October 20: One Glorious Day (1922)

 

One Glorious Day is a lost Paramount production directed by James Cruze starring Will Rogers and released in early 1922.  Judging from the surviving materials, it was probably quite the strange little comedy. Frankly most of the stills show that the "spirit" Ek, an entity featured in the film only briefly in his original form, look far scarier than the film likely intended, this was a comedy after all. 

Rogers plays Professor Ezra Botts a scientist, who dabbles in psychic experiments. Ek is a mischievous little spirit who is waiting his turn for a body to inhabit (is this a story of reincarnation??), but sneaks off to the earthly plane to find a vessel for himself. In other words, he skips the queue. Owed to his experiments, professor Botts makes himself vulnerable to "inhabitation" and Ek takes advantage of this. In the meantime, Botts' actual spirit finds itself wandering the astral plane, disembodied and confused. He must wait until the little spirit Ek has enough of it's antics in Botts' body and leaves, to re-inhabit his own body. Apparently all kinds of physical comedy ensues. From the descriptions that survive of the film, it sounds like a cross between the drunken nightmare in Dream of a Rarebit Fiend in Edwin S. Porter film from 1906 and a slapstick comedy from the 1910's such as one finds in an Arbuckle/St. John/Keaton film.

And, in fact, the film was actually intended to be a vehicle for Roscoe Arbuckle; Will Rogers only took his place as the protagonist after the Virginia Rappe scandal broke early in the film's production.  Arbuckle had been the main creative force behind the project; he had contributed the lion's share of the film's concept. The rest of the cast was little changed and included Lila Lee as the love interest, and Alan Hale Sr. Child actor John Fox was mocked up as Ek, who I am sure was thought to be silly by the make-up crew...but, really, come on, it comes off quite creepy today! Even by the standards of the day, Ek made an impression; and for a lost film, the image is pretty famous, making regular rounds on the social media sites every year around Halloween.  Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine founder Forrest J. Ackerman, who is a GIANT in the science fiction (and horror) community, and is credited the coining "Sci-Fi" as a phrase, claimed that this was the film that sparked is life long love of both the science fiction and horror/monster genres. Some sources have it as the first film that he actually ever saw as a child. 

Suviving photo from the set of the film (wikimedia commons)

As far as what the film might have been up to in regards to the supernatural, one of it's working titles, Souls Before Birth, gives a hint that Ek is indeed some sort of "pre-born" or even reiencarnated spirit. His incarnating within the body of the professor (taking temporary possession of) also seems to be a kind of precursor to "possession" films that we all so familiar with today; the most famous of which remains The Exorcist. 

Below are a couple of lobby cards from the film.

[Images in public domain, from Wikimedia and IMDb film photos]

Born Today August 17: Samuel Goldwyn

1879-1974

For fans of film history and those who even casually watch silent films, Samuel Goldwyn needs no introduction! Goldwyn is the G in MGM. Born Shmuel (Schmuel) Gelfisz on this day in Warsaw, Poland when it was still a part of the Russian Empire (the year of his birth has been a matter up for question for decades--but for our purposes, 1879 will do). He grew up in a Hasidic household; he was the eldest child and his father was a struggling furniture dealer (mostly of second hand goods). After his father's untimely death--and the weight of the family fell to his young shoulders, he fled to Hamburg, Germany. The greater family had relatives living in the UK (England) and Shumel had plans to make his way to them. In the meantime, he trained as an apprentice to a local glove maker. Eventually saving up enough funds to make his way to his relatives in Birmingham, England--it was his relations there who changed his name to "Samuel Goldfish"--in part to disguise his origins. He didn't remain with them for long, before getting money (reportedly by any means necessary) to sail to the North American continent. He sailed out of Liverpool either for Canada or the east coast of the U.S. (probably the former) on the 4 of January 1899 (accounts of Goldwyn's time with his relatives in England vary--some having him in the country as early as 1895--though the later date of 1898 appears correct).  Goldwyn (Goldfish) arrived either in Canada or the US a couple of weeks later and was in Philadelphia by the 19th of the month. He then made his way into the upstate New York garment industry located around Glovesville (it was called that for a good reason, as it was the "capital" of glove-making in the U.S. at the time).  It turned out that Samuel had prodigious talents has a salesman and marketer. It did not take him long to rise in the company. He eventually was named vice-president of the Elite Glove Company, and after spending nearly five years in that position in upstate, his money allowed him to relocate to New York City. There is NO mystery as to how Goldfish made it into motion pictures. In 1910, he had wed one Blanche Lasky, who was the sister of...you guessed it....Jesse Lasky. Lasky had long been involved in performance, he had gone from being a popular vaudeville performer to successful Broadway producer, meeting the DeMille's along the way--it was only natural for Lasky and Cecil B. De Mille to want to venture into films....but they needed a capital investment--hence the involvement of his brother-in-law--the newly rich Samuel Goldfish (mind you, there are plenty of stories that have Samuel pressuring the two stage producers into films--either way, the rest is history).  The new company that was set up was The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.  Goldfish was involved in the film business years before any official credit came to his name. The ground breaking and history making film The Squaw Man, which lays serious claim to being the first feature length film made in Hollywood was the company's out of the gate picture--it was co-directed by De Mille and Oscar Apfel (another founder at Lasky Feature Play).  

