In just a few days, the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival will be getting underway. Which means I’ve spent the past couple of weeks obsessing over the schedule, trying to figure out my plans. As always, there are lots of scheduling conflicts to work out, and even though I mostly have my plans figured out, there are a few blocks where my plans will all come down to how I’m feeling when the time comes. As it stands now, here’s what I plan to see during the festival.
Opening Night
For opening night, my tradition is to sit in the bleachers to watch the guests arrive on the red carpet, then skip the first block of movies to get dinner and get my first movie in later that night. This year, I’ll be breaking that tradition by actually going to the big opening night movie: a 30th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction with a conversation between John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, and Uma Thurman. In all the years I’ve been going to TCMFF, this will be the first time I go to the opening night red carpet movie, so I’m definitely excited for this.
Friday, April 19
For the first full day of the festival, I’ll start things off with the That’s Vitaphone! presentation with Bruce Goldstein, Shane Fleming, Steve Levy, and Bob Weitz. This event will feature six classic Vitaphone shorts complete with sound played on the original discs. I went to another Vitaphone presentation at the festival a few years back and it was an absolute delight. And any festival events with Bruce Goldstein are always a treat, so this event was immediately one of my big essentials for this year’s festival.
After Vitaphone, I’ll head over to the Egyptian for a screening of The Little Foxes. It’s always hard for me to pass up a Bette Davis movie and I haven’t seen The Little Foxes in a long time so it’ll be great to revisit that one. This screening will be introduced by Mario Cantone, whose introductions are so much fun — especially when his Bette Davis impressions are involved.
The following block is a little bit up in the air for me. Over in Club TCM is a conversation with Billy Dee Williams, but that’s up against The Silence of the Lambs, introduced by Jodie Foster, in the Chinese Theater. On one hand, it’s hard for me to pass up the chance to see one of the stars of my favorite Star Wars movie. But I haven’t seen Silence of the Lambs in a very long time and it’d be amazing to see it in the Chinese theater, especially with Jodie Foster there. We’ll see which way I’m leaning when the day comes.
Next up is one of the hardest conflicts of the festival for me: Close Encounters of the Third Kind introduced by Steven Spielberg against Lady Sings the Blues introduced by Billy Dee Williams. Close Encounters is my second favorite Spielberg movie, but I’m also a Diana Ross fan. These two start at the exact same time and end at the exact same time, so there’s no way for me to do anything like stay for the intro for one movie and leave early to get in line for another. It was a hard call, but I think Close Encounters wins this one for me. It’s playing in the Chinese theater, which has an amazing sound system, so it’s hard for me to imagine a better theater to see it in.
After Close Encounters, I’ll be sticking around the Chinese theater for a screening of Se7en, introduced by David Fincher. I haven’t seen Se7en, but I’ve always wanted to so I was glad to see it in the schedule this year. As much as I’d like to head over to the midnight screening of Road to Ruin, I realistically know it’ll be hard for me to do both midnight movies so I’ll probably be calling it a night after Se7en.
Saturday, April 20
For Saturday, I’ll be starting the day off at the Egyptian for Night Has a Thousand Eyes on nitrate. That’s another one I’ll be seeing for the first time at the festival. From there, I’ll head over to the multiplex for either She Done Him Wrong or A Little Romance. She Done Him Wrong is another one being introduced by Mario Cantone, but A Little Romance will have Diane Lane as a guest. I’ll have to see which way I’m leaning when the day comes for that one.
Everything in the next block of the day is a good call, but the clear winner for me is the Melies 3D Discoveries event in the multiplex. I simply cannot resist the chance to see a 3D presentation of some Georges Melies films. After that, I’ll stick around for the Back from the Ink: Restored Animation Shorts event. It occurred to me that I’ve never done an animation-related event at the festival before and I’ve been digging Fleischer animation lately, and this event will include several Fleischer cartoons.
After the animated shorts, I’m hoping to head over to the Roosevelt for a poolside screening of Footloose. I’m sure that’s going to be an absolute blast, but I’m also a little concerned that I might be doing a little too much, so I might end up doing a dinner break instead before the midnight screening of Heavenly Bodies.
Sunday, April 21
I always try to keep my Sunday plans pretty flexible since there are always a lot of TBA blocks in the schedule where movies that played well earlier in the festival get a second screening. The only things I know for sure that I want to do are The Sin of Nora Moran, with Cora Sue Collins as a guest, and hopefully the book signing with Billy Dee Williams in the morning. Sherlock, Jr. will probably end up being my last movie of the festival, but I could potentially be swayed by something in the last TBA slot of the festival.
Out of all the stars dubbed “box office poison” by the Independent Theater Owners Association in May 1938, the label has become most strongly associated with Joan Crawford. For the most part, being called “box office poison” ultimately became a footnote in the careers of the stars included on the list. Some moved on from Hollywood, but others stars successfully moved past it and entered into new phases of their careers. But Joan is the only star on the list who, decades later, had an unflattering film made about them which included an infamous scene of them having a breakdown over being named “box office poison.”
For many people, if you mention Joan Crawford, the first thing they’ll think of is Mommie Dearest. More specifically, they might think of the scene with Faye Dunaway in an evening gown, hacking down rose bushes at night while muttering about box office poison. Or they may think of the more recent depiction of Joan in 2017’s Feud: Bette & Joan, which also referenced Joan being named “box office poison.” But long before Mommie Dearest and Feud, Joan was unquestionably one of the top movie stars of the 1930s.
When Joan Crawford arrived in Hollywood after being spotted as a chorus girl, she wasn’t even Joan Crawford just yet. At the time she signed her first contract with MGM in 1924, she was still Lucille LeSeur. She made her film debut in 1925’s Lady of the Night in an uncredited role as a body double for Norma Shearer. While learning the ropes while working as an extra or in small parts, she officially became Joan Crawford after MGM held a contest where people had the chance to name their new, up-and-coming star.
Writer Frederica Sagor Maas is quoted as saying, “Joan Crawford became a star because Joan Crawford decided to become a star.” Having endured a very destitute childhood, Joan fully embraced her new identity and everything that a career in Hollywood had to offer. She threw herself into learning everything she could about the art and the process of making films and worked hard to make a name for herself. By 1926, she was well on her way when she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star, a group that also included Mary Astor, Janet Gaynor, and Dolores Del Rio that same year. In 1927, she had a notable role in The Unknown with Lon Chaney, which she often cited as a pivotal learning experience for her. She became a full-fledged movie star in 1928 after the release of Our Dancing Daughters and in 1929, she married Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., making her part of one of Hollywood’s most storied families.
As the film industry moved into the sound era, Joan easily made the transition and her box office appeal continued to reach new heights. While there were some missteps in the early 1930s, she was a reliably strong box office draw. For example, 1932’s Rain was one movie Joan had a low opinion of because it wasn’t popular with her fans. But even some of the movies that no Joan Crawford fan today would cite as being among her best were still profitable. 1930’s Montana Moon, for instance, took in $960,000 at the box office with a budget of $277,000.
The early 1930s were truly a golden age for Joan’s career. During this time, she had a chance to begin working with one of her best co-stars, Clark Gable, which helped establish him as another one of the biggest stars of the decade. She also had a successful run of movies with Franchot Tone, who became her second husband in 1935. In 1932, she appeared in MGM’s all-star extravaganza, Grand Hotel, which not only reflected her status as a box office draw, but gave her career artistic validation. It had only been four years since she became a star in Our Dancing Daughters and here she was being cast alongside highly respected stars like Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, and Lionel Barrymore.
By the mid-to-late 1930s, Joan had entered an interesting phase of her career. The movies she made between 1935 and 1939 generally aren’t discussed as being among her top tier movies, The Women (1939) being an exception. While some of them, indeed, aren’t among her best, she did make some that I personally think get a bit overlooked in her filmography. And when you start going through each movie she made during that period, you might be surprised to see that the “box office poison” isn’t a particularly accurate way to describe them.
