Haha, Blackface.

Today, I'm again playing that constant game of catch-up. It's been over a week since I blogged. Here now are, as promised, my thoughts on Check and Double Check, the Hammer/UCLA blackface offering from over a week ago.


Check and Double Check is an Amos n Andy movie, the only one, starring the radio performers who created the duo, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosdon. (the picture above is from the TV show) It's up to you to look it up since I don't want to waste space laying out the plot. In attendance was Correll's son, Richard, who unbeknownst to me (I'm ashamed) is a successful TV director and writer in his own right. Ever hear about this thing called Hannah Montana? He invented it. Seriously. Anyway, he got up and talked about his father, his father's partner in crime for thirty years and about the film.

Refreshingly, Correll made no apologies for the film. He shouldn't, but he's also a rare brave soul not to take the audience's hand in his and talk to them like a ten year old. An audience of adults at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, California, doesn't need to be reminded that the movie we are about to see contains subject matter that some people might find offensive. We are there because we know that already and just want to see the damn movie. Kudos to you, Mr. Correll.


Richard Correll's parting words were something like, "I'll probably be the only one laughing for most of this, but enjoy." The audience's reaction, however, was extremely positive, and the movie holds up really well, thanks in no small part to it having been made well and to surviving in its original form. The jokes are also way less dated than, say, a Marx Brothers movie where they make jokes about Abie's Irish Rose.

I'm going to go out on a limb here: This movie is not offensive! Its central characters are uneducated black men played by white men in blackface, but their relationship is complex and plays out with admirable subtlety and humanity. There's an especially moving scene where Amos learns that his own employer, who was like a father to him and Andy, has passed away. His reaction, even in the minstrel-y dialect, is heartfelt and moving.

I will also point out a scene where they have to spend a night in a haunted house. As fearful as they are of houses' alleged ghost, they are still able to work strategize and keep their cool. When somebody's coat tail gets caught in a door, they don't behave any differently than Edgar Kennedy or Laurel and Hardy would. For a 1930's comedy made by white people about black people, that's about as unoffensive as you can get.

One more thing to consider: Charles Correll and Freeman Gosdon were both known to be supportive of equality both in the recording studio and in the real world. A number of black performers, including Hattie McDaniel, go their start on the Amos n' Andy radio show. They were even lauded by the NAACP.


This movie was the first half of a double feature program. At the end of the second feature, a guy sitting near me and my cohorts asked us about Check and Double Check, which he had skipped because he didn't want to see a racist movie. We did our best to assure him, in a polite and round-about way, that he missed a well-made and interesting movie that had a lot more than that to offer than some politically incorrect makeup choices. We did our best to paraphrase what Richard Correll had said, but it didn't seem to change his mind.

As much as I want him to understand us, I can see where he's coming from. We all have our red flags that we can't see past. It's like opening a window for a bird stuck in a house, and all they could do was keep hitting their head on the wall space next to it. Certain accents make me wary of people. Certain word choices make me judge them. And yet I feel like, in America, blackface is one of those things that refuse, at this point, to get past. By its very nature, it has become territory that nobody dare cross into. In the previous night's show He Fell In Love with His Wife, Lydia Yeamans Titus played a brutish, rabble rousing Irish housekeeper, but nobody at that screening seemed to bat an eye. There is something so outrageous, so unnatural and invasive about blackface, that its very appearance cancels out its context. It made me sad that, outside from academic-filled screenings like this one, this sort of film was unlikely to see much appreciation, or at least be given the chance it deserves.

More Hammer and Comics

I got a new job. Don't get excited, it's a one-day thing sorting my friend Kevin's comic book collection. Too bad it won't be a regular thing since it actually pays better than my last temp assignment.

Like most comic book people, my friend's backlog of comics is sprawling. He left me alone in his house for a few hours while he ran errands (was this wise? he will never know) but it did manage to plow through three long boxes, which were completely out of order, and sort everything into stacks. I kind of wish I had taken a picture.


The night before, I dragged the same friend to the Hammer to see something called He Fell In Love with His Wife, a VERY primitive movie from 1915. Those of you who are up with your 'who's who' in silent Hollywood annals will recognize the name of the director, William Desmond Taylor. Very few of his movies survive, and this particular one, which has been preserved, strikes me as not the best example of his work, although it has some nice moments. It suffers from many classic silent film problems: unbelievable plot (woman suffers amnesia after finding out her husband is a bigamist - well, I didn't buy it), really stiff acting and mugging at the camera, funny romantic scenes, precious few closeups. The lead actress, Florence Rockwell (below center), is kind of a butterface. It was, however, short (59 minutes), light on the reading, and Kevin described it as 'delightful.' As much as I enjoyed seeing it, too, it was the first time in a while that I've worried about whether or not my date was bored.


