El mundo Perdido, adaptación de 1925 de la novela de 1912 de Arthur Conan Doyle actualmente ha quedado totalmente desfasada y antigua pero en su momento fue un autentico taquillazo. La película está protagonizada por Wallace Beery como el Profesor Challenger. También podemos ver a una jovencísima Bessie Love, al actor Lewis Stone haciendo el papel de Sir John Roxton y al galán Lloyd Hughes. Todos tuvieron sus momentos de gloria en la época del cine mudo, luego nos encontramos con un reparto de lujo. La película cuando aparecen los dinosaurios utiliza unas primitivas aun técnicas de Stop motion (Animación cuadro a cuadro). La técnica tendría su momento cumbre unos años después con King Kong. La película fue declarada en 1998 como de interés histórico por La Biblioteca del Congreso de los Estados Unidos y seleccionada para su conservación por el National Film Registry
En la película encontramos un decente guión que cuenta la aventura y viaje de un atractivo grupo: dos científicos, un cazador, un periodista y la hija de un profesor desaparecido. Por supuesto una historia de amor entre la guapa de la película y el galán y de por medio aventuras en el Amazonas y un final correcto.
Vista hoy día, la película merece todos los respetos, sobre todo por la ambientación de los escenarios y el trabajo de animación.

La copia que he podido visionar es de hora y media de duración. Durante años solo podía verse una hora de metraje pero juntando todas las copias disponibles que se conservan se ha realizado un buen trabajo de montaje ampliando el celuloide original. También se ha añadido al principio de la película una escena con el autentico Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, que esta tomada de una entrevista que se le hizo en 1927.
Como curiosidad decir que fue la primera película que se proyectó en un avión de pasajeros que cubría la ruta Londres-Paris en abril de 1925. Tarea muy arriesgada porque el material fílmico era de Nitrato altamente inflamable.

Nacido entre las telas que su padre comerciaba y criado entre algodones por su madre y sus hermanas, Paul Poiret (1879/1944) ya apuntaba maneras desde temprana edad y, de no haber sido porque su padre le ató corto y le obligó a terminar sus estudios secundarios y después a trabajar como chico de los recados para un paragüero, ¿quién sabe si no hubiera podido ser un niño prodigio como Mozart o como nuestro pequeño ruiseñor, Joselito? Lo que sí está claro es que fue un juguete roto más; pero en su caso ya en el mundo adulto, aun más cruel y olvidadizo.

Fue el gran liberador de la mujer: nos dejó respirar quitandonos el corsé y nos dejó seducir cambiando nuestras habituales medias negras por unas de seda color carne que invitaban a la imaginación. Pero no lo hizo por amor a la mujer, sino por amor a lo estético y debido a su concepción particular del estilo. ‘He liberado sus troncos, pero ahora pienso atarles las piernas’ argumentaba tras la creación de una de sus creaciones más controvertidas: la falda trabada que tenia los bajos tan estrechos que obligaba a las mujeres a andar con pasos muy cortos.

Una vez que se emancipó de las enseñanzas de su profesor, el famoso modisto Jacques Doucet,  parecía que nadie le haría sombra, pues supo ser un gran coolhunter de la moda y las tendencias y supo, por ejemplo, ver antes que nadie la magia de Oriente, con sus colores vivos, sus túnicas, velos, turbantes, pantalones bombachos…que más tarde popularizó el Ballet Ruso en representaciones como Sherezade.

Se consideraba a sí mismo el sultán que vestía a las mujeres de su harén y pensaba que esa sumisión femenina le iba a durar por siempre, pero ya en 1930 comenzaba a verse relegado por otras ‘nuevas estrellas’ como Coco Chanel que venían apuntando muy alto.

Pero, aun cuando sus musas comenzaban a dejarle de lado y su nivel de egocentrismo comenzaba a caerse del camello, continuó haciendo alarde de su habitual derroche y siguió organizando fastuosas fiestas, las mismas fiestas que antes le habían reportado publicidad, notoriedad y fama mundial y que ahora no le darían más que ruina y soledad.

