Spooktober 28: The Terror (1928)

 

Warner Brother's The Terror is without a doubt the world's very first "all talking" horror feature film; released in 1928 when most theaters were in no way equipped for sound (even synchronized sound from disc as was the case here). As a result, this widely distributed crime thriller based on an Edgar Wallace play was also, and primarily, released as a silent film. Warners gave the film two separate release/premiere dates, with the sound version premiering a month and a half before the silent version. Directed by Roy Del Ruth, it starred May McAvoy and Edward Everett Horton, with the sound version utilizing the clunky Vitaphone on disc sound system, and the discs are the only portion of the film known to survive, despite it's wide distribution. UCLA's Film and Television Archive houses the only known copies of said discs that are thought to be in relatively good condition, though they do not seem to have been restored and released (UCLA is also rumored to have a copy of the print in some condition...though the condition of the print, if it exists at all, is not known). There are plenty of stills and lobby cards that do still exist and give a general idea of the creepy nature of the film. Basically an "old dark house" affair (of which Wallace excelled), the film was quite similar in story to other crime horrors of the 1920's such as The Bat and The Cat and the Canary, with the notable exception of the inclusion of a creepy old organ--making it the source of the old haunted house film trope of adding organ music adding to the scary ambience of the whole. 

 

Born Today December 24: Michael Curtiz

1888-1962

Famed Hollywood director Michael Curtiz was born Manó Kaminer into a "lower middle class" Jewish family in Budapest, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the capital of Hungary).  His father was a carpenter and his mother was trained as an opera singer.  He became enamored of the theater when he was just a small child probably due to his mother's career (he reportedly first graced a stage with her); so much so that he said that he built a little theater the basement of the family apartment house when he was 8 and directed his friends is re-enactments of popular plays.  He followed high school with studies at university, which he then followed with studies at the Royal Academy of Theater and Art in Budapest.  At the age of 19 he joined a traveling theater group; he spent a small stint working at a circus before returning to another traveling theater group that worked in multiple countries.  This occasioned Kaminer, who had Hungarianized his name to Mihály Kertész, to learn several foreign languages that included most of the major European tongues (he was said to speak at least five languages fluently--though heavily accented).  While working with the group, he was basically a jack of all trades and eventually worked his way up to theatrical director.  By 1912, he was working as a director at the National Hungarian Theater.  In that same year, he had the distinction of directing Hungary's first feature film Ma és holnap (Today and Tomorrow) in which he also acted.  He had, however, made his film directing debut earlier in the year with the short Az ezüst kecske.  [As a side note: amongst his many life accomplishments, he represented Hungary in fencing during the Olympic games of 1912].  The film bug had him and he began actively seeking film work, settling and studying in Denmark and wound up as an assistant director on Denmark's very first multi-reel film Atlantis (the film runs for around 2 hours, and was directed by Danish film pioneer August Blom).  This world of new found film success came to a rude and abrupt end with the out-break of World War I; he soon found himself serving in the Hungarian army for a year before being wounded on the Russian front.  He was then assigned to make fund raising documentaries for the Red-Cross; he later admitted that he had met with a lucky fate that so many others had not.  By 1917, he was the head director at the leading Hungarian film studio Phoenix--it was for all intents and purposes a national studio and he remained in this position right up until he decided to relocate to Austria after the war and the communist take over of his country.  Sadly almost no portion of any film that he directed while there survives (only a few scant fragments remain--such a sad shame, he literally directed dozens of films there during the period of 1917 & 1918).  One of these films, The Wolf (1917), he penned himself,  and constitutes the first of a small handful of films that he self-penned (curiously he is given a writing credit on the the now infamously lost Drakula halála aka Dracula's Death in 1921).  And, while on the subject of horror films, it is worth mentioning that one of the last films that he had a hand in directing in Hungary was the now very lost Alraune, a kind of Frankenstein/Golem/magic conjured like monster film [it involves mandrake sex...] that was eventually released in 1919 (looks as though the credits on IMDb have been strengthened out--they were previously a mess).  The first film that I can find that he directed after arriving in Austria is Boccaccio in 1920.  While in Austria (and Germany) he honed his directorial skills; by the time that he directed the epic Sodom und Gomorrha (which has been called his Intolerance) in 1922, he had become adept at handling large crowds of extras on elaborate sets. 

