'Ring Up the Curtain' has Harold Lloyd bringing down the house

Ring Up the Curtain (1919)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, Bud Jamison, and William Blaisedell
Director: Alf Goulding
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An incompetent stage hand (Lloyd) gets the hots for a flirtatious leading lady (Daniels) and ruins a performance as a result.

"Ring Up the Curtain" is a fun little tale that demonstrates the importance of having a good backstage crew supporting the performers on stage... because all the complications in this picture arise from the bad choices made by a theatre owner (William Blaisdell) in hiring a bunch of drunks. He compounds his error by firing them all, except for one, as a troupe of vaudevillians are about to put on a performance. His catastrophic mistakes are to our benefit, however, as the chaos Harold the Useless Stagehand is hilarious to watch.

The film isn't perfect, though. After a strong start, featuring the sacking of the drunken stagehands, about a minute is wasted on the theatre owner abusing Harold and some shtick with a bowler hat that drags on for too long. Once Bebe Daniels and the rest of the acting troupe shows up, the film gets back on target.

The good outweighs the bad here, though. The scene were Harold out-and-out sexually harasses Bebe Daniels in the middle of the performance and ends up on stage fighting with her husband (played by Harry Pollard) is already comedy gold, but it's made even funnier by the way Harold forces an actor practicing his lines to hold the rigging ropes in the wing.

But don't just take my word for how fun this little movie is; I've made it easy for you to check it out by embedding it below, via YouTube.

'Show Business' is full of funny business

Show Business (1932)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Anita Garvin, Monte Collins, and Otto Fries
Director: Jules White
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of vaudevillians and their singing monkey (Pitts and Todd) get a last minute gig as a replacement act in a touring show. Things start to go wrong even before they set foot on stage, as they end up at odds with the show's ego-maniacal star (Garvin).

At the center of "Show Business" is a professional lifestyle that was coming to an end by the 1930s--that of a member of a traveling variety show that criss-crossed the nation on any number of theatrical circuits. Muscians, chorus girls, actors, and comedians... all would travel together from engagement to engagement, essentially spending their lives on the road (or, more specifically, on the train tracks). Headliners would often be fixed, but smaller acts would drop in and drop out, which is where our heroines enter the picture

After a weak beginning that should have just been used to set up the monkey and the excuse for later showing viewers Thelma Todd walking around in a hat and her underwear, but which is crippled by Pitts doing some unfunny prop comedy involving a telephone and a half-eaten apple, followed by a just-as-unfunny bit involving a dresser drawer, the film really takes off. From the moment the action changes to the train station, and we're introduced to the film's antagonists, Anita Garvin and her manager Monte Collins, through to the final fade-out, we are treated to hilarious chaos and some fine comedic acting.

In "Show Business", Thelma Todd gets to show off what made her such a fantastic screen actress (and I'm taking about the skimpy outfit she's almost not wearing in the pseudo-catfight at the train station). There are multiple in this picture where her face says everything that's going through the character's mind, and just watching Todd's facial expressions change (as she goes from confused to angry, or self-righteously indignant to embarrassed) provide some of the film's funniest moments.

Anita Garvin also shines in this picture, playing a variant of the shrewish wife she'd portray in several Laurel & Hardy pictures, but here the main target of her ire is her manager played by Monte Collins while Todd and Pitts and their mon inadvertently make both their lives very difficult. It's a common in these kinds of shorts to see self-important characters be humiliated by the bumbling clowns with whom the audience's sympathies rests, and Garvin is so good at playing an obnoxious, self-entitled primadonna that her unraveling is extra satisfying. Meanwhile, Collins occupies an interesting place in the configuration of characters, swinging from threat to our heroines to an almost ally, as he tries to get them settled in the train so he can be spared any more abuse from Garvin.

The only disappointing member of the main cast here is ZaSu Pitts, but I don't think it's her fault. For the most part, she was stuck doing unfunny prop comedy, and her fidgety character seemed out of place surrounded by all the loud, overly theatrical types that occupy the rest of the film. That said, she had a couple shining moments in the part of the film at the train station, as she is trying to convince a police officer (Otto Fries) why it's a bad idea for him to make Thelma take off her coat; and later after she and Thelma wake everybody up on a sleeping car while trying to get into their bunk themselves.

Despite its weak opening, and a couple minor hiccups along the way (there is a point where some time must pass between scenes, but there's no indication of it, so the film feels a bit disorganized for few moments) "Show Business" is a fun entry in the Todd/Pitts series of comedies that benefits both for a strong script and the fact that most of its cast is in parts that let them play to their strengths as performers. (Although it's a shame that we never get to hear the monkey sing.

"Show Business" is one of 17 shorts contained in a two DVD set that features all of the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts made together.

Picture Perfect Special: It's June!

Born on June 25, 1925, June Lockhart got her start as a child actor on the stage, and began acting in film as a teenager during the early 1940s, with an emphasis on Westerns and other historical dramas.

By the 1950s, Lockhart had become a successful television acgtress. She had recurring roles on several series and was a frequent star or supporting actress on episodes of various anthology shows.