Marcó un antes y después del opresivo corsé que modificó por el traje llamado La Vague (sencillo, entallado bajo los pechos y caída recta hasta los pies); descubrió el lejano Oriente antes de que este irrumpiera con el Ballet Ruso; fue el primer modisto en lanzar su propio perfume (10 años antes que Chanel); estapó por primera vez motivos artísticos en seda;  y lo más importante, se había convertido en el primer diseñador de la historia  al conseguir que sus creaciones fueran copiadas por todo el mundo, creando así un sello estético.

Y, sin embargo, su vida personal y profesional tuvo su culmen tras la exposición Art Decó que él mismo organizó en 1925. Gastó sumas ingentes de dinero en ella y finalmente los patrocinadores no le respondieron con el dinero prometido. Arruinado, olvidado y abandonado por su musa más importante (su esposa), se retiró a La Provenza y murió pobre y solo en 1944.

As a proper opening of another feature service within the webpage,
today’s flick is “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925),
starring the amazing Lon Chaney

–

My Top 10:

1. The Battleship Potemkin
   

   The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

2. Greed
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
4. The Birth of a Nation
5. The Gold Rush
6. The Phantom of the Opera
7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
8. Foolish Wives
9. The Last Laugh
10. The General
    

TSPDT Consensus Top 5 Films:

• #8 – The Battleship Potemkin
• #27 – The Gold Rush
• #30 – The General
• #51 – Intolerance
• #64 – Greed

AFI Top 100 Films:

• The Birth of a Nation – #44 (1998) – not on 2007 list
• The Gold Rush – #75 (1998) – #58  (2007)
• The General – #18 (2007) – not on 1998 list
• Intolerance – #49 (2007) – not on 1998 list

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture: The Battleship Potemkin
• Best Director: Sergei Eisenstein (The Battleship Potemkin)
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Greed (from the novel McTeague)
• Best Original Screenplay: The Gold Rush
• Best Actor: Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush)
• Best Actress: Lilian Gish (Broken Blossoms)
• Best Supporting Actor: Donald Crisp (Broken Blossoms)
• Best Supporting Actress: Zasu Pitts (Greed)

Ebert Great Movies (in order that he added them):

• The General
• The Battleship Potemkin
• Greed
• Broken Blossoms
• The Last Laugh
• The Birth of a Nation
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Faust
• Safety Last
• Nanook of the North
• Cabiria
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Souls for Sale

1912 is where I begin this project because it was in 1912 that Richard III, the earliest surviving feature length film was released.  1926 is where this post ends because the Academy Awards began in 1927.  So this pretty much covers the pre-Academy era of feature films.

Because these are the pre-Academy years no group existed to decide what was the best film of each year.  So if you’re looking to try to figure out what films to watch from this era, there are several ways to go about it.  First, you can look at TSPDT and their list of the Top 1000 films of all-time.  It’s a good place to start, though it leaves a lot to sort through.  You could try the AFI list which, between the two versions of 400 films in consideration, included 19 different films from this era (aside from the 4 films on the two versions of the top 100 they also nominated Richard III, The Cheat, The Poor Little Rich Girl, Broken Blossoms, Within Our Gates, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Kid, Safety Last, Sherlock Jr., The Thief of Bagdad, The Big Parade, The Freshman, Greed, The Phantom of the Opera and Ben-Hur).  There are 13 films from this era that have been featured on Roger Ebert’s Great Movies list.  You could also try focusing on one director in particular.  Charlie Chaplin began in this era making short films, eventually starting his feature directing career, though his only true classic during this era is The Gold Rush.  D.W. Griffith was the top director of the era and almost his entire career was done before sound ever made it to the screen.  There is Erich von Stroheim, who made far fewer films than Griffith, but each film is worth seeing.  Then there are the foreign directors, the ones who get missed if you stick to AFI, like all of the great silent work of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau.  While the #1 film on my list (and TSPDT) is Russian, 5 of my top 20 are German films (1 Lang, 3 Murnau and Cabinet).  But really, it’s hard to go wrong.  I’ve seen over 100 feature length films from this era and none of them are bad and only 2 of them are as low as **.5 (Dream Street and The Idol Dancer – two of Griffith’s weakest films).  Films that have managed to survive from this era usually have survived for a reason – either because of their director, their historical value or their quality.

