Warren-William.com

I’ve been working on this one for awhile, since Christmas when I finally got serious about listening to all of the Strange Wills episodes in full and taking notes while I did so. The result is the Complete Strange Wills Radio Episode Guide with Warren William Introductions (It can also be permanently accessed in the main menu just under the Filmography).

Warren William with Virginia Bruce in Arsene Lupin Returns (1938)

Frankly I’d originally envisioned writing about the program itself, not its content, but I don’t really own any books about old-time radio and all of my searches online always led back to the same place, the excellent Strange Wills Article and Log over on The Digital Deli Too. At first I didn’t think there was much I could do with Strange Wills other than extensively quote that page, then I realized writing about the programs themselves would create a far more original page.

Note: I purchased each of the 26 episodes for 39 cents each at ThenRadio.com (Just search Strange Wills or Warren William).

Here’s what I did for the Guide. I listed the title and cast of each episode and then I transcribed word for word Warren William’s opening speech as John Frances O’Connell in which he basically introduces the episode. Following that I write my own little summary of the episode and then give it a rating on a 5-point scale. Here’s a sample entry for Episode #8, Midnight on the Moor:

8 – Midnight on the Moor starring Warren William, Lurene Tuttle, Perry Ward, Howard Culver, original music by Del Castilio

WW says: “Have you ever walked along the moors of Scotland at midnight? When the fog, thick, blue fog, swells out of the ground and covers you like the shroud that covers the dead? Through the blanket of fog you can hear sounds of eerie night creatures that bring fear of things unseen. Fear of the bog that carried the reward of slow, agonizing death. In the heart of this moor country is the quaint little village of Perth. I’d never heard of Perth before the moment I’d decided to stopover the night on my way to Stonehaven. The little inn seemed bright and cheerful. The proprietor friendly and (laughs) I was tired. But news I learned travels just as fast in Perth as in any American community. Somewhere in the wee hours or the night …”

My take: A straight murder mystery with a dose of horror injected by way of the setting in the Scottish moors. Warren William is at the top of his game in this episode, enthusiastically playing O’Connell at first with his typical confidence but by later points in the story complete terror. Patriarch Sir Walter McClanahan wishes to solve the mystery of who murdered his son, vowing to O’Connell to discover the truth even from beyond the grave. Before the end of Midnight on the Moor that’s exactly what must happen. Episode includes O’Connell sleepily reciting Poe’s The Raven before humming a Scottish ditty. Midnight on the Moor is what Strange Wills should have always been shooting for. 5/5.

And no, they’re not all 5’s, though I did large in part enjoy the bulk of the Strange Wills episodes. As I mentioned earlier my background in old radio is limited at best, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but the program often felt very fresh, possibly because of the unique nature in which it’s framed. Strange Wills is about the odd wills handled by probate lawyer John Francis O’Connell (Warren William) and so with that device the story can lead into the typical mystery, a straight romance, a historical drama, or in specific instances even a jungle adventure tale (Emeralds Come High) and a sci-fi adventure (The Girl from Shadowland/Madman’s Diary).

Regarding that last one, the Digital Deli’s Strange Wills log does a great job in substantiating a 26 episode schedule for Strange Wills and also makes mention of episodes which were announced as Coming Next Week which never did (Swan Song and High Conquest). Their log also speculates that the final episode, Portsmouth Square, never aired, as it is the 27th episode of a 26 episode season, but while I have no proof as to whether it actually aired or not my time spent with the program leads me to conclude Portsmouth Square is likely episode #26.

The reason for my own speculation is that Episode 10, The Girl from Shadowland and Episode 11, Madman’s Diary, are actually the exact same episodes with different titles. This also explains why both mention Emerald’s Come High as next weeks episode. I don’t think it makes much sense for them to have aired the same episode on back to back weeks, so I’m going to take a further leap that one title is the U.S. version and the other the Australian and that all subsequent episodes should be moved forward a week, leaving Portsmouth Square as episode #26.

Another title oddity is Episode 25 Death Is My Destiny which is alternatively referred to as Death Has Ten Words. I think I figured this one out too. My guess is that Death Has Ten Words was the original title and was either chosen by mistake or had to be changed after part of the script was edited. See, Death Is My Destiny hinges on a brief will, scrawled on a newspaper as follows: “Kitty L. Ledderby, Everything I Own, Gabriel Lefty Light.” Unfortunately, even including Kitty’s middle initial, Death only has Nine Words here, and so the Ten Words title would have made no sense whatsoever.

