Welcome Danger

Released 12 October 1929, Welcome Danger was the great Harold Lloyd’s first talkie. A silent version also made, for the many theatres not yet wired for sound.

While I’d give this film a solid 4 stars, it needed to be trimmed down a lot. There’s no reason this story needed to run almost two hours!

Botany student Harold Bledsoe is travelling home to San Francisco when he makes the acquaintance of Billie Lee (Barbara Kent). During a stop in Newbury, Colorado, Harold finds a double-exposed photo of the two of them, from a malfunctioning photo booth. He becomes smitten with Billie, little realising she’s the same woman who presently bangs him with a door.

There’s mechanical trouble soon after the train gets back on the road, and Harold is left behind thanks to fooling around with flowers. He then comes across Billie and her little brother Buddy, who are having car trouble. Harold is very annoyed with Billie’s incompetence, and thinks she’s a man because of her name and clothes.

Their carburetor accidentally drives off with someone who stopped to refuel them, and there’s more car trouble. They have no choice but to camp out for the night. Once again, Billie drives Harold up the wall.

Harold is stunned to finally discover Billie’s true sex when she emerges from the tent wearing a dress, her hair uncovered. He runs away in mortification, remembering how he kicked her. However, they’re soon reconciled.

Their romance isn’t long-lived, since very soon another train arrives and they must go their separate ways. After he boards the train, Harold realises he never got Billie’s surname or address.

In San Francisco, Harold is invited to work at the police station, and impresses Captain Walton (William Walling) on his first day by stopping a stickup in its tracks. He’s immediately fascinated by the forensic science of fingerprinting, and decides to fingerprint the entire station.

The other guys don’t exactly share his passion.

To get rid of Harold, the police send him on a dangerous mission to Chinatown, with the objective of catching criminal lord The Dragon.

Soon after he arrives in Chinatown, Harold happily makes the reacquaintance of Billie and causes a huge traffic jam when he jumps into her car. A cop, Patrick Clancy (awesome character actor Noah Young), chews him out, and follows him after he finally gets out of the car. During the attempted arrest, another guy knocks Clancy unconscious and makes off with his gun.

Harold, determined to help Clancy, runs after the miscreant and knocks out everyone in the building. All Chinese look alike to him, so he has no idea who the guilty party is.

Clancy is very impressed by his heroism, and changes his tune even more upon finding out his identity.

Harold buys a pot of flowers for Billie and roller-skates for Buddy. When he arrives, the famous Dr. Chang Gow (James Wang) is also there, and says his operation on Buddy’s leg has a very good chance of success.

Dr. Gow accidentally knocks over the flowerpot on his way out, revealing a little packet of opium. Harold tells him where he got the flowers, and says he stole it because the florists wouldn’t sell it.

Dr. Gow goes to confront the criminals, whom he previously voiced grave concerns about to the police, and is promptly kidnapped. While Harold is stammering his way through an attempted marriage proposal that night, the radio announces Dr. Gow was kidnapped.

Feeling Dr. Gow is the only chance to save Buddy’s leg, Harold rushes over there to try to rescue him. He soon runs across Clancy, who joins his dangerous mission.

Will they be able to rescue Dr. Gow in time?

An early talkie like few others

Released 20 August 1929, King Vidor’s Hallelujah! is a triumph of early talkies. Unlike almost all others from this creaky era, Hallelujah! has very fluid camera work. It’s also notable for being the first all-Black film by a major studio. Prior, such films only came from “race studios” and were largely ignored.

Hallelujah! was considered so risky and unprofitable, King Vidor was forced to finance it with his own salary. TPTB were convinced white Americans would have no interest, though many plays with all-African-American casts had been very successful.

Unfortunately, owing to the racist climate of the times, King Vidor had to play it up as a film about sexual deviance to get MGM president Nicholas Schenck to accept it. Schenck responded, “Well, if you think like that, I’ll let you make a picture about whores.”

Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes) is a Southern cotton sharecropper who’s poor but happy. His entire family lives together in a cramped one-room house, but they’re very close. Harvesting their cotton crop is their only income for the entire year, so it’s a cause for celebration.

During the festivities, neighbors Adam and Eve, who have eleven children, show up and ask Zeke’s parson father, Pappy, to marry them. Pappy is initially hesitant because they’re all but legally married, but ultimately agrees, since “It’s never too late to do the Lord’s work.”

Zeke goes inside during the wedding and makes advances on his foster sister Missy Rose (blues singer Victoria Spivey), who’s playing the piano. She rebuffs him at first, then relents and professes affection.

In the morning, Zeke and his brother Spunk sell their harvest for $200. Instead of immediately going home with Spunk, Zeke heads off to the pier and meets singer-dancer Chick (Nina Mae McKinney). And thus all Zeke’s troubles begin.

Zeke follows Chick to a juke joint, where Chick and her partner Hot Shot swindle him out of all his money. Zeke is no dummy, and realises he’s been tricked and cheated. During the ensuing fight, Spunk shows up looking for Zeke.

Things go from bad to worse, and tragedy strikes, shaking Zeke to his very core.

Mammy knows something isn’t right when her oldest sons’ bed is still empty in the middle of the night. Her cries are a chain reaction, and soon the entire family is praying for their safe return and imagining the worst.

Zeke returns with nothing but bad news and heartache, and blames himself for the tragedy. While lamenting what happened, his train of thought becomes increasingly spiritual and eventually becomes a spirited sermon. Everyone is drawn to his comforting words.

Zeke is moved to become a preacher, and goes on the road with revival meetings. His new career brings financial prosperity to his family, much better than their income from cotton sharecropping.

Who should appear at a revival meeting but Chick! As Zeke preaches, Chick is moved to religious fervor and gets baptised in the river, much to the family’s displeasure. She’s so overcome with ecstasy, Zeke has carry her into a tent.

Temptation strikes, but is nipped in the bud by Mammy. That night, Zeke confesses to Missy Rose he’s at war with the Devil. Missy Rose finds it hard to believe a big, strong man like Zeke could be afraid of the Devil. Zeke says he doesn’t want the Devil to win, but temptation is so strong.

Zeke then thinks of a solution, marrying Missy Rose. If he has a wife, he can’t possibly be tempted by another woman.

Zeke’s commitment to defeating temptation doesn’t last long, and neither does Chick’s religious conversion. Hot Shot is convinced this isn’t the real her, and that she’s a natural sinner. The next time Zeke sees Chick, he abandons his ministry and family to run away with her.

Who will triumph in this age-old battle between good and evil, and will Zeke be able to find his way back to righteousness before any further tragedy and turmoil erupt?

I absolutely loved this film. The fluidity of the camera is amazing for 1929. The editing and mixing are also lightyears ahead of other early talkies. Hallelujah! was a huge success, startling considering none of the players were professional actors.

Though some criticise the film as racist, and Paul Robeson (one of my heroes) turned down the role of Zeke for that very reason, one must consider context and intent. Outside of race films like Oscar Micheaux’s, how many other films of this era dared to have an all-Black cast and depict them as fully-rounded people with a story that could, with a few alterations, just as easily be about white people?

Hitchcock’s triumphant talkie début

The great Alfred Hitchcock’s first talkie was screened to cinema distributors and press on 21 June 1929 at Regal Arch’s Marble Cinema, and had its grand première on 28 July at London’s Capitol cinema. Though it started production as a silent, Hitchcock decided to switch to the new technology.

Producer John Maxwell gave him permission to make it a hybrid. Hitchcock didn’t like that idea very much, and secretly filmed almost everything in sound, using RCA Photophone. He also made a silent version for theatres not yet wired for sound.