To me, among the actors there are four main names that stick out: Charlie Chaplin, for his amazing ability, Lon Chaney for the way he would disappear into his characters, Emil Jannings, who in the silent era proved that language was irrelevant and Erich von Stroheim, who maintained a dignified air about him even when he was acting the complete cad.  Among the actresses, there was only one; Lilian Gish rises above everyone else in the profession during this era.

Of course, there are highlights of film history all through this era:

• 1912 – Mack Sennett releases the first Keystone Kops films / Carl Laemmle organizes several independent companies into Universal
• 1913 – Lon Chaney begins working in Horror films / D.W. Griffith leaves Biograph after over 500 shorts / Cecil B. DeMille rents a barn that will later become Paramount
• 1914 – Chaplin first appears on-screen as the Tramp / Louella Parsons becomes the first movie columnist
• 1915 – Film debuts of W.C. Fields and Douglas Fairbanks
• 1918 – Warner Bros. release its first film  (Four Years in Germany) / first Tarzan film
• 1919 – Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith form United Artists / Oscar Micheaux becomes first African-American director
• 1920 – Marriage of Fairbanks and Pickford
• 1921 – Fatty Arbuckle trial
• 1922 – Will Hays appointed head of MPPDA / release of Nanook of the North
• 1923 – Introduction of 16mm film by Eastman Kodak / Hollywoodland sign is erected
• 1924 – Metro, Goldwyn and Mayer form to become MGM
• 1925 – Soviet Union begins to finance national filmmaking
• 1926 – Death of Valentino

My Top Film from each calendar year:

• 1912 - Richard III
• 1913 – Ingeborg Holm
• 1914 – The Avenging Conscience
• 1915 – The Birth of a Nation
• 1916 – Intolerance
• 1917 - A Man There Was
• 1918 – The Spiders Part I: The Golden Lake
• 1919 – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• 1920 – The Golem
• 1921 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• 1922 – Foolish Wives (Nosferatu is my #1, but it’s Oscar eligible in 1929)
• 1923 – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• 1924 – The Last Laugh
• 1925 – Greed
• 1926 – The Battleship Potemkin

Overlooked film of 1923:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (dir. Wallace Worsley)

Lon Chaney as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

I had actually planned to write about the 1922 version of Oliver Twist, also starring Lon Chaney.  I had begun with talking about how if you have only seen Chaney in horror films, then your film horizons need to be expanded, how Chaney was one of the greats of the Silent Era, how he was the first great film Fagin but in spite of his acclaim, today it is easier to find a still of Ben Kingsley or Alec Guinness (or even Timothy Spall) when you Google the words “Fagin” and “Chaney.”  But then going through all the lists I came to a realization.  Hunchback is obscenely overlooked.  Ebert hasn’t covered it, it isn’t included in the Top 1000 (or even the doubling the canon extra 1000 films you can find there though the inferior 1939 remake is) and wasn’t among the 400 films by AFI under consideration for either their original list or the 2007 version.  Yet it is an essential Horror film (and made it to #19 on my Top 25 Horror List) and ranks only behind Phantom of the Opera in the Chaney pantheon.  It is an excellent early example of how books could be translated onto film and how the images we see up on the screen stay with us through our voyages in literature.

