Happy National Cartoonists Day!

 Happy National Cartoonists Day to my twin brother, John!

Arte Acher's Falling Circus, a collection of silly cartoons!  In paperback or eBook!

Stars Caricatured in Christmas Television Cartoons

Classic film stars have been caricatured in many animated cartoons, even Christmas cartoons as noted in this previous post of Toyland Premiere (1934).  But the made-for-television holiday cartoons of Rankin/Bass utilized caricatures of stars of Hollywood’s heyday not for satire or even humor, but to lend cachet to their well-scrubbed retellings of pop Christmas folklore.

While not all classic film stars who voiced animated characters had their likenesses caricatured in the cartoon – Mickey Rooney, for instance, in the several times he voiced Santa Claus (The Year Without a Santa Claus – 1974, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – 1970, and Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – 1979) Santa never looked like Mickey Rooney.  I suppose Santa Claus is too well-known (or perhaps, trademarked?) to look like Mickey Rooney.

But Fred Astaire, playing a generic mailman character in Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is okay to look like a caricature of Fred Astaire, likewise Red Buttons as the ice cream man in Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July – which also gave us a stupendously (or perhaps stupefying is the word) over-the-top Ethel Merman who runs a carnival show.  It’s a lumbering feature cartoon with no discernable point, but Hal Peary has his last role as a whale, with a Great Gildersleeve giggle.  I find that endearing.

These cartoons were all animated with the mesmerizing stop-motion photography of jerky movements and stiff portrayals, literally.

There were two Christmas cartoons of my childhood which were especially profound for me, first Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962), which I’ve mentioned before in this previous post. Definitely NOT stop-motion photography here. Jim Backus owned the role of Mr. Magoo so thoroughly and was my introduction to Dickens at the tender age of probably three. 

The second cartoon that was really meaningful to me was The Little Drummer Boy (1968).  Like the other Rankin/Bass cartoons mentioned above, this also featured stop-motion photography (and all the cartoons are musicals) and told the story of an orphaned boy during the time of the Nativity who hates people because his parents were killed by bandits, and finds healing with the power of love.  I was fascinated by the scenes of ancient Judea, of narrow streets, endless desert dunes, and the people who came to their ancestral cities to be taxed by the Roman emperor.  Even as a six or seven-year-old, stories about real people interested me more than fairy tales about snowmen or Heat Miser (though I still know the words to that song).

Jose Ferrer (not caricatured) plays a rogue, a carnival showman who enslaves the orphan boy when he discovers the boy can sing and play a drum and charm animals into dancing.  The showman thinks he can make a bundle off the kid.  (Painting a phony smile on the kid's face horrified me as a child.) He even sells the boy’s cherished camel to one of the Wise Men, and the boy is even more furious and heartbroken.  

The boy follows the Star as the Three Kings are doing so that he can catch up to them and get his camel.  But then a Roman centurion charges by on his chariot like an ICE thug and runs over the boy’s other little friend, a lamb.  We suspect if he’d had a Taser, he’d have used it just for the thrill of cruelty.  Authoritarian governments haven’t changed in thousands of years.  This boy has suffered so much in this cartoon, we can barely take any more at this point.

One of the Three Kings tells the boy to appeal to the Baby Jesus for help, and here we have our opening to the song (cue Vienna Boys Choir) “The Little Drummer Boy” and “I have to no gift to bring…shall I play for him?”  Though the stop-motion photography is just as jerky and crude as in the other cartoons, the story here is deeper, and the thoughtful, contemplative telling of it leaves a greater impression.  This cartoon, for me, was also notable for introducing me to Greer Garson.

Miss Garson is an unseen narrator and is credited as “Our Storyteller.”  Her rich, cultured voice is soothing and enchanting, and we are carried through time and space in her opening, “And it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”

When the boy’s heart is touched by the pure love of the Infant, and his lamb is healed, Greer tells us, “He realized the hate he carried there was wrong, as all hatred will ever be wrong.”

It would be many years before I discovered Mrs. Miniver or Pride and Prejudice, so The Little Drummer Boy was my introduction to Greer Garson, or at least her beautiful speaking voice.

Perhaps a cartoon Greer in caricature would have lessened the gravitas of the story, but I think I would have liked to have seen Our Storyteller.  A woman in such a serious, venerable role would have been inspiring.

But to depict her in caricature or not?  Hmm.

