Wonderland Burlesque's Let's Go To The Movies: Face Time - Part V

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's Go To The Movies: 

Face Time

Part V

That look, that face...

It's all in the face. It can be read like a book. Or so these films would have us believe. 

And sometimes... that face is the face of danger and suspense!

The silver screen has been home to so many beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) faces, lighting up the dark, showing us the way, sharing celluloid dreams. It seems only fitting that we take them at their word and look a these films one face at a time.

Yes, these faces may belong to a bygone era, but in the movies?

A face lives forever.

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Baby Face Harrington

(1935)

Willie Harrington is a wimpy small-town bookkeeper at a bank. When he unwittingly gets involved with the country's toughest gangster and his gang, the police somehow believe he is the actual leader of the gang. His wife, Millie, in turn, files for divorce when she learns of his suspected-affiliation. Meanwhile, the police have an all-out manhunt looking for him, while he is being held against his will by the gangsters at their hideout.

This American crime comedy was directed by Raoul Walsh and stars Charles Butterworth, Una Merkel, Harvey Stephens, Eugene Pallette and Nat Pendleton.

Charles Butterworth's distinctive voice was the inspiration for the Cap'n Crunch commercials. Created at the Jay Ward studio, voice actor Daws Butler readily admits he based Cap'n Crunch on Butterworth's voice.

Una Merkel was born in Kentucky and acted on stage in New York in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1930 and became a popular film actress. Two of her best-known performances are in the films 42nd Street and Destry Rides Again. She won a Tony Award in 1956 for her role on Broadway in The Ponder Heart and was nominated for an Oscar in 1961 for her work in Summer And Smoke. 

 In 1945, Merkel was nearly killed when her mother Bessie, with whom she shared an apartment in New York City, died by suicide by gassing herself. Merkel was overcome by the five gas jets her mother had turned on in their kitchen and was found unconscious in her bedroom. In 1952, seven years almost to the day after her mother died, Merkel overdosed on sleeping pills. She was found unconscious by a nurse who was caring for her at the time and remained in a coma for a day before recovering.

 
Una Merkel

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Angels With Dirty Faces

(1938)

Boyhood friends Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connolly have taken different paths in life. After Rocky is arrested, he is sent to a juvenile facility and becomes a lifelong tough guy and criminal; meanwhile, Jerry goes straight and becomes a Catholic priest ministering to people in the same neighborhood where he and Rocky grew up. Rocky is released from prison, and he resumes his criminal lifestyle and becomes much admired by many of the local kids. Worried that the kids will follow Rocky into the criminal world, Jerry works hard to keep them on the straight and narrow. After Rocky is convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, Jerry asks him for one last favor.

This American crime drama was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft.

The story was written by Rowland Brown as a project for James Cagney at Grand National Pictures, the independent studio Cagney had signed with in 1936 after winning a breach-of-contract suit against Warner Bros. The original plan had been for Brown to write the full script and direct the film, but after Warners won back Cagney's contract on appeal, they bought Brown's story for Cagney but assigned John Wexley and Warren Duff to do the screenplay and Michael Curtiz to direct.

After James Cagney was offered the film, his agent was convinced that he would never agree to play the role of an "abject coward" being dragged to his execution. Cagney, however, was enthusiastic about the chance to play Rocky. He saw it as an opportunity to prove that he had a broad acting range that extended beyond tough guy roles.

To play Rocky, James Cagney drew on his memories of growing up in New York's Yorkville, a tough ethnic neighborhood on the upper east side, just south of Spanish Harlem. His main inspiration was a drug-addicted pimp who stood on a street corner all day hitching his trousers, twitching his neck, and repeating, "Whadda ya hear! Whadda ya say!" Those mannerisms came back to haunt Cagney. He later wrote in his autobiography, "I did those gestures maybe six times in the picture. That was over 30 years ago--and the impressionists have been doing me doing him ever since."

The Dead End Kids terrorized the set during shooting. They threw other actors off with their ad-libbing, and once cornered co-star Humphrey Bogart and stole his trousers. They didn't figure on James Cagney's street-bred toughness, however. The first time Leo Gorcey pulled an ad-lib on Cagney, the star stiff-armed the young actor right above the nose. His head went back and hit the kid behind him, stunning them both momentarily. Huntz Hall witnessed the incident and talked about it for many years afterwards. From then on the gang behaved.

