‘Moguls’: How the Schenck Brothers Helped Invent Hollywood While Building an Empire of Their Own

Brothers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck. They went from owners
of an amusement park to giants of the Hollywood film industry.

Book Review:

'Moguls' (2024), by Michael Benson and Craig Singer,  Citadel Press

By Paul Parcellin

The Schenck brothers, Joseph and Nicholas, stood among the most powerful executives of the 20th Century’s movie industry and played a key role in shaping the Hollywood that we know today. Yet their names are hardly household words.

With their engrossing new book “Moguls,” authors Michael Benson and Craig Singer shine a light on the Schenck brothers’ rise in show business, from scrappy, small time entrepreneurs to captains of the movie industry during the glory days of Hollywood. The book contains a wealth of knowledge not only about the Schencks rise in the industry but the history of Hollywood itself.

The Schencks’s story begins in a land far removed from the sun drenched Southern California coast. Ossip Schencker, who became Joseph Schenck at Ellis Island, was four years older than his brother Nikolay (Nick). Both were born in Rybinsk, Russia, and came to America before the turn of the last century, eventually landing in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 

Tough times forced Nick to leave public school and hit the pavement. Joe had arrived in America before him and had already begun scratching out a living. The two hawked newspapers on their jealously guarded prime street corner, chasing away rivals who tried to muscle in — good preparation for careers in Hollywood.

Joseph M Schenck,
Oct. 1917

Ever the entrepreneurs, they eventually landed in the pharmacy business, vending potions and remedies of dubious value, then operated a beer concession. They invested their money wisely, eventually owning the amusement center at Palisades Park, N.J. As they did with each of their business endeavors, the Schencks expanded and improved what was at first a fairly modest enterprise, turning it into a bonanza for them and a major attraction for adults and children, alike.  

They saw great potential in the “flickers” as they called early short films screened in New York storefront arcades. First, they became exhibitors and eventually got into the business of making moving pictures. Their keen instincts brought them to the forefront of the nascent business, yet they preferred to stay in the background, running their operation from afar while letting others bask in the spotlight.  

Nicholas Schenck

Joe, the producer, was a gifted at spotting and contracting stars; Nick oversaw real-estate acquisition and was tremendously successful at it, eventually partnering with movie theater magnate Marcus Loew. Nick helped create the expansive Lowes theater chain, building many extravagant movie and vaudeville palaces. 

The brothers’s rise was nothing short of meteoric. In their heyday, the Schencks controlled about a third of the motion picture business, the fourth largest industry in America. That included controlling interests in three major studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Twentieth Century-Fox and United Artists. 

While they preferred to remain out of public view, they closely monitored their businesses and kept them under tight control. MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer may have had the reputation for being a dictatorial leader, but he made no decisions without first “checking with New York,” and that meant Nick Schenck.

Joseph Frank 'Buster' Keaton

Their pals included William Randolph Hearst, Lillian Gish, Jacob Paley, John Huston, Fatty 
Arbuckle (more on him later), Douglas Fairbanks, Irving Thalberg and Irving Berlin. Joe was silent-film legend Buster Keaton’s first producer and best friend. He produced such Keaton classics as “Sherlock Jr.” (1924), “The Navigator” (1924), “Go West” (1925), “The General” (1927) and “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” (1928), among many others. But, ironically, it was Joe who inadvertently put an end to Keaton’s career as a filmmaker when he moved him from independent productions to MGM. From then on, Keaton felt stifled as he appeared in commercial films that lacked the spark and creativity of his earlier work.

While Keaton's career took a less than desirable turn, the Schencks motored on, becoming all the wealthier. Nick, who was the more prudent of the brothers, became the eighth richest man in the country — Joe wasn’t far behind, despite his penchant for high-stakes gambling. Nick was head of more than 100 corporations and was reputedly the highest-paid theatrical manager in the world. 

But with Hollywood’s carefree lifestyle and tendency toward excess, scandal always seemed to be percolating just under the surface.

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.

Joe produced films starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the country’s most popular comedy entertainers, second only to Charlie Chaplin. But in 1921 a public relations fiasco not only threatened Paramount, the studio where Arbuckle made his pictures, but the industry as a whole. He was charged with the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. 

He was tried three times between Nov. 1921 and April 1922. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third trial acquitted Arbuckle. But public opinion was against the corpulent actor and his career never fully recovered. The movie business also took a hit, with the public and politicians decrying Hollywood’s moral decay, a theme that still resonates today.


Another item that became fodder for tabloid scandal sheets was the mysterious death in 1935 of actress Thelma Todd, known as “Hot Toddy,” mistress to both Joe’s close friend, director Roland West, and gangster Lucky Luciano. Many suspected it was murder, not suicide as a Grand Jury ruled. 

There was good reason to be skeptical due to her association with mobster Luciano. 

Eddie Mannix
the fixer

The authors maintain that studio fixers — probably including legendary Schenck enforcer Eddie Mannix  — swarmed the scene and scrubbed it of evidence before police investigators arrived. Mannix, a bulldog Irishman, worked for Nick as a youthful and enthusiastic bouncer during Nick’s Palisades Park days. 
It was his job to smooth over anything that might put the studio in a bad light. He had doctors, reporters, cops, DAs and judges under his thumb. Gay performers were provided beards. In the case of untimely deaths, the fixer got to the scene before the police. 

Stars were kept out of jail, and names out of the paper. According to the authors, suppressed scandals also include the suspicious death of Jean Harlow’s husband, Paul Bern; the murder of Ted Healy (creator of the Three Stooges) by actor Wallace Beery and others; Judy Garland’s drug addiction; and Loretta Young’s illegitimate baby fathered by a married Clark Gable. 

Scandal once again reared its head in 1959 with the mysterious suicide of George Reeves, TV’s Superman, at age 45. He died in his Benedict Canyon home from a theoretically self-administered gunshot wound. As circumstances had it, this was another scandal linked to the brothers. 

George Reeves
suspicious suicide

Many believed that Reeves had grown depressed by his typecasting in the Superman role. But over the years, what really happened to Reeves has remained a mystery. Schenck fixer Mannix was — at the very least — tangentially involved. Reeves had recently ended a long affair with Mannix’s second wife, Toni. 