Wishing a peaceful and happy Christmas to all who celebrate.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Toyland Premiere - 1934

Toyland Premiere (1934) unites favorite studio theme of a gathered cast of caricatured movie stars – with Santa Claus.  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is the host for this holiday party, more about gags and mischief than seasonal joy or, heaven forbid, peace on earth.

We discussed several cartoons that featured caricatures of Hollywood stars in this previous post.  This escapade in Toyland Premiere brings us cartoon images of Tarzan, Shirley Temple, Frankenstein’s Monster (this is a Universal cartoon, if you haven’t figured it out by now), and Bing Crosby, who croons a brief hello.  Shirley sounds more like Betty Boop.  There are others in tow, but highlighted are Laurel and Hardy, whom we visited last week in Babes in Toyland (1934).

Santa arrives at the party, after a slow start in his workshop when he discovers his famous red suit has been eaten by moths. Helpful elves spray paint his blue coveralls red and slap some popcorn strings on him to simulate the white fur trim – hey, it’s the Depression.  We have to make do.

Oswald gets Santa to make an appearance at a large downtown department store, and a parade of giant balloons, not unlike the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, greets him. On the toy department floor is where the party and the Hollywood stars await him.  

It turns into a bit of a melee when Laurel and Hardy are prevented from eating cake by the Frankenstein Monster, who growls at them and warns them off.  They get stuck in a dragon suit and are attacked by toy soldiers, not unlike the ones in Babes in Toyland, made the same year (see this previous post from last week) which is probably the inspiration for this scene.  A little cross-publicity never hurts.

Santa laughs at all this and the cartoon ends suddenly and without any explicable conclusion.  I suppose most Christmas parties are like that.  Except for the Frankenstein Monster part, but I’ve never met your friends, so I don’t know with whom you associate.

We’ll revisit Hollywood stars’ representation in Christmas cartoons in a few weeks when we conclude our annual Christmas series of posts, but for the next two weeks, we’re going to take a detour to other parts of the globe.  Next week, Bush Christmas (1947) will take us to Australia.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony

photo by JT Lynch

A recent outing to my local symphony hall brought together two loves…classical music and classic cartoons.  Many of you have attended theatrical releases of classic films—particularly silent movies—with accompaniment by full orchestra, but this was my first experience with cartoons and a full orchestra, a traveling presentation that you may have seen in your area at some point in the last several years—Bugs Bunny at the Symphony.

My cartoon expert twin brother, John, and I head for the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony Hall to catch a matinee performance and really enjoyed it.  The technology of the melding of the full (and always excellent) Springfield Symphony Orchestra and the cartoons was fascinating, and the guest conductor, (and co-creator of the show) George Daugherty, was a delight.  He explained some technical aspects and the history of Hollywood orchestration, particularly the superior full orchestra at Warner Bros. at the time, and he was quite charmingly funny.  At one point on the screen in Baton Bunny (1968) when Bugs, standing at the podium as a conductor lifts his arms in an exaggerated manner in preparation to signal his orchestra, Mr. Daugherty did the same and mimicked him.

The program began with Rossini’s majestic Overture to Il Barbiere Di Siviglia with no cartoon accompaniment.  It was thrilling…and something else I didn’t expect.  It was funny.  Several of us in the audience began to chuckle in a way I’m sure Rossini, despite the opera’s being a comedy, didn’t intend, because those of us who were familiar with the Bugs Bunny cartoon The Rabbit of Seville (1950), were imagining the progress of the cartoon in our minds, especially the part where bugs splashes hair tonic and rubs it into the scalp of the unfortunate Elmer Fudd.  Later on in the program, Daugherty pointed this out and said this audience reaction to the overture was a common occurrence for that reason.  He ran into it many times.  We knew the cartoon from the music, and we knew the music from the cartoon--or at least, many people's introduction to classical music was through cartoons of that period.

He also gave credit to the woefully uncredited Arthur Q. Bryan, voice of Elmer Fudd (and so many old-time radio characters), which warmed my heart.  He pointed out several fascinating facts about orchestration and lauded the Warner Bros. music department.  (And some jaw-dropping stats on Wagner's music in What's Opera Doc? - 1957) If this traveling show visits your local symphony, it’s well worth catching a performance.

There were children in the audience, as to be expected, but not as many as I thought there would be.  Some were dressed down, even in pajamas—the publicity wing suggested wearing pajamas and even suppled cereal and milk before the show to emulate the old Saturday morning cartoons experience.