As the 1960s arrived, June became one of the most recognizable TV Moms for several generations of Americans, playing the mother on both "Lassie" and "Lost in Space". She also had a recurring as as Dr. Janet Craig during the last three seasons of "Petticoat Junction".

Lockhart has appeared in over 170 movies and TV shows, with her career spanning eight decades. She most recently appeared in the based-on-a-true story comedy "Zombie Hamlet" (2012) and the movie-industry based comedy "The Remake" (2016).

June Lockhart turns 94 today, and we here at Shades of Gray wish her a Happy Birthday!

Musical Monday with whenyoung

Last month, Irish indie-rock trio whenyoung (Aiofe Power, Niall Burns, and Andrew Flood) released their debut album, "Reasons to Dream". I think their song, "Future" is a great tune with which to get your work-week started right.

"Future" is a song about how you should never let darkness and dispair overtake you, but always hold onto the hope that the future will bring better times and strive to reach that future. The fantastic video (directed by Michael Baldwin and starring the very talented child actor Badger Skelton) can be watched below. Enjoy!

Move over Romeo & Juliet... because here come Buster & Ginnie!

Neighbors (1920)
Starring: Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, Joe Keaton, and Eddie Cline
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A romantic relationship between two neighbor teens (Keaton and Fox) triggers a feud between their parents, and eventually throws their entire neighborhood chaos.

"Neighbors" starts with a "Romeo and Juliet" vibe, with two young lovers who just want  and then spirals outward outward into total chaos. Within the space of less than 18 minutes, this film moves from being a spoof of a stereotypical melodrama (about young lovers being kept apart by angry parents) into being a wild series of crazy slapstick routines and acrobatic stunts (as Buster alternately tries to circumvent the angry fathers to make time with the love of his life, tries to get back at her father for standing in his way, and then tries to avoid arrest after mistakingly bopping a beat cop on the head), before circling back around to satire by poking fun at the court system and ultimately returning to making fun of melodramas as the star-crossed lovers try to get married.

Like most of the Keaton short films I've watched, "Neighbors" has a dream-like quality about it where life itself seems to be a series of non-sequitors and everyone seems, annoyingly, to be getting in the way of achieving even the simplest of goals, no matter how hard you trying to avoid them and run around them. (Although, maybe, the fact that I consider this to be dream-like may say more about me than it does about the movie...)

"Neighbors" was the first short that Buster Keaton made with Virginia Fox, and for most of her roles during the rest of her career, she would be teamed with him; Fox retired from acting in 1925 after marrying Hollywood Kingpin Darryl F. Zanuck. Fox is a decent performer, but she's no Sybil Seely, who was prettier, more charismatic, and whom Keaton reportedly would have liked to have made more films with if Seely had been available.

But why don't you take a little time out of your day and check out "Neighbors" for yourself? I've embedded the films, via YouTube, so you can enjoy it right here, right now.

Spacegirl Adventures, Part Twenty-one

What Has Gone Before: Cadet Beta, aka Spacegirl, is trapped on Moon Station Delta and is being hunted by the authorities.

SPACEGIRL
By Travis Charest

By Mitch Foust

... the Honorable Betty Boop presiding!

With the Supreme Court of the United States currently handing down decisions, this seems like a great time to post this fun Betty Boop cartoon that I think we can all relate to: We start our day in a great mood, looking forward to whatever it will bring... but encounters with other people soon make us wish that we were a Hangin' Judge with the authority to mete out punishments to fit the crimes of ruining our day and our good mood! (And in addition to its satisfying plot, this great little cartoon features a catchy song that you may find yourself humming later on.)

Judge for a Day (1935)
Starring: Betty Boop (voiced by Mae Questel)
Director: Dave Fleisher
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A fresh start for the Todd-starring comedies

Beauty and the Bus (1933)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Don Barclay, and Eddie Baker
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The car that Thelma (Todd) wins in a drawing proves to be bad luck for any driver who shares the road with her on the way home.

After ZaSu Pitts' contract with the Hal Roach Studio expired, and she moved onto other things, Patty Kelly became Thelma Todd's teammate in Roach's attempt at creating the female equavilent of Laurel & Hardy's box office success. "Beauty and the Bus" was the first of nearly 20 shorts for the new pair, and it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Story-wise, this film is a fast-paced series of interconnected and ever-escalating gags that take the main characters from situations that are bad, to worse, to disastrous. On that front, this is a promising start for what I hope will make the second half of the Year of the Hot Toddy a lot of fun. (In case you just arrived in these parts, I set myself the goal of watching a film featuring Thelma Todd every week of 2019, because I noticed my "To Be Watched" stack had somehow come to contain an abundance of them.)

One of the strengths of this film is that, although the strong and plentiful supporting cast gets to be just as funny as Kelly and Todd (with Eddie Baker as a traffic cop being foremost among them), the main characters remain at the center of the action instead of being crowded out of the story as happened in some of the films with Pitts and Todd. On the other hand, though, as much fun as her energetic performance was to watch, I found Patsy Kelly's character supremely annoying: She's aggressively stupid to the point where you can't help but wonder why anyone--let alone Todd's character who comes across as slightly aloof--would want to be anywhere near her. Kelly is literally the catalyst for everything that goes wrong for Todd in this picture, including taking her into a ticket and escalating a minor fender-bender into a multi-car accident and full-fledged traffic jam.