Promotional put together by Samuel, bearing his original Anglicizied name and his titles at Lasky.

Way, way back in the day, the company that we now know as "Paramount" was in it's earliest days a fledgling distribution company--it was initially a exhibition house involved in nickelodeons, that got into film exchanges (or brokering) between companies. Ever the businessman and from rags to riches European immigrant himself, Adolph Zukor, had been in a film distribution deal with the company for some time. In June of 1914 Lasky also penned an agreement with with Paramount. As essentially the only production houses providing films to Paramount, it was only a matter time before the two companies merged. This occurred two years later in June, thus creating one the biggest actual film studios to thus far exist (it was more than likely this merger that put the nail in the coffin of the Edison film production house, which closed it's film making facilities for good in 1918). The company was Famous Players-Lasky, but Zukor, in a basically dirty tricks move had also been secretly purchasing stock in Paramount--he pulled a coup just before the merger of Player and Lasky. Ousting everyone at Paramount and replacing them with his own people, and putting the Lasky people in charge of the newly merged entity, it was also only a matter of time before tensions flared. Cutting a very long story a little short, this lead to Goldfish forming his own company and producing his own films. Again returning to Broadway to find capable producers and directors, he convinced the famous Selwyn brothers to come in with him forming Goldwyn Pictures. It was not long thereafter that Goldfish legally changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn (stuff of legends now, I suppose). Absolutely the most famous thing that Goldwyn Pictures introduced was is logo/marketing mascot "Leo the Lion."  One the production houses first films as Polly of the Circus in 1917; a Mae Marsh film, of which the newly "minted" Goldwyn was the executive producer.     

  

 

Between 1917 and 1924, he racked up the vast majority of his direct production credits, with roughly the other 1/4 or 1/3 coming with his new independent company established in 1924. During the company's existence, a sampling of directors who worked for them include George Fitzmaurice, Tod Browning, George Loane Tucker, Wallace Worsley, Albert Parker, Allan Dwan and western specialist Clarence G. Badger. In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures was acquired Marcus Loew's company Metro in April--his company having already acquired a small production company out in California called "Mayer"--thus creating the famous MGM that we know today, despite his name in the company logo, Goldwyn himself never had any position with the famous company. Goldwyn, though, was never out of pictures however, not even for a day.  He established Samuel Goldwyn Production in 1923, it would become the premiere independent film production house in Hollywood's golden age.  