Have you read the book?  The odds are no.  Victor Hugo is much talked about and much adapted, but seems to be rarely read.  Les Miserables has been memorably translated into many different forms, but at 1463 pages (longer than War and Peace) isn’t read particularly much.  And of course, Hugo didn’t write a novel titled The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The actual title of the book is Notre-Dame de Paris.  Hugo’s title emphasizes the cathedral’s place as the center of the book.  But films didn’t go for that.  The first film version was titled Esmeralda and this film pretty much set in stone the notion of Quasimodo as the central character and Hunchback as the title (which is what you will usually find on current printings of the book).

The film certainly wanted to focus on Quasimodo and to give Chaney free reign to show his incredible talent (both for acting and for makeup).  The first shot of him, a couple of minutes into the film, captures him high in the frame, up on the balcony of Notre Dame, watching the proceedings of the Festival of Fools.  Then we cut to a somewhat closer shot and get the first hints of his grotesque looks.  Then there is the title card announcing the character and actor.  Then we cut again, this time to a close-up and we get our first real look at the hunchback: curved spine, distorted face, scar for a right eye, wild hair, rough hands covered with thick, dark hair.  It is a brilliant simultaneous slow and quick reveal that prefigures the same kind of theatrical effect we would get from the first look at the Phantom’s face only two years later.

Movie audiences hadn’t really seen anything like this before.  Here was this grotesque monster, leering and mocking the people below him, later stripped to be punished and determined to be grotesque through and through; yet their sympathies were touched.  He is so gifted that he is able to climb down the outside of the cathedral.  He is so devoted that he will go to any lengths to please those whom he feels he serves.  His love is so strong that in the end, death is more pleasurable than the concept of existence without his beloved.  He is so much more preferrable to Phoebus, has so much more honesty, courage and even dignity.  While it was Chaney who had conceived the project, even having say over the cast and director, and thus no question that his monster would be the center, it is his performance rather than any ego that makes him the star.

When Chaney died in 1930, death was already no stranger to Hollywood; yet no death before Chaney had robbed cinema of so much.  Valentino was revered by women everywhere and good films had been made by Ince and Stiller, but it was Chaney who had the most future to offer to film fans.  This film was the beginning of the crowning of Universal Studios as the champion of Horror.  Great Horror films had been made in Germany (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, The Golem), but nothing like this had been seen in the States.  His Phantom would cement his reputation as the Man of a Thousand Faces and we can only imagine what kind of makeup we would have seen had he been around to perhaps star in Dracula or Frankenstein or The Mummy or The Wolf Man.

But instead he died.  We were denied the chance to see him become a huge Horror star in the sound era.  And he could have done it.  “No dialogue.  We didn’t need dialogue.  We had faces.”  Norma Desmond says that, of course.  And it’s true most of all about Chaney.  He had a great voice as was proved in his one sound film, but he didn’t dialogue.  He had that face, those moves, those natural abilities.  He was always a star, even if people don’t seem to remember the film that truly made him one.

[ipaper id=21989603]

by Jonathan Burrello

My biggest regret of tackling this article is that I have not seen more of Mr. Lon Chaney, Sr.’s (1883-1930) work. Of the handful of films I’ve seen of his, none have disappointed and all have been wonderfully twisted. Lon Chaney (father of “Wolf Man,” Lon Chaney, Jr.) was one of the biggest icons of the silent era. Praised alongside silent legends such as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Theda Bara, and Rudolph Valentino, Chaney was every bit as talented and engaging. Chaney’s trademark, however, is what separated him from his contemporaries. Chaplin was admired for his comic humanity; Fairbanks for his swashbuckling acrobatics; Bara for her exotic, seductive persona; Valentino for his rich Mediterranean good looks; Chaney was famous for playing grotesques and psychotics. His real claim to fame was that not only did he portray gross villains and sympathetic monsters, but also he designed all of his own makeup and prosthetics to astounding effect.

