An Historical Mystery: The Man on the Rock (1938) (short) Dir: Edward Cahn
Production: MGM
Another one of Carey Wilson’s crazy, entertaining conspiracy theories. History tells us that Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St. Helena, May 5, 1821. But what if he didn’t? Napoleon was known for using a double--a modest, unassuming farmer named Francois Robeaud, who would attend to routine state matters leaving Napoleon to spend time with his beloved son. What if, following Napoleon’s defeat and imprisonment, the members of his inner circle conspired to somehow exchange their emperor with his double? And succeeded. The ‘evidence’: Robeaud, who had gone back to his home in Baleycourt after Napoleon was defeated, suddenly disappears--forever as it would turn out; his sister becomes unaccountably wealthy; the wife of a Bonaparte conspirator sends a letter to a relation in Russia describing their triumph in freeing Napoleon from St. Helena; a man with an uncanny resemblance to Napoleon opens a shop in Verona, the locals jokingly call him “Bonaparte”, etc. And most curiously, who was the stranger shot and killed trying to enter the residence of the young Duke of Reichstadt (who was once known as the son of Napoleon before the Hapsburg’s took custody of him), a man whose last words were “son”?
There’s an odd, admiring sympathy toward Napoleon throughout the short, especially in regards to the mean, old Hapsburgs who were desperately trying to quell any budding notions in Napoleon’s son of him being an heir to his father’s ambitions, but the tale is well told, a bit wacky, fun to consider.
out of 4
John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade No. 52: The Seesaw and the Shoes (1945) (short) Dir: Douglas Foster
Production: MGM
A story of “two small, unimportant things that changed our lives for all time”, a seesaw and a pair of shoes. The seesaw takes us to Paris, 1819, outside of a young doctor’s office, an era when doctors had no idea what the hell they were doing. We see the young doctor listening to a patient’s heartbeat by putting his ear to the man’s chest. Of course this determines nothing, nothing is heard, the doctor knows he must lie and tell the patient he’s fine. Eventually the children tapping on the seesaw outside will give the doctor, René Laennec, the idea of making a conduit for the sound of the heartbeat to travel. The stethoscope is born.
Next, to New Haven, Connecticut, the year is 1830. An inventor proudly shows his friends the new waterproof shoes he’s made, from a substance he calls ‘caoutchouc’, that are going to make him rich. As he tells the story, the wet shoes he’s set beside the fire to dry, melt into a noxious puddle. The inventor is a laughingstock. He doubles his efforts, tries adding all sorts of chemicals to prevent the new substance from melting in heat, spends years of his life, goes broke, goes to prison for his debts, but still nothing. Then one day, the inventor, in order to hide the fact from a visiting neighbor that he was still working on the substance that had effectively ruined his life, quickly hid a tray of ‘caoutchouc’ into an oven. And whaddaya know, the man, Charles Goodyear, had just invented the vulcanization process for what would soon be called ‘rubber’ (for its ability to rub out pencil marks). Emblematic of the Passing Parade series, giving you a brief history of something you never wanted a brief history of, and making it interesting.
out of 4
James A. FitzPatrick’s Traveltalks: Modern Mexico City (1942) (short)
Production: MGM
Opens with a large, sweeping pan of Mexico City, “one of the largest and most modern cities in Latin America”. Then a look at some notable monuments, like the Mexican independence monument, El Ángel, the George Washington statue, the Benito Juarez monument, and the Monument to the Revolution. We see the Hotel Reforma, whose hotel roof garden is a popular hot spot for the elite to meet. A shot of the city’s MGM offices highlights the close relationship between the United States and Mexico, as well as the fact that 75% of Mexican exports went to the U.S. It’s not all go-go modern in Mexico City, as the amazing National Palace and Metropolitan Cathedral, buildings hundreds of years old, shows us. Outside of Chapultepec Castle we view a street show featuring a dog and cat living in harmony. Then off to a 30,000+ seat stadia, where bullfighting, something that “might otherwise appear objectionable” is explained by your typical bullfighting enthusiast as follows; “the bull comes into the ring to kill, and he gets killed.” Well, there you are. Bullfighting season is short though, so Fitz tells us that other sports gaining popularity include tennis, baseball, futbol, polo and golf. Standard, if colorful, Traveltalk.
out of 4
James A. FitzPatrick’s Traveltalks: Colorful Holland (1950) (short)
Production: MGM
To rural and serene Holland, a collection of canals, waterways, cities and farmlands, all “redundant with the simpler and more wholesome things of life.” I guess we’re going to breeze over Amsterdam in this visit. But who has time for whores, there are things to see, like the attractive dairy maid rowing along her route picking up milk. Holland’s topography makes it a veritable bovine paradise, so it’s no wonder their dairy products, including famous Edam cheese, are known the world over. I can understand pumping up local industry, but am I really supposed to believe, as Fitz states, that Holland’s cheese is “said to be a major factor in the longevity and health of the native people”? Well, it makes the rest of the world fat, clogged and backed-up, so please Dutch folk, share with us your magical restorative cheese. These people love cheese so much, the position of ‘cheese carrier’ (long story, but it is indeed someone who carries cheese) is given an exalted social position, complete with colored straw hat. Next we visit Spakenburg, a fishing village near Utrecht, where we examine the costume of the typical woman. Each village dress differs from another, so that a student of the costumes can tell where one is from by what they are wearing. God help you if you are that student. I don’t know if Fitz was high recording this one or not, but he tripped over his line like three times, something I’ve never heard him do in other shorts. Nice look, if not for the lactose intolerant.