Throughout the early 1930s, Joan was largely known for playing working class women who moved up the social ladder. By the mid-1930s, though, Joan wasn’t being given a whole lot of room to grow. In both of her movies released in 1935, No More Ladies and I Live My Life, she played socialites – a step away from her signature shopgirls and secretaries, but it wasn’t unheard of for her to play an occasional socialite, either. Both I Live My Life and No More Ladies were profitable and reasonably well reviewed. Neither movie was being discussed in terms of being among the all-time greats, but they were still considered entertaining enough. One of the more critical reviews I came across for No More Ladies was in the September 1935 issue of Picture Play magazine, which called the movie too familiar for Joan’s own good:
“Again Joan Crawford plays her familiar role, again the minority who think her capable of a new one are overwhelmed by demand of the majority. Her pictures are standardized and apparently incapable of variation. The reason is, of course, that they are profitable and Miss Crawford is too valuable a star to experiment with in new fields. Meanwhile she stands still as an actress, vastly pleasing her perfervid admirers but leaving her more critical ones waiting for her to appear in a strong, romantic picture. Her new one, though disguised by extraordinarily handsome settings and new quirks in Adrian’s costumes, is old material and weak at that. A very modern woman who knows the worldly answer to everything marries a playboy with her eyes wide open. When he doesn’t come home on the 11:15 suburban train, she wilts and weeps and is sorry for herself. She goes into Victorian defeat. This is the unvarying prescription for a Joan Crawford picture. Then she plays a mild game of tit-for-tat, makes her husband jealous and forgives him in a gesture of divine compassion. You feel that neither husband or wife has learned a thing and that they will go on tiffing as long as there is an audience. Miss Crawford has outgrown this glittering, superficial stuff. When will her public do likewise?”
Joan certainly got a change of pace with her next movie, 1936’s The Gorgeous Hussy. The Gorgeous Hussy stands out as one of the more unusual movies in Joan’s filmography. Ever since she shot to stardom in Our Dancing Daughters, she had been known for playing distinctly modern characters. The Gorgeous Hussy ended up being the first and last time Joan starred in a period film. In The Gorgeous Hussy, Joan stars as Peggy O’Neal Eaton, the daughter of an innkeeper who finds herself surrounded by many early American figures, including Andrew Jackson, and becomes the subject of rumors and gossip.
The Gorgeous Hussy isn’t a movie that gets discussed very often today, even in the context of Joan’s career, but MGM had clearly been planning it to be a prestige picture. MGM spent over a million dollars on its production and gave it an A-list cast that also included Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi, Franchot Tone, and Melvyn Douglas. (Jimmy Stewart was also part of the cast, but he was still very early in his career at the time.) On top of everything else, they got Clarence Brown to direct. Louis B. Mayer was often doubtful of big-budget prestige pictures, but this one certainly had the starpower to draw audiences in.
While some of MGM’s other prestige pictures from this era were too expensive to be profitable, The Gorgeous Hussy did turn a profit. Critics were largely positive about it, praising the performances, direction, and cinematography. In terms of Joan’s performance, she generally got good marks from the critics. Even though some did note that her modern image seemed out of place in a film set in the nineteenth century, many critics were glad to see Joan in a role where she could do something new and different. In Myrna Loy’s memoir, Being and Becoming, she said that Joan had originally been set to star in Parnell with Clark Gable and she had been set to star in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney with William Powell. But since Parnell was also set in the eighteenth century, the studio switched Myrna and Joan around because of audience reactions to Joan in the Gorgeous Hussy. It’s possible that critics were more receptive to Joan in this part than the general public was.
On the other hand, Joan’s second movie of 1936, Love on the Run, was most decidedly a return to more familiar territory. Love on the Run brought her back together with two of her most frequent co-stars: Clark Gable (their seventh movie together) and Franchot Tone (their sixth movie together.) Today, Love on the Run is often regarded as a knockoff of It Happened One Night and not one of the best movies she made with either Gable or Tone. When it was first released, critics generally called it a bit of fun nonsense. Original reviews for the movie often described it with phrases like “thin but amusing,” “a clever bit of tomfoolery,” and “unbelievable but joyous.” Audiences were certainly willing to embrace the nonsense and Love on the Run earned a profit of nearly $1.3 million, making it the most profitable of all the Crawford/Gable movies.
While many critics were willing to look past its flaws, some had a harder time with it. One critic for the New Yorker wrote:
“Everybody works very hard in Love on the Run, but only succeeds in seeming pretty pitiful. The most pitiful people involved are Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Franchot Tone. I suppose the studio felt that these three citizens simply had to be kept busy or heaven knows what they’d be up to, and so some sort of sketch was contrived for them.”
Another critic for the New York Times recognized that Love on the Run was perhaps too tried and true, writing, “A slightly daffy cinematic item of no importance, Love on the Run presents Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Franchot Tone in roles that by now are a bit stale.”
In 1937, MGM released three more Joan Crawford movies, the first of which was The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, based on the 1925 play of the same name. (The play had also been adapted as a film starring Norma Shearer in 1929.) The Last of Mrs. Cheyney wasn’t unprofitable – a cast that included Joan, William Powell, and Robert Montgomery was sure to draw audiences in – but its reviews were considerably more mixed than they had been for Love on the Run and The Gorgeous Hussy. Many critics liked it and thought it was a good update of the source material, but many thought the story was too familiar and suffered from the common stage-to-film adaptation problem of being too talky. A critic for the Hollywood Spectator called it “dead on its feet” and “the most uninteresting piece of screen entertainment I have seen in a long time,” adding, “I understand Metro is thinking of doing more revivals. I hope it will profit from the fact that the smelling salts put under Mrs. Cheyney’s nose to revive her were not quite strong enough.”
A review from the New York Times took the opportunity to speak highly other iterations of the story:
“The recollections Mrs. Cheyney conjures up are pleasing. They recall Ina Claire bringing Mr. Lonsdale’s bright epigrams to Broadway in 1925 and Norma Shearer graciously, even gaily, fleecing a most delightful set of Mayfair victims of sundry baubles for the film in 1929…To this reviewer, Miss Crawford seemed overly arch, and certainly not properly condescending (as Miss Shearer was) toward the gilded victim of her designs.”
Some critics noted that her role wasn’t ideal material for Joan, but still gave her credit for what she brought to the part. The Hollywood Reporter wrote:
“The famous role of Mrs. Cheyney…is not Miss Crawford’s best but she brings a subtle sense of dramatic values and a carefully restrained delivery that bring the character genuinely to life.”
Variety also said of her performance:
“Joan Crawford takes the paper character, pretty synthetic in coming out of the mothballs, and gives it vitality and charm.”
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney gave Joan a chance to venture into a new type of character – jewel thief – but her next movie, The Bride Wore Red, put her back in a more familiar place as a nightclub singer in a Cinderella tale, starring with Franchot Tone for the final time. While movies like The Gorgeous Hussy and Love on the Run were profitable and well-received on their initial release but aren’t fan favorites today, just the opposite is true for The Bride Wore Red. Initial reviews for The Bride Wore Red were largely negative and the movie was a disappointment at the box office, but it has gained some appreciation among Joan’s modern day fans.
To get an idea of how negative critics were about The Bride Wore Red, here is a small selection of original reviews:
“Gowns by Adrian and settings by Cedric Gibbons do not entirely conceal the underlying shabbiness of The Bride Wore Red…Like so many of these cinematic affairs of the heart, the film pretends to a sophistication which the material quite obviously lacks.”
New York Times
“[It] is one of the least entertaining of the current films – ponderous in movement, pedestrian in speech, hackneyed in situation, unimaginative in treatment and altogether unworthy of its fine cast.”
New York World Telegram
“The most admirable characteristics of either Joan Crawford or Franchot Tone are not exactly the type needed to make The Bride Wore Red something charming, light, and delightful.”
The New Yorker
“Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone and Robert Young are [not] lucky with the sententious and confusing Cinderella tale imposed on them.”
Newsweek
“Long on artistic values, elaborate settings, this is short on entertainment…Picture is draggy, altogether too long. It may be improved with more cutting…The picture falls way short of its box office names.”
Philadelphia Exhibitor
“Keenly disappointing as entertainment [it] is also a jolt to those loyal Joan Crawford fans who will expect far more than they receive in the matter of a good performance. The picture drags in story and action, is far too long and has nothing to lift it above mediocrity.”
Variety
“Heaven help the actors on a script like this…Miss Crawford offers a performance both gracious and compelling, but the plot defeats everything.”
Photoplay
The Bride Wore Red was so unpopular that the Motion Picture Herald’s December 18, 1937 issue included a write up of Joan’s third movie of the year, Mannequin, which opened with a sentence advising theater owners to promote Mannequin by letting people know, “it does not resemble The Bride Wore Red in any particular.”
Mannequin was a slight return to form for Joan. Once again, she played a shopgirl. But it was a profitable movie which gave her a good new co-star in Spencer Tracy and marked the first time she worked with director Frank Borzage. And even though many critics called Mannequin the best movie Joan Crawford had done in a while, reviews were a bit mixed but leaned positive overall.
