The Eddie Quillan Film Festival: "Sweepstakes" and "Gridiron Flash"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Eddie Quillan (1907-1990) was certainly one of them.

He began in vaudeville as part of a family act called "A Little Bit of Everything," which included his parents, his sister and two brothers. He made his film debut as a teenager in 1922, but didn't really appear in movies regularly until the mid-1920s, in a series of shorts shot at Keystone, playing opposite female comics such as Alice Day. He signed a contract with Pathe in the late 1920s and stuck around when the studio was absorbed by RKO.

If you remember Quillan at all, it's probably because of his open face and boyish manner that would mark his performances even into his 70s, when he was playing small roles on TV shows like "Baretta" and "Little House on the Prairie."



In the 1931 film "Sweepstakes," Quillan plays Buddy Doyle, a successful jockey known as the "Whoop-De-Doo Kid" because that's what he says into his horse's ear to drive him down the homestretch.

Buddy lives at Mother Clancy's boarding house with all the other jockeys and his lifelong friend Sleepy (James Gleason), a trainer who handles Buddy's mounts. When the film opens, Buddy has just won another race and heads home to a surprise dinner for his 21st birthday:



Buddy is now a man, and despite Sleepy's warnings, the siren call of a nearby roadhouse and its leading attraction, singer Babe Ellis (Marion Nixon), is too much to resist. He's shy around the ladies -- "I never tried to whoop-de-doo in a girl's ear," he says -- but he gets the hang of it.

Buddy's late nights with Babe lead to problems with Sleepy, so Buddy gets hired by the shifty owner of the nightclub to ride his horses instead. This means that Buddy ends up riding in a race against his old boss and buddy, Sleepy.

Will Buddy win? Or will he sidle up to Sleepy's horse in the homestretch and whisper "whoop-de-doo" into his ear, causing the horse to win and Buddy's career to go down the crapper?

Maybe this montage will answer that question:



Even the trains are booing him! That's cold.

Buddy can't get a mount anywhere, so he ends up as a singing waiter in Tijuana. When he does a song, we get some idea of what Quillan might have been like on a vaudeville stage:



Once Sleepy and Buddy reunite, it's only a matter of time before he's riding again, and Babe is waiting in the wings.

Boooooo!

The 1934 film "Gridiron Flash" was released after the production code went into effect, so don't expect any spicy humor.

In this one, Quillan is Tommy "Cherub" Burke, a small-time hood who ends up in stir, where he becomes the star of the prison football team.

A fellow named Smith (Grant Mitchell) arranges for Tommy's release and recruits him to play for Belford College. But, even though his roommate is Grady Sutton, Tommy has a hard time fitting in. He's pugnacious and hotheaded, and his playing style is considered too rough. He's ready to leave, but the coach talks a willing co-ed named Jane (Betty Furness) into faking an interest in Tommy, and he stays.

So there's a romantic subplot as well as hard-charging football action. But the most interesting aspect of "Gridiron Flash," to me at least, is the supporting cast, which includes stalwarts like Sutton, Margaret Dumont and Edgar Kennedy, who plays Jane's dad, the campus cop. When Tommy and the cop first meet, Tommy's natural antipathy to the law comes through:



When Tommy attends a party at Jane's house, Quillan's vaudeville training comes through again when he's forced to dance as part of an initiation:



Meanwhile, Smith is not what he seems -- he wants Tommy to help him rob a wealthy matron (Dumont) and throw the big game. Tommy also finds out that Jane's interest in him was a fake, at least in the beginning. So he leaves town and leaves Belford without its star quarterback. Will he return in time to save the school's football honor? Will Jane come back? Will Grady Sutton's voice change?

