Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Born Today October 24: Ben Landeck
Ben Landeck
1864-1928
British playwright Benjamin Landeck was born on this day in London. Almost nothing is known about his life (a Google book search turns up a few indexes that list a few of his plays in both the UK and the US--that is it). He did start writing plays in the 19th century and his plays ran in both London and New York. Several of his plays had runs on Broadway, yet not even their database lists information on him beyond run times. His plays were certainly popular enough to be used for film scenarios starting in 1908 with Saved From The Sea. As has been previously mentioned, the play was written with the equally obscure English writer Arthur Shirley (I) (not to be confused with the Australian Arthur Shirley (II)). In fact, he and Shirley were writing partners and a great number of films made from Landeck's writing were also co-penned by Shirley. Though, Landeck did write plays and stories on his own and several films using these works were also produced. In all, 13 films have been produced using his writing as source material; all of them in the silent era; and nearly all of them productions in the United Kingdom (The Model from 1915 was a World Film production). The last film using his (and Shirley's) work came in 1928, the year of his death, with What Money Can Buy. Landeck died in London at the age of 63 on the 6th of January. As with all the other unknown aspects of this writer's life, his burial or interment are not known.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Born Today (Not So Silent Edition) October 23: Una O'Connor
1880-1959
Character actor and funny lady Una O'Connor was born Agnes Teresa McGlade on this day in Belfast, Ireland (when all of Ireland was still under the Kingdom rule; now Belfast is obviously in Northern Ireland). Her intended vocation was teaching, and as such, she enrolled in the South Kensington School of Art in London, after having been schooled, when younger, in both Belfast and Catholic convent schools in Paris. Before she could take up teaching, she decided to enroll in the Abbey School of Acting which was affiliated with the Abbey Theater in Dublin (now the National Theater). Having gotten a taste for acting, she changed her name and went to work in productions at The Abbey. She made her stage debut in 1911 in a Shaw play that ran Dublin and New York. By 1913, she was acting in London. Her years in the theater is where she picked up the knack for acting in a very comedic fashion in roles such as servants and waitresses, this would be her calling card as a character actor in films. She acted on the stage all through out the 1920's both in London and on Broadway, when she was finally cast in a motion picture in 1929. She is Mrs. Weeks in early British sound drama Dark Red Roses, a Sinclair Hill directed affair (the film reached the US in March of 1930). Her next role was in Hitchcock's 1930 mystery crime thriller Murder. Of course, what O'Connor is best remembered for are her wacky roles in Universal horror films of the 1930's. She first appeared in The Invisible Man (1933), and might well have stolen the show if were not for the eccentricity of Claude Rains' performance Dr. Jack Griffin. She then showed up two years later in James Whale's followup to his Frankenstein, as the hysterical and hilarious Minnie (a very loud villager!). Her on screen acting career would span the rest of her life. She appeared in a number of well known films in the 1930's and 1940's (The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938, The Canterville Ghost 1944, and Christmas In Connecticut 1945 just to name a few). She made her formal television debut in 1950 in an episode of The Chevrolet Tele-Theater (though she has a appeared in two very early made for television films in 1938). Her last role came in Billy Wilder's Witness For The Prosecution in 1957. She passed away two years later from a heart complaint in New York City on the 4th of February; she was 78 years old. She is buried at New York's Calvary Cemetery under both her birth name and her stage name.