out of 4
A Pete Smith Specialty: Seeing Hands: A True Story (1943) (short) Dir: Gunther V. Fritsch
Production: MGM
Inspiring and sobering Pete Smith war-time short about Ben Helwig, a young man who overcame a physical handicap (blindness) to work with distinction in a factory serving the war effort. The intended effect, presumably, was to prod those in the audience to ask themselves if they were really doing all that they could on the homefront, and if not, to do so. Ben’s story begins in the midst of the depression, 1932, when his mother, a single parent no longer capable of caring for Ben, decides to leave him in a Boys Town type facility. An accident suffered while playing ball with the other kids eventually leaves Ben blind. But the boy who used to joke that he could build his model airplanes blindfolded learns to cope and eventually does as much. Flash forward to a grown Ben just after Pearl Harbor. He is initially rejected for positions in the war plants, but his ‘seeing hands’ and amazing proficiency with a jigsaw is witnessed by two brothers passing his house one night. The brothers happen to be the owners of a Los Angeles factory and they hire Ben to work the complex machinery, and he settles in with help from his loyal seeing-eye dog, Pang.
At the beginning Pete mentions Ben’s story as having national prominence, so the original audiences, perhaps introduced to Ben through a story in LIFE or some other magazine, might have enjoyed the short on even another level. ‘Spanky’ McFarland makes an appearance as one of the group home kids who initiate Ben upon his arrival. One of the few light moments is at his expense (when the initiation of another kid backfires upon Spanky’s character, Pete says, “Fatty felt like a fugitive from an ‘Our Gang’ comedy”).
out of 4
A Crime Does Not Pay Subject No. 18: They’re Always Caught (1938) (short) Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Production: MGM
Intelligent men commit what they think are fool-proof murders all the time. They usually don’t reckon on Dr. John Pritchard of the crime lab being on the case. Crusading Mayor Fletcher has created lots of enemies with his apple cart upsetting ways; the head of the company who has sacrificed delivering product in the name of profit; the bribe taking fire official he fires, a man just months away from his pension; the city official let go because he quietly allowed “punchboards and dice games” in the parks in exchange for a piece of the action; and perhaps most dangerously, publicity-loving special prosecutor Jimmy Stark who, despite the pronouncements of racket busting he gives on his radio show, has a dirty little habit of putting away the little fish while taking kick-backs from the big bosses. And Mayor Fletcher is on to him. When Jimmy gets the sack from the Mayor, he realizes he needs to do something soon to keep the gravy train rolling. Next morning, when the Mayor goes to work, his car doesn’t so much as start up as it does blow up. Enter Dr. Pritchard and his crime lab boys who use scientific methods to determine who the bomber is (and who he isn’t). Louis Jean Heydt plays an angry cleaners operator who gets caught up initially as a suspect because he had innocently staked out the Mayor’s house the night before in an attempt to tip him off to syndicate pressure being applied to his store. The advanced methods of detection on display must have been a mind-blower to those audiences (“wait, they can vacuum my hair!?!”). Very nice little bit of crime drama, as most entries in this series are. A few years later, Marsha Hunt and a romantic sub-plot would be added to John C. Higgins story resulting in Fred Zinnemann’s KID GLOVE KILLER, with Van Heflin as the head of the crime lab.
out of 4
A Pete Smith Specialty: I Love My Husband But! (1946) (short) Dir: David Barclay
Production: MGM
Part of a series in the Pete Smith universe of silly, irreverent looks at husbands, wives, mothers-in-law, etc. Here we are looking at the annoying husband habits. We are first introduced to the seemingly perfect husband. The wife gives him a kiss on his way out in the morning only to be left to deal with the dramatic aftermath of his morning ritual; used guest towels, toothpaste spackled on the bathroom mirror, dirt ring in the tub. Next the considerate ‘waker-upper’, the husband who gets up, dressed and out the door in silence. Of course, he’s compared with the slumberer, who sleeps through the alarm and disturbs the wife. Exhibit C is the constant loser, as in always losing things and then constantly pestering the wife, “have you seen my…?” Then the “oofty-goofy”. This husband ignores the wife’s entreaties (“how do I look in this?”) only to magically come to life when the wife’s attractive friend tries out the same gear. Other bad husbands include the tyrannical bridge partner, the unhandy man (best slapstick gag has him destroying the kitchen when all he needs to do is hang a curtain rod), and the hypocritical penny-pincher (where the wife gets her revenge via grapefruit, Cagney style). These shorts can feature some, ahem, antiquated notions (benign of course, nothing nasty), but that’s a part of their breezy charm. The best of the I LOVE MY___BUT shorts.
out of 4
A Miniature: Carey Wilson’s The Great Heart (1938) (short) Dir: David Miller
Production: MGM
It’s February of 1936 and an American Army transport, by request of the King of Belgium, is escorting from Hawaii to Belgium the remains of a man who died 50 years earlier. The man is Jozef De Veuster (Tom Neal) and he arrived in Hawaii in 1864 to do missionary work. What he found was a place ravaged by leprosy--the population had been reduced from 500,000 to barely 100,000. Those afflicted were banished, sent on a weekly basis to the island of Molokai. In 1873, a decree was issued: all non-lepers on Molokai must leave, including doctors and priests. It was into this atmosphere that Father Damien, as he was now known, committed to live the rest of his life, ministering to the lepers on Molokai, knowing he would be resented. After years of work, Father Damien would give some meaning to the lives of the lepers of Molokai, he built a fresh water system, got them to dispose each of the dead in their own grave, and most importantly, restored some of their dignity. His efforts attracted greater attention around the world, leading to treatment breakthroughs, supplies for Molokai and increasing understanding. After his many years of work, he himself contracted leprosy and died at 49. A nicely told story about an admirable and obviously selfless man who made a hell of a sacrifice.
out of 4
Edited by Pete York - 1/12/10 at 1:51pm
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