Roughly half of the films that carry credits for legendary producer David O. Selznick were released by RKO Radio Pictures between March 1932 (the not-on-DVD “The Lost Squadron”) and May 1933 (the sadly presumed-lost “The Monkey’s Paw”). As vice-president in charge of production, Selznick’s executive producer credit appeared on around 40 titles, virtually all of the studio’s output during this period, except for B-westerns, a couple of stragglers overseen by his predecessor, the free-spending William LeBaron, and the final productions carrying the RKO Pathe label before Pathe was fully subsumed into RKO.
Selznick was more involved with some of the prestige pictures than some of the more routine films, where he delegated responsibility to associates like Merian C. Cooper and Pandro Berman, both of whom in turn succeeded Selznick as RKO’s production chief when he left in early 1933 to work as a producer for his father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer, at MGM. Selznick operated on an increasingly lavish scale after that, and his productions became few and far between after his masterpiece, “Gone WIth the Wind.” (He died in 1966 after a decade of professional inactivity).
During his tenure at RKO — where he accepted the job after early plans to become an independent producer collapsed — Selznick was charged with cutting budgets, eliminating overhead and delivering a steady stream of product to one of the largest theater chains owned by any of the movie studios. He also increasingly came into conflict with RKO’s chief owners at the time, the National Broadcasting Company, over budgets.
Selznick and associate producer Cooper played good corporate synergists (decades before the term was coined) with “The Phantom of Crestwood,” one of six fascinating, scrappy RKO pre-codes released last week by the Warner Archive Collection. J. Walter Ruben’s fast-paced, first-rate mystery thriller, which incorporates elements of “old dark house” horror films, was successful promoted by a six-part radio serial/contest that ran on NBC before the film debuted in October 1932. The WAC release restores a “prologue” with NBC announced Graham MacNamee that was often missing from TV prints.
Karen Morley was borrowed from MGM to play a high-priced call girl who’s murdered after calling gathering a group of wealthy ex-clients (among them H.B. Warner and Richard “Skeets” Gallagher) in a creepy mansion for attempted group blackmail. Top-billed Ricardo Cortez (who had played Sam Spade in the first version of “The Maltese Falcon” the previous year at Warner Bros.) sorts things out and saves Morley’s sister (Anita Louise) in this satisfying outing, which pumped much-needed cash into the coffers of RKO, a studio desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy (the studio went into receivership shortly after Selznick left and didn’t emerge until 1940, well after Paramount and Universal sorted things out).
A variable performer who struggled to carry one of Selznick’s more ambitious early productions, “Symphony of Six Millions” (released by WAC last year), Cortez gives one of his most ingratiating performances in “Is My Face Red” as a wisecracking gossip columnist blatantly modeled on Walter Winchell. While not quite as snappy as Warners’ very similar “Blessed Event” with Lee tracy (released three months later, and also available from WAC), it’s solid pre-code fun as Cortez cheats on showgirl girlfriend (Helen Twelvetrees, a holdover from Pathe) with society dame Jill Esmond (whose husband at the time, Laurence Oliver, Selznick was trying to turn into a movie star) while dodging bartender Warner Oland, who Cortez fingered for a mob hit, and trying to outwit fellow columnist Robert Armstrong. Like “Phantom of Crestwood,” it benefits from a full background score by Max Steiner, then head of RKO’s music department.
One of Selznick’s coups was signing the great John Barrymore, who had a nonexclusive deal at MGM, for three films at RKO during his tenure. George Cukor’s “A Bill of Divorcement” (1932), Katharine Hepburn’s film debut, and Harry D’Arrabie D’Arrast’s “Topaze” (1933), with Mryna Loy, are currently owned by Disney and unfortunately not available on DVD. But WAC has brought out Barrymore’s first film for Selznick, “State’s Attorney” (1932). Like Warners’ “The Mouthpiece” (released a week earlier) starring Warren WIlliam — often referred to as the poor man’ John Barrymore — it’s a thinly disguised portrait of flamboyant Chicago criminal lawyer William Fallon.
In this telling, set in a splendid art deco New York, Barrymore works for a mob boss played by William “Stage” Boyd — an unusual billing (at least on the posters) mandated by a judge to avoid confusion with RKO contract player William Boyd, the future Hopalong Cassidy, after the other William Boyd (who died in 1935) was arrested on drug charges. When Boyd uses his influence to make Barrymore district attorney, Barrymore considers doing the right thing — a decision complicated by the two women he’s been juggling, again played by busy RKO contractees Twelvetrees and Esmond. The director is the equally prolific George Archainbaud, whose work here does not reach the lurid heights of his “Thirteen Women” (1933, another recent WAC rediscovery) but certainly holds your interest.