“Take away the dynamic personalities and the sheen and it remains no more than a very familiar screen theme, executed with scarcely any variations…Mannequin has good direction, acting and scenic investiture. All it lacks is a good story. It’s a considerable lack.”
New York Herald Tribune
“[It] is a sleek restatement of an old theme, graced by a superior cast and directed with general skill by Frank Borzage who has a gift for sentiment. All this is more than the story deserved, but about what one expects from an MGM ‘Mannequin’ with Joan Crawford. Call it fair.”
New York Times
“A good cast and Frank Borzage’s imaginative direction fail to impart a minimum of credibility to the story…Chief virtue of the unconvincing tenement-to-penthouse fable that gives Joan Crawford her best recent role.”
Newsweek
“[It] will carry Joan Crawford along without disturbing her present status. It stirs the emotions but makes no deep impression, possibly because the story is a little too self-consciously ‘dramatic.’ It has a favorable prospect for favorable business, especially in the keys. Somewhat depressing in mood, very talky…”
Variety
1938 was a quiet year in Joan’s career. She only appeared in one movie that year, The Shining Hour. But as she headed into the year, it was clear she needed some new professional challenges. Even though nearly all of her movies in the previous few years had been profitable, The Bride Wore Red being the lone exception, actors can only go on playing the same types of characters in the same types of stories for so long – and reviews for her movies had been peppered with comments about her movies being stale or beneath her talents for a while.
Heading into 1938, Joan was carefully considering what her next career move should be and she wasn’t necessarily limiting herself to Hollywood. Her contract with MGM was set to end in July 1938 and she would be free to pursue other options if she wanted to when that time came. Rumors that Joan was interested in doing live theater had been circulating for a while, and by the fall of 1937 and early 1938, those rumors had generated some notable buzz.
In the November 1936 issue of Picture Play magazine, they published an item which read, “Next year the try-out theaters are going to have Joan Crawford or spend their last nickel trying to get her. Not long ago she confided in a reporter that she would like a stage try-out in some secluded spot.” By September of 1937, rumors about the idea of Joan going on the stage gained enough traction that Picturegoer magazine published an open letter to her in their September 18, 1937 issue, titled “Crawford at the Cross-Roads.” In this letter, they pleaded with Joan to reconsider her stage ambitions – arguing that she had become a fixture in Hollywood, that she could still reach new heights in films if she’s thoughtful about her roles, and warned her to ask Katharine Hepburn about The Lake before making any decisions. In January 1938, movie fans could open up Picture Play magazine and see the headline “At Last! Joan is Ready for the Stage.” Motion Picture magazine also published an article that same month about Joan’s Broadway ambitions that same month, titled “I’ll Do It If It Kills Me!”
In the end, Joan never did appear in live theater outside of the time she spent as a chorus girl before movie stardom. Instead, she signed a new five-year contract with MGM in May 1938. And it does seem like Joan was trying to be selective about her next film. Screenland magazine’s June 1938 issue included an article which mentioned that Joan Crawford had been discarding scripts for the past six months, adding, “At the critical stage of her career, she doesn’t want to pick a bloomer.”
Joan decided to make The Shining Hour after seeing a production of the stage version during a trip to New York. When she returned home, she convinced MGM to purchase the rights to do a film version. The Shining Hour was released in November 1938, six months after the publication of the Box Office Poison ad, and included Margaret Sullivan, Melvyn Douglas, and Fay Bainter as her co-stars. She also had another chance to be directed by Frank Borzage. While The Shining Hour turned a profit of $299,000 for MGM, reviews were, once again, mixed. A review by Bosley Crowther published in the New York Times described it in a way that had become a recurring theme in reviews of Joan’s movies from this era – that an all-star cast and great costumes and sets can’t disguise a weak story:
“The presence of a star-studded cast…the directorial talents of Frank Borzage and the elegancies of dress and set as designed by Adrian and Cedric Gibbons fail to disguise a hackneyed story of a definitely inferior grade.”
A critic for the New York Herald Tribune thought The Shining Hour lost something in translation from the play it was based on:
“Keith Winter’s telling domestic tragedy of life in rural England has gone through the cinema’s wringer with a loss of its English garments, its tragedy, and some of its point.”
A review published in the December 1938 issue of Motion Picture Reviews magazine was more favorable, declaring, “There is something new under the sun, for “The Shining Hour” gives us Miss Crawford surrounded by a play instead of a play surrounded by Miss Crawford” This same review was also positive about the performances of Joan, Margaret Sullivan, and Fay Bainter, but did note that the formula of a working class girl being brought into high society was a typical formula for Joan Crawford movies.
Even though The Shining Hour was released six months after the publication of the Box Office Poison ad, the November 19, 1938 issue of the Motion Picture Herald recommended that theater owners remind customers that Joan Crawford had frequently been included in annual lists of box office champions when marketing the movie.
Since Joan had a new contract with MGM, she still had a few more years left at the studio. But by this point in time, MGM was more interested in building up a new roster of stars. Mickey Rooney wasn’t exactly a newcomer to MGM, but he was just getting started with the Andy Hardy movies. Judy Garland was on her way up and it wouldn’t be long before The Wizard of Oz hit theaters. Lana Turner’s career was gaining momentum. Greer Garson’s turn as one of the great movie queens of the 1940s was right around the corner. Despite being one of MGM’s biggest icons, Joan’s career was simply no longer being given the kind of attention it needed.
For more context on Joan’s later years at MGM, let’s talk about Myrna Loy for a moment. Myrna parted ways with MGM a few years after Joan did, and she was all too aware of what it was like to feel expendable to studios as they prioritized new talent over giving established stars a chance to grow. She wrote about this in her memoir, and while it’s about her personal decision to leave MGM, her treatment by the studio wasn’t exactly a unique experience. In fact, MGM’s treatment of Joan near the end of her time with the studio and her eventual transition to Warner Brothers heavily influenced Myrna’s decision to leave:
“After thirteen years at MGM, I was resolved to get out of our contract a year before it expired. Of course, my great days took place there to a great extent – they certainly did well by me – but I had the feeling Joan Crawford had when she finally left after eighteen years: that I would just be drowned, that they wouldn’t go out of their way to find material, and so forth. I wanted to get out before they finished me off. They used to do that in the studios – they’d either get very careless or do it deliberately. Somebody new comes along, they get all excited, and all their interest goes there. Even if you’re still bringing in the shekels at the box office, they have a tendency to ignore you. They were pushing another redhead, Greer Garson, and deservedly so, but they were also bringing in stars who did my sort of thing – Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne – and giving them roles that should have been offered to me. Admittedly my wartime hiatus had probably diminished my market value and created some animosity at the top. Nick Schenck, for example, kept telling them at the studio that I didn’t want to work.
Metro’s other female stars of the thirties – Garbo, Norma Shearer, Eleanor Powell, Jeanette MacDonald, and Joan – had already gone. The studio just didn’t know what to do with us, Joan especially. We all knew that they were easing her onto the skids, and I was always cheering her for going out to Warners, making Mildred Pierce, and beginning a whole new career. You see, they had set ideas about her; they still thought of her as a jazzy girl. They had set ideas about all of us, forgetting that we had aged a bit and might be able to extend our range. We were stuck with our images. Sometimes they lacked imagination…Metro wanted to keep me available for an occasional Thin Man or marital farce with Bill. Otherwise, I didn’t exist.”
As someone who had so deeply embraced her movie star status, being called “box office poison” unquestionably had to be a very painful blow to Joan. Even though most of her movies since 1935 had actually been profitable, her career had clearly stagnated and MGM wasn’t doing much to help. Instead of helping her find a project that would challenge her skills as an actress and help her transcend the “box office poison” label, she ended up in Ice Follies of 1939.
Ice Follies of 1939 is another one of the more unusual movies of Joan’s career and it did her no favors professionally. It lost $343,000 at the box office and critics, at times, seemed rather baffled by it. There was some enthusiasm for the skating sequences, but the Hollywood Reporter wrote:
“Ice Follies defies identification in any of the accepted categories. Its story thread is not of the musical comedy school, for here you are asked to take it with the utmost seriousness then to widen your scope of vision to embrace appended ice spectacles, which completely obscure the principles and underlying story.”