The company actually came "online" in 1923, before the finalized sale of Goldwyn Pictures to Metro. The first film produced was Potash and Perlmutter, directed by Badger, who had come with Goldwyn to his new company. While the company had most of it's biggest successes out of the silent era, it did have at least a couple of notable titles to it's name in the 1920's. Biggest among them was most certainly Stella Dallas in 1925 (in 1925 Goldwyn himself [not his company] was involved personally with the production of  Ben Hur). The company was also responsible for the reboot of Bulldog Drummond character, bringing the hard boiled literary character to sounded film for the first time in 1929 (Ronald Colman as Bulldog).  By 1926, a full studio facility had been built in Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd. and films like the comedy Partners Again (1926) were filmed completely on site there.  Among the directors working for this new Goldwyn company were Fred Niblo, Henry King, Victor Fleming and Herbert Brenon. In fact it was a Fred Niblo film that first contained sound produced at the studio: Two Lovers, a historical romantic drama that contained sound effects and a musical score by Western Electric, the film starred Vílma Banky and Ronald Colman (in a funny bit of trivia--Colman's character uses an alias...."Leatherface" 😆).  The Herbert Brenon directed adventure romance (also starring Coleman) The Rescue was the first full talkie for the studio--released in January 1929.  The company's last release in the 1920's was a full on talking melodrama, filmed partially on location on the Santa Catalina Island and starring....yes...Ronald Colman.  Condemned! was released on the 3rd of November. 

         

There first release of the brand new decade (the company's most successful 10 years!) was the cat burglar "crime romance" Raffles, released in July of 1930 and starring....yes...Ronald Colman again. The studio also quickly got into the musical business starting with Whoopee! (October 1930) starring funny man Eddie Cantor; and added King Vidor to their list of directors who made pictures with them with Street Scene starring new-comer Sylvia Sidney being his first.  But it was with Arrowsmith  in 1931 that the studio hit pay-dirt, the film was directed by John Ford was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture (and...it starred, you guessed it! Ronald Colman).   It was the first of several films to be nominated thusly during the 1930's. The studio's best investment was in the hiring of director William Wyler, though he was replaced by Howard Hawks on Barbury Coast, his Dodsworth was not only nominated for 7 Oscars, it won for Best Art Direction. Other Goldwyn produced Wyler films that garnered Oscar nominations include Dead End (1937) again with Sylvia Sidney, Wuthering Heights (1938) with Merle Oberon (which won for Best Cinematography) & Little Foxes (1941) with Bette Davis. The production company also remade it's Stella Dallas in 1937, directed by Vidor--it too was nominated for Academy Awards. Goldwyn himself would go to be honored by the Academy in 1946 with the Irving B. Thalberg Memorial Award, an irony given that Thalberg was famous as head of production for MGM. Goldwyn was the 8th recipient of the award. His last production credit came in 1959 with Porgy And Bess starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Danridge, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis Jr.--nominated for 4 Academy Awards, it won for Best Score. Goldwyn's next-to-last producer credit came on his only foray into television on the made-for television science fiction film The Unexplained based on a Ray Bradbury story (teleplay by Raphael Hayes)--it aired on the 10th of July in 1956.  He then retired to his home on Laurel Lane. He died in the home on New Year's Eve in 1974 at the age of 94. He was buried in a sort-of unmarked grave (in Hasidic tradition) in a special private garden with no public access at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  Goldwyn's second marriage was to actress Frances Howard, who had a very short career. Their son followed his father into the business, as hae several grandchildren have gotten into the business in various capacities. Unfortunately, a number of his family members left behind in Poland died at the hands of the Nazi's during the Holocaust, despite the family's best efforts to get them out of Europe.                                    

[Source: Dennis Svoboda and Anneabe (Find A Grave)]

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Samuel Goldwyn Productions 

Leo the Lion Wikipedia

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Born Today February 17: Mary Brian

