Here a Nyuk, There a Nyuk, Everywhere a Nyuk-Nyuk!

I've only written two books, but apparently that's celebrity enough for the privilege of mingling (mangling?) with the upper-echelon of high society. To wit: I met these three fine gentlemen at last weekend's Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Hunt Valley, Maryland:



I'm thinking of having them rennovate my home... I'm sure they know what they're doing.

Coming this season on BETTER LIVING THROUGH TELEVISION: Uncle Miltie, Groucho, a lengthy look at early TV's use of very old movies, and other stuff that will hopefully strike your fancy as much as mine.

Many thanks for the (literally) thousands of you that have discovered this site while searching for Dean & Jerry, Arthur & Julius, Chaplin, Superman, Adam Cartwright, Joe Friday and that cute kid from the aspirin commercial (who was astonished when I told him I get hits on that 2006 post EVERY DAY).

'Til we meet again "In the Sweet Pie & Pie."

Another Super-Myth Busted!

Here's a news flash: George Reeves made dozens of personal appearances during his years as TV's Superman. HOLLYWOODLAND (2006) would have you believe that he hated doing them and in fact feared for his life... unwilling to perform in costume because some over-zealous child might be packing his dad's pistol. In fact the film actually depicts this mythical event, misleading viewers into thinking it did happen.

To be sure, Reeves appeared one-on-one in hospitals and schools dressed as Clark Kent, but this was for a strategic reason. As he told a reporter in 1957, "On these visits, I don't wear the suit with the muscles because the kids want me to do all sorts of things, like jumping out of windows. But I can't fly.... We have to be careful not to destroy any illusions."

At county fairs, parades or department stores - where crowds could be controlled - Reeves willingly suited up. By 1955, when he began making these visits, Adventures of Superman was in production only for about seven weeks out of each year, and the extra money was welcome and relatively easy. Usually he spoke about safety and did a few judo falls, then handed out 5x7 pre-autographed photos, similar to the one seen at top.

In 1957, he tried something a little more ambitious: a full-fledged tour with a band of musicians, Noel (Lois Lane) Neill and national judo champion Gene LeBell, who portrayed "Mr. Kryptonite" (you can see his costume at the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois). As Clark Kent, Reeves sang and played stand-up bass with his combo; Neill sang as well until she was kidnapped by the super-villain, leading to a thrill-packed rescue by the Man of Steel. The show was a little too ambitious for its day... Reeves lost a lot of money when crowds failed to turn up during the tour's theater and civic auditorium dates.

A snippet of silent color footage from Reeves' appearance at the Indiana County Fair in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Friday, August 24, 1956, can be seen on YouTube. The four-minute home movie mainly consists of excerpts from Wild Bill Cody's Western Show, but about 38 seconds in, you can see Clark Kent posing with Cody's 5-year-old daughter Mary Alice, followed by Superman handing out photos to a line of kids in front of the "Kiddie Kapers" stage upon which he'd just performed. The heavy-set man with his back to the camera, moving the kids along, is Reeves' manager, Art Weissman. Hopefully there's more filmed footage from Reeves' many Superman appearances to eventually be rediscovered and uploaded.

"Wild Bill Cody" was actually actor and circus performer Fred Penniman, who put together the Western Show with his wife, Mamie Alice. The pair can be seen in the film doing their knife-throwing and whip-cracking acts. In a tragic irony, Mrs. Penniman died when, during an appearance in Pittsburgh, a 9-year-old boy picked up one of two rifles used in the act, and asked his mother if he could play with it. The mother assumed they were stage props, but in fact the guns were real and had been loaded by Mrs. Penniman just moments before. The young boy pulled the trigger and a bullet struck and killed the 40-year-old actress, wife and mother.

This happened on June 7, 1959. Nine days later, George Reeves would also be fatally struck down by a gunshot.

Charlie Chaplin: Lost and Found

Few things are more satisfying than watching an early Charlie Chaplin comedy... except for discovering one that's been lost for about 95 years.

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Slapsticon - a four-day silent comedy festival held annually in what is practically my back yard, Rosslyn, VA - will be screening a previously unknown and undocumented comedy in which Chaplin appeared during his first few weeks at Keystone in early 1914. According to the press release, "The print of A THIEF CATCHER was discovered earlier this year by Film Historian / Preservationist Paul E. Gierucki, current head of restorations for CineMuseum LLC, and one of the 'Godfathers' of a group of Comedy Film Historians known as the 'Silent Comedy Mafia' who help to organize the yearly Slapsticon festivals." A frame grab from the film can be viewed here; it's clear that Chaplin had already adopted his "little tramp" mustache and makeup.