A review in Screenland magazine’s June 1939 issue questioned if it would appeal to anyone besides dedicated Joan Crawford fans and ice skating enthusiasts and even the reviewer said they were still deciding if they liked it or not. Variety was glad to see Joan back in a lighthearted role, but some fans were disappointed that Joan didn’t skate in it and Motion Picture Reviews magazine noted that her part seemed secondary. One of the more scathing reviews was in National Box Office Digest, which noted the potential draw of the skating sequences before adding:
“Having said that, we are compelled to report that it will not do anybody concerned with its making any good. Except the fellow who made the ice. Exhibitors will be interested in knowing what it does for Joan Crawford who has been killing herself off fast at the box office. We can report that it does the best job in a long time in that respect, because she plays a part that could have just as well been played by a stock girl – except that a stock girl would not have been allowed to make some of the close-up speeches that Crawford does in this one.”
Joan’s second movie of 1939, The Women, was much more successful. Joan knew the part of Crystal Allen was a good role in a good movie. Even if it wasn’t a lead and wasn’t a sympathetic character, Joan knew it was a good opportunity and she fought to get the part. If Joan was being put onto the skids, like Myrna Loy said, Joan was determined to hold on and speak up for the parts she wanted, even if Louis B. Mayer thought they would be a bad career move.
Throughout 1940 and 1941, Joan appeared in some more daring films. In Strange Cargo, she was re-teamed with Clark Gable for the last time, but the movie ended up being rather controversial. It had many issues with censorship and while its reviews were generally favorable, they often included adjectives like “weird” and acknowledged that it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Despite that, Strange Cargo did earn a small profit. Strange Cargo was followed by Susan and God, another movie Joan asked to do. Even though a lot of the original press for Susan and God was positive, it ended up losing $433,000.
Next up in 1941 was A Woman’s Face. Louis B. Mayer tried to talk her out of playing a character with a prominent facial scar, but Joan went for it anyway and got some positive reviews for taking on a bold, new type of role. Her second movie of 1941, When Ladies Meet, was another film where Joan got to be part of an all-star cast. She was reunited with Robert Taylor, but this time, the cast also included MGM’s big new star, Greer Garson – already a two-time Academy Award nominee and about to star in Mrs. Miniver. If you’re looking for a movie that reflects MGM at this transitional period, you’d be hard pressed to do better than When Ladies Meet, a remake of a movie MGM did in 1933 that stars both one of their biggest female stars of the 1930s and one of their biggest female stars of the 1940s. When Ladies Meet was a critical and box office success, earning a profit of $607,000 and lots of positive reviews for both Joan and Greer, but Robert Taylor got some notes for stealing his scenes.
1942 and 1943 marked Joan’s final two years with MGM, although she briefly headed over to Columbia studios to star in They All Kissed the Bride, which had been originally planned for Carole Lombard before she was killed in a plane crash. Her only MGM movie for 1941 was Reunion in France, which gave her the unexpected co-star of John Wayne. The movie was a financial success, but Joan was later quoted as saying, “If there is an afterlife and I am to be punished for my sins, this is one of the pictures they’ll make me see over and over again. John Wayne and I both went down for the count, not just because of a silly script but because we were so mismatched. Get John out of the saddle and you’ve got trouble.”
Joan’s last film for MGM (until 1953’s Torch Song) was Above Suspicion with Fred MacMurray, which received middling reviews from the critics.
If MGM wasn’t willing to give Joan’s career the attention it needed, she was willing to see what Warner Brothers could do for her. She signed a three-film contract with Warner Brothers in 1943. With that new contract, Joan took her time to make sure her next movie was a winner. Aside from making a cameo appearance in 1944’s Hollywood Canteen, she kept a low profile until Mildred Pierce was released in 1945, successfully launching a new era in her career and winning an Academy Award for her performance.
If you were a movie fan in late 1941 and early 1942, heading out to the local theater had to feel like a gift from Hollywood — particularly if you were fond of comedies. Between December 1941 and January 1942, Ball of Fire and Sullivan’s Travels both hit the big screen for the first time. And for those who were feeling the Christmas spirit — even a little bit after the holidays — there was The Man Who Came to Dinner.
The Man Who Came to Dinner premiered in Atlantic City on Christmas Eve 1941 and went into wide release in January 1942. Before it was a hit movie, it was a hit Broadway comedy written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, who drew inspiration from the time Hart unexpectedly found himself hosting drama critic Alexander Wollcott at his home. The play also featured a slew of supporting characters based on other big personalities who were part of Wollcott’s inner circle, including Gertrude Lawrence (inspiration for Lorraine Sheldon), Noel Coward (inspiration for Beverly Carlton), and Harpo Marx (inspiration for Banjo.) While Alexander Wollcott was offered the chance to star in the show as Sheridan Whiteside, he was unable to accept and the part went to Monty Woolley instead.
The original Broadway production of The Man Who Came to Dinner ran for 739 performances between October 16, 1939 and July 12, 1941. Among the people who saw the play during that time was Bette Davis. Bette immediately saw the potential for turning it into a film and liked the idea of playing Maggie Cutler, secretary to Sheridan Whiteside. Fittingly, the original Broadway run of The Man Who Came to Dinner closely coincided with what was the height of Bette’s career. By the time the film version of The Man Who Came to Dinner went into production, Bette was a two-time Academy Award winner who was just coming off of movies like The Letter and Dark Victory, and still had Now, Voyager and In This Our Life ahead of her. She was truly the reigning queen of Warner Brothers and wasn’t afraid to speak up about the projects she wanted to work on and who she wanted to work with.
In Whitney Stine’s 1978 book Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis, which includes commentary from Bette herself, Stine wrote that when Bette saw the play, she specifically wanted to do the movie version with John Barrymore starring as Sheridan Whiteside. She convinced Jack Warner to buy the film rights to the play and John Barrymore did film a screen test for it. However, at this point in his life, Barrymore was notorious for having difficulties remembering his lines. He heavily relied on cue cards and was known to ad-lib and go off on tangents. Ultimately, Warner Brothers said no to Barrymore, much to Bette’s disappointment. Bette said of it, “I’d take Barrymore’s adlibbing rather than make the film with anyone else.” That sentiment largely shaped Bette’s opinion of the movie overall, saying, “I felt the film was not directed in a very imaginative way. For me, it was not a happy movie to make — that it was a success, of course, did make me happy. I guess I never got over my disappointment in not working with the great John Barrymore.”
Even though Monty Woolley originated the role of Sheridan Whiteside on Broadway, he wasn’t the first person the studio went to when they decided to pass on John Barrymore. Woolley wasn’t a complete unknown to movie audiences, but any work he had done in movies was in supporting roles. On the other hand, Cary Grant was very popular with audiences, with movies like The Philadelphia Story, Gunga Din, and The Awful Truth among his then-recent hits. Warner Brothers not only tried to get Cary Grant to star as Sheridan Whiteside, The Man Who Came to Dinner came close to being a full-on His Girl Friday reunion. The February 4, 1941 issue of The Film Daily included an item which stated Warners was close to signing Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell for The Man Who Came to Dinner, with Howard Hawks set to direct.
While Rosalind Russell didn’t pan out, Cary Grant was associated with the movie a bit longer. In their March 28, 1941 issue, Motion Picture Daily published an item reporting that Cary Grant had been signed by Warner Brothers to play the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner and that Cary’s salary would be donated to British war relief. (It also appears the movie’s director had changed by this point. This same item also mentioned Edmund Goulding being attached to direct, but it ended up being directed by William Keighley, who was confirmed in June 1941.) But by early April 1941, Cary was officially out as Sheridan Whiteside. An item published in the April 10, 1941 issue of The Film Daily reported he was going to do Bedtime Story at Columbia instead of The Man Who Came to Dinner. (Bedtime Story ended up going to Fredric March instead.)
In addition to Cary Grant and John Barrymore, other actors reported to be considered for Sheridan Whiteside include Orson Welles, Charles Laughton, Laird Cregar, Robert Benchley, and Fredric March. In searching through old movie magazines and film industry trade publications, I was able to find specific references to Fredric March and Charles Laughton in association with the movie. The February 22, 1941 issue of Film Bulletin mentioned Warner Brothers being in talks with Fredric March for both The Man Who Came to Dinner and One Foot in Heaven, the latter being a movie he did end up making. Charles Laughton reportedly desperately wanted to play Sheridan Whiteside, but his first test did not go well. Laughton’s agent convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to give Charles another chance, but according Wallis, the second test ended up being worse than the first.