Other kids were dressed in their best, as befitting the symphony, and that was nice to see.  The conductor took a quick hands-up poll and revealed that most people in the audience had never been to the symphony before, and he expressed the hope that this would be a fun introduction for them and that they would return.  I hope so, too.  Especially the kids. 

One of the most wondrous revelations for them, and maybe even some of their parents, was to see that music on a screen, whether in a cartoon or a movie, doesn’t just happen.  A lot of people playing a lot of different instruments, mostly at the same time, is what makes the music, and in cartoons, much of the special sound effects come from the orchestra as well.  Maybe some of those kids might take up music after seeing all those people on stage playing all those instruments right in front of them.  How many eyes, I wonder, drifted down from the big screen to the violinists, to the percussion section (especially after so many failures of Acme products for Wile E. Coyote)?

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Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were Hollywood's weapon.

Get your copy of my book Hollywood Fights Fascism here at Amazon in print or eBook, or FREE here for a limited time at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a variety of other online shops.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

 

 

Cartoons to feature presentations - bring back the roster

Celebrating Warner Bros.' 100th anniversary all this month on Turner Classic Movies has given us an enjoyable twist in their programming, and most especially for the showing of the famed Warner Bros. cartoons.

Many of us are old enough to remember Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, et al., as staples of Saturday morning, along with our cereal, until we could recite the dialogue verbatim.

I wish more cartoons could be shown on TCM showcasing the work of different studios.  It would be a nice experience, I think, to have for at least one morning or evening programming a slate that might be similar to the movie theater experience from the 1930s through 1950s, somewhat in the vein of the PBS program from the 1980s called Matinee at the Bijou (which I discussed in this previous post).

As we know, one did not just see a feature film, whether in the neighborhood movie house or the grand movie palaces downtown.  Before Humphrey Bogart or Bette Davis came on the screen, there was some other business to attend to.  First, as if to whet the appetite before the main course, the audience was given appetizers:  a cartoon, a newsreel, a short subject, a serial, a B-movie, and then the feature.  

(And the roster was continually repeated -- one could walk into a movie in the middle of the feature and just stay to watch the whole thing all over again when the projectionist rewound the whole business and showed it again.  For ten cents, or fifteen, or twenty-five, one could stay in the theater all day and night.)

If TCM could reproduce this roster of the old-time movie theater experience perhaps once per week, that would be great.  If they could find a way of delivering popcorn through the TV, that would be nice, too.  And uniformed ushers to kick us out of our living rooms in case we get rowdy. Just a suggestion.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. 

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Donald Duck pays his taxes...

Here in The New Spirit (1942), which the Disney studios made for the U.S. Treasury Department to educate the public on how to pay their taxes, shows us that paying our taxes is patriotic.  People, and corporations, who cheat on taxes are unpatriotic creeps.

A modern cartoon explaining how taxes keep democracy strong today might be a good idea as a refresher course against the worst instincts of some people, and corporations, but I suppose Donald Duck destroying the Axis by sitting down to fill out his tax return (profession: actor) is a lot more dramatic.  

You have only a few more days to do your patriotic duty.  Have fun.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Rochelle Hudson - new biography by David C. Tucker

Rochelle Hudson is the subject of David C. Tucker’s latest book, “largely because she deserved one.”

Miss Hudson’s career began in 1930 when she was still in her teens.  A 1931 WAMPAS Baby Star, the bulk of her film work occurred in the 1930s, when her roles ranged from sadder-but-wiser gun molls, nice girls, young brides, young mothers, tricksters and vamps, in an array of gangster films, action films set from the big city to the jungle, comedies, convict stories, and melodramas.   A beautiful actress, who could also sing and dance, nevertheless her career dwindled in the 1940s and her starring roles were usually in B-pictures; her finer films usually saw her in supporting parts. 

The author notes, “Even during her lifetime, however, there was a sense that she had been underappreciated.  By the mid-1940s, when her career was past its peak, columnist Ed Sullivan lamented (in 1944) -- “Rochelle Hudson should have been a much huger success.  She had everything.”

It’s a forlorn thought, but when picking through her films, as Mr. Tucker does so well, we see there are gems to remember her by most fondly:  As Shirley Temple’s big sister in Curly Top (1935), paired romantically with John Boles, she sings “The Simple Things in Life.”