Film still from Sodom und Gomorrha preserved at Austria Filmarchiv showing the throng of actors involved in this Biblical epic. 

In fact, he became a bit of an "epic specialist" while in Austria; one such large project managed to harken back to his own Jewish ancestry at a time when things were increasingly becoming difficult for Jewish artists in country and in Germany.  Die Sklavenkönigin (better known in the English speaking world as The Moon of Israel) was his exodus epic and sported a huge cast of thousands.  It was a film that got the attention of studios and film makers in the U.S., for better or worse--the rights were bought by Paramount to attempt to compete with DeMille's 1923 Ten Commandments. It was this film that got him an offer to direct for the newly formed Warner Bros. in the U.S., though the growing menace against Jews must certainly have played a big part of his European departure.  

1924 English poster for Curtiz's exodus epic made for Count Alexander Kolowrat's Sascha-Film in Austria.

In 1926, Curtiz journeyed to the U.S. and set up shop at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, California.  The first film that he made for them was The Third Degree starring "The Goddess of the Silent Screen" herself, Dolores Costello (it also features Jason Robards Sr. and survives with only a degraded print, unrestored at the Library of Congress); he made this film without knowing word one of English (Curtiz's trouble with English became infamous in Hollywood, so much so that many were called "Curtizisms").  The first film that Curtiz made that worked on that had sound from the time of filming was the 1928 Tenderloin, it was a partial silent is now thought lost (Warner's had worked in some post, post-production [meaning added after the films were released] sound by the Vitaphone system that they owned into Curtiz's two previous silent films made for them).  His next film for Warner's was to be their big biblical epic (part of what Curtiz was hired for afterall...) and was as close to full sound as a Warner film got at the time; the 2 hour and 15 minute Noah's Ark told the story of the great flood with a frame story from World War I--the sound was not Vitaphone, but rather the Western Electric Apparatus (this is the first film that Curtiz made for Warner's that has survived intact, and the only one to be restored).  All four of the films Curtiz made in 1929, all full sound affairs, are thought lost.  Curtiz was, it turns out, the perfect director for films made in the early 1930's (what we today call "pre-code" films).  This portion of his film catalog alone is ripe for plumbing the depths.  He made several of my personal favorite films from the 1930's; two of them stand out on their own not because they are horror films, but because they were made with what is popularly called 2-Strip Technicolor-the earliest "Technicolor" process-and the most stable color process up to that time.  The first was Doctor X (1932) starring Lionel Atwill and newly minted scream queen Fay Wray.  The other was The Mystery of The Wax Museum  (1933) starring the same two actors, adding the plucky Glenda Farrell to the cast (the film had a black and white version as well, the color version was thought lost for good until a copy turned up in the late 1960's--after Curtiz's death).  He also directed The Kennel Murder Case in 1933 with William Powell and Mary Astor.  

Of course, Curtiz would go on to direct one the most famous films that Hollywood would ever produce: Casablanca in 1942.  After the point, most his films are/were barely talked about.  Though his directing career would decline, he did go on to direct films in several genres that stand the test of time.  Among them are:  Night and Day  with Cary Grant, Mildred Pierce, the 1952 remake of the The Jazz Singer and White Christmas in 1954 (ironic given his Jewish background and that he was born on Christmas Eve as reckoned by the western, or Roman, calendar).  He is also credited with discovering Doris Day. The last film that he directed was the John Wayne western The Comancheros in 1961.  Curtiz died on the 10th of April in 1962 after a battle with cancer.   He was 73.  He is buried at the Glendale location of Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Whispering Pines section--his younger brother David, an assistant director and special effects artist, joined him there the following month).  

