Warren William and Gene Lockhart laugh a little too loud then fight a little too hard throughout the first and second acts of Times Square Playboy before everything comes together just right at the end. The 1936 Warner Brothers release has a lot going for it, pedigree and fine casting leading the way, but when you come right down to it its’ 62 minutes are filled with just enough story to make for a good modern day sit-com episode. That may sound overly harsh so let me qualify, I get a big kick out of this film, and as for my sit-com crack, well the medium as it existed in that day and age unfolded on the big screen and so that’s not intended as any disrespect either.

Good thing Vic Arnold has Casey to make sure he doesn't head out without his trousers.

As to the pedigree, Times Square Playboy has its origins in the original George M. Cohan comedy, The Home Towners, which ran for 62 performances at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 1926. Of the play Time Magazine wrote in it’s September 6, 1926 edition that Cohan had written “a comedy of much comic effectiveness, if of no especial dramatic merit.” The clash of Big Benders (originally South Benders) and New Yorkers, best illustrated throughout by Pig Head Bancroft’s Main Street Mind, was an intriguing enough concept to find its way to the screen as soon as 1928 before being remade as Times Square Playboy in ’36, and then in its screen swansong as Ladies Must Live in 1940.

Cohan’s original play starred William Elliott in what would later be Warren William’s lead role of Vic Arnold. Popular thirties character actor Robert McWade would play P.H. Bancroft in both the stage and first film versions, while also notable in the Broadway cast were Chester Morris as Wally Calhoun and the tragic Peg Entwistle in better days as Beth Calhoun, Wally’s sister and Vic’s intended. Besides McWade the 1928 film version of The Home Towners, directed by Bryan Foy for Warner Brothers, would feature Richard Bennett in the Vic Arnold role, Doris Kenyon as Beth Calhoun, silent star Gladys Brockwell as Pig Head’s wife, and Robert Edeson as the Calhoun patriarch. This early talkie was called “a great stride in the right direction for talking films” by the New York Times, who also noted that “it is perhaps the first feature-length production, in which there is no singing, that actually holds the interest through the story.” Photoplay Magazine called it the “Smoothest talkie so far,” though Time Magazine cautioned that beyond Bennett and Kenyon’s dialogue, spectators are “distracted by the jerky sequences, annoyed by the enormous metallic voices issuing from the vitaphone,” and looking back rather than forward wonder, “what sounds even a perfected mechanism could produce which would equal the beautiful silence of old-fashioned cinemas.”

Warren William in wrestling gear

The 1936 film with which we’re concerned with had the working titles Broadway Playboy and The Gentleman from Big Bend, which I find catchiest, but with the downside of shifting focus from Vic Arnold and onto P.H., before settling on Times Square Playboy. Production began in January of 1936 with William McGann directing and Home Towners’ 1928 director Bryan Foy on board as supervisor. In what’s possibly the most entertaining document I’ve seen from out of Warner Brothers’ Warren William archive files, William engages in a dispute with McGann and Foy over six transcribed pages that read like an Abbott and Costello routine. At issue is Vic Arnold’s age, William insists that the character comes off as being fifty or sixty years old as he’s written and he won’t stand for it. Foy brings up older characters played by other actors, Fredric March (WW: I’ve nothing to do with March.) and John Boles (WW: I don’t care what John Boles does–I’m only looking out for myself.) before switching to the tactic or reminding William he originally agreed to the lines as written (WW: I didn’t okay this!) and finally agreeing to several small cuts suggested by William which shaved the character’s age down to forty at most. Richard Bennett, who’d played Arnold in the previous screen version was 58 at the time, so William likely had a point.

Lottie and P.H. take the call from old pal Vic Arnold - Kathleen and Gene Lockhart

In my opening I called Times Square Playboy a sit-com, well, here’s the situation: William’s Vic Arnold, an approximately (ahem) 40 year old high roller who heads a brokerage under his name, puts in a call to his old home town pal P.H. Bancroft (Gene Lockhart), who stayed in native Big Bend with his wife Lottie (Kathleen Lockhart), inviting them to the big city so P.H. can be best man at his wedding. P.H., affectionately tabbed Pig Head by Vic, hits the town with his old pal and finds himself somewhat soured on Vic’s much younger intended, Beth Calhoun (June Travis), prior to even meeting her because of the impression her brother, Wally (Dick Purcell), a Vic Arnold employee, as well as Beth’s ex-beau, Joe Roberts (Craig Reynolds), make on him. After P.H. meets 20-year-old Beth, he and Vic tie one on off camera before we return to them staggering back into Vic’s apartment.

It’s here that P.H., aided by the shots Vic keeps pouring for him, tells his old pal about the problems he has with Beth. He first rips into Wally, whom he hilariously dubs “The Personality Kid,” before raising issues of an investment Vic has made with Beth and Wally’s father (Granville Bates), and finally earning himself a good smack across the face from his old buddy when he alludes to Beth’s fondness for her ex, Joe Roberts, a young pro football player for the New York Giants, whom P.H. assumes is just another hanger on. Vic’s slap ends he and P.H.’s constant chuckling and initiates a separation best summed up by Vic’s attempts to apologize and P.H.’s raging on the war path which culminates in his telling off the entire Calhoun family.

Vic brushes the hayseed out of Pig Head's hair

Mr. Calhoun, whom son Wally has mentioned to P.H. had his liquor business shut down by Prohibition, is called a “rum soaked bartender” by P.H., while he crowns Wally a “boy bandit” and “confidence man,” and Beth a “gold digging night club singer,” before telling the entire Calhoun clan that they’re “Broadway sharpshooters, the whole lot of you,” and threatening to call the police on them if they don’t leave his hotel room. Obviously this doesn’t go over too well with the Calhouns, who leave in a huff vowing never to have anything to do with old P.H. again. Fine by P.H. except Vic finagles his way into the Bancrofts hotel room and aided by the wrestling holds taught to him by his trainer/butler Casey (Barton MacLane) manages to explain his side of the story to P.H. and bring his old friend back to his senses. Now Vic has P.H. back as best man, but the very idea threatens the marriage itself as Beth and the rest of the Calhouns will have none of old Pig Head. The rest of Times Square Playboy is about healing those wounds, not without a major ($40,000!) setback along the way.

Warren William is once again cast as a self-made man of great fortune though with the Code taking the edge off him he’s got a much better disposition than found in his more classic earlier roles. Vic Arnold must have been pretty savvy behind office doors because he comes off as just a run-of-the-mill guy outside the office, where all but the first scene of Times Square Playboy takes place. Even his best pal from Big Bend thinks Vic’s still got quite a bit of rube in him, but that’s more P.H.’s personality flaw than Vic’s. Gene Lockhart brings just the right amount of Main Street to P.H. Bancroft, and Lockhart’s real-life wife Kathleen provides laughs through good-natured henpecking and bickering as P.H.’s wife Lottie.

June Travis is Beth Calhoun aka Fay Melody

The beautiful June Travis came to Times Square Playboy just off of what is considered her most important role, billed behind only James Cagney and Pat O’Brien in Ceiling Zero (1936), and does a fine job in living up to our expectations as the type of girl it’d take for Vic Arnold to fall for. Travis reminded me a lot of another Warner’s favorite Margaret Lindsay and is actually outstanding when you consider she was just 21 at the time of Times Square Playboy’s filming, though I will say she was better playing Beth sweet than she was playing her angry and annoyed. Perhaps she was just too sweet to manage otherwise.

Despite her youth Travis had already appeared in small roles in two previous Warren William pictures at Warner Brothers, Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935) and The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935), a Perry Mason entry which has previously been reviewed on this site. Her role in Times Square Playboy is much meatier and Travis even had the opportunity to sing an entire song (Looking for Trouble) when we first meet her under Beth’s stage name Fay Melody. An interesting aside given her previously mentioned resume, Travis would play Della Street in The Case of the Black Cat (1936), but her Mason would be portrayed by Ricardo Cortez, not Warren William. As her brother, Wally, Dick Purcell could grate on the nerves a little, possibly why I got such a kick out of P.H.’s labeling him “The Personality Kid.” There wasn’t a lot of Wally but when he was around it was a lot of Wally.