Other important roles occurred in Imitation of Life (1934) as Claudette Colbert’s daughter, Les Misérables (1935) as Cozette with Fredric March, and four films with Will Rogers, the last released just after his tragic death.  She has a minor role in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

I found it delightful to discover that she also, at least on some occasions, supplied the cartoon voice of Honey in the series of Bosko cartoons in the early Looney Toons from Warner Bros.  I excitedly mentioned this to my cartoonist twin brother, but he already knew.  He always already knows anything about cartoons.  (We have a set of cute ceramic Pilgrim figures, a boy and a girl, purchased decades ago in Plymouth, Mass., and though they look nothing like the cartoon characters, John immediately dubbed them Bosko and Honey.  It never fails that, taking them out of the box every November, one or the other of us will shout, “Hel-l-o-o, Bosko!”)

Okay.  Back to Rochelle.

Mr. Tucker has written several Hollywood biographies (listed below), and the reader will always learn something new.  What I especially enjoy is examining the twists and turns of a Hollywood career through the nuts-and-bolts information on life in the film industry, including contemporaneous critical reviews of movies and a look at what was happening at the same time in Hudson’s life. Mr. Tucker is meticulous and thorough.

Miss Hudson also starred in a short-lived TV sitcom, That’s My Boy (1954-1955) and she noted in an interview on the sometimes difficult irony of pursuing a television career when at the same time her much younger self was being shown in old movies on TV.  It’s an issue I’ve often wondered about, how film stars of the Golden Age, still working, were almost in competition with their younger selves and always needing to measure up to that more glamorous image.

The book contains a complete and detailed filmography, preceded by a biography that includes information on her personal life, with many great photos.  It can be purchased here at the McFarland website.

Have a look below for my posts on David C. Tucker’s previous books on Gale Storm and S. Sylvan Simon.  Also below is a list of links where you can purchase Mr. Tucker’s other books.

 

Another Old Movie Blog: Review of Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record by David C. Tucker

Another Old Movie Blog: An interview with author David C. Tucker - Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record

Another Old Movie Blog: Review: S. Sylvan Simon, Moviemaker - David C. Tucker's new book

 

Other books by David C. Tucker: 

Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record

Martha Raye: Film and Television Clown

Eve Arden: A Chronicle of All Film, Television, Radio and Stage, Performances

Shirley Booth: A Biography and Career Record

Joan Davis: America’s Queen of Film, Radio and Television Comedy

Lost Laughs of ‘50s and ‘60s Television

Pine-Thomas Productions: A History and Filmography

 

Have a look here at David C. Tucker’s blog

Bing, the Headless Horseman, and Halloween...

Have a listen to this favorite at my house -- Bing Crosby's rendition of "The Headless Horseman" from the Disney cartoon The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is the second half of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).  Here Bing performs it on his radio show on 

October 26, 1949, ably assisted by John Scott Trotter directing the orchestra and The Rhythmaires on background vocals. 

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Next Thursday, we move abruptly to another holiday -- when my book, Christmas in Classic Films is published.  More on that next week.  Until then, enjoy your Halloween treats and, hopefully, no tricks.

Confidence - 1933

Confidence (1933) stars Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, formerly of Disney but here in his Universal years.  Also featured are President Franklin D. Roosevelt (sans leg braces) and the Great Depression.  There's something really bold in black-and-white cartoons, daring and courageously surreal.

It's silly, poignant, and innocent, but the message of confidence is, while important, not really what got us through the Depression or what made this country great.

It's optimism.  Our forebears always looked to the future with optimism. Today we battle those consumed by its opposite: cynicism.  The cynics find no good in anything, certainly not in government by the people, and prefer to burn everything down.

I would imagine a cartoon is not going to solve that schism in today's society.  But I wish somebody would try.

It takes real guts to be optimistic when life is really rough, and your chickens are sick.

Gasoline Alley - 1951

Gasoline Alley (1951) brings the popular comic strip to life, and like the strip seems to reflect that life goes on and time doesn’t stand still, for the story is mainly about main character Skeezix’s younger brother Corky.

The comic strip is the longest currently running strip in U.S. history, begun in 1918.  Unlike most strips, the characters in Gasoline Alley aged, and much of the storyline chronicles the life span of Skeezix Wallet.  Skeezix was an abandoned baby found by Walt Wallet on Valentine’s Day 1921.  Walt was a bachelor, but he took the baby in and raised him.  Walt and his pals liked to tinker with their autos – a new-fangled invention still in the early ‘20s, and so the alley behind their street was nicknamed Gasoline Alley.

