the good luck -- or the bad luck -- to do my duty down in that submarine."

From Charles Lindbergh to Ryan Lochte, media-created Celebrities have been part of our culture, and through a remarkably smart script, "It's Tough to Be Famous" outlines a scenario that's relevant. All that's changed is the delivery system -- it's the Internet and TV rather than vaudeville and printed material.

In the end, Scotty is knocked from his public perch in the most natural of ways -- by another sailor, named Ole, who jumped overboard to rescue a dog.

"Don't you realize that Ole is the ideal national hero?" Chapin tells Scotty. "He's big, handsome, dumb, got a nice smile and he doesn't speak enough English to antagonize anybody!"

Here is full cast and credits information for "It's Tough to Be Famous," and here's the trailer:          

"Union Depot" and the Warner Regulars

In their underrated 1978 film "Movie Movie" director Stanley Donen and screenwriters Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller paid homage to the 1930s movies they loved as kids. To do this, Gelbart and Keller wrote two 45-minute movies -- one a black-and-white boxing film, the other a musical in color -- so that "Movie Movie" took the form of a double feature. More importantly, as in the 1930s when studios had stock companies -- players under contract -- it was a double feature with the same actors (including Art Carney, George C. Scott, Eli Wallach, Red Buttons and Trish Van Devere), but in different roles. The movie even had a preview of coming attractions -- a World War I movie ("War at its best!") with all the same actors as the other two movies.

In 1932's "Union Depot" we get to see a good chunk of the Warner stock company from the early 1930s, including Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale and David Landau. They all have business of one sort or another within the majestic marble structure where people are coming and going while announcements of train departures bounce off the walls. The movie opens with a tracking/crane shot to show you the whole enchilada:



More than other Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. had a uniquely working-class viewpoint, and in this movie it's expressed by the fact that the station is teeming with immigrants, from Eastern Europeans -- as seen above -- to Asians:



Our hero is Chic (pronounced "chick," not "cheek"), played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. He and his sidekick, Scratch (Kibbee), have just been released from the local hoosegow on a vagrancy charge, and they're looking to raise a few bucks. Chic gets lucky when he "inherits" a suit from a drunken traveler (McHugh, doing one of his specialties) with money in the pocket. He buys himself dinner, and then he sees a forlorn-looking Ruth (Joan Blondell) on a bench. She's a chorus girl who broke her ankle; now she's recovered, but the show has moved on without her, and she needs money to catch a train to Salt Lake City, where she can get her job back. At the same time, Scratch has come across a claim check. Chic redeems it, and gets a violin case -- filled with money!

Meanwhile, the guy who belongs to the case (Hale) is trying to get it back, and he'll get tough if he has to, see? And Ruth is trying to escape the clutches of a creepy old guy (see creep at right) who developed the hots for her during her recovery. And the money turns out to be counterfeit, and Chic is arrested by the feds, leading to a pretty cool chase through the train yards as he tries to capture the real bad guy, Hale:



And one thing's for sure -- if you didn't like the Warner regulars in these roles, you'd be seeing them in something different within a few weeks. In 1932 McHugh appeared in eight films -- he played a mechanic in "The Crowd Roars," a frantic new father in "Life Begins" and a wisecracking reporter in "Blessed Event," among others. Kibbee was just as busy, going from a drunk hobo here to a corrupt cop in "Big City Blues" to a bartender in "The Mouthpiece" to James Cagney's father in "The Crowd Roars."

Here are the full credits for "Union Depot."