I couldn’t find any mentions of Orson Welles or Laird Cregar being considered for the film version of The Man Who Came to Dinner in any trade publications from the era, but they each had chances to play Sheridan Whiteside in other productions. Laird Cregar played the part in a stage production in 1941. As for Orson Welles, he had been offered the chance to play Sheridan in the original Broadway production, which he turned down because of the time commitment it would require. In 1972, he ended up playing Sheridan in an updated, made-for-TV production of the play, which also starred Lee Remick, Don Knotts, and Joan Collins.
Even though other actors had been considered for the part, it seems like it would have been an uphill battle for any of them to top Cary Grant in the eyes of the studio. In the item announcing the casting of Cary Grant in the April 5, 1941 issue of Film Bulletin, they wrote: “There’s no doubt about it — movie-goers prefer their heroes young and handsome, so after testing Charles Laughton and character actors for the role, Cary Grant has been signed for ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner.’ This was the original plan of Warner Brothers executives.” After Cary left the project, Monty Woolley was announced in July 1941.
Even though Bette Davis lobbied for The Man Who Came to Dinner, she wasn’t necessarily the only one who was considered for the part of Maggie. In the November 6, 1940 issue of Variety, a brief item was published about Mary Wickes being the first member of the Broadway cast to agree to reprise their role for the film. This item also mentioned Edith Atwater, who originated Maggie Cutler on Broadway, being under consideration for the movie as well. Aside from Rosalind Russell, other actresses reportedly considered for the part included Myrna Loy, Jean Arthur, and Olivia de Havilland. But if they were considered, it doesn’t seem to have reached the point that there was enough buzz for trade publications or fan magazines to write about it.
While Bette didn’t get her first choice actor for Sheridan Whiteside, she was more successful in influencing casting the part of Bert Jefferson, Maggie’s love interest. Bert Jefferson was played by Richard Travis, a name that likely doesn’t ring many bells today. The Man Who Came to Dinner was his first major film role and it ended up being his best remembered movie. Prior to The Man Who Came to Dinner, Richard Travis had mostly been acting in uncredited roles. But, according to a story told during promotion for the movie, Bette Davis saw him in the short Here Comes the Cavalry when she went to a theater for a screening of The Bride Came C.O.D. Bette was impressed enough by him that she suggested the studio have him try out for the part of Bert Jefferson.
The fact that Bette Davis had a hand in getting Richard Travis cast in The Man Who Came to Dinner ended up being part of the the process of building him up as a rising star. Some fan magazines published entire articles about how he was discovered by Bette Davis. More often, it was only briefly mentioned. For example, in the November 1941 issue of Photoplay, Richard Travis was mentioned in the “Cal York’s Inside Stuff” column, which read: “Richard Travis, discovered by Bette Davis and placed in ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ cast, is causing many a backward glance among the young and beautiful. Watch for him.”
Aside from The Man Who Came to Dinner, Richard Travis appeared in The Big Shot with Humphrey Bogart and Mission to Moscow with Walter Huston. Since Cary Grant had been set to star in The Man Who Came to Dinner, it’s interesting that Richard Travis was, at one point, set to appear in Arsenic and Old Lace. The August 20, 1941 issue of The Film Daily mentioned that Richard Travis was the first actor signed for Arsenic, although it didn’t mention which role he was supposed to play.
Not long after his film career was getting started, Richard Travis went into the military in service of World War II. The July 17, 1943 issue of Showmen’s Trade Review reported that he was a private in the Army Air Force stationed in Kearn, Utah. During his time in the Air Force, he had the chance to get involved with another project linked to Moss Hart, the play Winged Victory. Winged Victory focused on the lives of Air Force recruits going through training and was produced as a fundraiser for the Army Emergency Relief Fund. The play was a Broadway hit and, in addition to Richard Travis, the show featured many other Air Force members who were either part of the entertainment industry or would later be in the industry, including Karl Malden, George Reeves, Gary Merrill, Red Buttons, Mario Lanza, and Lee J. Cobb.
After his time in the Air Force, Richard Travis continued acting in film and television, making his last appearance in Cyborg 2087 in 1966. After retiring from acting, he became a real estate under his birth name, William Justice. While he’s an actor who doesn’t have the biggest name recognition today, he still made a welcome addition to a holiday classic.
Shortly after Little Caesar made a star out of Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney had his own star-making turn in another gangster classic: The Public Enemy. There’s much to say about The Public Enemy in terms of its place in the gangster genre, James Cagney’s performance as Tom Powers, and its importance to Warner Brothers Studios in general. But what often isn’t discussed is the book it was based on.
Book & Movie Differences
The Public Enemy is a bit unusual in the world of book-to-film adaptations in the sense that most of these adaptations involve books that have been published. The Public Enemy was based on Beer and Blood by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon, but Warner Brothers bought the rights to Beer and Blood before it was published. Eventually, the book was published under the title The Public Enemy, but I’m under the impression that the book that was published wasn’t simply Beer and Blood with a different title. In an interview with John Bright, recorded in 1988, he used the word “bowdlerized” to describe the version of the book that was published. (On a related note, this interview with John Bright is absolutely worth a read. He talks about everything from forming the Screen Writers Guild and being blacklisted to trying to throw Darryl F. Zanuck out of a window.)
While it seems that the version of the book that was published was changed from its original form, it definitely wasn’t a basic novelization that was put out to capitalize on the success of the movie, either. Much of what happens in the movie does happen in the book, sometimes with some small changes involved. For example, during the fur warehouse robbery, Tom isn’t the one who shoots the stuffed bear by mistake in the book. But there’s a whole lot in the book that we don’t see in the movie, or is briefly alluded to in the movie, so it seems safe to assume that the published version of the book likely kept a lot of the original Beer and Blood story.
One of the biggest differences between the book and the movie concerns Tom’s law-abiding brother, Mike. In the movie, he goes off to serve in World War I and returns home shortly after, which makes him a consistent presence throughout the entire movie. In the book, he’s largely out of the picture. Mike needed medical treatment after his service, which he received out of state and he didn’t come home until fairly late in the book.
In both the book and the movie, once Mike is back home, Tom’s lifestyle immediately becomes a point of contention between the brothers, with Mike confronting Tom and telling him that he knows Tom’s money isn’t coming from politics like he had been telling their mother. In the movie, this reads as Tom simply telling his mother a cover story. But in the book, a local politician had gotten involved with Paddy Ryan’s gang and the gang had been involved in helping the politician get elected.
On a final note about Mike, even though he is solidly on the side of law and order in both the book and the movie, he actually does eventually team up with Paddy Ryan. After the rival gang kidnaps Tom from the hospital, Mike goes along with Paddy and Matt Doyle (who lives a bit longer in the book than he does in the movie) to confront the gang and get Tom back. This ends with Mike throwing grenades and blowing the place up.
While Mike is a smaller presence in the book, Gwen Allen has a much bigger part in the book. Jean Harlow wasn’t really given a whole lot to do with the part, but the book made her seem like a more interesting character. A lot of attention is given to her relationship with Tom, which let us learn more details about her, such as the fact that she was divorced. There was also a scene where Tom and Gwen go out to dinner with Nails Nathan and Tom ends up feeling insecure when Nails and Gwen hit it off because they’ve led more sophisticated lifestyles than Tom has. She also does eventually break things off with Tom and when Tom gets the farewell letter she had written to him, he gets very drunk and opens fire on a rival gang, which is what leads to him going to the hospital after getting shot.
The most notorious scene from The Public Enemy is easily the one of Tom shoving the grapefruit in the face of his girlfriend, Kitty. The grapefruit is not in the book, but the grapefruit in the face is surprisingly a kinder send-off than Tom gives her in the book. In the book, there’s a scene where Kitty tells Tom that she’s expecting a baby and he tells her to get lost and refuses to give her any money. Matt was so appalled by Tom’s treatment of Kitty that it put a strain on their lifelong friendship. Later, Kitty’s brother tries to confront Tom about it and Tom nearly beats him to death. Paddy Ryan ends up stepping in to pay for the brother’s hospital bills.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
The good news is that the book is very much worth reading. The bad news is that you have to be pretty lucky to be able to check it out. As far as I can tell, the only time the novel version of The Public Enemy was ever in print was around the time the movie came out, so now it’s very difficult to find a copy of the book that’s sensibly priced.
I really hope this one eventually gets republished because it was my favorite of the six crime-themed books I read for this year’s summer reading series. On a personal level, I’m very glad that I didn’t end up being disappointed by the book I’d spent a few years keeping an eye out for. It’s a really engaging book and it’s pretty clear that Kubec Glasmon and John Bright were quite knowledgeable about the ins and outs of Chicago and its prohibition-era bootlegging scene.
