Movie Time: "Varsity Show" (1937)

Another movie of the older variety I just watched is "Varsity Show" from Warner Brothers in 1937.

I'm kinda fascinated by the college musical genre that was popular during the 1930s, things like "College Humor" (1933), "Pigskin Parade" (1936), "College Swing" (1938), etc.

"Varsity Show" is another in that line and it's enjoyable if you like that sort of thing, but it has a few things of interest to separate it from the pack a bit.

The star is Dick Powell, who plays an alumnus of the fictional Winfield College who's now a Broadway producer and is called upon current students to help them with the... Varsity Show!

Dick Powell was about 32 when the movie was filmed and he was youthful looking, but I think it was smart not to cast him as a current college student, which would have been the case just a couple of years earlier.

He's totally convincing in this movie and I can't imagine that anyone in 1937 would have thought that he'd be a hard-boiled, film noir type actor within a decade!

Powell's sidekick in "Varsity Show" is Ted Healy, who's best (only?) remembered these days as the star comedian to whom the Three Stooges were the stooges. He seems to be largely dismissed as a footnote of entertainment history, but was actually a talented comedian who could toss off a cynical one liner with the best of them. 

Second-billed to Dick Powell, though, was bandleader Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Waring plays a music professor at the college and is pretty good for a non-actor, as those things go.

Members of the Pennsylvanians aggregation appear as students at the college and that's where things really get interesting...

Rosemary (above right) and Priscilla Lane had been featured singers with Fred Waring and came to Hollywood to make this movie. They have featured parts and do quite well, which led to each appearing in several subsequent movies for Warner Brothers, including the "Four Daughters" series with older sister Lola Lane and not-actual-sister Gale Page.

Of all the main players, Priscilla seems the most age-appropriate to play a college student and she was about 21-22 at the time. She's adorable!

Rosemary was a little older, so she got to be Dick Powell's romantic interest!

The other member of the Pennsylvanians to get a contract from Warner Brothers was Johnny "Scat" Davis, who's kind of a bizarre 1930s caricature of a singing, trumpet-playing swing musician. You can see him as the rather square Fred Waring's concession to the swing movement. Everything about Davis is exaggerated but he's sure enthusiastic!

Fred Waring always seemed to have a lot of siblings in his group, including his own brother Tom, and in additional to the Lane Sisters, he also featured the McFarland Twins who were both saxophone players.

They both appear in "Varsity Show," but only George (and not Arthur) is credited for some reason. They have the look of 1930s college students!

The McFarlands later had their own band, and the idea of identical twin bandleaders is fun!

A longtime member of the Fred Waring band was drummer Poley McClintock, who also supplied a wacky Popeye-type voice. He was too old in 1937 to be a college student, so they explained it away by Dick Powell's character remarking that Poley was junior when he (Powell) was a freshman. Apparently Poley could never pass Latin!

Left to right: Carole Landis, Sterling Holloway, Priscilla Lane, Lee Dixon, Rosemary Lane, Dick Powell, Mabel Todd, Ted Healy.

The other main students are played by non-Waring actors Sterling Holloway, Mabel Todd and Lee Dixon, who vaguely seem college-age.

A then 18 year old Carole Landis also pops up, dancing with Holloway (of all people!) in the finale.

The outstanding dance team Buck & Bubbles appear in the stereotypical role of janitors, but they get to show off their skills a couple of times. John Bubbles in particular is brilliant!

So, I think the cast is interesting, but that may not even be the most interesting thing about the movie.

The tantalizing thing is that "Varsity Show" was originally about 120 minutes when released in 1937. Then it was re-released in the 1940s, but cut by about 40 minutes. But no one knows what happened to those 40 minutes and the only known print available is a mere 80 minutes!

So, what was cut? I'm guessing a lot of musical numbers, as some songs that were listed in the credits do not appear in this print and others seem to be reprised during the finale, but had probably been featured earlier in the film.

What makes me wonder the most, though, is why (as mentioned) George McFarland is credited (as "Hap") and Arthur is not. Was there a cut scene in which George had more dialogue or something and someone actually called him Hap?

Note: this George McFarland is definitely not George "Spanky" McFarland of "Our Gang" fame, so don't worry that somehow "Varsity Show" featured a lost Spanky appearance!