Ultimately, though, this film is a lot of fun. The dynamic between Todd's character and Kelly's character is very different than that between Todd and Pitts--it seems to me there was almost always a touch of the genteel in them that is completely absent here. Of course, when you have a stereotypical, short-tempered Fighting Irish(wo)man rampaging through the film, there isn't any room to be ladylike. I look forward to seeing how this team develops. (Although I will probably watch a few of the 10 or so Todd/Pitts shorts I've yet to see before I get back to this line-up.)

 "Beauty and the Bus" is one of 21 short films included in the Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly DVD collection.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: It's June!

June Clyde was born into a Vaudevillian family, and she made her stage debut at the age of 8 in 1917, singing and dancing her way into the hearts of audiences. She continued performing in shows and musicals throughout her child-  and young adulthood.

Having grown into an attractive and leggy blonde--not to mention a very talented dancer and songstress, Clyde signed a film contract with RKO in 1929. After a few modestly successful musicals, RKO chose not to renew Clyde's contract, and by 1932 she was on her own and competing for roles against a hoard of other pretty and talented blondes.

By the mid-1930s, Clyde had found a niche playing female leads in low-budget comedies and mysteries from Hollywood's Poverty Row Studios. She split her career between the screen and the stage, however , and through the late 1930s and into the 1950s, Clyde appeared in a variety of theatre productions in London's West End.

Clyde retired from acting in 1957 and moved to Florida with husband Thornton Freeland (himself a retired film director and writer). She passed away on October 1, 1987, at the age of 77.

'Little Giant' is a departure from A&C norm

Little Giant (1946)
Starring: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Jacqueline deWit, Elena Verdugo, George Cleveland, Mary Gordon, and Pierre Watkins
Director: William A. Seiter
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Kindhearted, but oh-so-dumb, Benny Miller (Costello) sets out to become a great salesman after completing a correspondence course.

"Little Giant" is very different than any of the dozen or so other films I've seen starring Abbott & Costello. Both headliners are, generally speaking, playing their usual characters (Abbott is sleazy and scheming, while Costello is guileless and honest to a fault), but with more intensity. They are also not allies against a common enemy; here, Abbott plays the part of a full-on villain, and the hapless Costello becomes one of his targets.

According to various commentators, this movie is a departure from the usual  Abbott & Costello model of including numerous Vaudeville-inspired routines either because the two stars wanted to do something different and stretch themselves, or because they were in the middle of an argument and they didn't speak except when on-set. Whatever the reason, there's a different vibe in the picture that extends well beyond the absence of the expected comedy routines. (There is still a single "traditional" routine in it, though.)

"Little Giant" sees Bud Abbott playing two different roles--a pair of identical cousins who are both sales mangers in the Hercules Vacuum Company. One is a crook who is skimming from the company and the other is a hard-working, honest man who wants to see his staff and company do as well as it can. Both have interactions with Costello's character, and each have a hand in his fate as a salesman to some degree. It's interesting to watch Abbott play an out-and-out bad guy with no redeeming qualities whatsoever--no matter how big a sleazebag he's been in other movies, at least he was a kinda-sorta a friend to Costello's character, even if it was an exploitive and abusive one. And, on the flipside, he also gets to play a nice, honorable character for once; the "good cousin" at Hercules Vaccum Company is a thoroughly professional manager who holds himself and his people to account and is one of the more likable characters in the film.

Meanwhile, Lou Costello is playing the typical babe-the-woods character, but without the usual bullying/guiding force of an Abbott-type character on his side, he comes across as even more hapless and hopeless than ever. I almost felt guilty laughing at his antics and pratfalls, and I felt deeply sorry for him when he became an object of mockery by his fellow sales associates. On the other hand, it was even more satisfying than ever before to watch him emerge victorious as a direct result of their mistreatment... and it was even more heartbreaking that ever to watch the villain get the upper-hand again and send poor Benny Miller slinking back to his hometown with his spirit completely broken. (In fact, One of the saddest scenes I've ever seen in a comedy happens toward the end of the film.)

Things look so dark toward the end of this film that when the happy ending does manifest, it felt a little forced. Although it follows perfectly logically from the events of the film (with the exception that one of the supporting characters must have grown a spine off-camera to bring it about), it still feels tacked on because of the emotional whiplash the audience is subjected to in the space of a few short minutes. Maybe if there had been some stronger hint of the trigger that sets everything onto a path toward a just end for the film's characters the ending would have felt a little more motivated; I can't really make up my mind on that count.

.All in all, though, this unusual Abbott & Costello film is well worth a viewing for those who enjoy their regular fair, as well as those who enjoy a well-made comedy. "Little Giant" is a fun story that's  performed by a talented cast. It's one of the eight movies included in The Best of Abbott & Costello Volume 2.