'One Track Minds' is off the tracks

One Track Minds (1933)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Lucien Prival, George McFarland, Billy Gilbert, and Jack Rube
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Four of Ten Stars


While traveling by train to California for a screen test, Thelma (Todd) finds herself in the same train car as the pompous film director (Prival) who will decide her future movie career.

"One Track Minds" was the last film that Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts made together, and I wish I could say their team-up ended on a high note. It did not. Pitts' contract with the Hal Roach Studio was up, and she was ready to move onto other things... and I think that maybe this film was a casualty of a desire to get one last contribution from the Todd/Pitts team as ZaSu was on her way out the door.

I say this because this is not so much a film as a series of gags thrown together with train travel as a kinda-sorta uniting theme. Not a whole lot of effort appears to have been put into developing any sort of coherent storyline, nor even many of the jokes themselves.

The though-line of the film is mockery of Hollywood's celebrity culture, with ambitions, dream-filled starlets and arrogant, self-absorbed movie directors, but the film meanders through several rail-traveling "slice-of-life" scenes involving Pitt's child or little brother--it's never established what their relationship is--and Pitt and Todd's interaction with various other kooky people in the train. The end result is that this feels more like a collection of vaguely related sketches than a coherent movie, a feeling that's underscored by the fact the film doesn't have an ending; it just ends, with none of its plot threads resolved, or even developed, to any degree whatsoever.

It's a shame the film isn't more coherent and the jokes aren't better developed, because the cast are all doing their absolute best with what they have to work with. The greatest shame, though, might be that because the film is so unfocused, Pitts and Todd are almost crowded out of their own movie. Lucien Prival (as the stuck-on-himself, flamboyant film director), Billy Gilbert (as the conductor who has to deal with the nuts on his train) and Jack Rube (as a deaf beekeeper who is traveling in the passenger car with his bees) all have more interesting parts than the two stars. In fact, Todd has virtually nothing to do in the picture.

While this was the last film Todd and Pitts made together, it won't be the last of their pairings I'll be covering as the Year of the Hot Toddy continues. I jumped to the end of the cycle, because I've been somewhat disappointed in their quality. Thelma Todd made some excellent shorts with Charley Chase, but only one where she was teamed with Pitts was even close to as good. I hoped that by the end whatever wasn't clicking had clicked... but "One Track Minds" has bigger problems than any of the previous Todd/Pitts films (Although I also felt they were crowded out of their own picture in their first official teaming in "Catch-As-Catch-Can", so maybe this was a common thing?

Picture Perfect Wednesday: It's June!

June Brewster made her film debut in 1932, at the age of 19. After a series of uncredited roles and unremarkable bit parts, she took a step toward movie fame as a co-star of the RKO's "The Blonde and the Redhead" series of short films.

During 1933 and 1934, Brewster was at her busiest. She led five installments of "The Blonde and the Redhead," as well as small parts of varying importance in seven other films. However, as 1935 dawned, her career sputtered and stalled, even before it had fully launched.

Brewster appeared in nine films between 1935 and 1938, with each part being smaller than the one before. She ended her short film career as it began, with a couple unremarkable, uncredited roles.

Brewster married vice-cop-turned-organized-crime-figure-and-casino-mogul Guy McAfee in 1936. The couple relocated to Nevada in 1939 where McAfee became one of the founding fathers of the Las Vegas gambling mecca that we know today. Brewster and McAfee divorced in 1941, but she remained a resident of Las Vegas until her death on August 2, 1995.

It's Vampire Weekend on a Musical Monday

Is this confusing? Starting the week with Vampire Weekend? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, this Grammy Award winning band (2014, Best Alternative Music Album for "Modern Vampires of the City") will get your week started right.

Below, is the video for "This Life" off their latest album, "Father of the Bride". Vampire Weekend is currently touring the U.S. in support of this new release, proving that alternative rock is alive and well in 2019 (or possibly undead).

'Cops': Filmed on location in Crazytown!

Cops (1922)
Starring: Buster Keaton
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Through a series of missteps and misunderstandings, a young man (Keaton) trying to win his girlfriend's hand in marriage ends up being chased by the city's entire police force.

