One Hell Of A Great War 1932 Revisited

Wilmington, Delaware's V.F.W. Supplies Uniform and Drum Corps For Downtown Bally Parade

The Big Drive (1932) Is Precode's Censor-Proof Bloodbath

Hell broke loose in December 1932 when indie shockumentary The Big Drive went Over The Top to show a public what ferocity we and allies dealt during the Great War over a decade past. If this wasn't precode in a rawest way, I don't know what was, but like Bring 'Em Back Alive and others of jungle derivation, little is mentioned of these buried offshoots. Compiler of The Big Drive was A.L. Rule, a WWI vet who was said to have scoured worldwide vaults to gather "withheld till now" proof of man's inhumanity to man. The menu was blissfully simple to sell: Glory and Hell ... Blood and Mud ... Clubbing ... Stabbing. Who wouldn't want bountiful meal of that? In fact, enough did to immediately call forth imitators. Within weeks of The Big Drive came Forgotten Men, while ahead of it was Four Aces, which didn't catch gore wave mostly for a title indistinct as to content. The Film Daily (1/23/33) noted The Big Drive's "surprise business,"  showmen in the know saw unbound violence as the catnip, and where you couldn't get away with such let-loose savagery in features, there was no stopping fact-based recount of horrors in battle ... how else to warn society against future conflagration? ("Strong propaganda against war" said The Film Daily's approving review)


NYC's Mayfair Theatre Barb-Wires Marquee To Slam Over Blood-Guts Content 
Drunk on profits Albert Rule announced his sequel, The Death Parade, which was even more to the point, but could he move fast enough to preserve the fad and outrun copycats? Major pitch of The Big Drive was trench cameramen having lost lives by score to capture carnage for later and stunned amusement. Ninety-six died, said The New York Sun, to which Big Drivedistributor First Division offered corrective: it was "only forty-five." Why niggle over detail so long as we got men bayoneting one another in full view? ("Seen are the flashing bayonets as they stab into the gullets of enemy soldiers," said The Motion Picture Herald's breathless review) Wouldn't one or other of combatants turn a weapon on those photographing them at lethal work? But no, this stuff was the McCoy, said Rule, coming as it did from sealed storage of both US and allied gvts. If The Big Drive was good enough for members of Congress to screen (The Hollywood Reporter, 2/28/33), who was anyone to question veracity? Local censors did an expected handspring, wanted gorier footage excised, but how to answer American Legion posts stood firm behind the pic, each arguing that we must see war as it so horribly is. Distributor First Division offered Big Drivebally ideas far afield of good taste: " ... have a shell-shocked veteran simulate a seizure." Whatever their social responsibility, showmen left press watchdogs to sort it all out. Uppermost was ticket-selling --- "Got them in and they liked it. What More?" asked Walt Bradley of the Moon Theatre in Neligh, Nebraska. Indeed, what more?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Striking 50's Club Scene

Image
  This Could Be The Night (1957)  Pleases In B/W Scope A picture that J.J. Hensecker would have enjoyed if J.J. Hunsecker had been a real person, and perhaps a last to depict New York on Damon Runyan terms. MGM even arranged to have Earl Wilson host a trailer, him a columnist who would certainly have frequented spots like where action happens here. He appears on-camera with chanteuse Julie Wilson and mentions that he hasn't seen her around town lately because she's been in Hollywood mak ing this movie, such insider talk maybe a turn-off to rurals otherwise disposed to go see This Could Be The Night . It would probably have lost money anyway, this being 1957 when most of what MGM released lost money. For director Robert Wise, Night came between hit that was Somebody Up There Likes Me , and Until They Sail , a feature trio to argue Wise's reliability for polished product. Wise could take good material and reliably make it very good, like story-and-tempo minded filmmake
Read more

Jet Aces On Short Rations

Image
Hell's Horizon (1955) Takes To Low Columbia Ceiling Slow build to a Korean air mission where bomber crew will sustain or crack-up according to character they've revealed in Acts One-Two. John Ireland is chief pilot, tip-off to modest cast otherwise aboard: Bill Williams, Hugh Beaumont, Jerry Paris, Bill Schallert. Love Is Splendor-ish girl interest is Marla English, borrowed from Paramount, striking Eurasian pose a la Jennifer Jones in the 20th Fox hit. Marla would be a cult chiller throb as The She-Creature , which she probably didn't find half so rewarding as this part, a better calling card for elevation out of B's (ME would instead quit biz altogether). Horizon saves its fuel for determining mission, which came excitingly at point where I'd almost lost hope for this Columbia release of a "Gravis Production," the independent set-up by producer Wray Davis and writer-director Tom Gries. Money man for Gravis was actually Jack Broder of Realart fame, who
Read more

Cagney Still Off The Reservation

Image
Something To Sing About (1937) Is Grand National Up From Poverty Row What did the James Cagney pact achieve for Grand National? Plenty, judging by trade reportage. Imagine a biggest of stars jumping a major ship to sail with barely a skiff. It was beyond an anomaly. Grand National went from a jack to a king overnight. Their product would be welcome in top venues, seldom the case for independents before. Broadway example was a deal worked between GN sales management and circuit owner Harry Brandt, whose Globe and Central Theatres became “home of all Grand National pictures,” beginning with Something To Sing About for a September 20, 1937 Globe opening ( Film Daily , 9-13-37). With Cagney at their service, Grand National might actually crack barriers protected by the eight majors, his name leading an assault on doors too long shut to outsiders. It wouldn’t quite work out that way, but GN sure raised a sweat on status-quo the behemoths thought they had solidly in place, and the trades, pl
Read more