Lon Chaney, Sr. made his living by playing some of the most demented characters in movie history. He was known for the incredible emotional power he could evoke beneath layers of makeup and for his facial and bodily expressiveness (both his parents were deaf-mutes, so he had to learn at a young age how to express himself without words). From mad doctors, to amputees and deformed deviants, to bent Chinese patriarchs, to tragic clowns, to insane killers and criminals, Chaney played them all. The first film of his I ever saw was the classic 1925-horror flick, “The Phantom of the Opera” (directed by Rupert Julian). This is easily his most famous and well-known role. Naturally he plays the diabolical and disfigured eponymous phantom. He wears a most unnerving rubber facemask with a crude veil over his mouth to hide his hideousness. The best scene of the film occurs when his lovely muse, Christine Daae (Mary Philbin), is taken to his secret lair beneath the streets of Paris and her curiosity spurs her to approach her musical master while he plays the organ and she removes his mask to reveal his true ugliness. Chaney’s reaction is one of the most memorable few seconds you are likely to see on film. This movie also boasts a colored Masque of the Red Death segment. Although the lavish film presents the Phantom as a deranged killer out for revenge, Chaney brings a darker, more tormented side to his performance. He is the character we see the rest of the film through. We recognize his sorrow and—on those wonderful occasions—cavort as he executes his judgment on the little people of the opera house. We catch ourselves sympathizing with this murderous monster and even rooting for him.

Besides the Phantom, Chaney played a very noble Quasimodo in Wallace Worsley’s  “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923), again implementing his own inventive makeup effects. He played a brilliant scientist whose heartless betrayal at the hands of his mentor and his fiancée, drive him to become a tormented circus clown whose sole act consists of being slapped in the face in Victor Sjostrom’s bizarre tragedy “He Who Gets Slapped” (1924). Chaney played another conflicted, tragic circus clown in Herbert Brenon’s “Laugh, Clown, Laugh” (1928). He joined the circus again for Tod Browning’s (“Dracula,” “Freaks”) “The Unknown,” as well.

“The Unknown” is a particularly strange movie. Set in Spain, Chaney plays a wicked fugitive with double-thumbs, who stuffs his arms in a corset-like device so he can join the circus as Alonzo the Armless, the amazing knife-thrower (he uses his feet…or rather Chaney used the feet of real-life armless wonder, Paul Desmuke). He falls in love with a beautiful circus girl, Nanon Zanzi (Joan Crawford) and—in order to ensure that she will love him and not the circus strongman—he psychologically bewitches her into fearing human arms. Alonzo kills and creates general mayhem while he dreams of how he will make this poor girl his…until his sidekick tells him that if they were to marry Nanon would find out he really has arms and be repulsed. Distraught, Alonzo devises a plan. He cashes in on a favor owed him by a shady doctor and has the doctor amputate his arms. While Alonzo recovers in the hospital, the strongman gets cozy with Nanon and cures her of her fear of arms. When Alonzo meets Nanon again she is engaged to the strongman and Alonzo becomes quite mad. I will not spoil the deranged finale of “The Unknown,” but I urge you to watch for yourself.

Chaney worked with Tod Browning on several projects, including the most famous lost movie in film history, “London After Midnight” (1927). The original “The Unholy Three” (1925) was another great film Chaney collaborated with Browning on. He played a circus ventriloquist who turns to crime along with a dwarf (played by “Freaks” star, Harry Earles) and a strongman. Chaney dresses as an old granny who runs a parrot shop and the dwarf poses as a baby and together the three of them act as jewelry thieves. The film is wonderfully peculiar and a must-see. Chaney’s final film was the 1930 remake of “The Unholy Three.”  It was Chaney’s first and only talkie and he performed five different voices in the film. Apparently “the man of a thousand faces” (as he was so dubbed for his talent with makeup) was also ready to become “the man of a thousand voices” when he died of lung cancer in 1930 at age 47.

After making well over 150 films in his lifetime and establishing himself as a true master of his craft, Lon Chaney, Sr. stands as real treasure that film has been able to make immortal. Chaney’s films are quiet oddities, psychotic marvels, and horrific tragedies and deserve to be celebrated. His performances have been highly regarded for decades and are still just as enchanting today. If you are a movie buff and have never seen a Lon Chaney, Sr. film, I strongly recommend you remedy this, and if you’ve several of his films already then I needn’t hesitate to tell you to see more. I hope I’ve made it quite clear that I am a fan. My hat’s off to you, Mr. Chaney. Thanks for making it fun.