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Sunday, October 22, 2017
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Born Today October 21: Edna Purviance
1895-1958
Actress of the silent era, Olga Edna Purviance, who went by Edna as a performer, was born on this day in Paradise, Nevada. At the time of her birth, her father was a wine supplier to local mines. When she was three, her parents purchased a hotel in Lovelock, Nevada, but her parents soon divorced and her mother remarried. Growing up, she learned piano and was quite talented on the instrument. In 1913, she moved in with her older married sister in San Francisco and started attending business college there. It just so happened, that at the age of 15, just after she started working as a secretary, she was noticed at a local cafe by an associate of Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was working on his film A Night Out (1915) not far from the city, and was in need of a leading lady for the film. He arranged a meeting with her, and despite some reservations, he cast her in the role of the Headwaiter's Wife anyway. The two became romantically involved and she was his muse, so to speak, for the next two years, and became a lifelong member of his greater orbit. She starred in quite a large number of his classic work at Essanay studios and went with him when he gradually started work in his own line of production; in this capacity, she was featured a great number of his non-Essanay classics--these included works at Mutual and National. The films included the likes of The Vagabond (1916), Easy Street (1917) The Immigrant (1917) and The Adventurer (1917) just to name a few. In all she appeared in more than 30 Chaplin films, even films such as The Kid in 1921 after their romance was over. She was the star of Chaplin's A Woman Of Paris: A Drama of Fate in 1923. The film, however was what we call the perverbial flop, and this went a long way in ending her popularity as an actress. She was seen as being so closely associated with Chaplin that studios made the assumption that the public would not accept her as a star on her own. After Woman Of Paris, she would appear in just two more major films in her acting career: A Woman Of The Sea aka The Sea Gull; a Chaplin production that was directed by Josef von Sternberg and never released (the film is now presumed lost) was made in 1926. Her last major film appearance during her active career was Education Of A Prince in 1927; the film was really her only starring role outside of the Chaplin production universe. She then retired and in 1938 married a professional commercial pilot (though they never had any children). She did appear in two uncredited roles much later on--both of the films were Chaplin films. Her role as Mrs. Parker his 1952 Limelight being her last time in front of the camera. Purviance died from throat cancer on either the 11th or 13th of January in the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Hollywood. She was interred at Grand View Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.
Friday, October 20, 2017
Released On This Day In 1928--October 20th
THE TERROR (Sound Version) [This is a lost film]
The Silent Version was released earlier in the year on September 6th
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Born Today October 17: Jean Arthur
1900-1991
Movie star actress known for her zany comedy Jean Arthur was born on this date as Gladys Georgianna Greene in Plattsburgh, New York. Her father was known to have worked in the photography industry; he was employed in at least one studio in Maine. The family moved around a lot, as a result she lived in a wide ranging number of places along the eastern seaboard. The family finally settled in a neighborhood in upper Manhattan where she attended high school, but she dropped out due to family issues before graduation. The need for her to find work found her gaining employment as a stenographer, where she worked through the first World War and into the 1920's. While also working in stenography, her good looks also lead her into modeling. It was in this capacity that she was "discovered" by Fox Studio. This landed her a standard one year contract with them and she debuted in Cameo Kirby in 1923. The film was directed by John Ford and starred John Gilbert. Her film career was off and she worked on a large number of films in the 1920's, though her introduction to Hollywood in the late silent era was not a good experience as she later recalled. She reportedly took her stage name from Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) and King Arthur; whether this is true or not has never been proven given that Arthur was one of the most private actresses in Hollywood. When talking about her career in 1928, she considered it largely a failure, this despite that she had acted in more than 2 dozen films by that time, most them in named roles in feature length pictures. It is true, that she was one of the "faces" taken in by the studio to "tool" into what they wanted her to be, rather than her being a stage actress getting into film acting by way of real performance experience. Fox intended her to be a "flapper type" (see Wine Of Youth (1924)). This lack of experience soon came not only to the attention of directors, but to Arthur herself. She wanted to leave Hollywood, but was still under contract, therefore she decided to stay and not attempt to break the deal. She also decided to take the step trying to promote herself around this time, but she claimed it failed. What did not fail was her going to the lot of Action Pictures, where owner Lester F. Scott decided to hire her for action western shorts for $25 a picture. Working conditions could be brutal, since the vast majority of these were shot on location in desert conditions outside of Los Angeles. She toiled in these films for two years, only occasionally making an independent film or two along the way (she also had an uncredited role in a 1925 Buster Keaton film Seven Chances) By 1927 she was starting to get noticed for her acting chops and not for "just another pretty face" status that she started out with. The first time that she was cast specifically as a real actress was in The Poor Nut in 1927, against studio wishes. The film was a critical failure, and one that singled her and fellow actress and singer Jane Winton. This was a deep wound to heal, she had worked hard on her film career and improving her acting skills. As it turned out, she had real acting talents--and she had it in spades--for comedic work. She continued to appear in films, but was growing