Calling Dr. Kildare!

Today we present a Bijou Mini-Matinee from Christmas Past. But first, with healthcare on everyone’s mind these days, we got to wondering how movie docs like Dr. Kildare dealt with healthcare on America’s movie screens during decades past.

Bijou’s Victoria Balloon put the cinematic Dr. Kildare series under the microscope for a glimpse of how medical science has long been a vital component of Hollywood’s DNA. (Click film titles to enjoy original trailers!)

Before there was House and Gray’s Anatomy Americans got their Hollywood medical drama from watching Dr. James Kildare. Not the 1960s television series starring Richard Chamberlain, but a series of MGM short feature films from the 1940s.

It doesn’t take much to turn medicine into drama. The doctor who stands between life and death is a hero made for the movies, and Hollywood has known it for a long time. Classic films with plots based on period science and technology are fun to watch, and MGM’s Dr. Kildare films, based on the stories of Max Brand, present characters that are still well-known today.

The young Dr. James Kildare, son of a country doctor and fresh out of medical school, was played by Lew Ayres. Ayres won acclaim for his role as Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and worked steadily throughout the 1930s. Unfortunately, studios cast him as a tough guy or rich dilettante, and the roles never quite suited him. It wasn’t until he played the alcoholic younger brother of Katharine Hepburn in Holiday (1938) that he was able to demonstrate the complex mixture of gentle charm and brutal honesty that exhibited his talent.

The role of crotchety mentor Dr. Leonard Gillespie was played by Lionel Barrymore, who had been in movies since 1908 but is perhaps most remembered for one of his later roles — the devious Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Due to a combination of arthritis and a hip injury, from 1938 on Barrymore did his acting from a wheelchair, and Hollywood scriptwriters were happy to accommodate him. As Dr. Gillespie, his presence in a wheelchair was ascribed to a very non-descript “cancer.”

While they were never really big-budget productions, the Dr. Kildare films nevertheless had genuine audience appeal and contained some of MGM’s familiar character actors — Nat Pendleton as ambulance driver Joe Wayman, always ready with a monkey wrench to help “Doc Kildare” out of a jam, and Marie Blake as Sally the hospital switchboard operator. Other actors in the MGM stable who had already established careers — Sara Haden, Gene Lockhart, Robert Young — also made appearances.

The series allowed MGM to try out new talent in different roles without taking financial risks at the box office. Child actor Bonita Granville branched out from her role as Nancy Drew in The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941), while vaudeville veteran Red Skelton also had two early film roles in the series (The People vs. Dr. Kildare and Dr. Kildare’s Wedding Day (1941). And just after she was billed as “The Sweater Girl” for being Andy Hardy’s date, an eighteen-year-old Lana Turner appeared in Calling Dr. Kildare (1939).

The films are generally under 90 minutes, with plots that are soap opera and part medical sleuthing. The exact location of Blair General Hospital is unspecified (though it is in “The City,” with “The Country” a short train ride away), but from the polished chrome handles of the glass double doors to Sally’s sleek reception desk, the building is pure art-deco — and so is the medical equipment. There are polished X-ray machines, amphitheater operating rooms containing huge chrome lights, and oxygen tanks with an inflatable rubber bag that demonstrates how well the patient on the operating table is breathing... or in dramatic moments, that the patient has died.

The doctors don’t wear lab coats, but plain-front, high-collared short sleeved jackets that are shockingly white (no one bleeds at Blair General) while the nurses are crisply starched from their caps to their stockings. And although Dr. Gillespie may rebuke a society matron for foolishly skipping a meal to maintain her figure, everyone smokes — in the hallways, in examination rooms, or right outside of surgery.

These films presented cutting-edge of medicine of the time by tackling relevant issues, such as how social conditions and poverty affect health and how psychological trauma can have a physiological effect. They also presented as miracle cures things we now know to be unscientific, even dangerous.

For example, in Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case (1940) the technique of injecting a patient with insulin until he went into shock or coma was used to cure a patient with a mysterious brain ailment. As Dr. Kildare describes it: “A terrific shock will sometimes drive a person crazy. An overdose of insulin apparently works just the reverse; the tremendous shock it gives seems to drive the crazed brain back to sanity.” Insulin shock therapy, although a last resort, was in fact considered a viable treatment for schizophrenia until the advent of antipsychotic drugs in the 1950s. Medical scenarios such as these, though admittedly given a Hollywood touch, provide an interesting perspective on the history of medicine. (For more information on this topic, Primary Sources: Insulin Coma Therapy describes the history of this treatment and how it was used on Dr. John Nash, the mathematician features in the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind.)

MGM made a total of nine Dr. Kildare films between 1938 and 1941, and Lew Ayres’ gentle yet determined demeanor made the films quite popular. However, with the coming of World War II, Ayres (perhaps haunted by his role in All Quiet on the Western Front) registered as a conscientious objector. An unusual stance at that time, his decision was not popular with movie audiences or with Louis B. Mayer; Ayres’ films were picketed and his contract dropped.

Up until then the Army had no rules or procedures for people willing to serve yet unwilling to kill in combat; Ayres’ request for a non-combat position set a precedent that allowed other COs flexibility in choosing how to fulfill their military obligations. Ayres eventually served in South Pacific field hospitals with the Medical Corps for three and a half years and earned three battle stars.

Ayres earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1949 for another medical role — that of Dr. Robert Richardson in Johnny Belinda. Though audiences eventually forgave him this CO status, Ayres’ career was never quite the same after the war. (Lew Ayres: The Road Less Traveled over at TCM’s Movie Morlocks is a great piece for further reading.)

Calling Dr. Gillespie!

Still, MGM was never a studio to let a good franchise go. Scriptwriters turned the focus to Barrymore’s character, and in 1942 there was Calling Dr. Gillespie, featuring all the same players plus a young Donna Reed. Later that year there was Dr. Gillespie’s New Assistant featuring another up-and-coming star MGM hoped to launch – Van Johnson. Johnson had been in other films, but up to this point his roles were uncredited or minor.

Both the studio and audiences liked what they saw of Dr. Randall ‘Red’ Adams, and in 1943 Johnson made Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case as well as his two breakout films, The Human Comedy and A Guy Named Joe. With his performance in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) MGM knew they had a new star. Johnson was in the next two Dr. Gillespie pictures (Three Men in White and Between Two Women), and by 1945 his popularity had MGM casting him in major productions. Perhaps because of shooting schedules Johnson did not appear in the last Dr. Gillespie film, Dark Delusion (1947). Instead, the writers introduced a new character, Dr. Tommy Coalt, played by James Craig.

The Dr. Gillespie films were a thematic continuation of the Dr. Kildare films, presenting dramatic medical scenarios such as using “narcosynthesis” (injecting someone with truth-serum) to diagnose a case. The films also served as the same type of vehicle for introducing starlets, but with changes in the studio system, the pictures did not have the same impact on their careers. Marilyn Maxwell (perhaps best known for her USO tours with Bob Hope) and Lucille Bremer made appearances, and Ava Gardner had an uncredited role in Calling Dr. Gillespie, resulting in a larger part in Three Men in White, but of the three women, only Gardner went on to larger films (and then only after being loaned out to a different studio). Unfortunately for audiences today, the six Dr. Gillespie films have not yet made it to DVD, but do show up from time to time on Turner Classic Movies.

In some instances films that were popular when first released become so dated because of cultural views or technology that they become almost embarrassingly unwatchable. But it is precisely because the medical and scientific knowledge is dated that the Dr. Kildare films are so enjoyable today. Each contains some truly fun actors to watch, and each is a snapshot of medical practice in the early twentieth century. It is both interesting and gratifying to see just how far medical science has come in life — and in Hollywood.

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Lew Ayres was not the first to portray Dr. Kildare on the silver screen. Joel McCrea had that distinction in 1937 when he costarred with Barbara Stanwyck, but minus Dr. Gillespie, in a Universal hospital drama titled Internes Can’t Take Money,

Ayres and Lionel Barrymore reunited in 1949 for a series of syndicated radio programs called The Story of Dr. Kildare.

Sixty of these radio episodes are available for your discovery at Internet Archive. Check out the billboard on the right with episode titles like “Barbara Lane, Dope Addict,” “Dr. Carew’s Fat Wife,” “Glaucoma,” and “Marion Lewis, Teen Age Alcoholic.”

Television was a natural for the Dr. Kildare franchise, and Richard Chamberlain (as Kildare) and Raymond Massey (as Gillespie) graced Blair Hospital for 190 small screen episodes of Dr. Kildare during the 1960’s. Unfortunately, this series has not yet been made available on DVD -- an omission that must be amended, stat!

The MGM Dr. Gillespie series is not available on DVD. Only two of the MGM Dr. Kildare’s are on DVD at this time: Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case is available for purchase at Movies Unlimited and The Secret of Dr. Kildare is at Amazon.com. Internes Can’t Take Money is available in VHS-only at Amazon.com. For those interested in checking out Dr. Kildare in print, Calling Dr. Kildare, the first novel in the series, can be purchased for a buck at Fantastic Fiction.

Here now on our Bijou blog screen you can enjoy the original trailer for the very first film in the MGM Dr. Kildare screen series: Young Dr. Kildare.



Bijou Christmas-Past Mini-Matinee

We present for your holiday enjoyment a selection of delightful classic Christmas short subjects. To enter the Bijou Mini-Matinee Theater, click here.

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER (1948)

The Fleischer Studios were acquired by Paramount Pictures in 1941. Max Fleischer then went to work for the Jam Handy Organization and in 1948 directed this classic cartoon gem for Montgomery Ward & Co. Paul Wing narrates the famous Christmas story of Rudolph and his shiny red proboscis. The song was subsequently recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold 2 million copies the first year and became the 2nd best-selling Christmas song of all time - after Bing Crosby’s "White Christmas."

MERRY CHRISTMAS (1950)

“Far up in the snow lands, no one know’s where …” we visit St Nicholas at his Christmas work shop and meet three of his special elves busily preparing for the big night. The setting shifts to a family preparing for a traditional Christmas while singing "Come All Ye Faithful". The kids go to bed and we watch Santa arrive, depositing his goodies for the big family celebration the next morning.

SNOW FOOLIN’ (1949)

The famous bouncing ball returns in this colorful Paramount Screen Song. The formula is familiar, a gallery of gags leading up to the introduction of the “bouncing ball” – in this case an egg – to dance above the words of a famous sing-a-long crowd-pleaser, “Jingle Bells.” If you enjoy sing-a-long cartoons, be sure to check out our “Salute to the Bouncing Ball” program in Bijou Mini-Matinee #7.

A CHRISTMAS DREAM (1946)

A little girl is gifted on Christmas with all she could wish for, but discards the common old rag doll she also received. While sleeping she dreams of the rag doll coming to life to create mayhem and delight all around the room, dancing on piano keys and bringing other toys to life. The girl awakens in more ways than one.

CHRISTMAS THEATER ADS (1950s)

A trio of vintage theater ads begins with the theater management and staff wishing our audience a very merry 1954 Christmas. Then Warner Bros. delivers “A Christmas Message from Virginia Mayo” inviting the audience to purchase Christmas seals to help fight Tuberculosis. Lastly, a 1959 theater ad wishing a “Merry Christmas Wish to All the World.”

Captain Video in the Movies

Long before Star Trek skyrocketed from a hit television series to the big screen, another pioneer sci-fi series had successfully navigated the transition.

While the advent of 1950s television was triggering the demise of the cliffhanging movie serials, Columbia Pictures was busy repurposing a popular late-forties live-television series called Captain Video into an exciting 15-chapter theatrical serial.

To further inform you on this early pop culture sensation we are simulposting today with Bijou friend and colleague John McElwee. John first wrote about Captain Video a few years ago on his endlessly engaging Greenbriar Picture Shows site. At that time, John was unable to locate Captain Video TV shows to view online.

Here we reprint John McElwee’s 2006 article titled Captain Video in the Movies. At long last several episodes of the original Captain Video TV shows have surfaced and right now over at Greenbriar Picture Shows John expands on this original article with his reflections on finally catching up with the television versions.

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Captain Video in the Movies

I wish I’d been ten years old around 1954 so I could look at shows like Captain Video, Rocky Jones - Space Ranger, and Space Patrol on a primitive black-and-white television with one of those peculiar roundish screens. By the appearance of (few) surviving episodes today, it must have been like watching animated cave drawings. These were puppet shows with people instead of socks. Guys would sit for thirty minutes in front of a "control panel" and talk endlessly about whatever galaxy they happened to be passing through, but we never saw anything other than painted backdrops. They say Captain Video’s TV adventures were filmed largely on an upstairs floor at a Manhattan hotel. Virtually all were unceremoniously dumped into New York harbor over forty-five years ago, so I’m unable to offer anything other than anecdotal evidence as to what Captain Video might have been like on TV, but I can tell you that Columbia’s serial spin-off is great.

They shot it late in 1951 after two years of popularity generated on the twenty-four nationwide DuMont network affiliates (we didn’t have one in North Carolina). DuMont claimed it was the first television series adapted for the movies, forgetting the previous year’s The Goldbergs, and perhaps one or two others as well. Each hand washed the other, as theatres were encouraged to promote the Captain Video series in their lobbies (broadcast Monday-Friday), while DuMont followed TV episodes with a slide announcing Columbia’s serial.

Determined to sample early TV sci-fi, I put on a DVD of some Rocky Jones – Space Ranger shows. Within ten minutes, I was slipping in and out of consciousness to the reassuring monotonic recitation of various scientific principles as they apply to space travel and quelling interstellar despots. It was like that relaxing sensation you get when you’re lying in bed and it’s raining outside. Rocky’s adventures evoked a gentle downpour on a tin roof for me -- who needs Ambien when you’ve got a sleep aid like this? Anyway, it was as close as I could get to a real Captain Video episode, but if the Videos were as economical as the Rockys, then I’ll have to say this Columbia serial, cheap as it is, looks like Intolerance beside them.

There’s the usual combination of rocket ships and 40’s sedans, each racing thither and yon to no discernable purpose, and the special effects have a way of reaffirming their determination to be as unconvincing as possible with each succeeding chapter. Animation is used to depict flights through space in much the same manner as Superman "flew" in those two Columbia serial monstrosities that preceded Captain Video. There are no women in this serial -- not one that I recall -- so you need not worry about mushy stuff, though I did ponder as to how the Captain’s youthful sidekick, "Video Ranger," could be expected to develop necessary social skills amidst such a total deprivation of feminine association, but perhaps I take these things too seriously.