Personally, I'm not as interested in the plot as I am in scenes like this, between Edgar Kennedy and Arthur Housman, who specialized in playing drunks -- in this case, a drunk who keeps Kennedy from seeing the football game. This little moment is right out of a two-reeler, and that's not a bad thing at all:



From the mid-1930s on, Quillan's career consisted mostly of small roles in big movies ("Mutiny on the Bounty," "Young Mr. Lincoln," "The Grapes of Wrath") and big roles in small movies ("The Mandarin Mystery," "Sensation Hunters"). He also appeared in a series of shorts at Columbia Pictures with Wally Vernon, including 1948's "Nobody's Home," seen here in two parts. By then, Quillan was in his late 30s, but he could still take a pratfall:

 

In the 1970s and '80s, Quillan made the acquaintance of Michael Landon and Robert Blake. This led to bit roles on Landon's "Little House and the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven," and on Blake's "Baretta" and "Hell Town." Both Landon and Blake were known for their massive egos as much as their talents, but it's kind of cool that they noticed and appreciated Quillan's history and ability.

Quillan's last acting credit was a 1987 episode of "Matlock," and he passed away a couple of years later.

Lee Tracy Bigmouth Theatre: "Clear All Wires" and "Washington Merry-Go-Round"

Between 1929-35, Lee Tracy appeared in more than twenty films as a reporter, shyster lawyer, press agent, publicity man, promoter, politician and puppeteer.

And in all of them he. Talked. All. The. Time.

Fast, and with authority, punctuating his words with jabs into the air. Or, when he is "contrite," spreading his fingers over his heart. Sometimes he uses this gesture so often that it looks like he's pledging allegiance to his co-star.

Tracy first found fame as Hildy Johnson in the stage production of "The Front Page," and although he didn't play Hildy in the 1930 film version -- Pat O'Brien did -- Tracy found himself typecast as the quick-thinking, ever-scheming, fast-talking operator who was just this side of a con artist.

In the 1933 film "Clear All Wires," for instance, Tracy is Buckley Joyce Thomas, foreign correspondent for the Chicago Globe. He's a freewheeling scoop machine given to dressing in military garb, and when the movie opens he's been missing for days, captured by enemy insurgents in Morocco. In reality, he's been treated like a king -- his unflappable style has charmed the leader of the group, who has given him an exclusive interview.

When Buckley is released, he is greeted with joy by his right-hand man, Lefty (James Gleason). Buckley's disappearance "shoved beer right off the front page," Lefty tells him. Buckley starts dictating his big story, even as his rival, Pettingwaite of The New York Times, pooh-poohs Buckley's methods. So Buckley takes a break from his story and lets him have it, in a standard Lee Tracy diatribe:



We then move to Russia, where Buckley has swiped Pettingwaite's hotel suite. He's there to cover the 15th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, and he meets an old flame, Kate (Benita Hume), but it's hard to romance her because he has another old girlfriend, Dolly (Una Merkel) along. This makes for crowded quarters:



(Notice that the aria Dolly is practicing, badly, is the same one that Susan Alexander practices, badly, in "Citizen Kane.")

"Clear All Wires" is based on a play by Bella and Sam Spewack, and it has funny moments, but it's largely stagebound -- most of the action takes place in Buckley's suite. And the actual plot -- something about Buckley's battle with the Soviet secret police -- isn't really that interesting. Tracy keeps things hopping largely because Tracy himself keeps hopping. And talking.

The 1932 film "Washington Merry-Go-Round," on the other hand, has a stronger script that gives Tracy an actual character to play. He's Button Gwinnett Brown, a newly elected congressman who is a namesake and descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. "His blood is bluer than one of Sophie Tucker's songs," we're told.

Brown takes his heritage -- and his responsibility -- seriously. He's heading for Washington in 1932, at the peak of the battle between the government and the "bonus army," World War I veterans who want an early payment of the bonus they're scheduled to receive in 1945. The bonus army has set up a camp across the river from D.C. in Virginia, and one of Brown's old Army buddies is a leader. He invites Brown to speak to the men, and what he tells them isn't exactly music to their ears:



Voted into office by the local political machine, Brown turns on his benefactors and lets them know he will be his own man in Congress. He's helped by Alice (Constance Cummings), who becomes his political mentor; she's also the daughter of his state's Senator (Walter Connolly). In the typical Tracy tradition, Brown makes speeches in the darndest places, including the Library of Congress:



"Washington Merry-Go-Round" offers odd little foreshadows of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." The screenwriter, Jo Swerling, was a frequent Capra collaborator, but he didn't work on "Mr. Smith." Still, as in "Mr. Smith," Brown gets inspiration from a late-night visit to the Lincoln Memorial, and, as was the case with Claude Rains's character in "Mr. Smith," Alice's distinguished Senator father is revealed to be an unwitting partner of the movie's bad guy, power broker Norton (Alan Dinehart). Brown's friend killed himself over his involvement with Norton, so he becomes Brown's sworn enemy:



Like "Mr. Smith," "Washington Merry-Go-Round" tries to make nice with the powers that be before decking them with a sucker punch. The movie is "dedicated to those public servants in Washington who, despite the malignant force which operates to defeat the principles of representative government, are serving their country sincerely and well." But most of film is cheerfully cynical about how Washington really works, and how bosses like Norton worm their way into the system.

As for Tracy, he kept playing roles like this up until 1934, when he was scheduled to play a reporter in MGM's "Viva Villa," opposite Wallace Beery. The company was on location in Mexico when Tracy created a "scandal." One story is that he urinated off a balcony onto a military parade; another is that he returned an obscene gesture from someone watching the parade and thereby "insulted" Mexico. Whatever the reason, he was replaced in the film by Stuart Erwin.

But it's too simple to say that incident alone ruined Tracy's career. Like James Cagney's gangster, Barbara Stanwyck's tough dame and Joan Blondell's golddigger, Tracy's fast talker with loose morals was very much a pre-code character -- one that was phased out with the rise of the Production Code, Mexican balcony or no Mexican balcony.

Discovering Frank Fay: "The Matrimonial Bed"

In vaudeville, Frank Fay was big.

He strolled onstage casually, with a slight swish, and then stood and told jokes -- a revolutionary concept for the time. No juggling, no slapstick, no mugging. He was known for his quick wit -- when he was heckled with a Bronx cheer, he responded, "Two of those made you, pal." As part of his act, he would break down the lyrics of "Tea for Two," interspersed with wisecracks. ("Nobody near us, to see us or hear us." "Who'd want to listen to a couple of people drinking tea?")

In 1929 Fay came to Hollywood with his young wife, Barbara Stanwyck. Sound films were in full swing and the studios wanted performers with stage experience. Stanwyck thought she might try her luck in pictures, too. The studios were making all-star revues to take advantage of sound and Fay appeared in the Warner Bros. entry, "The Show of Shows." He was the emcee, and the players included John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Loretta Young and Myrna Loy. The movie was a hit, and Fay's screen success seemed assured. Yet within a few years he was out of Hollywood and back on Broadway, returning to films only sporadically.

Fay's fizzle is even more mystifying when you see him in 1930's "The Matrimonial Bed." He's good! Despite years on the stage, he seems to understand how to modulate his performance for the screen. The film itself is a lightweight farce, very much like a filmed play, and Fay himself gives it heart and humor.

"The Matrimonial Bed" is set in Lubitsch land -- that non-existent neighborhood in Paris that is filled with rich, charming men and beautiful, indolent women. We open in an art deco home on the fifth anniversary of the death of the master, Adolphe Noblet. In a long expository dialogue, two maids converse about what's happened since -- Noblet's wife Juliette (Florence Eldredge) has remarried, to a stuffy fussbudget (James Gleason), and they have a young son. But everyone, especially Corinne the maid (Beryl Mercer), loved Noblet, who by all accounts was kind, loving and full of fun.

A portrait of Noblet dominates the mantle -- it has just been repaired and returned to its place after falling off the wall and getting torn. "Something," says Corinne, "always happens when pictures fall down without a reason."

Enter Leopold Traubel (Fay), a popular hairdresser (he's having affairs with at least two women) who's here to style Juliette's hair. No one in the house has ever seen him before, so you can imagine their surprise when he turns out to look just like Noblet. Juliette is particularly unnerved, especially when Leopold starts touching her in special places:



Two of Noblet's friends -- Dr. Friedland (Arthur Carew) and Chabonnais (James Bradbury Sr.) --  learn that Leopold has no memory beyond the last five years, and under hypnosis by the doctor Leopold remembers that he is Noblet.

