The Reader's Page

Arabella Speaks out…..

Soundies…          ..... the first music videos!

Like time capsules, soundies preserved on celluloid the music history of an era gone by.
Before “talkies”, film music was produced the old fashioned way with a piano and pianist
playing accompaniment on stage as the moving pictures flickered across the screen. The
first music on screen came with “The Jazz Singer” and in 1938, the Sergei Eisenstein film
“Alexander Nevsky” set new horizons by actually choreographing battle scenes to a music
score. Then, in 1941, the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago took it a step farther with….
Panoram!

Panoram was a 2-ton monster jukebox that took 3 minute black and white films (printed in reverse)called “soundies” and projected them through a complicated set of mirrors in the rear onto a 20-inch glass screen in the front. Each machine contained a spool of 8 to 10 soundies and, for the price of one thin dime, fans could watch and hear their favorite performers sing and dance to the popular music of the moment. Country western, big bands, tenors singing lilting Irish ballads…a whole gamut of music and dance for 10 cents!

Many black artists from Bessie Smith and Billy Holiday to Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, missing from feature films and heard but never seen by mainstream audiences, were now exposed to fans all over the country. Actors waiting for their big chance stepped in to sing ballads with big bands on movie-set bandstands….even Alan Ladd!

James Roosevelt (his daddy was president at the time) joined songwriter Sam Caslow and Panoram maker Herbert Mills to form RCM and make soundie films in 1941. They ran into a little difficulty with theater owners and the film projectionist union who protested the new craze. Nonetheless, more than 1800 of these mini-movies were produced between 1941 and 1947 when wartime restrictions hastened their demise.

Because these films were printed backwards, they were considered useless for anything else and, true to our baby/bathwater syndrome, the company dumped them when they lost their popularity. However, thanks to the alert eyes of film collectors, there are a few copies left today with rare footage of the swing era’s most memorable performers.

Several years ago, before the radical changes at cable’s classic movie channel, American Movie Classics, we were privileged to view these precious pieces of film history. Maybe we will someday be able to do so again.

A little mouse told me...

…..that there is a story out there just waiting for a scriptwriter, a camera, a cast and a director!
It is the tragic tale of Ruggiero Eugenio di Rudolpho Colombo and it goes something like this…..

Ruggiero was born on January 14th, 1938 in Camden, New Jersey the last of 12 children. Even as a small child, it was evident that music would have an important part in his life. He studied violin but it was his voice that commanded attention and he sang both Italian opera and popular love songs much to the delight of anyone who heard him. He was noticed by Gus Arnheim, Bing Crosby’s mentor at the time, and when Bing left the band, Rudolpho stepped in. By this time he had a new name…Russ Columbo! Later Bing and Russ began their pseudo feud as the “Battling Baritones” on CBS (Bing) and NBC (Russ).

Russ Columbo

Russ was not a crooner but his voice was unabashedly romantic with emotion in every note.
He became the “Troubadour of Screen and Radio” and tagged the “Rudolph Valentino of Song”.

Russ made 12 films where he composed the score, acted a role or both. He played himself in the 1934 version of “Moulin Rouge” and became the heartthrob of the early 30’s. He was romantically involved with Carole Lombard when the music suddenly ended. On September 2nd, 1934 Russ Columbo was killed in a gun accident that was almost too bizarre to be real. He was visiting the photography studio of a good friend, talking about old times and old friends. As they chatted, the photographer took out a cigarette and a match, He then leaned over and struck the match against the barrel of an antique French dueling pistol used on the coffee table as a paperweight.

Somehow a spark from the match touched off a long-forgotten charge still in the gun. The bullet discharged, ricocheted off the table, and struck Russ in the forehead killing him instantly. He was just 26 years old.

Well, is there someone?.... anyone ?

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Ask Arabella...

 

Gloria and Norris Bausch, Poplar Bluff, Missouri… “We were talking about radio stars the other night and “Lum ‘n Abner” came up in the conversation. Since Norris Goff played Abner and that is my husband’s first name we remembered them. Didn’t they make a few movies, too? What happened to them?	Chester Lauck (Lum) and Norris Goff (Abner) formed their comedy team on a radio station in Hot Springs, Arkansas on April 23rd, 1931. Within months, the perennial bachelors were signed by NBC and their country characters remained on the air for almost 20 years. The duo averaged 15,000 letters a week and sometimes hit the 23,000 mark. In 1939 they began making movies (7 in all) and one of their films “Bashful Bachelors” in 1942 grossed $675,000 in this country alone while only costing $165,000 to produce. In 1976, instead of turning to television to continue their comedy series, they retired! Chester Lauck died February 2nd, 1980 in Hot Springs, Arkansas where the two started out. Norris Goff died in Palm Desert, California on June 7th, 1978 at the age of 72 from a stroke.
Dorma Castanza, Kalamazoo, Michigan… “Very late one night, some friends and I watched “The Wedding Night” with Gary Cooper (my hero) and Anna Sten. What more do you know about Anna?	Poor Anna…. a beautiful woman and a successful actress in Europe when Sam Goldwyn brought her to Hollywood in 1932.with a 5-year contract and promises of bigger and better things. Born Anjuchka Stenska in Russia in 1910, her first Goldwyn film was supposed to be Tolstoy’s “The Brothers Karamazov”. a movie she had already done in Germany. But Goldwyn held her back to be tutored in English. Her first film “Nana” with lavish sets and plenty of pre-release publicity, wasn’t seen until in 1934 but audiences were not impressed. Goldwyn then put Anna in an adaptation of Tolstoy’s “Resurrection” titled “We Live Again” with Frederic March. But again box office receipts were dismal. The movie with Gary Cooper that you watched was her third and favorite American movie. It had a stellar cast, top publicity and excellent reviews but…no one went to see it. It was the final straw and Goldwyn and Anna parted company. Anna became known as “Goldwyn’s Folly” and “The Edsel of the Movie Industry”. She went on to make more films in both Hollywood and England but none were big successes. Then, during WWII, she turned to painting and finally became both a critical and financial success. Anna Sten died in New York City on November 12th, 1993 of a heart attack at the age of 84.
Midge Eichenlaub, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania… “That Lady In Ermine” with Betty Grable and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. has two directors listed. Did Ernst Lubitsch and Otto Preminger, both temperamental directors, really collaborate on this one?”	No. Unfortunately Ernst Lubitsch died of a heart attack during the filming and Otto Preminger took over to finish the picture. But it certainly would have been very interesting to watch them in tandem. The reverberation would have been heard around the world!

 

 

Now Arabella Asks...

Since Australia was the first country to produce a film longer than one reel, one of the first to acquire sound equipment and, in 1899, produced a fiction film…there must be a lot of treasures buried Down Under. I would love to hear from film buffs in Oz and perhaps do an article on Australia’s contributions to the Golden Age. Also does anyone know anything more about that 1899 film?