The inspired use of Cinecolor allows us to view the various outlaw planets in a pleasing mosaic of tinted hues, as you can see here in captured frames. This really livened up the serial for me, even though each and all of those planets looked very much like terrain that had hosted Tim McCoy, Charles Starrett, Gene Autry, and maybe even The Three Stooges.

Speaking of Autry, there is an "army" of robots (I counted three) whose service record went all the way back to The Phantom Empire in 1935 -- and even beyond that -- having made their initial screen appearance opposite Joan Crawford in a deleted musical number from Dancing Lady (1933)!

Judd Holdren is Captain Video, or should I say Judd Holdren is Captain Video. Anyway, he's the titular character, and as it turned out, this would be one of Judd's few leads. Others have accused him of abominable thesping, as though he were reading lines off-camera not seen hitherto. Again, I don’t like to be hard on actors. Holdren is not a Gielgud. His resume did not likely include seasons at the Old Vic, and yet he’s perfect here amidst the cut-rate trappings of a Columbia 50’s serial, and so I doff my hat to his memory, and Larry (youthful woman-deprived Video Ranger) Stewart’s as well.

Captain Video delivered sockeroo coin and quickly took pride of place at the very top of Columbia’s serial grosser charts, ranking all time third highest behind Superman (domestic rentals of $856,000) and Atom Man vs. Superman ($528,000) with a tidy haul of $398,000, mighty healthy numbers for a serial in those declining years. Columbia really got behind the product too, as you’ll see from numerous tie-ins shown here.

Those Post cereals were no doubt consumed on camera during the TV show -- intergalactic warriors frequently hawked mail-in premiums and bric-a-brac.

I like that very stylish Captain Video playsuit -- I shouldn’t think a child would be remiss in wearing it to Sunday School -- sans holster, of course, though I’ve no doubt dress codes were somewhat more rigid in 1951. The Captain Video wallet probably lasted about as long as my cousin’s Famous Monsters Of Filmland billfold, which is to say no more than a month or so, though I still envied him that colorful accessory. Imagine a 1951 exhibitor ordering these comic books by the hundreds for two and a half cents apiece. What an annuity those would be today! Forward thinking showmen could build a place in Florida for what they're no doubt worth.

Major studios weren't above using Captain Video to promote their own theatrical product. Here he is selling The Rocket Man, a 1954 sci-fi comedy from Fox.

If I had the smarts to learn "Captain Video Talk," I’d probably chuck this site and apply to medical school. The serial is awash with technical mumbo-jumbo that would stump Stephen Hawking -- believe me, the words shown here are the easy ones.

The Captain Video club card was a given for any serial -- theatres would issue one to each child with the first chapter, then punch out numbers as they returned for succeeding shows -- the payoff would be a free admission for the conclusion of the chapterplay. Exhibitors were also encouraged to "invite local scientists" to a screening of the first chapter, after which they would be interviewed as to the remarkable "harbingers of future triumphs" on view in Captain Video. Those future triumphs would include but a few more Columbia serials, as the company would throw in the towel five years later with the final chapterplay of them all, Blazing The Overland Trail
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The complete 1951 Captain Video serial on DVD can be purchased at Movies Unlimited. Four episodes from the classic television series are available on DVD at Amazon.com. You can watch the first ten minutes of the theatrical serial Captain Video - Chapter 1 on YouTube, And you can enjoy a typical Captain Video TV show, complete with original Post Cereal commercials, right here on our Bijou Blog screen.

Hollywood Halloween Treats

Halloween is almost upon us, so Bijou Blogger Victoria Balloon performs the grave duty of digging up some Halloween DVDs for our viewers’ delight. In our grab bag of tricks and treats we have something for everyone, from little ghouls and goblins to Mummys and Daddies, too. So draw the curtains, turn out the lights, pop in any of these DVDs and relax... if you can!

First up is the cute and cuddly character named Casper, the Friendly Ghost, who is more about “Boo-Hoo” than “Boo!” Casper made his screen debut in a 1945 Paramount Noveltoon called The Friendly Ghost.

He appeared as the main spook in two more theatrical shorts before being spun off as the star of his own cartoon series. Far from being scary, Casper hated being a ghost and only wanted to make friends. This theme of unprovoked alienation dominated most of the cartoons in the series as again and again we witness Casper befriending a person or animal only to have them scream and run away when they realize he’s a ghost. In fact, Casper is so endearing that you’d want to hug him, if he only had a body.

The Best of Casper the Friendly Ghost – Volumes 1 & 2 each feature ten classic Casper cartoons along with two bonus cartoons produced between 1950 and 1959. The original Casper theme song is an added bonus on each DVD and the print quality is excellent.

If you’re looking for some monster fun but screaming at slapstick is more your style, then any of the “Abbott and Costello Meet...” movies are for you. All of the films are loosely built around classic horror legends and provide Bud and Lou with spooky backdrops for their classic sight gags and verbal exchanges.

The first of these films was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). The two are a pair of delivery men charged with setting up the latest exhibits in a house of horrors — only the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) and Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) turn out to be the real deal. Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) arrives from London to help Bud and Lou thwart Dracula’s evil plans, but Talbot would be a lot more help if he didn’t keep turning into the Wolfman!

Walter Lantz, creator of Woody Woodpecker, directed Dracula’s animated transformations. This was Lugosi’s second film in which he played the Count, but it’s a role he almost didn’t get — the studio didn’t realize Lugosi was still alive. Boris Karloff was offered the part of the Monster, but he refused; he thought a comedy was insulting to the character and the film would not do well at the box-office. It turned out that Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein became Universal-International's second highest grossing film of the year.

Abbott and Costello's last film for Universal was Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). The pair find themselves accused of murdering a prominent archeologist and in possession of a sacred medallion linked with a mummy’s curse. Everyone wants that medallion — a gang of thieves wants it to find the treasure, an Egyptian cult wants it to revive the Mummy, and the Mummy wants what’s rightfully his — but Bud and Lou just want to go back to the States! This film contains the fast and funny “Shovel or Pick?” dialogue as well as Lou’s career as a snake charmer.

Although both contain original theatrical trailers and photo galleries (and the Frankenstein DVD contains a "making of" documentary with some production notes), the focus of both DVDs is the feature. Both are very clean prints and would be quite a catch for any classic monster fan.

If you seek “a hair-raising, soul stirring, nerve tingling story” or even just something to make “thy blood to creep and thy hair to stand,” check out Café Roxy’s Monster Mania (2009). Two hours of classic horror/sci-fi movie trailers from Universal, Hammer Films, William Castle and others results in a concentrated mix of B movie monster madness that will send “fangs of fear to rip reason from your mind!”

The clips contain creepy creatures, science experiments gone wrong, and undead favorites. It is a wonderful tribute to horror films from the classic to the camp, and with or without the sound turned up, running this DVD in the background will give any Halloween gathering the perfect spooky ambiance. Contains The Mad Doctor, the only Mickey Mouse cartoon in the public domain!

Grotesqueries: Ghosts, Goblins and other Magical Moving Picture Illusions from the Dawn of Cinema through 1934 is one of the finest collections of fascinating Halloween-themed short subjects on the planet! The DVD is loaded with a tantalizing mix of rare and  hard-to-find animated and live-action shorts, sumptuously presented in three acts, and concludes with a bonus chapter of special added attractions.

Some of the highlights include a pair of Felix the Cat cartoons: Felix Woos Whoopee and Felix in Sure-Locked Holmes (color-tinted with new scores); The Wizard’s Apprentice (1930), a Germanesque picturization of Paul Dukas’ descriptive tone-poem; Une Nuit Sur le Mont Chauve (1933) inspired by Modest Mussorgsky’s tone-poem, A Night on Bald Mountain. Although a difficult film to transfer to video, the results are stunning; the image is greatly improved, and the film classic has never been seen to greater advantage.

Included also is Le Spectre Rouge (The Red Spectre), a 1907 fantasy by pioneer Ferdinand Zecca, featuring a rare glimpse of the famed French Music Hall artiste, Bretteau. (The rich colors are hand-stenciled onto the original film print); the original Tom & Jerry meet graveyard stiffs, coffin keepers, and a Siren of the Sarcophagus in double potions of musical madness in a pair of cartoon delights: Wot a Night and Magic Mummy; and Fall of the House of Usher (1928), an expressionistic, dadaesque retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s psychological thriller (color-tinted with a new score).

Grotesqueries is an entirely original programme complimented by an abundance of original graphics and new music accompanying the silent films. This spooky and surreal extravaganza was created and  realized by Rex Schneider, Chris Buchman and Steve Stanchfield - and is available directly from Blue Mouse Studio.

Once your littlest gremlins are tucked into bed, consider adding some zing to your sleepover with Monsters Crash the Pajama Party (1965). This devilish DVD celebrates the lost world of Spook Shows with 45 minutes of Spook Show trailers, 300 spooky print ads and tons of extras. Spook Shows were stage shows with real, live monsters (OK... guys in monster suits) that ran out into the audience when the lights blacked out. Young kids were genuinely terrified in those innocent days of the 1950s and 60s, while older teens knew what to do with their dates.

The 31 minute title featurette is the heart of the show. A mad doctor sets the mood for an invasion of nightie-clad damsels into his chamber of horrors. During the climax he tells his gorilla: “Big G, you go out there in the audience and get me another girl, and you other monsters go out to help him.” This cues real monsters onstage and into the theater. After much onscreen lightning and the audience blackout, the monsters return to the screen with a writhing victim. The film can be run twice more with commentaries by those who staged such Monsteramas years before today's’ haunted houses.

The Tom Stathes Halloween Cartoon Reel will raise the hair on your arms! The films are not restored and are presented “as found” — no music tracks on the silents, but many original prints were copied and there are a lot of true rarities. It includes Krazy Kat in The Awful Spook (1921, Bray); Felix the Ghost Breaker (1923, Sullivan/Messmer); Koko the Clown in Koko's Haunted House (1928, Fleischer) and many more, including the 1928 live-action Christie Comedy Goofy Ghosts. Most bizarre is Alice's Mysterious Mystery! (1926, Disney) in which dogs are kidnapped, jailed in a dungeon by a hooded captor and turned into sausages.

Finally, here’s a treat that’s full of delightful tricks: a high-quality, 50th Anniversary Edition of House on Haunted Hill, presented in widescreen by Johnny Legend, a video pioneer who released low-budget horror and exploitation films in the early days of Rhino Home Video. William Castle’s 1959 thriller still shocks and mystifies with ghoulish plot twists.

Vincent Price invites five random guests to stay overnight in a haunted house and get $10,000 if they survive. Not all of them make it. Are the ghosts real? How about that severed head? The bonus extras are true delights, starting with two trailers for House, one trumpeting the “Emergo” process (a skeleton flies over audience during the film’s climax), and trailers for Vincent Price and William Castle shockers: The Fly, Tingler, Macabre, 13 Ghosts, Mr. Sardonicus, Zotz, Straight-Jacket and more. Mr. Castle appears in many trailers to explain his latest gimmicks. Johnny himself discusses the “House” today and actress Carol Ohmart. The disc closes with Vincent Price on the Jack Benny and Red Skelton Shows and as persecuted missionary John Hayes on TV Reader’s Digest from 1955.

So many creepy classics we love, but alas, the dawn comes too soon! Many of these fiendishly fun DVDs and others are available for purchase at Movies Unlimited, or for rent on Netflix. And mark your calendars — Turner Classic Movies will be a chamber of horrors as they show a Boris Karloff marathon and back-to-back spine-tingling thrillers over Halloween weekend.
It promises to be a scream!
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And now, as a very special Halloween treat, we present an original trailer for the classic 3-D horror movie The House of Wax. But this treat comes with a trick; there are no actual scenes from the movie in this rare trailer designed to tease audiences about the exciting 3-Dimension effects they could expect and could not be seen without the special 3-D glasses.

More Unforgettable Cartoons

We had such a terrific response to our “Unforgettable Cartoons” post that we couldn’t resist doing a second round. Here are more remembrances from industry colleagues and friends. We invite our readers to contribute your own recollections in the comments section below.

Jerry Frebowitz is living his dream of being a full-time movie enthusiast as president of Movies Unlimited and heading up the exciting new Movie Fanfare blog. Here is Jerry’s choice:

One of my favorite old cartoons is a Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies, Have You Got Any Castles? from 1938. Oddly enough, I saw it in theaters in the 1940s when I was a kid but it must have been a reissue since I wasn't yet a moviegoer back in 1938.

It's the kind of cartoon that once seen, can't ever be forgotten -- it's just that good and oh, so clever! From the opening, there are scenes of the town crier who wakes up the books in the book store. I had no idea at the time that the crier was supposed to be a caricature of Alexander Woollcott. The opening never did hit me probably because I wasn't "in" on the Woollcott joke but once the "scary" literary characters come out of their books and start dancing, you'll know instantly you are in for a treat -- and it just gets better and better from there.

Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, Fu Manchu and Dr. Jekyll do a soft-shoe routine, followed by The Invisible Man, and I guess while this Warner Brothers cartoon was showcasing invisible characters, it was only natural for Topper to show up, or not show up as the case may be. Because the invisible folks are tap dancing, it's only a step away to highlight a cartoon version of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson dancing his way up and down “The Thirty-Nine Steps.” In turn, Cab Calloway leads the way, delighting the audience with a mini-musical production of “The Green Pastures.”

The very funny references go on and on, from the classics to the latest novels of the day. Apparently at the time this gem of a cartoon was shown, “Gone with the Wind” was the latest. Although the cartoon is all about books, the movie references can't be hidden. "The House of Seven Gables" is of course, Clark Gable. Captain Bligh stepping out of "Mutiny on the Bounty" is Charles Laughton and dozens more glimpses of vintage Hollywood fun are everywhere. Eventually, the loud sounds caused by the singing and dancing and general frivolity of the proceedings awaken Rip Van Winkle and he is not a happy camper, cutting off pieces of Uncle Tom's hair which he uses for ear plugs. By the time Rip sends everyone scurrying for shelter by opening up a copy of “The Hurricane,” this cartoon ends -- but not before my favorite sequence appears. William Powell steps out of the pages of “The Thin Man,” so skinny when turned sideways, he practically disappears. However, after entering “The White House Cook Book,” he emerges very plump. Luckily, after the days of the Saturday Matinee, I was able to see this great cartoon on TV and it's been with me ever since.

Animator Sally Cruikshank has been creating fabulous surreal animation since her directorial debut: Quasi at the Quackadero (1976), which for many qualifies as an unforgettable cartoon! Some of Sally’s other cartoons may be enjoyed at her Website Fun on Mars.