Skeezix did not remain a baby, but readers followed along his boyhood as he aged in the 1920s and 1930s – While Walt married, had another son, and then another baby, a girl, was abandoned in his car in the mid-thirties.  Walt just seemed to attract foundlings, apparently.  Skeezix joined the Army during World War II, married in 1944 and had a couple of kids of his own.  He’s a great-grandfather today, having celebrated his 100^th birthday this year.

This was another strip, like last week’s Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner, that my mother loved, because she grew up with it and she reminded me many times that Skeezix shared childhood milestones with her, as they were close in age.  She talked about him as if he was a cousin.

The comic strip was very popular in its day, spawning radio versions, a children’s middle-grade chapter book, and a couple movies: this one and its sequel Corky of Gasoline Alley, also released in 1951. Frank O. King, the cartoonist, is also a co-writer of this script.

Corky, played by Scotty Beckett, stars in both movies, as the focus had shifted from Skeezix, now perhaps viewed as more settled with a wife and kids, onto a younger fellow with more trouble in his life. 

Corky’s main problem is his discontent about growing up in Skeezix’s shadow.  He has never measured up to his older brother’s steady qualities, and now that Skeezix has his own business – a garage called Gasoline Alley, a wife and kids and his own home, Corky wants to catch up to him.  The movie begins when Corky unexpectedly arrives home from college announcing he has quit school, and brings in his new bride. 

His parents are understandably shocked, a little annoyed, and worried as heck about their boy’s habit of acting in haste.  Corky and Hope, his new wife, live with Ma and Pa until Corky can get a job and afford a place to live. 

Walt is played by Don Beddoe, and he is the only person in the cast to actually resemble the cartoon character he plays, with that shock of hair pasted high over his forehead.  A great job by the hair and makeup folks.  None of the other actors look like the characters they portray, but probably could not be expected to, after all, these were cartoon drawings. That Don Beddoe looks so much like Walt Wallet is delightful and, I suppose, a little distracting.  He draws your attention in every scene he’s in.

Skeezix is played by Jimmy Lyndon, who we last saw here in Life with Father (1947).  He doesn’t get much screen time, unfortunately.  Patti Brody plays little sister Judy, who has a few funny lines and delivers them well.  Susan Morrow makes her screen debut as Hope.

Corky’s first attempt at working for living is to become an underwear model for a catalogue, which has its funny moments, though a sexy woman model he meets pops back in the story from time to time as a prospective danger to his marriage.  This is no soap opera, however, and the movie’s director, Edward Bernds, transfers some of his experience on Three Stooges and Bowery Boys flicks in broad comedy sprinkled throughout the movie, especially in a wild car chase at the end. (Where, told to stop the car by throwing out the clutch, the terrified driver exclaims, “I haven’t got one, it’s Dyna Flush!”  I’m assuming this is a comic reference to the Dynaflow early automatic transmission in Buick cars.)

Corky next gets a job as a dishwasher for a restaurant, and with incredible luck, or hutzpah, decides to take a lease on a run-down diner.  Fry cook Pudge, played by Dick Wessel is along for the move – turns out he was in the Army with Skeezix, and Gus Schilling’s hired as a dishwasher with a prison record.  Corky gives him a job to help him go straight, though Schilling’s light-fingered skills will help later on when they need to stall signing a contract.  We last saw Gus Schilling here as the beleaguered TV deliveryman in Our Very Own (1950).

With his wife, Hope, as waitress, and a big loan from Skeezix, Corky’s in business and much of the movie follows the ups and downs of getting established. A wolf after Hope happens to be a shill for a competitor.  Corky and his crew run and out of the diner so often on emergencies, that at one point the cook, heading out the door, yells to a customer, “Turn off the lima beans in ten minutes!”

It’s possible that since two movies were made in the same year featuring the Gasoline Alley characters that it might have been intended to make a series, such as the long and successful Blondie series of movies produced from the late 1930s through 1950, also, of course, based on a famous comic strip. However, no more followed and it’s possible Scotty Becket’s own personal troubles might have played into that decision.  He’d been around Hollywood since a small child, first coming to attention in the Our Gang series.  As an adult, his self-destructive behavior destroyed his career and eventually, his life at only 38 years old.  He played his role in Gasoline Alley with great energy and likeability. 