There are three kinds of people who get in trouble with the police: The criminal, the stupid, and the unlucky. In the space of this film's 18-minute running time, Buster Keaton character is every one of those. He steals some money (from someone who just happens to be the police commissioner), he is conned into buying property from someone who doesn't actually own it (but some of it belongs to a police officer), and he inadvertently becomes the center and perpetrator of a terrorist attack on a police parade.

"Cops" is a little slow in the wind-up (although it opens strong with an excellent site gag that plays with audience expectations given the title), but once it really gets going it's a one long, hilarious chase scene.

Like almost every Keaton short I've written about in this space, I feel like I can't go into too much detail without ruining the amazement you'll feel the first time watching the events unfold  I will say, though, that the stunt involving Keaton balancing on a ladder atop a fence while cops on both sides are trying to get at him is worth sitting through the film almost all by itself.

Above, you can see that I only listed one star of this film. While Joe Roberts (as a cop from whom Keaton's character steals money) Virginia Fox (the girl he is trying to impress), and Steve Murphy (as a con man who rips him off) all play pivotal characters in the plot, Buster Keaton is the only true star of this picture. He owns this film from the first moment though the very last frame (even if only his hat appears in it).

If you like rambunctious comedies, whether you admire cops or are more likely to walk around saying "fuck the police", I think this is a film you'll enjoy the heck out of. I've embedded the film below, so you can watch it right here, right now. It may well be the funniest 18 minutes of your day!

Spacegirl Adventures, Part Twenty

What Has Gone Before: Spacegirl is on the run... and a very dangerous adversary is joining the hunt for her.

SPACEGIRL

By Travis Charest

By Stéphane De Caneva

Picture Perfect Wednesday: It's June!

June Haver is this year's first Picture Perfect Wednesday June in June!

June Haver was, appropriately enough, born on June 10, 1926, and she began acting on stage at the age of 6. By age 10, she was gaining celebrity locally in Illinois by singing on radio. She toured with bands in her early teens, and by the age of 17, she was signed to a contract with Fox. 

After a few unmarkable bit-parts, Haver played lead roles in "Irish Eyes are Smiling" (1944) and "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1945) and her star was on the rise. Equally adept at singing, dancing, and acting, she was being groomed by Fox to be the "next Betty Grable", but in she abruptly quit show business and entered a convent to become a nun following the sudden death of her fiance, John Duzik, in 1953. Her last film role was "The Girl Next Door" (1953).

Haver was only in the convent for a few months, because a serious illness forced to return to the outside world. Although she had initially intended to return to the life of a nun after recovering, she never did. Instead, in 1964, she married actor Fred MacMurray, whom she had met while filming "Where Do We Go From Here?"

Haver made a couple half-hearted stabs at returning to acting in the late 1950s, but her main interest for the rest of her life was her family, which included two children from MacMurray's previous marriage and a pair of twin girls they adopted together.

June Haver passed away at the age of 79 on July 4, 2005.

Laurel & Hardy Meet The Devil's Brother

The Devils' Brother (aka "Bogus Bandits") (1933)
Starring: Dennis King, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Thelma Todd, James Finlayson, Lucile Browne, and Arthur Pierson,
Directors: Hal Roach and Charley Rogers
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After his men rob a pair of travelers (Laurel and Hardy) of their life's savings, the notorious bandit Fra Diavolo (King) forces them to help him rob a fabulously wealthy nobleman (Finlayson) and his slutty wife (Todd). Meanwhile a young army officer (Pierson) is on Fra Diavolo's trail, hoping to catch him and earn the reward money so he can marry his beloved (Browne).

Reportedly, "The Devil's Brother" was one of Laurel & Hardy's highest grossing movie. They may have been the names and faces on the poster that drew the crowds, but they were far from the best part of this film.

Since Laurel & Hardy are the clowns in this film adaptation of an operetta, it's to be expected that they are basically supporting characters in a film they're headlining, but Roach and his co-director could at least have made sure that when they do appear on-screen, they are in top form. Instead, almost ever bit they do drags on for too long and even their trademark character touches are overplayed here. The only exception to this are the goofy games/feats that Laurel's character comes up with, and which go viral among other characters who are unable to replicate them

It's a shame that Laurel & Hardy's bits were padded to the degree they were, because everything else about the film is entertaining, and the rest of the cast are good in their roles. Even Laurel & Hardy aren't bad per se... I just think they could have been better.

