October 8: Few Set Stills: The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1923)

 

[These are all stills in wide public use, including several from Wikimedia Commons, the last image is an aerial shot of the Universal backlot at the time of the building of the Notre Dame sets]

Born Today December 8: Wallace Worsley

 

1878-1944

 

Classically trained stage actor, turned film actor, turned director Wallace A. Worsley was born on this day in Wappinger's Falls, New York.  Worsley's work is best known as a director of several very famous films of the 1920's, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1923, but he got his start in the business in 1917 as an actor. His first film appearance came in Paws of the Bear; it was directed by Reginald Barker, with William Desmond and Clara Williams taking the leads. He only appeared in eight films in two years, the last of which was an Oscar Apfel romantic feature: A Man's Man (1918). He also made his directorial debut in 1918, directing himself (for the only time) in the now lost war intrigue An Alien Enemy. Over the next ten years, he would direct nearly 30 films, the vast majority of which came between 1918 and 1923.  Along the way he worked with a number of well known actors and movie stars, including: John Gilbert, Clara Bow, Noah Beery, Irene Rich, Blanche Sweet, Jack Pickford, Lionel Atwill, Clara Kimball Young and Lewis Stone.  He was director who liked to work with actors multiple times, and one of his earliest repeat collaborators was actress Louise Glaum. Of course, his most famous repeat collaboration came with The Man of a Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney. And it largely due to Chaney that Worsley is remembered as a horror director; conversely and ironically, it is largely down to Worsley that Chaney is thought of as a horror actor (obviously, with a little help from Tod Browning😉). Their first film working together came in 1920 with the The Penalty, a crime horror film in which Chaney plays a deformed criminal mastermind with no legs named Blizzard. They next worked together on The Ace of Hearts the following year; while not a horror film, it does include a secret society intrigue (Chaney also appeared that same year in the Worsley directed crime drama Voices of the City). In 1922, Worsley directed Leah Baird in When Husbands Deceive, a film that she adapted for the screen from her own short story.  Also in 1922 Worsley made for Goldwyn Pictures A Blind Bargain, another horror film--this time featuring an actual monster in the form of an Ape Man--starring, you guessed it, Lon Chaney in a dual role of both mad scientist and his monstrous assistant. This film is famously lost, and after Tod Browning's London After Midnight (also starring Chaney), the second most sought after lost silent horror.  After this point, Worsley's work slowed considerably, but also represents the time in his career that contains his most famous work, the above mentioned Hunchback Of Notre Dame, released in September of 1923--and with it's original length of well over 2 hours, it was an epic of a film!  He also directed another Leah Baird penned film in 1923: Is Divorce a Failure?  He directed just three more films after this; one in 1924 (The Man Who Fights Alone), one in 1926 (the Clara Bow film Shadow of the Law) and his last film The Power of Silence, released in October of 1928.  He then retired but remained in Hollywood. He passed away there at the age of 65 on the 26th of March and is interred at the famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale (his whole family is now interred there together). Worsley was married to silent actress Julia Taylor and together they had two sons, one of whom followed his parents into the film business (their other son sadly died at 13 in 1933).  Namesake Wallace Worsley Jr. worked as second unit director and/or production manager on such films as: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Deliverance, The Coal Miner's Daughter, and E.T., not to mention a myriad of television series.  

 

[source: Kathy Salazar (Find A Grave)]

 

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Born Today May 30: Irving Thalberg