The brothers’ tenure in the industry coincided with earth-shaking world and national events, and as Hollywood grew in worldwide stature the movie business played an ever larger part in the politics and issues of the day. 

The Schenks are credited with helping to ward off a Nazi takeover of the movie industry. Hitler had his eye on Hollywood, recognizing it as world’s biggest influencer of public opinion. Joe, Nick and other studio executives, urged on by attorney Leon Lawrence Lewis, organized a covert campaign to undermine American Nazi sympathizers’ efforts to use the studios to disseminate Hitler’s propaganda. The American Nazi threat fizzled as did the Fuhrer’s plans for worldwide domination.

Frank Nitti

A mob shakedown of the projectionists union in the 1930s, masterminded by Chicago gangster Frank Nitti, was a prelude to organized crime’s control of the movie industry’s trade unions. The Schenks and others decided it was better to play along than fight it. In fact, studio management benefitted by mob control. If the unions were troublesome, mob muscle could exert pressure. Studios saved money on raises that would otherwise have been paid to workers, while mob-controlled unions extorted the wage earners. 

A federal Grand Jury indictment helped put a lid on the corrupt practices. Nick testified under immunity, however those eventually found guilty of racketeering were soon pardoned by the Truman administration. The authors contend that Truman’s attorney general, Tom Clark, was in the hip pocket of organized crime.

Marilyn Monroe,
Joe's 'special friends.'

Far away from the scandals and Hollywood hype, Nick lived the quiet life of a family man in Great Neck, Long Island. United in their business partnership, the two brothers could hardly have been more dissimilar in personality. Joe was the man about town in Los Angles and was involved directly or indirectly in more than his share of trouble. He lived in a nine-bedroom, ten-bathroom Italian Renaissance-style mansion known as Owl-wood in the enclave of Holmby Hills overlooking Sunset Boulevard. It was there that, after a failed marriage to actress Norma Talmadge, he lived the life of a swinging bachelor and master of the casting couch. As he did with many starlets, Joe became Marilyn Monroe’s mentor and “special friend.”

Not only did Joe play fast and loose on the dating scene, some creative book keeping landed him four months and five days in the federal penitentiary for tax evasion. But, he was quickly released after allowing the USO to use one of his houses in Palm Springs. 

Over the decades, the brothers remained entrenched in the industry despite scandals, shifts in studio management, evolving audience tastes, friction with labor unions and perhaps most upsetting of all, the advent of television. Throughout it all they persevered and made their mark on the entertainment industry as few before or after them have done. 

Joe died in 1961 at his Beverly Hills home, where he lived alone except for household and medical staff.  At his funeral service the rabbi called Joe “part of a dying generation, a part of an epic of Hollywood that is fading fast.”

Despite his career misfortunes, Keaton eulogized Joe, saying, “I have never met a finer man in show business.” 

 Nick passed away in 1969 at 87, delusional that he lost his money although he was still a very rich man. He often refused to go anywhere or do things because he thought he couldn’t afford it. In his eulogy for Nick, famed attorney Louis Nizer said, “Nicholas Schenck was a great man. The architect of and the civil genius behind this country’s motion picture industry. He was a quiet, humble, but noble man. He truly was The General.” 

 

 

 

Scrapped: The Original Opening Sequence of “Sunset Boulevard” was Even Stranger than the Final Cut, and Audiences had a Peculiar Reaction to It

Erich von Stroheim, William Holden, Gloria Swanson,
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950).

Test Audiences Were Stunned, Amused and Confused

Joe Gillis (Holden), a life cut short.

By Paul Parcellin 

At the start of "Sunset Boulevard," hapless screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) floats face-down in a swimming pool with several bullet holes punched into his torso. He’d been the long-term houseguest of deranged former silent screen siren Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) until, in a fit of grief and jealous rage, she used him for target practice.

She’d hired Gillis to polish a hopelessly disorganized screenplay written by and for the delusional Norma as a vehicle to reignite her long-dormant career. Of course, things didn’t work out that way. By the film’s end, we learn that Norma’s return to the klieg lights is on permanent hold and she’s about to be hauled off to a sanitarium. Meanwhile, cops are fishing Gillis out of the pool with pruning hooks. So much for Hollywood endings.

For those who’ve never seen the film, that’s hardly giving too much away. Almost everyone has at least heard of the gruesome setup that puts the story in motion. As the film opens, we see the police and a caravan of news reporters speeding down Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard toward the scene of the crime as daybreak washes over the City of Angels. Angelenos will immediately sense that this story is fictional – Sunset is all but traffic-free. Even in the early morning hours in 1950, that’s pure poppycock.

Norma Desmond (Swanson)
in a hysterical rage.

But the opening sequence that appears in the final cut wasn’t the first one that director Billy Wilder had in mind. Preview audiences viewed a quite different and even more bizarre opening, and their reaction was not the one Wilder anticipated. 

The sequence in question was quickly re-edited into the version we’re all familiar with. All that remains of the original are a few short clips without sound and some still photos. Consequently, few have ever seen the completed original opening and it appears that no one is sure if copies of the entire sequence still exist.

However, surviving script pages outline the remarkably strange introduction that ended up in the dust bin. It opens with shots of the coroner’s wagon speeding along the streets, delivering the earthly remains of Joe Gillis to the city morgue. 

The body is taken into the sterile facility, toe-tagged, and wheeled into a room temporarily housing other recently deceased unfortunates. But ethereal music fills the air and a strange glow emanates from beneath a bed sheet covering the cold, still dripping wet Gillis. Suddenly, he reanimates, as do his new roommates, who begin to chit-chat among themselves. 

Each has a tale of woe about the circumstances leading up to their demise – a truck crash here, an accidental drowning there. Gillis is a bit of a curiosity to the others due to his Hollywood connections and because he was murdered. So, he begins telling his story, and thus, narrating the rest of the movie from beyond the grave, or in this case, the slab.

Preview audiences in Evanston, Illinois, and Poughkeepsie and Great Neck, N.Y., laughed at the morgue sequence and were unsure whether the film was a comedy or drama.