One of the most striking things about the book is how it pulls no punches. You definitely cannot accuse it of glamorizing a life of crime or portraying Tom Powers as a person anyone should ever aspire to be like. The book makes Tom someone who becomes so unlikeable that even Matt Doyle and Paddy Ryan, the two people he was closest to, didn’t like him very much at times. It also doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that these people weren’t just running bootleg alcohol to speakeasies around town, they were murderers.
John Bright had described the novel as being “bowdlerized,” but that leaves me with this question: if this is a cleaned-up, sanitized version of Beer and Blood, what on Earth got left out? On top of some of the things I’ve already mentioned that didn’t make it into the movie, there are times when the book gets into some pretty dark details. For example, during the scene where Paddy, Matt, and Mike try to get Tom back, Paddy shoots one person in the head and others are tortured with hot irons and pliers. The movie is tough, but the book is even tougher.
The gangster film genre has roots dating back to the silent era, but in 1931, Warner Brothers brought it to new heights with the release of two movies: Little Caesar and The Public Enemy. Of the two, Little Caesar was released first, making a star of Edward G. Robinson and turning him into a gangster film icon. But before Little Caesar became a classic gangster film, it was a book published by W.R. Burnett.
Book & Movie Differences
For the most part, Little Caesar is a pretty respectable adaptation of the book. It doesn’t follow the book exactly, but the key events are there, like the New Year’s Eve nightclub robbery, the banquet for Rico, Rico’s rise to power, and Joe trying to leave the gang. Much of what the movie leaves out are things like how various characters spend the time leading up to the nightclub robbery and character details like how Rico relates to women.
Some of the most significant differences between the book and the movie involve Joe (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) The movie version tries to give Joe a redemption arc that he doesn’t get in the book. While both the book and the movie show Joe as wanting to get away from the gang so that he can focus on a career as a dancer and a life with Olga, the book has him return to the gang again on his own accord after getting the tip about a planned attack on Rico rather than Rico threatening him into returning. After Joe returns, he stops thinking about the idea of leaving the gang again.
In the book, Joe was very anxious about being caught after the nightclub robbery. But after some time had passed and he hadn’t been recognized, he started to relax a little. Of course, this is when a witness to the robbery finally does recognize him and causes a scene during one of his dance performances. It isn’t long before Joe is arrested, thrown in jail, and confesses to the police about everything. It has nothing to do with Olga calling the police and telling them Joe is ready to talk.
The ultimate end of Rico in the book is also pretty different from what happens in the movie. The book has Rico leaving town, taking over a new gang, and helping that gang become successful. But rather than bringing on his own demise by trying to respond to a comment he reads in the newspaper, like we see in the movie, Rico ends up being taken down after someone in his new gang says too much to the wrong person.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
Little Caesar isn’t going to make any lists of the all-time greatest novels ever written, but I really liked reading it. Since I love these kinds of 1920s/1930s gangster stories, this was right up my alley. This book is pretty much exactly what you think of when you try to imagine a stereotypical 1920s gangster story — a gangster longing for more power, a big heist, and lots of classic gangster nicknames like Scabby and Big Boy. It absolutely set the stage for the whole genre.
W.R. Burnett was very influential on the gangster genre, with other works including other notable crime novels like High Sierra and The Asphalt Jungle and screenwriting work on Scarface. Compared to High Sierra, I’d say High Sierra was the stronger of the two books, but Little Caesar was the one I had more fun reading. It’s an engaging but easy read that I’d definitely recommend to anyone who loves 1920s and 1930s gangster movies as much as I do.
If you were to ask people to name a movie about a gangster, you’d very likely get a lot of responses about Scarface. For a lot of people, they’d be thinking of the 1983 movie starring Al Pacino, but the 1932 version starring Paul Muni was also very influential. Both movies were based on the 1930 book Scarface by Armitage Trail, which was inspired by the life of Al Capone. So how do these movies compare to the original book?
Book & Movie Differences
Neither the 1932 or the 1983 version of Scarface is a particularly faithful book-to-film adaptation. The version starting Paul Muni is a very loose adaptation of the book and the version starting Al Pacino is more of an updated remake of the Paul Muni movie than a new adaptation of the book.
Tony’s overall story is significantly different in the book compared to what we see in either movie. (Tony’s last name is Guarino in the book, Camonte in the 1932 movie, and Montana in the 1983 movie.) The book starts out with Tony as an ambitious young punk with his sights set on the showgirl girlfriend of a big shot gangster. At first, she turns down Tony’s advances, but he eventually convinces her to start seeing him. When the big shot gangster finds out about this, Tony shoots him to death, which ends up being his first big step in establishing himself as a player in the local underworld. When World War I begins, he enlists in the military — not out of any sense of patriotism, but because it was a way for him to evade the police. While in the military, he gains experience with automatic weapons and some of the skills that served him well in the underworld served him well as a soldier. He also gets his distinctive facial scar during the war.
When Tony returns from the war, he’s surprised to learn that the local news had reported he died in combat. Since the scar on his face has made him unrecognizable, even to people he knew, he decides to keep up the impression that he had died and starts working his way up in the underworld under a new name. He’s a very ruthless gangster — always eager for action and gets restless if he thinks things are too quiet in the mob. Eventually, he becomes a gang leader, thriving in prohibition-era Chicago before his inevitable downfall.
Given how different Tony’s story is in the book from either movie, it’s easier to list the things all three versions have in common: the main character’s name is Tony, he’s a ruthless criminal who loves automatic weapons, and has a scar on his face. He’s part of an immigrant family, he kills someone for getting too close to his sister and there’s a big confrontation with police at the end.
Since there so many differences between the various versions of Scarface, let’s just focus on a few key points, starting with Tony’s relationship with his family. One of the most notable aspects of both movies is that Tony has an unhealthy fixation on his sister (Cesca, played by Ann Dvorak in the 1932 movie/Gina, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in the 1983 movie.) While that fixation is in the book version, Tony’s sister is out of the picture until fairly late in the book. Instead, the book focuses more on Tony’s brother, who works his way up in the police force while Tony works his way up as a criminal. The brother is completely left out of both movies. As for Tony’s mother, both movies show her actively rejecting her son’s lifestyle. In the book, Tony’s mother does get financial support from her son, but she doesn’t realize it. Since his family thinks Tony is dead, he figures out a way to send her money under the guise of it being an inheritance from a distant relative.
While the 1983 version of Scarface is mostly a modernized take on the 1932 movie, it does touch on some things from the book that the 1932 movie doesn’t. The Paul Muni version shows Tony becoming fascinated with machine guns when a rival gang uses them on him rather than being introduced to them in the military. In the Al Pacino version, there’s a scene where Manny and Tony are asked if they have experience with machine guns and Manny answers yes, adding that they had been in the Army. The only mention the 1932 movie makes to Tony’s service in the war was as an explanation of where his scar had come from.
The book also makes it very clear that Tony kept some law enforcement officials on his payroll for protection. The 1932 version of Scarface was very controversial for a multitude of reasons and faced many issues with censorship, which likely explains why that version of the movie does not show law enforcement cooperating with the mob. However, the 1983 version does include a scene where Tony and a detective meet in a nightclub and discuss the kind of protection the detective can offer for a price.
One thing we don’t see in the Paul Muni version is what motivates Tony to get into a life of crime rather than pursuing a more legitimate career. The book explains that Tony’s parents tried to establish themselves in America and played by the rules, but it was a struggle for them to get anywhere. So Tony decides that if he’s going to make something of himself, he’s not going to bother playing by the rules. This is closer to what we see in the Al Pacino movie, where Tony realizes pretty quickly that working in a restaurant isn’t going to get him what he wants out of life and starts going after bigger drug-related jobs.
Both versions of the movie feature signs that read “The World is Yours,” which carries a special meaning to Tony. Despite this being a very famous part of both movies, it’s not something that exists in the original book.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
It goes without saying that Scarface is one of the most quintessential gangster stories of all time. However, this is a case where I like both versions of the movie better than the book. Even though there are a lot of differences between both movies and the source material, those changes work in favor of the movies. The parts about Tony letting people think he had died in the war and his own family members not recognizing him when they saw him were just too far fetched for me. It’s also hard not to be a bit blindsided when Tony’s sister enters into the book, because the fact that Tony has any siblings at all aside from his brother had been so very briefly mentioned before that point.
