This isn't our typical Photo ID Guide as the items being shown off don't comprise a set, though they were all part of a single collection. This post is more of an excuse to show off the pretty pictures, point you to them at auction, and link over to a helpful resource.

Below is a gallery featuring images of 95 silent film actresses on beautiful real photo postcards. Most of these postcards appear to have been issued between 1922-1926. Here's how I learned that:

Actually the close-up to the right is the part that matters. But there's no postmark or printed copyright date, so why do I say 1922-1926? I love postcards, but I only handle those picturing Silent and Golden Age movie stars so my exposure is limited to those issues. Playle's Online Auctions however, a longtime specialty venue for postcard sellers and collectors, handles thousands upon thousands of postcards of all types. In doing so they've set up both a Quick Reference for dating postcards as well as a fantastic full pictorial reference which page one reveals my AZO logo to the right as dating between 1922-1926.

I hope you find that as helpful as I did!

So the issue shown above is the most common of the 95 postcards I'm offering this week, though there are others as well including other AZO variations, some CYKO imprints, and a handful of others I couldn't identify but are certainly period.

Following is the gallery, and here are my eBay Auctions - Each of these postcards opens with a $9.99 minimum bid, just 99¢ to ship an unlimited number of postcards to wherever you are in the United States. Reduced shipping rates available for Canada and European countries as well. See the individual eBay listings for details.

If you're an email subscriber you'll want to head over to the Immortal Ephemera site itself to best view the gallery.

Just click on any image to open to full size and from there you can scroll through 25 postcards at a time. See the page numbering just below the gallery to move to the second page of 25 images, etc.

1234►

I've spent a good amount of time recently researching the life and career of Louis Wolheim, the smashed faced actor best remembered as Katczinsky in the classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), in preparation for a biographical post about him. Well, I sat down and started writing today, but one bit of information has proven too distracting right from the start to be included in a general Wolheim bio.

Biographical records list Wolheim as being born in New York City, March 28, 1880. Online the IMDb and Wikipedia have that info, and so it's quoted and imported to just about every Wolheim reference around the internet. The date is right, but census records say the place was actually Russia. More exactly, Russian Poland.

The Wolheims, parents Elias and Lena, sons Louis and Morris, didn't arrive in the United States until 1888. Louis Wolheim lists as place of birth as Russia in census records through 1905, but by the time of the next available census I found him in, 1930, he claims to have been born in New York. New York is also the birthplace reported for Wolheim in all period news articles about him during his active stage and film career.

I had a similar experience earlier this year when researching Freddie Bartholomew, the child star who had a very sloppy online record that has since been corrected. Now, I'm no genealogist, but it doesn't take one to simply follow the census records. For Louis Wolheim, as in the case of Freddie Bartholomew, I just think no one had bothered to follow the brightly lit paper trail until now.

Please feel free to discuss or correct any inaccuracies in the comments section of this post down below. Following is that Wolheim paper trail with all links pointing to FamilySearch.org, a (mostly) free genealogy site.

Working backwards, the 1930 census correctly places film star Louis Wolheim in Beverly Hills with wife Ethel, listed here as Ethel Wolheim. Ethel is the former Ethel Dane, Wolheim's Australian born wife. Also listed as a member of Louis and Ethel's household is a nephew, Charles Wolheim, his approximate age given as 20.

Much earlier a 2-year-old Charles is listed on the 1910 census as living in New York with parents Morris J. and Augusta Wolheim.

Back another step, both 1900 and 1905 censuses list Elias Wolheim as head of family with two sons, Louis and Morris Wolheim. Birthplace for all Wolheim family members on this 1905 census is given as Russia Poland.

That 1905 info is a little sloppy on the preview, but the original document is available for that page and if you open it up and makes things a little clearer (or just click Wolheim family member names from the preview page).

Curiously the 1900 and '05 censuses list Elias with two different wives, Lena, approximate age 52, in 1900; and Hinda, approximate age 53 on the 1905 census. Both women were born in Russia and as we see with Charles' inexact age these figures aren't always entirely accurate. I imagine one of two possiblities: Lena and Hinda are the same woman, perhaps just skimming some years off of her age for the sake of vanity; or Lena died between 1900-1905 and Elias remarried Hinda.

An interesting aside giving tragic color to the times is a more detailed look at Lena's page on the 1900 census. Lena clearly notes that she had given birth to 10 children, but as of the year 1900 only 3 were living. Two were Louis and Morris, I don't know who the third was, perhaps an older child who remained in Russia.

The more important bit of information gleaned from that 1900 census in direct regards to Louis Wolheim is that all Wolheim family members list their year of immigration from Russia to the United States as 1888. Here is the naturalization record for patriarch Elias Wolheim that further confirms the 1888 date. This paid site site also gives a preview of the actual document.

Like I said, genealogy experts, have at it. This is not my domain and the main purpose of my posting this is so I could write "Louis Wolheim was born in Russia" in my coming biographical article and just link back to this information for further clarification.

Wolheim with John Gilbert in Gentleman's Fate (1931)

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I just received a set of 1925 BAT Cinema Stars tobacco cards which means the opportunity for a brand new Photo ID Guide on the site!

I love the mix of cards that make up this set. A bit bizarre, but of the 50 cards there are 5 different each featuring Marian Nixon. But the big stars are there too including Tom Mix, Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer X2, a very early Myrna Loy card and the earliest card of Joan Crawford that I've seen--so early that she's identified as Lucille Le Sueur!

Singles are already available in the Immortal Ephemera Store. Sales listings can also be found right on the Photo ID Guide page.

Here's the Lucille Le Sueur card:

Enjoy the new Guide!

Did anybody ever get angry on screen the way that Kirk Douglas did? I mean murderously angry in an oh my God, get out of the way, look out for this nut, kind of way. I'd have loved to have seen Kirk play son Michael's role in Falling Down (1993). But as over the top as that hair-trigger anger could spark it was nonetheless believable. Kirk got pissed off the way you and I do.