Enroute to the city morgue.

After the opening credits, when the story moved down Sunset Boulevard and into the L.A. County Morgue, spectators were stunned. Years later Wilder recalled, “When the morgue label was tied on Mr. Holden’s toe, they started to scream with laughter. I walked out of the preview, very depressed.”

The revised cut shows the arrival of police and reporters. Next, we’re assaulted by a complex and eerie view of the corpse that appears to be filmed from the bottom of the pool. From our vantage point, we look up at Gillis and see his lifeless face. The cops are poolside, looking down at the dead man and they seem to be looking down at us, too, as we gaze upward from the depths of Gillis’s watery grave.

Getting that one shot took a good deal of work and planning. First, since there was no swimming pool at the location, Paramount had to dig one. After much experimentation, art director John Meehan set up the shot. At the bottom of a portable process tank, he placed an eight-by-six-foot dance rehearsal mirror.

 After sinking the tank to the bottom of the pool, he placed a muslin canopy behind the police and news photographers, which, shot in black and white, would mimic the dawn sky. With those elements in place, cinematographer John F. Seitz could light the scene effectively in a short time. The camera was set up alongside the pool and Seitz pointed it down at the mirror on the bottom of the tank and filmed Holden’s bobbing reflection. 

According to Meehan, the shot “turned out to be a simple, inexpensive way to get through-water or underwater shots” by removing the need to use expensive underwater equipment. Meehan noted that the water had to be well filtered for clarity and kept at a low temperature of about 40 degrees because at higher temperatures the natural gases that build up in water would cut down on light transmission.

It’s unclear, however, how long Holden, face down in the frigid water, had to keep his eyes open and how he managed to stave off hypothermia.

A grim end for Gillis.

Despite the efforts to smooth over the original segment’s jagged edges and tone down its comedic content, the revised opening still caused a stir. In Hollywood, Paramount arranged a private screening for the various studio heads and specially invited guests. 

While many were appreciative of the film, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer was incensed by the cheeky sendup of Tinsel Town. He allegedly shouted at Wilder, “You bastard! You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you.” The outraged movie mogul tried to buy the film so that he could bury it. Fortunately, he failed to do so.

Critical response was positive and box office receipts were good, making “Sunset Boulevard” an undisputed hit. But Gillis’s snappy, matter-of-fact voice-over narration, a sardonic mix of blunt fact, barely restrained venom, and self-deprecation didn’t sit well with all reviewers. 

Thomas M. Pryor wrote for The New York Times that the plot device of using the dead Joe Gillis as narrator was “completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder, but happily it does not interfere with the success of ‘Sunset Boulevard’.” Taking a more hostile tone, The New Yorker described the film as “a pretentious slice of Roquefort,” containing only “the germ of a good idea.”

According to Sam Staggs in his book Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard, no audience has seen the morgue sequence since 1949, although Wilder did save the footage.

When Sherry Lansing, head of Paramount, approached Wilder about including the deleted sequence as an addendum to the DVD version of “Sunset Boulevard,” he refused. Although Wilder sometimes claimed to hold the missing sequence, he told director Cameron Crowe, “I don’t know who has it now.”

This article was originally published in the Dec. 2023 issue of The Dark Pages. Check out The Dark Pages newsletter at: www.allthatnoir.com/newsletter/

Poverty Row Noir II: Scheming Communists Walk Among Us ... and So Does a Future Sitcom Dad

Hugh Beaumont, Frances Rafferty, “Money Madness” (1948).

Ward Cleaver as a psychotic killer? Say it ain’t so!

Like many up and coming Hollywood actors, Hugh Beaumont appeared in noir B-pictures before he became better known as an all-American TV dad, and he played some pretty despicable characters, too. But more about that later. 

From the 1920s to the 1950s, scads of B-pictures were produced by small studios located near the intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Gower St. in Hollywood. These struggling film studios became known as Poverty Row. An untold numbers of westerns, adventure stories, comedies and crime dramas made on next-to-nothing budgets were produced there. 

The smaller studios, including Grand National, Republic Pictures, Monogram Pictures and Producers Releasing Corporation were among the cheapie movie production houses where newbie directors honed their craft and industry veterans found employment when work was scarce. 

Both the newcomers and seasoned pros churned out 55- to 75-minute films, most with shooting schedules of less than a week. Some of their films were golden, others were fool’s gold. It didn’t matter so much that the B-pictures were rough around the edges because they were destined to be shown as the bottom half of the bill alongside major studios’ releases. 

Most of these films lacked fancy production values, but some made up for it with hard-hitting stories — so hard-hitting that major studios, fixated on mass-appeal fare, would probably balk at producing them.

Ingenuity without Big Money

R.G. Springsteen

Tight budgets actually proved to be an advantage for some directors, who were forced to invent creative solutions that would make cheap productions sparkle.

One director who made his mark in B-pictures of Poverty Row is R. G. Springsteen, who directed “The Red Menace” (1949), one of the films discussed below. He was a prolific helmer of Hollywood B westerns and television episodes initially with Republic Pictures and later with A.C. Lyles's series of Westerns for Paramount Pictures.  

“The Red Menace” reflects  post-World War II anxiety over the threat of communist infiltration of America. It was released the same year that the Russians detonated an atomic bomb. The film makes no mention of the bomb, probably because it was shot before the nuclear threat was apparent and couldn’t be incorporated into the story.

In addition to “The Red Menace,” he directed noirs such as “Million Dollar Pursuit” (1951) and “Revolt in the Big House” (1958), as well as crime films “Double Jeopardy” (1955), “I Cover the Underworld” (1955) and “Track the Man Down” (1955), among others.

A Productive Director

Sam Newfield

The other film discussed below, “Money Madness” (1948), reflects none of the paranoia associated with communists and nuclear weapons, but instead explores a threat within American society — a mentally unstable ex-convict who terrorizes a naive young woman and her aunt. 

Directed by Sam Newfield (a.k.a. Peter Stewart), the film is a noir whose plot could be easily transformed into a western. In “Money Madness,” a charming and dangerous outlaw arrives in town, ingratiates himself with the locals while plotting to exploit them for his own evil purposes. 