Both versions of the movie took the best aspects of the book and turned them into something very memorable. But if you’re a big fan of either movie, or of gangster movies in general, I’d still say it’s worth giving the book a shot. It’s a quick and easy read, so if you want to check it out for the sake of getting a better understanding of the movie’s history or its place in the gangster film genre, it at least doesn’t require a big time commitment.
Over the years, there has been no shortage of books being turned into movies. However, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, along with its subsequent film adaptation, 1932’s I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang have the distinction of being widely credited with bringing about social change by leading to the end of the chain gang system.
I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! was the autobiographical story of Robert Elliott Burns, a World War I veteran who was unable to return to the job he had before the war and had few other job prospects after the war. While moving around looking for work, he was an unwilling participant in a grocery store robbery in which he, along with two other men, only got $5.80. The three men were arrested and Burns was sentenced to 6-10 years on a chain gang in Georgia, where he witnessed and experienced inhumane treatment. Burns later devised a plan to escape and made his way to Chicago, where he became a prominent member of the community. While in Chicago, he was pressured into marrying a woman he didn’t really love. But when he wanted a divorce to marry someone else, his wife alerted the authorities to his whereabouts. Despite having a lot of support from some very influential people, he ended up going back to Georgia to serve out more of his sentence. He had been promised an easy sentence with a quick pardon. Instead, he ended up back doing hard labor alongside criminals that other prisons had deemed too difficult. When it became clear that the state of Georgia had no intention of upholding their agreement, he made a second successful escape attempt.
Book & Movie Differences
Over the years, I’ve read some articles about I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang which described the movie as being pretty faithful to the book. After reading the book, I feel like those statements were perhaps a little bit generous. For the most part, the movie is a pretty good adaptation and the key events from the book did make it in. Even some of the moments that you might think were dramatic embellishments created by a screenwriter actually were things that were mentioned in the book. For example the part about Burns going unrecognized while getting a shave in a barber shop was based on Burns’ own account. As was the part where Burns is terrified to board a train because he sees police are looking for someone, only for the police to nab another man instead.
However, it’s easy to understand why some changes had to be made. There’s no way around the fact that the original story, as it was told by Robert Elliott Burns in his book, contains a lot of material that was inevitably going to be difficult to get past censorship guidelines that existed at the time.
To start with, note that the state of Georgia is mentioned in the title of the book, but is not mentioned in the movie title — or even in the movie at all. In an effort to avoid offending theater owners in the southern United States, the movie did not mention a specific location for the chain gang. But that ultimately didn’t stop the state of Georgia and two prison wardens from Georgia from filing lawsuits against Warner Brothers over the movie. It didn’t prevent the movie from being banned in Georgia, either.
Not only did Warner Brothers need to try to appease southern theater owners and moviegoers, there was the fact that portraying government officials as corrupt was frowned upon. In the movie version, it’s said that there are only two ways for someone to get off of the chain gang: either finish out your sentence or die. In the book, Burns states that there was a third option: to buy yourself a pardon. Burns wrote about how it was understood that the people in charge of deciding pardons weren’t paid very well so if you wanted a pardon, some kind of financial compensation was expected.
While many changes are understandable given the era I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was made in, there are some changes that seem to have been made solely for dramatic effect. Robert’s first escape attempt in the movie is basically how it is described in the book — he convinces a fellow prisoner to hit his shackles with a hammer to bend them so that he can slip them off his feet. On the other hand, his second escape attempt is very heavily embellished. In the book, he talked about how he paid a local man to drive him away as he got away from the chain gang. No explosives were involved like you see in the movie.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is well-known for its powerful ending where Robert is reunited with his girlfriend, Helen, after his second escape. Even though this meeting is brief and intended as a farewell, it feels like more closure than Robert Burns actually got with the woman he had wanted to divorce his wife for. His girlfriend had moved to Georgia to be closer to the prison where Robert was being held and had tried to be supportive. But after his second escape, Robert made an effort to contact her and briefly reached her once, but was never able to contact her again after that.
The movie also leaves out or changes some notable details that were discussed in the book. In the movie, it shows Robert actively rejecting his old, pre-war job so that he can pursue something new. In reality, he had tried to get his old job back, but he couldn’t and any jobs he could find didn’t come close to paying what he had been earning before the war. The movie also does not touch on the fact that Robert Burns dealt with PTSD after returning from the war. While living in Chicago after his first escape, Robert became a landlord before eventually starting a magazine whereas the movie shows him as getting into construction. The book also covers a little bit of Robert’s life after his second escape. The story of Robert Elliott Burns was also depicted in the 1987 movie The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains starring Val Kilmer, which does include some of the details which were cut out or changed for I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
I’ve long been a big fan of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang because of its gripping, hard-hitting style. I was not disappointed to find out that the book version was equally captivating. I had a hard time putting this book down. Even though the movie is pretty faithful to the book, I loved being able to hear the story directly from Robert’s point of view. I also really appreciated the extra context Burns provides in the book that wasn’t reflected in the movie. He gets into a lot of very specific detail about just how brutal and inhumane the treatment he and other prisoners received, often arbitrarily. It’s very easy to understand why this story caused such a sensation.
Following the success of They Drive by Night, Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino hit the big screen together again, once again directed by Raoul Walsh, in 1941’s High Sierra.
High Sierra occupies an interesting space in the world of gangster films. Not only does it star an actor very famous for playing lots of gangsters and tough guys, it was based on a book written by someone who was very influential on the gangster/crime film genre.
High Sierra was based on W.R. Burnett’s book by the same name, published in 1940. In addition to High Sierra, Burnett wrote the novels Little Caesar and The Asphalt Jungle and worked as a screenwriter on movies such as Scarface (1931), This Gun for Hire, and Beast of the City.
Book & Movie Differences
While They Drive by Night was a very loose adaptation of its source material, High Sierra does a pretty good job of following the book. It doesn’t follow the book right down to the letter, but the core story is there.
As was the case with They Drive by Night, one of the most significant changes in the film version of High Sierra involves Ida Lupino. While the movie ends with her character making a very dramatic appearance at the standoff in the mountains between Roy and the police, her character in the book stays on the bus out of town with Pard the dog. However, Roy does imagine feeling Marie’s hand in his final moments.
During the big standoff, Roy also has a vision of his beloved Aunt Minnie. The book delves more into Roy’s tendency to remember his childhood with rose-tinted glasses. For example, the book opens by explaining that when Roy thinks back on being a kid, he always tends to think of happy memories like having fun in the summertime while forgetting all about the fact that he was already earning a reputation as a troublemaker as a kid. Near the end of the book, he has a revelation about how he only remembers certain people from his life, like Aunt Minnie, in an idealized way rather than as the multi-faceted people they actually were. This also helps explain his relationship with the Goodhue family. It isn’t just that he’s attracted to Velma and Pa likes Roy because they come from similar backgrounds. Velma, before she had her surgery, had reminded him of a girl he used to know and he viewed Ma and Pa as stand-ins for his own parents. All those illusions were shattered when he no longer saw Velma as the innocent, helpless young woman he initially met.
The depiction of the relationship between Roy and Velma is also a bit different in the book than it is in the movie. For the most part, what you see in the movie is what happens in the book. But the movie leaves out a part where Roy does get to take Velma out one night. The scene where Roy stops by to see Velma after her surgery and she’s dancing around with her fiance, Lon, also plays out differently in the movie. In the movie, Velma openly accuses Roy of being jealous of Lon. In the book, Marie stirs up the tensions a bit more during that visit by dancing with Lon.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
It’s easy to see why High Sierra remains a staple gangster story. Mad Dog Roy is a really compelling character, and the book gives more insights to his worldview that we don’t see in the movie. So if you’re a fan of the movie, the book is very much worth checking out. Even if you’ve never seen the movie, it’s a very solid read on its own.
There are some aspects of the book that haven’t aged well, specifically the characterization of Algernon and the way people treat Velma’s club foot. Those things aside, it’s great. The only thing from the book that I wish had made it into the movie was the final line, “Sic transit Gloria Mundi or something.” It’s such a perfect line for this type of story.
This review is part of the 2023 classic film summer reading challengehosted by Out of the Past. For more reviews on books related to classic film, be sure to follow the #ClassicFilmReading hashtag on social media.
Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino might seem like natural co-stars, but over the course of their careers, they only starred in two movies together. (Or three, if you include the cameo-laden Thank Your Lucky Stars.) The first of those movies, They Drive by Night, was released in August of 1940. But before They Drive by Night hit the silver screen, it was published as a book under the name Long Haul, written by A.I. Bezzerides.