I’d like to learn more, or discover the source, for Warren William Radio Productions, Inc. referenced on the Digital Deli page. In fact, that’s the only place it’s referenced on the entire internet! I don’t doubt it’s existence, as I said, I lack old-time radio sources, but I’d love to know where this came from so I could learn more!

What I did find was the June 1, 1946 issue of Billboard Magazine which carries an article that seems to indicate the origins of the Teleways Radio Company which aired Strange Wills. From that article:

… Name of the new production group is the Teleways Radio Company. It will be backed by Hollywood and movie and radio names and will feature programs using Warren William; movie actor, Allen Jones and other as yet unsigned Hollywood names.

William will be a director of the corporation and will also be featured in a transcribed dramatic feature titled Devise and Bequeath … First programs of the company will be released in June.

Warren William’s last film, The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, in which he had a small part (and which will also be the next title covered here) is listed as filming between April and August 1946 on the IMDb with a U.S. release date of April 25, 1947. His illness caused him to scale back greatly on his film appearances at this time (William died September 24, 1948) but even after Strange Wills it appears he looked to continue working in radio as he starred in a 1947 (February or October) audition recording of something called United States Postal Inspector, also for Teleways, also written by Ken Crispine with music by Del Castilio and a cast including Strange Wills regulars Lurene Tuttle and Marvin Miller.

Complete Strange Wills Radio Episode Guide with Warren William Introductions

I just posted a couple of stills from The Mouthpiece and certainly didn’t escape my notice that it’s been about 5-1/2 months between posts.  Okay, I was content to let this blog die, or at least sit.  But I have to tell you, even with my inactivity, comments were still coming in, and that’s part of what’s got me jazzed to get back to work here.

There are some other factors too.  I’ve been working with WordPress blogs a lot lately, having established my new collecting blog at the VintageMeld, redone my Movie Profiles and Premiums blog on things-and-other-stuff, broken off my e-commerce blog topics onto The Collectors Site, and another project or two yet to come.  I’ve learned a lot about working with WordPress lately, and while I’d like to keep the Warren William blog kind of vanilla looking, I might spice it up just a little.

So that’s the first reason, I’ve been blogging a lot in general lately and it was fun to come back over here.

Second reason.  I subscribed to NewspaperArchive.com this week and, wow, what a lot of new info I’ve uncovered!  I signed up looking for period reviews of Twentieth Century, which I covered on the VintageMeld, but of course my next search was for Warren William.  I’ve found more reviews that I can find time to read and have already zeroed in on a couple of better personality pieces that I plan to cover here in the future.  So I’ve got a new source.

This will never be a blog I post to every day, but I’d like to at least get a couple of posts up per month to keep it alive.  And I’ll always reply to comments ASAP, as I’ve done so even during my sabbitical.

Thanks for your patience, going to try harder!
Cliff

I guess this is what happens when you’ve been dead for nearly 60 years. I’m reading a couple of books about Warner Brothers movies and stars right now, Daniel Bubbeo’s “The Women of Warner Brothers” from 2002 and the Ted Sennett’s 1971 “Warner Brothers Presents.” I’m about two-thirds of the way through each of these titles and sadly there isn’t any worthwhile Warren William information in either. This is basically what you get:

“(Name of Warner Bros. star here) next appeared in (Name of Warner Bros. movie here) starring (choose one: dapper, suave, caddish) leading man Warren William.”

I’ve run into this sentence in other books previously as well. The Sennett book is 36 years old, I really thought I’d hit upon a gem or two in there, but alas, Warren William is already dead 23 years at its time of publication and already, it seems, forgotten.

Poor Warren William, it seems, did not live long enough to enjoy any possible retrospective on his career. William died September 24, 1948, his wife, Helen, passed just a few months later on December 31, 1948. The couple had no children. From the information I’m gathering, it’s pretty clear that William was a bit of a loner on the studio lots and usually raced home as soon as his work day was over. So there has been no family to keep his legend alive and it appears his co-workers didn’t have much of a reason to prop him up either.

I have found a couple of great articles about Warren William in different issues “Classic Images” that I’ll be referring to at some point. But I’ve found the best resources to be online newspaper archives. These cost a few dollars, so I’ve been buying articles only when I’ve had a few extra bucks lying around, but so far I’ve accessed articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Daily Tribune. These primary sources actually treat Warren William as the star he obviously was in the early 1930’s. He and his films are popular and usually well-reviewed (especially by Mae Tinee of the Chicago Daily Tribune who really seemed to love his work). Beyond the standard reviews I’ve also come across some more general articles about Warren William’s life. I’m slowly buying them, reading them, arranging them and trying to decide how to best use the information I find in these papers. Perhaps a “Press” section on the site, we’ll see.