Leading lady Anny Ondra (pictured above) had a thick Czech accent, which was considered undesirable for her role. Since post-dubbing technology didn’t yet exist, and Hitchcock didn’t want to replace her, Joan Barry was called in to speak her dialogue off-camera while Anny lip-synced.

Critics and the public loved Blackmail. It was one of the most popular and successful 1929 releases, and voted the best film of that year. Because most British theatres weren’t wired for sound, the silent version proved more popular, and had a longer running time.

Blackmail was filmed at British and Dominions Imperial Studios of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, Europe’s first purpose-built sound studio. Though there were prior British talkies, Blackmail was one of the first all-talking features, with sound recorded in real time instead of dubbed in later.

Though both sound and silent versions survive, the sound version is more widely-available and better-remembered. Some critics, however, still prefer the silent version.

Hitchcock’s cameo starts about ten minutes in, and is one of his longest, at nineteen seconds. The director is bothered by a little boy as he reads a book on the London Underground.

Frank Webber (John Longden), a Scotland Yard detective, is dating Alice White (Anny Ondra). While they’re at a teahouse, the couple begins arguing, and Frank becomes so annoyed and frustrated at Anny’s refusal to attend the movies, he cuts their date short.

Frank is rather displeased to presently see Alice leaving with artist Mr. Crewe (Cyril Ritchard), who previously communicated with her via body language at the teahouse. When they arrive at Mr. Crewe’s studio, Alice is reluctant to go inside, but ultimately is convinced to enter.

Alice is immediately put at ease, and finds mirth in Mr. Crewe’s painting of a laughing clown. She then gets a painting lesson. To her simple face Mr. Crewe adds a naked female figure, and guides Alice’s hand as she signs her name.

Alice sees a ballerina dress while Mr. Crewe fetches drinks, and is convinced to model it for him. She’s outraged when Mr. Crewe kisses her, and starts changing her clothes.

Mr. Crewe takes away her original dress and tries to rape her. No one hears Alice’s cries for help, and she reaches through a curtain for a knife.

After Alice emerges from behind the curtain, she slashes the painting of the clown and paints over her name on the other painting. She very stealthily leaves the building after putting her clothes back on, but forgets her gloves.

All night, Alice wanders the streets of London in a daze, driven crazy by images of knives and thinking about those missing gloves.

Mr. Crewe’s body is discovered by his landlady, and Frank is assigned to the investigation. While in Mr. Crewe’s studio, he recognises one of Alice’s gloves and the dead artist both, but keeps mum.

In the morning, Alice’s mother informs her there was a murder around the corner during the night, and wonders why she’s still in bed. After Mrs. White leaves, Alice gets out of bed, still in her clothes from last night.

Alice goes downstairs to her dad’s tobacco shop, and is extremely rattled by talk about the murder and the repetition of the word “knife.”

Frank comes to speak with Alice and show her the glove, but she’s too shaken-up to say anything, even when they step into a phonebooth for privacy.

Customer Tracy (Donald Calthrop) arrives with the other glove. Even worse, he saw Alice going into Mr. Crewe’s studio and now discovers Frank has the first glove.

Tracy begins blackmailing Alice and Frank, with more and more outrageous demands. When it comes out Tracy has a criminal record, Frank calls the cops, who chase Tracy all the way onto the roof of the British Museum.

And the plot twists don’t end there.

Blackmail is one of the best early talkies I’ve seen. It doesn’t have the awkward, stagey style associated with most others. It easily feels like a 1930s film.

And the Worst Best Actress Award goes to…

Released 12 April 1929, Coquette was Mary Pickford’s highly-anticipated talkie début, and showed her in a whole new role. Since 1909, Mary had been one of the most popular, beloved film stars in the world, and was famous for her long golden curls. That hairstyle and her diminutive height enabled her to play little girl roles well into adulthood.

Mary had tried to break away from this typecasting with adult roles, but those films weren’t as popular as her child role films. When her mother Charlotte passed away in 1928, Mary finally felt free to bob her hair. The dawn of sound cinema was as good a time as any to match that new haircut to more mature films.