What follows is traditional, somewhat labored farce. To keep Noblet from realizing that his wife has remarried, elaborate white lies connect Juliette's new husband with Juliette's friend Sylvaine (Lilyan Tashman), who's been having an affair with Leopold. But when she confronts him, he doesn't know who she is:



To make matters even more complicated, we're introduced to Suzanne (Vivian Oakland), who is Leopold's wife and the mother of his four sons -- two sets of twins. Noblet/Leopold finally learns the truth, and he also learns that Juliette is happier in her new life with a stuffy husband and young son. And he starts to realize that Suzanne isn't so bad, either:



So Noblet/Leopold conspires with his friend, the doctor -- the doctor will pretend to un-hypnotize Leopold so that he can return to his previous life and ensure Juliette's happiness. The doctor puts Noblet to sleep and he awakens as the more flamboyant Leopold:



It's a sweet ending, and Fay plays the humor as well as the wistful sadness.

Today if Fay is remembered at all, it's for a couple of reasons. One is that his turbulent marriage to Stanwyck, which ended in 1935, is said to have provided the inspiration for "A Star Is Born." Another is that in 1944, Fay scored a personal triumph as the first Elwood P. Dowd in "Harvey" on Broadway. He had a reputation as a drinker and a bit of a bastard, but he's also remembered for saving Stanwyck's fledgling movie career by helping convince Frank Capra to cast her in the 1930 film "Ladies of Leisure." And he influenced one of the best comics of the first half of the twentieth century -- Jack Benny freely admitted that he appropriate Fay's relaxed style and his swishy walk.

Who knows where the truth lies -- but the guy knew his stuff.

Here are the complete credits for "The Matrimonial Bed," and a preview:

"A Free Soul," or Shearer Madness

The headline refers to previous Shearer pictures
 "The Divorcee" and "Strangers May Kiss"

The climax of the 1931 film "A Free Soul" is a fourteen-minute continuous take -- a courtroom scene where Lionel Barrymore, as alcoholic attorney Stephen Ashe, back from a months-long bender, uses his last breath to argue that his daughter's fiance, accused of murder, committed the act while temporarily insane and should therefore be found not guilty. Barrymore won the Oscar largely as a result of this scene, but what makes "A Free Soul" even more interesting is the contrast in acting between the stage-trained style of Barrymore and the more natural, earthy style of a young Clark Gable.

"A Free Soul" is based on a 1927 novel by journalist-screenwriter Adela Rogers St. Johns, whose father, Earl Rogers, was a well-known defense attorney in Los Angeles. The heart of the story lies in the bond between Stephen Ashe and daughter Jan (Norma Shearer). Both are proudly independent spirits -- Stephen, despite his success as an attorney, is the shame of his well-to-do family because of his seedy clientele and his drinking; Jan is a romantic, strong-willed free spirit who keeps refusing to marry polo star Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), who's been chasing her for years.

When Jan accompanies her father to court, she meets his latest defendant -- it's Gable as gambler Ace Wilfong -- capital W, small i, small l, small f, small o, small n, small g. (Apologies to W.C. Fields.) Anyway, Jan is struck with the big hunk of bacon, and he with her:

Ace is accused of murder, and in court, Stephen has him try on a hat found at the murder scene with the initials A.W. inside. It sits atop his head like a cherry on a sundae, and since it doesn't fit, they must acquit.

That night, Stephen celebrates by tying one on with Ace, and the two men visit the Ashe ancestral home, where everyone but Jan gives them the cold shoulder.


So Jan and Ace go for a drive:



(The lesson here is that there is no movie scene that cannot be improved by the addition of Ruh-ruh-ruh-Roscoe Ates.)