disillusioned with the line of work. Arthur was rather fed up and incredulous by the time she was given a role in Paramount Famous Players Warming Up (1928). It was billed as the studios first sound film and starred Richard Dix; in truth it is what we now recognize as a partial sound film; and her role was a small one. But it earned her some very hard won recognition (she had already appeared in one other Dix film in 1928, the all silent Easy Come, Easy Go). This earned a contract with the studio for 3 years, bringing her $150 a week. The first film that she appeared in with talking sequences was Brotherly Love also in 1928. Arthur, though was very reluctant to appear in speaking roles and was not at all sure that sound film that required on-camera speaking was going to last (not an uncommon belief at the time). When it became obvious that talking films were going to go away with silent film acting altogether, Arthur met with an sound coach. The first all sound film that appeared in was The Canary Murder Case in 1929. She appeared in just one more silent film--Stairs Of Sand--also in 1929, but the full talky was here to stay. It is ironic is that it is her voice that most people think of when thinking about Jean Arthur the actress. She might be one of the rare, rare cases were the coming a full sound in film actually made her career. She also made her Broadway debut in the early 1930, an experience that helped her diction and sound projection immensely. Not that success came easy to her the late 1920's--she continued to struggle and so show a lot of personal perseverance. She is now known for being one the most important comic geniuses of 20th century cinema. She would credit her time on the stage as being the moment when she found herself and her own voice, learned the ropes and understood really for the first time, that there is an audience. She, rightly, stated that the stage was a polar opposite of Hollywood in all these regards. After spending several stints on Broadway, she returned to film acting with a new sense of how to approach it. She wound up under the direction of John Ford again, 12 years after making her film debut in one of his films. The film was The Whole Town's Talking with Edward G. Robinson. If you look at her film roster they include very, very well known classics, among them Mr. Deed's Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Devil And Miss Jones and Two Many Husbands (just to name a few). Her last big budget film was a decidedly non-comedic role in the classic Shane in 1953. She then began to suffer from some type of anxiety disorder, which included stage fright, so she retired from acting. She came out of retirement in 1965 to make her television debut on Gunsmoke. She was then given her own show The Jean Arthur Show in 1966, which lasted for just one season. This would be her last time acting in front of a camera. She was persuaded in 1967 to return to Broadway, but this proved disastrous for the production because her nemesis stage fright reared it's head again. She then took teaching drama at two different colleges. She was again coaxed back into stage acting, but again, her anxiety issues won out--she then retired for good. She was very reclusive in her private life and refused to give any interviews. She lived quietly until her death in Carmel CA from heart failure at the age of 90 on the 19th of June. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered off the coast of Point Lobos.
IMDb
Wikipedia
Find A Grave
Released 114 Years Ago
Méliès film La Chaudron Infernal or The Infernal Boiling Pot was released 114 years ago today. It is now considered one of the earliest horror films, made by the man who is credited with making the very first horror film back in the 1890's. Happy Early Halloween!
Monday, October 16, 2017
Born Today October 16: Harry Rapf
1882-1949
Producer, studio executive and promoter Harry Rapf was born on this day in New York City. He started out in vaudeville, working to put together traveling acts and promoting them. He first got his start in the film industry in 1917 as an early example of what became known as a "presenter." His first presentation was (as far as anyone knows) The Argyle Case. The film was also partially produced by his own company, Harry Rapf Productions, and was directed by Ralph Ince. The first film for which he receives a direct producer credit for (though he should had one all along with any film his production company was involved in getting made) was To-Day in 1917. He quickly became one of the most important inside movers and shakers in the budding Hollywood studio system, but quietly and practically. He was one of the first top executives in the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1924 on. He was a personal favorite of Louis B. Mayer; and was a much lower profile executive than a Irving Thalberg. He created the comic duo (one that most have never heard of) of Dane & Arthur in the late 1920's and he was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). He also managed to help steer productions through very, very hard times in the 1930's during the depression. He would continue to produce films right up until his death, in fact. In 1929, he was a heavy producer and promoter of films featuring full sound and early technicolor two color process. The last silent film that he produced with the Norma Shearer After Midnight in 1927. All of the films he produced in 1929 had either the color process and full or partial sound--most has both, including the once missing and recovered short Manhattan Serenade. His The Broadway Melody was nominated for 3 Oscar awards (the brand new award given by the Academy he helped found) and won Best Picture. In the 1930's, he produced in nearly all genres. For example, he was a producer on Tod Browning controversial 1932 film Freaks, albeit as a "stealth producer." By the 1940's, his production work slowed considerably; by the mid 1940's he wasn't producing at all. He had suffered a near fatal heart attack in 1939 which was responsible for the slow down. He produced just one film in 1946. His final film production was the Van Johnson film Scene Of The Crime 1949, the film was released after his death. Rapf passed away from another heart attack on the 6th of February in Los Angeles. He is interred Home of Peace Memorial Park in East Los Angeles. Rapf was the father of producer Matthew Rapf and writer Maurice Rapf.
Silent Halloween
Gary Cooper and Fay Wray at Halloween costume party in 1931 (they both got their starts in the silent industry)
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