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Born Today April 18: Franz von Suppé

1819-1895

Opera composer Franz von Suppé was born on this day in Spalato, Dalmatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of Croatia) as Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere di Suppé-Demelli; this is why outside the German and English speaking world he is often credited Francesco Suppé Demelli.  His actual ethnicity was Italian-Belgian on his father's side, and Austrian on his mother's side.  He grew up in the then Dalmatian town of Zara (Zadar, Croatia).  His music education started very early and he was already composing before the tender age of 10.  Though his actual father gave no support for his interest in music, he had a sort of surrogate father in a local choirmaster that filled that role.  He also gained the interest of popular local band master.  He studied both flute and harmony.  The debut of his work came in 1832 with  Missa dalmatica, a Roman Catholic Mass that was performed at a Franciscan church in Zara.  At the age of 16, he relocated to Padua to study law, probably at the insistence of his actual father, but refused to give up the further study of music in addition to his legal studies.  There, he also began to perform as an opera singer.  Eventually he was invited to Vienna by a theater manager there, where he continued his music studies.  He was also invited to conduct in the theater as well.  He began to compose light operettas, and it these works that he is remembered for today.  He also became a producer of operas, at one point staging a successful production featuring opera sensation Jenny Lind.  His music has been featured in a surprising number of films, including the likes of Beetlejuice.  But the first time his work was featured in a film came in a "silent musical" from 1908.  Trio de Boccaccio was a Brazilian short that featured lyrics from one of his operettas on the title cards.  The first film to actually feature his music in sound was a very early talking musical short dating from 1927 in Bernado De Pace, a Warner Brothers film featuring sound by Vitaphone.  The first full length film that featured his compositions came in 1933 with the Swedish film Kära släkten.  The latest production to feature his music came in the Austrian television series Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker that features performances by the Vienna Philharmonic; televised in 2015.  Franz von Suppé died in Vienna on the 21st of May 1895 at the age of 76.  He is buried there in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

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Born Today February 5: Giovanni Capurro

1859-1920

Italian poet, playwright, and lyricist Giovanni Capurro was born on this day in Naples, Italy.  Though he primarily made his living writing plays, he is most famous for providing the lyrics to "O Sole mio"--which he wrote with singer/composer Eduardo Di Capua.  For thirty years, he worked at the newspaper Rome in various capacities: reporter, drama critic and, later on, in the administrative department.  Quite the character, Capurro loved the lounge scene; he frequented many late night establishments where he would sing and play piano, and on occasion, perform comical imitations of people.  In movie terms, the song was featured in 4 films in the late 1920's; the first being the only silent of the lot.  The music for "O Sole mio" was used in the all silent Italian documentary short When Naples Sings (1926) (Napoli che canta).  The first time the full song was used in a full sound production came the following year, with the Warner Bros. short A Program Of Concert Favorites, presented in Vitaphone mono.  The song, of course, would go on to be world famous with many Italian opera singers belting it out through the decades.  The most recent use of it in film/television medium came just last month in an episode of an Italian talk show. There is some confusion has to where Capurro died, many sources say his native Naples, others cite Mexico City.  The date of his death is not in question however: 18 January 1920.  He was just shy of his 61st. birthday.

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Born Today January 22: Ann Sothern