Jan and Ace begin an affair that's little more than an addictive thrill for her, but that is downright serious to him -- so serious that he asks Stephen an important question:



That scene vividly illustrates the difference in movie acting styles between the two men -- Barrymore chews the scenery, but Gable doesn't have to. He just sits back, exuding power and sexuality while barely moving a muscle.

Desperate to help her father kick the bottle, Jan promises never to see Ace again if dad will get on the wagon. It works for a few months. Then dad's off the wagon again and Jan's on Ace. But this time Ace is determined to marry Jan, and gets nasty about it. After she receives a threatening drunken visit from Ace, Dwight pays him a visit:



This leads us to the big showdown in the courtroom, where Stephen has recovered, just barely, from months of drunkenness. He tries to exonerate Dwight while once and for all publicly incriminating himself:

An unfortunate closeup.

The bond between father and daughter, and the easy banter between Shearer and Barrymore, is what makes "A Free Soul" believable despite lapses into overacting (see right). This is Shearer before she became the dowager Queen of MGM in the later 1930s, giving nobler-than-noble performances in "Marie Antoinette" and "The Women." Here she's still a little sexpot, reminding us that she did, after all, pose nude when she was a Ziegfeld showgirl. Barrymore's performance is bombastic, but shaded with affection for his daughter, and in the scene where he and Shearer swear off their respective addictions you can see that tenderness as well as the fear in their eyes:



Here are the complete credits for "A Free Soul."

Awkward Early Talkie Theatre: "The Broadway Melody"

Star-struck sisters coming to New York, struggling songwriter, backstage drama, misguided love -- it's all there, and more, in the 1929 film "The Broadway Melody." It's like a cliche incubator. It also has those awkward little touches we love in early talkies -- hammy acting, stilted silences and a musical soundtrack that makes it sound like the orchestra's in the bathroom.

To the concrete canyons of Broadway, where there's a broken light for every heart, or something like that, come the something-something sisters, Queenie (Anita Page) and Hank (Bessie Love). Queenie is blonde and stauesque, if you know what I mean and I think you do, and Hank is a little pepperpot of personality. ("I'm gonna lay that dame like a roll of linoleum," she says of a rival at one point.)

Hank's boyfriend Eddie (Charles King) has just joined the Zanfield Follies, and he's promised Hank that she and Queenie can join the show. We first meet Eddie at the Ye Olde Gleason Music Publishing Company, overseen by character actor James Gleason, who also co-wrote the dialogue. Eddie has just put the finishing touches on the movie's title song: 



Eddie and the girls are reunited, and since he hasn't seen Queenie since she was a little princess, he's surprised, to put it mildly, that she's grown so tall -- and stuff.

Meanwhile, there is backstage drama aplenty. Queenie and Hank get jobs in the chorus, and Queenie ends up as the main visual attraction, if you know what I mean and I think you do, in a big production number. There she attracts the attention of oily rich guy Jacques (Kenneth Thomson), who, in a bid at regular-guy status, signs his calling card "Jock." Queenie is attracted to Eddie, but out of loyalty to her sister she starts hanging with Jock.

Time out for some backstage banter:

Gay designer on his outlandish costumes: I design the costumes for the show, not the doors to the theatre.

Chorus girl: I know that -- if you had, they'd be painted in lavender.

Then it's time for the big-time production of "Broadway Melody":



Hank is mystified by Queenie's behavior. Eddie, mixing his metaphors, says, "I guess the bright lights just got under her skin." Then Queenie and Eddie have an awkward scene all their own:

There's a lot to like in "Broadway Melody," and if you don't like you can pass the time by counting how many times Queenie and Hank undress and slip into skimpy costumes and/or underwear. We also see them performing their vaudeville act, "Two Harmony Babies From Melody Lane," which includes the line "We can do more with a vo-de-oh-doh/Than Mr. Rockefeller can do with his dough."

When it's all said and done, Hank realizes that Queenie loves Eddie, and she steps out of the picture. At the movie's end, she's ready to go on a vaudeville tour with a new partner, and with the advice of her stuttering agent (Jed Prouty):             

Here are the complete credits, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.