Calamity Jane - Intro

In a four-part series for the next two weeks, we’re going to discuss Calamity Jane, and how movies of the mid-20th century saw her.  She’s a figure in American history that has been so hyped and exploited, and so little understood that the real person, whoever she really was, was jettisoned long ago -- partly by journalists and dime novel authors and partly by herself -- that what remains is the residue of legend, myth, outright lies, and that purest alloy of American fame -- marketing.

All this happened long before the movies, so by the time the “character” of Calamity Jane hit the big screen, she was already open to interpretation. As we will see in the four films we’re going to cover, the interpretation runs the gamut between tough-talking tomboy frontier scout, to shrewd businesswoman, to something between an innocent, goofy kid sister and a raucous rodeo clown.

This Thursday we’ll start with “The Plainsman” (1936), with Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane. Next Monday, we’ll take on Evelyn Ankers in “The Texan Meets Calamity Jane” (1950) and Yvonne DeCarlo in the role in “Calamity Jane and Sam Bass” (1949). Next Thursday we’ll conclude with Jane Russell as Calamity Jane in “The Paleface” (1948), and Doris Day in the title role in the musical “Calamity Jane” (1953).

Who Calamity Jane was, at least at the beginning, was Martha Jane Canary. She was born n 1856 on the Missouri prairie. While still a child, her parents moved the family further west. By the time she was 8 years old, she was living in Montana, and was the sole guardian of her younger siblings.

Library of Congress, 1895, public domain.

When she was in her 20s, her fame was already spreading across the country as the heroine in popular dime novels of the day, usually as the friend of one “Deadwood Dick” created by author Ned Wheeler, who never went west himself but brought it to life for his young readers. A popular play written only a couple years after the famous murder of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, has her avenging Hickok’s death, and from then on there grew many tales about Calamity Jane that depicted Wild Bill and her as lovers, and fellow frontier scouts for the Army.

Along with the novelists and playwrights and newspaper journalists, Calamity Jane herself took a hand in spreading her reputation, in one way or another, particularly when she'd been drinking, which she did a lot.  Some of her exploits were only tall tales that never happened. For instance, she was never a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. She was never a scout at all. She did accompany military expeditions as a civilian hanger on or more notoriously was what called a camp follower.

Some stories were embelished from fact.  She did spend quite a bit of time in Deadwood during the gold rush of 1876, and she knew Wild Bill Hickok, but they were never lovers. Even she never claimed that in her short autobiography. She was in town when he was murdered, and did mourn for him, but that was the extent of their intimacy.

As for the customary image we have of her in male buckskin attire, those are mainly from publicity photos. She wore dresses more often than not.

She was reputed to be a great rider, and a great shot, and she was. She was reputed to have a warm and sympathetic nature, and did perform kindly services now and again -- taking care of the sick, helping those in need in various ways, but she was no superhero. For the most part, Calamity Jane did nothing special to deserve icon status, and we may wonder why she became so famous. Not even her wild behavior was unusual in the Wild West.

And she was wild, restless, and impulsive. She had relationships with many men, a number of whom she lived with for periods of time and called her husbands. She had two children, a son who died in infancy, and a daughter for whom she cared until shortly before her death. She was reported to be a loving and affectionate mother. Calamity Jane died in 1903 at 47 years old , an alcoholic.

From the time she was a teenager, Calamity Jane lived on her own, following the railroad, following the Army, and learned to drink and cuss and fight as a means of survival. We see her in movies as somebody who was tough, but the movie costume of buckskin pants and shirt, the pistols, the bullwhip -- that was affectation to illustrate her toughness. She was even tougher in a dress, at a washboard, temporarily reforming herself and drying out for a few weeks, trying to get her life back together as a laundress or a cook, until she lost the battle and went on another bender.

There were only two kinds of women in the American West of that period, tough women, and dead women.

Library of Congress, 1901, public domain.

One very good book on Calamity Jane written by James D. McLaird: Calamity Jane - The Woman and the Legend (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005) goes into meticulous detail not only about Calamity Jane’s life, but how her legend developed. That is the more fascinating story. But, long before the media of the day caught hold of her, she was a girl named Martha Jane.