The strip continues today, having passed through its fascination with the Tin Lizzie, with the Depression, World War II, post-war family life, Skeezix's children having served in Vietnam and in the Peace Corps, and each fad and whim in succession through the last ten decades of our history. It survived by examining the small stuff of life, and then letting it go, because life goes on and time doesn’t stand still.

Next week we join the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Hidden Classics Blogathon, with a look at Till the End of Time (1946).

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Working Winnie - 1926

Working Winnie (1926) brings the 1920s sensation from the funny papers -- Winnie Winkle -- to the big screen.  It's a short movie, about 24 minutes, and was the first in a series of ten live-action adventures of our heroine.  She was that other modern sensation of the 1920s; not the flapper, but the "working girl."  It was one of the very first pop culture hits to feature a single working woman.

The strip by Martin Branner, who also co-wrote the script for this movie, was called Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner, because she was the sole support of her parents and younger brother, Perry.  The strip began in 1920 and was an immediate hit, chugging along through the decades and finally discontinued by the newspaper publishing syndicate in 1996, when it was deemed that Winnie was no longer relatable to modern women.  Hogwash.  Winnie was a favorite of mine from childhood, when she was still working, though by the 1970s the strip was more of a continuing story like a soap opera and not comic gags.

In her 76 years, one of the longest-running comic strips in U.S. publishing history, Winnie had been through a lot.  Lots of jobs, lots of leering bosses, a marriage to Bill Wright, who later got lost in the Amazon jungle while Winnie was pregnant with twins (boy and girl twins, my favorite kind), raising her children as a single mother, and finally founding her own fashion design company before they pulled the plug on our heroine.  At least they had the decency to bring Bill back out of the jungle and reunite them.  Actually, Winnie, in true independent woman fashion, went to the jungle and brought him back herself.  Through it all, she kept her single surname.

From July 1976

Winnie was a favorite of my mother's as well.  We discussed the strip's progress daily.  My mother was one of the most intellectual people I'd ever met, and a great reader of much heavier material, but she had a sentimental fondness for the comic strips of her childhood, especially the ones that accompanied her into adulthood.  She was a dedicated newspaper reader, and I suppose that the funnies were her gateway drug to the world of print news, and were for a lot of children back then.

Today, I find reading comics in newspapers a struggle because in many papers they tend to be printed much smaller than they used to be.  It's not much of a pleasure anymore.  When the strips are larger, one is able to appreciate the artwork more, as well as being able to just read the words.  You can lose yourself in a nice big 2 1/2 x 9 1/2 inch strip, or even a 2 x 6 1/2, as they were by the 1970s.  Strips had a lot more detailed background back then as well, which would probably not transfer well today on a much smaller space. Terry and the Pirates, now that was a joy to behold, its fine detail beautifully showcased in a larger format.

Working Winnie is a simple plot full of action, as the silent flickers were.  It stars Ethelyn Gibson as Winnie.  Miss Gibson was married to Billy West, who was the producer of this film, and starred in lots of comedies himself, including not a few with Oliver Hardy.  He appeared in a huge number of movies from the teens right through the 1920s, but by the 1930s was relegated to uncredited bit parts, and he retired in 1935.

Here's Billy West as the silent World War I Medal of Honor winner in Joan Blondell's musical number "My Forgotten Man" from Gold Diggers of 1933, which we covered here.

Winnie suffers the indignity of running to catch a trolley, ripping a man's pants off when she can't get a grip on something as she tries to board.  She gets another trolley, packed like sardines.  At work, a sandwich she has left in her desk drawer has ants all over it, which get onto her hand and onto her body, and when she jumps, wiggles and shimmies, her co-workers think she is dancing and they clap along.  Her grumpy boss and her hoped-for suitor suffer the same fate.

The trolley is so packed on the way home, she has to crawl on the floor and down the steps, landing head-first in the street.

Invited to a swank dinner party that evening, her frumpy parents, mischievous little brother and his roughneck gang, all do their best to embarrass her. 

The movie is available here on the Internet Archive site.  It's quite muddy, but there are a few laugh-out-loud moments, but don't expect much of a story line.  For that, you had to read the funnies.  And then discuss them with your mother.

Yesterday, May 5th, was Cartoonist's Day.  In the spirit of the festivities, here's a nod to my favorite cartoonist, my twin brother John.  His collection of delightfully sweet and silly cartoons is available on Amazon, in print or eBook:  Arte Acher's Falling Circus.

Next week, we'll have another look at a movie based on a comic strip - Gasoline Alley (1951).

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.