Via some websites that host old newspaper pages, I've come across a few vintage images for this film. The one at the top of this post is actually for a reissue release in May 1915, from the Syracuse (NY) Journal. Here are some other ads for the 1915 reissue:

If the newspapers of the day can be considered a barometer, Chaplin's name was singled out from among his fellow Keystone players starting in May 1914, after he'd been in films about four months. His work in a two-reeler called Caught in a Cabaret - released on April 27 and which, until this discovery, was thought to be Chaplin's 12th picture - made audiences take notice; from that point on, Chaplin's films were usually promoted as such by the studio. By 1915, Charlie Chaplin was a known - and much anticipated - film favorite. The issue of the Portsmouth Ohio newspaper that yielded the blurb above listed four other Chaplin Keystones in various theatres during that same week. Even though Chaplin was by then working for the Essanay Company and turning out a new release every 3-4 weeks, patrons couldn't get enough and Keystone kept the pipeline filled with reissues. In 1919, a company called W.H. Productions reissued the Keystones and created new titles for most of them. This flooding of the marketplace is why nearly every Chaplin film survives, while the legacies of other Keystone stars (such as Charlie's brother, Syd) are incomplete.

A Thief Catcher was Chaplin's second, or third, or possibly fourth film. Its release was listed in this ad from the February 14, 1914 New York Clipper, a show business periodical:

This would make A Thief Catcher Chaplin's fourth Keystone to be released; his third, Mabel's Strange Predicament, was issued on February 9 and the next one, Between Showers, came out on the 28th. Chaplin's first film, in which he hadn't yet created his famous mustache, was shot during the week of January 5; his second release, Kid's Auto Race, was filmed in Venice, California on Saturday, January 10. Mabel's Strange Predicament was also started during that first full week of January, then presumably finished from Monday, January 12 through the morning of the 14th. That Wednesday afternoon, rain moved into the Los Angeles area and didn't depart until the 27th. It was a monumental, record-shattering series of storms, and suburbs such as Edendale, where the Keystone Studios were located, were particularly hard-hit. In fact, Between Showers makes use of a massive puddle, a remnant of the rainfall.

Somewhere in there, as the press release affirms, A Thief Catcher was shot... possibly even before Kid's Auto Race.

In keeping with the earliest days of Chaplin's career, newspaper ads from 1914 simply list the film as a "Keystone Comedy" with no players mentioned - even though Keystone's then-reigning star, Ford Sterling, was heading up the cast.

And so, if you've ever wanted to acquaint yourself with the world's finest film historians, you won't get a better opportunity than at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theater on the evening of July 17, for many of them will be surely be attending this monumental screening.

And finally, if any of the "Silent Comedy Mafia" happen to be reading this... could this be the next "lost Chaplin" discovery?

Video On Demand a'la 1965

I marvel at technology, and sometimes cower from it. Does anybody really believe that instant gratification 24/7 is good for the human psyche? If I want to see a favorite show, movie or cartoon, like as not I need only pop in a DVD and -voila! - it's there. If I don't have it, odds are it's on YouTube. Last month, I converted and downloaded 14 Hootenanny episodes (8 complete & 6 partials) onto my Ipod. From the moment VHS entered my life in 1983, finding at least one Hoot was one of my two Holy Grails; now I almost take them for granted, seeing as how they're in my shirt pocket! (The second Grail was The Johnny Cash Show, and thanks to a friend I have all 58 of those.) Nearly all the great Warner Brothers cartoons are out, along with the best of Max Fleischer's Popeyes, all the Three Stooges shorts with Curly, the Little Rascals, Adventures of Superman, the Chaplin Mutuals... pretty much everything that made the best video memories of my childhood. Even, heaven help me, Diver Dan.

And yet... as Mr. Spock so aptly put it, "Having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." And so most of what I own sits on a shelf gathering dust, and I find that I watch these shows about as often as I did when they were making the rounds of the local station schedules. And, truth be told, I don't enjoy any of them as much as I did the rinky-tinky little toy that I cherished from Day One: Kenner's Easy Show Projector.

This is me at 6 years old, opening and caressing that little blue darling on Christmas Day 1965. My cousins had Kenner's earlier Give-A-Show Projector, which was basically a slide show. The images were in color, but they didn't move, so who cared? Where were the sight gags? The action sequences? The Easy Show ran real movies projected on a wall! Yes, they were in black-and-white, but so was our TV set. Sure, if you wanted brightness, you were limited to a postage-stamp sized image. But then, I'm not getting much bigger on my Ipod now!