The author quotes the very first time the woman who became Calamity Jane appeared in print, in a newspaper from Virginia City, Montana. It was December 1864, and she was eight years old.

“Three little girls, who state their name to be Canary, applied at the door of Mr. Fergus, on Idaho Street, soliciting charity…the eldest carried in her arms her infant sister.” Martha brought her younger sisters, all wearing nothing but calico slips that winter day, to ask for food. The newspaper described their parents as “inhuman brutes who have deserted their poor unfortunate children.”

This was the pitiful beginning of her relationship with the media that lasted throughout her life, and long after her death.

The movies we’re covering don’t tell us that story. In “The Plainsman” she is a stagecoach driver in love with Wild Bill Hickok. In “The Texan and Calamity Jane” she is a saloon owner, still grieving for her love, Wild Bill, a year after his death. In “Calamity Jane and Sam Bass” she makes her money riding in horse races across the country. In “The Paleface” she is a government spy sent to investigate guns being sold to the Indians. In “Calamity Jane” she is back to stagecoach driving, and falling in love for the first time with Wild Bill Hickok.

Sagebrush sagas, B-movies, comedies, musicals.  Her fictional character was adable enough to fit in everywhere, but Martha had too much trouble finding a place for herself in real life. We seem to see all sides of her except what really was. Somebody tagged her The Prairie Queen, but that wasn’t quite it, either.

There were other movies and TV versions, and we’ll mention some of those later. Come back Thursday for a look at Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane in "The Plainsman".

Footsteps in the Dark - 1941

“Footsteps in the Dark” (1941) displays Errol Flynn’s ease and confidence in a comic role, and provides another showcase for his unique and unabashed charm. He carries the film, and is in practically every scene, which is good and bad. He is far and away never boring and delightful to watch; however, he’s got a great cast of character actors in supporting roles that don’t get to do too much.

Mr. Flynn plays a society blue-blood, an investment broker who lives with his lovely wife, Brenda Marshall, and his patrician mother-in-law, Lucile Watson. His relationship with both is good, and it’s particularly funny to watch him flatter his mother-in-law with comments that her new hairdo makes her look like a girl, practically every time he sees her. He does not seem insincere, just like a man who has the gift of making people happy, especially when their being happy makes things run smoother for him.

Except for the police inspector Alan Hale, and his sidekick detective, William Frawley. Unknown to his family, Flynn leads a double life. He writes murder mysteries on the side, and his latest is called “Footsteps in the Dark”, where we get the title of the film. In his book, he lambastes the very society set his mother-in-law so proudly represents, and so to keep peace in his home, he writes under a pseudonym.

He hangs out with the police to get story ideas and to help them solve their cases, because he is, of course, smarter than everybody. Especially William Frawley, who is the stupidest police detective in the universe.

Mr. Flynn’s closest relationship appears to be with Allen Jenkins, his chauffeur who also lives a double life as Flynn’s secretary. I love the scenes when Flynn leaves his brokerage office for lunch and heads out with Jenkins to a cozy suburban house he keeps for his writing space.

They peel off their suit coats, and Flynn dictates his story into a Dictaphone (have a look here at our previous post on movie Dictaphones and tape recorders), while Mr. Jenkins types out the manuscript. We see Jenkins with transcription earphones, but I can’t tell if there is also a foot pedal. I’d love to know more about the mechanical devices and method of transcription in the 1940s if anybody has any information.

I’ll leave the plot alone so as not to ruin the story, but Flynn encounters shapely but not overly talented burlesque queen Blondie White, played with trampy gusto by Lee Patrick (for whom he poses as a naïve, “aww-shucks, Ma’am” Texas oilman. Catch his funny attempt at an accent.)

Grant Mitchell plays the family attorney, about whom Flynn makes up outrageous stories of being romantically involved with the burlesque queen in order to cover up his own activities.

Roscoe Karns is a smarmy private detective Brenda Marshall hires to track her husband.

Ralph Bellamy, always reliable and believable in any situation, is a dentist, and there is one particular scene with he and Flynn, with Flynn in the dentist’s chair, that flits alternately between both comedy and tension. It’s almost hard to concentrate on the nuances of the scene, at least for us today, because at one point Bellamy joins his patient in a cigarette break, and companionably plunks an ashtray down on the instrument tray for them to use. Yuck.