Beth meets P.H. as we look over Warren William's shoulder

My two favorite characters in Times Square Playboy both played much lesser roles. First Barton MacLane, always the tough guy whether cop or criminal, had the chance to play a light-hearted tough guy as Vic’s trainer/butler Casey. Trainer? Vic liked to keep in shape and we get to see he and Casey both wrestling (I saw Gene Lockhart’s stand-in in his wrestling scene, but it looked like WW and Barton McLane were really going at it!) and jogging. Casey gets to be Casey when he’s Vic’s trainer, but he’s a picture of politeness when he slips into his butler persona. He also had the laugh out loud line of the film for me towards the end when Lockhart’s P.H. grabs Purcell’s Wally and announces to his victim “That’s a half-nelson,” to which Casey enters in butler persona and politely remarks “Smartly executed, sir.”

Barton MacLane in full butler regalia as Casey

And speaking of laughs, he has probably all of five minutes of screen time, if that, but Granville Bates is a riot as Beth and Wally’s world-weary father. Perhaps not as world-weary as he just is Calhoun-weary, Bates’ Mr. Calhoun cuts loose when giving P.H. an aggressive rub down, but otherwise comes off as an exasperated old-timer who’s seen it all throughout. Bates’ best line is in reply to Purcell, whose Wally threatens to “clip Bancroft right on the button,” leaving his father to lean forward and caution, “Now now, son, not on the button,” before slipping back out of sight.

The entire Calhoun clan, left to right: Dick Purcell as Wally, June Travis as Beth, Granville Bates as Mr. Calhoun, Dorothy Vaughan as Mrs. Calhoun

At its heart Times Square Playboy is about the dangers of both the Main Street Mind that Wally accuses P.H. of having and the Wall Street Mind that P.H. feels he’s surrounded by in the big city. Both are dangerous and each is the root cause of the tension throughout Times Square Playboy. P.H. is really only guilty of looking out for his old small-town friend, but in the years since their friendship Vic has adapted to big city culture causing his ribs of hayseed to annoy P.H. much more than they would have if the men were on equal footing. While the audience is led to believe P.H.’s fears of the Calhouns are well-founded that lead isn’t strong enough, assuming it was the intention. There’s really very little doubt that the Calhouns don’t have the best of intentions and that P.H. is the one who’s mixed up, though I will say there comes a moment towards the end of Times Square Playboy where Vic begins to see P.H.’s point and only then did I find myself having the slightest doubt about the Calhouns.

The period review from the New York Times goes out of its way to praise June Travis on a job well done and states that William and the Lockharts do a commendable job as well but overall finds Times Square Playboy “a noisy comedy which manages to be alternately amusing and dull.” Personally I never found it dull, it just zips along too quick, but I could agree with noisy, however for me the amusing moments overcame the noise in a film I’ve now watched 8-10 times over the past few years.

Vic uses his wrestling skills to pin P.H. to the floor while Lottie contemplates rescue

Overall on a 4-star scale I’d call Times Square Playboy a 2-1/2 in general and a 3 on a Warren William centered scale. Like our previous couple of Perry Mason entries this is Warren William cutting loose and having fun, at least that’s how his character plays on the screen.

One final note, The Home Towners was remade a third and final time by Warner’s in 1940 under yet another title, Ladies Must Live. The characters names have changed, but this time it’s Wayne Morris in the lead with Rosemary Lane in the June Travis role. P.H. is still Pig Head, though the full name of Roscoe Karns’ character is Pete H. Larrabee this time around. Of Ladies Must Live Thomas H. Pryor wrote in the New York Times that it “offers, even in its best moments, only tolerable entertainment.” Perhaps it was on that note that Cohan’s play was then shelved for all-time moving forward.

Warren William and June Travis in Times Square Playboy

1938 tobacco card from Chile

Just a quick update that I’m posting before my Times Square Playboy (1936) review but writing after completing the first draft of that post. First off, wow, a new look huh, did you notice? If you get a chance I’d love for those of you who read this elsewhere to click on over to the main site and let me know what you think. I’d played with modifying our old template but somehow managed to delete all of your comments briefly when I did that, so I immediately put it back in place and took a little more time looking for a replacement. I loved the vanilla look of the old theme, but really disliked how the sidebar only showed up on the main page. For visitors finding me through specific articles in the search engines it likely looked as though the article that they found was the only one on the site. Hopefully that’s been remedied by this new theme!

I decided to skip the final (Warren William) Perry Mason entry for now mainly for a change of pace and also because I promised regular reader Jeffers that I’d do Times Square Playboy next. It seemed to be an interesting idea after Warren William biographer John Stangeland revealed that Gene Lockhart was one of William’s closest friends in our recent interview post. Speaking of John, his book, Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-code Hollywood, has a September 3rd, release date listed on Amazon.com, so the countdown has begun. If you choose to buy the book by going through any of the affiliate links I have posted on the site I thank you. John has also set up a Facebook page to promote the book and he’s already posted some interesting facts and photos over there. If you’re a member of Facebook and haven’t found it yet I urge you to head on over to John’s page and “like” it so you can receive his updates in your stream.

Speaking of Facebook, hey, feel free to “like” me too! Here’s my unfortunately named MovieCardsForSale Facebook page, which I assure you is much more about promoting my classic film articles and sites than it is about selling you anything. I chose the name at sign-up, perhaps with different intentions, and apparently you can’t change it, so I’ve popped an Immortal Ephemera logo up on it for now and will suffer through the name for the time-being. Feel free to find my personal page over there as well if you’d like to connect, but in all honesty I update the business page far more frequently than my personal one.

Something you might notice on that Facebook page are links to a site called ClassicMovieSearch.com. Yup, that’s another one of mine. What the ClassicMovieSearch is is a custom built Google Search engine concentrating on only classic film sites–all of the non-film sites are weeded out. So far I have 223 different sites indexed in ClassicMovieSearch and I’m looking to add to it as often as you or I find them (I just added 2 more sites tonight while looking for info on Times Square Playboy!). The bulk of ClassicMovieSearch.com is comprised of smaller independent blogs and sites like this one. I’ve also begun a brief daily post which includes an old movie collectible image with links to three related articles I tracked down inside of our search. I’m hoping that better promotes both the ClassicMovieSearch and some of the excellent older articles indexed by it. Hope you like it and find it useful.

That’s about all for now. It’d been awhile since I’d posted a review so I wanted to check in with you. Hope you enjoy Times Square Playboy and I’ll be back with something else soon!

John Stangeland is author of the forthcoming book Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-code Hollywood, to be published by McFarland and Company later this year. 

John recently wrote a guest post for Warren-William.com, Remembering Is Hard, and at the same time consented to answer a series of questions about his book and our site’s subject, Warren William. 

The first three questions come from the readers of Warren-William.com, while the final seven are from myself.  Whether I asked the right questions or not John’s answers make one thing very clear—we need to get this book into our hands ASAP! 

Enjoy the interview and thanks very much once more to John Stangeland.

This first question comes from Warren-William.com’s most active commenter, Jeffers:
Q: What did MGM think they wanted to do with Warren William, and why did they change their minds?

JS: Warren’s imperfect deal with MGM seems to have been a case of his wishful thinking more so than the studio changing their mind. It is doubtful that they thought of him as anything more than a "utility" player when the contract was signed. His immediate assignments to supporting roles in The Firefly and Arsene Lupin Returns (where he could have easily played the lead) indicate to me that they never intended to give him any kind of build up, but rather saw him as a character man / second lead. He was clearly blind-sided by this treatment, expecting better roles than he was getting at Warner’s towards the end. It was quickly apparent that he would not get those roles, and proceeded to leave MGM at the earliest possible opportunity.

 
This next one is from Tom Hodgins:
Q: I’ve always enjoyed Warren Williams’ pre-code performances (courtesy TCM) but know nothing about the man.  Frequent co-star Joan Blondell’s “he was an old man even when he was a young man” comment, however, has always sounded sad to me, like he had an unlived life (aside from the considerable professional accomplishments). What is the basis of Blondell’s comment, and do you regard it as an accurate description of the man?  Thanks for the opportunity to ask this question.