Aside from George Cukor — who Selznick brought from Paramount and took with him to MGM — RKO’s most important staff director of this period was Gregory LaCava. With Pandro Berman serving as associate director, LaCava showed what could be accomplished on a modest budget with a delightful sleeper, “Age of Consent” (1932). Presenting a view of college student closer to HBO’s “Girls” than Paramount campus musicals of the 1930s, it presents a compelling portrait of young adults struggling with their hormonal urges and societal expectations.
LaCava recruited Dorothy Wilson from RKO’s secretarial pool to play a student whose fiancee (ubiquitous juvenile Richard Cromwell, less annoying than usual) becomes frustrated by chastity and spends a night of drinking and who-knows-what in the home of a pert (nd under-age) waitress (Arline Judge). When the latter’s father discovers them asleep together in the morning, the young man is threatened with arrest unless he marries the teen cutie. Meanwhile, Wilson has decided to loosen up on a joyride with Cromwell’s libidinous roommate (Eric Linden) with totally unforeseen and melodramatic consequences. There’s solid support by John Halliday and erstwhile silent star Aileen Pringle as faculty member whose past mirrors the kids’ problems.
Wilson, whose career lasted until 1937, also pops up in “Lucky Devils” (1933), directed by Ralph Ince, whose credits as an actor-helmer stretched back to 1911 (he plays a defense lawyer in “State’s Attorney”). She plays the wife of William “Screen” Boyd — another silent vet and the future Hopalong Cassidy — who’s cast as the leader of a group of devil-may-care movie stuntman. Her concern over his work almost costs the life of a colleague (William Garagan) in a film that’s vaguely reminiscent, but not as good as Archainbaud’s “The Lost Squadron” (1932), which focused on movie stunt flyers. Still, there’s some terrific stunt and special effects work, including a climax where Boyd goes over a waterfall to pay for the pregnant Wilson’s doctor bill, followed by a breakneck car ride through the mountains.
One of the younger stars who Selznick tried to nurture during his RKO period was Joel McCrea, who gets showcased in “Sport Parade” (1932) as an arrogant Dartmouth football star who learns humility post-graduation, but not before an embarrassing career as a wrestler promoted by Walter Catlett. Short-lived Warner starlet Marion Marsh plays the long-suffering girlfriend, and Gargan is the former teammate turned sports writer. Not much to this barely hour-long programmer, but there’s some stylish camerawork supervised by director Dudley Murphy (“The Emperor Jones”) and the feature debut of Robert Benchley as a befuddled sports commentator (in segments that appear to have been added in post-production).
McCrea was top-billed for the first time in “Bird of Paradise” (1932), the second-most expensive production of Selznick’s brief reign after “King Kong,” which was released after Selznick decamped to MGM. McCrea actually bowed out of “King Kong” replaced by Bruce Cabot) after pleading exhaustion from working on “The Most Dangerous Game,” a sort of companion piece to “King Kong” that shared many members of the cast and crew, including co-director Ernst Schoedesack, and was filmed on some of the same sets.
“The Most Dangerous Game,” which will make its Blu-ray debut next month from Flicker Alley, is one of the RKO Selznicks (like “The Animal Kingdom,” remade by Warners as “One More Tomorrow”) that have slipped into the public domain for various reasons.
“Bird of Paradise” was remade by Fox in 1951 and has circulated for decades in poor P.D. prints. It’s the latest stellar upgrade (in Blu-ray and on DVD) offered by Kino International, using new high-definition digital transfers from nitrate prints from the Selznick estate preserved by George Eastman House.
Directed by the great King Vidor, this expensive production derived from a hokey play was a troubled one, with an protracted location shoot in Hawaii plagued by bad weather. Three top cinematographers (Oscar winner Clyde De Vinna of “White Shadows in the South Seas” fame), Edward Cronjager and Lucien Androit) toiled on both sides of the Pacific — including Catalina Island sets that were also recycled for “Kong” — on this spectacular-looking romantic adventure about an American sailor (McCrea) who goes native in the South Seas and sets up housekeeping sans benefit of clergy in a thatched hut with the beautiful daughter (top-billed Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio) of an island chief.