Cartoons from the early 30s involving food or assembly lines (or better yet both) really made a big impression on me. I think "The Merry Cafe,” a Krazy Kat cartoon from 1936, is the first one that comes to mind. It's a wonderful automat cafe cartoon. When I finally got to an automat in NYC it was a disappointment. Food in 30's cartoons always looks so tasty.

From Joe Adamson; film archivist, filmmaker, author of "Tex Avery, King of Cartoons" and “Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare” and “Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo” among others.

I was in the second grade when I saw King Size Canary (1947) at a Saturday Matinee. I remember liking the cartoon and loving the ending, but what impressed me most was the way Tex Avery managed to grab the attention of the restless Saturday Matinee audience, usually much too absorbed in chattering, yelling, and hurling popcorn boxes at the screen to give any film their full attention, and got them involved in his insane story so they were laughing exactly where he intended them to laugh -- particularly at the ending!

From John McElwee; film author, historian and curator of the Greenbriar Picture Shows:

Rock-A-Bye Bear (1952) -- I saw few cartoons in theatres growing up. Our Liberty just didn't use them -- too much expense I guess. This one, however, showed up quite unexpectedly in the early eighties as bonus with some dreadful Ursula Andress pic about love slaves in the Amazon (can't recall its title). The 35mm was faded, but Rock-A-Bye Bear was in otherwise clean shape for a print that must have been at least twenty years old by that time. It was also about the funniest cartoon I'd ever seen anywhere, and remains one of my favorites. How wonderful it must have been seeing all these great Tex Avery shorts when they were new! Television has been no substitute for that experience.

From Steve Fastner -- Comic art colorist half of the legendary Fastner & Larson Team.

I've always been attracted to heroic fantasy in comics, films or cartoons, so one early cartoon that stands out is The Underground World, from the Superman cartoon series. It was both scary and beautiful. I saw it on a black and white TV. The bird men were very menacing, the cave interior was mysterious, and the race to blow up the cave entrance was very suspenseful. The other Superman cartoons are great also.

Chris Buchman co-produced the Aesop's Fables DVD with Steve Stanchfield and Rex Schneider for Thunderbean Animation.

My initial exposure to animated cartoons was memorable and, in retrospect, highly significant. As a young lad in the late 1940s I was treated to thrice daily screenings of ancient animated funnies on television . . . the Bobby Bumps, Felix The Cats and entries from the Aesop’s Fables series from Van Beuren Studio, particularly the delicious musical romps Toy Time (1931) and Silvery Moon (1933). The former is about a pair of love-smitten mice having a midnight fling in a toyshop; the latter, the adventures of an enamored pair of kitties cavorting on the moon made of ice cream, candy and cake.

The centerpiece of each cartoon is a sequence, constructed on a solitary melody, in which the characters perform the theme on instruments; in Toy Time the instruments are toys; in Silvery Moon they are candy. The character animation is identical in both sequences. What a wonderfully-exciting discovery to have made before I was seven. The sparkling melody, which eluded me until attending the Ringling Brothers - Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1954, is “The Siamese Patrol” by Paul Lincke (he composed “The Glow Worm”). The piece was a favorite of Ringling Maestro, Merle Evans. (You can enjoy both cartoons, along with the comparison of the animated sequences as a bonus on Thunderbean’s Aesop’s Fables DVD.)

Bob Campbell is co-creator and producer of the original Matinee at the Bijou series on PBS, and continues working with a dedicated coalition of classic movie professionals to find a network home for the sequel series:

I’ll never forget seeing the great Chuck Jones masterpiece One Froggy Evening (1955) in a packed theater when I was 10 years old. I recall the audience falling out of their seats with infectious laughter. The cartoon opens with a construction worker discovering a box embedded in the cornerstone of a building undergoing demolition. When he opens the box he discovers a living frog that suddenly dons a hat and cane and begins performing a rousing rendition of “Hello! Ma Baby.” Thinking this his ticket to fame and fortune he tucks the box under his arm and quietly steals away. His first stop is the Acme Talent Agency, but upon presentation the little frog just sits there and croaks. When alone again with the frog, it belts out “The Michigan Rag” among other showstoppers - prompting the undeterred construction worker to dole out his life-savings on rental of a theater to present his discovery to the world.

During rehearsals the frog performs brilliantly until the curtain rises on the packed theater and, you guessed it, the frog just sits there and croaks. Driven insane by the frog’s continuing one-man performances, and learning of a new building under construction, our fortune-hunter plants the box and frog in the cornerstone of the new building. Fast-forward to 2056 AD and we witness a worker for the “Acme Building Disintegrators” discover the box with the performing frog -- and the cycle begins anew. Wouldn’t it be great if they started showing the best classic cartoons ever made once again as part of today’s movie-going experience.?

Marianne Richardson is a longtime fan of the original Matinee at the Bijou series and an occasional contributor to The Bijou Blog:

Ub Iwerks’ Balloonland (also called The Pincushion Man) from 1935 is the cartoon that I can never erase from my brain. I’ve tried. But my dad and I saw it once, on Matinee at the Bijou, and it has stayed with me for nearly 30 years. It begins sweetly enough, with a town of balloon people working together and singing a little song you don’t internalize until you hear the line “ A single pin/Would rip your skin!” Yet, despite this grim foreshadowing, when a little boy and girl balloon are warned about the dangers of the forest, what do they do? They make a beeline toward it!

Suddenly there’s the villainous Pincushion Man (with his peculiar and unfortunate anatomy) laughing evilly. Sitting in our darkened living room and watching him threaten the balloon boy and girl was like watching a mugging at knifepoint. The Pincushion Man essentially goes into the town and kills people until he is thrown, screaming, over the edge of the world. So much for nostalgia of a kinder, gentler age! Even at twelve years old I thought, “Wow. This is messed up.” When the cartoon was through, my father turned to me and said “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!” — which is my father’s way of saying, “Wow. That was messed up.”

If I’d been only five or six years old, I think I really would have been upset. Judging by the comments on YouTube ( a few of which follow) I wasn’t the only one who thought this cartoon could net you some hours in therapy ~~~

“Oh my god, when he pops the little stupid balloon, that part like devestated [sic] me when i was little!”

“The pin cushion man ruined my child hood.”

“Why would they put such an incompetent man to guard the only door into balloon town! WHY!”

“Sadistic. Horrendous. Terrifying. Typical Saturday-morning fun!! Actually, I see worse in today's toons all the time...”

“This video gave me nightmares for most of my life...”

“I always wondered why the pinman didn't just stick a pin in the floor and bedone with the whole world.”

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Here on our Bijou Blog screen is your chance to check out Balloonland for yourself. While you may not find this eccentric cartoon “unforgettable,” we’re sure you’ll agree it is bizarre and surrealistic.

(Note: Several cartoons in our “Unforgettable Cartoons” series, including Have You Got Any Castles?, One Froggy Evening, I Love to Singa and Slick Hare are included in one DVD super collection called: Looney Tunes Golden Collection – Vol. 2 and on sale now for $14.95 at Movies Unlimited. Also, a super DVD collection of all 17 of the original Fleischer Superman cartoons, including The Underground World, is on sale at Movies Unlimited for only $9.99.)

Unforgettable Cartoons

Name the most unforgettable classic cartoon you saw in your youth! It doesn't have to be a great cartoon or necessarily a favorite, just a single cartoon that really impressed or scared or convulsed you with laughter at a young age. We asked members of our Bijou team, some industry colleagues and other fans of classic cartoons what their most unforgettable cartoon was and received some delightful and amusing responses.

Jerry Beck, animation historian, author, and cartoon producer, also publishes an endlessly fascinating daily blog called Cartoon Brew:

It's difficult to pick one... but if I think hard, I'd have to select one of the Max Fleischer Color Classics. Those cartoons haunted me for years until, as an adult, I was able to track them down and rewatch them - and found that none of them had lost their power over me; nor their ability to simultaneously entertain and freak me out.

I find all the Color Classics disturbing and dark; childhood nightmares made real: the runaway train of Play Safe, the evil miser of Little Dutch Mill, the sad ending of the otherwise delightful Dancing on the Moon, the extreme poverty of Somewhere in Dreamland - I could go on and on.

I guess one which I still can't believe is Ants in the Plants (1940). I love this cartoon dearly, though it disturbed me for decades. This is about an army of ants who declare war on an invading aardvark. No Jackie Mason imitations here. There is a great, rousing (and violent) Sammy Timburg song, "Make 'Em Yell Uncle" sung by the Queen Ant in such a high pitched voice that makes Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like Baritones - and makes it difficult to decipher the lyrics on first listen. When the ant-eater finally attacks, his snout looks like a large uncircumcised male sex organ. When the ants fight back, and attack his member with hot pepper, salt and mustard, you can feel the pain in your groin - I still cross my legs just thinking about it. Talk about unforgettable! Only the Fleischer's could make a cartoon that still kicks you in the balls 70 years after it was made.

Ray Pointer is a cartoonist, filmmaker and President of Inkwell Images:

That would be the Betty Boop cartoon, HA! HA! HA! That was the last screen appearance of KO-KO The Clown, as he came out of the inkwell and started prowling around atop Max Fleischer's desk. Finding a Hershey bar, he broke off a large corner and started eating it with glutinous gusto until his jaw started swelling up due to a toothache.

The Close-up on KO-KO's jaw revealed the little decay devils hammering away at the central nerve of the tooth. That image impressed my as a child about the dangers of eating candy and the importance of brushing your teeth.

Leslie Cabarga is a cartoonist, illustrator, Betty Boop aficionado and author of the book The Fleischer Story:

Two unforgettable cartoons stand out from my youth, the first of which is the Max Fleischer Popeye cartoon Sock-a-Bye Baby, 1934. Aside from the fact that the ambiance of the Popeye’s, with their sumptuous backgrounds always floored me, I remember best the scene where a radio crooner is singing, "You came to me from out of nowhere..." and then, to silence him, Popeye punches a loudspeaker which causes his Sock! to travel the wires straight to the crooner and make the words to the song come true.

But probably the cartoon that enchanted me most as a child, and which I was not again to see until the marvel of YouTube brought all these things back to us, was the WB Merrie Melodies cartoon I Love to Singa, 1936. I realize now as I write this that it was the music in both of the cartoons I've mentioned, that I loved as much as the cartoons themselves. This particular song, "Singa" sung by Tommy Bond, who played Butch in Little Rascals, has also a beautiful musical bridge that I loved. As a kid, I couldn't identify this musical genre that so attracted me but later, as a teenager, I found out that it was 20s-30s popular music that I now enjoy playing on the piano. So for me, the humor, art and music of the old cartoons have left an indelible impression to this day.

Bill Cassara is author of the book Edgar Kennedy: Master of the Slow Burn

Without even trying to think about it, my favorite cartoon is I Love to Singa with Owl Jolson. Great music, great fun, great voices. Billy Bletcher as the father (also the voice of the "Big Bad Wolf," Our Gang's Tommy Bond is Owl Jolson. Then there's Jack "Bunny." The illustrations are full and fluid easily beating out my second favorite; One Froggy Evening.


I couldn't pinpoint my age when I saw I Love to Singa, but it was on TV in the late 50's and early 60's. A local non-affiliated station ran a solid half-hour of these cartoons on Sunday morning. A welcome opportunity for entertainment. I was drawn to the old music themed cartoons, esp. Leon Schlesinger. Everything was black and white on TV back then, but it didn't matter.

Occasionally they would show theatrical cartoons at the local "kiddie matinee" A projected Donald Duck would draw huge applause. I grew up with an appreciation of this art form and was thrilled when people like Leonard Maltin said he liked
cartoons.

A scary cartoon? The Betty Boop one with Cab Callaway doing Minnie the Moocher. Abstract visuals and ghostly moans. I was also spooked with that cartoon with the little flies having a party and the big ugly spider came in. Can't remember the title of that one, but it made an impression on me.

Jim Engel is a cartoonist, designer, pop culture maniac and Chicago Kids' TV historian:

Friz Freleng's Slick Hare --- Bugs was always my favorite as a kid, and I loved this cartoon, even though I didn't know who Humphrey Bogart, The Marx Bros., Carmen Miranda, etc. were when I was 5 or 6... I had an intuition they were "real" people by the way they were drawn (VS Elmer Fudd), but it wasn't until I got into old movies (particularly the Marx’s & Bogie) that a bell went off for me --- "Oh! These are those guys from that BUGS BUNNY CARTOON!" After that, I loved it even more. WGN, the local Chicago powerhouse had the WB package. They ran on “Breakfast with Bugs Bunny” (which had a live host & a puppet cast including a beautiful BUGS puppet!), then “Ray Rayner & Friends.”


I know it’s not fashionable to say, but really, for me, its Freleng cartoons that most DEFINE Bugs -- Slick Hare, Rhapsody Rabbit, A Hare Grows In Brooklyn, Baseball Bugs, Racketeer Rabbit, Bugs Bunny Rides Again, Little Red Riding Rabbit, Hare Force, etc…

Ron Hall is a Bijou team member and public purveyor of public domain films at Festival Films and Café Roxy:

My pick is the 1934 Mickey Mouse cartoon The Dognapper; although as a kid I knew it only as Buzz Saw Mickey from the 3 minute 8mm home movie release. At a young age, even before “The Mickey Mouse Club” was on TV, we had our parents run it every time they broke out the home movie projector. We would watch it in slow motion and backward, and reacted with an innocence similar to the convicts watching Mickey Mouse in Sullivan’s Travels. The gags are still quite hilarious.

After Minnie’s Pekinese is dog-napped, police officers Mickey and Donald Duck, in one of his very few black and white cartoons and with the long-beak look, pursue Pegleg Pete to his saw mill lair. Our film only showed the climax in which a giant buzz saw blade gets loose, assumes a mind of its own (like stalking its victims) and chases all three characters until the saw mill is sliced into shambles. The dark laughs, the chase surreal and the danger real left a lasting impression.

Victoria Balloon is a Bijou team member and a freelance writer:

My unforgettable cartoon is one I can’t fully recall — something about a little African boy in the jungle hunting… something? There are many cartoons I recall from childhood that are heavily edited or no longer shown because networks realized certain stereotypes were no longer acceptable to audiences. But this little boy I remembered, he wasn’t one of those gags where a cigar blows up and the character is shown in blackface, or where a cymbal smacks the character’s head and he turns into a Chinaman; I remembered this boy as being… sweet, actually. Kind of timid, a little unsure… Then an image of Cindy-Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas! flashed through my mind, and that’s how I knew to search IMDB under Chuck Jones — his distinctive style comes through in everything he touches.