Mary eagerly installed a sound stage at Pickfair Studios in 1928 and used the best technology available at the time, thus avoiding the worst problems associated with many other very early talkies.

She then bought the rights to Coquette, a popular 1927–28 play starring Helen Hayes. In comparison to Mary’s previous adult roles like Rosita (1923) and My Best Girl (1927), Coquette saw her playing not just any type of adult, but a flapper.

Though Mary had been on the stage prior to film acting, she nevertheless worried her voice wouldn’t be good enough. She thought her first sound test was too pipsqueaky, and embarked on serious vocal lessons.

Coquette was based on real events in South Carolina, with some dialogue coming verbatim from a court case. Though the Hays Code didn’t yet exist, censors destroyed the entire plot of the play. The resulting storyline is rather milquetoast (and badly dated). In the play, Norma Besant is pregnant out of wedlock, but in the film, the only scandal is spending the night in a cabin with a man (with nothing sexual happening).

(Full disclosure: I was unable to find the film in its entirety, and have only watched clips.)

Norma Besant is the daughter of a Southern doctor, and very popular with the opposite sex. Dr. Besant prefers Stanley Wentworth (Mary’s ex-brother-in-law Matt Moore), but Norma is passionately in love with Michael Jeffrey (Johnny Mack Brown). Predictably, Dr. Besant highly disapproves of this suitor and demands Norma never see Michael again.

Norma pretends to agree, then secretly arranges to marry Michael when he makes good in six months and can buy her a house.

Several months later, Michael sneaks over to see Norma by a country club dance. The young lovers, seeking more time alone, creep off to Michael’s mother’s cabin. Norma comes home at four in the morning.

This era being what it was, rumours are soon swirling about how they spent the night together alone, and Norma’s reputation is ruined. She says all they did was talk about their future and drink coffee, but everyone believes they were automatically up to no good.

Michael is livid, and vows to ask Dr. Besant for Norma’s hand in marriage stat.

Dr. Besant is still adamant Michael never marry his daughter, and after a heated argument, Michael changes track and decides to elope with Norma as soon as possible. Norma is ordered into her room, and Dr. Besant leaves with a gun.

Things get really ugly after this, culminating in an emotional court case.

During the première by NYC’s Rialto Theatre, a fuse blew, rendering Coquette silent. The projectionist rewound it and began again, with poor, intermittent sound. Technicians had to be called in, and the third try was finally successful.

Reviewers had mostly positive things to say, and Coquette earned $1.4 million ($21,005,812 today). In 1930, Mary won Best Actress Academy Award. The first ceremony of the year before had only included silents, not wanting talkies to create unfair competition.

Mary really wanted that award, so much so she fêted judges at her home in Pickfair. Though Coquette was a critical success, ever since she won that award, many have viewed it more as a lifetime achievement award for her entire body of work than actual quality in that one film. Mary herself later said she wished she could burn all copies.

Though what I’ve seen of the film doesn’t jump out at me as horrible, I definitely see the criticism that the acting is badly dated. Very early talkies are often hard to judge, since everyone was still learning another mode of acting, but this clearly isn’t Mary’s strongest performance by a long shot.

Everyone’s acting is so stagey, and the Southern accents are obviously fake, not believable at all. The severe censorship also seriously hurt the overall story. It would’ve been stronger had the scandal been Norma’s out of wedlock pregnancy. The replacement seems overly quaint even by 1929 standards.

Mary was capable of so much better. If you’ve never seen one of her films before, I’d highly recommend starting with one of her silents. Her four starring sound films aren’t representative of her acting power.

Hijinks in a hotel

Though the Marx Brothers made a (now lost) short film in 1921, Humorrisk, their first true film was The Cocoanuts. It premièred 23 May 1929 in NYC, and went into general release on 3 August. Typical of their Paramount films, the plot is rather thin and ramshackle. It’s just a vehicle for their zany, anarchic brand of comedy.