Book & Movie Differences
For this year’s summer reading challenge, I chose my books to do a theme of stories about crime stories gangsters. It turns out that They Drive By Night wasn’t the best choice of books to start a series like this off with because it’s in the same league as Mildred Pierce, in the sense that both movies prominently feature murders that don’t exist in the novels they were based on.
The film version of They Drive by Night begins by staying fairly close to the source material, with only some minor changes that don’t really make much of a difference in the long run. For example, in the book, the character of Cassie wasn’t a waitress they met before seeing her hitchhiking. Also, the two main characters were named Nick and Paul Benay in the book, but their names were changed to Joe and Paul Fabrini for the movie (respectively played by George Raft and Humphrey Bogart.) And in the book, the brothers’ truck is destroyed by an encounter with a drunk driver, not by Paul falling asleep at the wheel.
While Ida Lupino’s performance is a real highlight of They Drive By Night, since is there no murder in the book version of They Drive by Night, the character she plays does not exist in the book version, either. The film They Drive by Night less a straight adaptation of the novel and more of a mashup between the novel and the plot of 1935’s Bordertown and Ida Lupino’s character is clearly based on the Bette Davis character from Bordertown.
Aside from the murder, the movie also ends on a significantly more optimistic note than the book does. The novel in general is really pretty bleak and is more about how difficult it is for people to get ahead in an industry that is ultimately stacked against them. The brothers are always struggling to get a leg up in the trucking industry, but a lack of effort isn’t the problem. They’re stuck in a cycle of dealing with setbacks that prevent them from really getting anywhere, even after any successes they do experience. I hesitate to mention what, exactly, makes the ending of the book so bleak in case anyone wants to read it for themselves.
Is the Book Worth Reading?
If you’re specifically looking for a crime story to read, then Long Haul obviously isn’t going to be what you had in mind. However, if you tend to like the novels that film noir movies were based on, you could still appreciate Long Haul. While the story itself isn’t particularly noir-ish, it still has the hardened edge and cynical worldview that you might expect from other books that inspired film noir movie adaptations. Not an uplifting read by any means, but it was still worth my time to read it.
For many classic movie fans, the end of March means that the TCM Classic Film Festival is right around the corner. This year’s festival kicks off on Thursday, April 13 and runs through Sunday, April 16. And, once again, I was among the regular festival attendees who had been constantly refreshing the festival website eagerly waiting for the full schedule to be released. For me, being able spend time poring over the schedule and plan out the events I want to go to is a big part of the festival experience — even though I know perfectly well that my plans could easily end up changing later on.
Sometimes, I end up changing my plans because I’m in the mood for something else when the day comes or because I need a break to get food. It’s also not unheard of for some additional guests or events to be announced after the main schedule drops. So while I always have an initial plan going into the festival, I’m a big fan of keeping my options open and seeing where the day takes me.
As always, there are lots of hard choices to make. This year, there are several blocks where I’m interested in everything that’s scheduled during a given time. In many cases, what I end up seeing will probably be decided at the last minute, but I know I can’t go wrong. As of now, here’s what my choices are.
Thursday, April 13
On opening night, I traditionally skip the first block of movies so that I can go get dinner after watching guests arrive on the red carpet for the big opening night movie, which is Rio Bravo this year. However, the first block of movies this year is so stellar that I’ve been swayed to break with tradition. For those not going to Rio Bravo, the first block of movies includes a poolside screening of Hairspray with Ricki Lake in attendance; Shadow of a Doubt, Ikiru, and One Way Passage at the multiplex; and Airport at the Legion.
I can take Rio Bravo out of the running since my pass doesn’t get me into that screening. I’ll also pass on Shadow of a Doubt since I just watched it recently. As much as I love One Way Passage, I feel like that one could potentially get one of the TBA blocks on Sunday and I dig the idea of starting with something fun like Hairspray or Airport. If I were making the call today, I’d go with Hairspray. As for the second block of movies, I’m intrigued by Genevieve, but will likely skip that block and go rest up for the next day.
Friday, April 14
The first full day of the festival starts off with yet another fantastic block of movies: King Kong in the Chinese Theater; Harvey, The Old Maid, and Bicycle Thieves in the Multiplex; and The Wild Bunch at the Legion. There are no bad choices to be made here, but I’ll go with either King Kong or The Old Maid. The Wild Bunch overlaps two blocks of movies and I’m not sure that Bicycle Thieves is the type of movie I’ll want to start my day with. On one hand, I love Bette Davis and The Old Maid isn’t a movie I’m likely to have many chances to see on the big screen. But it’s also hard to resist the idea of King Kong at the Chinese theater. We’ll see which way I go when the day comes.
For my second movie of the day, Footlight Parade was an easy winner. It’s one of my favorite movies and I’ve never seen a Busby Berkeley musical in a theater. Although it pains me a bit that this one conflicts with the screening of Larceny, Inc., I can’t resist Footlight Parade in the Multiplex.
The third block of the day is another really hard one for me. I could stick around in the Multiplex and make it a James Cagney double feature by following Footlight Parade up with a screening of The Strawberry Blonde. Or I could stay in the Multiplex, but go in a very different direction with Risky Business, with Rebecca De Mornay as a guest. Or, I could venture over to the Legion theater for a screening of Peyton Place with Russ Tamblyn making an appearance. Right now, I’m leaning toward Risky Business, but between those three options, I won’t be disappointed.
Up next is one of the events I’m most excited for — a poolside screening of Beach Party with Frankie Avalon making an appearance. I love the Beach Party movies and this is excellent poolside movie material. I’m sure there’s going to be a very fun atmosphere.
Hopefully, I will have enough energy the midnight screening of The Batwoman. I was excited to see another Mexican wrestling movie on the TCMFF lineup this year because their screening of Santo vs. The Evil Brain a few years back was an absolute blast. I’m sure this will be a very fun one as well.
Saturday, April 15
Once again, today starts off with a block where everything is great. We have Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with Russ Tamblyn at the Chinese; Paths of Glory, Boys Town, and The Muppets Take Manhattan in the Multiplex; and The Wiser Sex, a pre-code with Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas, at the Legion. As great as everything here is, I can’t resist a Claudette Colbert pre-code to start the day.
You can’t go wrong with the first block of events for Saturday and you can’t go wrong with the second block, either. At this point, I’m mainly torn between a block of Laurel & Hardy shorts and Play it as it Lays, but there’s a chance I might be tempted by the screening of The African Queen at the Chinese theater. (Additionally, this block also includes a screening of Amadeus, a presentation on Henson puppetry in Club TCM, and a screening of When Worlds Collide with a presentation by Craig Barron and Ben Burtt.)
Next, I’m planning to head over to Club TCM for a conversation with Russ Tamblyn. As hard as it is to miss Ann-Margret introducing Bye Bye Birdie at the Chinese, as a huge Twin Peaks fan, I really want to see Russ Tamblyn at least once this year. I also didn’t make it to any Club TCM events last year so I’d like to get to at least one this year.
From Club TCM, I’ll head over to the Chinese for a screening of The Exorcist with director William Friedkin in attendance. They played The Exorcist in the Chinese Theater a few years back and I skipped it then, but later regretted that choice when I watched the movie at home and realized how good the sound would have been on that excellent sound system at the Chinese Theater. Very glad I’m getting a second chance to see it there!
Right now, I’m keeping my options for the next block open. Once again, this is a block where I’m interested in everything playing. In the Multiplex, there’s In the Heat of the Night, Unfinished Business with Irene Dunne, and the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And over at the Legion, there’s a screening of Enter the Dragon. But, very unusually, there is currently a TBA block at the Chinese Theater after The Exorcist. Out of the things we do know, I’m most interested in Enter the Dragon or In the Heat of the Night. But we’ll see what that TBA ends up being.
Tonight’s midnight movie is another one I’m very excited for — Xanadu. I’d been hoping we’d get a screening of Xanadu at the festival for a few years now and I’m very excited to see it with a crowd.
Sunday, April 16
As a general rule, I don’t go into Sunday with a whole lot of firm plans in mind. There are several TBA slots where popular movies that screened earlier in the festival get a second run — and there are lots of movies that could sway me from the already announced titles. I definitely want to see No Man of Her Own in the second block of movies, but that is my only essential of the day. If I were to just stick to the announced titles, I’d be going with either The Man Who Knew Too Much or Heaven Can Wait, No Man of Her Own, All About Eve, and Clash of the Wolves or The Big Chill. What I’ll actually end up going to remains to be seen.
The Hollywood Revue 