Newfield is noted as one of the most prolific directors in American film history. He began his career in the silent era and directed more than 250 feature films and one- and two-reel comedy shorts, training films, industrial films and TV episodes. Many of Newfield's films were made for PRC Pictures, a company headed by his brother, Sigmund Neufeld. PRC produced  low-budget westerns, horror films and crime dramas. 

In addition to “Money Madness,” Newfield directed crime films “Western Pacific Agent” (1950), “Reform Girl” (1933) as well as “The Wild Weed” (1949) a.k.a “She Shoulda Said ‘No,’” a cautionary tale of the dangers of “Marihuana.”

So, here are a couple of crime stories made by Poverty Row studios, each quite different from the other, and both were made fast and on the cheap.

Hanna Axmann-Rezzori, Robert Rockwell, “The Red Menace” (1949).

“The Red Menace” (1949) Republic Pictures

A cloud of dread hangs over war veteran Bill Jones (Robert Rockwell) and Nina Petrovka (Hannelore Axman) as they speed down dark roadways, trying to escape unnamed human predators nipping at their heels. They’re in the grip of paranoia and every stranger they encounter may be an agent of the dark force aiming to do them harm. 

“The Red Menace” wants us to know that the enemy is among us and is waiting to pounce when our guard is down. It’s one of a handful of B-movie noirs, including “The Woman on Pier 13” (1950), “I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.” (1951) and “Walk a Crooked Mile” (1948), that push the conspiracy hot button. The story is seen through Bill and Nina’s eyes. Bill meets her as he’s indoctrinated into the party. She’s been a lifelong member but is having her doubts, and later they will both become disillusioned by the party’s blatant misdeeds.

In Documentary Format

Presented in documentary fashion like films such as “The Naked City” (1948) and “The House on 92nd Street” (1945), the film gives us the lowdown on the fugitive pair in a flashback that begins months before. Fleeced out of his savings by a crooked real estate agent who’s running a G.I. housing project scam, Bill bellyaches to a government agent who offers him neither sympathy nor aid. A man who turns out to be a Communist Party plant lurks nearby. Hearing the frustrated ex-G.I.’s complaints, he swoops into action, chatting him up and bringing him to a bar to meet other party members who offer him a shoulder to cry on. Party member Mollie O’Flaherty (Barbra Fuller), whose job it is to help hook new male recruits, offers him more than a shoulder.

This parable of an average man thrice duped, first by a real estate scammer, then by an ineffectual government bureaucrat and finally by communists, doesn’t let Bill off the hook entirely for his misfortunes. He failed to perform due diligence before signing on the dotted line and his exasperation with the government isn’t entirely justified. In the film’s 81-minute run time we see what a stinging dose of reality can do to cure him of his naïveté and lessen his sense of victimhood.

Bill hangs out with party members but maintains a skeptical distance. While his new buddies talk a good game, preaching about worker’s rights, racial equality and equal rights for women, behind the scenes the party’s upper echelon is cynical, racist and sexist, much like the capitalist foes they oppose. Bill falls in love with Nina, an Eastern European born teacher of Marxism. Both she and Bill have good reason to become disenchanted and fearful of the party, especially after a rank and file member publicly questions the party’s hypocrisies and pays the ultimate price for his break with protocol. 

A Priest on a Mission

A priest, Father O’Leary (Leo Cleary), arrives on the scene at the behest of Molly’s mother, who disapprove’s of her daughter’s lifestyle. The clergyman delivers one of several lectures sprinkled throughout the film on the evils of communism. After which, he liberates a 50-cent piece from a party member that he says will go into the poor box — sort of like beating the communists at their own game.

The hatchet lady of the party, Yvonne Kraus (Betty Lou Gerson), goes on a Stalinesque rampage to rid the communist cell of traitors. Among the highlights of “The Red Menace” is the scene in which Yvonne has a mental breakdown, making a total confession to the police. Gerson’s performance here is heavy on the histrionics. Perhaps it was typecasting that got her the gig as the voice of the evil Cruella de Vil in the Disney animated film “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (1961). In any case, she hits the mark in both roles.

Hugh Beaumont, Frances Rafferty, “Money Madness.” 

"Money Madness" (1948) Film Classics

It’s a shock seeing family man Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont) of TV’s “Leave it to Beaver” (1957 - 1963) playing former mental patient and cold-blooded killer Steve Clark in “Money Madness.” Beaumont’s most popular role as head of a middle class, suburban family is so thoroughly burned into our collective consciousness that the first sight of his bank-robbing rat of a character is, through no fault of the actor, laughable. But audiences in 1948 had yet to see Ward offer TV-dad wisdom to sons Wally and the Beav. So, those of us raised on 1950s - ’60s family sitcoms just have to suck it up and adjust to Beaumont as Ward’s evil twin. 

Then there’s the film’s title, which hits like a soggy loaf of bread and is a dead giveaway that this is a Poverty Row production. Another 15 minutes of brainstorming would likely produce something more grabbing than “Money Madness.” We can safely assume the clock ran out and they chose the first couplet that popped into their heads. No matter, the Poverty Row credo was shoot it, get it in the can and out the door, pronto — title, schmitle.

A Tough Sentence

At least the story begins with a tantalizing courtroom scene:  the sentencing of Julie Saunders (Frances Rafferty), who, we learn, will receive free room and board for the next 10 years courtesy of the state.

Bystanders mumble that she’s getting a raw deal, and in one long flashback we see how she landed in the mess she’s in. 

Clark rolls into town and fills a safety deposit box with thick stacks of moolah, then gets a job driving a taxi. He meets Julie by chance one night as she tries to fend off a drunken wolf. Clark gets rid of the oaf, then pours on the charm and pretty soon he and Julie are dating. Of course, we already know that things won’t go well for Julie, and that both Clark and his boat-load of cash will be at the root of her downfall.

Julie, who is roundly browbeaten by her overbearing invalid Aunt Cora (Cecil Weston) with whom she lives, is soon to be the useful patsy that Clark has been searching for. He works out a scheme involving Cora, and Julie becomes an unwitting accomplice. He convinces her to wed and the wheels of his scheme begin to turn.