JS: There is no question that Warren William was the type of sober, self-controlled man that people could sometimes see as "old," but it was not an indication of a dour outlook on life. On the contrary – he was very even-tempered, but indulged in his passions with great glee. He got much of his reserved personal manner from his father and grandfather, real old-world types who followed the 19th Century model of social intercourse. Let’s also remember that by the time he came to Hollywood in 1931 he was already 37, an age then definitely considered to be "older." As to him having an unlived life, nothing could be further from the truth. Besides his service in the War where he spent time touring Paris and the French countryside, he travelled extensively in the American southwest, Mexico and often sailed both the blue Pacific and the cold Atlantic. I think he was a very satisfied man, aware of his great good fortune to have a loving wife, and a great career that allowed him to indulge his hobbies and interests as he saw fit.

And finally one more from Jeffers, which I was actually going to ask myself as well:
Q: What does he think of Bette Davis’s recollection that WW was always trying to get her into bed? Is that reportedly untypical behavior perhaps mere projection on her part? Or did her particular appeal “reach” him more irresistibly than that of other co-stars of his who, to me, would have been a lot harder to resist?

JS: The Bette Davis stories are quite problematic. First, there is no attribution to these stories in ANY Davis biography, nor any corroboration in any other book that I can find. Each bio repeats the same stories almost verbatim from her autobiography, occasionally adding facts that are impossible for even Davis herself to have known, again, without attribution. They are the ONLY stories that I encountered of such behavior, or even bad words said about Warren William. Most often he is mentioned as a quiet, professional man or barely mentioned at all – I believe that he sometimes blended into the woodwork, generally being disinterested in showy displays or actions. He was a man, however, and it is entirely possible that he had an interest in Davis that her legendary ego blew out of proportion in later years. I suppose we may never know the REAL truth of the matter. 

 
And here come seven more questions from myself:
Q: What sort of relationship, if any, did Warren William have with his Uncle, the financier, Alvin W. Krech?  The elder Krech came to New York earlier and was a patron of the arts but the few references I find linking the two seem to indicate Warren’s Uncle being disillusioned by either (or both) Warren’s desire to act and his marriage to Helen.  Did either, or a combination of the two, directly lead to Warren W. Krech taking the stage name Warren William shortly after his 1923 marriage to Helen Barbara Nelson?

JS: According to my information, Warren did NOT change his name for anything other than professional reasons. Alvin Krech was an amazingly successful businessman who helped look after his 21 year old nephew when the boy moved to New York City (before Warren’s parents came east), and was a strong secondary male influence in his life. It is my belief that Warren’s character in Gold Diggers of 1933 was at least partly based on his Uncle’s sober personality. There are some other interesting connections between Alvin and his nephew that provide illuminating stories in the book. As to his interest in acting, Warren’s father and mother endorsed the idea and paid for his schooling, so I doubt that Alvin’s feelings (whatever they were) would have been of much consequence. 

Q: Was it his success in The Vinegar Tree, the passing of his father, or again, both, which led to Warren William leaving the New York Stage for Hollywood?

JS: Neither had any direct influence on his signing with Warners. Warren had been trying to break into pictures for many years, and it was entirely coincidence that the test he took at that time finally led to a contract. The story of that period is very poignant, and provides strong insight into the family dynamic.

Q: From what I’ve seen from the Warner Brothers Archives relating to Warren William it appeared he could be a thorn in the side of the studio but that most of their discrepancies were settled amicably.  Even his suspension appears to have been a situation more negotiated than an actual punishment served.  What in your mind was the lead factor in the quality of William’s projects spiraling downward from the heights they reached during the Pre-Code era?  Was it due to the shift on material, behavior related (ie: punishment) or some other factor?

JS: His decline at Warner Brothers is quite curious, and covered extensively in the book. I believe that there were a number of factors that contributed to his decline, not the least of which was his own professional apathy. Whatever troubles he had with Warner Brothers (and there were a few) came about after a long run of mistreatment that should have been addressed far earlier. Also, the simple fact is that by 1936 the image of the screen actor was changing to something entirely different than what Warren William projected. Warner Brothers must have felt far more secure with the future of Cagney, Flynn, Robinson and others than they did with him.

Q: By all period accounts Warren William mostly kept to himself and out of the Hollywood social circle except for the occasional party.  Was he close to any other actors or actresses away from the studio?

JS: The person that he seems to have been closest to was Gene Lockhart, the great character actor of films like The Sea Wolf (and who Warren co-starred with in Times Square Playboy). They met on Broadway and stayed friends until Warren’s death. Gene’s daughter June (of Lost in Space fame) remembered him as "a very tall, very kind man" who often came to  their house to play billiards and cards with her father. Among his other famous friends were Leslie Howard, Anna Mae Wong, Alan Dinehart and Charles Laughton.

Q: Are there any Harry Cohn stories from his time at Columbia?

JS: Oh, I wish there were. The Columbia records are tough to access, sadly. There is one amusing story concerning director Andre De Toth’s work on Counter Espionage, but I’ll leave that one to the book…

Q: There appears to be a definite literary bent to the last few films Warren William chose to appear in: Strange Illusion and it’s Hamlet similarities, Fear being a more or less direct retelling of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Bel Ami based on Maupassant; was this by design and is it an indication of the type of projects Warren William would have continued to choose had he lived longer?  (Did he have any pending screen projects?)

JS: I suppose that the literary pedigree of those final films must have appealed to Warren, but it was not really an active choice on his part. At the time those projects were all he had offered to him. In the mid-to-late 40′s there were a few possibilities to return to the stage that did not happen, plus the radio drama US Postal Inspector that never got past the pilot (presumably because of his illness). There was also a starring role in a big budget film that was scuttled by a first-time producer’s ineptitude, but those final years were not really productive for him. Again, more about why in the book. 

Q: Your previous essay for Warren-William.com, Remembering Is Hard, really showed us why you undertook this project and what you thought of William’s career.  After spending so much time in William’s world what are your final thoughts on him as a person?  Did you like him?

JS: After all this time, I feel very close to Warren William. The more I learned about him, the more I liked him, and that helped spur the project along. He was apparently a very sincere, humble, decent person who truly never let Hollywood go to his head. In this age of entitlement, ego and self-absorption, I find his lack of star temperament very endearing. With everything I’ve seen and heard, I have the feeling that I would have found him a good and loyal friend, intelligent and interesting – just a simple Minnesota boy with a very public career.   

Thanks very much, John!  Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-code Hollywood can be pre-ordered right now on Amazon.com, and if you read this far, you know you’re going to buy it …

I don’t know if you saw the last comment on the site, though if you didn’t I don’t blame you—commenting on Warren-William.com was broken earlier this week and I don’t know how long it would have taken me to notice it if not for top commenter Jeffers, who found me on my other site and let me know what was going on.

The reason I’m not just letting this slip by is because the goof came the same morning that I posted John Stangeland’s fantastic guest post, which really makes me feel terrible.  Here’s John’s post again, if you had anything to add there won’t be a problem this time, plus I want to restate my own little note at the bottom, which you can comment on either here or there if you so wish:

Besides his kind contribution here, Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-Code Hollywood author John Stangeland has consented to a text-based interview exclusively for Warren-William.com.  I have plenty I want to ask him, believe you me, but I also wanted to open up the floor to you guys—I’ll take the first two or three Warren William related questions you have an pass them on to John with my own.  I’m posting this June 8, figure deadline for questions next Wednesday, June 16, e-mail them along to me here.

Let’s extend that until the end of the week, make it Friday the 19th and I’ll get questions over to John during that weekend.

Speaking of John’s book, and it gives me great joy to do this:

… We’re getting close.

Here’s the extra Warren William image promised in the title.  I’d originally scanned it to fit into John’s post, but it didn’t make the final cut.  The only identifying mark is a November 1935 stamp on the reverse:

And here’s a closer-up shot of the same photo, minus the strange giant borders:

One last time, my apologies for the commenting goof, to you and to John Stangeland.  Look forward to hearing from you soon–

This is a guest post by John Stangeland is the author of the upcoming book Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-Code Hollywood, to be published by McFarland and Company late in 2010.