While I automatically think of Kirk Douglas red-faced with clenched jaw and bulging eyes there was obviously quite a bit more to him than that. September 20 at 8 pm TCM airs my favorite Kirk Douglas performance, his Oscar nominated Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

Yes, we get angry Douglas here, but rather than a lightning strike it's a pent-up torture that leads to his explosion, punctuated this time by the famed severed ear. Douglas' Van Gogh is innocent and amoral all at once, the combination caused by ignorance and a complete absorption in his own mind and world. Douglas as Van Gogh seems to be discovering everything for the first time, accentuated by the arrival of Anthony Quinn's outgoing Gauguin into his life.

Lust for Life is my favorite Kirk Douglas performance, though Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) is my favorite Kirk Douglas movie. Here the jaw is clenched in profile as Douglas storms from the trenches to lead his men to disaster, but the outrage is later, amongst his own commanders inside hotels and courtrooms. I usually try to pair movies* when I watch them and Paths of Glory is the perfect companion piece to All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), but on September 20 TCM airs it at 10:15 pm, right after Lust for Life, discussed above.

*And I typically pair Lust for Life with The Moon and Sixpence (1942) starring George Sanders as Charles Strickland, Somerset Maugham's fictionalized Paul Gauguin.

Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch, December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, N.Y., where he was raised Issur Demsky. I'm about halfway through Douglas' first autobiography right now, The Ragman's Son published in 1988. Douglas tells the fascinating story of his rise from poverty and injects a bit of a split personality into his words every so often with Issur, in italics, interrupting Kirk's tale to tell us how he really felt at important moments in Douglas' life. Moments Kirk would otherwise suppress.

It's no surprise that much of that anger we see on screen came from Issur-Kirk's real life. He had a difficult relationship with his father and was sensitive of his Jewish heritage throughout his life. Douglas also seemed to have an especial fondness for women just over 18, especially if they looked younger, but I hope that's going to calm down some now as in my reading he has just finished an awkward relationship with Pier Angeli and met Anne Buydens, the woman he's been married to since 1954.

Douglas' career has been interesting in that he never seemed to have that one break-out role so many Hollywood superstars came to prominence with. Instead he started with supporting roles in big movies and his talents were gradually recognized.

What break-out there was came after Champion (1949), the film he'd receive his first Academy Award nomination for as boxer Midge Kelly. This one is notably absent from TCM's Star of the Month tribute. After that the classic starring roles came quick, but not until after he'd climbed those few rungs on the ladder to stardom.

Kirk Douglas was nominated three times for an Academy Award as Best Actor: Champion (1949); The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); Lust for Life (1956), but wouldn't take home an Oscar until winning an Honorary Award in 1994. Despite their not airing Champion, TCM gets it mostly right with their 28 film tribute to Kirk Douglas throughout September. While not running in perfect chronological order, it's close, and in a month where the TCM schedule is somehow littered with movies from the 1970's-1990's, the latest Kirk Douglas film to air is 1967's The Way West.

TCM Star of the Month Kirk Douglas Schedule

*All times EST; Schedule for TCM in the U.S.

Tuesday, September 6-7:

• 8:00 pm - The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Kirk Douglas
• 10:00 pm - Out of the Past (1947) starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
• 11:45 pm - I Walk Alone (1948) starring Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas
• 1:30 am - A Letter to Three Wives (1948) starring Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas
• 3:30 am - Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) starring Rosalind Russell, Michael Redgrave, Kirk Douglas
• 6:15 am - Along the Great Divide (1951) starring Kirk Douglas, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan
• 7:45 am - The Juggler (1953) starring Kirk Douglas, Milly Vitale, Paul Stewart
• 9:15 am - The Story of Three Loves (1953) starring Ethel Barrymore, James Mason, Kirk Douglas
• 11:30 am - Act of Love (1953) starring Kirk Douglas, Dany Robin, Robert Strauss

Tuesday, September 13-14:

• 8:00 pm - Young Man With a Horn (1950) starring Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, Lauren Bacall
• 10:00 pm - Ace in the Hole (1951) starring Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur
• 12:00 am - The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell
• 2:15 am - The Big Sky (1952) starring Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Arthur Hunnicutt
• 4:45 am - The Big Trees (1952) starring Kirk Douglas, Eve Miller, Edgar Buchanan
• 6:30 am - Top Secret Affair (1957) starring Susan Hayward, Kirk Douglas, Jim Backus

Tuesday, September 20-21:

• 8:00 pm - Lust for Life (1956) starring Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald
• 10:15 pm - Paths of Glory (1957) starring Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
• 12:00 am - Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) starring Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones
• 1:45 am - The Devil's Disciple (1959) starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier
• 3:15 am - Town Without Pity (1961) starring Kirk Douglas, Barbara Rutting, Christine Kaufmann
• 5:15 am - Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) starring Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Cyd Charisse
• 7:15 am - The Hook (1963) starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Walker, Jr., Nick Adams

Tuesday, September 27-28:

• 8:00 pm - Spartacus (1960) starring Kirk Douglas, Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton
• 11:30 pm - Lonely Are the Brave (1962) starring Kirk Douglas, Gene Rowlands, Walter Matthau
• 1:30 am - Seven Days in May (1964) starring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March
• 3:45 am - The Way West (1967) starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark
• 6:00 am - The Heroes of Telemark (1965) starring Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson
• 8:15 am - Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) starring Kirk Douglas, Angie Dickinson, John Wayne

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Really, Fredric March, it took witchcraft for you to fall in love with Jennifer, the mischievous, coquettish beauty who's fallen into your life in the form of Veronica Lake? Oh sure, she's out to harm you at first, and best keep your eyes peeled on her old man, a devilish Cecil Kellaway, but even she, a girl off the grid for 270 years, can see that your fiancee, Estelle (Susan Hayward), "has the look of a shrew," and will only lead to a miserable future for another generation of Wooleys. Though that was the original plan.