1906-2002

Mary Brain was born Louise Byrdie Dantzler in Corsicana, Texas.  Unfortunately, her father died when she was just a month old and the family moved to Dallas.  In the early 1920's the family relocated to Long Beach, California; where here mother hoped to get her into the motion picture industry.  She was entered into a beauty contest there at the age of 16.  One of the judges was movie star Esther Ralston.  She did not win the $25 dollar first prize, but Ralston, feeling sorry for her, arranged a consolation prize:  an interview with director Herbert Brenon, who was casting for his upcoming production of Peter Pan (1924).  He liked her in the tests for the main part of Wendy Moira Angela Darling; and loved that she was an unknown.  She was put under contract with Paramount Pictures; it was at this time that the studio changed her name to Mary Brian.  She then had very steady work throughout the 1920's.  The studio had put out that she was two years younger than she actually was, and she was eventually dubbed "the sweetest girl in pictures."  By the mid-1920's she had become so popular that Paramount was even willing to loan her out to MGM; which they did for the film Brown Of Harvard (1926).  That same year, along with a host of other young Hollywood luminaries, she was named one of that year's WAMPAS Baby Stars.  During her time with Paramount, she starred in over 40 films.  Her first speaking role came in 1928 with Varsity, a partial silent that had a few talking sequences, with sound by Western Electric (it amongst the long list of lost films, unfortunately). Her first full sound talkie came in 1929 with Black Waters.  Also in 1929, she would have a major role in one the earliest, and most influential, talking westerns, The Virginian, opposite rising star Gary Cooper. The last film that she made in the 1920's was The Marriage Playground, a return to the partial silent format, with only a few speaking lines.  By the early 1930's, her contract with Paramount was up and she went into freelance mode, unusual for the time. She also got stage experience by performing live vaudeville in New York.  This allowed her to make a successful transition into speaking roles; something that was highly unusual for silent stars that did not start out on the live stage before appearing in films.  She went on to have steady work in film all during the 1930's.  By the early 1940's, she was involved in stage work that took her around the world.  She was also involved in entertaining troops in both the Pacific and Europe live during WWII; she spent Christmas of 1944 with American troops fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.  After this, her acting career began to wane some.  The last full length film that she appeared in was Dragnet in 1947.  In the 1950's she transitioned to television, having a major role as Janet Archer in Meet Corliss Archer (1954-1955), the last acting role that she would have.  After the show was canceled, she quit acting to work with her second husband George Tomasini's work as film editor for Alfred Hitchcock.  Personally, she devoted her time to her lifelong love of portrait painting.  She lived to the age of 96, passing away from natural causes on the 30th of December in 2002 in Del Mar, CA.  She is buried under her married name "Mary Brian Tomasini" Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills location, next to her husband George, who had passed away in 1964.

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Born Today February 2: Frank Albertson

1909-1964

Born Francis Healey Albertson in Fergus Falls, Minnesota; his family moved around quite a bit, before settling in Los Angeles.  When settled there, young Frank, as he was affectionately known, found work in as an laboratory assistant at a photography shop--this resulted in contacts in the newly established studio system(s) in Hollywood.  In 1922, at the age of 13, he was already at work at one studio (most probably Paramount, given his film debut the following year).  In 1923, but before his 14th birthday, he had a very small part in James Cruze's The Covered Wagon, a western adventure; the film was produced by Paramount.  He wouldn't appear in another film until 1928.  Most likely, he continued to work on and around back-lots during this time. There are also probably several titles that he appeared in as extraduring the hiatus, that have not been attributed to him as an uncredited extra. He returned to film definitively for his first named credit in 1928, in The Farmer's Daughter, produced by Fox. The next film that he made, also in 1928, Prep and Pep, was a partial silent, with soundtrack and sound effects provided by Western Electric.  His first full sound film came in 1929, with Words and Music, which had a fully silent alternative version--sadly it is amongst the many lost films.  He next made Salute, also in 1929, which was a full early talkie, with sound also by Western Electric.  He would make just one more film in the 1920's--a full sound musical revue.  After this, he had steady work as a character actor, and sometimes a leading man in a B-movie, for the rest of his life. He would go on to act in over 100 film and television programs.  He is probably best remembered for a small, but very visible part in Alfred Hitchcock's horror thriller Psycho, in the leering role of Tom Cassidy, the rich man who talks up Marion Crane and boasts about his wealth at the beginning of the film--it was his money that she later steals (Albertson had made two appearance on Hitchcock's television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, before this).  In looking at the fresh faced youngster pictured above, it is rather hard to imagine, that by the young age of 52, he would look old enough to play such a role!  He did not live long after this--he passed away in his sleep at his home in Santa Monica, at the age of 55 on Leap Day in 1964, having worked right up until his death.  He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, CA.  It should be noted that he was in no way related to sibling actors Jack and Mabel Albertson.

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