He was a cad and a reprobate; a base scoundrel; a licentious, amoral profligate, and an oleaginous, depraved, impenitent swine. For three years Warren William swaggered across America’s cinema screens as the undisputed, unremitting, incontrovertible nadir of civilized human behavior: sociopathic, predatory, emotionless, uncaring, treacherous and evil. He was Ted Bundy without the serial killing.

Despite his pedigree as one of the singularly unique characters in the annals of Hollywood, Warren William has been nearly erased from film history. By the end of his career, and for decades after his death in 1948 he sat unnoticed behind other personalities that historians and the public perceived to be far more relevant. Erroneously deemed merely the Shadow behind the object or the Assistant to greatness, Warren William’s memory reposed, quiet and unconcerned, as the man had in life. It wasn’t until the greatest institution of nostalgia culture ever devised – Turner Classic Movies – began to reacquaint us with this Genius of Scurrility that his long-forgotten fame has gradually reemerged.

When Warner Brothers brought Warren William from the Broadway stage to world cinema in 1931, it was during a short-lived window in time when it was possible for screen characters to embody the basest qualities of modern man while still allowing them to be portrayed as sympathetic and even likable. Before the strict imposition of Hollywood’s long-standing Production Code excised iniquity from the movies in 1934, he was the preeminent example of the new depression-era male; a Social Darwinist to the core, hungry and angry, ready to take what was his and damn the rest. Meaner than James Cagney, randier than Clark Gable and wilier than William Powell, Warren William staked out his territory as the biggest bastard of them all, and became a supremely profane presence in darkened theaters across the nation.

The deliciously obscene Warren William persona that eventually ran roughshod over Hollywood morals during those years did not congeal immediately, and his fame, like many of those bound as indentured servants to the studio system, was almost an accident. As a stage star during the Golden Age of Broadway he most often played effete aristocrats and wealthy playboys, men who instilled confidence in nothing so much as their ability to pick up a check. Although by his own admission he could not carry a tune, he appeared in two musicals, and sang a song titled Express Yourself in his first big stage success. Twice he portrayed a man literally and physically emasculated by service in the World War. There was also a murderer who buried his mistress’s husband in a coal bin, a Viking warrior, a pickle salesman and, once – seriously – a Jewish Cowboy. When it came time to put him on screen – unsurprisingly – no one knew what to do with him. It wasn’t until nine months into his film career, when Edward G. Robinson and “every other Warner’s / First National star” passed on a quick programmer called The Mouthpiece early in 1932 that Warren William had a starring role, a major hit and the first genuinely nefarious rogue in his oeuvre. As Vincent Day, the lawyer of deformed ethics and predacious sexuality, Warren William made the nations critics (and more than a few of its women) sit up and take notice. He was an overnight sensation twelve years in the making.

As they did with the other stars on their lot, Warner Brothers insisted on him repeating the image that generated the biggest box office receipts for as long as the public would pay to see it. Thus, 1932 was a sustained, yearlong carnival of larceny for the studio and their new star. After The Mouthpiece, he was a magnificently immoral campaign manager to Guy Kibbee’s perverse gubernatorial candidate in The Dark Horse, and the corrupt, philandering owner of the phallic Dwight Tower in Skyscraper Souls at MGM. The Match King found him embezzling from, lying to, debasing, cheating, putting to ruin, falsely imprisoning and murdering anyone who came within arms reach of continental businessman Paul Kroll. Employees’ Entrance made him the deeply misogynistic head of a department store staffed with beautiful women upon whom he takes out his sexual frustrations. And in The Mind Reader (shot in December of ’32) he was Chandra the Great, bunco artiste par excellence, fleecing hayseeds, hicks, rubes, dopes, dolts and other assorted yokels throughout the great Midwest. That year Warren William was Bernie Madoff, Leona Helmsley, John Edward, Carl Rove, Ken Lay and Wal Mart rolled into one. It was twelve months that should be placed in the pantheon of great career years alongside Einstein’s accomplishments of 1905 or Babe Ruth’s amazing 1927 season – a cosmic alignment of magnificently sordid corruption and iniquity.

During the Pre-Code land rush of 1933 and 1934 his popularity continued to rise, the high water mark being a fifteen-month stretch when he appeared in three films nominated for Best Picture honors. Shortly thereafter, Warner Brothers cavalier treatment of his career (all three Oscar nominees were made outside his home studio), the changing image of the screen actor, and his own sometimes-maddening professional apathy put Warren William on a long, looping spiral to public indifference. The vulgar Shangri-La of his early years retreated into the mists, replaced by a decade of shysters, thieves, gumshoes, cracksmen, and blatant, unsubtle blackguards. Unlike his Pre-Code villains, the bad guys he essayed in the post-code era (Wild Bill Hickock Rides, Arizona, Trail of the Vigilantes) are as subtle as an avalanche, but they are still enormously fun; Warren William could do more within one dimension than a team of quantum physicists. Following World War II he found himself sick and unable to work regularly. His last years were relegated to the dismal fringes of the industry, knocking off performances geometrically better than the productions they inhabited. He died, pleasantly, before he could reach the absolute bottom of the ladder, on a set with his old contract mate Lyle Talbot, taking direction from Ed Wood.

Sadly, given the nature of his licentious and sexually impudent pre-code persona, most of Warren William’s true starring roles could not be broadcast on television for many years after his death. For four decades, he was rarely seen on America’s TV screens, but for unmemorable character appearances in films like The Wolfman or Madame X. With no regular reminder to their collective memory, his films faded out of the minds of audiences that grew up with him, and he was never properly presented to succeeding generations. Unlike William Powell, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and his other contemporaries, there was nothing for the public to rediscover. We simply never saw him at all; a classic movie fan may have done just as well looking for Elmo Lincoln during those years.

I was one of those people who were still utterly unaware of Warren William’s career after nearly 30 years of watching and reading about movies, and Warner Brothers movies in particular. When a friend introduced me to him in 2004, I was taken aback; how could I have missed such an essential personality from my favorite studio, in my favorite era? It was like suddenly discovering that there had been movies made during the Renaissance, or that The Beatles had released another album between Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour. There was no book, no in-depth article and no serious scholarship about his life or career available anywhere. Even the myriad histories of Warner Brothers, or essays on Pre-Code Hollywood barely mentioned him. Only Mick LaSalle’s outstanding volume Dangerous Men made effort to examine his extraordinary film persona, and still there was nothing of the man himself. What little I encountered during some tentative online sorties repeated the same series of interesting, but mostly erroneous facts: Warren William was a reporter before turning to acting (he never worked as a newspaperman); he fought in France during World War I (as a Sergeant in the Allied Expeditionary Forces, the actor saw no action overseas); an amateur inventor, he patented the first lawn vacuum machine (there is no such record in the US Patent Office). After two years service in the Great War, twelve years on New York stages and 17 years in Hollywood, his entire life had been fractured and reduced to a series of incongruous, rough-hewn factoids, each becoming smaller and less relevant as we moved further away from his influence on culture.

It took me three years to unearth the long buried details of Warren William’s life. The remnants were exhumed from decayed newsprint that had waited patiently for a hundred years to be questioned and consulted, unspooled in cramped and dingy screening rooms and cobbled together through conversations with the precious few left alive that knew him. I felt it a race against time that had almost run out. Only a little longer and there might have been nothing to retrieve.

John Stangeland at Warren William's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Photo courtesy John Stangeland)

Each generation, each era endures the gradual disintegration of the fame and notoriety of most of its celebrated citizens. Only a famous few can penetrate beyond their living celebrity to remind others of the reasons for their temporary renown. Warren William was one of those who was simply lost in line behind innumerable other noteworthy men and women. Many that outlasted him have subsequently also been scratched from our minds, casualties of our overburdened capacity to remember. How many immensely famous names of the past have been reduced to nothing? For each and every Shakespeare, or Beethoven, or Abraham Lincoln, there are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of equally famous contemporaries who did not succeed in remaining alive in the mind of history. It is only a matter of time before other names join Warren William in mainstream cultural obscurity. One day Bill Gates, Marilyn Monroe and Osama Bin Laden will be guaranteed to draw the same blank stare from the average person that Warren William now elicits; today will always retreat into yesterday, no matter how hard we might try to hold onto it.