The little black boy’s name is Inki, and he was in a total of five cartoons from 1939 to 1950, all directed by Jones. The plots revolve around Inki as a great hunter — or at least trying to be — but his aim is always a little off and this strange mynah bird wanders by and distracts him. As in so many Warner Brother’s cartoons, the hunter is outwitted by his prey and becomes the hunted, with many ensuing gags.


Inki was as I remembered him — hair in a topknot, wearing only a short skirt, toes turned in and looking a bit uncertain. However, as an adult I viewed him with more skepticism. I mean, come on, “Inki?” Were there signs of the minstrel-show stereotypes typically used to portray blacks in the early 20th century?

Inki may be unique as Warner Brother’s only multi-cartoon black character, but his antics and gags are pretty much the same as Elmer Fudd’s. Jones’ animation style is clearly apparent; Inki’s sheepish grin in the same as Bugs Bunny’s when Bugs knows he’s gone too far. However, without a doubt Inki’s mouth hearkens back to the kind of face once used to sell watermelon.


Moreover, Inki changes over time, and he is more of a black stereotype in the later cartoons than in the earlier ones. He began with his hair done up in a brass ring, but in Inki at the Circus (1947) his hair is done up in a bone. Indeed, the most grotesque characterization in any of the cartoons is the shadow Inki supposedly casts — that of a primitive “African Wildman.” The switch to the bone may have been part of the cartoon’s gag (two stray dogs fighting over the bone in Inki’s hair) but the bone also appeared in the last cartoon, Caveman Inki (1950). Probably the cartoon I remember from childhood is Inki and the Lion (1941).

Do I think we should put these cartoons back in the after-school rotation? — Emphatically no. But they are part of our history; the mainstream acceptance of these grotesque caricatures in cartoons demonstrates with startling clarity why the Civil Rights movement needed to happen. I do think we need to make these cartoons available, in context, to demonstrate to a younger generation that America once saw these kinds of images as endearing and entertaining.

I'm a bit sad to find out that my memory was sweeter than the reality. As a child I did not recognize Inki’s stereotypes; as an adult I see the images and wonder how an artist of Jones’ caliber could put forth something like this as entertainment. Perhaps there is a small something in how as a child, I saw through the racial implications and remembered only sweetness, and how even working with grotesque stereotypes, Jones gave his characters humanity.

Alas, we are all a product of our times.
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And now, we present for your enjoyment Ants in the Plants. This and many more Fleischer Color Classics are available on a sumptuous DVD collection produced by Jerry Beck and Michael Geisler called "Somewhere in Dreamland" - which is available for purchase at VCI Entertainment.

All-Girl Bands: The International Sweethearts of Rhythm and Tiny Davis

Musical ensembles consisting of all female players had existed since the 1920s, but their popularity really took off during World War II. It wasn't just the draft, though - all of America was on the move, and the fixed cultural "norms" of segregational Jim Crow laws were about to be curved and bent like the brass instruments of a swing band. Contributor Victoria Balloon takes a look at one such group of women who could take off with style and the legacy of syncopated treasures they left behind.

In her book Swing Shift: "All-Girl Bands" of the 1940s, Sherrie Tucker writes how "the war thrust the swing industry (and other industries) into a supply-and-demand crisis that required drastic reconfiguration of workers and consumers." Separated from loved ones and far from home, Americans found "diversion, comfort, and social contact through music and dance."

Swing music became patriotic - defense workers danced to it and solders longed for the reminders of home and what they were fighting for. The draft made it difficult for the traditional male bands to keep up with the demand, while wartime restrictions on travel and commodities made it difficult for any band to get to their gigs.

For women who were musicians before the war or who intended to keep on playing after, the increased exposure of the all-girl bands gave the impression that all-girl bands and women as musicians were "just a fad," or for wartime only, until the boys came home.

During the war years women were actively recruited and encouraged to work outside the home, but always with the tacit assumption that they would go back to the domestic sphere after the war. (Tucker 35, 37)

Band leaders like Ina Ray Hutton and Phil Spitalny had already demonstrated that all-girl orchestras possessed legitimate talent that people wanted to listen to, but these all-white groups never encountered the issues of race. Being black and female gave these musicians two counts against hiring them, but these women wanted to play music and would not be stopped. They heard their brothers, boyfriends, and heroes swing and decided they could do it, too.

They learned to play - either through school bands or by ear, sitting in on jam sessions the way men did - and formed their own bands, with names like The Swinging Rays of Rhythm, the Darlings of Rhythm, and the Prairie View Co-Eds. The black theater circuit in the north was small, and only the most well-known African-American bands were booked. As a result, many of these black all-girl bands were confined to road trips and mostly one-night engagements in the South and thus encountered Jim Crow laws. Because of the difficulties of public transportation and wartime rationings, tours were impossible for black bands that did not have their own bus. They had to keep moving; both to get to the next gig as well as avoid the inevitable harassment by authorities.

Booking agents booked gigs; they were not responsible for getting the bands to them. With difficulties in wartime transportation, many bands used private vehicles to rush between gigs that were sometimes hundreds of miles apart, and when exhausted musicians were behind the wheel, accidents were not uncommon. It wasn't as simple missing a paying gig; being late or a failure to show without the full band could constitute breach of contract. (Tucker 64-5)

Having a bus wasn't always a solution. Trumpet player Toby Butler recalls how the Sweethearts' bus once filled with carbon monoxide: "Passersby removed us from the bus and placed us alongside of the road until we recovered out in the air." No bus would work without gas or tires, and both of these commodities were rationed during the war. The synthetic rubber tires made for use at home were notoriously prone to blowouts. Sometimes the girls could coax gas coupons from truckers who stopped when they saw the tour bus broken down by the side of the road. Even when the bus ran, the wartime speed limit was set at 35 mph. Travel by train wasn't always a better option; segregation made it difficult for African-American bands to travel together. (Tucker 64-66)

The longest lived of the black orchestras (1937- 48) and considered today to be the most renowned of the 1940s "all-girl" bands, The International Sweethearts of Rhythm began in the late 1930s at the Piney Woods School, a foster-child institution for African-American and minority children in Mississippi. The Piney Woods Country Life School was founded 1909 by Laurence C. Jones, who emphasized training the "head, heart and hands of youth." Some of the students were poor and orphaned, some were physically handicapped. Others were more affluent and able to pay, but according to the schools' philosophy, none who were willing to work were turned away. Dr. Jones believed in sending "musical ambassadors" to promote the school and give it publicity throughout the region. He noted too, the popularity of all-white orchestra directors Ina Ray Hutton and Phil Spitalny and "conceived the idea of glorifying 'the girls of tan and brown' orchestrally."

Band leader Consuella Carter (an alumnae of the school and veteran of one of the school's early vocal touring groups, The Cotton Blossoms) began building The Sweethearts from talented students aged 14 to 19, including some members from the school's junior college. They played dances, fund-raisers, and conventions in Mississippi and adjoining states. Dr. Jones sometimes appeared with the band to give lectures regarding the school and its mission. Edna Williams became the Sweethearts' musical director. A talented trumpet player who was sometimes called, "the female Satchmo," she was fully capable of filling in on any instrument in the orchestra.

In 1940 the Sweethearts made their big debut at the Howard Theater in Washington DC. It was so successful that a contract to play New York's Apollo Theater was immediately signed.

In August of that year the Sweethearts competed with thirty other swing bands at the New York City World's Fair in a competition sponsored by Swing magazine; the Sweethearts placed third. Reviewers proclaimed they were "a package of music wrapped in the cellophane of loveliness" and that "no hotter bunch ever tooted a horn or beat a drum." The band's September 1940 schedule looked like this: Fredericksburg, VA (16th); Frederick, MD (17th); Alexandria, VA (18th); Emporia, VA (19th); Petersburg, VA (20th) Martinsville, VA (23rd); Statesville, NC (24th); Charlotte, NC (25th); and Columbia, SC (27th). Being famous meant hitting the road - hard. (Handy 49-50)

Click on this image to read an article from The Afro American of Baltimore, MD. Be sure to scroll up and read the second article about the Sweethearts' first film!

Under the Piney Woods management original band members were paid $7 a week for food and $1 extra. Bookers convinced manager and chaperone Rae Lee Jones (no relation to Laurence C. Jones) that leaving the school and letting Albert Dade and Dan Garey manage the band and giving Amusement Enterprises of Washington DC booking rights would result in better incomes. In April 1941 the Sweethearts severed ties with the school. Though the band did see an increase in pay to fifteen dollars a week, it was still far below union levels. Original band members were told that they owned a house outside of Arlington, Virginia, and that most of their money went into paying off the mortgage. Later, when Professional musicians were hired, they were paid at very different levels than the original girls who had been at the Piney Woods School.

Eddie Durham (left) and Jesse Stone (right).

However, separating from the Piney Woods School did allow the business to hire professionals. Musical director (and solo trumpet player) Edna Williams was responsible for the band's early sound, but it was Eddie Durham, formerly a trombonist with Count Basie, who worked with the strengths of the individual band members to create solos and helped them polish it. Durham also contributed arrangements to Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw, and after he formed his own band in 1942, was often billed as "The Sepia Phil Spitalny." After Durham, Jesse Stone hired more professional musicians and improved the Sweethearts' overall musical technique. Both Stone and Durham knew that the band members weren't being paid what they were worth and were suspicious of the band's finances, and both eventually quit the band over these issues.

Another change was the band's leader. Anna Mae Winburn was already a seasoned professional when she joined the Sweethearts and had been singing with and directing several professional male orchestras, such as Frank Shelton "Red" Perkins' Dixie Ramblers and Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders out of Omaha NE. In 1941 she was fronting the Blue Devils of Oklahoma City; however, many of the musicians were lost to the draft because of World War II and she was left without a band. It was the owner of a ballroom in Omaha who recommended her to the Sweethearts. She recalls that, "When I first joined the Sweethearts I said what a bunch of cute girls, but I don't know whether or not I can get along with that many women or not." Apparently she could, and the dynamic Winburn conducted and sang with the band until its demise in 1948.

Of course, once separated from the school the pool of available musicians was no longer limited to the student body. Professionals were hired, and this is how trumpet player Ernestine "Tiny" Davis joined. Born between 1907 and 1913 in Memphis, Tennessee, her introduction to the trumpet was quite simple: she saw the boys at school with trumpets, and she asked her mother to buy her one. Her family was by no means wealthy, but Davis did eventually get her trumpet, which she practiced on top of the barn. In the early thirties Davis formed her own group, the Torrid Eight, which played clubs in Kansas City, and in 1935 she joined the Harlem Play-Girls organized by Sylvester Rice. This band was considered one of the finest of the all-black jazz dance bands, and Davis traveled the country, winning over crowds at the Savoy Ballroom. When the Sweethearts went professional in 1941, hiring a musician of Davis' caliber was a smart business move.

However, women who played in all-girl bands had to be more than musicians: they were entertainment, and they had to be glamorous. During the war years they were also seen as the epitome of the sweethearts back home the boys were fighting for. Both short and wide, Davis did not fit the usual descriptions of feminine charm.

There were some all-girl bands that would have insisted upon her losing weight, or simply would not have hired her, but Davis built a whole stage persona around the name "Tiny," billing herself as "245 pounds of jive and rhythm." (Tucker 61, 49) In the 1947 Soundie How 'Bout That Jive?, listeners knew Davis meant it when she belted out the words: "Mama's round & brown & can roll just like a ball/ Yes mama's round & brown & can roll just like a ball/ She's got a lot to give & daddy you can have it all."

Eventually, Louis Armstrong would even attempt to steal trumpet player Tiny Davis away from the Sweethearts by offering her ten times her current salary. Tiny did not go with him. In later years, she simply said, "I loved them gals too much. Them was some sweet gals - you know."

In advertisements and newspaper reviews, the "International" in the band's name was sometimes left out, and the group was simply "The Sweethearts of Rhythm." The "International" was used in part to give the band an "exotic" feel, but it also announced to the Jim Crow South that there were white-looking women in the band who were descended from non-white countries. Saxophonist Willie Mae Wong had Chinese and African-American parents, clarinetist Alma Cortez was of Mexican descent, saxophonist Nina de LaCruz was Indian, and trumpet Nova Lee McGee was Hawaiian. In addition, there were also light-skinned and mixed race African-American women - and under Jim Crow laws, all were considered legally black. Wong did not recall any incidents of police harassment until the band began traveling with white women. (Tucker 149)

The Sweethearts hired the first white woman, trumpet player Toby Butler, in 1943. Butler was a white woman who had been raised in Virginia by a black woman and her two daughters. Personal friends of Sweethearts' manager Rae Lee Jones, it was the Young family who first took her to hear the band. Roz Cron also joined the Sweethearts in 1943. She was 18 years old, an alto saxophonist from Boston with a classical background and who could read music. "I thought I was great," she remembers. "But when I joined this band, many of these girls had problems reading because they learned to play the hard way. but what they had was a relaxed way of approaching the music-their beat was different from our more uptight white rhythm."

Because the band was integrated, in some areas of the country white band members had to pass for black. In those areas of the Deep South, the band was under constant surveillance by police attempting to enforce Jim Crow laws specifically forbidding black and white persons from traveling together. Jim Crow laws also forbade black and white women from working or eating together, and in some instances, from walking down the street together. (For more information on the history and specifics of Jim Crow Laws, read this entry in Wikipedia, or check out this article from Ferris State University. Be warned: the images are graphic.)
These laws essentially resulted in the criminalization of African-American all-girl bands. Members became suspect as working women, as musicians, and as being dressed too nicely and possibly a bit too confident and easy in the way they spoke to white police officers or club owners. The all-girl bands could be lawfully questioned and intimidated by any white person who wanted to know why they had access to so many gas coupons or where they were going, and if the questioner's tone was rude or filled with sexual intimidation, there was nothing they could do. (Tucker 136-7)

In some ways blacks would have been safer in an all-black rather than an integrated band. The white members either had to wear makeup to pass for black, or rely on the "one drop" rule of Jim Crow laws - meaning that there were in fact black persons who appeared to be as white as anybody else. White women joined black bands because they wanted to learn more or play "real" jazz and swing music, not the watered down version of black arrangements prevalent in all-white female orchestras like Phil Spitalny's Hour of Charm or Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girls.