Tonight, the man's indulging me further and we're hitting a double feature: the Amos n' Andy comedy Check and Double Check (which promises to be a total cringe-fest), and another movie with a title that my friends have said is very me: Pointed Heels. Oh, how alluring. I wonder if the color sequence from that one (yes, THE color sequence) has been uploaded to youtube by the same magical wizard person who has access to scenes from 1931's illusive Dixiana. If so, I could steal it and make it part of my post tomorrow.

Hearst Metrotone Highlights

Last night I attended a UCLA Film and Television Archive screening, part of their fourteenth annual lineup of recently preserved materials from their collection. The set of films they have this year is especially appetizing, and I urge you to try to check it out if you're in LA through April 26th. (A link will be posted below.) All screenings are presented at the Hammer Museum's terrific Billy Wilder Theater, with its immaculate acoustics and Pepto-Bismal-hued seats. You might also see famous people (I happened to be seated in the same row as Leonard Maltin).

For those of you who don't know, I kinda have a 'thing' for archive footage. Ok, it's more of an obsessive fetish. Last night's program title alone, SILENT AND EARLY SOUND FILMS FROM THE HEARST METROTONE NEWS COLLECTION (1919-30), was making me twitch. We were going to be seeing a group of news stories that had not been seen in 80 to 90-some years. Heaven! I apologized to my date, Shaun, in advance: "If I start spontaneously orgasming in the middle of this thing, it's ok to pretend you don't know me." He assured me he would.

The show was hosted by Jeffrey Bickel, Newsreel Preservationist for UCLA (and my new god), who had great notes for the each segment. The new stories were presented chronologically. The first batch of clips were silent and spanned 1919 through the mid 1920's, and had live piano accompaniment (sorry, pianist, I can't remember your name, but you did a great job!). The sound segments picked up in 1929 and a majority of them were from the following year (January to September). I can't remember all of them (there were over a hundred minutes of them) but below are a few highlights:

1. A never released obituary for Theodore Roosevelt, including shots of his wintry funeral procession and burial in Long Island. Right from the beginning, the footage was fascinating and the visual quality was extremely reassuring.
2. Several shots made in France following the armistice, including a victory parade. The crowd shots were incredible. There is also some extremely beautiful footage of US General Pershing leaving port in southern France (in one interesting, very human moment, somebody is helping him get something out of his eye with a handkerchief), and Victory parades in New York and Washington, DC, that deserve to be in every World War I documentary ever from now on. (Why can't I remember that guy's name? He was a big deal!)
   
3. "Women Besiege Capitol To Urge Suffrage Bills" which I recognized from documentaries like Prohibition: Thirteen Years that Changed America (which is worth seeing). The hats and furs are terrific in this one, though the title is overly sensational. I wouldn't say the well-dressed, slow moving caterpillar of lady protesters are 'besieging' the steps of Albany's capitol building. They are simply making their case. You go, ladies!
   
4. A ship that has run aground near Devon, England, gets pried out of its chasm prison. Many of the reels, both silent and sound, were tinted different colors. This one was tinted bright yellow.
   
5. The Wall Street crash of 1929, and a proclamation by Charles M. Schwab (not the Charles Schwab you're thinking of) set the sound era of Heart Metrotone off with a bang. Schwab talks about how everything is going to be fine, and there is no need to worry about the economy. I love the speeches and interviews from this period. The speakers never seem comfortable, they usually shout their speech at the camera, and it usually ends with them pausing awkwardly and asking the off-camera technicians if they are done. So human! So different from the ass puppets you see on the news today!
6. The interior of a black (!) Southern (!) schoolhouse during a 'war on illiteracy,' showing African American adults learning to read. This was one of my favorite pieces, mostly because it's so unexpected; real black people are rare enough in the movies around this time. Here they are in their natural habitat (that sounds bad). Plus there are great closeups on fashion (people really took pride in their appearance back then!) and they sing a gospel song at the end. Yeah, maybe somebody could argue that it's a little racist to include that. But you know what? It's also a valuable document of American cultural heritage. Plus I couldn't stop recalling the instructor on the car-ride home: "M...A...N! Again!"
7. A children's parade in central park where a little boy is named champion of a 'freckle' contest (cute), and a dower little girl dressed in bridal wear declares "I am the blushing bride" as if she's undergoing some sort of punishment (in my opinion, she definitely was).
8. The 'plainest girl' in DC (or was it New York?), twenty-something Dolly Gray, is made over by a set of 'beauty scientists' while an on-camera male commentator makes shockingly sexist remarks. The end result: Dolly models her new look awkwardly. She's cute enough with the marcel wave and all, but Shaun and me like her better with long, unprocessed hair, natural eyebrows and light smattering of freckles.
9. A demonstration of self-defense techniques by people with British accents. Cute.
10. Also in Britain, a prince opens a hospital for children with polio. During his speech, I kept thinking of Eddie Izzard talking about EastEnders ("We must go with our strange accents...").
    