I had to do a bit of a mental adjustment as the film unfolded, because, when it comes to period pieces like this, I am used to the bandit posing as a nobleman to being of a heroic figure. Fra Diavalo, however, is a villain, through and through. It's somewhat satisfying that his plot ultimately fails due to his own cruelty and coldbloodness, but the ending isn't what I really wanted for the character. It's a testament to Dennis King's acting ability that I so disliked Fra Diavolo; his facial expressions change beautifully from when he's not being watched to when he's pretending to be the Marquis de San Marco. King was first and foremost a stage actor, but his performance here demonstrates that he could probably have been a  big movie star, too. He had a strong grasp of the differences between playing to the back rows of a theatre auditorium, and performing for film cameras.

Another standout cast member was James Finlayson. He had more to do in this film than was typical for his Laurel & Hardy appearances, and he's a lot of fun as the super-rich old guy with a slutty trophy wife. The bit where he's trying to catch his wife cheating on him is especially amusing.

Speaking of the slutty wife, she's portrayed by Thelma Todd with the zest she brought to almost every role she played. There's really not much for her to do here but to bat her eyes and respond coyly to the romantic overtures from Fra Diavalo in his guise as a traveling nobleman. (Todd would play the same kind of character again in the 1934 film "Cockeyed Cavaliers", but the part was meatier and she had more of an opportunity to show that she was a talented actress as well as good-looking.)

Since "The Devil's Brother" is an operetta, I should probably comment on the music and songs featured in it. I don't have much to say as only two songs stood out.. and they happen to be the two that were also central to moving the plot along. Even so, I didn't find them all that remarkable... but then I'm a Philistine.

First, there is Fra Diavolo's Theme Song, which he travels the countryside singing and striking terror in the hearts of all who hear it. Dennis King performs it several times during the film, and it's a nice little tune, even if the lyrics are a bit nonsensical. (I admit that a literal Singing Bandit is a bit silly for me to take, even in a comic operetta.)

Second, there's the song performed by Lucile Browne, who, stripped down to her underwear, admires herself in a mirror and sings about what a hottie she is. Although this comes across as just so much 1930s Fan Service, it actually ends up being crucial to the story... even if it's a highly ridiculous moment and the "I can't believe I'm hearing this" look on Ollie's face reflects exactly how I felt watching it.

Finally, Laurel & Hardy's unofficial theme "KuKu" is used to introduce them twice in the film. It seems very out of place, especially the second time it crops up. This may be an even worse choice than letting most of their routines go on for too long, as it's stylistically out of place with the rest of the music in the film.

"The Devil's Brother" is a fun, but flawed movie. Big-time fans of Laurel & Hardy might want to put it on their "To Be Watched" list... but I don't know that anyone else would want to go out of their way for it.

'Don't Shove' should be seen

Don't Shove (1919)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bud Jamison, Bebe Daniels, Lee Lampton, Noah Young, and Fred Newmeyer
Director: Alf Goulding
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While trying to impress an eligible young lady (Daniels) at her birthday party, a young man (Lloyd) ends up fighting with rivals for her attention (Jamison and Lampton) and causing chaos at a roller rink.

With "Don't Shove", I'm starting to understand why Lloyd is remembered as largely playing charming characters who are looking for happiness and romance but who find trouble instead. I've previously commented on how I was put off by the "hero" he portrayed in a number of shorts I'm probably not going to bother write about, but here, he is generally reacting to provocations or trouble started by other characters; in seems that once he came up with his Glasses character, he increasingly left behind the obnoxious trickster character he typically portrayed in earlier films.

"Don't Shove" is a brief film, but it's jammed with action, gags, AND story from its opening moments. Highlights of the film include Bud Jamison angrily stalking Harold after he's gotten him ejected from a party they were both attending, and pretty much everything that follows after Harold exaggerates his rollerskating ability in a desire to impress  Bebe Daniels. And, this is another film where it's fun just to watch Bebe Daniels act--she'd been in front of movie cameras for more than a decade at this point and her experience shows.