It’s a bumpy ride throughout for Julie, as we begin to see the depths of depravity to which Clark will sink in order to hang onto his stack of loot.

A Study of Actors

What’s fascinating is observing the workings of second-string actors, whose not-quite-there performances can show us, in contrast, just how good the A-listers really are. It might be the indelible image of Ward Cleaver bleeding through Beaumont’s performance, a factor that was unforeseeable in 1948, that robs him of the intangible quality that makes a great performance. But I suspect that Beaumont’s refined demeanor, lacking any underlying danger or threat of violence, is what takes the edge off his performance. Those are qualities that, say, Robert Mitchum could communicate with a cold stare and a nonchalant drag on a Chesterfield.

Although he throws himself into the role and does a commendable job, Beaumont can’t project the smug self assuredness of a Mitchum, a Bogart or a Cagney, but that’s part of the reason why that trio made the big bucks.

Beaumont may not make a convincing tough guy, but he was a heck of a TV dad and, despite all, is still enjoyable to watch here. “Money Madness” holds together as a neat little package of impending doom and that’s what makes it worthwhile.

This is my second post about “Poverty Row Noir.” Click here to read Part 1. 

It Came from Poverty Row: Hollywood's B-Movie Factories Mined Noir Gold

Ann Savage, Tom Neal, "Detour" (1945).
Hitchhiking on the road to hell.

So many westerns were filmed at the small, independently owned studios near the intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Gower St. in Hollywood that people began calling it Gower Gulch. From the 1930s to the ’50s it was the epicenter of low-rent film production and the gaggle of studios there was disparagingly known as Poverty Row. Monogram, Republic, Eagle-Lion and Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), among many others, cranked out westerns, gangster films, horror movies, comedies, teen musicals and films noir, usually on beer-money budgets with modest sets and B- or C-list actors. 

Back in the days when movie houses showed double features, cheaply made B-pictures were paired with big budget films produced by the major studios. Strong demand for B-pictures gave rise to an industry dedicated to knocking out 55- to 75-minute dramas, comedies and musicals that the larger studios were unwilling to bother with. 

Always pinching pennies, Poverty Row directors were known to use sets left behind by more prosperous productions that had been shooting at neighboring soundstages. To save money, directors shot scenes outdoors, often in natural light with Hollywood neighborhoods as backdrops. Interior shots with vast black pools of shadow could mask a lack of sets, props, costumes and even adequate lighting equipment.

Films were often spare, with unfiltered images that seemed to convey noir’s tales of murder and treachery with an air of authenticity not found in polished productions by the majors. 

Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) in Hollywood.
One of the studios where B-pictures were made.

Known for quick and dirty operations, Poverty Row studios took on films that Paramount or Warner Bros. would shy away from. Stories too tawdry for polite company may have been rejected at Fox, but they were the stuff that made Poverty Row’s engine fire on all cylinders. Titles such as “The Red Menace” (1949), “Bury Me Dead” (1947) and “For You I Die” (1948) rolled off the Poverty Row assembly line. Many had a sensational, ripped from the headlines feel that reflected the brash energy of American tabloid journalism of the 1940s and ’50s. 

Of course, not each an every film shot on Poverty Row sparkled like a diamond. With rushed schedules and budgets stretched to the breaking point there's bound to be some clunkers. Production values were less than top-notch, performances could be uneven and scripts had plot holes you could drive a Buick Roadmaster through. Shooting schedules were usually short and hectic, often less than a week for feature films. While a goodly amount of the output was dreck, a number of masterpieces were the product of those thread-bare productions. Ingenuity and craftsmanship could make up for tight finances and screenplays sorely in need of a rewrite. 

Many skilled technicians who’d been in Hollywood since the days of the silents found a steady income there. The low-rent studios didn’t pay much, but kept droves of film industry veterans off the breadlines during the Depression. It was a blue collar island in a neighborhood bulging at the seams with high falutin artistes.

Poverty Row was a corner of the industry that didn't take itself overly seriously. No one expected that Monogram, PRC and Eagle Lion’s pictures would ever be regarded as art, and the likelihood of critics ever seeing them was slim to none. Above all else it was a tough racket. Films were at times cut with the delicacy of a flying meat cleaver and distributors were often paid a flat fee for each film regardless of how many tickets were sold. 

This was a market of mass production and the goal was to deliver the product with great speed. 

The chaotic atmosphere and urgency to get a film in the can paradoxically offered directors and other artists greater latitude to try things that would never be approved by larger studios. The relatively low cost of each project allowed directors and actors to be largely left alone to do their work without interference, which resulted in some spectacular and enduring films that otherwise might never have been made. 

Five Noirs Made for Peanuts 

that Still Knock Our Socks Off

Here are a handful of top-notch crime dramas (and one that's not so top-notch) produced during Poverty Row’s heyday. I’ll list more of them in the coming weeks. Please feel free to enter your picks for the best Poverty Row crime and noir features in the Comments section below.:

Tom Neal, "Detour." Trapped in a paranoid nightmare.

“Detour” (1945) Producers Releasing Corporation

We begin with the grand daddy of noirs done on dirt cheap budgets by independently minded directors. In this case it’s the King of B-pictures, Edgar G. Ulmer. It’s a classic example of how a bottom-rung budget can set a gritty, claustrophobic mood that looks just right for noir. We can almost feel desperation radiating off the screen. It’s the production’s thread-bare look that enhances the protagonist’s sense of hopelessness and isolation. 

The very down-at-the-heels look is in itself a character in this movie, and it’s that shop-worn texture that sets the mood and somehow makes the plot all the more credible. It’s the story of pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal) who just can’t seem to catch a break. His head is filled with visions of Carnegie Hall, but instead he pounds the keys at a gin joint, scooping up tips from the punters and gritting his teeth. His gal sings at the saloon to his accompaniment, but fed up with their dead end existence, she cuts bait and heads for the West Coast in search something better. 

Al stays behind in New York until he finally gets the gumption to follow his love. He’s broke, so he gets out on the highway and sticks out his thumb. He feels a rush of enthusiasm he hasn’t experienced in years, like he’s on his way to the promised land. But his journey turns into something resembling the third circle of hell. 