Birds of a feather: this was the first of three movies James Cagney made with Humphrey Bogart, one of four films that both Humphrey Bogart and Pat O'Brien acted in, the fourth of six films in which both Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan appear in, the fourth of seven films that both Ann Sheridan and Pat O'Brien appeared in, the sixth of nine films that James Cagney and Pat O'Brien made together, and the third of seven movies featuring The Dead End Kids.

After meeting backstage in 1926, Pat O'Brien and Cagney became lifelong friends, remaining close until O'Brien's death in 1983.  

During a shooting scene, real bullets were fired and James Cagney was almost shot. Cagney had a bad feeling about the scene. He asked director Curtiz to run the scene without him in it first. A live bullet ricocheted off  the steel frame of a window and went right through the wall where Cagney's head would have been. This was the last time in his career Cagney accepted dealing with real bullets.

And speaking of bullets: much had been made of the six-shot revolver Cagney used in the film which in one scene had an unlimited number of bullets. From that point on, Cagney made sure that any gun he fired had only six bullets.

Because of the controversy over gangster films, the picture was banned outright in Denmark, China, Poland, Finland and parts of Canada and Switzerland.

The film grossed $1.7 million from the worldwide box office, and is said to have been a financial success. It has also been said that had it not been for this film and two others helmed by Michael Curtiz that same year, Warner Bros. would have gone bankrupt.

Angels with Dirty Faces was released on November 28, 1938, to overwhelmingly positive reviews. The New York Times, attended the world premiere in Nevada, and called the film a "savage melodrama" proclaiming it "Cagney at his best". The Harrison's Reports had similar views, calling the film a "powerful gangster melodrama," and said it is "one of the most thrilling pictures produced in some time." The "acting, particularly by James Cagney, is brilliant"

At the 11th Academy Awards, the film was nominated in three categories: Best Actor (Cagney), Best Director (Curtiz), and Best Story (Brown). It is considered to be one of the best films of all time, and is widely regarded as a defining moment in Cagney's career.

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Baby Face Morgan

(1942)

When gang chief Big Mike Morgan is killed, his lieutenant, "Doc" Rogers re-organizes the mob. Learning that Morgan has a son named Edward , living in the country with his mother, Rogers has him brought to the city, and installs him as the head of Acme Protective Agency, which is a cover for the gang's shakedown activities with local merchants. Edward thinks his father left him a legitimate business, and that he is running an actual insurance company. Rogers tells the gang members that 'Baby Face' Morgan is now in charge, is a cold-blooded killer and does not even want the gang members to know him. Joe Torelli, who thinks he should be the leader of the gang, is suspicious and grows more so after the protection collection money starts to roll in, and nobody sees the money after it is turned over to Rogers, who tells them that  Baby Face is handling the dough. Complications arise when Edward/Baby Face  meets Virginia Clark , head of a transportation company, who has had a truck wrecked when she wouldn't pay the protection money. Edward writes her an insurance policy and promptly pays off when a second truck is wrecked. This starts a rash of business to Acme, and as fast as the gang shakes down trucking companies and wrecks their trucks, Edward pays the merchants on their policies, and this puts a serious dent into the gang's cash flow. When Torelli learns that Edward is  Baby Face, he kidnaps Edward's sweetheart Virginia.

This American crime comedy thriller was directed by Arthur Dreifuss and stars Mary Carlisle and Richard Cromwell.

The film was a standout for PRC, doing quite well with audiences and at that box office. Producers Releasing Corporation (generally known as PRC) was the smallest and least prestigious of the 11 Hollywood film companies of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called "Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower Street in Hollywood where shoestring film producers based their operations.

In the book B Movies by Don Miller, he writes: "Most of the remainder of the 1942 PRC product dealt with gangsters, crime or whodunit puzzles, reliable standbys of the indie companies catering to action and grind theater houses. Baby Face Morgan played it for laughs, with Cromwell as a rube posing as a tough racketeer. Armstrong, Chick Chandler and Carlisle lent strong support, and while it never scaled any heights it was a passable spoof of the genre.

You can watch this film in its entirety for free on YouTube.

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Baby Face Nelson

(1957)

More vicious than Little Caesar! More savage than Scarface! More brutal than Dillinger! The  baby-faced butcher" who lined 'em up, chopped 'em down, and terrorized a nation! George "Babyface" Nelson became one of the most important gangsters of 1920s Chicago by making brutal robberies. In order to compete with Al Capone, he allied himself with John Dillinger.