"Long, long ago, when people still believed in witches," Fredric March dressed as a pilgrim and kept his Puritan reputation squeaky clean when he pointed the finger at Jennifer who chased him into a hayloft and cursed him and all descendants to be forever unhappy in love and marriage. Jennifer and her father, Daniel, were burned at the stake, their ashes buried with an oak tree planted over top to keep their evil spirits in place through all eternity. From there they amused themselves in watching Jennifer's curse take effect over generations of Wooley men throughout time.

Fredric March as the original Wooley

We see the curse at work as a Wooley from 1770, the spitting image of George Washington, enters his vows under the oak tree amidst Jennifer's giggles. A Wooley from 1861, Lincoln's twin, of course, dodges projectiles from his wife, and an old timer in 1904 gets chewed out by his missus, their carriage sporting a sign announcing "Just Married" as she henpecks away.

Fast forward to then present time and Wallace Wooley, played by Fredric March just like all of his historical Wooley predecessors, is a gubernatorial candidate saddled with the newspaper publisher's daughter. His intended, Estelle, is played by the very young and beautiful, though yes, quite shrewish, Susan Hayward, who's continuously forced to smile for the cameras by her publicity minded father (Robert Warwick).

Susan Hayward forces a smile as Robert Warwick leads her down the aisle

When lightning strikes the oak tree, still planted on what is Wooley property, the spirits of Jennifer and Daniel are released and drift about as witch's smoke for a time taking in the modern sights and sounds. Peering into the Wooley window as a pre-election party takes place, Jennifer, ignorant of electricity, asks her father if the the brightened household is on fire. "Not yet," replies Daniel, followed by gusts of laughter.

Two spirits overlook the Wooley house

Jennifer and Daniel see Wallace and Estelle together, their wedding planned for tomorrow, just before the election, and Jennifer takes pleasure in seeing that their curse still holds. The latest in the long line of Wooley nuptials we've been witness to will no doubt bring great misery just as the others before had. Though Daniel, always looking at the dark side, remarks that true suffering would actually be to be in love with one whom they could not marry.

Jennifer decides to make this happen, but not without many curves along the way. March as Wooley, initially swayed towards Jennifer by magic, fights himself throughout believing he should marry Estelle, but falling deeper and deeper for Jennifer along the way. When Jennifer begins to have real feelings for Wally, Cecil Kellaway's Daniel does all he can to stop her from winning him leaving Jennifer to wonder, is love stronger than witchcraft?

Veronica Lake and Fredric March

Veronica Lake was quite the sensation by the time of I Married a Witch. After her first screen success in I Wanted Wings (1941), Lake, and her hair, shot to further prominence in a November 1941 Life Magazine article titled "Veronica Lake's Hair." Life marked the 49th minute of I Wanted Wings as one of the "historic moments of the cinema" as the then unknown Lake "walked into camera range and waggled a head of long blonde hair at a suddenly enchanted public." That Life article referred to Lake's hair as the "strip-tease style," the "sheep-dog style," and the "bad-girl style," but we remember it now as the peekaboo style, featuring Lake's long, soft blonde hair cascading over and sometimes completely obscuring her right eye.

But Lake soon showed there was more to her than her hair and general image when she held her own in the classic Preston Sturges screwball comedy, Sullivan's Travels, co-starring with Joel McCrea. Then 1942 would see Lake seemingly cement herself as the hard-boiled girl alongside Alan Ladd in a classic pair of crime noir films, This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key.

Veronica Lake on the cover of Cine-Mundial Magazine, January 1943

With talent shining through this run of successful pictures, all on top of her glamor image, you'd think Lake would automatically be rewarded with whatever she wanted from Paramount. In the case of her career at this point that would have been the role of the witch in I Married a Witch. But director Rene Clair had other ideas and told the original producer of the film, Preston Sturges, that Lake, coming off the crime films, wouldn't be any good in a comedy. Sturges, who had a good relationship with Lake from Sullivan's Travels, obviously knew otherwise.

Sturges got Clair to relent and Clair was soon pleasantly surprised. Despite Veronica Lake's reputation for being very difficult to work with she'd win Clair over and according to Lake in her autobiography, Veronica, Clair came up to her one day and said, "I'm here to apologize, Ronnie. Preston was right. You're a hell of a good comedienne. I'm sorry." Lake wrote that she "loved Rene for that." Her next sentence was "And I hated Fredric March."

March, well in between his two Oscars at the time, besides being recognized as a top star had managed to earn himself quite the reputation as a womanizer and by Lake's accounts he really walloped her with verbal abuse throughout production. She got back at him with a couple of now legendary bits of revenge, one involving a 40-pound weight added to Veronica's slim 98-pound figure during a scene in which March had to carry her; the other featuring a strategically placed foot during a scene shot from the waist up.

Despite their adversarial relationship March and Lake both shine in I Married a Witch. March as Wooley is a good guy running for office, railroaded into an engagement that makes no sense beyond Jennifer's curse. Wooley comes across as honest and kind, the kind of guy that might actually run into a burning building to save a woman screaming for help. Lake is all winks and youthful ignorance, so casually tossing in the occasional reference to witchcraft that March doesn't even bat an eye. While all accounts mention their lousy personal relationship, you'd never think it if you just watch them with each other on screen.

Cecil Kellaway is fantastic as Lake's father, spending half his time in the movie drunk failing to remember the last line of the spells he wishes to cast. He's fun, yet completely evil, hellbent on keeping the Wooley curse in place at all costs. His Daniel always has an unkind word and nasty idea on the tip of his tongue, but he has a way of winding up hiding inside liquor bottles that forestall his causing complete calamity.