I've embedded "Don't Shove" via YouTube below. Why don't you take a break, watch it, and spend a few minutes laughing?

The Love Quarterly: Magical Mystery Chairs

Last time around for The Love Quarterly, we revealed how Bessie Love secretly battled occult forces between starring in movies during the 1920s and 1930s. This time around, we're going to cover something she learned during her cultist-busting career: Hidden, often in plain sight, throughout the world are a surprising number of magical chairs. Some were purposefully constructed and enchanted, others became magically charged by absorbing intense spiritual energies for many years.

Love brought two magic chairs into her own home, one was a gift from a sorceress who was an ally in her fight against evil, the other was seized from a cult leader. The first chair, which stood in the corner of her sitting room, grants the person sitting in it the ability to instantly know what is on up to 100 written pages by just touching them; and the other chair, which she kept in her library, makes the person in it more able to see through lies while being more adept at telling them.

The rest of the text in this post is released under the Open Game License and may be reproduced according to its terms. Copyright Steve Miller 2019.

MAGICAL MYSTERY CHAIRS (for d20 System Games)
The GM can use the following tables to randomly generate magical chairs. Players can discover the enchantments of the chairs through whatever means are available in the campaign, except for those listed under WHAT CURSE DOES THE CHAIR BESTOW? Any curses should be discovered when they are inflicted.


IS THE CHAIR MAGICAL? (Roll 1d10)*
1-7.  No
8.     Yes. Roll once on WHAT BENEFIT DOES THE CHAIR GRANT?
9.     Yes. Roll twice on WHAT BENEFIT DOES THE CHAIR GRANT?
10.   Yes. Roll once on WHAT BENEFIT DOES THE CHAR GRANT? and
         once on WHAT CURSE DOES THE CHAIR BESTOW?
*The GM can check this table whenever the characters search a room furnished with one or more chairs using methods that can detect magical auras.


WHAT BENEFIT DOES THE CHAIR GRANT? (Roll 1d10)
1. As a full round action, absorb the information in up to 100 pages
    touched while seated in the chair. The character must be able to
    read the language, even if he or she isn't actually reading the
    text. The book or pages not need to be leafed through. The GM
    may require Knowledge skill checks or Intelligence checks for
    the character to comprehend the information if the text covers
    obscure or advanced subjects. Texts longer than 100 pages may
    be divided up and absorbed at different times, but loose pages
    must be placed in different stacks, and books must be opened
    to the point from which absorption is to take place.
    The chair's power can be used once every 12 hours.
2. +4 to all Knowledge skill checks while seated.
3. +4 to all Craft skill checks while seated.
4. +6 to Bluff skill checks while seated.
5. +6 to Sense Motive skill checks while seated.
6. Detect Poison and Neutralize Poison at 12th-level effectiveness
    while seated in the chair.
7. True Seeing as spell-like ability for 12 minutes once per hour while
    seated. (12th level effectiveness.)
8. The character does not age, require rest or sustenance while seated in the chair.
9. Brings a being back to life that has been dead less than 24 hours.
    The corpse must be relatively intact with no vital parts missing.
    The being is restored to life with fully healed.
10. Roll again on this table, ignoring and re-rolling additional
      rolls of 10. Additionally, roll once on WHAT CURSE DOES
      THE CHAIR BESTOW?

WHAT CURSE DOES THE CHAIR BESTOW? (Roll 1d10)*
1. -1 to all saving throws.
2. -1 to all attack rolls.
3. -1 to all saving throws and attack rolls.
4. -2 to all skill checks.
5. The sitter's butt goes numb and can only walk with a
    weird waddle. 1/2 movement rate, -4 to all Acrobatics,
    Balance, Climb, Run, and Tumble skill checks.
6. Suffer 1 point of extra damage per hit or damage dice.
7. While seated the character believes he or she telepathically
    "hears" the thoughts of another character in the room.
     The thoughts indicate the character is planning to betray the
     seated character, or is otherwise allied with an enemy of
     the party. The seated character can focus his or
    attention on someone else in the rool and "hear" that
    individual's thoughts as well. They will likewise be
    hostile or threatening. This is just an delusion caused by
    the chair. It ends once the character leaves the chair.
8. While seated, he character believes that he or she can see
     the true demonic form of another random character in
     the room. This is just a delusion created by the chair, and
     the character who appears to be a shapeshifted demon
     is determined randomly each time someone sits in
     the chair
9.  Roll on WHAT BENEFITS DOES THE CHAIR GRANT?
     The character who sat in the chair believes he or she has gained
     that advantage.
10. Roll two more times on this table, ignoring additional
      rolls of 10.
*Unless otherwise noted, all curses are permanent until the character who sat in the chair is subjected to a Remove Curse, cast at a 12-level or better effectiveness.