He catches a ride with a big-wheel gambler, but that goes sour — real sour —and he decides to change his identity, as you do in noir. When he begins thinking his luck might be changing for the better he crosses paths with hitchhiker Vera (Ann Savage), a spitfire whom he soon wishes he never met.

This is arguably Ulmer’s noir masterpiece (he felt that “Ruthless” [1948] was his best), a story so unyielding in its pessimism that big studios would likely pass on it. Just as well. They’d probably try to dress it up for maximum consumer appeal, and that would ruin everything. The film was remade in 1992 with Tom Neal’s son, Tom Neal Jr. — it’s best to stick with the original.

Edward Norris, Jean Gillie, Herbert Rudley, "Decoy" (1946).

"Decoy" (1946) Monogram Studios

When it comes to cruel, irredeemable femmes fatale, Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie) wins top honors as the rottenest apple in the orchard. Told in flashback, “Decoy” features double crossers, a death row execution and a doctor who raises the dead. Then, things start to get weird.

Throughout the film, Margot remains a cold-blooded double crosser. For her sheer cruelty and outsized zest for sadism, she stands out among noir’s most treacherous females.

She pulls off a murder that is as hideous as any committed by man, woman or child onscreen at the time. In her crazed pursuit of a $400,000 stash of loot, she disposes of an accomplice as he’s fixing a flat tire by slamming her car into forward gear and running over the unsuspecting sap several times for good measure. She hops out and rifles through the dead man’s pockets before driving off.

Aside from Margot’s depraved antics, the centerpiece of the film’s first half is a whacky stunt that involves hijacking a morgue meat wagon that’s carrying the body of an executed man. Margot and her band of ghouls bring the corpse to a laboratory where a doctor administers a drug that brings the dead man back to life. (Yup, you heard right.)

In the film’s closing moments she lies on her death bed while Police Sgt. Portugal (Sheldon Leonard), who has been on her trail, stands over her. She asks him to come closer, as if she means to tell him something — something confidential — and he crouches down, bringing his face closer to her’s. Is she about to unburden herself and express regret for all the wrong she has done, we wonder? Nah! With her dying breath she cackles hysterically in the copper’s face. She can now leave this mortal coil, warmed by the fact that she’s had the last laugh at another in a long line of suckers. With her rotten-to-the core exit, Margot is the very model of a film noir femme fatale.

Elyse Knox, Don Castle, "I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes" (1948).

“I Wouldn’t be in Your Shoes” (1948) Monogram Studios

Ann Quinn (Elyse Knox) wishes that a saint would deliver a pot of gold to her and her vaudeville hoofer husband Tom Quinn (Don Castle). Tom says it wouldn’t mind if that pot of gold was delivered by “the opposite of a saint.” We get a creepy feeling that in uttering those works he’s unintentionally summoning up a demon. When Ann switches off the lights a chorus of cats begins to howl outside their bedroom window. The hoofer chucks his shoes at the vocalizing felines, setting off a disastrous chain of events that no one could have predicted. 

Based on a Cornell Woolrich story, “I Wouldn’t be in Your Shoes,” like a number of Woolrich’s yarns, is the story of a man wrongly convicted of murder. As Tom sits on death row, Ann frantically searches for evidence that will prove him innocent. Frequently, Woolrich’s persecuted men are rescued by strong willed, inquisitive females who go to great lengths to dig out facts that will save the poor dope whose neck is on the chopping block. 

We get the story in flashback, with Tom’s echoey voice narrating as he sits in a prison cell. Ann is a ballroom dance instructor whose most dedicated pupil is a big tipper she calls Santa Clause. It turns out that Santa is really Police Insp. Clint Judd (Regis Toomey), a crusty veteran of the force known for cracking difficult cases. He finds a footprint outside of a murder scene that links Tom to the crime. The murder victim is Tom and Ann’s shut-in, cash laden neighbor, and coincidentally, not only does a thick wad of moolah find its way into Tom’s hands, the pair of shoes he hurled at the noisy cats unexpectedly materialized on their doorstep the next morning. It’s a cinch that there’s a frame-up in the works, but Tom has a date with the hangman’s noose and time is running out for him. 

Hokey touches (the echoey narrator), static camerawork and uneven performances don’t take much away from the outlandish plot that, while stretching credibility to the breaking point, is pure Woolrich, and that alone makes it worth a look. Strangely enough, if the film was a high budget production, I doubt that we’d be willing to forgive the parts that don’t make a lot of sense. How, for example, does Insp. Judd find the time to do the seemingly enormous amount of personal sleuthing and still hold down a job? No matter. In a low-rent, funky production such as this we sit back and go along for the ride.

Dolores Fuller, Herbert Rawlinson, "Jail Bait" (1954).

“Jail Bait” (1954) Howco. 

When it comes to cheapie film productions with odd plot lines I could hardly neglect to mention Edward D. Wood Jr., director of cult classics such as “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1957), “Glen or Glenda” (1953) and “Bride of the Monster” Wood’s wild, frequently disjointed work tends to land in the science fiction and horror genres and is widely renown simply for being so, so bad. He was awarded two of film critic Michael Medved’s Golden Turkey Awards, one for Worst Director of all times and the other, a Worst Film award for his “Plan 9 from Outer Space.”

Regardless of their premise, Wood’s films, be they science fiction fantasies with cheesy flying saucers or a pseudo documentary about transvestites and sex change surgery, don’t lean heavily on verisimilitude and plausibility. Perhaps because of that, the Wood oeuvre has for decades attracted packs of hipsters who view the stuff largely for its ironic comedic value.

“Jail Bait,” the director’s sole attempt at film noir, may be the lesser known Wood film on the midnight screenings circuit mostly because it avoids outrageous and inflammatory topics and the plot stays basically within noir’s conventions. The title doesn’t refer to under-aged girls, by the way. It’s what one character calls the gun her delinquent brother carries with him on the streets. Although it’s probably not an accident that the film is tagged with a suggestive title — in this business you gotta have a gimmick.