We want to see more of these great character actors, but the movie is Flynn’s, and so we see them only through his brief interaction with each one of them in turn through the course of the movie. They really are wasted.

Another good scene: Brenda Marshall, having discovered Flynn’s preoccupation with Blondie White, goes to the burlesque theater herself to see what’s so special about her. We later find Miss Marshall play-acting a strip tease in front of her bedroom mirror to practice for her husband, when she is interrupted by the butler. It’s one of the few scenes without Flynn; the rest of the movie rests on his capable shoulders. However, because he is so capable and so charming, we know he’ll win the day and there is no real suspense, except for a scene at the very end.

The studio could have taken this further and made sequels, but this lightweight, breezy whodunit stands on its own.

Mystery Beach Couple Solved!

Today we have the answer to last Thursday’s screen caption quiz…most of you had a tough time of it, which I enjoyed in my own evil way. Yvette did nail the identity of the lady, if even she wasn’t sure. Congratulations go to Kassy, who got it right. Drum roll, please….

The Mystery Beach Couple is:

Teresa Wright, and Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees” (1942).

We become completely different people at the beach. Most of us in our everyday lives do not walk around outside half naked studying the body types of complete strangers in similar half-dress and allowing ourselves to be studied at the same time. All in very close proximity. We don’t lie half asleep on the ground for hours in the middle of work day, ignore the presence of sand in our hair, content also to ignore the blob of ice cream that fell off the soft serve cone and landed on the thigh. Immerse ourselves in frigid water (at least in New England) though we fiddle endlessly with the faucet in the shower at home because the water temp has to be just right.

After all this, drive home tired from being lazy, sticky, and satisfied that we have spent the day well, though on any normal day we would berate ourselves for not accomplishing our list of things to do. We are different beings at the beach.

So, it’s no wonder they were difficult to recognize.

For previous "at the beach" posts, have a look here and over here.

Mystery Beach Couple

Who is this couple at the beach?  What movie?

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day.  Have a look at this link for the scene in "Holiday Inn" (1942) which features the above Bing Crosby in a musical salute to the day.   Below, have a look at a 1942 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians.  Don't forget to stand.

(And don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and pause the music so you can hear the video.)

In Old Chicago - 1937

“In Old Chicago” (1937) re-ignites the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and illustrates American History as part legend, part wish fulfillment, and mainly the extraordinary ability to cope.

It is easy enough to run down a checklist of all the “facts” in the telling of this story and mark which are true and which are not. The most obvious of which is, of course, that the cause of the Great Chicago Fire was probably not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. The story of Daisy the cow kicking over a lantern in the barn and setting the monumental blaze that killed perhaps as many as 300 people and left some estimated 100,000 homeless over the course of a single night has been refuted by alternate theories.

The first news of Mrs. O’Leary and her cow was reported in the Chicago Tribute at the time of the fire, and later was found to have been completely made up to sell papers. Such a tragedy needed a scapegoat, and in those days of anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant sentiment, what better scapegoat than a poor, ignorant, slovenly, comic old Irish crone and her stupid, silly cow?

Except that Mrs. O’Leary was not ignorant, slovenly, nor a crone. She was in her late ‘40s when the incident occurred, hardworking, married, a mother (with a son and a daughter, not three sons), and had the great misfortunate to be only two of the accusations against her: poor, and Irish.

Recent historical investigations have shifted suspicion on the fellow who actually noticed the fire in her barn first, and called out for help. You’ll see him in the film -- a man with a wooden leg hollering, “Mrs. O’Leary! Oh, Mrs. O’Leary!” His character is unnamed in the movie, but he is meant to be Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan, whose inconsistent testimony at the original investigation has since come under scrutiny. He may have caused the fire in the O’Leary barn by accident. Have a look here at this website for more information.

John Wallace is the actor who plays this man in the movie “In Old Chicago”, and I would assume wore a prosthetic leg in real life, because he played so-called “peg-leg” characters in at least six other films.

The truth about the cause of the fire aside, “In Old Chicago”, has a charm and vigor that is perhaps due to this leaning on American legend rather than fact. It tells the story with a wink and a smile. It attempts to entertain with a tale we think we already know, rather than enlighten us on what we do not know.