Through tricks of makeup and hairstyling, and because they were traveling with so many mixed-race and light-skinned women who were considered legally black, Butler and Cron were usually able to pass for black; but when they weren't, Butler described the harassment as "pretty bad." "In one place we were warned before we got there not to get off the bus because they had placed these firebombs, I guess you call them, into the dance hall and they were set to go off. So we never played the gig." (Tucker 149-50) At the same time, when the Sweethearts and other African-American bands went to small towns in the South, people really came out to see them because the bands were regarded as something special, proof that there were other roles for blacks to play in American culture. The Sweethearts always appreciated their support and tried to give them a great show.

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were named by Down Beat magazine as America's #1 All-Girl Orchestra in 1944. They performed on the northern black theater circuit, including the Apollo in New York, the Paradise in Detroit, and the Howard in Washington, D.C. Because in the Deep South they could never be sure of finding lodgings, and they did not want to run afoul of the Jim Crow laws, the Sweethearts had their bus equipped with eating and sleeping facilities. Baritone saxophonist Willie Mae Wong attributed the band's breakup in part to the irreparable breakdown of this private Pullman-type sleeper bus, dubbed "Big Bertha" by the band. (Tucker 67)

Letter-writing campaigns by black soldiers overseas led to the band embarking on a 6-month European tour in 1945, making the Sweethearts the first black women to travel with the USO. They also played Armed Forces Radio broadcasts of Jubilee, a show targeting African-American soldiers. (Tucker 165) Unfortunately, these USO shows and entertainments were just as strictly segregated as entertainment in the United States.

When the band returned to the States, they continued to tour and play large venues until manager Rae Lee Jones became ill and could no longer travel. Jones died in 1948, and this combined with the post-war economy and club-owners' realization that smaller bands were cheaper to hire marked the end of the Sweethearts. Winburn reorganized the band into Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts of Rhythm which continued from 1950 to 1956. (Handy 63)

When band members got older and tried to collect Social Security, it was quickly revealed that the payments were never made for the musicians. As early as 1943 it was clear there was financial murkiness, when Al Dade asked the courts to order an accounting of the band's financial affairs. He contended that he had invested $10,000 in the band, but had no "satisfactory accounting" of how this money was used or the earnings of the orchestra. (Baltimore Afro-American, May 1943) Whether the money was out and out stolen or mismanaged is not clear. Band members have differing opinions of what their manager Rae Lee Jones and backers Albert Dade and Dan Garey may have done, but all agree that they had been shamelessly exploited. (Tucker 189)

After the demise of the Sweethearts, Tiny Davis formed a six member ensemble called the Hell Divers and toured the United States and Caribbean until the early 1950s. Davis and long-term partner drummer/pianist Ruby Lucas (who also performed under the name of Renee Phelan) ran a bar called Tiny and Ruby's Gay Spot in Chicago during the 1950s. Vi Burnside, one of the Sweethearts' saxophone soloists, played there as well as Davis' own group. In the 1970s Davis was part of a three piece ensemble that played for senior citizens and hospital patients.

In 1988 Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss produced Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women, and through this candid and funny documentary Davis and Lucas became adopted as cultural heroes for the gay rights movement. Though the film is only 30 minutes, it is a wonderful look at Davis, Lucas, and the history they lived, and some of the last records of Davis' music; she died in 1994. (This edited clip on YouTube is a wonderful look at Tiny's sassy music and her relationship with Ruby.)

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm made very few studio recordings, but recent interest in the band, both from a jazz music and feminist perspective, has made them more available. Some are actually transcriptions from the Jubilee black entertainment radio show and film footage produced by African-American producer William D. Alexander. (Hot Licks: 1944-1946 is available at Amazon.com, and you can listen to snippets from each of the tracks, complete with radio announcer.)

The Sweethearts of Rhythm appeared in three shorts: She's Crazy with the Heat (1947), That Man of Mine (1947), and How 'Bout that Jive (1947). Producer Alexander distributed these short features to theaters catering to black audiences and also re-edited the films into numerous shorter clips to be used as Mills Panoram Soundies. Harlem Jam Session (1949) was a short-subject comprised of footage shot mostly in 1946. These films capture the Sweethearts during their heyday, but through a combination of film resolution and editing, they do not clearly show the integrated racial makeup of the band, which would have made distribution more difficult.

Because they traveled the South when it was dangerous to do so and their very existence challenged the traditional roles of African-Americans, many former band members considered their experience in black bands as "paving the way" for the freedom riders and civil rights advocates of the 1950s and 60s. (Tucker 142, 145) At the same time, musicians who played in African-American bands did not necessarily perceive their experiences as being particularly historical or important. Rather, they did what they did because they needed a job and the vacancy was there. These ladies wanted to swing, to "fake, ride, and take-off" the way their male counterparts did. The Big Bands faded from the scene, and groups like the International Sweethearts of Rhythm followed, but we at the Bijou are so happy that their recordings and films have not faded, but remain for all of the public to enjoy.

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For More information:
Sherrie Tucker's Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s looks at a cross-section of the different bands and their activities during the war years. Stormy Weather: the Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen by Linda Dahl and D. Antoinette Handy's Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras are a who's who of women in the music scene of the 20th century.

The Bijou Blog Screen:

We present to you four of the Sweethearts' performances from 1947: She's Crazy with the Heat contains a piano solo by Johnnie Mae Rice with Violet Burnside on saxophone; Jump Children has Anna Mae Winburn providing the vocals; Vi's Vigor, which was Burnside's signature sax solo (that's Willie Mae Wong seated next to her); and How Bout that Jive? sung by Tiny Davis, with a trumpet solo at the end. Unfortunately, the audio track on the last two numbers seems to be about 15 seconds out of sync with the video; still, it's worth a look to see Tiny Davis use her physical presence to rivet the audience.

All-Girl Bands: Phil Spitalny and Frances Blaisdell

Many think of all-girl bands as a World War II phenomenon made necessary because of the draft, but musical ensembles consisting of all female players had existed since the 1920s. Phil Spitalny’s orchestra had 20 years (1934-1954) of coast to coast success that included concerts, movies and network radio sponsorships usually reserved for male bands.

Join us now as contributor Victoria Balloon conducts a symphonic study of the all-girl orchestra that became an American standard and composes a very special tribute to Spitalny flutist Frances Blaisdell.


In conducting interviews for her book, Swing Shift: “All-Girl Bands” of the 1940s, Sherrie Tucker realized that “the word Spitalny is not just the name of a bandleader but a useful adjective with both positive and negative connotations. Spitalny means strings and harps and elaborate production numbers. It means an emphasis on a particular brand of femininity.” (p.71)

Phil Spitalny and The Hour of Charm was so well-known that on an episode of I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo threatened his band with, “The first guy who looks like he’s playing in his sleep gets traded to Phil Spitalny.” The threat demonstrates stereotypes all girl bands dealt with — that they weren’t professional, that they were somehow inferior to the male bands they “copied.” (Tucker, p.79) Professional female musicians had to live down this stereotype and the Spitalny jokes whether they played for the band or not.

Spitalny was born in Russia in 1890 and began his musical education at the age of 9, training at the Conservatory of Music in Odessa on the piano and violin. The clarinet, however, was his main instrument, and he made several appearances as a child prodigy playing it. In 1905 he came to the U.S. with his family, settling in Cleveland, OH. There, he and one of his brothers were part of an orchestra which performed in the dining room of the city's Hotel Statler. Spitalny also became a member of the original Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.

Later Spitalny moved to Boston and for two years lead a 50-piece ensemble that played Loew’s State Theater. Eventually he formed his own touring orchestra, which recorded for Victor from 1924 to 1926. Spitalny collaborated with many big-name composers such as Gus Kahn and jazz musician Lee “Stubby” Gordon, but perhaps his most lasting tune, made famous by The Drifters (1960) is “Save the Last Dance for Me,” which he co-authored with Frank Magine and Walter Hirsch.

Spitalny moved to New York in 1928; his conventional all male band, the Phil Spitalny Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra, had a successful debut in 1930 and performed concerts, played night clubs and was heard on the radio.

Why Spitalny decided to disband his male orchestra and create one entirely of female musicians is lost somewhere between the legend he created and the reality of musical employment during the Great Depression. In 1938 Spitalny told Etude Magazine:

If I were seeking an effect of power, of heavy beats, of sort of military precision that commands you against your will, I should certainly not go to work with a group of girls. But the effect desired was one of charm, of mellowness, of floating, elusive persuasion. And so it seemed the most natural logical thing in the world to assemble a band of women and to ask them simply to go on being charming women in their playing.

One version is that in 1932 Spitalny saw a “brilliant violinist” performing a concert, and thus the idea was born to search America looking for other women who could form an orchestra. Was the violinist Evelyn Kaye Klein, or did he discover her later at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School)? The search cost $20,000, and Spitalny auditioned some 1,500 women musicians before he found twenty-two of them judged good enough to be in his group.


“Sweetness and Charm” would be part of his formula for success, and in order to keep “his girls” sweet and charming Spitalny had them rehearse for five or six hours a day. They signed contracts that they would not marry for two years, and then only with six month’s notice. They could not weigh over 122 pounds and wore their hair styled in “long, soft bobs.”

Evelyn Kaye Klein became Evelyn and Her Magic Violin, accompanied by the Golden Voice of Vivien (soprano) and the Haunting Voice of Maxine (contralto).

Spitalny knew he had a good orchestra, but sponsors for an all-girl band were harder to come by. He arranged a “blind” audition for Linit Bath Oil — the orchestra played in another location and the music was piped in — and only after Linit had signed the contract did they learn the orchestra was all-female. The orchestra made its debut in New York City’s Capitol Theater, and began a network radio program, "The Hour of Charm," on January 3, 1935.

Part of the popularity of Phil Spitalny’s orchestra may be that he never sought to compete with male bands, but emphasized the femininity of his players. The novelty of an all-girl orchestra became an attraction, and by 1940 the orchestra had expanded to 34 members. Phil Spitalny and the Hour of Charm radio program was a fixture on Sundays, first over CBS (1935), then NBC (1936-46) with General Electric, and then back on CBS (1946-48) with the Electric Light and Power Company. In 1937 the orchestra won the Achievement Award from the radio committee of the Women's National Exposition of Arts and Industries for the most distinguished work of women in radio during the previous year.

Evelyn and her Magic Violin. Click on this image to read the bios of the girls in the original orchestra.

Spitalny also did not emphasize the previous professional achievements of his musicians, but a number of them had long resumes. The programs from his concerts instead outlined their “feminine pursuits.” In a 1940 program these biographies describe the hobbies of the musicians, such as “collecting big stuffed dolls” and “Southern cooking,” and relaxing with “beauty treatments” and “gab fests.” (One wonders what male musicians such as Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey might have listed.) (Tucker, p.82-84)

Women who worked with Spitalny have said he was in turns fair, gruff, and demanding, but also gave his musicians fair salaries and opportunities to study with musicians they wouldn't have had access to otherwise. Some have said he founded an all-girl orchestra because men would have punched him before submitting to his demands. Some of Spitalny’s requirements were unique — all music was memorized so that the music stands wouldn’t detract from the gowns the musicians wore — but many were demands made on all girl bands at the time.


In matters of appearance, women encountered many more difficulties than male band members. Regardless of how far they had traveled or how many hours they’d managed to sleep on a tour bus, all-girl bands had to appear onstage in long dresses and heels looking beautiful, despite the fact that some instruments do not work well with an evening gown — straps for saxophones often bit into bare necks, and it is impossible to work the pedals of a drum while wearing heels. In addition to weight and age restrictions, some bands barred wearing glasses. Glamour was hard work; unfortunately, despite the fact that it was expected of them, the particular attention to appearances was one more thing that made some critics believe members of all-girl bands weren’t “serious” musicians.

Of particular concern for any band leader was strict chaperoning — no dating, no friends backstage, no men waiting at the stage door. Because female performers had reputations (deserved or not) of having looser morals, there was the need to protect the reputation of both the bands and the musicians. The bands were professionals, but also women batting gender stereotypes in America. Many managers, owners and military officers expected more than just a floor show. Some club owners expected members of bands to act as B-girls — hostesses who circulate and chat up customers to buy more drinks. (Tucker, p.59-63)

When it came to travel, the girls in Spitalny’s group were lucky; such was the success of the band that they traveled to engagements in private railroad cars. This was extremely useful during the war years, when gas and rubber were rationed and the ultimate success of a band often depended on how long their buses and cars could be kept running. Porters were instructed not to let anyone into the Spitalny private cars. Inevitably, some did get in, and Spitalny would remove them himself.

Did Spitalny hire women because he thought they deserved equal time, or did he hire them because, knowing they had fewer professional options than their male counterparts, would be more willing to endure his demands? While conducting her research, Sherrie Tucker found a disturbing and bizarre theme: Spitalny would sometimes interview potential musicians in his underwear. She summarizes the story:

A young woman shows up for her interview at the appointed time, either at Spitalny’s hotel room or at his dressing room. She knocks at the door, then is faced with the decision of what to do when he answers it dressed in nothing but his undershorts. Should she forfeit the job by refusing to enter? Or should she go on with the interview, risking further inappropriate behavior?

According to Tucker, those who fled were less ashamed than those who stayed for the audition. Women who experienced this with Spitalny and joined the band did not discuss the details with other band members and did not know others had similar experiences. No one said that he ever got “fresh” or did anything more than sit in his underwear. (p.92-94) Interestingly enough, in his autobiography Mickey Katz (Jewish comedian and musician) recalls Spitalny backstage at the Loew’s State Theater in Boston, wandering around in his silk BVDs to “air out his parts.” One wonders if Spitalny was simply boorish and unthinking, or found it psychologically stimulating to appear before others in a state of undress.

Hour of Charm radio announcer Richard Stark surrounded by some of the girls in the orchestra.

Making the musicians look like delicate ladies of leisure rather than wage earning women was a stage effect. By emphasizing that his players came from some of the “best schools,” Spitalny gave an impression of an upper-class background rather than union members making $75 - $100 a week (the soloists made much more). One thing was absolutely certain: Spitalny’s particular brand of femininity was for and about white women only. While there were many African-American all-girl bands, Phil Spitalny’s orchestra was not one of them.

Who were the women who played in Spitalny’s orchestra, and what were their musical careers both before and after the experience? Frances Blaisdell, who passed away in March of this year, was the first woman wind player admitted to the Juilliard School of Music as well as the first to perform as soloist with the New York Philharmonic. She also played flute in the Phil Spitalny Orchestra from 1934-37.

Blaisdell first learned the flute from her father, a man in the lumber business and self-taught flutist. Disappointed she was not a boy, he called her “Jim.” When he wrote to New York Philharmonic flutist Ernest Wagner, her father asked if he would teach “my Jim.” It came as quite a surprise to Wagner when he saw “Jim” was a girl. At first he was not at all interested, but eventually relented after hearing her audition.