1909-2001

Born Henriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, North Dakota; her mother was a professional singer who regularly toured with musicals.  Her maternal grandfather was famed Danish violinist Hans Nielsen.  The family resided in Minneapolis, where she attended McPhail School of Music.  Her mother also home schooled her in piano.  Her parents separated when she was four.  She then began to tour with her mother when time permitted.  By 11 she was both a well schooled pianist and soloist in singing and spent time singing in her church choir.  By 14 she resumed voice lessons.  In high school, she not only appeared in several school plays, she even directed a few of them!  Also while in high school, she entered state sponsored music composition competitions, and won three years in a row.  After she graduated from high school her mother moved to Los Angeles because she had gotten a job a Warner Bros. studios as vocal coach.  Sothern chose to move to Seattle where her estranged father had moved, there she enrolled in the University of Washington; but dropped out one year later.  At some point after she dropped out of University, she appeared in one silent film (her motion picture debut) as a Fan Dancer extra in 1927; Broadway Nights [this must be around the time that she chose to use a stage name].  The film was shot in New York City and produced by the short lived Robert Kane Productions.  She then visited her mother in Los Angeles; while there she auditioned for and got a role in a very early full sound musical revue produced by her mother's employer Warner Bros in 1929:  The Show of Shows.  The film featured full mono sound by Vitaphone with the Western Electric Apparatus, and had parts that were in very early technicolor.   This lead to her signing a 6 month contract with MGM.   These titles were the only two films she appeared in during the late silent era.  She quickly became disillusioned with Hollywood, and left for Broadway in the 1930's with the help of Florenz Ziegfeld.  She returned 3 years later; and had a very long and prolific career in film, radio and television.  During the 1950's, she decided to become a business woman and owned a slew of different type of business ventures, from production companies, a sewing store, to a cattle ranch in Idaho.  She even managed to record an album in 1958.  Some of the notable television appearances came on shows such as:  The Loretta Young Show, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Lucy Show.  From 1958-1961 she had her very own television series The Ann Sothern Show.  She is also the mother of actress Tisha Sterling (her father is was actor Robert Sterling).  The last film she made was in 1987, The Whales of August, with the likes of Lillian Gish, Bette Davis and Vincent Price.  This garnered her the only Oscar nomination of her career--that for a supporting role.  After this she retired to her ranch in Idaho.  She passed away there at the age 92 on the 15th of March 2001.  She buried there in the Ketchum Cemetery.

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Born Today September 17: Dolores Costello AKA Goddess Of The Silent Screen

1903-1979

Born in 1903 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by 1909, she and her sister Helene, who was 3 years younger than her made their first film appearance in an early adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."  Interesting, a lot of sources on the film don't mention that their father Maurice was also in the film as Lysander.  It was probably because of their father that they became child actors at all, he was an actor and director in his own right (though the question marks come in as to whether he got where he was in Hollywood because of his daughters in the first place); Interesting, though,  Wikipedia page doesn't make any reference at all to her father's role in her's or her sister's acting careers.  Additionally curious to me because Dolores is the grandmother of Drew Barrymore.  So much is made of Drew's Barrymore family background in acting and movie making--almost nothing is ever made of her Costello ancestry on the same subject.  Even her Drew family ancestry, a well known theatrical family, is more a topic of conversation concerning her acting blood relations.  Dolores and her sister were contracted to the Vitagraph Film Company through the year 1915, possibly or probably arranged by their father.  Almost all of those films were shorts.  During that time, if my count is right she appeared in a staggering 33 films, many of them with her sister.  Their success together in film resulted in both appearing on Broadway.  After that contract ran out, she didn't appear in another film until 1923.  She went on to sign with Warner Brothers in the 1920's, which, is in part, how so was selected for a major starring role opposite John Barrymore, which how she met the man that would become Drew Barrymore's grandfather.  She became romantically involved with him probably  as a result of a later role that the pair starred opposite each other again in 1927, and they were married in 1928.  They went on to have two children together, Dolores Barrymore and John Drew Barrymore (father of Drew, and other children)--who went on to have a tumultuous career in Hollywood.  She quit acting in 1931 to devote time to her family, but resumed acting after her divorce from John Barrymore, but, all though she had ample speaking talent for the so-called "talkies" she quit acting permanently in the early 1940's, with her last role coming in Michael Curtiz's This Is The Army in 1943 (that film, as a matter of trivia also had Ronald Reagan in a role--it is currently on Amazon Prime, if anyone is interested).  Her need for having to quit acting were for reasons that don't often get talked or wrote about when it comes to early Hollywood.  Make up that was used on her during the silent years, especially when she was a child at Vitagraph ruined her complexion to the point that it was basically it could not be camouflaged.  So the rest of her life was spent in semi-seclusion due to Hollywood make-up ravaging.  She did, however, sucessfully manage an avocado farm in California.  One tragic thing that did occurr during the 1970's, her house was hit with a flash flood that destroyed most of her personal early Hollywood/John & Dolores Barrymore memoribilia, a true lose to the most talented family in acting and to history.  She passed away, suffering from emphysema on the first of March 1979.  She is interred at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.  She certainly earned her nickname "Goddess of the Silent Screen!"