If anything outside the living memory of those who witnessed it is to survive, it must be nurtured and passed along by devotees of subsequent ages. Without help, Warren William – and many other worthy men and women – will fade off again, perhaps never to return. It is up to us then, to protect the names, faces, events and ideas of our lives – and those that preceded us – before their legacy is lost forever. I cannot pretend that this is not difficult work; the mental energy required to save, catalogue, collate, access, retrieve and remember is hard. Forgetting is easy.

Please remember.

John Stangeland is the author of the upcoming book Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-Code Hollywood, to be published by McFarland and Company late in 2010.

Essay © 2010, John Stangeland

PS from Cliff: Besides his kind contribution here, Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-Code Hollywood author John Stangeland has consented to a text-based interview exclusively for Warren-William.com.  I have plenty I want to ask him, believe you me, but I also wanted to open up the floor to you guys—I’ll take the first two or three Warren William related questions you have an pass them on to John with my own.  I’m posting this June 8, figure deadline for questions next Wednesday, June 16, e-mail them along to me here.

Thanks all, and special thanks once again to John Stangeland, really appreciate it, John!

Warren William's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, (Photo courtesy John Stangeland)

It’s been awhile since I’ve just shared an oddball item from my collection and while the condition of this piece makes it nothing special it does represent one of my favorite Warren William titles, 1937’s Outcast, which I covered here last summer.

What we have here is an approximately 9” X 12” single sheet, this one with a smaller image on reverse (both sides shown), that was included in press kits for the film and if ordered by the theater handed out in the streets to tempt customers inside for the movie—it heralded the picture, thus the name.

Clicking on either of the following images will open up an enlarged version of the Herald, 1000 pixels wide.

Finally, this is probably one of the more appropriate posts to remind you that I make my living selling vintage collectibles and offer thousands of vintage movie cards and collectibles from the Silent Age through the Golden Era for sale on eBay.

It’s not her fault, blame likely falls to director Roy Del Ruth, but we needed more from Mary Astor in Upperworld. As it stands I don’t care if her Hettie Stream is guilty of withholding affection from railroad magnate husband, Alex; Ginger Rogers is just too irresistible as showgirl Lily Linda for Hettie to hold his, or our, interest. More Astor one or the other, and I don’t care if that missing more made me either sympathize with her or despise her, would have tied uneven but enjoyable Upperworld together much more.

Mary Astor and Warren William

As if it weren’t enough for Lily to offer Alex a young and carefree alternative to stuffy society dinners, Ginger Rogers gets to blow the rest of the cast off the screen through her sexy and fun performance on stage in something called Manhattan Scandals that we get to attend with Alex and his chauffeur Oscar (Andy Devine).

Ginger Rogers up on stage ... watch out for that powder puff!

Note: This post is one I hadn’t planned so soon, but because Jenny The Nipper of CinemaOCD had asked me to be a guest on her new podcast talking primarily about Upperworld I figured I may as well write my review post at the same time. The podcast can be found here–unfortunately Jenny’s phone line is a little haywire, but I caught most of her keywords and think I managed to make most of my replies relevant to the conversation she intended. My apologies for the overall quality (and my incessant chuckling, I’ve got to knock that off!), but if you wanted to hear a couple of bloggers talking Warren William, this is likely the only WW-centric podcast to be found on the net!

Too late, Andy Devine and Warren William fall victim to Ginger

But despite material right up Ginger’s alley, all punctuated with a powder puff, she can’t claim ownership of the most interesting vocal performance in Upperworld, no, that honor goes to Warren William’s Alexander Stream as he sheds his stuffy exterior and dons a long prop nose and big black hat to enthusiastically sing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” alongside Rogers. This scene is perhaps more fun than any other other clip in Warren William’s career.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

And even if you leave Upperworld with the valid opinion that it’s a Ginger Rogers picture that is no indictment of Warren William’s turn as the lead. Worth approximately 50 million dollars William’s Alexander Stream is a complicated character who has all material things but suffers loneliness because his wife enjoys the high life too much to bother with him anymore. Unlike William’s other ruthless businessmen of the pre-code period we’re not privy to many of his business dealings in Upperworld, all we really know is that he’s the top man in a looming railroad merger, but we do get to witness Stream wield his power most ruthlessly against the traffic cop Moran (Sidney Toler) who dares to write him a ticket. When Moran first confronts Steam, Alex tries to buy the officer off with the power of his identity and a good cigar. When this fails he turns vicious, instructing his assistant Marcus (Ferdinand Gottschalk) to take down the officer’s ID number and swiftly engineering Moran’s transfer and demotion to a patrolman’s beat.

Have a cigar, Officer

This privileged Alex Stream is the Stream of the public. In private Stream has no greater joy than his son Tommy (Dickie Moore), who idolizes his father and emulates him by preoccupying himself with his favorite toy, a train set, throughout Upperworld. Stream is cordial to wife Hettie, but uninterested in her social dalliances and despondent when she vacations with society friends. For a good deal of Upperworld their marital relationship is not unlike that of Sam and Fran Dodsworth, ironically a film in which Mary Astor plays the part of the woman who provides release for Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) from his damaging devotion to his wife. Here Astor’s own lack of interest drives her husband to the arms of the young showgirl who otherwise would have only been a chance acquaintance of Alex’s.

But Upperworld is no romantic melodrama, always keeping it’s pace and playing rather light for the first 35-40 minutes or so, at least when it comes to the scenes between William and Ginger Rogers. In her autobiography Rogers wrote of Upperworld that “I knew very little about the star, Warren William, but I found him a very cordial man” before going on to mention that she regretted not having a scene with Mary Astor. Entire mention of the film filled perhaps half a paragraph, two or three sentences at most. Rogers also shared a quick scene with William in Gold Diggers of 1933 when her Fay Fortune encounters William, Guy Kibbee, Aline MacMahon, and Joan Blondell at a club, but Fay is quickly kicked off the scene by MacMahon’s barbs. Rogers doesn’t make mention of Warren William in relation to Gold Diggers in her book.

In Upperworld Rogers and William have great chemistry, best illustrated in the “Big Bad Wolf” scene but also in a very honest dinner scene where Alex substitutes Lilly for Hettie when Hettie can’t make the date for their 14th Anniversary due to previous social engagements. The honesty between the two characters is refreshing as Alex freely admits the table was intended for his wife and Lilly accepts it.

Alexander Stream with son, Tommy, played by Dickie Moore

Both wife Hettie and lover Lilly comment upon Alex’s being just like a big kid, an image previously reinforced by being shown Alex playing trains with son Tommy. Alexander Stream is one of the shrewdest businessmen in the world but when placed at the center of the scene of a double murder he chokes and the big kid comes out. Instead of phoning police and confessing to his presence at the risk of a scandal; instead of taking what I’d expect is the most likely way out for a man of his stature and calling in his assistant to help cover things up; he goofs by tampering with the murder weapons, covering them with his fingerprints, and then slinking away hoping to pretend he was never there.

He’s felled by bad luck. The scene of the crime also happens to be the new patrol of that cop Moran whom Stream had smacked down earlier. Moran, unaware of the murders at this time, spots Stream leaving the scene and shortly after puts two and two together. Upperworld likely could have been more if Moran was given a chance to be the true hero of the piece, but he’s not and even when given the chance to be more than what he is to the movie Sidney Toler just comes up short.

The murders coming at approximately 40 minutes into the 73 minute Upperworld completely changes the picture from the Dodsworth-lite affair I’d mentioned earlier into a run of the mill murder caper where the main investigator, Officer Moran, is unlikeable, and the star, William, is far too dumb to ever manage to cover-up what he wants swept away.