Crédito: Desconhecido

A pequena abelha está de volta, e promete muitas novidades. Mas fazer uma breve pesquisa para este post, deparei-me com alguns pormenores interessantes. A personagem é já bastante antiga, tendo sido criada em 1912 por Waldemar Bonsels, para o livro “As Aventuras da Abelha Maia”, e teve direito à primeira experiência cinematográfica em 1925, realizado pelo fotógrafo alemão Wolfram Junghans.
Para ser franco, apesar de gostar sempre de coisas novas e diferentes, aprecio o retornar destes clássicos, e vejo-os sempre com alguma nostalgia, embora ache também (para além desse lado mais pessoal), que são uma boa aposta para renovar um pouco aquilo que se faz actualmente para crianças. Espero que a adaptação da Abelha Maia a novos tempos não caia no domínio da frivolidade existente actualmente nesse tipo de animações.

Yes Sir! That’s My Baby (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) was a hit for Ace Brigode in 1925 and for Eddie Cantor in 1930. It was later a hit for Rick Nelson in the 1950s and Frank Sinatra in the 1960s.

According to one source, the song was written when Donaldson & Kahn were visiting Eddie Cantor. Cantor’s daughter Marjorie brought out one of her favorite toys, a walking mechanical pig. She wound it up and it started walking in rhythm while two notes kept coming from the little creature. Kahn was inspired and started working [on] lyrics to these notes in rhythm with the pig, coming up with the title and opening line of the chorus in short order. – excerpts from wikipedia

a. Ace Brigode and his 14 Virginians – 1925

b.  Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra, vocal refrain by C. A. Coon. Recorded July 27, 1925 in Camden, NJ. First issued circa late 1925.

c. Dajos Béla under the pseudonym Sándor Józsi – 1925

d. Jason Robards in the feature film A Thousand Clowns (1965)

Dinah (m. Harry Akst, w.Sam M. Lewis & Joe Young)

Eddie Cantor starred in producer Florenz Ziegfeld’s musical Kid Boots which opened on Broadway on December 31, 1923 and ran to February 21, 1925. The music for the show was written by Harry Tierney and Joe McCarthy. However, during the show’s run the song “Dinah” by Sam M. Lewis, Joe Young and Harry Akst was added to the finale and sung by Cantor, becoming the hit of the show. But it was vocalist Ethel Waters who is responsible for popularizing the tune. She is often credited with introducing it because she performed it in a nightclub show from 1925, Plantation Revue, and the tune took off like wildfire the next year with her recording reaching the second spot in the charts:

Early charting recordings:

• Ethel Waters (1926, vocal, #2)
• The Revelers (1926, #4)
• Cliff Edwards (1926, vocal, #5)
• Fletcher Henderson (1926, #13)
• Ted Lewis and His Orchestra (1930, #13)
• Bing Crosby and the Mills Brothers (1932, vocal, #1)
• Boswell Sisters (1935, vocal, #3)

– text from Jazzstandards.com slightly modified. Note: They apparently give the year at the time of the peak chart position rather than the release year which is often the previous year.

a. The Revelers – recorded 1925

b. Ethel Waters and the Plantation Orchestra – 1926

c. Cliff Edwards – 1925

d. Bing Crosby – 1932. This one is a real treat, with Bing scatting a few bars while he gets his shoes shined, to a jazz beat. The second song is Please (Leo Robin, Ralph Rainger) with guitar accompaniment by Eddie Lang. The girl he sings this to after a second scene change is not at all  impressed.

e. The Boswell Sisters, recorded December, 1934

Sweet Georgia Brown (m. Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, w. Kenneth Casey)

Sweet Georgia Brown was immediately popular. Ben Bernie and His Orchestra’s hit recording stayed on the pop charts for 13 weeks, resting in the number one slot for five weeks in a row. Also charting with the song in 1925 were Isham Jones and His Orchestra, rising to number five, and Ethel Waters, reaching number six. In 1932, a Bing Crosby recording of “Sweet Georgia Brown” (accompanied by Isham Jones and His Orchestra) reached the number two position for three weeks. A Brother Bones and His Shadows recording reached number ten in 1949 and would later gain fame and recognition as the anthem for the Harlem Globetrotters, complete with whistled chorus.

