Tales from the Archives: The Movie Church Nov. 1928 Part 2

My finals are finished so its time to get back on track. This week we'll take a look at the films that were shown by this parish on November 11th and November 18th 1928.

The feature length film scheduled for November 11th was The Fortune Hunter (1927) starring Syd Chaplin. I've written about Syd Chaplin before as this Church showed several of his films. Syd was the half-brother of the much more famous Charlie Chaplin. Syd Chaplin is on the right of the above picture, which is a still from The Fortune Hunter. However, this appears to be a lost film. Like many of the films shown by this parish, The Fortune Hunter was a Warner Bros. Vitaphone Production. This means that although it was a silent film, The Fortune Hunter featured a musical score and sound effects on discs that were synched up to the movie. There were often problems with synching Vitaphone discs to film, which was spoofed in Singin' in the Rain (1952).

The next film shown was Raggedy Rose (1926) starring Mabel Normand. This film is 56 minutes long so it's either a long short or a short feature. Mabel Normand (pictured above in the aforementioned film) was a popular silent film actress from 1910 to 1927. Normand was one of the first females in the film industry to also be a screenwriter, director, and producer. Mabel Normand was linked to two scandals: the 1922 murder of film director William Desmond Taylor (which is still unsolved!) and the non-fatal shooting of oil tycoon Courtland S. Dines in 1924. Besides these scandals Normand had tuberculosis in 1923 which also contributed to the decline of her career. Raggedy Rose was one of five films Normand made in 1926 and 1927 as part of her comeback attempt. Sadly Normand's health never fully recovered and she died in 1930 at the age of 37. The character Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard (1950) is named after Mabel Normand and William Desmond Taylor. Raggedy Rose still survives and has been released on DVD. According to IMDB, actor Oliver Hardy was originally part of the cast for this film but had to leave the production after badly injuring and burning himself in a kitchen accident. The films screenplay was co-written by Stan Laurel so its interesting to note the involvement of one half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy duo with Raggedy Rose.
The second short for this week was Fun Afoot (1928) which was a Sport Pictorials production. Between 1921 and 1929 the company made over 200 short documentaries on various sports subjects. Judging from the title I am guessing this one was about soccer or football.

The first feature film shown on November 18th was One-Round Hogan (1927), a movie about boxing. Like The Fortune Hunter, this film was also a Warner Bros. Vitaphone production. The film starred Monte Blue (who I discussed in an earlier Tales from the Archives post) as well as actress Leila Hyams who is pictured above. Hyams was quite popular in the late silent and pre-code era. Her most famous films are The Big House (1930), Island of Lost Souls (1932), and Tod Browning's Freaks (1932). It seems that One-Round Hogan no longer survives.

The second film of the double feature was A Harp in Hock (1927). I could not find out much about this movie so I assume that it no longer exists. The film starred stage and film actor Rudolph Schildkraut who I discussed in an earlier Tales from the Archives post. A Harp in Hock featured actresses Bessie Love and May Robson who would both later receive Oscar nominations. Love acted in films from 1915 until 1983! Robson on the other hand was a stage actress who made the shift from stage acting to film. Robson acted until her death in 1942 at the age of 84. Robson is the third oldest actress  to receive an Oscar nomination for a leading role behind Edith Evans and Jessica Tandy (who won the award).

The short for this week was Happy Days (1926). Happy Days was part of the Winnie Winkle shorts series which was basically an Our Gang knock-off. You can probably see what I mean from the above picture. Luckily this short still survives and was restored, copyrighted, and distributed by Kino International Corporation in 2007.

Tales from the Archives: The Movie Church Oct. 1928

This week's parish monthly calendar is from September 1928 and shows us the films scheduled to be shown in October of that year.

The first film of the double feature on October 7th was a comedy called The Missing Link (1927). There is a typo in this listing as the film starred Syd Chaplin (not "Chapman"), a half-brother of the much more famous actor Charlie Chaplin. I wrote about Syd Chaplin in an earlier entry as the Church saw another film starring Syd Chaplin called The Better 'Ole (1926). According to IMDB this film had music and sound effects through Vitaphone discs and was the fourth ever feature length Vitaphone production. The Church had shown a couple other Vitaphone films so I am guessing that they did have the capability to make use of the added music and sound effects that went along with these otherwise silent films. It appears that The Missing Link is a lost film.
I could not find any information about the second film, Football Sense. The listing does not explicitly say that this is a double feature so perhaps Football Sense was a short. That said, I have had pretty good luck finding information on shorts so far and still couldn't turn up anything so it looks like this will remain a mystery.

The short A Battling Duet (1928) was a silent cartoon from the Aesop's Fables series. The Church had shown several shorts from this animated series before and they were quite popular in the 1920s. The listing calls it "The Battling Duet" but the correct title is A Battling Duet. This typo is not as big as "Syd Chapman" but whoever wrote this schedule was getting sloppy!

The Yankee Clipper (1927), a high seas adventure about the naval rivalry between America and England in the mid-1800s, was the first film shown on October 14. The Yankee Clipper still exists and has even been released on DVD. The film stars William Boyd who was in several films shown by this Church. Boyd would later become famous for playing the title role in the Hopalong Cassidy film series. The Yankee Clipper was directed by Rupert Julian, who also directed the 1925 Lon Chaney classic, The Phantom of the Opera. The Yankee Clipper was produced by Cecil B. DeMille and featured his mistress, Julia Faye (who I mentioned last week when discussing The Main Event). The female lead in The Yankee Clipper was played by actress Elinor Fair, the real life wife of William Boyd. Boyd proposed to Fair while filming The Volga Boatman in 1926. His character was supposed to propose to Fair's character so Boyd decided to use the moment to actually propose to Elinor! Luckily Fair accepted both in character and for real. Since this was a silent film the scene of Boyd really proposing was kept in the movie! Fair and Boyd are pictured together in the above screenshot from The Yankee Clipper.