After the cover-up Stream is in a race to complete to imminent Railway Merger in time to escape overseas with his wife, who has suddenly come to regret her neglect of him after a bridge-table epiphany, before the police manage to expose him. Adding tension to the race is the unfortunate decision by Stream to return to the murder scene and make the appropriate pay-off to John Qualen’s janitor character. After Moran spots a darkened figure unscrewing a light bulb in order to further melt into the darkness the janitor informs Stream that the crazy cop had confiscated the bulb setting off a whole new set of worries about fingerprints for the already jittery Stream.

Shady Stream makes an offer to the janitor played by John Qualen

The murders are jarring and they effectively cut Upperworld in two, but while the movie as a whole is lessened by this it is nonetheless interesting throughout thanks to the typical fast-paced direction of Roy Del Ruth, a Warner’s staple during the period who had previously directed William in Beauty and the Boss (1932) as well as two of his pre-code classics, Employees’ Entrance and The Mind Reader (both 1933). Upperworld would be their last film together and judging by the overall quality of these four films and their overall meaning to William’s legacy I must say that I wish there were more.

Upperworld Director Roy Del Ruth pictured on a card from the 1938 Movie Millions game set

Rogers rules Upperworld while Warren William is very capable as the star. I opened by saying Mary Astor doesn’t have enough to do to warrant her appearance, but it’s worth repeating at the close. Toler fails as Officer Moran, a part which could have allowed somebody with more talent to steal a nice piece of the picture for himself.

Robert Greig as what else, the butler

Andy Devine is great as the chauffeur, while Gottschalk is invisible as Stream’s right hand man. J. Carroll Naish is appropriately sleazy as Lily’s boss, Lou Colima, who makes a quick stab at blackmailing Stream, while Qualen is inappropriately creepy as the janitor, Chris. Dickie Moore doesn’t do anything to hurt the picture and Robert Greig is great doing his usual butler routine as Caldwell, straight-laced but with a wink. For example, after Stream admits his loneliness to Caldwell, the butler tells him what he did when his own wife left him: he consoled himself with a cup of tea and a pantry maid, to which William’s Stream replies, “You’re a devil with the ladies, Caldwell,” one of the film’s funniest lines when you take Greig’s overall appearance and demeanor into account. The rest of the cast is largely inconsequential, except Robert Barrat’s police commissioner who shows up for a single scene and leaves me scratching my head trying to figure out whether he really meant to break that light bulb or not.

Take care of that light bulb, it's key evidence!

Upperworld definitely has its flaws, plenty of them, but it is nonetheless a very enjoyable pre-code film. It’s not one of William’s best pre-codes as he lacks the ill manner present in several of his more enjoyable characters, but he makes a fine account of himself and it is one of Ginger Rogers’ best of the period. Upperworld is alternatively, and perhaps given the way things play out appropriately, referred to in many reference guides as Upper World, the name split in two just like the film itself seems to be.

Warren William's Alexander Stream makes the newspapers

Warren William returns for his third go around as Perry Mason in Warner Brothers’ The Case of the Lucky Legs, an all-out screwball affair this time around but with perhaps the most intricate of cases solved by William’s Mason.

Della's sketch of Perry

When we meet Perry this time around he one-ups Nick Charles’ chronic sousing when Thin Man alumni Porter Hall enters Mason’s office to find Perry passed out on the floor behind his desk. Hall’s Mr. Bradbury, called alternatively by Perry: Mr. Bradbottom; Mr. Bradington; Mr. Braddock; Mr. Bradley; etc; in a running joke, plays straight-man to William’s Mason in a scene not just introducing the Lucky Legs version of Mason but narrating the after-math of the Lucky Legs contest we’ve just been shown in the opening scene.

Porter Hall as Bradbury

In that scene Bradbury awards the Leg Easy Hosiery Company’s $1,000 Lucky Legs prize to Patricia Ellis’ Margie Clune, the best, I guess in 1935-terms at least, of a long line of somewhat chunky gams passing blind from the waist up under a curtain before the occasionally hootin’ and hollerin’ audience. Frank Patton (Craig Reynolds), the Leg Easy representative, immediately arouses our suspicions when upon congratulating Margie he explains that he didn’t carry the cash prize along with him because, well, it’s a lot of money and you know, it could be dangerous.

Contest for the Lucky Legs

Bradbury congratulates Margie and reiterates a standing marriage proposal while doing so. Margie has better prospects than middle-aged Porter Hall though and drifts over to her doctor fiance, Bob Doray, played by the much more age appropriate Lyle Talbot, who turns out to be stiffer than the corpse we eventually encounter: “I’ve resorted to gate-crashing,” Dr. Doray disdainfully pipes, Talbot’s voice seemingly escaping his turned-up nose. He’s entirely disgusted to find his Margie being “judged like a prize heifer.” Margie’s co-worker and jealous rival Eva Lamont (Anita Kerry) chimes in, “Yeah, she does look like a heifer, doesn’t she?” just one of Lucky Legs’ long list of comic lines. When Margie explains they really could use the money, Doc Doray storms out basically convinced that winning the contest is more or less akin to taking up work on a street corner.

Lyle Talbot as Doray and Patricia Ellis as Margie

Meanwhile outside Leg Easy’s Frank Patton is halted from his hasty retreat by Thelma Bell (Peggy Shannon), a Lucky Legs winner from nearby Wayneville, who’s still waiting to be paid her prize money and ready to squeal to the cops if she doesn’t get it.

So this is a Perry Mason movie, we’ve already met a long line of suspects before Perry’s even peeled himself off his floor, and we don’t even have a body yet. Bradbury is impressed by Mason’s skills, despite his disgust for his comportment and demeanor, and hires him on to discover what happened to Patton and the Lucky Legs money. Mason, intrigued by a photo of Margie’s winning legs, is on the case.

Meet Perry Mason

Bradbury doesn’t escape Mason’s office at this initial encounter without first meeting Dr. Croker, ironically referred to by Mason as the mortician’s friend–Croker is played by Olin Howland who was previously Perry’s coroner buddy Wilbur Strong in The Case of the Curious Bride, released earlier that same year. Croker is all wisecracks and talks just as fast as Perry, examining him on the fly and taking the harsh step of putting Perry off booze and restricting his diet, a recipe for even comedy throughout Lucky Legs. When Croker suggests milk as Perry’s new alternative to whiskey, Perry croaks, “You mean that unpalatable byproduct of the cow?”

Olin Howland returns, this time as Perry's Doctor

Allen Jenkins returns as Spudsy apparently having lost several points off his I.Q. since Curious Bride. Rather than verbally sparring with Mason this time around Spudsy’s here to be made a fool of by Mason, who throws him into fits of laughter by tickling him on more than one occasion and repeatedly warns him to duck when in the presence of his wife who typically argues by means of hurling pots and pans in Spudsy’s direction. A nice touch is Mary Treen as Spudsy’s wife as it was Treen who played the Telegraph Operator Spudsy hit on in the previous entry, Curious Bride. Could she be reprising her role and have married Spudsy in the meantime? Probably just coincidence.

Ah Spudsy. Perry phones in to Della

As usual the police are on Perry’s tail throughout Lucky Legs as Mason is discovered in several sticky spots including the murder scene not soon after we land ourselves a victim. It’s no mystery that Lucky Legs deadbeat Patton is the corpse, but just about everyone else is suspected at one time or another with evidence of the murder weapon, a surgical tool, pointing most rigidly at Talbot’s Dr. Doray. Mason spars more with the lower level police this time around, led by Joseph Crehan’s Detective Johnson and his underling, dimwitted Officer Ricker (Charles Wilson), while previous Mason foil Barton MacLane still plays it straight-laced as Detective Bisonette, but is overall much looser with Mason than his previous incarnation as Chief Detective Lucas in Curious Bride–Mason even affectionately calls him Bissy throughout Lucky Legs. The D.A., Manchester, is played by Henry O’Neill, who’s fine as usual in his usually small part.

In a humorous sequence Mason charters a plane to track down Margie, who’s fled out of town. When he tells the pilot he’s hoping to go to Summerville, the pilot enthusiastically replies, “Oh Summerville. I think this crate oughta make that,” to which Mason wisecracks, “Well that’s encouraging. Let’s try it.” Once they land Mason is punch drunk and rubbing at his mouth as though he’s just been sick. He comes to the Summerville hotel where he expects to find the recently arrived Doray and says to the clerk “The last plane brought in a man that was pretty air sick.” The clerk takes one look at reeling Mason and says “I see.”