Sweet Georgia Brown seems to have been designed with jazz improvisation in mind, and there has been no shortage of improvisers. Jackie McLean based his Donna on the song and Miles Davis recorded it as Dig (1951). On Monk’s Dream (1962), Thelonious Monk included only one new composition, Bright Mississippi, which is also based on the chord changes of Sweet Georgia Brown. – Excerpts from the article on the song at jazzstandards.com

a. Ben Bernie and his Orchestra – 1925

b. Django Reinhardt – (Undated) Djangophiles are invited to identify this recording. The Djangopedia lists six recordings of the song on different dates between 1937 and 1950.

c. Coleman Hawkins & his All Star Band

d. Dig – Miles Davis Sextet. Recorded: Apex Studios, New York City, New York, October 5, 1951

Personnel:
Miles Davis – Trumpet
Sonny Rollins – Tenor Sax
Jackie McLean – Alto Sax
Walter Bishop Jr. – Piano
Tommy Potter – Bass
Art Blakey – Drums

Always (Irving Berlin) – Written as a wedding gift to Berlin’s wife to be Ellin McKay whom he married in 1926, the song was dropped from the Marx Brothers musical The Cocoanuts (1925) during out-of-town tryouts.

a. In the 1942 film Pride of the Yankees it was performed by Ray Noble and His Orchestra and sung by Bettye Avery at the Moon Terrace Nightclub, with Ray Noble on the piano.

b. Frank Sinatra – I don’t have a date for the recording. It sounds like early Sinatra, during his period with Tommy Dorsey (1940-42). One site reports that it was recorded in 1942, but a couple of the Sinatra discography sites don’t list the song at all. It may have gone unreleased. Sinatra left the Dorsey band in late 2942.

I Never Knew (Ted Fio Rito, Gus Kahn) -The lone version I have at this time is an instrumental by  Victor Salon Orchestra conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret, recorded in 1925.

Manhattan (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) was written for the revue Garrick Gaieties which debuted in 1925 on Broadway and was the first of three Garrick Gaiety revues, which were subsequently produced in 1926 and 1930. The show parodied current subjects, such as the New York City Subway system and the Theatre Guild (producer of the show).

The revue first opened on Broadway at the Garrick Theatre on May 17, 1925, as a 2-performance benefit for the Theatre Guild. The reviews were favorable, and Rodgers and others persuaded the Theatre Guild to continue the production, which re-opened on June 8, 1925 and ran until November 28, for 211 performances.^[2] Several writers contributed the material for the sketches, including Edith Meiser, Sam Jaffe, Benjamin Kaye and Morrie Ryskind. – wikipedia

a. The California Ramblers peforming as the Golden Gate Orchestra – 1925

b. Ruth Tester & Allan Gould. The scene is from a film short called Makers of Melody, shot in the Spring of 1929, evidently a pilot for a series about songwriters. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart play themselves in the twenty minute two-reeler. The image below  is an excerpt from the biography Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway by Frederick Nolan, 1995, p. 127.

This performance retains the satirical element of the song, the caustic wit that Hart was known for, but which is lost on most later versions.

c. Lee Wiley – from her album Night in Manhattan, with Bobby Hackett and Joe Bushkin – released 12 December 1950

Remember (Irving Berlin)

a. Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike) – 1925

b. Red Norvo and his Orchestra – 1937. The youtube provider notes that Eddie Sauter arranged the song and that this March 1937 recording features trumpeter Stu Pletcher, tenor sax man Herbie Haymer, and clarinetist Hank D’Amico. Gorgeous big band playing at its finest.