Cecil Kellaway

Young Susan Hayward only has one brief scene where the smile her character wears isn't forced. I Married a Witch is pretty much all March and Lake with a touch of Kellaway, and so Hayward isn't given much room to stand out at all. Robert Warwick plays Hayward's father and gives his usual professional performance.

Robert Benchley is on the scene as Dr. Dudley White, basically playing his usual Robert Benchley routine which I'm a big fan of, though be warned Bosley Crowther in his 1942 New York Times review only takes time to refer to Benchley as "pitching bad gags and desperate groans." I can see his point, but I like the Benchley corn. I got a chuckle out of him taking a sample sip out of every glass that comes within a few feet of him.

Robert Benchley bends an elbow with Fredric March

Also on the billing is Elizabeth Patterson, who I always remember as Mrs. Trumbull on I Love Lucy, playing March's maid. She's allowed to shine in a scene where she does a double-take at finding Jennifer wearing Wooley's pajamas, in Wooley's room, with Wooley, first thing in the morning. Correctly suspicious of Jennifer, Patterson's Margaret has a spell cast on her that puts her to sleep standing up and pretty much takes her out of the action.

I Married a Witch features black humor courtesy of our witches throughout. The film opens in colonial times in a scene initially so dark that it appears to be a horror film, but just as a priest pulls out the Book of Exorcism he calls for a short intermission and any tension is broken by a vendor hawking "popped maize" to the spectators on hand for the burning. Sometimes the humor pushed a little too hard for my liking, such as a hospital ward full of newborns chanting "Vote for Wooley," but others, such as Helen St. Raynor's repeated starting and stopping her singing of "I Love You Truly" during the wedding scene are absolutely hilarious.

I Married a Witch was filmed by Paramount at a time when they had excess product on hand, and so was distributed by United Artists, who were lacking their own movies to market at that same time. It was in production mid-April through the end of May 1942 and opened in the US, appropriately, on October 30 of that same year.

Crowther called it a "whimsical film" in his New York Times review, that was "quaint and agreeable nonsense." He added that "Old friends of Topper will immediately recognize the spirit and style" of I Married a Witch, though all these decades later Topper didn't flash to my mind as much as the television series Bewitched did. Bewitched creator Sol Saks is on record as acknowledging I Married a Witch as one of his influences for the successful 1960's sit-com.

A genre crossing classic with equal portions comedy, romance and fantasy, I Married a Witch is a highly recommended good time for all and every bit as much family viewing as that later television series.

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VERONICA LAKE, JOEL McCREA in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS    US $57.00

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Sources:

• Crowther, Bosley. "I Married a Witch (1942)." The New York Times 20 November 1942.
• Lake, Veronica and Donald Bain. Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake. Bantam edition. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.
• "Veronica Lake's Hair." Life Magazine 24 November 1941: 59.

Watch It:

I recently received a couple of Harold Lloyd cards from this set and noticed I had yet to build a Photo ID Guide for these popular postcards. Issued out of Chicago in 1922, the Kings & Queens Movie Series of postcards was put out by the Max B. Sheffer Card Co., aka M.B.S.C.

You'll find a handful of sample images as well as a complete checklist of all 50 Kings and Queens Postcards on the brand new Photo ID Guide page.

Here's a Harold Lloyd to whet your appetite:

Enjoy!

Update September 1: It was a long 5-1/2 days, but the lights just went back on here a little before 4 pm. I'll be the rest of the week catching up, but things will soon be back to normal here! All orders paid through midnight last night have been shipped and no further shipping delays are expected.

Update August 31: Well, I hope you weathered the hurricane as well as I did here on the North Shore of Long Island. Basically it's just been an inconvenience here. It's Tuesday mid-afternoon right now, and still no power. We have a tree down at each end of the block and one of those was thoughtful enough to take a power line along with it. But, all packages paid through this morning at 9 am have been shipped!

Luckily my next door neighbors are on a different power line and they kept lights throughout. On top of that they're swell people who volunteered to let me have a line running from their home to mine. And so packages got done, emails have been checked, and this post has been updated while the refrigerator takes a brief break. Obviously I want to make this brief!

I've been busier than I expected, but relaxed some reading Kirk Douglas' 1988 biography The Ragman's Son in preparation for TCM's September schedule featuring Douglas as Star of the Month.

I also managed to log into eBay and put all trading and tobacco cards on sale. It's a small sale but combined with my new lower shipping rates for cards over there: 99 cents US; $1.29 Canada; $1.99 the rest of Europe for an unlimited number of cards; I think it offers a nice little savings. Buy them now, the sale lasts a week and I should be shipping at least every other day now.

(It might take a couple of hours from the time I write this for the sale to appear)

Okay, time to save the perishables, talk to you soon!

Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall in "The Hurricane" on 1940 A & M Wix Cinema Cavalcade tobacco card #132 titled "The Marriage Feast"

Dorothy Lamour in "The Hurricane" on 1940 A & M Wix Cinema Cavalcade card #133 titled, "Watching and Waiting"

It was an impassioned courtroom defense made by Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul (1931) that won him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1931. Talking pictures are just a natural for lawyers, after all, who can talk like a mouthpiece? In November 1931 Counsellor-at-Law starring Paul Muni as George Simon would open on Broadway and be the longest running play of the season. It'd be made into a film by Universal that was released at the end of 1933. Counsellor at Law, the film (minus the hyphens), replaced Muni with John Barrymore, who also played a lawyer in 1932's State's Attorney at RKO, a movie which credits Gene Fowler as one of the writers.