Peggy Shannon and Patricia Ellis answer to Warren William after he raids their fridge

Inside the hotel he taps lightly at the door of the Bridal Suite to find Doctor Doray but no Margie. Mason cracks “Where’s the curious bride?” a direct reference to his previous outing. When Margie does arrive the police are not far behind so Mason concocts a ruse where he plays a doctor to Margie’s suffering patient, complete with pencil sticking out of her mouth in the guise of a thermometer. Luckily it’s yet another dopey cop whom Mason encounters and he manages to secure a ride out of town with Margie, a chief murder suspect, in a police ambulance which races them back to the airfield where they depart just ahead of some of the forces brighter bulbs.

Genevieve Tobin as Della Street, with Warren William's Mason

In my Case of the Curious Bride review I referred to Claire Dodd, a personal favorite, as the best of William’s Della Street’s. Well, my memory may have failed me as I really loved Genevieve Tobin, who’s usually anything but a personal favorite, as Della in Lucky Legs. At the least I’d call the Dodd vs. Tobin match-up a draw. Tobin, who’s previously driven me crazy in Goodbye Again (1933), a pre-code Warren William title I’ve yet to cover, among a handful of other films, takes the patrician accent that usually just kills her presence for me and spins it as naturally as possible throughout Lucky Legs where she finally seems down to earth. Whether alone in a shot, as she often is during periodic phone calls from Perry, or sharing the scene with Warren William and others, she’s intelligent, witty, and funny and even tossed out a few lines in reference to encounters with Perry which left me wondering how they flew past the Production Code. Tobin has great chemistry with William and just does a wonderful job throughout Lucky Legs.

Tobin and William again with Patricia Ellis' back to us

Perry lays out the details of the case for the benefit of all over the last 12 minutes of Lucky Legs with Dr. Croker squeezing in his final examination throughout Perry’s tale which moves from Mason’s own office over to Croker’s and back to Mason’s, with practically everybody mentioned except Talbot’s Doray and Parker’s corpse following along with Mason’s intricate telling.

I was ready to pick the case apart, not recalling the details at this viewing and expecting the typical heapings of circumstantial evidence to lead the killer to crack under pressure and give himself away. Not so this time. The clues fit together and while we’d seen most of the story Mason tells unfold throughout the picture he brings an order to it that enlightens everybody else in on the case, including us, to what we’d missed. A very satisfying ending, especially when you recall the type of unsatisfying solution I’d just mentioned and remember that it’s what was used in The Thin Man.

Warren William plays Perry Mason of Lucky Legs for heavier laughs than ever before with those lines that aren’t funny on their own benefiting from a rather biting sarcasm that William as Mason is smart enough to pull off. William also seems to bring more of a musical quality to his delivery in his comic outings stressing words in a way that would make most anything he says funny. That said I could see if someone said this was just too much–the New York Times period review did, calling him “just a bit too antic”–but I can’t imagine someone saying that who’s already a Warren William fan. If you are, and I assume you are since you’re here, William’s Mason of Lucky Legs just more William.

A mildly wolfish moment for William inside the tight confines of a phone booth with Patricia Ellis as Margie

Despite thinking William over the top, the Times did give Lucky Legs a glowing review on the whole calling it “a gay, swift and impertinent excursion into the sombre matter of murder … at once the best of the Erle Stanley Gardner collection and deserves being rated close to the top of this season’s list of mystery films.” The Times awards much of its praise to screenwriters Brown Holmes and Ben Markson, and also save extra praise for Tobin’s performance as Della.

Directed by Archie Mayo, who’d previously worked on other Warner’s fast-paced favorites such as The Mayor of Hell (1933) with James Cagney and Bordertown (1935) starring Paul Muni with the classic The Petrified Forest (1936) to come soon after, Lucky Legs keeps as quick a pace as any of those others. Mayo had previously worked with Warren William in Under 18 (1931) a film from William’s first year in Hollywood in which he had a key part supporting Marian Marsh, who’d previously starred for Mayo opposite John Barrymore in Svengali (1931).

I’ll be back much sooner next time around with my coverage of Warren William’s final Perry Mason flick, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), though I may squeeze in one non-Mason review prior to that just to change things up a little. Following are the previous entries in this series:

• The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
• The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

I ran into this 1935 Warner Brothers title on YouTube and had my curiosity aroused by Warren William’s connection.  Plus now that I’m regularly reviewing non-WW films at another site of mine, Immortal Ephemera, I knew that 85 minutes of Stella Parish was good for not just one, but two separate posts in two places.  Here’s the I Found Stella Parish review on Immortal Ephemera.

Warner Brothers originally intended for Warren William to play the role of Stephan in I Found Stella Parish, but he refused and was replaced by Paul Lukas.  William seems to have worked out an amiable agreement with Warner Brothers and specifically Jack Warner whereby he was placed on suspension without pay for the length of Lukas’ use on the picture.  The suspension appears to have run from August 19 through September 19, 1935.

Warner Brothers had just exercised a six picture option on William’s contract May 13 of the same year with the new option to start as of June 6.  On July 19 The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935) went into production which was completed on August 15.

Warner’s files show multiple communications stating William was to report to Stella Parish director Mervyn LeRoy on August 19, though his actual replies, if any, are not on file.  A letter dated August 17, 1935 from Warner legal executive R.J. Obringer to William’s agent, Mike Levee, summarizes the suspension settlement referring to William’s “refusal to to the part of ‘Stephen’” and stating that William himself had “expressed his opinion as the set up being agreeable to him in the event that there was no other alternative.”  Obringer also notes that J.L. (Jack Warner) feels he’s doing William a favor with the arrangement.

So why did Warren William refuse the part?  Speculation time.

1. As filmed the part of Stephen is very small with Paul Lukas appearing opposite Kay Francis and Ian Hunter throughout the first fifteen minutes of the film only to disappear until the final ten minutes.

2. Living on Velvet (1935) was just released in March and in it Warren William’s character is in love with the Kay Francis character, introduces George Brent to her and then steps aside as both Francis’ love interest and for most of the picture leaving Francis and Brent the bulk of the screen time. 

In I Found Stella Parish the Stephen character is in love with Kay Francis and then left behind as Ian Hunter’s character pursues her across the Atlantic and takes over as love interest leaving Francis and Brent the bulk of the screen time. 

It’s the same formula.

3. Besides Living on Velvet, William also has appeared with Francis in Dr. Monica (1934) by this point.  These, and Stella Parish, are obviously vehicles entirely geared towards Kay Francis and not the leading men.

4. Warren William would eventually escape his Warner Brother’s contract early leaving the company on June 22, 1936 after completion of Stage Struck (1936).  A letter from agent Levee to Jack Warner dated April 24th of that year lays out William’s case for early termination referring to his contract started June 1933 and stating that “for the last two years, the type of stuff Warren has been requested to do is really short of disastrous.”

Forget about the films after Stella Parish, let’s run down those done before: Lucky Legs (1935); Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935); The Case of the Curious Bride (1935); Living on Velvet (1935); and The Secret Bride (1934).  Just prior to that run William had been loaned out to Universal for Imitation of Life (1934) and Paramount for Cleopatra (1934), completing the first Perry Mason film, The Case of the Howling Dog (1934) on his home lot in between.  Where were the quality pictures?  Universal and Paramount. 

The enforcement of the production code effectively killed the popular caddish characters Warren William mastered between 1932-1934 and appears to have led him to being typed two ways: 1) Husband to strong leading ladies in melodramas built around the actress and not Warren and certainly bolstered by the success of Imitation of Life on loan out; 2) Detective mysteries. 

The 1936 Obringer letter to Warner opines that Warren William could have easily been as popular as William Powell by that time if handled correctly, but Warner’s dropped the ball and that time is now gone.  Perhaps Warren’s refusal to take part in I Found Stella Parish was an early and ultimately unsuccessful play by the actor and his agent to prevent that from happening.