Georges Barrère, circa 1941. “He had a presence,” notes Blaisdell.

In 1928 she began her studies with the preeminent French flutist Georges Barrère, first at the Institute of Musical Art and then at the Juilliard Graduate School. This too almost did not come about, because her audition at Juilliard was scheduled as "Francis Blaisdell,” the masculine spelling of her name. Upon seeing the mistake an administrator tried to cancel her appointment, but Blaisdell, almost in tears, argued her way into Barrère's studio. Barrère was impressed; Blaisdell was admitted. Later she also studied with Marcel Moyse and William Kincaid.

Because women were barred outright from playing in major orchestras at that time, Blaisdell forged a successful career as a soloist and chamber musician. In 1932 she made her solo debut with the New York Philharmonic — a children’s concert, in which she played the Mozart D major concerto. Is this perhaps how Spitalny first saw Blaisdell? A story from The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1937 says only that Blaisdell “came to his attention as a featured soloist with a well known male ensemble in New York.”

Blaisdell and members of “the band,” as they called it, were similarly musically well-educated and looking for more professional experiences. In addition to the concerts and radio engagements with Spitalny’s orchestra, during the 1930s Blaisdell played with the women’s orchestras under Antonia Brico and Ethel Leginska as well as with the New Opera Company and the New Friends of Music. If she and her bandmates could find work substituting for a musician who was ill or on vacation, they did it — as many things as their schedules would allow.

Radio and theater orchestras were a major source of employment, and in 1935 Blaisdell played four shows daily for two weeks at Radio City Music Hall. In her 2005 interview with “The Flutist Quarterly” she recalled wearing a beautiful gold lamé dress and having two Rockettes on either side of her. “And the first day,” Blaisdell said, “when that curtain opened, and I saw that vast, enormous, tremendous auditorium, all black, I just froze, absolutely terrified, and one of these Rockettes said, ‘Get going, kid, and smile.’ And I did both those things.”

Blaisdell remembered Spitalny as being hard-nosed and tight with a dollar, but he did pay his musicians well, and the money was very good on the vaudeville circuit. Perhaps most importantly, it was steady. He was indeed a “real stickler” about memorizing the music every week. “You just did it over and over and until you got it in your fingers.”


A brief article in The Milwaukee Journal from May 1937 reveals the view of women musicians – indeed, any professional woman – prevalent at that time.

Love laughs at locksmiths and it hasn’t much respect for law or contracts either. In violation of her agreement with Phil Spitalny, Frances Blaisdell has married. Spitalny, when he enlists the services of a new musician, points out the contract clause that the artist abstain [sic] from the life matrimonial… Frances Blasdell, the pioneering young lady who administered the K.O. to Old Man Career, was flutist in the orchestra. She remained true, at least, to her instrument. Her husband, Alexander Williams, also plays flute and clarinet with the New York Philarmonic [sic] orchestra.

Click on the image above to read the article from The Plain Dealer, June 1937

An article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer from June of 1937 shows Blaisdell wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for the marriage contract clause. Although Spitalny asserted that “a girl is a better musician unmarried because her emotional power… is not divided between home, husband, and children” his orchestra disagreed; they threatened to walk out unless Blaisdell was reinstated and the marriage clause abolished. Musicians in the all-girl bands wanted to be treated as professionals, not commodities. Although Spitalny gave in (without changing his mind), Blaisdell had moved on to other opportunities.

During the war years Phil Spitalny and his Orchestra showed their patriotism with their theme song, “We Must Be Vigilant” sung to the tune of “American Patrol” and assisted in the war effort through performances at the Boston Stage Door Canteen and on the USS North Carolina. During this decade the band also made two movies: When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1942) and Here Come the Co-Eds (1945).

When Johnny Comes Marching Home is the story of Johnny Kovacs (Allen Jones), a hero in the war home on a bond tour. Trying to escape the adulation heaped upon him, he hides under an assumed name in a theatrical boarding house. The other residents think he has gone AWOL and try to convince him to turn himself in, but all is explained during the musical finale. The film has some nice musical numbers and records the patriotic Spitalny theme “We Must Be Vigilant,” but the plot doesn’t have much staying power. What it does have going for it is a 17-year-old Donald O’Connor beginning his musical career.

Here Come the Co-Eds stars Abbot and Costello and the girls in the band. A dance hostess (Martha O'Driscoll) gets into a girls’ college on a scholarship as a new young dean tries to update the fusty curriculum — not that the students are ever shown doing anything scholastic. The film portrays the same illusion of femininity as Spitalny espoused, and the band members play the girls in the dorm who naturally whip up some very nice musical numbers that have no bearing on the plot (Besides, when Lou Costello plays basketball in drag, plot is secondary).


In the late 1940s with the advent of television, General Electric reevaluated how it spent its advertising dollars. Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, a men’s orchestra, could wear a tuxedo every week, but because he felt an all-girl orchestra needed new gowns for every show, Spitalny would not come down on his price. Waring got the sponsorship. Electric Light and Power Company became the CBS sponsor, but not for the entire year, and Spitalny and his orchestra left radio in 1948. (Tucker p.78) The orchestra traveled more to play concerts and had several appearances on early television with the Ed Sullivan Show.

Spitalny and Evelyn Kaye of the Magic Violin were married outside of Atlantic City, NJ on June 17, 1946. Spitalny retired in 1955 and settled in Miami Beach as a music critic for the Miami Beach Sun and the Miami Beach Reporter. He died in 1970 after a long illness, and Evelyn Klein Spitalny died in 1990.

Blaisdell and husband Alexander Williams, circa 2000.

Blaisdell may have left Phil Spitalny’s orchestra in 1937, but she had no intention of ending her career. Most men of that time would not have understood her desire to pursue her career, but her husband Alex Williams did. Alex was a superb musician, the associate principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic and principal clarinetist of the NBC Orchestra under Toscanini. He wasn't in the least bit threatened by her talent or drive, and they performed often together. When Blaisdell was refused an audition for an opening as assistant first flute of the New York Philharmonic because she was a woman, she, Alex, and three other players (all Philharmonic members) started the Blaisdell Woodwind Quintet, which performed weekly on the radio for several years. Williams and Blaisdell had a great deal in common and made the most of it — they were married 66 years, until Alex died in 2003.

In 1939 she played as an accompanist to opera singer Lily Pons, both at the World’s Fair and other concerts. In 1941, after Barrère had a stroke, she took his place in the Barrère Trio. Later there was the Bach Circle of New York, the Blaisdell Trio of New York, performances of “Carousel” on Broadway, and then eventually the New York City Ballet. In 1962 Frances Blaisdell became one of the first woman to perform with the New York Philharmonic — as an “extra man” during a piece that required additional flutes.

In 1992, Blaisdell (center) spoke about her life at a standing-room-only concert of the New York Flute Club. On hand to celebrate were her granddaughter Allison (left) and daughter Alexandra. (Photo: Ira N. Toff)

Blaisdell taught for many years at the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes, and NYU, eventually “retiring” in 1973 and moving to California. She accepted an interim appointment as flute teacher at Stanford University, but actually continued teaching there almost until her death. In 2006 she received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Education.

Mario Champagne, administrative director for the Stanford Music Department, said “She was teaching until 97—in the last year, from her wheelchair, and mostly blind. She could still play her flute and it was not unusual for her to listen to a student play, comment on what needed to be fixed, and then demonstrate the correct technique from memory.” Thus a whole generation who knew nothing about Phil Spitalny or the difficulties of being a professional female musician learned to love both the flute and the very generous woman who shared her talents.

In February 1993, Frances Blaisdell spoke about her life and career at a standing-room-only concert of the New York Flute Club. She was introduced by then-president Nancy Toff and special guest Jean-Pierre Rampal. (Photo: Ira N. Toff)

Did playing in Phil Spitalny’s all-girl orchestra have any lasting effect on Blaisdell? Most certainly. She kept up with several of the band members all her life. In 1993 when her daughter, also a flute professor at Stanford University, played a New York recital in the midst of a blizzard, very few people were able to fight through the weather and attend. But arrayed across the center of the audience were three of the “girls in the band,” then in their 80s and all still friends. Blaisdell always remembered the experience fondly.

The longevity of Blaisdell’s career in part comes from her dedication — her willingness to play anything, anywhere for the experience and to earn a living. She was an artist without egotism, a trooper who wouldn’t let discrimination stand in the way of her music. Blaisdell made her own opportunity because she didn’t accept no for an answer, and whatever she did she did well. President of the New York Flute club Nancy Toff states, “She had absolutely the most positive attitude of anyone I’ve ever known. She was truly generous and felt she had an obligation to pass on what she knew to the next generation.”

In 1992 Chamber Music magazine wrote, “Every woman flute player in every major American orchestra, every little girl who plays the flute in a school band, has Frances Blaisdell to thank. She was first.”

Indeed, thank you, Frances. And thanks to the multitude of other all-girl bands members for their determination and drive, for paving the way for women in music — and for leaving us some wonderful Bijou memories.

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For Further Reading:
Sherrie Tucker’s Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s is an amazing look at the history of jazz, women, and American dance music. Barbara Highton Williams’s fascinating interview with Frances Blaisdell first appeared in the April 2005 edition of the New York Flute Club Newsletter and is a wonderful glimpse at Blaisdell’s life in her own voice. Here is a wonderful link to a full-color promotional piece featuring Phil Spitalny’s All-Girl Orchestra (and a great plug for GE lightbulbs!). We at the Bijou would like to give a very special thanks to New York Flute Club President Nancy Toff for providing images of Frances Blaisdell and generous editorial support.

During the 1930s Phil Spitalny made several musical shorts: Phil Spitalny and His Musical Queens (1934), Big City Fantasy (1934), Ladies That Play (1934), Phil Spitalny & His All Girl Orchestra (1935), Sirens of Syncopation (1935), Meet the Maestros (1938), and Moments of Charm (1939). In addition the orchestra provides the music for the only color Betty Boop cartoon, Poor Cinderella (1934). Though many of these films are either lost or out of circulation, we at the Bijou are pleased to present Musical Charmers (1936), featuring Frances Blaisdell as the solo flutist playing “Song of India.” (at 6:21 in the video)

Some Enchanted Evenings: American Picture Palaces

We at the Bijou believe that the movie houses of the early twentieth century are every bit as entertaining as the films they showed and equally worthy of a closer look. For today's post we are pleased to present an excerpt from Some Enchanted Evenings: American Picture Palaces. Written by Mary Halnon Kadera, a former American Studies student at the University of Virginia, it offers a look at some architectural styles of movie theaters and a fascinating peek into the lounges of these glorious buildings, some now gone forever. More than bricks and mortar, however, Ms. Kadera illustrates how the structure of these palaces captured the spirit of the films they showed. Please join us for a wonderful glimpse of the twentieth century movie-going experience.

Each week from the 1910s through the 1950s, Americans "went to the show" in record numbers. "The show" drew peak crowds three to four times daily with an extra screening on weekends, and it began, as architect S. Charles Lee noted, "on the sidewalk" with the extravagant architecture of America's motion picture palaces.(1) Palaces seated between 2500 and 6000 patrons at a time; "de luxe" palaces boasted stage shows, permanent orchestras, organs, first run films, and an array of customer services unknown to today's cinemagoers. Studio head Marcus Loew recognized, "We sell tickets to theaters, not movies."(2) Movie historian Ben Hall described the movie palace as "an acre of seats in a garden of dreams."(3)


Most studies of America's movie palaces have been nostalgic, preservation-oriented efforts which have tended to isolate movie palaces in time and space from other public architecture and from the larger current of consumerism in the U.S. In his study of San Francisco's Fox Theater, Preston Kaufmann asserts that "the world portrayed by the motion picture theater was in truth a carbon copy of the era which gave it birth.

This could only be achieved in such an unforgettable decade as the Twenties."(4) Although the Twenties spawned some of the most fanciful and elaborate theater architecture, the movie palaces are understood more fully when they are read as part of a larger story - the rise of a pervasive culture of consumerism which dramatically altered the way Americans worked, played, and thought about their relationships to other citizens. When theater architect John Eberson called movie palaces "the most palatial homes of princes and crowned kings for and on behalf of His Excellency - the American Citizen," Eberson was speaking a language perfected by advertisers, retailers, religious leaders, government officials, and heads of industry during the fifty years prior.(5) Movie palaces perfectly demonstrate the anxieties, exhilarations, and pitfalls of the culture of consumerism which has become synonymous with the 'American Way.'

The Thirties: Depression and Art Deco

Despite the generally accepted beliefs about Hollywood's solvency and continued formidable presence in American life during the 1930s, movie palaces were not immune from the troubles faced by other American businesses during the Depression. Theater attendance dropped from 90 million per week in 1930 to 60 million per week two years later. During the same period, the number of operating theaters fell from 22,000 to 14,000. (6)

Theaters wishing to stay afloat had to find ways to attract customers whose leisure dollars had dried up. At the Roxy Theater, Samuel Rothapfel's successor (Roxy had left to manage Radio City Music Hall) built a miniature golf course at the back of the theater lot and included golf in the price of admission. Other theaters promoted themselves through dish nights or bank nights and gave away housewares and money as door prizes.


Despite these measures, many theaters and studios declared bankruptcy. San Francisco's Fox Theater went dark in 1932, just three years after its opening, when William Fox defaulted on the rent. The theater went into receivership and Fox declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter. His studio was reorganized as Twentieth Century-Fox in 1935 and resumed film production. Paramount suffered a similar fate: receivership in 1933, bankruptcy, and reorganization in 1936. Loew's was part of Fox when it went into receivership, but it emerged separately as MGM a few years later. RKO declared bankruptcy in 1934 and reorganized in 1939. Universal sold its theaters as a stopgap measure but went into receivership anyway in 1933, to be reorganized in 1936. Only Warner Brothers, Columbia, and United Artists survived the Depression with their theater empires intact.

Architects and builders continued to construct some movie palaces during the Depression, despite a somewhat bleak financial picture. Radio City Music Hall, opened in 1932, was the most noteworthy of these structures as it was the largest theater in the U.S. at the time it opened, housing 5,960 moviegoers at a time. Its backers saw Radio City as a symbol of the motion picture industry's resiliency and of the ultimate invincibility of American consumer culture. At its dedication ceremony, film industry leader Will Hays remarked, "This is not a dedication of a theater - it is a reaffirmation of faith in America's indomitableness and fearlessness. [It] rises like a Pharos out of the blinding fogs of irresolution and bewilderment to proclaim that leadership has not failed us...[This is] the bravest declaration of faith in their country's stability that the Rockefellers, father and son, America's most useful citizens - have yet offered."(7)

Sixty million people still visited the movie palaces each week in 1932, but if they attended one of the newer theaters they were likely to encounter a different sort of architecture. During the 1930s, Art Deco replaced other styles of theater architecture to become the standard in palace design. The first Art Deco palace, designed in 1930 by Marcus Priteca, was the Hollywood Pantages at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles.

