7/9/22
Newsletter36
The Ass Crack of Dawn
It’s 5:00 AM and dark as night.
As was parodied in “Singin’ in the Rain,” when sound was introduced to movies in 1927, several big movie stars proved to have ridiculous voices and their careers ended. The example always given is John Gilbert, except that he had a terrific voice. Gilbert made an exceptionally good early talkie, “Queen Christina,” and he’s really good and his voice is fine. The actor who really got screwed was Ramon Navarro. When Rudolph Valentino died, Ramon Navarro stepped in and became the new “Latin lover.” Navarro was very handsome, quite natural in front of the camera, and got the lead in the 1925 version of “Ben Hur.” When sound arrived it revealed that Ramon Navarro had a thick Spanish accent, very much like the comic stereotype we older folks grew up with on TV, José Jiménez, played by Bill Dana (real name: William Szathmary). Ramon Navarro’s few talkies are really ridiculous.
Gabriel Pascal (real name: Gábor Lehel) was born in Transylvania, raised by gypsies, moved to India and became a follower of the Hindu holy man, Meher Baba. One day in the 1920s Pascal met an old man on the shore of the Mediterranean who turned out to be George Bernard Shaw. The two immediately hit it off, and Shaw told Pascal, “If you’re ever penniless, come to see me.” Meanwhile, Shaw had had one of his plays made into a movie, hated it, and vowed to never have any more movies made out of his plays. Nearly twenty years later Gabriel Pascal showed up at Shaw’s door, dirty, disheveled, penniless, and convinced that he was the man to make Shaw’s plays into movies. He somehow persuaded Shaw to give him the rights for free to all of his plays, including the smash hit play, “Pygmalion.” With nothing but his contract with Shaw, Pascal quickly put together an A-budget, signed the big star, Leslie Howard, and produced the wonderful film version of the play in 1938. The film “Pygmalion” was nominated for: Best Picture (meaning Pascal), Best Actor, Best Actress, and won two Oscars for writing (which is an oddity), one of which was for George Bernard Shaw’s screenplay.
But wait, we’re not done with Gabriel Pascal. Twenty years later, when Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Lowe decided to adapt “Pygmalion” into the musical, “My Fair Lady,” who did they have to deal with but Gabriel Pascal, who owned the rights. Pascal cut some insane deal where he ended up making most of the money. As Lerner and Pascal were standing in front of the ritzy Savoy Hotel in London, Pascal put his cigar in his mouth, unzipped his pants, pulled out his dick and urinated on the sidewalk in front of Lerner, the doorman, and a crowd of rich people. “My Fair Lady” went on to be a huge success as both a Broadway play and a movie, and Gabriel Pascal made most of the money.
Director Lewis Milestone won the first and only Oscar for “Comedy Direction” in 1927/28, then the category was eliminated. Milestone won his second Oscar two years later for the Best Picture that year, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” He was nominated again the next year for “The Front Page,” and though he wasn’t nominated, in 1939 his film, “Of Mice and Men,” was nominated for Best Picture. Milestone also directed the original “Ocean’s 11” in 1960. As a kid I really liked (and still do) his war films: “A Walk in the Sun” and “Pork Chop Hill.” I simply assumed he was an American. I finally looked up Mr. Lewis Milestone and he turned out to be a Russian Jew named Leib Milstein. When Milestone was making “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the story of a German soldier in WWI, and the most expensive film Universal had ever made, Universal’s president, Carl Laemmle, begged Milestone to give the film a happy ending. Milestone said, “I know, let’s let the Germans win the war.”
And a new day has begun.