The film is a straight-ahead crime drama telling the story of Don Gregor (Clancy Malone), a partner in crime with gangster Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell). Don, fresh out of prison, is brow beaten onto committing a robbery with Vic, and it goes badly. That's when Don's father, plastic surgeon Dr. Boris Gregor (Herbert Rawlinson) is forced to perform a plastic surgery job on Vic, who wants to hide his identity. Don is being held hostage until the surgery is complete, so Dr. Gregor goes to work on the desperate criminal with great urgency. 

Vic is a wanted man, so they can’t risk using an operating room. Naturally, the procedure is done on the sofa in Vic’s living room. A nurse isn’t available to assist, so the doctor’s daughter, Marilyn (Dolores Fuller, Wood’s real life girlfriend) pitches in. The entire operation is conducted with a basin of hot water, some ether, a scalpel or two, probably, and some clean sheets used to make bandages. Voila! Vic gets a new face, but in an odd twist his new profile is something less than what he expected.

Produced on a measly budget, “Jail Bait” suffers from uneven acting, vacuous dialogue (Dr. Gregor thoughtfully remarks, “Plastic surgery, at times, seems to be very, very complicated.”) and scattershot direction. But somehow Wood’s strange ending and some laughably stiff line readings add up to a rather likable mess. It’s enough to make me wish that Wood had tried his hand at noir at least one more time.  

Leslie Brooks, "Blonde Ice" (1948).

“Blonde Ice” (1948) Film Classics

San Francisco society columnist Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) gets hitched to a rich dude, then shows off her mastery in the art of two-timing. Claire never met a man she couldn't play for a sucker, because she’s … you know, cold like ice.

“Blonde Ice” director Jack Burnhard also directed “Decoy,” and between both films he gave rise to two of the most dastardly femmes fatale in all of noir. Unlike gun moll Margot Shelby in “Decoy,” Claire is a wage slave working among ink stained wretches. But both are driven by an insatiable desire for riches and will Hoover up every dollar, diamond and mink they can extract from unsuspecting marks. The difference between them is that Margot is an underworld denizen and Claire is a social climber. Margot uses blunt force to get cash, while Claire would prefer to marry it. She does, however, pack a pearl handled revolver in her purse and isn’t afraid to use it.

Nicknamed Blonde Ice, we meet Claire as she’s about to walk the plank with a middle-aged moneybags while giving her whimpering ex-beau, sportswriter Les Burns (Robert Paige), the heave-ho. Even after taking the vows she still tantalizes crestfallen Les, stringing him along as her husband of 15 minutes grows huffy watching from the sidelines. She calms hubby, but he won’t stay pacified for long. For Claire, it’s a minor bump in the road. She always keeps an eye open for new prospects with bulging bank accounts should the need for a substitute arise. 

It’s no wonder that she took up her vocation in the news biz, chronicling the comings and goings of the conspicuously wealthy. According to her peers, she ain’t no newspaperwoman. That’s immaterial to Claire — the job’s main perk is a bird’s eye view of eligible dupes who are ripe for the picking. 

In large part, what’s most enjoyable about both films, for me, at least, is the cold bloodedness of the crimes to which both lethal ladies resort. Claire is blasé when she pulls the trigger, and is quick to put on a charming face when the situation calls for it. After shooing away a blackmailer who wants to take her for 50 grand, she switches from a snarl to a smile, deftly toggling into her charming socialite persona to greet arriving guests. In the end, Claire lives up to her nickname, but when the people around her get wise to her dark motives and darker deeds, the world becomes too chilly a place for her. 

Next time, I’ll talk more about Poverty Row, directors who learned their trade there and the films that they made.

When Tinsel Town Turns the Camera on Itself

Rod Steiger, 'The Big Knife' (1955).

Face it, scandals make good news copy and the Los Angeles entertainment industry produces a bumper crop of the stuff that keeps gossip writers in business. 

From Rosco “Fatty” Arbuckle to Harvey Weinstein the press has never been at a loss for words when it comes to movie industry playboys who can’t control their libidos. An occasional murder, drug overdose or sexual assault crops up now and then and the public can’t get enough of the lurid details.

The gossip that follows a large public display of dirty laundry is especially enticing because it puts the Hollywood elite in a harsh spotlight that’s different from the radiant glow of positive press-agent-generated fluff that we normally see.

 With Damien Chazelle’s marathon tribute to decadent early Hollywood, “Babylon,” fresh in our collective memories, it’s a good time to consider some of the movies that Hollywood has made about itself over the years. Some of the best are noirs, or noir influenced, that examine the decadence and depravity of the movie making capital of the world.

‘Sunset Blvd.’ (1950)

William Holden

Films noir that savage the entertainment industry got their start with the granddaddy of Hollywood takedowns, “Sunset Blvd.” Young screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) has hit a career dead end and is about to leave Los Angeles. Broke and unemployed, he meets delusional former silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) who is self-exiled in her dilapidated mansion and is girding herself for a showbusiness comeback — although the industry wants nothing to do with her. 

“Sunset Blvd.” is a darkly comedic parable of youth obsessed Hollywood, whose older guard preys upon the vitality of the young fresh faces that migrate there with high hopes and naïve understanding of the parasitic society they’ve entered. Norma is a washed-up former star who cannot cope with no longer being the ingénue. She’s hit the half-century mark and there’s no one less wanted than an aging woman in Hollywood.

She latches onto Gillis and puts him to work rewriting a putrid script she scratched out on what we may darkly imagine is parchment made from human tissue. She expects this extravaganza, a retelling of the story of Salome, will be the vehicle for her big-screen comeback. Gillis plays along because he’s at the end of his rope financially and believes he’ll pocket some sorely needed cash. 

But Norma is too sharp for the rookie scribbler. When it finally dawns on him that he has become a fellow inmate in her Gothic nightmare of a home along with her dedicated man servant, Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim), it’s too late to wriggle free. By the time he gets around to making a run for it, Gillis completes his journey through the depths of Hollywood depravity with an unscheduled dip in Norma’s pool and a couple of slugs of lead in his back. 

‘In a Lonely Place’ (1950) 

Humphrey Bogart

Dixon Steel (Humphrey Bogart) is a former A-list screenwriter whose career tanked. His last hit was before the war. He’s an alcoholic with a hot temper that occasionally flares up into violence. His inner rage, perhaps the result of war related post traumatic stress syndrome, causes him pick fights with the mean-spirited jokers he encounters. 