I wonder, though, if younger, modern, audiences are even aware of the Mrs. O’Leary legend? To 1937 audiences, this tale was familiar, homespun, and as part of Americana as Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill. They may have accepted it as legend and not truth, but the legend was like a souvenir of an era. A snow globe you bring home from the fair. It’s not real either, but you like to shake it once in a while and watch it “storm”.

Going down our checklist, most of the characters in the movie: the three sons, the rival politician, the saloon singer, are all fictional. In the movie, Patrick O’Leary dies in the first few minutes. In real life, he was still alive at the time of the fire. In the movie, Mrs. O’Leary’s first name is Molly. In real life, it was Catherine. Come to think of it, the only factual character was Daisy the cow.

She had a small, but pivotal role.

What the movie lacks in historical accuracy (at least as far as characters are concerned; the sets, costumes, and the fire special effects are pretty good), it makes up for in some stunning visual images.

One of my favorites comes at the very beginning of the movie, a shot of the prairie when Patrick O’Leary meets his Maker. We see Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary, Irish immigrants with brogues, wit, and guts, travel across the prairie with their three small boys in a covered wagon. They are on their way to Chicago, the new boomtown of the great American Midwest. It is 1854. Mr. O’Leary, at his sons’ urging, playfully whips the horses and races a nearby locomotive. He has an accident when the horses become unhitched. He is pulled off the wagon and dragged on the ground.

Mrs. O’Leary leaps from the wagon and runs toward her husband’s prone body. We see her running across a very great distance, a wide, rolling, empty grassland. All is silent, but in your imagination you might hear the wind sifting over the grass; you certainly get a sense of solitude, of her helplessness in such a big place. In that long shot of the woman running, you also see a hint of strength and courage. The image of the small figure on the huge prairie is stunning.

Patrick O’Leary, played by J. Anthony Hughes says his dying speech, and his widow and sons go on to Chicago.

Mrs. O’Leary is played by Alice Brady, theatre and movie veteran. Her spirited, feisty characterization earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this movie. Unfortunately, she was never to receive it. On the night of the ceremony, she was home with an injury and her award was accepted by an unknown man who came up from the audience, and promptly walked away with it. Sadly, she succumbed to cancer two years after this movie was made and died at 46 years old.

Her grown sons in this movie are played by Tyrone Power as the charming scamp and ne’er do well; Don Ameche as the good son who battles poverty (his own) and injustice (other people’s) as a lawyer; and Tom Brown as the baby of the family who marries the Swedish hired girl and helps Ma with her laundry deliveries.

Another great image in the movie is when they first arrive in the boomtown of Chicago, and we are plunked down with them in a maze of wooden hovels, saloons, and shops all nestled in a spectacular sea of mud. Pedestrians are knee-deep in mud, horses get stuck in it.

In such a dirty place, Widow O’Leary starts a laundry business. Another great visual is a panning shot of Alice Brady wrestling clothes from a network of lines in her backyard into a basket.

Tyrone Power dirties his own hands with saloons and political graft in this shanty neighborhood called The Patch (in this movie The Patch is meant to refer to a particular shabby sort of red light district, but in the 19th century many Irish immigrant neighborhoods in American cities were often referred to as The Patch).

Tyrone’s rival is a ruffian saloon owner played by Brian Donlevy, who made a career out of playing essentially the same scoundrel from film to film. They both admire Donlevy’s new stage act, the lovely Miss Alice Faye.  There are several musical numbers in the movie.

One gets the sense of something really special happening with Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and Alice Faye all seeming to get their big break in this movie. They are all young and beautiful, and on the rise. 

However, the minor players make a distinct impression, from Joe Twerp’s stuttering scene, to the unforgettable visage of Rondo Hatton, whose tragic facial disfigurement from acromegaly was exploited in monster or monster-as-human type roles the studio. Here, he’s one of Donlevy’s goons.

Most impressive is Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who plays Alice Faye’s maid. Like most African-American actors of the period, her role is marginalized, but she manages, I think, to escape stereotype with a wonderful quality of razor wit. With her rapid delivery of lines, and her physical slapstick timing, she reminds me of a modern day stand-up comedian. Despite that fact that one of her earliest roles was in D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915) (she stayed in contact with Mr. Griffith for years and attended his memorial service), she really comes off as more 21st century savvy comic than 19th century servant or 20th century exploited actress.