11. Navy football players training and tackling each other. Just goes to show that football has always been America's great latent-homoerotic pastime, even without steroids.
12. A group of Japanese-American teenage girls do a song and dance number. Just goes to show that Asian girls have always been and always will be TOTALLY ADORABLE!
13. A guy jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge (for the second time, apparently). He says something to the newsreel camera and then gets a kiss from his stylish girlfriend, be-cloched and be-furred. Fun thirties fashion turn up so often when you least expect it!
14. Tennis champion Betty Nuthall defeating Virginia Wade. My first thought was "Finally, women's tennis without the porno noises," and I was not disappointed. Miss Nuthall accepted her trophy with class and humility. Another posh accent.
    
15. The beginning of an all-female airplane race in Long Beach, with no word on who won. And no cute flapper outfits either. Suddenly I want my money back.
16. The latest fashions from Paris, and all of them have some sort of fur piece, of course. Ok, I feel better now. The narration for the episode is by some woman with a French accent that is both heavy and fake-sounding. Unlike today's models, the mannequins in this segment look like they eat healthy meals. Like today's models, they all look a bit angry.
    
17. A women's fire brigade. For all the probably good intentions of the newsreel crew, the women seem a little foolish, fighting fires in 4-inch heels and cloche rain caps. Also, when you're going to fight a barn fire by spraying water through the front entrance, it's probably best to open both doors, rather than just one. That way, you won't spend most of the time spraying the door you left shut, and you won't get soaked by the back-splash. Just a thought.
18. Finally, I get to hear what Thomas Edison and Henry Ford sounded like, and all in one story! They are addressing a group of scholarship winners. Edison can barely stand or open his eyes, and mumbles as if he doesn't know what's happening to him. To be fair, he was 82 by then. Ford, however, is the complete opposite, on the other hand. One smooth oak spouting asinine stuff like 'There's no such thing as a lost opportunity,' I thought of Gary Cooper. An old Gary Cooper with big ears and an undying hatred for Jews.
    
19. Hiram Johnson yells at the camera about stuff. The benefits of isolationism, I think. He moves his around a little too much, and shouting even more than usual. 1930 seems early to be yelling about war anyway. Freckle boy and his contemporaries wouldn't get caught in the draft for another twelve years.
20. This wasn't the last piece, but it has to have been the most priceless: Two lion tamers get married in a cage, with their prized lions standing in as witnesses. As if this wasn't already a tacky idea, a handler at the beginning lets the trap door fall on the tiger's head as it steps into the cage. I don't know how audiences in 1930 would have processed that, but in this post-PETA zeitgeist, all of us in the Billy Wilder Theater let out a gasp, followed by a rumble of righteous indignation. The bride and groom (both really good-looking) are about as nervous and distracted as could be expected, but for at least as long as the camera and sound men were rolling, nobody's face was torn off.

How miraculous that all of this survives, when you consider how much has been lost or is missing. What a shame It's about as cliché a notion as can be had, but you realize just how true it is when you're walking through the Hammer's lobby, your butt just beginning to regain feeling after 100 minutes sitting on Barbie-pink leather, and images and sounds of another age playing themselves over and over in your head. A few people looked exhausted after the show, but Shaun and I were both jonesing for more.

Where does that leave us? Well, what we all have to do is throw some money at the National Film Preservation Foundation and wait for Treasures from American Film Archive Volume 87 to come out. If the films I see tonight get released on DVD, I can see myself doing what I always do whenever I procrastinate: Adding new titles to the Internet Movie Database. Wouldn't it be nice to search for titles like Good News for Homely Girls or Edison Welcomes ‘Brightest' Boys and not come up empty-handed? John James Brookhart has a filmography thanks to NFPF's efforts. Why not grant the same opportunity to the plainest girl of 1930, Dolly Gray?

A list of showtimes and program notes for UCLA Film and Television Archive's 14th Annual Festival of Preservation can be viewed here:
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/