9/19/22
Newsletter102
The Crack of Dawn
Some actors appear on screen and are immediately, or at least quickly, accepted. Others must toil for years to be noticed. And yet others are never noticed. In the quickly accepted category is someone like Barbra Stanwyck (real name, Ruby Stevens). She arrived in Hollywood in 1930 and was signed by Columbia Pictures. She made four pictures in 1931, and by the fourth, The Miracle Woman, a solid, well-made, and somewhat controversial film (based loosely on evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson) and directed by young Frank Capra, Stanwyck was the top star at the studio. But that’s not the usual story. A good example of someone who struggled like hell for a decade before catching on was Humphrey Bogart. After serving in the navy during WWI, where a piece of shrapnel hit him in the upper lip, causing him to slightly lisp, he went into the theater. In 1930 Bogart went to Hollywood and nobody had any idea what to do with him. He was cast as the easy-going second-lead in several films, made no impression, and his contract was dropped. Bogart went back to New York, got a great part as the gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest, which was quickly snapped up by Warner Bros., as was Bogart, though none of the rest of the cast. The Petrified Forest (1935) is a terrific picture and Bogart simply couldn’t be better. His co-star, Bette Davis, who had already been struggling in films for five years, shot to stardom, but not Bogart. He returned to New York again, got another great part as a gangster in the play, Dead End, which was quickly purchased by Sam Goldwyn. It’s a classic film, directed by my man, William Wyler, and Bogart’s terrific. And once again he didn’t catch on. He was signed by Warner Bros., appeared in a string of shitty movies, like The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) and The Return of Dr. X (1939), then finally caught the public’s imagination in in 1941 with both High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, proving he could play both a bad guy and a good guy. And then he was an overnight sensation.
Ginger Rogers also got to Hollywood in 1930. In two years she appeared in crappy little roles in 20 movies. In 1933 Ginger Rogers got the most wonderful, ridiculous novelty bit in Busby Berkley’s huge success, Gold Diggers of 1933. In the amusingly overblown musical number, We’re in the Money, where all of the chorus girls are wearing coin-shaped outfits, Ginger Rogers steps forward and sings the whole song in Pig Latin. It’s hysterical. She gets signed by RKO, who immediately have a huge problem in that they were right about to go into production with a big musical that was supposed to feature the debut of the brother and sister stage sensation, Fred and Adele Astaire. Except as soon as they were cast, Adele decided to get married and quit show business. Suddenly, just about to start shooting, both RKO and Fred Astaire went into a panic. They grabbed their newest acquisition, Ginger Rogers, who could dance, but wasn’t a dancer. Fred Astaire put her through a crash course of dance lessons, and they appeared in Flying Down to Rio (1933) and the audience loved them. But they’re not the leads in the film. The second-grader in me loves the fact that the lead of Flying Down to Rio is Delores Del Rio.
A new day awaits.