I was happy today to locate an article I’d been searching for without having to buy the back issue and wait for it, etc. Also, I wasn’t sure if the information I had on this back issue was correct–it was, however the article was just a single page column rather than the longer feature I’d expected. Seeing it, I was glad to save a few dollars for a change!

This was in Film Comment, the May-June 2005 issue, which somebody was gracious enough to scan and place on their site. It’s Guy Maddin’s column, “My Jolly Corner” titled this issue “Slippery When Wet.” Maddin opens his column by stating, “Buttery joy is mine when I consider the career of Warren William. His Most Oleaginous Imperial Potentate of the Pre-Code.” Maddin mentions The Mouthpiece, Skyscraper Souls, Employees’ Entrance, The Mind Reader, and Gold Diggers of 1933 all by name as proof of William’s talents. Of William’s performances in these, all favorites of mine as well, Maddin writes “…William typically portrays a ruthless entrepreneur whose conscience was somehow lost at birth (one can’t help thinking of William’s 1894 genesis in Minnesota as some kind of natal oil spill), a man who knows what he wants … and wastes no time embezzling his way to this end, pausing only to feast at the banquets of adultery that the era spreads before him like soup kitchens transmogrified by the collective lust of the movie-crazed public.” He remarks that Breen and the code “squeezed the juice out of William’s unambiguous, all-American powerlust,” which is largely true. Afterwards “he was shunted into dull series work,” which is partially true–the Perry Mason and Lone Wolf movies are certainly altogether different from William’s pre-code work, but they are far from dull. Maddin closes by declaring “Long live the suave and smeary stain of Warren William!”

I chose “The Mouthpiece” as the first summary/review for the site.  Just finished it up tonight and posted it.  Very quickly, “The Mouthpiece” is one of the more enjoyable Warren William pre-code era films containing a pretty famous courtroom scene where he downs a bottle of poison, completes his defense, gets his client off, and then rushes down the way to have his stomach pumped.  This flick features Warren William running his mouth at top speed.  For example, after drinking the poison William takes his seat next to his stunned client (J. Carol Naish), turns to him and says, “Next time, please use something that tastes better.”

That’s all covered over in the review though, if you have any interest please give it a read.

My write-up includes what went on in the movie sprinkled with some opinion.  As this is the first review piece on the site I can’t say for sure if future pieces will follow this format or not–obviously when I come to something like “The Wolfman” I’m not going to write-up the entire film, but try to find some interesting way to look at it from a Warren William perspective.  To write-up “The Mouthpiece” I watched the movie three times over a period of a couple of weeks.  Once for pure enjoyment, once with a notebook handy and finally once more just to really soak it all in.

If you do head over to “The Mouthpiece” page you’ll notice I included some screenshots from the movie.  I debated upon whether to do this or not and finally decided to use just a few of the images I had originally selected based upon Wikipedia’s description of fair use.  I think these fit those terms.  In each image I’ve embedded some explanatory text as well as a link to a copyright page I added to the site.  Interesting and murky territory, I hope I’m okay though.

If you’re looking to pick up a copy of “The Mouthpiece” the only place I could find it on DVD was a DVD-R with no artwork found in this seller’s iOffer store.

Hi, this blog is attached to the site I’ve just launched, Warren-William.com, which is a brand new fan site dedicated to 30’s and 40’s actor Warren William.

I’ve only posted the first few pages of Warren-William.com this past week and I’m still in the process of setting up this WordPress blog to offer updates on new pages of the site and cover interesting Warren William collectibles I may come across.

For now the home page will offer a quick explanation of why I’ve set up Warren-William.com. Besides that introduction I’ve also set up a list of William’s films (thanks to the IMDb) which I plan to incorporate links to the available DVD’s — this will include sources to tougher to find DVD-R’s of out-of-print movies, basically a collection of links to where I found my copies. I’ve also set up a link page which I’ve given a little head start, however I hope to add to that as I come across any site which makes prominent mention of Warren William.

As for the future, I’ve recently taken a bunch of notes while watching The Mouthpiece (1932) and plan to turn those into the next page of Warren-William.com. I hope you enjoy the site as it just starts to come together.