We meet her first singing a bluesy tune, admiring herself in the mirror wearing one of Alice Faye’s wraps. She comically covets her employer’s things and helps herself to them. When Alice Faye wants her to keep out admirers or manage her affairs, Madame Sul-Te-Wan replies, “I done told him that ‘til I’m black in the face.” She says it lighting quick, under her breath, as if we are not supposed to hear it. She’s a scene stealer.

When Tyrone Power forces his way into Miss Faye’s boudoir (which happens a couple of times), Madame Sul-Te-Wan shrieks, chases Power chasing Faye, and attempts to beat him with one of her gowns, and hangs onto his coattail trying to pull him away, shouting, “Get out of here, white man!” I have to wonder how much she made up as they went along, because she’s hysterical and seems to know it. You don’t even notice Alice Faye when Madame Sul-Te-Wan enters the scene.

When she’s off to drag a cop back, Power has wrestled Faye to the floor for a kiss, another great visual. Here Faye’s furious, arms pined back, panting from exertion and frustration. Director Henry King just leaves them wordless for a moment and all we hear is Alice Faye’s heavy breathing. Erotic slapstick.

This is world of gaslight and handlebar moustaches, of barbershop quartets, and political rallies that feature quantities of beer.

Another good scene is when Alice Brady, her boys, and daughter-in-law dance a jig in the parlor and finishing off a bucket of beer.

Don Ameche runs for mayor against Brian Donlevy, and Tyrone Power pulls a few switcheroos to get him elected. But, Mr. Ameche is honest, won’t dance for political favors, and vows to wipe out The Patch and all the unstable “mushroom growth” of Chicago. He points out the wooden shanties are a fire hazard. He wants to eliminate crime, even if it means destroying his brother.

Well, then Daisy kicks over the lantern and you know what happened next. The special effects guys take over.

Round about this time, with mobs of terrified people running from the fire that spreads rapidly, loved ones separated (we entirely lose Madame Sul-Te-Wan somewhere) and Tyrone Power staggering around a dynamited firebreak with blood on his face -- you might notice a similarity to the goings on in “San Francisco” (1936). They could have used that movie as a template.

Except “In Old Chicago” has Sidney Blackmer as General Philip Sheridan to help fight the fire. This part was true.

And “San Francisco” didn’t have a cattle stampede.

The impressive amount of mud gives way to an impressive amount of extras all running as fast as they can to get to Lake Michigan to escape the flames.

Alice Brady, standing up in a cart half-submerged in the Lake, looks back on the flaming city and remarks, “It was a city of wood, and now it’s ashes.” But, she tells us that Chicago will be reborn and gives us hope for the future.

The Water Tower - one of the few structures to have survived the fire.  J. T. Lynch photo.

Chicago was reborn, and that story perhaps is the one that should really be told, for in a generation it became the city of stone and steel that Don Ameche wanted, once again the Queen of the Middle West. City of the Broad Shoulders, Hog Butcher to the World…you know.

No such resurrection came to the real Mrs. O’Leary, however, who was vilified in the press, and on the anniversary of the fire for the rest of her life, came reporters who wanted her to remember. She didn’t. No matter how many times she moved, they still found her. She refused even to accept the offers of promoters and hucksters to capitalize on her fame. She just wanted to be left alone. Her husband Patrick died in 1894. She died the following year.

In 1997, Chicago passed a resolution exonerating Mrs. O’Leary, and Daisy, from any blame for the Great Chicago Fire. The Mayor offered an apology to her great-grandchildren.

J.T.Lynch photo

Here is a plaque that stands on the spot on De Koven Street where the O’Leary home stood.

J.T.Lynch photo

Back up a bit, and you see the memorial to the Great Chicago Fire, a bronze sculpture, “Pillar of Fire” by sculptor Egon Weiner, which was placed here in 1961.

Behind it, is the Chicago Fire Academy, where firefighters are trained.

J.T.Lynch photo

For more on the Great Chicago Fire, have a look at this website.