Upon his return from suspension Warren William was cast in Meet the Duchess which was released under the title The Widow from Monte Carlo (1935).  He completed that 6 picture option in underwhelming fashion following Widow with Times Square Playboy (1936), the unfairly maligned Satan Met a Lady (1936), his final Perry Mason appearance in The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), and finally Stage Struck (1936).

PS: I’m still looking for a copy of The Widow from Monte Carlo on DVD or DVD-R, if you have one please feel free to email.

Or as you probably know it “the one where Errol Flynn plays a corpse.” That always kind of bugs me because while he’s not in it for very long and doesn’t actually say anything, Flynn is live and in action during the last few minutes of Curious Bride in a flashback scene. So okay, it’s a total bit part, but he is more than a corpse. Why so little Flynn? Well, it’s just his fourth film and first for Warner’s filmed in the U.S. He’d have a little more to do in Warren William’s next film, Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935) before being awarded the lead in Captain Blood (1935)* and shooting to instant stardom. Beyond Flynn himself his character, Gregory Moxley, is actually at the center of the entire case.

*Interesting sidenote regarding Captain Blood. In a letter from Warren William to Warner Brothers’ legal executive Roy Obringer dated January 8, 1935, William, while arguing about the size of his billing in an ad for Living on Velvet (1935), gripes of the “irreparable damage” the studio has done to him by, among other offenses, “reassigning other pictures that have heretofore been publicly announced as vehicles intended for me. I make particular reference to Rafael Sabatini’s “CAPTAIN BLOOD” (Warner Bros. Archives, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California). Backing this up is an item in the June 24, 1934 edition of the Charleston Gazette of West Virginia noting William is slated to play the title role in Captain Blood with George Brent and Ricardo Cortez in support (26).

Errol Flynn as Moxley

As for Perry Mason himself post-Thin Man influence takes over and injects much more comedy throughout this film than the initial entry in the series, The Case of the Howling Dog (1934). But that’s not to say that Mason and Curious Bride are a total Thin Man rip-off. The Mason of Curious Bride actually allows us our first glimpse of Warren William really getting comfortable in the role and giving us a prototype for the personality he’s to play not only in his next two Mason outings but later as The Lone Wolf as well. While Curious Bride isn’t quite as off the wall as The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935) will be just a few months later, it’s apparent from the moment Warren William appears, crab shopping with his cronies on a street corner, that Curious Bride is intended as far lighter fare than the more hard-boiled Howling Dog.

Lightening Mason up this time around is his assistant Spudsy Drake, Allen Jenkins playing about 180 degrees from his Sergeant Holcomb of the previous movie, as well as coroner Wilbur Strong played by Olin Howland. Howland reprises this role in 1936′s The Case of the Velvet Claws but in between he plays the very similar Dr. Croker in Curious Bride’s immediate follow-up, The Case of the Lucky Legs. Also on the scene is Claire Dodd as the best of the Della Street’s despite not having much to do in Curious Bride. Dodd also returns as Della in Velvet Claws, but Genevieve Tobin will take over for Lucky Legs. Need a scorecard yet? Anyway it’s the team of Jenkins, Howland, Dodd and Thomas E. Jackson as Inquirer reporter Toots Howard who help lighten the mood around Mason in this entry, and Warren William rolls with it in a performance so comfortable you can’t help but to think this is the performer in his own skin.

Perry and Spudsy tip their caps to Telegraph Operator Mary Treen

There’s also a decided Thin Man influence in the minor characters of Curious Bride, especially in escargot loving convict Fibo (pronounced Fee-bo) Morgan (Paul Hurst), his actress sister Florabelle (Mayo Methot pre-Bogart marriage), and as the film draws towards its conclusion Oscar Pender (Warren Hymer), a character who has to do some slick talking to explain his presence at the murder scene. These people seem like they left Nick and Nora’s Christmas party early in order to get out to Frisco and be within Perry Mason’s reach!

Warren Hymer as Pender, his face showing the signs of Spudsys blackjack

Of course the final scene of Curious Bride practically mimics the finale of the original Thin Man with the only difference being the suspects are gathered on their feet for cocktails rather than around a table for a meal. Mason’s techniques in fingering the murderer are exactly the same as Nick Charles’ though: a story, some questions, several accusations and eventually the guilty party cracks.

The mystery at the center of all this fun starts to unfold inside an upscale restaurant where William’s Perry Mason has commandeered the kitchen, donning apron and chef’s hat, to cook his crab legs before an audience of adoring employees. Mason ignores the all too common request of a woman calling upon him, preferring to concentrate on his cooking, until Margaret Lindsay beams at him and catches his attention. Lindsay is Rhoda, an old flame, who tells Perry a story about her friend, dubbed the curious bride by Perry, who has hopes of getting married again but first has to void a current marriage. Perry notes Rhoda twisting her wedding ring and basically winks at the story of her friend. When the maitre d’ has troubles fulfilling Perry’s wine request, Mason is forced to excuse himself to choose a proper vintage for himself, meanwhile Rhoda bolts and is tailed outside by Donald Woods who we soon discover is playing her husband, Carl Montaine.

Warren William in his cooking gear

In brief, Rhoda had previously been married to Moxley (Flynn) and married Montaine after Moxley’s death. But she now believes that Moxley is alive and in the interim she’s become seriously involved with Dr. Claude Millbeck (Phillip Reed). If Moxley can be found then that wipes out the marriage to Montaine leaving her free to wed Millbeck. When Mason pays a visit to his coroner pal, Wilbur Strong, to have a peek at Moxley’s exhumed body they all have a chuckle when it’s revealed a cigar store Indian has been buried in Moxley’s place.

Olin Howland as coroner Wilbur Strong

With Mason’s task simplified to just producing Moxley it’s no surprise that when it does find him it’s dead with a sheet pulled over him in a room full of cops headed by Barton MacLane’s cranky Chief Detective Joe Lucas (MacLane returns as a different Dectective in Lucky Legs). Now Rhoda has more than marital woes on her hands, she’s become the chief suspect in the Moxley murder case and Mason sets to work with Spudsy to clear her.

Perry talks to Rhoda with the shadows of the bars in the background

There are no weak performances in The Case of the Curious Bride, in fact my only complaint with the casting is that we could have used more of Claire Dodd as Della Street. Lindsay has a fair amount of screen time as Rhoda Montaine and does a fine job at coloring her character just gray enough to leave us wondering, all the while feeling sympathetic towards her just in case she really is innocent! Allen Jenkins is hilarious as Spudsy and steals several scenes, though perhaps my favorite is one he shares sitting on a stoop with Warren William where the two men are overcome by the tear gas Spudsy has been carrying as they say their farewells for the evening.

Spudsy and Perry break down at their farewell

Also featured in the cast are Phillip Reed, somewhat invisible as Doctor Millbeck, Rhoda’s latest prospective husband; Winifred Shaw as Pender’s (Hymer) singing sister; Charles Richman, effectively pompous as Montaine’s (Woods) father who hopes to see daughter-in-law Rhoda found guilty; Robert Gleckler and James Donlan as Barton MacLane’s underlings, Detectives Byrd and Fritz, both of whom have their moments of comedy relief; and Henry Kolker as heavy handed District Attorney Stacey who’ll go as far as legally possible to finally hand defeat to Perry Mason.

Michael Curtiz keeps Curious Bride’s overall pace as snappy as its dialogue dissolving each scene through a literal fog which can seem abrupt at times but certainly does as intended in keeping things moving briskly. Except when Perry and his gang are together most of Curious Bride is set inside tight quarters, often with Perry (or Spudsy) trapping somebody under their questioning, one exception being the airport scene which involves a lot of moving parts but at the same time does see Perry lock himself inside a phone booth with Rhoda where he can dictate his orders and keep her away from the eyes of the police.

Claire Dodd as Della Street

The Case of the Curious Bride began production January 28, 1935 and was released as a Clue Club Picture by First National Pictures through Warner Brothers on April 8, 1935. In an April 5 review the New York Times says of The Case of the Curious Bride that “the pace is swift, the solution well hidden, the comedy good and—but isn’t that enough?” I have to agree.