Dolores and Helene

The Career of The Goddess Of The Silent Screen

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1909)

The Telephone (1910) (this was released as a split reel along with a the title A Day On The French Battleship "Justice")

Consuming Love; or St. Valentine's Day In Greenaway Land (1911)

The Geranium (1911) (the sister's father was also in this, along with Ralph Ince)

The Child Crusoes (1911)

His Sister's Children (1911)

A Reformed Santa Claus (1911)

Some Good In All (1911) (Dolores was in this with her father minus Helene)

Captain Jenks' Dilemma (1912)

The Meeting Of The Ways (1912) (Maurice Costello also in this)

For The Honor Of The Family (1912) (their dad was also in this one)

She Never Knew (1912)

Lulu's Doctor (1912) (another all family affair)

The Troublesome Step-Daughters (1912)

The Money Kings (1912) (yet another family affair, a note about IMDb here:  the poster they have posted for this really WRONG, laughingly so!  Most of these types of shorts didn't have full posters.)

A Juvenile Love Affair (1912)

Wanted...A Grandmother (1912) (another father daughter collaboration)

Vultures And Doves (1912)

Her Grandchild (1912) (Dolores in the with her father, no sister)

Captain Barnacle's Legacy (1912)

Bobby's Father (1912)

The Irony Of Fate (1912)

The Toymaker (1912)

Song Of The Shell (1912)

Ida's Christmas (1912)

The Birthday Girl (1913)

The Hindoo Charm (1913) (Maurice Costello actually directed himself and his daughters here)

In The Shadow (1913)

Fellow Voyages (1913) (Maurice Costello co-directed this with Eugene Mullin, with the family starring)

Some Streamer Scooping (1914) (now this really is a family affair, Maurice directing, daughters starring and joined by their mother Mae Costello)

Etta Of The Flootlights (1914) (Maurice co-directed his daughters and himself with Robert Gaillard)

Too Much Burglar (1914) (the same direction and cast here, except that the Gaillard is credited as "Robert Gaillord.")

The Evil Men Do (1915) (same exact credits here, complete with misspelled name)

The Heart Of Jim Brice (1915) (same credits as the last two films)

The Glimpses Of The Moon (1923) (full starring role for Maurice with just a bit part for Dolores.  Lost Film)

Lawful Larceny (1923)

Greater Than A Crown (1925) (a remake)

Bobbed Hair (1925)

Mannequin (1926)

The Sea Beast (1926)

Bride Of The Storm (1926) (lost film)

The Little Irish Girl (1926) (presumed lost film, there are some legitimate rumors that a copy may in the private collection, or stored someplace misnamed)

The Third Degree (1926)

When A Man Loves (1927) (another role starring opposite John Barrymore, partial silent, sound effects and musical score by Vitaphone)

A Million Bid (1927) (partially lost film,  Michael Curtiz directed)

Old San Francisco (1927) (two version, one silent and one full mono sound with dialog by Mono, with sound effects and score by Western Electric Apparatus)

The Heart Of Maryland (1927)

The College Widow (1927)

Tenderloin (1928) (partial silent, mono talking sequences by Vitaphone, lost film)

Glorious Betsy (1928) (two version one silent, mono sound version by Vitaphone)

Noah's Ark (1928) (Mono-Western Electric)

The Redeeming Sin (1929) (partial silent, the mono talking sequences by Western Electric, also a lost film)

Glad Rag Doll (1929) (also mono--Vitaphone Michael Curtiz directed, lost film)

Madonna Of Avenue A (1929) (another Michael Curtiz directed early talkie, sound by Vitaphone)

Hearts In Exile (1929) (another early talkie lost Michael Curtiz directed film)

The Show Of Shows (1929) (early musical, here she has a singing credit as well)