Three things made the Easy Show cool:

1) It was film. There's something about handling film, holding it up to light and seeing all those separate images that pass through a shutter and merge with your brain to make magic. I was always careful not to let it get tangled, although as time passed and Kenner used cheaper stock, that became more difficult. And threading the projector was a point of pride. My friends used to struggle, but I - the least coordinated kid on the block when it came to sports - handled it like a pro.

2) It was versatile. Being a hand-cranked projector, I could run the film as fast, or as slow, as I wanted. One of my favorites - I must've bought one annually for as long as it was available - was the Superman episode "Beware the Wrecker." I'd crank the takeoff s-l-o-w-l-y. . . then run it backward and do it again, over and over, until it snapped. (Which is why I bought one annually.)

3) It was affordable. Each new film cost about .79 cents, so whenever I got a dollar each from my grandfather and uncle, it was off to the store for a new cartridge or two.

So, yes: video on demand has been part of my life since age 6. In theory, I didn't ever have to wait until 3:30 pm when Bugs Bunny and Friends came on if I wanted to enjoy Bugs Bunny and friends. But the limitations of the Easy Show - small, silent, flickering b&w images - ensured that I would still be parked in front of the set at 3:30 pm. No need for that today thanks to DVD technology, which explains in part why Looney Tunes, Superman, etc., aren't on commercial TV anymore. No longer there for our heirs to discover on their own after school... we have to introduce the kids to our childhood favorites; always risky, and usually unsatisfying for all parties.

Have we gained or lost something in the last 45 years?

Martin vs. Lewis, T.K.O. (June-July 1956)

November 13, 1955: The day after Jerry Lewis unexpectedly played a benefit performance as a solo – one specially requested of the team by Paramount’s chief, Y. Frank Freeman (the man who’d rescued the pair from the ire of the IRS), and despite Dean Martin’s verbal assurances that he’d be there – Martin & Lewis made their final starring appearance on the Colgate Variety Hour. Again the pair trotted out a specialized tune meant to reassure viewers, this one based on “Two Lost Souls” from Damn Yankees:

Dean: It’s Jerry and Dean, and no one in between,
Jerry: Like let’s say Gallagher and let’s say Shean.
Dean: Of course we complain; we fuss and strain,
Jerry: But after the fussin’ there’s always us’n.

Dean: Ah, we’re two lost souls, each wedded to each,
Jerry: We go hand in hand, in all kinds of weather.
Dean: On the bottom or top,
Jerry: A hit or a flop,
Both: It’s both together.

But not for much longer. Eighteen months after Lewis had proclaimed “never in a million years” would the team split up, the only goal they shared was in desiring the swiftest, surest way to do just that.

The obstacles, however, were formidable. First, they owed producer Hal Wallis four more pictures, and after the Three-Ring Circus debacle, Wallis had a stipulation included in their contract: Martin and Lewis could only appear in films as a team, no matter who produced them. Second, the pair would net $4 million in 1955 (grosses were in the neighborhood of $20 million), and that kind of money was awfully hard to walk away from. Third, and most especially, neither man was 100% confident of his ability to go it alone.

Certainly Dean, if he’d put any stock into what critics had to say about his talents as an actor (“a competent straight man”) or singer (“he shouldn’t oughtta listen to any more Bing Crosby records”), would never have risked working outside the profitable confines of Martin & Lewis. But he’d just scored his second big smash, “Memories are Made of This,” which would sit comfortably at number one on the Hit Parade at the start of 1956. More importantly, he was being openly courted by two studios for solo roles: Warner Brothers offered him The Pajama Game with Doris Day, while MGM wanted him for an original story, Ten Thousand Bedrooms. With all this looming, the thought of cavorting alongside the human monkey was becoming unbearable.

For his part, Jerry shrewdly recognized how important their personal relationship was to their success. Without that undercurrent of love and admiration supporting their antics, it was only a matter of time until, as he put it, “we’d get knocked through the ropes like Joe Louis.” Believing the relationship could be salvaged, Jerry conceived the idea of doing a contemporary take on the Damon and Pythias story: two men whose friendship is tested when one lays his life on the line for the other. To drive the point home, Dean would play Mike Damon, sympathetic policeman and Jerry would be Sidney Pythias, juvenile delinquent. This would be their next York picture, after finishing their current assignment for Wallis, Hollywood or Bust.