Does anyone care enough about "Varsity Show" these days to track down and release a complete print? We can only hope!

What's left is fun, though, if you like that sort of thing or any of the featured players.

The finale was staged by Busby Berkeley and includes a fun salute to other actual colleges:

Of course, the spectacle could never fit on an actual theater stage, but that's also part of the fun!

Bonus 78 - "Babe" (1948)!

Still in 1948 but back to Babe Ruth, here's the song "Babe" as recorded by the Ferko String Band on Palda Records:

Pretty fun!

The song was published in 1947, which was the same year as the famous Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium but I'm not sure if the song has a direct tie-in.

This might also be the only recording of the song, as it wouldn't see to be likely material for the big record labels to get in on.

For the flipside, the Ferko String Band kept the baseball theme going with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game":

I love "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," but this version doesn't grab me. I don't know of it's just this arrangement or if the song isn't suited to the whole Mummers type thing.

"Jingle Bells" worked for them, though!

"Cash Box" gave the record a really good review in its May 15, 1948 issue:

It's not that good, is it?

Bonus Bendix!

For more 1948 William Bendix baseball-themed old time radio, here's an episode of "The Life of Riley" from May 1, 1948:

Lots of fun!

More "The Babe Ruth Story"

On the subject of 1948's "The Babe Ruth Story," here's William Bendix starring in a radio adaptation of the movie on "The Screen Guild Players" broadcast of October 1, 1948:

That's a lot of fun! Probably better than the movie!

 And I know I'm always saying that you have to enjoy things in their proper historical context, but over the top cigarette commercials do make me shake my head!

And, besides, didn't Bendix smoke Chesterfields rather than camels?

Movie Time: "The Babe Ruth Story" (1948)

For older movies, we left off with "The Story of Mankind," known as a flop and baseball movies with the biography "The Pride of the Yankees."

Bringing both of these themes together, we hit on 1948's "The Babe Ruth Story" starring William Bendix as the great slugger.

Now, I'm not going to say it's a good movie, but I think it's better than its reputation, mainly because it's misunderstood.

A "problem" I see with most movies that old is that modern audiences try to view it through a modern lens, which doesn't always work. 

A 1940s biography of a beloved public feature is not going to show the subject in a negative light, especially if it's made with the cooperation of the subject (who was gravely ill at the time).

Babe Ruth had plenty of issues, but other than him acting like a big kid, you won't see any of them here.

And, hey, was Lou Gehrig as perfect as he was portrayed in "The Pride of the Yankees" anyway?

Sports movies also sometimes have a double whammy in that baseball fans might watch a movie like this but very few, if any, other movies from the 1940s, so they really have no context.

I also come across modern audiences slamming "The Babe Ruth Story" for the casting of William Bendix, based solely on him (a few years later) starring in "The Life of Riley" TV series, oblivious to the fact that he was a versatile Academy Award nominated actor who happened also to be good at comedy.

It's cute and convenient to say it's an insult to the Babe to have him played by a sitcom actor, but in 1948 he was a film actor who had a side hustle on a popular radio show.

I actually think Bill Bendix does a good job with what he's given to work with and I felt like I was watching Babe Ruth at times.

Claire Trevor is good as Babe's wife (really his second, but the movies ignores his first!) and Charles Bickford provides some much needed gravitas as Brother Matthias, Babe's mentor.

The problem with the movie is really the script, which is pure hagiography (to dig out a fifty cent word!).

The trailer tells you about all you need to know:

So, it's not a good movie on the whole, but it's not the worst thing ever and if you're a fan of baseball, old movies and/or Bill Bendix, it's a fun watch.

But "Kill the Umpire" is way better!

 

Movie Time: "The Story of Mankind" (1957)

I had mentioned when discussing "The Big Store" (1940) that it was not the Marx Brothers' last movie, but they only made a couple after that.

The last movie that all three of the core brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo) appear in is the 1957 oddity "The Story of Mankind."

I'm a huge Marx Brothers fan, but had never seen "The Story of Mankind" before it popped up on TCM recently.

I wasn't avoiding the movie, but I never sought it out, as I knew that the brothers only made brief appearances and did not work together at all. And the movie has a really bad reputation!

But in this day and age of being able to watch something by hitting a couple of buttons on a service you're already paying for, what can you lose?