William Powell as Anton Adam with threats on either side

In 1931 Fowler had published The Great Mouthpiece, a life of the colorful real-life lawyer, William J. Fallon. Fallon earned hefty fees successfully defending the notorious in cases as dramatic as the films which would follow. He spent big too and became quite popular along the Great White Way, especially with the ladies. The best portrayal of Fallon is Warren William's breakout role in The Mouthpiece, also 1932. From late that same year came Warner Brothers' Lawyer Man, starring William Powell as a fast-talking, leg-loving defender in the Fallon tradition, Anton Adam.

It's interesting to note that very little of Lawyer Man actually takes place in court. The best scenes of The Mouthpiece came inside the courtroom where audiences got to see William's Fallon character, Vince Day, in action molding the law to his own purposes and often shocking his own clients with his brazenness. Lawyer Man, on the other hand, goes out of its way to avoid the courtroom, keeping the focus on the hallways during trials and muting what went on behind the court's closed doors. Lawyer Man, like the title says, is about the man.

At the start of Lawyer Man defense attorney Anton Adam is a man of the people, bumping shoulders in the crowded Manhattan Streets and taking on charity cases at his East Side offices where his secretary Olga (Joan Blondell) micro-manages his professional life with hopes of taming Adam's private life as well. But Anton loves a pretty girl, his eyes drawn to every pair of shapely legs in their path, leaving the childlike Ogla to huff and puff in frustration whenever Anton is distracted by a new woman.

Powell eyes some legs, in this case they belong to Joan Blondell

Despite the seemingly meager setting of Adam's law office he manages to crush well-heeled prosecutor Granville Bentley (Alan Dinehart) in a case and receives a call to come to Bentley's offices for a meeting. While Olga is especially nervous about Bentley's invitation, a reserved Anton arrives, still looking a bit shabby, and is surprised with an offer of a partnership by the uptown lawyer. He's moving on up. The vast Bentley and Adam offices not only have a fantastic view of the city, but they come with legs attached, as Anton is soon in the clutches of Bentley's sister, Babs, played by uptown vamp Helen Vinson.

Helen Vinson and Alan Dinehart

After whipping local political boss Gilmurry (David Landau) in a case, Anton bumps into him in a club and Gilmurry does his best to get Anton to jump over to his side. Anton isn't going for that, but he is going for Claire Dodd, playing actress Ginny St. Johns, an acquaintance of Gilmurry's. Ginny is all over Anton and gets him excited professionally as well when she has him initiate a breach of promise suit for her against a city hall doctor named Gresham (Kenneth Thomson). Gresham's brother is a judge and both men are Gilmurry cronies. Partner Bentley warns Anton to stay away from a case as trashy as this, but Anton, as always, has something to prove and is smitten with Ginny as well, so he's working doubly hard.

Joan Blondell

So he's got Joan Blondell making big eyes at him in his office; he's got Helen Vinson playing cat and mouse with him from up above his usual sphere; and he's got Claire Dodd clinging to him out on the town. Poor guy. But it all cracks pretty quick when Dodd's Ginny tells him she wants to drop her case and Gresham, with Ginny's help, records Anton telling her the case is too valuable to drop. Anton is indicted and Bentley dissolves the partnership. Vinson's Babs becomes unreachable. Professionally broken Anton goes begging to Gilmurry who tells him he's a wash-out and he wants no part of him.

Two of my favorites share a spot in the opening credits ... look out, Anton!

"Everybody's walked out on you but the landlord," Blondell says. Anton replies softly to Olga, "Except you." He looks out amongst the people of the city, "pushing, shoving, trampling each other," and declares that "They made a shyster out of me. Okay. I'll be the biggest, busiest shyster that ever hit this town." Anton pushes himself into full Fallon mode, always making sure to grab a sizable cut. Opportunity knocks once more when he has the opportunity to squeeze Gilmurry.

Anton is an interesting character in that no matter how much he gouges his clients it's pretty clear that money is not his primary motivation. Here he differs from the real Fallon and from William's Vince Day, who appear to have worshiped the almighty dollar over all. For William Powell's Anton Adam power is the motivation. What's more, it's an in-your-face kind of power preceded by a cry of "I'll show you," before knuckling down and actually showing them.

William Powell and Joan Blondell

While Bentley and Babs and Ginny St. Johns will disappear once and for all, and while the relationship with Blondell's Olga is supposed to be the common thread throughout Anton Adam's life and career, I found his uneasy interaction with Gilmurry to be the most interesting facet of Lawyer Man. In another movie Gilmurry would be the strong arm and Adam would be trying to literally save his own skin after double-crossing him. Not in Lawyer Man.

Oh sure, Gilmurry has thugs (fresh faced Allen Jenkins and Jack La Rue!), but his meetings with Adam always remain cordial. When Powell's Adam stalls Gilmurry prior to a meeting and Gilmurry enters Adam's office to find him putting together a jigsaw puzzle he isn't insulted, he just kind of smirks. They have their talk, then Gilmurry, looming over Adam's desk casually grabs a piece of the puzzle and puts it in place. It's a nice little touch to show business is business, but these men really don't dislike one another.

William Powell collects from David Landau

Yes, Adam and Gilmurry insult each other freely, but neither seems to take the others words too hard, perhaps because they can see the truth in what the other man says. At one point Adam puts the squeeze on Gilmurry for an extra $10,000 in fees. Gilmurry not only pays but makes Adam an offer to come work for him.

Gilmurry is played by David Landau, a character actor who appeared in over 30 films from 1931-34. He died in September 1935, age 56. Landau had a long career on the stage prior to coming to Hollywood, which best I can tell began around the turn of the century. He worked in a stock company owned by Charles B. Newhall and married Newhall's daughter, Frances, in 1903. In 1906 Frances convinced her husband to change his name from David Magee to David Landau and from that time going forward Landau's name regularly appears in the dramatic sections of the New York newspapers. His gruff voice and craggy long face made Landau a great villain on the screen for the short time he was able to play on it. In Lawyer Man he's more disreputable than villainous, but he's excellent nonetheless.