Unfortunately, Lewis assigned the writing of “Damon and Pythias” to his pal Don McGuire, the man who wrote Three-Ring Circus. McGuire’s opinion of Martin didn’t bode well for the project: “Dean was a terrible actor. He could barely talk. Jerry was the guy who made him a hit, made him funny.” Still, McGuire strove to create a story that gave both men “a close relationship;” meanwhile, Lewis campaigned with Freeman for the opportunity to direct the film.

If Jerry harbored any hope that the script would touch Dean’s heart and possibly rekindle their friendship, it was dashed almost as soon as Martin got hold of his copy. The next day, he let his partner know that he would in no way play a uniformed cop, claiming it was “low class.” Realizing that Martin didn’t read the script beyond his costume requirement, Lewis blew his stack: “Then we’ll have to get somebody else.” “Start looking, boy,” Martin retorted and stormed off.

Not too long after this, the pair reported to work on Hollywood or Bust, only speaking to each other when cameras rolled. For the first few weeks, Lewis sabotaged the production, intentionally blowing lines and breaking character; partly to retaliate against Martin, but mostly with the intent to force Hal Wallis to renegotiate – or release them from – his restrictive contract. The gambit failed; director Frank Tashlin, no doubt with Wallis’ blessing, simply threw Lewis off the picture, forcing the comic’s hand.

Chastened, Lewis returned to Hollywood or Bust and, in his words, “tried for the miracle.” “You know, it’s a hell of a thing,” he suddenly said to Martin during a break. “All I can think of is that what we do is not very important. Any two guys could have done it. But even the best of them wouldn’t have had what made us as big as we are.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Well, I think it’s the love that we had – that we still have – for each other.”

Martin thought long and hard about what he had to say, then said it. “You can talk about love all you want. To me, you’re nothin’ but a (bleep)in’ dollar sign.”

And that was it. Both men knew: it was over. Jerry went straight to Y. Frank Freeman for permission to make “Damon and Pythias” (which would eventually be titled The Delicate Delinquent) with another costar. The news broke on June 18.

Still, Dean and Jerry faced a month of confirmed personal appearances, which they met through sheer force of will. There were some rough patches, one of them being a Today Show appearance on June 26 (“Dean and I [could] hardly bear to look at each other,” remembered Lewis fifty years later; the kinescope bears him out). Serendipitously, their nightclub engagements were due to conclude on July 24 – exactly one day shy of ten years since their official teaming at Atlantic City’s 500 Club.

Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of Dean and Jerry Incorporated – Hal Wallis, NBC – were forcibly persuaded to renegotiate contracts. At the insistence of Freeman, Wallis permitted them one solo film each. Not until 1957 did he agree to let them meet the balance of their contract individually, thus getting six pictures for the price of three. NBC considered suing to keep the pair together, then discovered to their chagrin that their five-year deal was contractually with York Productions, with no stipulation that the company deliver Martin and Lewis as a team. The following year, Dean negotiated his own NBC deal and sold his share of York to Jerry, who in turn sold the company and their piece of the York films to Paramount.

Over the years, each man would take credit for initiating the split, which was in essence the truth: Dean’s refusal to do The Delicate Delinquent would spark Jerry’s behind-the-scenes machinations to get them released from Wallis’ iron grip. Each man reached his individual goals: Dean became “a real actor” in such fine films as The Young Lions, Some Came Running and Rio Bravo, while Jerry made so much money for Paramount that owner Barney Balaban famously said, “If he wants to burn down the studio, I’ll hand him the match.”

But it was live television that made Martin & Lewis superstars, so it was entirely fitting that their estrangement came to an end on live TV; in September 1976 during Lewis’ annual telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. The reunion, like the split, made headlines, and raised hopes that Dean and Jerry would again entertain together. It was not to be; Martin and Lewis would publicly reunite only once more, briefly on a Las Vegas stage in 1989 for Dean’s 72nd birthday. By then, life’s ebb and flow had washed away the pain and bitterness for both men, to where Dean could publicly assure Jerry, “I love you and I mean it.” Martin retired in 1991 and died four years later; Lewis continues to do what he loves: make others laugh, cry and cheer.
More than a half-century after their parting, how to sum up the appeal of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis? Perhaps we should let them do it. Jerry: “Two guys who had more fun than the audience.” Dean: “With Jerry and me, it was mostly just doin’ what we felt. Those were great times.” Indeed they were.