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The Morality Play, Early 1930s Style

Morals for Women (aka "Big City Interlude") (1931)
Starring: Bessie Love, John Holland, David Rollins, Conway Tearle, Natalie Moorehead, Lina Basquette, Virginia Lee Corbin, Emma Dunn, and June Clyde
Director: Mort Blumenstock
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Growing tired of being a kept woman in the Big City, Helen (Love), reconnects with her childhood sweetheart (Holland) and attempts to move back to the small town she grew up in. But when rumors of her wild city life threatens the happiness of her family, Helen may discover that there's truth in the saying: "You can never go home again".

Like so many early talkies, "Morals for Women" is very stagey in its presentation, with the actors all being very careful as to not step on each other's lines. Unlike so many talkies, "Morals for Women" doesn't suffer from actors who are either performing for the back rows of a theatre or engaging in silent movie melodramatic overacting. All the actors give appropriately measured performances, with no one going over the top or seeming particularly wooden. In fact, for a film of the Poverty Row production houses, the acting is surprisingly good, and, given the subject matter, the script is surprisingly intelligent and subtle at times.

The story revolves around Helen trying to recapture the life she once had in the small town she grew up in and the complications that ensue--with the most dramatic one being her little brother (David Rollins) facing possible jail-time when he assaults someone who believes is spreading vicious rumors about Helen's life in the Big City. Meanwhile, her sugar-daddy (Conway Tearle) alternately tries to replace her and sabotage her effort to leave him by exposing her "wanton ways" to her parents and naive would-be husband  Tearle's character is the closest the film has to a villain, but since he is slightly classier than I think any real-life counterpart to the character would be, the film reaches a predictable happy resolution. (Reality would probably see Helen friendless, penniless, and alone by the end of the film... but, c'mon... no one watching this expects that to be outcome!)

Star Bessie Love comes across a bit flat at times, but generally displays the same charm and energy that she put forward in the silent movies (but which was almost entirely lacking in "Conspiracy" , another of her talkies), and she really holds the film together. This film is an illustration of what a shame it is that Love's Hollywood career was in steep decline at this point, because she was aging out of the roles she had spent her career playing and was not apparently getting more suitable ones. She eventually did manage to transition into a "second phase" to her acting career in the 1950s, but she never enjoyed the status nor the starring roles she had once enjoyed.

Conway Tearle also gives a standout performance as Love's boss/sugar-daddy, coming across equal parts obnoxious and charming. Like Love, I think that Tearle was aging out of the parts he spent his career in silent movies playing, but he was not offered (or maybe didn't accept) any roles but that of the tall, dark, and handsome love interest, so his career was decline at this point. He really feels like he's too old/mature to be in a relationship with Love's character, and it feels like the only reason they are is because she was willing to make it on her back, and he was willing to spend money to buy the attention of a younger woman.

Comic relief is provided by Natalie Moorehead, Lina Basquette, Virginia Lee Corbin, who are great fun as Helen's girlfriends and neighbors. The drift in and out of the film--together and separate--but whenever they appear, their presence is a welcomed one.

"Morals for Women" is available for viewing in several different versions online, each of which is butchered by later editing to bring the film more into line with Hayes Office code compliance, and each of which shows extreme wear-and-tear. Sadly, the commercially available DVD release is worse shape than any of the free versions. It's so bad, in fact, that I can't recommend it.

If you want to check out the film, I've embedded the best publicly available version I've found.


Trivia: Conway Tearle starred in a 1925 movie titled "Morals for Men"; I wonder if the title of this film was chosen to remind film-goers of that older movie?)