Because she’s already bethrothed to a local prince, Del Rio is abducted and designated as a sacrifice to a volcano that’s begun a major eruption (nicely rendered by RKO’s special effects department, arguably the best in the business at this point). Among this racy pre-code film’s attractions are an apparently nude swim by Del Rio (McCrea is frequently near naked) and some borderline-racist native dancing overseen by Busby Berkeley.
The artist who would be known as Lon Chaney Jr. makes his screen debut as a sailor; he also pops up as a stuntman in “Lucky Devils” and coached McCrea in wrestling for “The Sport Parade.” Showing just how small a contract list the struggling studio had at that point, John Halliday and Skeets Gallagher (who also pops up in “Sport Parade”) are also on board. “Bird of Paradise” was popular, but not popular enough to cover its $750,000 budget — so plans to reteam McCrea and Del Rio in a Technicolor version of “Green Mansions” were scrapped.
When Fox began distributing the MGM Limited Edition Collection in 2012, it seemed likely that Fox would eventually follow with its own manufacture-on-demand program. The Fox Cinema Archives, as it’s called, is finally arriving sometimes this month, with three titles already available for pre-order at Amazon for $19.98 apiece: Rouben Mamoulian’s romantic comedy “Rings on Her Fingers” (1942) starring Gene Tierney and Henry Fonda; Irving Cumming’s Technicolored Betty Grable musical “Sweet Rosie O’Grady” (1943) with Robert Young; and Henry Hathaway’s thriller “Diplomatic Courier” (1951) starring Tyrone Power and Patricia Neal.
Other titles said to be included in the program’s first wave include John M. Stahl’s costume adventure “The Foxes of Harrow” (1947) starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O’Hara; Arthur Pierson’s “Dangerous Years” (1947) with Billy Halop, Scotty Beckett, and Marilyn Monroe in a bit part; Ray McCarey’s “The Perfect Snob,” a delightfully obscure 1941 comedy starring Charlie Ruggles and Charlotte Greenwood; Hugo Fregonese’s “The Raid” (1954) with Van Heflin, Lee Marvin, Richard Boone and Anne Bancroft; and Edward L. Cahn’s thriller “Twelve Hours to Kill” (1960) with Sypros Skouras protege Nicos Minardos and Barbara Eden.
There are also four films directed by sometimes actor Irving Pichel: “Hudson’s Bay” (1941), an adventure with Paul Muni, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar and Vincent Price; “The Man I Married” (1940), an anti-Nazi tract starring Joan Bennett and Frances Lederer; “Secret Agent of Japan” (1942), World War II propaganda with Preston Foster, Lynn Bari and Victor Sen Yung; and “Life Begins at 8:30” (1942), a theatrical comedy starring Monty Woolley and Ida Lupino.
The partial list will also include a pair of titles previously available only as part of sets, Alan Dwan’s “Frontier Marshal” (1939) with Randolph Scott as Wyatt Earp and Cesar Romero as Doc Holliday; and Tay Garnett’s “Love is News” (1937) starring Tyrone Power, Loretta Young and Romero, which was remade as both “Sweet Rosie O’Grady” and “That Wonderful Urge.”
I’m told that a second wave of titles will arrive in late July/early August, with Fox shooting for around 150 MOD titles by year’s end. Given that the MGM titles are already there, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fox Cinema Archives titles were eventually available also at the Warner Archives website.
Amazon and its CreateSpace subsidiary have created a new Never on DVD page to collect its MOD offerings from Warner, MGM, Universal, Disney and now Fox. That leaves Paramount as the only one of the heritage studios without a manufactured-on-demand program.
Paramount has instead aggressively licensed its back catalogue to specialty distributor Olive Films, which is now apparently offering all of these titles on both the Blu-ray and pressed DVD formats. Olive’s latest announcements, for Aug. 21, are Leo McCarey’s notorious anti-communist drama “My Son John” (1951) with Helen Hayes, and in his final performance, Robert Walker; Mitchell Leisen’s adventure “Captain Carey, USA” (1950) starring Alan Ladd; and from Paramount’s vast Republic holdings, Don Siegel’s “Private Hell 36” (1954) with Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, and Raoul Walsh’s noir western “Pursued” (1947) starring Robert Mitchum and Teresa Wright.