1899-1936

Famed and highly influential early movie producer Irving Grant Thalberg was born on this day in Brooklyn, New York.  At birth he was diagnosed with what was then called "Blue Baby Syndrome" which turns out to be a congenital heart problem.  His doctors told his parents that Irving would be lucky to live to age 20, never mind to 30.  He started experiencing difficulties with the condition while in high school, and to make matters worse, he contracted rheumatic fever when he was 17.  This confined him to bed for a year; insatiably reading everything he could get his hands on became his past time. Lacking the health to enroll in college, he then took a series of part-time jobs; he also taught himself a set of skills that would hopefully help him find better work, they included: typing, short hand and Spanish--he also attended night school.  At the age of 18, he placed an ad in a newspaper touting what experience he had and simply stating "situation wanted"--what he wound up with was a secretarial job at Universal Pictures' New York office!  He quickly worked his way up the ladder to become the personal secretary to the studio's founder Carl Laemmle.  One of his duties was to transcribe Laemmle's notes that he had taken during screenings of films--before long he was making helpful suggestions to Laemmle, offering keen insights, which clearly impressed his boss.  It was not long before Thalberg was issued an invitation to the Los Angeles production studios, where he was given an unofficial management position.  When Laemmle returned to the studio he asked for Thalberg's notes on the goings on in his absence and what sort of action should be taken to correct the problems that Thalberg had carefully described to him.  Amongst Thalberg's recommendations was that a new management position needed to be established at the facility--Laemmle reportedly said "All right, you're it," to which Thalberg supposedly replied "I'm what?!"  So, at the age of 20 he was put in charge of the studio on the west coast, with Laemmle going back to the east coast.  Two years later, he started work as a producer; with Reputation (1921) reportedly being the first film that he had a hand in producing, but went uncredited.  Despite his frail and slight stature and his extreme youthful look (he looked around 15 years of age), Thalberg quickly established himself as a force to reckon with.  His managerial style was to intervene when he saw excesses that directors were taking.  He had a legendary battle with director Erich von Stroheim, whom he would go on to fire out right: a move that utterly shocked the movie industry.  He even got David O. Selznick's attention for the move.  Despite this, he was repeatedly taken for a office boy by those who only knew him by name and not by sight. The first film that he received a production credit for came in 1923 with Merry-Go-Round; though he already had two writing credits to his name from 1922, the first of which was The Dangerous Little Demon.  He was one of the movers and shakers early on in the production of the Lon Chaney Sr. classic vehicle The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923).  It was not long before other studios began to take a long hard look at attempting to hire him away from Universal.  The person that succeeded in doing so was Louis B. Mayer, who hired him outright as vice-president in charge of production at his Louis B. Mayer Productions.  The first film that he produced in his short lived position with that company was His Hour (1924).  When Mayer Productions became one of "M's" in MGM, 24 year old Thalberg was made part owner of the newly merged company.  In his time there, he over saw the production of literally hundreds of film.  Funnily enough he would wind up one of the major producers on Stroheim's Greed (1924); which was the second film that he produced at the newly minted MGM, the first of which was He Who Gets Slapped (1924)--a Victor Sjöström vehicle.  Notably, that film starred Norma Shearer, whom Thalberg would go on to marry and have two children with.  It was his idea to have the new studio produce a longish short basic introduction to the new studios in 1925 with 1925 Studio Tour in which he makes a personal appearance.  The first partial silent that Thalberg produced came in 1928 in White Shadows In The South Seas, which has a musical score and sound effects, with a few talking sequences provided by the Western Electric Sound System.   The first full sound film that he produced was The Trial Of Mary Dugan (1929).  He even co-directed one film in 1929: the partially silent Queen Kelly--a film that had considerable production woes--again due to his old nemesis Stroheim.  His accomplishments in production are too numerous to list here, suffice to say that he introduced a great many techniques that quickly became indispensable and are still in use today.  Also under his guidance, MGM was the ONLY film studio to turn a profit during the darkest days of the depression.  He was willing to venture into genres that had been frowned on as well--such as horror.  Additionally, the number of unknowns that he had the foresight to hire, and subsequently made huge stars of is also outside the scope of this post (so, as usual, follow links below).  6 films that he was producing at the time of his death were released posthumously, the last of which came in 1938 with Marie Antoinette, which his by then widow starred in.  After working himself without a real break since he first started working for Universal, he came down with an illness that was subsequently diagnosed as pneumonia. He convalesced at home in a oxygen tent, but never rallied, his birth defect had finally caught up with him.  He died on the morning the 14th of September in 1936 at the age of 37, having lived almost 2 decades longer than his pediatric doctors had predicted.  He interred in the Great Mausoleum, Chapel of the Benediction at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

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Born Today April 1: Lon Chaney Sr.

1883-1930

Leonides Frank Chaney aka Lon Chaney Sr. was born on this day in Colorado Springs, Colorado to two deaf parents.  The result of being a hearing child dealing with two non-hearing parents was his development of a very engaging pantomime.  He started acting on the stage in 1902 with touring vaudeville acts.  There he met Cleva Creighton who would become his wife and mother to their son Creighton Tull Chaney, who would become known to the world as Lon Chaney, Jr.  Both vaudeville performers--they toured together, along with their young son.  One of silent films most iconic actors, "the man with a thousand faces." appears not to have been very interested in entering the film industry, despite his unconfirmed (possibly non-existent) appearance in one film in 1912 (The Honor of the Family).  Rather, he was forced into the industry in 1913 when his wife showed up at theater that he was managing in downtown Los Angeles, and attempted a dramatic suicide by drinking mercuric chloride.  She did not die, but the attempt ruined her singing voice, forcing her retirement from the stage and forced Chaney to seek work elsewhere due the scandal that it caused.  This is when films gained one of it's most talented early actors, with a very wide range.  The first confirmed film that appeared in was The Ways of Fate (1913), a short melodrama.  Most of the films that he was in between 1913-1916 were shorts.  Beginning in 1916, he started getting larger roles in full-length films; most of them dramas, with breakout roles coming in 1917 and 1918.  The reason for his nickname, as most fans of silent film know well, was his willingness to take on roles that required extremely heavy makeup, and this was during a era when actors were expected to apply their own makeup.  He is probably also the very first true horror icon, despite that Max Schreck and Conrad Viedt were in very famous horror films before him, he has become the face of horror in the 1920's.  The first well known film that is sometimes counted in the horror category that he starred in was The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1923.  The first real horror film that he was in came in 1925 with The Monster.  Also in 1925 came The Phantom Of The Opera, not only one the most famous and lavish silent films, but one of the horror genre's biggest early classics.  He also famously starred in Tod Browning's tragically lost film (now only fragmentally reconstructed) London After Midnight (1927).  The first partial sound film that he appeared in was West of Zanzibar in 1928.  All the films he made after this were partial silents, save for one:  The Unholy Three (1930); a remake of a crime film he appeared in 1925 (another Tod Browning film).  Sadly, his only sound film would be his last film.  Chaney had been diagnosed with bronchial cancer in 1929.  He developed a serious infection when he suffered a throat hemorrhage after filming on set with artificial snow that was made from corn flakes; though suffering from a cancerous condition that likely would have claimed his life within the year; the infection was his direct cause of death.  Despite heavy treatment, Chaney died at the age of 47 on August 26th.  The pallbearers at his funeral were:  Irving Thalberg, Lionel Barrymore, Ramon Novarro, Paul Bern, Wallace Beery, Louis B. Mayer, Lew Cody, Tod Browning, and Hunt Stromberg.  He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park next to his father.  For unknown reasons, his tomb remains unmarked.  After Chaney's death, director Tod Browning revealed that he was his first choice for the role of Dracula in his 1931 horror royalty classic Dracula; famously, the role went to Bela Lugosi. 

