Month: March 2014

Marx Brothers Madness in the Merry Month of May

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Hey friends — we’re on the planning committee for a very exciting series of events coming up in May of this year: Marxfest, a month-long celebration of all things Marx Brothers in the brothers’ hometown, NYC.

You can check out the calendar of events (more are to be added very shortly) at marxfest.com.

We’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to help cover expenses (this is not a for-profit endeavor), so please, view the video below and chip in if you can. Any amount is appreciated, but there are some very cool premiums available at various levels of support.

And by all means, please share this with every Marx Brothers fan (in other words, every right-thinking citizen of the world) you know!

365 Nights in Hollywood: The Twenty-Foot Kiss, Part 1

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Jimmy Starr began his career in Hollywood in the 1920s, writing the intertitles for silent shorts for producers such as Mack Sennett, the Christie Film Company, and Educational Films Corporation, among others. He also toiled as a gossip and film columnist for the Los Angeles Record in the 1920s and from 1930-1962 for the L.A. Herald-Express.
Starr was also a published author. In the 1940s, he penned a trio of mystery novels, the best known of which, The Corpse Came C.O.D., was made into a movie.
In 1926, Starr authored 365 Nights in Hollywood, a collection of short stories about Hollywood. It was published in a limited edition of 1000, each one signed and numbered by the author, by the David Graham Fischer Corporation, which seems to have been a very small (possibly even a vanity) press.
Here’s Part 1 of “The Twenty-Foot Kiss,” a not-so-short story from that 1926 collection.

THE TWENTY-FOOT KISS

 
 
“Seems sorta funny to see them playing together again, doesn’t it?” asked a slim girl, in the extras’ dressing room of the Peerless Pictures Studio.
“First time in five years,” said her companion, smearing on the pink make-up.
Then the conversation about Jewel Joseham, famous star, and Thomas Smythe, her former husband and leading man, ceased. The girls had other things more important to occupy their minds. It was eight-thirty and they had to be on the set, made up, at nine.
The grey room had three tiers of long benches and make-up tables, fastened to which were mirrors lined with blazing electric lights. That peculiar smell of grease paint and rice powder was pungently evident. There was the usual chatter of their past efforts and famous roles before clicking cameras.
In this room probably a dozen girls were skillfully applying the necessary cosmetics before they could present themselves to a grouchy, callous director and a battery of motion picture cameras.
In the room above, an exact copy of this one, the scuffle of feet could be heard. It wsa the men’s dressing room.
At nine o’clock a loud bell sounded. Then came the sudden scurrying of patent-leather and satin shod feet. Thirty couples of extras, to be used as atmosphere in a society scene were rushing to the entrance of the large enclosed stage.
They were greeted by the blue-green of the Cooper-Hewitt lamps, placed closely together about a large ballroom of a well appointed mansion. On the floor was the imitation hard-wood linoleum. This had been well oiled and gave back the reflection of the shining lights.
Prop men were busy placing expensive-looking chairs along the walls of the set. Electricians were swinging large overhead lights into place above. Camera boys were arranging the tripods for a long shot of the entire dance floor. A colored jazz orchestra was tuning up in a flower bedecked alcove. The extras grouped themselves among the heavy black cables which connected the Sun-Arcs with a portable switchboard. The drumming hum of the electric motors near the end of the stage only added to the already busy atmosphere.
The stage door slammed and a round little man in golf knickers and soft white shirt entered. His ruddy face held deep wrinkles, his small quick eyes peered through heavy shell-rim glasses, his hair was curly and black, but there was very little of it—nothing but a small patch on the back of his round head. As he walked toward his canvas chair near the camera tripod, the large stage became almost silent, and everyone stood as if awaiting his command—they were. He was George de Masson, the great director.
He glanced over his staff with the air of a man gazing at so many cattle. Then snorted contemptuously:
“Well, come on,” he growled. “Let’s get busy. What are we waiting for? Where’s Jewel and Smythe. Why the hell aren’t the lights in place? Have that floor polished in the center. Whoever heard of a dirty ballroom floor? Why wasn’t this attended to?”
George de Masson stopped when he was out of breath. He had asked a great many questions, but he expected no answers, and his staff knew better than to attempt to answer. A new member had been instantly discharged upon offering to answer the great director only the day before.
Again the stage was a scene of activity, while George de Masson consulted the script. Today’s work would finish the last scenes of a new Peerless feature. They had been six weeks on the story and the director was rushing things along. The company had five thousand dollars overhead expenses on scenes like this. It must not run over one day; there must be no retakes; and they must work fast. The president had impressed these facts on George de Masson’s mind the week before.
“Will someone be kind enough to find Jewel and Smythe for me?” The Great Director sighed wearily.