Who? (m. Jerome Kern, w. Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II)

a. George Olsen’s Orchestra – 1925. From the 1925 musical Sunny. The provider attaches the note: George Olsen’s orchestra was in the pit for the original Broadway run and soon thereafter recorded this version for male trio.

(Wikipedia) The Broadway production (produced by Charles Dillingham and directed by Hassard Short) opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on September 22, 1925 and ran for 517 performances. Cast: Marilyn Miller (playing Sunny), Jack Donahue, Clifton Webb, Mary Hay, Joseph Cawthorn, Paul Frawley, Cliff Edwards, Pert Kelton, Moss & Fontana, Esther Howard, Dorothy Francis.

b. Marilyn Miller – 1929. Hollywood made a film of Sunny in 1929. Marilyn Miller, who had played the leading part in the Broadway production, was hired by Warner Brothers to reprise the role that made her the highest-paid star on Broadway. – wiki

Warning: Before you listen, imagine Barbara Walters singing. If you think you can handle it, go for it.

Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal) (m. Ray Henderson, w. Samuel M. Lewis and Joseph Widow Young)

a. Art Landry’s Orchestra featuring vocalist Denny “Dinty” Curtis

b. The Melody Sheiks – Sam Lanin’s band – 1925

Flappers

A few weeks ago, I was back in Northampton visiting college friends. Katy and I were the only two with the day off, and so we began to wander around Main St. 

After visiting the Hospice Shop (and battling thrifty old ladies for a skintight velour turtleneck dress–so worth it) we turned down Market St., presumably on our way back to the house to watch the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy in its entirety (yes, on VHS).

Three hours later, we stumbled home, dragging plastic bags of 50’s-era dresses, ugly turquoise placemats, and Odds n’ Ends bags full of lace scraps and stray buttons (thanks, Hospice Shop) from the amazing thrift and vintage stores on Market St. One of my favorite treasures, however, was a copy of ‘The Youth’s Companion’ magazine. It’s the August 13, 1925 issue (Volume 99, No. 33) and cost ten cents a copy back in the day (I shelled out only two bucks for it).

The thing I was attracted to was the cover. An orange illustration of a bespectacled farmer peeking out from between rows of corn was paired with the following quotation from Caleb Peaslee’s Almanac:

“This is one of the months when a farmer c’n begin to quit growin’ all the time — and begin to garner – in a way – early apples – garden truck – fryin’ chickens — I don’t know any better feelin’ than to know your food is growin’ right under your eyes – and not be beholden to anybody else for it — it’s earned food — and that makes it good food to my way of lookin’ at it!” [sic]

Does a better argument exist for the benefits of local produce? It reminds me of a magnet on my girlfriend’s fridge that reads: “Try Organic Food! Or As Your Grandparents Called It…Food!” 

During my last semester of college, I took an anthropology class that turned out to be one of my favorites: “Gender, Food, and Agriculture” with Chaia Heller. In an essay we read for the class, Michael Pollan suggested that readers stop to consider what they’re eating from their grandparents’ (or even great-grandparents’) perspective. Before taking a bite, ask yourself, “Would my great-grandmother recognize what I’m about to eat?” If the answer is no, you’re probably consuming more preservatives and chemical substitutions for food than you think. It’s quite possible that Caleb Peaslee — and our great-grandparents — had the right idea.

Auch Stummfilmstar Charlie Chaplin war ein großer Fan der schwarzen Köstlichkeit.
In seinem Film “Goldrausch” (1925) schlingt der traurige Tramp in einer Szene ausgehungert seinen Schuh mitsamt Schnürsenkeln, Sohle und Schusternägeln hinunter.
Ziemlich ungesund? Nicht für den großen Stummfilmstar: Die Schuhe waren aus Lakritz.