David Landau

Lawyer Man is the last of 10 films made featuring hardworking Joan Blondell in 1932. I think you could make the case that Powell's presence looms so largely over Lawyer Man that any actress could have played Olga, but I'm still glad it was Blondell. While Helen Vinson and Claire Dodd just have to make an entrance to get a leading man drooling, the pure and sassy Blondell provides a definite balance and at least one woman to root for in Lawyer Man. The problem is Olga's only goal is Anton and since she works for him she can't be too aggressive about it. She's the voice that's always in his ear, but Anton has to fall down several times before he begins to hear her. Blondell's energy upgrades the role of Olga from a part we'd otherwise forget to someone for us to pull for amongst the muck and corruption surrounding everyone else, including even Anton.

Sterling Holloway shows up for a few seconds to mock Joan Blondell

While I'd take Vince Day and The Mouthpiece over Anton Adam and Lawyer Man any day, William Powell is still perfect for this part. On the heels of two other pre-code gems for Warner's, Jewel Robbery and One Way Passage (both 1932), Powell continues to be the slick and fast talking leading man that we sometimes forget existed prior to The Thin Man. It may be a bit early for the debonair label which always seems to find him, but Powell, circa 1932, sure is a charmer!

Powell's got his hands full with Claire Dodd

When the staid Alan Dinehart proposes a partnership because he's "not a spellbinder when it comes to juries," we know that any mouthpiece William Powell plays is. And again, we barely get to see Powell in the courtroom, but because of who he is, and how confident his Anton Adam is throughout Lawyer Man, we know he would be fantastic in front of any jury. Lionel Barrymore needed that courtroom speech to cop his Oscar for A Free Soul; With Powell the performance is implied.

Lawyer Man has been a favorite in my collection of movies for quite some time now. I often watch it back to back with The Mouthpiece, the similarities of which should now be obvious. I've always found both movies underrated and generally overlooked and have wished to see both get the wider audience that comes with a mainstream DVD release for several years now. While I can understand how The Mouthpiece has managed to avoid rediscovery, I can't say the same for Lawyer Man given the presence of two major and perpetually beloved stars in William Powell and Joan Blondell.

Fans of movies about lawyers should really check this one out and William Powell fans simply have to see Lawyer Man.

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Sources:

• "Actor's Widow Bares Poverty." Oakland Tribune 24 September 1935: 16.
• "In Other Days." Oakland Tribune 13 October 1935: 29.
• "Portrait of a Lawyer." Galveston Daily News 11 October 1931: 13.

Related Links:

• The Great Mouthpiece by Jacob A. Stein in Legal Spectator, April 2003.

William Powell

Ralph Bellamy vs. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

The Narrow Corner is a great example of what draws me to classic movies, especially those from the pre-code era. It recently aired on TCM as part of their celebration of Ralph Bellamy films during August 2011's Summer Under the Stars. I recorded it, ignorant of what I now had and selected it to watch more or less randomly over dozens of other films I've recorded and have yet to watch. Right away the credits alerted me that The Narrow Corner is based on a work by W. Somerset Maugham, and so I knew I had a winner.

For those unfamiliar with Maugham, he was a titan of fiction during the first half of the twentieth century, producing an incredible number of books over an active career that lasted about 60 years. A master of the novel and short story, plays and essays alike, he's the creative force behind several major films adapted from his work during his lifetime: Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Razor's Edge, The Letter, and, yes, The Narrow Corner, were all adapted from Maugham.

I've read a lot of Maugham, most of it 15-20 years ago, but there was just so much that it would have practically become a lifetime occupation to read it all. Set in Maugham's favorite locale, the South Seas, The Narrow Corner felt familiar, but it'd been so long since I'd sat down with anything by Maugham that I couldn't recall if I'd read it or not. Most of my Maugham has been stored away, so I found myself climbing amongst boxes and finally stumbling upon my horde of Maugham inside the final box. It was all there, every other title mentioned above and several more, but no copy of The Narrow Corner. Disappointing, but I imagine Amazon will deliver the used copy I ordered by Monday.

Patricia Ellis and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

The Narrow Corner is a brutal film at sea which tries to be beautiful on land, much of that beauty wrapped up in the character of Louise, played by Patricia Ellis. While the Warner Brothers' film sets The Narrow Corner in Maugham's beloved South Seas, beyond the occasional palm tree the location is indistinguishable from any other beach setting. The film tries to capture the bond formed between Fred (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and Eric (Ralph Bellamy), but director Alfred E. Greene rushes things along at such a clip that the viewer doesn't feel the bond as much as he's explained it by Fairbanks. While this is a major weakness of the pace that I can only imagine is much more carefully drawn by Maugham in his own words, this breakneck pace is also, as usual for Warner's during the period, one of the major charms of the film.

The Narrow Corner may well serve as a good bellwether to determine just how much you'll enjoy most of Warner's pre-code output. The Narrow Corner has it all, the good and the bad, beginning with too many potentially interesting characters tossed into a 70-minute stew for us to care about many or most of them. The catalog of sin includes sex and drug abuse, along with some of the typical racism of the period embodied by the black crew of the ship and Willie Fung's indecipherable dialogue, plus in-story references to slaving which surely would have prickled the ears of some sensitive 1930's filmgoers.

Reginald Owen

Some of the characters, such as Louise's father, played by Reginald Owen, cry out for greater development. Owen's character is interesting with a memorable hobby and without even reading The Narrow Corner I can tell Maugham did much, much more with him. The fact that he's played by such a familiar and friendly face in Owen only adds to the expectation and eventual disappointment. It may have been best for the film to have dropped the character altogether.