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Born Today February 26: Victor Hugo

1802-1883

French Romantic writer Victor Marie Hugo was born on this day in Besançon, Doubs, France.  His parents held opposite belief patterns; his father was a "freethinking republican" whose hero was Napoleon and served in his army; his mother, on the other hand, was a devout Catholic who was a staunch royalist.  His godfather, who was a Napoleonic general with secret royalist allegiance (and possible lover of his mother), was executed by Napoleon in 1812 when Hugo was 10.  His early life saw him and his siblings living through some of the most politically turbulent times in Europe (actually the world), with Napoleon being declared emperor when Hugo was just two years of age; and with the Bourbon Monarchy being restored to power by the time he was 13.  Hugo displayed a fascination with poetry at a very early age. By 1822, he had published his first volume of poetry; this gained him a royal pension from King Louis XVIII.  This was followed by several more volumes in the years to come.  His first work of fiction came 1823 with a novel; by 1829 he had come out with The Last Day of a Condemned Man; a large work of fiction that would go on to be hugely influential on a whole host of writers.  By 1827 he had published successful plays; in the case of that year it was  Cromwell.  In 1830, he became abnormally famous for his time with his play Hernani staged to huge success across the European continent.  In 1831 one of the works that he is best known was published; the novel (translated) The Hunchback Of Notre Dame was an instant success and was immediately translated into several language; it also had the effect of shaming the city of Paris into restoring that great cathedral, as the book began to attract thousands of tourists every year.  1832 saw him venture into the world writing librettos for opera, in the this case, for no less a composer than Verdi!  In 1834, he published a short story based on true events--that of a condemned murderer who had been executed by the state; Hugo later made the observation, that the story had been the smallest seed from which his great Les Misérables would grow.  That great novel did not appear until 1862.  In 1843, Hugo suffered the worst lose of his life when his favored eldest daughter drowned after a boating accident at the age of 19 (she was also newly married, her husband perished trying to save her); those who knew him said that he never quite recovered from lose.  Laments of this lose were immortalized in poetry by him.  Also in the 1840's, he got involved with French politics.  He was a staunch Republican who wished to stand for a complete democratic form of government.  He fled the country for Belgium after Louis Napoleon sized power in France in 1851.  His exile would last until 1870. When back in France, he resumed his political activities; he would basically remain politically engaged for the remainder of his life. Given the enormity of his literary influence, it is hardly surprising that his works were used early on in the formation of narrative film. The first of these came in 1905 with the now famous Esmeralda, which was co-directed by Alice Guy, who is believed to be the very first female director. It would be 4 more years (as far as anyone knows) that the next film (one of many for the year !), based on his work would be released.  That film was Rigoletto, and was an Italian production.  The year 1909 would also see the first filming of Les Misérables, it would be broken into 3 separate releases and was probably the first trilogy in film (links for the films can be found here, here and here).  It is also no surprise that there was a proliferation of films made from his work during the silent era, given the well known nature of his work.  The two most well known, considered horror classics to this day, came in the 1920's.  The first of these was The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, which was directed by Wallace Worsely and starred Lon Chaney Sr., released in 1923.  The second was The Man Who Laughs, which came out in 1928, and was directed by the great Paul Leni and starred Conrad Veidt of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920) fame.  The first sound film to be made using his work was a short from 1929, The Bishop's Candlesticks, a Paramount production.  The last silent films to be made using his work, were produced in Japan in 1929 and 1931.  The first full length sound film to be produced was a whopping 4 hours and 41 minute version of Les Misérables in 1934.  The most recent released film of his work dates from last year, with the comedy French Movie.  Two additional films have been announced:  a television adaptation of Les Misérables, with no release date information; and The Hunchback, slated for release later this year.  Hugo died in Paris on the 22nd of May of pneumonia.  He was given a lavish state funeral and it is estimated that close to 1 million people (some estimates put it at 2 million!) turned out on the streets the day of his funeral.  In addition to being one literature's greatest and most prolific writers, he was also an avid artist, producing more than 4,000 drawings during his lifetime.  He is interred in a tomb in The Pantheon in Paris.

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The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923)

Another Lon Chaney make up classic from the 1920's.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN SEASON.