Like Football Sense, I was unable to find any information on the second film, "An Oriental Album." I'm guessing it was a short and a travel feature like I assumed with "Holland" from last week.
The Flying Age (1928) was another Aesop's Fables short cartoon.

The weekly wrap-up will be Sunday as usual. On Tuesday 11/22 I will make a special post on Fall TV shows I have been watching. There will not be a Tales from the Archives post next Thursday due to Thanksgiving but it will be back on schedule for Thursday 11/29.

Tales from the Archives: The Movie Church Feb. 1928

This week I will be discussing the films shown by Church of the Holy Infancy in February and March of 1928. The last post featured films shown at the Church in the final two months of 1926. I'm not sure why there is a one year gap here. Either they didn't show movies during this time, did not list them in the parish monthly calendars, or I missed them as I was going through the calendars. No matter what, this listing features some fascinating films and famous actors so let's get started!

The scheduling format is basically the same as we saw in the 1926 calendar. The main difference is that newsreels are no longer listed and we often have two shorts shown instead of just one.

We Moderns (1925) was a silent 7-reel comedy that is now a lost film. The movie was a First National Production, a film company that later merged with Warner Bros. The film was shot in London and was a British look at the flapper phenomenon.

The star of We Moderns was famous actress Colleen Moore. Moore became known for her flapper roles and bob haircut. Her popularity waned after the silent era.

The short that followed We Moderns was the Our Gang aka Little Rascals short Telling Whoppers (1926). This was the 55th Our Gang short released.

The final of the two shorts shown on February 12th was Red Hot Sands (1927). This silent animated short was in the Aesop's Film Fables series which were created by cartoonist Paul Terry. Although the early short films in the series were about the fables, they later dropped that gimmick but kept humorous morals which often had nothing to do with the story. The series was extremely popular in the 1920s.

The feature film shown on February 19th was the comedy The Lunatic at Large. The film starred Leon Errol and Dorothy Mackaill. Like We Moderns, this movie was also a First National Production. While it appears to be a lost film, I was able to find a review of the film from 1927. Check it out here!

The first short from this week was On the Front Page (1926) which starred Stan Laurel before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy to make the popular comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. This short still survives and also features famous silent actor and wrestler Bull Montana. I guess we wouldn't have Hulk Hogan and The Rock without him! Below is a picture of Montana.

The final short that week was a sports documentary called Taking Punishment (1927). It was made by the Sports Pictorials company which specialized in these sports shorts. Famous sportswriter Grantland Rice (and the namesake of the college football Rice Bowl) was associated with the company.

Only one film was shown on February 26th and it was the "Warner Spectacle" Don Juan (1926). The movie starred famous actor John Barrymore (the grandfather of Drew Barrymore) and was the first feature film to have synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack. The character Don Juan kisses various women 191 times during the film for an average of one kiss every 53 seconds!

 

The feature movie for March 4th was The Third Degree (1926). This romance film starred Dolores Costello, who was the wife of John Barrymore who starred in Don Juan which was shown the week before. The film also featured Oscar nominated actress Louise Dresser and Jason Robards Sr., who was the father of better known actor Jason Robards, Jr. A print of The Third Degree exists at the Library of Congress film archive.
The first short this week was Smith's Baby (1926), produced by Mack Sennett Comedies. Sennett was an Oscar-winning director who was a pioneer of comedy in the early days of film.
The second short was another Aesop's Fables animated short: Small Town Sheriff (1927).
I am pleased to announce that this is the first film in this series that can be seen on YouTube! Check it out here!

The drama White Flannels (1927) was the feature for March 11th. The film featured Louise Dresser and Jason Robards Sr. who were both in last week's film. I'm starting to notice a bit of a pattern here but I'm not sure if this was intentional or not. It seems that this is a lost film.

A few weeks earlier the church showed a Stan Laurel solo short. This time they showed Bromo and Juliet (1926), an Oliver Hardy comedy short! Although Hardy was without Laurel, fellow comedian Charley Chase was also in the film. This short was followed up by Cutting a Melon (1927), another Aesop's Fables cartoon.

The Better 'Ole (1926) was the feature film for March 18th. This movie was the second film to use the Vitaphone sound process for music and special effects after Don Juan. Last week we saw that this church apparently showed a 3-D film and now we see that they showed the first two Vitaphone sound films. It seems that this church was on the cutting edge when it came to cinema. They clearly liked their movies! The star of this film was Sydney "Syd" Chaplin, the older half-brother of Charlie Chaplin! He appeared with Charlie Chaplin in Shoulder Arms (1918) and was also in his own films like this one. Syd Chaplin was not as famous as his younger half-brother, but did work as Charlie's business manager. The Better 'Ole still survives and you can even buy in on DVD from the Warner Bros. Archive Collection.
The lone short for this week was On the Hook (1927), another short by the Sports Pictorials company.

The star of While London Sleeps (1926) was none other than "the famous film dog" Rin Tin Tin! Even though he was not human, Rin Tin Tin was immensely popular and starred in many films of the 1920s and early 1930s. The dog's lineage continues today and many of his descendants also appeared in movies. "Rinty," as he was often known, played a police dog helping Scotland Yard in this film. Sadly it appears to be lost.

The first short for March 25th was The Fourth Alarm (1926), the 53rd Our Gang comedy released.
The second and final short was called The Human Fly but I can't seem to locate any information about  it, even on IMDB. The closest I can find is a documentary short from 1917 but since this theater did not seem to show films older than a year or two I find it hard to believe that this is what they saw in 1928. I have a feeling this will remain a mystery!

See you Sunday for the weekly wrap-up!