New Book on the World Theatre - Kearney, Nebraska

“Kearney’s World Theatre” by Keith Terry, is like that long, familiar walk down the carpeted aisle, the descending incline of a movie theatre from the back of the house to the orchestra seats. You look all around at the grand old movie temple, and anticipation builds to claim your seat. Then the magic. Even if you have never been to the World Theatre in Kearney, Nebraska, you’ve got a stake in this theater and this book.

An “Images of America” book recently published by Arcadia Publishing, this treasure trove of photos with captions takes us on the timeline from the theater’s opening in November 1927, through its heyday of the 1930s until 2008, when it closed.

But that was not the end of the story. In 2009, community efforts began to restore and reopen the World Theatre, fundraising which continues today. This book is part of those efforts, to raise awareness of the cultural significance of this theater, and to aid in the fundraising. Half of the author’s royalties will be donated to the restoration of the World Theatre.

The author, Keith Terry, is a faculty member in the Department of Communication at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. He is the author of two other books on Nebraska history.

We’ve discussed many classic movie theaters on this blog, and sometimes we are lucky to find one that’s in the process of being revitalized. This time, however, we actually get a chance to help out ourselves in a very simple way. Please have a look at “Kearney’s World Theatre” by Keith Terry on the Arcadia website here, and consider purchasing a copy. The pages of photos, memories, posters and memorabilia, though centered on a small theater in a town in Nebraska, on another level is about everything readers of this blog love about old movies and preserving them.

Posters for a Clara Bow movie. The time a person dressed as The Tin Man standing out front to advertise “The Wizard of Oz” (which didn’t need much help, as it pulled in such big crowds the movie was held over).

The ushers and the live acts, the war bond drives. The theater ghost (every good theater has one). The ever-changing marquee. Most of the photos and the memories were supplied by the patrons, so there is an intimacy in the book that you feel from looking at a family photo album. It’s their theater, but the memories and experiences are universal and were shared by a few generations of millions of other Americans.

Then the demise of a theater, and an era. Now, the rebirth. Claim your seat as the curtain draws open.

“Kearney’s World Theatre” by Keith Terry is available online here from Arcadia Publishing.

(Disclosure: A copy of “Kearney’s World Theatre” by Keith Terry was supplied to me for purposes of reviewing on this blog.)

Grady Sutton

A long time ago the fellow with this pleasant face began in the movies in a walk-on part with no lines (it was a silent movie, after all), and carved out a decades-long career as the anonymous everyman who was somehow familiar.

Know this guy in the sweater?  That's Student Who Goes to Get the Dean.  This is from Harold Lloyd’s 1925 silent comedy “The Freshman”. This young man was on screen for only a few moments. Prophetically, he would build his entire career around appearing on screen for only a few, very memorable, moments.


He’s Grady Sutton, uncredited in most of his roles. Even though he co-starred in a series of Hal Roach two-reelers early on in his career, he never quite made to top banana fame.

Along the way he played the foil for W.C. Fields, and appeared in “Alice Adams” (1935) with Katharine Hepburn, and was hastily engaged to Carole Lombard in “My Man Godfrey” (1936).

Oddly enough, he managed to be one of the most recognizable bit actors in Hollywood, appearing in something like 200 movies and television shows. Once he made the transition from silents to talkies, we all got to hear that gentle Southern drawl that suited so well his shy, deadpan naivete.

Here he’s the housemaid Hattie’s beau, Butch the Butcher in “Stage Door” (1937), being teased by Lucille Ball.

Here, he’s Gary Cooper’s best man in “Casanova Brown” (1943).

Here, he’s the diner counterman who for several hysterical moments (could be one of his longer roles) agonizes over Jean Arthur’s post-wedding crying jag as he serves her boiled rice.

Here he’s one of the servicemen and the local camp that Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, and Claudette Colbert visit in “Since You Went Away” (1944), as he wanders the party looking for “Suzy Flemming”.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to dance with Rosemary Clooney at the cast party in “White Christmas” (1954), Grady is introduced to Barrie Chase, who delivers her famous line, “Mutual, I’m sure.”

Mr. Sutton went on to several more decades of work in film and television, never saying much, but always a welcome addition to the party.