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A Month of Mary Astor

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Mary Astor was never the biggest of stars, but she was a venerable one and a darned good actress. The good folks at Turner Classic Movies are honoring her as their Star of the Month, devoting Wednesday nights (into Thursday mornings) throughout March to feature her impressive output.

And TCM has picked a worthy offering to begin their tribute: Dodsworth (1936), which airs at 8:00pm ET. Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton are the stars of this terrific picture, but Astor shines as “the other woman.” You can also catch one of Astor’s many silent pictures (her career dates to 1920) tonight at midnight: Don Juan (1926), in which she appears alongside such fellow luminaries as John Barrymore, Myrna Loy and even Hedda Hopper.

365 Nights in Hollywood: Bunk Boulevard

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Jimmy Starr began his career in Hollywood in the 1920s, writing the intertitles for silent shorts for producers such as Mack Sennett, the Christie Film Company, and Educational Films Corporation, among others. He also toiled as a gossip and film columnist for the Los Angeles Record in the 1920s and from 1930-1962 for the L.A. Herald-Express.
Starr was also a published author. In the 1940s, he penned a trio of mystery novels, the best known of which, The Corpse Came C.O.D., was made into a movie.
In 1926, Starr authored 365 Nights in Hollywood, a collection of short stories about Hollywood. It was published in a limited edition of 1000, each one signed and numbered by the author, by the David Graham Fischer Corporation, which seems to have been a very small (possibly even a vanity) press.
Here’s “Bunk Boulevard” from that 1926 collection.

BUNK BOULEVARD

 
 
Hollywood Boulevard. . . .
Late afternoon. Women shoppers with tiny beads of perspiration on once powdered noses. Magazines used as fans. Coatless men. Heat waves make a pale blue haze come from the black asphalt. Car tracks glisten in the sun.
Cahuenga Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard . . .
The Forty-second and Broadway of the movie village. A thin man, coatless,but with open vest, smelling of sweat, shouts from across the street:
“Joe, didja’ get me that gang for th’ night shot?”
“Yeh,” comes the hasty answer from someone in the movie crowd.
The thin man scuffs from sight around the corner.
The sun is tired. As it sinks a shadow remains. Shop owners crank up their awnings.
Seven giddy schoolgirls with books and papers make a sudden loud entrance into the drug store. There is a rush for the cosmetic and soda counter. Some believe in interior decorating first.
Four tall glasses with syrup concoctions slide along the marble counter.
One with pimples on her forehead sucks hard on the chocolate in the bottom of the glass.
A rosy-cheeked youth enters in striped flannels.
Five pairs of sparkling eyes greet him.
His cheeks become redder and his chest swells a bit—and probably his head. He has no hat for a test.
There are muffled giggles, and the girl with the prominent teeth lisps something.
A fat lady with a rabbit neck-piece fanning herself with a theatre program has difficulty in getting on the high soda stool.
More giggles.
The youth pays the cashier for a stick of pink make-up.
A man with checkered pants and gaudy shirt calls for a “cherry-coke.”
There is almost a cool breeze outside.
A flivver truck with steaming radiator skids around the corner. The driver dumps out stacks of green evening papers.
Instantly familiar newsboy shouts pierce the hot silence.
A long, heavy under-slung street car rumbles to the corner and stops, discharging groups of high school students.
The screaming brakes on a taxi cab, the sound of sliding rubber on warm pavement, a tiny girlish squeak, a muffled scream of the fat lady and he hoarse cry of the crippled newsboy.
A crowd collects from nowhere. Girls shut their eyes—afraid to look.

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