This American crime film noir based on the real-life 1930s gangster was directed by Don Siegeland stars Mickey Rooney, Carolyn Jones, Cedric Hardwicke, and Leo Gordon.

Initially, the producers wanted to shoot this movie in Vistarama, and were planning to cast Frank Sinatra in the lead role. They also said they were interested in Montgomery Clift or Tony Curtis for the lead.

Don Siegel described Mickey Rooney as "one of the most difficult people I ever worked with". Rooney originally was entitled to 45% of the film's profits, but, being in severe financial trouble, he sold his percentage to someone else for a flat fee. The film, made cheaply, was hugely profitable, which annoyed Rooney to no end. However, other accounts say Rooney was offered a million dollars to buy out his interest in the film but he refused, confident it would be a success.

Shot in seventeen days. The film was made on a budget of just $175,000. At the end of the sixteenth day of filming, the producer told director Don Siegel that he would have to finish the film the following day, as the money would run out after that. Siegel executed no fewer than 55 separate set-ups the next day, enough to complete the film. He praised the cameraman, Hal Mohr, and described the experience as "horrendous".

Sir Cedric Hardwicke was paid a thousand dollars a day for a total of three days' work.

Producer AI Zimbalist wanted the film, which took place in the mid 1930s, to use cars manufactured in the forties. Director Don Siegel refused categorically.

The notorious 'Lady in Red', who lured John Dillinger to the theater where he was shot and killed by the F.B.I., was named Anna Sage. Before production of this movie started, it was not known if Sage was still alive. She had been deported to her native Romania shortly after the incident, and the producers didn't want to use her real name without her permission for fear of being sued if she were indeed alive. So they named her "Ann Saper", which was the maiden name of director Don Siegel's mother.

Los Angeles, California F.B.I. Bureau Chief John J. Malone served as a consultant throughout this movie's production. However, upon its release, the film was criticized by California Representative H. Allen Smith, who claimed that it contributed to juvenile delinquency. F.B.I. Chief J. Edgar Hoover also denounced the film as glorifying crime.

Critic Bosley Crowther panned the film writing, "Baby Face Nelson, heading the double bill on the Loew's circuit, is a thoroughly standard, pointless and even old-fashioned gangster picture, the kind that began going out along with the old-time sedans. As a matter of fact, one of the few absorbing sights in this United Artists release, starring Mickey Rooney, is a continual procession of vintage jaloppys, chugging in and out of the proceedings. The other distinction, also mild, is Sir Cedric Hardwicke's professional portrait of a seedy, lecherous and alcoholic physician who consorts with criminals." While the Los Angeles Times called it a "bitter bloody drama"

You can watch this film in its entirety for free on YouTube.

Carolyn Jones

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Double Face

(1969)

AKA: Das Gesicht im Dunkeln, A Doppia Faccia, Puzzle of Horrors

After a businessman's unfaithful wife is seemingly killed in a car accident, he is led by several unscrupulous characters to believe that she is actually alive.

This Geman thriller was directed by Riccardo Freda and stars Klaus Kinski, Christiane Krüger and Annabella Incontrera.

When casting the film, Freda met with Klaus Kinski in Rome where Kinski initially refused to be in the film not wanting to play another psychopathic character. Freda convinced him to take the role after learning he would play the part of a victim instead.

Freda and Kinski did not get along on set, with Freda referring to him as "the Crown Prince of Assholes". Freda eventually chose to shoot the film with a Kinski double he found on the set of a Federico Fellini film. When Kinski found out about this, he put aside his differences and continued working on the film in good faith.

The film was promoted as being based on Das Gesicht im Dunkeln by Edgar Wallace. This was done for commercial reasons even though the script had nothing to do with the book. Advertised in Germany as part of the famous Edgar Wallace Series, this film was such a huge flop that the producers at Rialto Film decided to delay any future plans to do further Wallace films. However, the series did resumed in 1971.

Film critic Marco Giusti wrote that Kinski "is mad, hysterical, but dominates the film". In addition, he was complimentary regarding the nice intrigue around Kinski's character, and praised the lesbian scenes.

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And that's all for now, folks!

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel.

Angels With Dirty Faces - Movie Trailer

(1938)

Baby Face Nelson - Movie Trailer

(1957)