The story races, the romance races and we almost immediately discover that Ellis' innocent little Louise doesn't want to remain all that virtuous with Doug, Jr. on the scene. The tension is heightened on land by heavy winds that seem to spell out coming trouble whenever they gust. The action at sea is fierce and the storm scenes will make you wonder if anyone really got hurt during the filming. That's a lot of water being dumped over our contract players!

Dudley Digges after a few pipes

The acting is strong, despite some of Fairbanks' histrionics, with fine performances especially from Arthur Hohl as the dyspeptic Captain Nichols and Dudley Digges as the philosophical Doctor Saunders. I kept waiting for Digges to turn nasty, especially right after I had watched him repeat what he did in The Mayor of Hell (1933) to Richard Barthelmess in Massacre (1934), but despite a murky past and a heavy opium habit, he remains somewhat virtuous, though very cynical, in The Narrow Corner.

The best performance in The Narrow Corner was that of the Dane, Eric, played by Ralph Bellamy, complete with Danish accent. I'm not a huge Bellamy fan finding him even blander than I'm usually supposed to, but he adapts such a realistic accent in The Narrow Corner that I went searching expecting to find that he was a first generation American born to Danish parents (he was not). Bellamy's dialogue is the only thing that takes its time in The Narrow Corner as Eric, dull as all the Bellamy characters that follow him, commands the room whenever he speaks.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Ralph Bellamy

Patricia Ellis is also very good here. While she's mostly called upon to look good, which she certainly does, her immediate attraction to Fairbanks' Fred is so strong that we know Bellamy is going to have a rough time keeping any of her affection. Ellis is all sex here and I found this heavy breathing version of her much more enjoyable than some of her sweet girls found in other thirties films. Fred didn't have a chance.

Patricia Ellis looks back at Fairbanks, Jr.

I continue to waver on Doug Fairbanks, Jr. I absolutely cannot stand him in one of the pre-code era's greatest films, Little Caesar (1931), and when I refer to his histrionics above it was Fred's excited states that recalled to mind his lousy Joe Massara of Caesar. But Fairbanks, Jr. is growing on me, really gaining ground after I saw him in Union Depot (1932) and The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933), and his Fred Blake of The Narrow Corner reminded much more of those down and out characters. The unfortunate part for Fairbanks, Jr. in The Narrow Corner is that his Fred Blake, by virtue of being the main character, suffers most from that fast pace, leaving him to tell a few things I'd have rather been shown. Fairbanks' best scenes come not with Ellis, but with Bellamy, as he does manage to show us how much he cares for Eric before The Narrow Corner explodes towards its ending.

The Narrow Corner is all about setting and character, again, a good deal of which is squandered due to budget. The story itself is basic:

Arthur Hohl with Sidney Toler

A shady deal is made between a powerful representative (Sidney Toler) and the Captain (Hohl) to carry a mysterious character (Fairbanks, Jr. as Fred) at sea for a time, until unspecified things blow over. Fred is touchy about contact with others ramping up the idea that whatever deed he has committed is quite serious. The Doctor (Digges), a rare white man amongst the many small islands of the Pacific, joins them and after battling a ferocious storm they wind up anchoring on a sparsely populated island where Fred forgets much of his trouble for the sake of potential romance with the young innocent (Ellis) he meets there. Fred forms a quick bond with Eric (Bellamy) on the island, but conflict soon arises when Eric reveals that he has a secret engagement to the girl, Louise. Fred does his best to avoid Louise, but she proves irresistible and Fred soon has a new problem on his hands.

Patricia Ellis comes upon a naked Douglas Fairbanks Jr

Fred, as Doctor Saunders remarks at one point, is too young to know much of anything about life yet. He not only learns lessons from the Doctor, but the despised Captain imparts wisdom to him through necessity at sea when he abandons Fred to steer the ship through a terrible storm so he can casually sip liquor below deck. Fred is bewildered that the Captain would abandon his post in the most trying of times but as the Captain tells him on his way out, the travail will either put him "out of his misery, or make a man out of you."

Fred awakes the next morning a new man who believes "if it's coming to you it'll come and that's that." The Doctor remarks that he thought he noticed a change come over Fred and advises him that sometimes when an unexpected misfortune disrupts one's life the resulting chaos may in fact be a stroke of luck which makes life exciting and breaks up the previously hum-drum path.

Dudley Digges in a bit better shape than I earlier showed him

Doctor Saunders has seemingly seen and done it all himself. He comments, "Life is short. Nature is hostile. And man is ridiculous." Fred can't bring himself around to the Doctor's jaded thoughts, and he struggles to believe that "life is fair," which the doctor tells him is "asking for more than life can give." Exasperated with the Doctor's viewpoint Fred asks if there's nothing he believes in, to which Doctor Saunders replies "the world consists of me, my thoughts, and my feelings. Everything else is mere fancy."

As the wind rages through The Narrow Corner, Fred is left to decide if he can forgive himself, get on with life, and take what he wants.

Patricia Ellis

Andre Sennwald in his original period New York Times review starts slow praising The Narrow Corner as "a picture that is good enough for a dull week" but he then goes on to crow about almost every aspect of the film, save Warner's "distorting the comparatively slight part of the girl." But on the whole Sennwald remarked that The Narrow Corner "repeated many of the most enjoyable epigrams out of Mr. Maugham's novel," and he distributed praise to performers Digges, Fairbanks, Jr., Bellamy, and Hohl.

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The Narrow Corner Facts:

• Originally published by Maugham in serialized installments inside Hearst's International Cosmopolitan Magazine, October-December 1932 issues
• Remade in 1936 as Isle of Fury starring Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay and Donald Woods - YouTube Trailer

Fairbanks, Jr. tells Ellis a story

The Narrow Corner Elsewhere:

There isn't a lot of available information on Patricia Ellis, who died in 1970, apparently long before anyone would have thought to quiz her on her 1930's screen career. A couple of the best online sources of biographical information that I found were on Allure and Classic Cinema Gold. Enjoy!