Well, I lost about 100 minutes of my life that I can't get back, but I can now say I've seen every Marx Brothers movie, so I came out ahead.

"The Story of Mankind" is pretty bad, though, and deserves it's reputation a bomb. There are worse movies to be sure, but this is the type that has a lot of talent involved and some sort of ambition, but is just a mess.

I'll point out that I'm not a "hate watcher" in that I don't revel in the badness of things, but I can see those who do pursue such activities having a field day with this one!

The basic premise of having Ronald Colman (in his last movie role) as "The Spirit of Man" vs. Vincent Price as "Mr. Scratch" at a celestial tribunal headed by Cedric Hardwick is actually solid, but the snippets of history each side uses are questionable at best!

So, how do the Marx Brothers fit in and how do they fare?

That's Groucho's wife, Eden Hartford, and she's stunning!

Well, Groucho portrays Peter Minuit, the Dutch colonial governor known for purchasing Manhattan for some trinkets. That's an odd choice by Mr. Scratch to illustrate that mankind is evil, but whatever.

Groucho is funny (How can he not be?) and gets off some snappy anachronistic one-liners, but it's odd.

Harpo is Sir Isaac Newton who is hit on the head by the apple while playing the harp (Newton is playing the harp, not the apple!). Harpo is also amusing as he gets to make some fun facial reactions.

That's another odd choice, this one by the Spirit to illustrate the merits of mankind. What's strange, though, is that the Spirit says something like the story may be true or not. But they're going back through time to witness actual historical events, so wouldn't that apple business have actually happened within the context of the movie?

In any event, Chico is wasted in the role of a monk to whom Christopher Columbus explains his theory about the world being round. I guess that's because part of Chico's shtick was the exaggerated Italian accent, but they don't give him any funny dialogue at all. He just says, "Could be" a few times.

They could have had Chico portray a classical composer and had him play the piano or something else to show off his talents.

So, the bottom line is that "The Story of Mankind" should be seen by Marx Brothers completists and can be "enjoyed" by bad movie buffs.

Everyone else should stay away! 

1940s Christmas Playlist Housekeeping - Part 3!

The biggest leftover from my 1940s Christmas Playlist is getting to listen to Jimmy Atkins's recording of Vaughn Horton's "An Old Christmas Card."

I'm still waiting, but as I continue to search for it, I do come across the occasional interesting thing.

For example, here he is as Jim Atkins with the Pinetoppers on Coral Records in 1953:

I'm partial to songs with "Johnny" in the title and that's a very snappy version of the song!

The writer of "Juke Joint Johnny," Lattie Moore, had first recorded the song on the small Speed label in 1953:

That's really cool!

I see that record described as Rockabilly fairly often, sometimes even said to be the first Rockabilly record ever!

I don't think it's really Rockabilly, though. I'd say it's more Hillbilly Boogie, but it's certainly close to Rockabilly and shows how one branch of Country music was heading that way.

I was first familiar with "Juke Joint Johnny" from Red Sovine's 1957 recording on Decca:

That record is also often categorized as Rockabilly, but I don't think it quite is, despite the hot guitar from ace session player Grady Martin.

I mostly remember Red Sovine from a tacky late-1970s TV commercial for a compilation of his hits - which seemed to be mostly maudlin truck-driving songs - in the wake of the infamous Slim Whitman commercial!

Good to know Red had some pep 20-ish years before!

The song finally crossed over into more solid Rockabilly territory (although the label says it's country and western) when Lattie Moore changed the title (but not the rest of the lyrics) to "Juke Box Johnnie" and recorded it in 1956 for ARC, another small label:

Juke box definitely sounds more 1950s than juke joint, but I've never liked the "ie" spelling of Johnny!

Getting back to juke joints, interestingly enough, Vaughn Horton co-wrote a song called "Juke Joint Mama with singer Denver Darling who recorded the song for Decca in 1945:

Sounds good!

Then Jimmy Swan recorded a version in 1952 for the small Trumpet label:

Solid honky tonk that no one should say is Rockabilly!

So, all of this is based on the premise that Jimmy Atkins is also Jim Atkins. And he might be the older half-brother of guitar great Chet Atkins after all - but I have no solid evidence.

That's another rabbit hole for another day!