Like most early talkies, there were a lot of technological drawbacks. However, to its advantage, The Cocoanuts, like their other early films, was based on a stage play. It works for the action to be limited to a few sets without a lot of movement from the camera.

In the very early sound era, with a few notable exceptions, cameras couldn’t move very far, and microphones had to stay as close to the actors as possible. Because these microphones picked up every little sound, all the paper used in The Cocoanuts had to be soaked in water to avoid rustling.

A longer transitional period could’ve worked out these technological kinks, but people were so eager to play with the shiny new toy, they didn’t care about anything but the excitement of sound cinema.

During the Florida land boom of the 1920s, Mr. Hammer (Groucho) and his assistant Jamison (Zeppo) manage the Hotel de Cocoanut as ineptly as you can imagine. Mr. Hammer hasn’t paid his employees for two weeks, and Jamison prefers to sleep at the front desk.

Wealthy guest Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont) is keen for her daughter Polly (Mary Eaton) to marry Harvey Yates (Cyril Ring), whom she believes will give Polly a big step up the social ladder. Polly, however, prefers struggling architect Bob Adams (Oscar Shaw), who works as a hotel clerk and dreams of turning the entire area into Cocoanut Manor.

Predictably, Yates is a conman scheming to steal Mrs. Potter’s diamond necklace, with assistance from his girlfriend Penelope (Kay Francis).

Two more conmen, Chico and Harpo, presently arrive, with plans to fill their empty suitcases by robbing and tricking the other guests. Also predictably, they drive Mr. Hammer, the employees, and the other guests crazy with their wacky antics.

Penelope realizes these guys are total dopes, and hatches a plan for them to take the fall for the theft of Mrs. Potter’s necklace.

Another predictable plot development is Mr. Hammer’s attempted wooing of Mrs. Potter.

Harpo is invited into Penelope’s room, and hides under her bed when Yates visits. He overhears them discussing their scheme, and holds out his hat to catch an incriminating note Penelope drops.

Penelope and Mrs. Potter, whose rooms are connected by a door, are quite bemused at Mr. Hammer, Harpo, and Chico running in and out. During this whirlwind back and forth, Penelope goes into Mrs. Potter’s room and steals the necklace.

Mr. Hammer tells Chico about his plans for a Cocoanut Manor auction, during which Mrs. Potter announces her necklace was stolen and offers a thousand-dollar reward.

Harpo presently produces the necklace, to Mrs. Potter’s great gratitude. A detective blames Bob, which spurs Penelope on to spin a wild fish story corroborating the accusation. Mrs. Potter believes Bob is guilty, but Polly believes in his innocence.

The situation worsens when Mrs. Potter orders Polly to stay away from Bob, and announces Polly’s engagement to Yates. Now it’s up to Harpo and Chico to get Bob out of jail and prove his innocence.

Typical of early talkies, there are a lot of musical and dance numbers. They feel kind of pointless and space-filling, much like the musical performances cluttering up the later MGM films. We can understand the story perfectly well without these interruptions! Seriously, you can skip all of them and not miss anything.

The film was shot at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, where follow-up Animal Crackers was also shot. Paramount moved all their production to Hollywood in 1932.

The Marxes were horrorstruck by the final cut, so much so they tried to buy back the negative. Paramount refused, and released the film to great critical success. It earned $1,800,000 gross ($26,962,421 today) and was one of the most successful early talkies.

Reviews were mostly positive, esp. regarding the Marxes. The other parts of the film garnered more mixed reactions. They felt the romantic subplot and musical performances were pointless. Critics also mentioned poor audio quality in spots and poorly-filmed dance sequences.

The audiovisual issues were finally corrected in a long overdue 2016 remastering of the Paramount films. The original 2004 boxed set was just embarrassing!