In an odd twist, after writing about Jimmy Stewart's portrayal of Monty Stratton in The Stratton Story this past weekend, I received a package in the mail containing seven stills picturing future President Ronald Reagan playing baseball Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander, himself named for a President, in Warner Brothers' The Winning Team (1952). This post is mainly intended to share the images of Reagan as Ol' Pete with you, but Stratton got me in the mood so I sat down and watched The Winning Team earlier this evening.

The Winning Team was a better baseball movie than I'd remembered. The baseball was good and after a bit of a slow start became more prominent as we got deeper into the movie. Where The Winning Team fails the baseball fan though is in time shifting the facts of Pete Alexander's life for the sake of drama.

The Winning Team leaves us to think that after the Cubs put Alexander on waivers he disappeared for a few years engaged on a mighty bender which left him one step shy of Tyrone Power's stint as the geek in Nightmare Alley (1947). In actuality after clearing waivers Alexander was dealt directly to the Cardinals whose manager Rogers Hornsby (Frank Lovejoy in the film) took him on not as a favor to Ol' Pete's wife Aimee (Doris Day), but because he wanted to win.

Yes, Alexander's alcoholism spun out of control and left him grasping for work in Indy leagues and he even wound up pitching for the House of David, as The Winning Team shows, but none of that happened until after his big league career was over. The Winning Team would have you think everything ended happily for Grover Cleveland Alexander, whereas that was not the case at all.

What The Winning Team does cover well is Alexander's defining moment as star of the 1926 World Series versus the New York Yankees. Alexander comes in at the right time, the correct batters show up to face him in the proper order and besides the timing of a Tony Lazzeri long foul ball there's only one other major gaffe which was once again for the purpose of dramatics. However this gaffe was about as major as you could get.

In The Winning Team the 1926 Series ends on, what else, an Alexander strike out. In actuality the 1926 World Series, by all accounts one of the greatest Series ever played, largely because of Alexander's surprising heroics, ended when Babe Ruth was caught stealing. One of the more disappointing ways a game could end, never mind the final game of the season for all the marbles!

In case you were wondering, Alexander's fainting spells in the movie were Warner Brothers' portrayal of Alexander's epilepsy. I'd imagine anything approaching or suggesting a real epileptic fit would have been too much at the time, so in the film Alexander's fits are shown as dizzy spells which occasionally cause him to pass out and at other times can be brought under control by drawing strength from Doris Day.

The Winning Team did show some courage in showing Alexander's alcoholism, though it was, of course, a very sanitized view of his battle with the bottle. This is not The Lost Weekend.

Some first hand accounts of the Grover Cleveland Alexander's most famous moment, closing out the final game of the 1926 World Series can be found in various baseball literature. One example is in Charles Alexander's biography Rogers Hornsby, when he tells about the moments leading up to Pete being called into the game:

(Flint) Rhem and Alexander were sitting in the bullpen; neither had been warming up. Alexander had celebrated in his usual fashion the previous night and, by Rhem's account, was dozing with a pint of whiskey in his pocket. Seeing Hornsby's signal, Alexander grinned, 'staggered a little, handed me the pint, hitched up his britches and walked straight as he could to the mound.' Hornsby walked out beyond the infield to meet Alexander and explain the situation: two out, bases loaded, Lazzeri up. 'Do you feel all right?' Hornsby asked. 'Sure, I feel fine,' said Alexander. 'Three on, eh. Well, there's no place to put Lazzeri, is there. I'll just have to give him nothin' but a lot of hell, won't I?' (119)

There are a couple of first hand stories about Alexander in the Lawrence J. Ritter classic The Glory of Their Times as well. Bob O'Farrell, the Cardinals starting catcher during that Series, recounts:

I don't believe Alex was much of a drinker before he went into the army. After he got back from the war, though, he had a real problem. When he struck out Lazzeri he'd been out on a drunk the night before and was still feeling the effects ...Well, Alex didn't really intend to take a drink that night. But some of his 'friends' got hold of him and thought they were doing him a favor by buying him a drink. Well, you weren't doing Alex any favor by buying him a draink, because he just couldn't stop ... So in the seventh inning of the seventh game, Alex is tight asleep in the bullpen, sleeping off the night before, when trouble comes (252).

I will say that during this key moment in World Series history Warner Brothers did have Alexander fast asleep in the bullpen, and while they didn't specifically say he was drunk or even hung over, Reagan did play Ol' Pete as more than a bit groggy during the sequence. I get the feeling that for the sake of the kids viewers are supposed to believe Old Alex was ancient, which he was--in baseball years. Alexander was 39 years old at the time of the 1926 World Series.

(And at age 40 Alexander would have one great last hurrah of a season winning 21 games for the Cardinals against 10 losses with a 2.52 ERA. He wasn't that bad at 41 either! In his career Alexander won a total of 373 games, tying him for third all-time with Christy Mathewson.)

The Winning Team isn't so much over-sanitized as it is rearranged. According to the fine biography of Grover Cleveland Alexander by Jan Finkel at SABR, Pete would be traded back to where he started in Philadelphia and be cut after 3 decisions in 1930. That's when life got pretty bad: sanitariums; he'd previously divorced Amy in 1929, though they remarried in 1931; then Pete took on what Finkel calls "an odyssey of odd jobs" which included the geek-type moment of The Winning Team where Alexander would recount his baseball glories at a flea circus.

Alexander was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938, but Finkel quotes him from 1944 saying "I'm in the Hall of Fame, . . . and I'm proud to be there, but I can't eat the Hall of Fame." The Alexanders would divorce again. Pete had a heart attack in 1946; hurt himself when he fell during a seizure; developed cancer and had to have his ear amputated. Grover Cleveland Alexander died in 1950 at age 63.

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