Movie historians have offered differing and sometimes conflicting explanations for the switch to Art Deco during the '30s. Maggie Valentine wrote that Art Deco theaters "reflected the hard times in which they were built" and displayed "an optimistic rejection of the pre-Depression boom that had culminated in a bust."(8) David Naylor echoed this when he wrote, "Clearly tastes had changed. No longer did moviegoers expect a royal welcome from doormen, ushers, and lounge attendants. The architectural treatments of movie palaces were now considered exuberant, if not downright wasteful."(9) However, Radio City Music Hall, one of the most impressive displays of Art Deco architecture, was christened with the belief that it would resurrect American consumerism: in its grand scale and at its core, it was an affirmation, not a rejection, of the culture of the 1920s.

Valentine offered another explanation for Art Deco theaters, one which tied theater architecture to film content. She argued that the exotic decor of the early palaces reflected the silent, exotic nature of film during that period. Film in the 1930s, however, turned to romance and domesticity; Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire demanded an Art Deco showcase. She also wrote that by the 1930s, moviegoing was a "socially acceptable form of behavior and no longer needed an architectural defense," hence the ability of theater architects to dispense with classical, Old World references.(10) The wide use of the Art Deco style in other buildings of the period, however, weakens Valentine's argument that it somehow arose organically from the film industry or from film content.

Although movie palace historians like David Naylor would have readers believe that Art Deco symbolized boredom with Old World styles and was somehow especially American, in fact it is equally European; it takes its name, in shortened form, from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels held in Paris in 1925. The Expo traveled through the U.S. in 1926 and proved, along with the 1931 "Industrial Style" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and the Bauhaus movement of the 1930s, to exert considerable influence on American architects and designers. What was American about it, if anything, was what American architect Russel Wright called its "grand scale, bold, vital form, distinctive colors, no matter how vulgar," seen almost everywhere: factories, skyscrapers, kitchens and bathrooms, gas stations, movie theaters, and cafeterias. Wright argued that in America this architecture was "not a means of elevating popular American taste, particularly, but a way of confirming it; designed goods become part of a larger set of things...eliding the differences between engineering and architecture, between vernacular and high culture."(11) Since its earliest days as a commercial entertainment, film (and its near relative, vaudeville) struggled to elide the gap between upper-class and working-class notions about cultured entertainment, so perhaps Art Deco was somehow symbolically appropriate as an architectural style, but this should not be confused with the idea that Art Deco somehow emanated from film.

Art Deco (also sometimes called Moderne, or Streamline Moderne) counted among its earliest fans celebrated American architect Louis Mumford. Mumford eschewed the various Old World revival styles and the elaborate ornamentation of early movie houses and looked forward instead to "the promise of a stripped, athletic, classical style" characterized by "precision, cleanliness, hard illumination" and free from "all barnacles of association," a promise which was to be fulfilled in Art Deco and later in the International style through the influence of industrial design.(12)

In the late 1920s, according to Miles Orvell, design achieved a "fetishism of the machine that transformed the look of everything from skyscrapers to toasters, evident in a vocabulary of electric angularities and zigzag designs." By the 1930s, this gave way to "smooth curves and the aura of precision and exactitudes of the streamlined style with its signification of the power of the machinery." Orvell argued that 1930s architecture and design can be seen "as a celebration of technological force and a representation of the fiction of man's mastery over technology and over nature."(13)

Speakers like Miles Orvell and Russel Wright mention the influence of machinery and technology repeatedly in their comments on the new architectural styles of this period. Architects employing earlier styles, including the architects of early movie palaces, worked hard to keep machinery and mechanics 'behind the scenes.' Allen Trachtenberg wrote that while "engineers designed inner space in response to the new functional needs, architects took as their problem the design of appropriate 'fronts' out of the standard vocabulary of styles and motifs...as buildings stretched upward...their inner work...receded from view, from intelligibility, and from criticism...mystified the larger organization of life."(14) Although some critics saw the early movie palaces as "gaudy horrors" that "stink with class," the majority sided with the journalist reporting on the opening of the San Francisco Fox when we wrote, "it was a spectacle of such beauty and magnitude that it seemed a fancy of one's mind rather than the inaugural night of another commercial enterprise."(15) Movie palace architecture of the '10s and '20s obscured anything commercial or technological and, like the advertising of the period, assured moviegoers that they could achieve equality through consumption. Their vision of what was eminently consumable encompassed Old World, aristocratic forms, originally dependent on handcraftsmanship and feudalism but now made available through mass production and corporate forms of ownership.

By the heyday of Art Deco in the 1930s, to paraphrase Leo Marx, 'the machine in the garden' could no longer be the elephant in the living room everyone pretended not to see. Through Art Deco, people on both sides of the Atlantic - but perhaps especially Americans, in light of the Great Depression - acknowledged the presence of and their growing dependence on 'machines' in the widest sense of the word. In the U.S., this included machines that were political and bureaucratic as well as technological: witness the phenomenal growth of the Federal Government, even before World War II. Despite the Great Depression and what it implied about American corporate and financial practices, or perhaps because of the widespread devastation the stock market crash created, Americans had to own that consumer culture was firmly engrained in Americans' work, play, ethics, and relationships with one another.

The Forties and Fifties: Boom and Bust

The picture palaces which survived the Great Depression and the new theaters constructed following studio reorganization enjoyed a renaissance in the 1940s. During World War II, movie theaters hosted newsreels and war bond drives, attracting patriotic and news-hungry Americans by the millions - 85 million each week. (Theater attendance was half that figure a decade later, and in 1991 it was only 18.9 million per week.)(16) Americans packed in existing movie palaces during the war, as a building ban stateside stopped construction of new theaters during the first years of WWII; the Armed Forces and the Medical Corps commandeered all new projection equipment to show training films.

In 1943, however, a study commissioned by the Navy concluded that a lack of movie theaters stateside contributed to delinquency and high labor turnover; the Navy urged construction of new theaters and the industry obliged. During the '40s theater builders relied heavily on concrete and glass, which were the most abundant non-restricted materials available to them: other building supplies were used first for the war, and then for housing following the soldiers' return. Cinema attendance reached its all-time American high in the years following V-J Day.

The revival was short lived, however: the tide of American consumerism which had propelled the movie palaces to prestige and profitability contributed to their decline in the late '40s and '50s. By then, 'a chicken in every pot' metamorphosed into 'a car in every driveway' and 'a television in every living room.' Americans' pursuit of the material Good Life led them to a suburban exodus. Suburbanization, facilitated by the federal government and auto makers in Detroit, and the lifestyle it called for spelled doom for downtown movie palaces.

The government contributed to the growth of the suburbs through subsidies for interstate construction, the GI Bill, and the FHA mortgage program. It addressed itself more directly to the movie palaces when the Supreme Court declared the movie industry's vertical integration unlawful in 1948. Studios were forced to divest their theaters, many of which could not survive as independents without Hollywood subsidy.

Television played a role as well. Between 1947 and 1957, 90% of American households acquired a television.(17) Newsreels were a thing of the past by the early '50s; TV news broadcasts meant people could get the same information without leaving home. Theater owners tried various gimmicks to entice customers away from their sets, including wide screen, Cinerama, and 3-D motion pictures, all of which meant the renovation of existing theaters to accommodate a wider screen and thus the destruction of many elaborate movie palace prosceniums and organ grilles.

Theater owners altered their buildings in other ways as well during this period, primarily to accommodate the growing number of patrons arriving by automobile. The demand for free parking required the expansion of existing lots and, for the convenience of drivers dropping off passengers for the show, a whole new 'drive through marquee' came into being. At theaters like the Arden in Lynnwood, California, drivers could drop off passengers at the lobby door and purchase tickets without leaving the car.

It was a short step from the drive-through marquee to the drive-in theater, although there were a number of drive-ins operating before the end of World War II. The first drive-in opened in June 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. By 1947 there were 548 in operation, a figure which mushroomed to over 4,000 by the mid-'50s.(18) Drive-ins continued many of the amenities offered by movie palaces and supplemented them with new ones geared to an automobile- and family-oriented society: playgrounds, miniature golf, swimming pools, pony rides, miniature trains, bottle warming, and automobile service stations were among the choices.

For those still wishing to sit down inside a theater, but reluctant to travel all the way to downtown movie palaces, architects and builders created the neighborhood movie house. The neighborhood theaters were scaled-down versions of the palaces. Although they featured many of the same architectural elements as the palaces, including the stand-alone box office and the highly visible marquee, neighborhood houses were typically limited to one story containing several hundred seats. They dramatically reduced the services and 'extras' palace patrons had been accustomed to, like stage shows, organ-accompanied sing-alongs, nursery service and restroom attendants, and expanded profit-producing operations like concessions stands.

Gloria Swanson, photographed during the demolition of the Roxy Theater in 1961.

In the wake of these developments, downtown movie palaces, like other downtown establishments including many department stores and luxury hotels, became a thing of the past. Countless theaters were razed. A few still stand, in partially denuded form, to serve as parking garages. Others were converted into performing arts centers or shopping centers. Ironically, some of these 'cathedrals of the motion picture' now house real congregations.

Few public spaces in America have been able to rival the grandeur of the picture palaces in the decades following their demise. These palaces are, no doubt, in some way symbolic of an industry dedicated to spinning fantasies, but they are also symbols of a transformational age in American life, the creation of a culture of consumption.

The entirety of this article, as well as many other fascinating references to the films, print, and radio of the early twentieth century, is available at America in the 1930s. This site is a collaborative effort of graduate and undergraduate students and professors working over a 12-year period in the American Studies program at the University of Virginia.

*****

1 Maggie Valentine, The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theater Starring S. Charles Lee, 9.
2 John Margolies and Emily Gwathmey, Ticket to Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun, 14.
3 qtd. in Margolies and Gwathmey, 10.
4 Preston Kaufmann, Fox: Story of the World's Finest Theater, 2.
5 Valentine, 34.
6 Valentine, 90.
7 qtd. in Valentine, 88.
8 Valentine, 78.
9 David Naylor, American Picture Palaces: The Architecture of Fantasy, 174.
10 Valentine, 91.
11 qtd. in Miles Orvell, The Real Thing, 190.
12 qtd. in Orvell, 169-170.
13 qtd. in Orvell, 185.
14 Allen Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America, 117, 119.
15 qtd. in Valentine, 41, and qtd. in Kaufmann, 119.
16 Valentine, 130.
17 Valentine, 163.
18 Valentine, 159.

Maggie Valentine's book, The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theater, Starring S. Charles Lee explores the evolution of the American motion picture theater through the work of architect S. Charles Lee, who designed approximately 250 theaters between 1920 and 1950. It's a fun peek at the philosophy behind some of the most opulent architecture ever built in America.

Winsor McCay: Animation Pioneer

According to animation icon Chuck Jones, "The two most important people in animation are Winsor McCay and Walt Disney. I'm not sure who should go first."

Although we at the Bijou would add Max Fleischer to the list, we too would find it difficult to determine who would go first.

Though in his lifetime he enjoyed considerable acclaim for creating the Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strip and the landmark Gertie the Dinosaur animated classic, McCay's work was largely forgotten in the twentieth century. With the recent publication of several biographies and compilations of his works, his life and boundless imagination is at last achieving critical acclaim by modern audiences. Perhaps most amazing is that he began this incredible career not with formalized instruction, but by wowing his teachers and classmates with chalkboard drawings at the age of 13. He found their enthusiastic responses exhilarating, setting the stage for a lifetime of creative accomplishments.

Spring Lake, Michigan didn't offer much opportunity for the gifted young man. At age 19, McCay's father wanted his son to forego his artistic ambitions and pursue a career in business. Though he was sent to Ypsilanti to attend Cleary's Business College, young McCay instead ran off to work at a dime museum in Detroit called Wonderland, a bizarre blend of circus acts, freak shows, vaudeville and museum exhibitions. There he honed his artistic skills by drawing caricatures of patrons and later designing posters amid a creative hodge-podge of clowns, acrobats, bearded ladies, con artists and carnival barkers.

When he was 24 and working at a dime museum in Cincinnati, McCay was smitten by and married a flirtatious 14-year old admirer. During five years they had two children, and the responsibilities of fatherhood motivated a transition from earning little income in the bohemian world to a more substantial income working in the newspaper business.

In 1903 the demand for illustrators and cartoonists at big-city newspapers was on the rise, and McCay earned a staff position at The New York Herald. His early assignments consisted of a mix of reporting, editorial writing and drawing illustrations.

A year later McCay created a popular daily comic strip called Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, which was published from 1904 to 1913.

The brilliant Canadian journalist Jeet Heer vividly describes this series in The Virginia Quarterly Review: "Each strip followed the same general plot: a dreamer would have some sort of nightmare related to his or her daytime life and wake up at the last panel, inevitably blaming the harsh vision on ill-digested cheese (the rarebit of the title). But the nightmares had decidedly mature content: a man mocks Darwin and then turns into a monkey; a woman receives a leather purse from a male admirer which turns into an alligator eager to consume her; a parson dies but rather than receiving his eternal reward is cast into the fires of hell."

In 1905 McCay created a Sunday comic strip for children called Little Nemo in Slumberland. While Rarebit Fiend told harsh, cynical tales set in a nightmare world, Little Nemo described the adventures of an imaginative child inhabiting a fantasy dream world. The little boy in the new series was inspired by McCay's young son Robert.


There has been a huge resurgence in admiration among comic book fans and artists for Little Nemo and several amazing compilations have recently been published, including "Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays!" and "Winsor McCay: Early Works, Volumes 1-10."

In 1906 vaudeville had become a fashionable tradition in theaters across America, and among the comedians, acrobats, minstrels and magicians was a popular genre called the "chalk-talk artist." These were entertainers who would talk to the audience while drawing images on a chalk board. McCay's talents and the Little Nemo comic strips were ideally suited to this format, and soon McCay found himself sharing the vaudeville stage with the major entertainers of the day. (resonating back to his childhood days entertaining his classmates in much the same way.)

The art of animation was in its infancy at the beginning of the twentieth century, and McCay couldn't resist trying to figure out how to make his characters and stories come to life. An idea was inspired by his son's flip books - and four thousand individual drawings later the animated Little Nemo cartoon was born.

The original title for the animated version of the comic strip is Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the NY Herald and His Moving Comics (1911) and in the film McCay boasts to his genteel friends that he can bring to life his famous comic strip characters by making 4000 drawings in one month - and then make them move.

We see McCay enlist the Vitagraph Company to do the filming and when completed he shows off the charming results to his astonished colleagues. The animated sequences were hand-colored frame-by-frame on 35 mm film stock, adding to this amazing accomplishment. The Little Nemo short was first showcased as part of McCay's vaudeville act to enthusiastic acclaim, then subsequently shown in movie theaters.

How a Mosquito Operates (1912) was McCay's second animated cartoon and one which some may find rather disturbing. Again and again in this brief six minute nightmare we witness a sadistically mischievous mosquito pierce his elongated stinger into various parts of the victim's head, each time expanding the mosquito's blood sack until it finally explodes.

After this film was completed in 1911, McCay made a decision that he would come to regret for the rest of his life. After seven years working for The New York Herald and becoming one of the most celebrated artists of his day penning three immensely popular comic strips, McCay requested a leave of absence. He was eager to take a break and tour Europe for awhile and perform his vaudeville show.

When the request was denied, he waited until his contract expired and then accepted a very lucrative offer from the competition and joined The New York American as a staff cartoonist. The American was published by the notorious newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and McCay had no idea of the demands that would soon follow.

His assignments at The American included creating editorial cartoons, illustrating recruitment posters and continuing with his daily comic strips. In the Hearst papers, "Little Nemo was published under the title "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams," since The Herald owned the Nemo name.

While fulfilling his routine duties at The American, McCay set out to develop what would become his masterpiece accomplishment in the field of animation. He had been frustrated that vaudeville audiences were not convinced his drawings were actually moving, but believed somehow the illusion was accomplished with sticks or strings. McCay came up with the grand idea of integrating his in-person live-action persona with the onscreen animation. This was several years ahead of similar innovations later developed by Max Fleischer and Walt Disney.

Thus was born Gertie the Dinosaur, the first cartoon "star" in animation history with genuine personality and emotions not adapted from a comic strip. Gertie debuted in Chicago in 1914 as part of McCay's vaudeville act to enthralled audiences and critical acclaim.

The premise involved McCay standing off to the right side of the movie screen dressed as an animal trainer holding a whip. First he would talk about the science of animation and how it was projected, then introduce Gertie with the crack of his whip. Audiences were astounded when Gertie "the only dinosaur in captivity" first poked her head out from a cave and then, on command, came lumbering out in all her gigantic prehistoric splendor. McCay would then issue a series of commands that Gertie would obey, such as bowing to the audience, lifting her foot, dancing, and interacting with a sea monster, a flying lizard and a woolly mammoth. For the grand finale, McCay would pretend to throw an apple at Gertie, which Gertie would catch in her mouth. He would then announce that "Gertie will show that she isn't afraid of me and take me for a ride" as McCay appeared to morph into an animated character himself, walk onto Gertie's back, take a bow and exit the frame to wild applause.

The Gertie animated sequences were subsequently reformatted for theatrical release as a short subject, with McCay and other actors performing in a prologue and epilogue with intertitles incorporated into the cartoon sequence communicating the story and McCay's various commands to Gertie.


About the time of Gertie's debut, McCay was told by his employer at The American that he was to cease wasting his time in vaudeville and animation and limit his cartooning and illustrations to the editorial page. This demand was backed by the contract he had signed with the newspaper. Henceforth he was to take his instructions from Editor Arthur Brisbane. Brisbane told his new cartoonist: "you're a serious artist, not a comic cartoonist. I want you to give up [Little Nemo] and draw serious cartoon pictures for my editorials."

Hearst biographer W.A. Swanberg describes Brisbane as "a one-time socialist who had drifted pleasantly into the profit system... in some respects a vest-pocket Hearst -- a personal enigma, a workhorse, a madman for circulation, a liberal who had grown conservative, an investor." (pp. 390-391)

While war was brewing in Europe Hearst and editor Brisbane advocated isolationism and that the States should try to understand Germany's perspective. In hindsight we have a better understanding of the political forces then at work in Europe and the United States, but at that time these views were prevailing American sentiment. McCay had his own ideas about the European conflict, but was trapped by his need to support his family and his extravagant spending.

The sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 was a turning point for both the American Public and McCay. Three years later, McCay created what some scholars consider his finest animated short called The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) This was different than anything McCay had produced previously, with graphic animated images of the German U-Boat torpedoes hitting and quickly sinking the giant ocean liner and killing 1200 people.

In 1921 McCay created a sequel to Gertie the Dinosaur, wherein Gertie visits New York City, called Gertie on Tour. Sadly, only a small fragment survives.

In 1924 McCay left The American and returned the The Herald (now The Herald Tribune), attempting to revive the Little Nemo comic strip. However, the public's tastes had changed. It was reported that McCay had been allowed to purchase all rights to Little Nemo for $1. McCay was quoted as saying "I have never been so happy as when I was drawing Little Nemo."

He returned once again to The American in 1926 to the singular task of drawing editorial cartoons for Arthur Brisbane, his glory days of creating comic strips, animated shorts and performing on the vaudeville stage becoming only fond memories that would sustain him until his death due to a cerebral hemorrhage in 1934.

Winsor McCay's rich legacy of original innovation and creative output inspired not only his immediate successors; Fleischer and Disney, but also generations of print and animation artists who have entertained and inspired us since those pioneer years a century ago.

Gertie the Dinosaur was selected for preservation in The National Film Registry, and is listed as #6 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons - a survey of animators and historians conducted in 1994 by animation historian Jerry Beck. Every surviving film that McCay made can be enjoyed on one DVD called Animated Legend: Winsor McCay. Many incredible examples of McCay's editorial political cartoons can be found at Golden Age Comic Book Stories

Here on our Bijou blog screen you can enjoy the original theatrical release version of Gertie the Dinosaur, where McCay communicates with Gertie through onscreen intertitles. We can only imagine what a thrill it must have been for 1912 vaudeville audiences witnessing McCay in person on stage interacting with the huge animated Gertie.

Forgotten Hollywood Treasures

Where on television today can you find Betty Boop, Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang or Flash Gordon? Sadly, these and countless other pre-1960 pop culture icons continue to be ignored by cable and network television gatekeepers.

A multitude of classic cartoons, short subjects and serials were last seen on our original Matinee at the Bijou series on PBS during the 1980s. Though not a prime-time show, Matinee was often rated among the top 10 shows on public television, besting such popular public television fare as Masterpiece Theater, Mystery, Frontline and Sneak Previews. Audiences loved the show and came back week after week for more.

While we remain steadfast in our search to secure a broadcast partner for the sequel series, hosted by the magnificent Debbie Reynolds, we continue to discover and secure a growing line-up of fascinating short subjects from the golden age of Hollywood, many not seen by audiences since their original theatrical releases.

The studios stopped producing short subjects altogether in the late 1950s as television became a household fixture, but in their heyday the shorts were the equivalent to what would become the sit-coms, variety shows, sports shows, cartoon series and news programs audiences could enjoy at home on the small screen.

Among our favorite theatrical shorts were the Hollywood behind-the-scenes newsreels produced during the 1930s, like The Star Reporter, Hollywood on Parade, Voice of Hollywood and Broadway Highlights. These little jewels foreshadowed today's Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, American Idol and America's Got Talent TV shows.



The Star Reporter newsreels were hosted by veteran sports commentator Ted Husing and served to introduce new and evolving talent, some going on to stardom. In one episode, 9-year old Bennie Bartlett sings his own original composition, and in another Ina Ray Hutton and Her All-Girl Orchestra let loose with some hot notes and hot moves, raising the roof until balloons descend to cover the orchestra in a grand finale.

One that was showcased on the original Matinee at the Bijou featured Dorothy Lamour's screen test, long considered lost until it surfaced in this entertaining Hollywood newsreel. The screen test proved a springboard for Lamour's career and landed her the starring role in Paramount's Jungle Princess (1936), opposite co-star Ray Milland. The marketing tagline was Her Exotic Beauty held all the allure of the tropic jungle! In spite of such corny dialogue as "You savage, untamed she-devil! I adore you!" the film made a lot of money for Paramount.


In her screen test Ms. Lamour sings a torch song that today would be considered politically incorrect in the extreme. As she lights up and smokes a cigarette she sings:

Love is like a cigarette.
You know you hold my heart
a glow between your fingertips.

And, just like a cigarette,
Love seemed to fade away
and leave behind ashes of regret.

Then with a flick of your fingertips,
it was easy for you to forget.
Oh love is like a cigarette.

On the blog screen below you can watch Ms. Lamour launch her career in this rarely-seen short from the Bijou cinematic time machine.


The Voice of Hollywood celebrity newsreels were independently produced on a shoestring budget by Louis Lewyn for Tiffany Pictures. Each of the 26 shorts produced between 1930 and 1931 is a bizarre visual amalgamation of radio and film technologies. Each has a different celebrity host filmed talking to celebrities on the telephone or in the studio from fictitious Hollywood radio station S.T.A.R. The celebrities were often filmed paparazzi-style at a social event, sports event or movie premiere with footage then integrated into the newsreel.

These vintage treasures feature Hollywood and Broadway stars from the silent and early sound era, like Gary Cooper, Marie Dressler, Buster Keaton, Mack Sennett, Tom Mix, Thelma Todd, Johnny Mack Brown, Lupe Velez and novelty acts like Webber & Fields and Ukele Ike.

In one Voice of Hollywood, two original members of Hal Roach's Our Gang (Little Rascals) series, Mary Daniels and Mickey Kornman, do a slapstick comedy routine wherein Mary proves she's a young feminist ahead of her time. Tom Mix drops by and actress Lupe Velez sings a song that just happens to promote her latest MGM studio release Cuban Love Song (1931).

In another, a very young John Wayne makes a cameo appearance fresh from starring in The Big Trail (1930), which was the first 70 mm widescreen movie ever made.


Twenty-six Hollywood on Parade shorts were produced between 1932 and 1934 and have much in common with the more primitive Voice of Hollywood series. Louis Lewyn graduated from producing the "Voice" shorts for independent Tiffany Pictures to producing and directing the "Parade" series for major studio Paramount Pictures. Television did not yet exist, so there was no Tonight Show or Entertainment Tonight where studios could otherwise cinematically promote their new big-budget releases.

Lewyn could now access Hollywood's grandest stars and biggest productions in creating his celebrity newsreels, including such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Mae West, Cary Grant, Rudy Vallee, Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Durante, Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Fay Wray, Fredric March, George Burns & Gracie Allen and countless others.

In one delightful Parade entry, Bonnie Poe, as everyone's favorite vamp Betty Boop, visits a wax museum where she encounters Bela Lugosi as Dracula, who comes to life.

One of our favorite Hollywood on Parades was inspired by Congress ratifying the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933. For one thing, it featured Bijou benefactor Rudy Vallee, who warbled our original Matinee at the Bijou theme song. A nightclub setting on a Paramount soundstage is the locale for a mingling of celebrities and song. Cross-eyed bartender Ben Turpin is on hand to serve Jimmy Durante, Rudy Vallee and various other celebrities appearing in brief vignettes while sipping beer.

Durante needs to see a man about a dog, and his typical shtick is followed by the antics of Ted Healy and the original Three Stooges: Larry, Moe and Curly Joe. Next, Rudy Vallee arrives to mix it up and sing with songwriters Harry Revel and Mack Gordon. Revel & Mack wrote the song "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" and Revel gives us a taste. The songwriters perform a medley of their famous music.

Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin regards the Hollywood on Parade series to be the best of the inside-Hollywood celebrity newsreels. In his book "Selected Short Subjects: From Spanky to The Three Stooges" he writes: "Every studio at one time or another produced behind-the-scenes shorts. The most successful were Columbia's 'Screen Snapshots,' but the best were Paramount's 'Hollywood on Parade.' Paramount's shorts stand out from the others because they are the only ones that actually seemed to shoot good, fresh material, especially for the shorts, with their top stars."


Paramount shifted focus from Hollywood to Broadway to deliver to audiences "Intimate News of the Gay White Way." Adolph Zukor assumed the helm from Louis Lewyn for the Broadway Highlights pseudo-newsreel series that began as the Hollywood on Parade series ended. Famed sportscaster-turned-showbiz impresario Ted Husing once again hosts and narrates the continuing behind-the-scenes glimpses of pop culture icons with visits to cabarets and famous entertainment landmarks.

Eight editions of Highlights were produced during 1935 and 1936. The series kicked off in May 1935 with a stellar assembly of superstars, including Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, Earl Carroll, Gary Cooper, Jack Dempsey, Al Jolson, Beatrice Lillie, Otis Skinner, Sophie Tucker, Rudy Vallee, Paul Whiteman and Walter Winchell.

One of the Broadway Highlights we featured on the original Matinee at the Bijou included a visit to CBS Radio Playhouse to witness a rehearsal of "Laugh with Ken Murray," featuring a comedy routine with Eve Arden along with some swinging music from the Russ Morgan Band. Then a jaunt around the corner to the New York Winter Garden Theater to witness a tribute to the Schuberts on the 25th anniversary of the famous theater from a young Milton Berle, Bert Lahr, Phil Baker and other luminaries of the 1930s theater world. Then Ted Husing talks us across the George Washington Bridge to one of Broadway's most popular summer night spots, Ben Martin's Riviera. Highlights of the floor show included chorus girls, an incredible acrobatic dancer and some sensational moves from Spanish dancers Estelle & LeRoy.

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Today we've looked at Hollywood celebrity newsreels produced during the 1930s at the outset of the sound era but there were many other notable examples released during the 1940s and 50s that we'll save for another day. In watching these remarkable films we witness the development of American popular culture and visit a world that no longer exists.

Should you or someone you know have access to film prints of celebrity newsreels, classic short subjects or serials in the public domain or for which you own the licensing rights for possible inclusion in the Matinee at the Bijou sequel series, we'd love to hear from you. Please contact Executive Producer Ron Hall: fesfilms@aol.com.

In the process of bringing back Matinee at the Bijou we're developing a network of film collectors, industry professionals and enthusiasts who know this history well and can share their expertise as we recreate together, in context, America's cinematic heritage.

Now, as promised, here is a fanciful example from The Star Reporter series, featuring Ted Husing and that cigarette girl ~~~