He gets into a barroom punch-out with a lout who degrades an old, washed up actor who lives from one drink to the next. Turns out the lout is the son of a studio chief, but Steele is far beyond worrying about how the brawl might hurt his career.

Based on the Dorothy B. Hughes novel of the same title, “In a Lonely Place” is a study of Dixon Steele’s insecurities and tendency toward self-sabotage. It’s also an indictment against toxic environments present in the Hollywood studio system. His handlers tolerate Steele’s artistic temperament, all right, and they’d probably be perfectly willing to look the other way and cover up any transgressions. When one of their own uses his star power to take advantage of a woman it’s just business as usual. 

When he brings Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart), a naïve coat check girl, to his apartment it’s clear that he’s no predator. She’s going to tell him the plot of a novel he’s supposed to have read so that he can decide whether or not he wants to adapt it to the screen. He changes into a robe to get comfortable, which startles Mildred at first until she realizes that he doesn’t have any hanky-panky in mind. She tells him about the book. But as she describes the plot he realizes that the novel is trash and sends her home in a taxi. 

But after Mildred is discovered strangled and left by the roadside Steele’s world begins to come apart. A few friends have a nagging suspicion that he may have done something terrible. His agent, Mel Lippman (Art Smith), is set with an escape plan to Mexico. We can only wonder how many times he’s helped other clients avoid the consequence for their bad behavior.  

When Steele is identified as a person of interest in the murder investigation we see the paranoid delusions that begin to cloud his brain. There’s no telling what’s liable to send him into a rage and as suspicion begins to coalesce around him his erratic behavior increases. His friends wonder whether or not he killed the young girl, and so do we. 

‘The Big Knife’ (1955)

Ida Lupino, Jack Palance

Charlie Castle (Jack Palance) is a movie star under contract with a major studio and he wishes he wasn’t. He lives in big house and has all of the comforts that a load of cash and celebrity can provide. But the film industry is ruining his life. He’s alienated from his estranged wife, Marion (Ida Lupino), who can’t stand being married to a drunken womanizer who has compromised his ideals. 

Charlie would like to quit the business but the snag is that his melodramatic boss, studio head Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), won’t let him off the hook. Charlie’s contract is about to expire and Hoff is determined to make him sign another. 

One of main attractions of “The Big Knife” is the three-ring circus Charlie’s living room becomes when all of the hangers on converge like sharks around a drowning man. Hoff, the lead shark, has a conniption when the Charlie balks at signing a new contract. Steiger’s performance as Hoff is, shall we say, over the top, even for an actor known for occasionally chewing the scenery like a chainsaw. 

“The Big Knife” is the story of a corrupted actor who has sold out to the Hollywood machine, gets caught in its gears and is about to be torn asunder. He’s sacrificed his artistic integrity for the monied life of a film star but it’s an empty existence that’s brought him little happiness. But why does Hoff have so much power over the actor? A dark secret lurks in Charlie’s past and because of it he’s doomed to walk the Hollywood treadmill for eternity. 

In movieland, depravity is contagious, and even a naïve palooka like Charlie can’t help but be drawn into it. It’s easy to become corrupted when everyone around you is ethically bankrupt and willing to cover up your embarrassing and felonious transgressions when you land in hot water. And Charlie is in it up to his neck.

‘Barton Fink’ (1991)

John Turturro 

A noir-tinged comedy set in the 1940s, “Barton Fink” tells the story of the titular character, played exquisitely by John Turturro, an up-and-coming playwright with a politically progressive bent — a thinly veiled stand-in for Clifford Odets. 

His socially aware dramas are taking the New York theater world by a storm. But Fink, irritated by the nitwits and hangers on who plague his existence, has high ideals and an even higher opinion of his own artistic merits. Lured to the West Coast by the promise of piles of cash, he has to twist himself into knots justifying his transition from the stages of Broadway to the backlot of Capitol Pictures, his new employer. 

But move there he does, and from his first day in Los Angeles Fink finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare. His hotel is extra creepy, the studio boss Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) kills him with spooky kindness, assuring him that the writer is king at Capitol Pictures — a deceptive reading of the facts, if there ever was one. 

His next-door neighbor at the dilapidated Hotel Earle, insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), is a too friendly, in-your-face bumpkin with some peculiar habits. Fink meets one of his idols, author W. P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), a thinly disguised William Faulkner, who, like Fink, has been lured to the shores of “the Great Salt Lake” by the promise of riches.

The darkly humorous conceit that runs throughout “Barton Fink” is that Hollywood is hell. Fink failed to read the sign posted at the gates of the city: “All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here.” It’s a warning that fools ignore, because, after all, they know better.

‘Hollywood Story’ (1951)

Richard Conte

If “Hollywood Story” has a familiar feel, that’s because it’s is based on the real-life murder of film director William Desmond Taylor (1872–1922), a crime that remains unsolved. 

In this fictionalized account of the Taylor case, New York theatrical director Larry O'Brien (Richard Conte) comes to Hollywood to direct his first picture with longtime pal Sam Collyer (Fred Clark). 

O’Brien’s agent, Mitch Davis (Jim Backus), persuades him to direct a film at a disused movie lot that thrived during the silent film era. The director becomes obsessed with a murder of a silent era director, Franklin Ferrera, that happened on the same movie lot more than 20 years before. 

It’s not of the same caliber as the above-mentioned films, but “Hollywood Story” needs to be added to the list when discussing noir’s cold, hard look at the entertainment industry. Perhaps most significantly, it was directed by B-movie maven William Castle, who produced many thrillers on the cheap and promoted them with gimmicks. 

For his film “Macabre” (1958), he came up with the idea to give every customer a certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London in case they should die of fright during the film. He stationed nurses in the lobbies with hearses parked outside the theaters.

It may not have been promoted with flashy attention-getting hokum, but “Hollywood Story” is, like other Castle films, a bare-bones production, ginned up with cameos by a number of silent film era actors and a few location shots. He knew how to stretch a production budget dollar. 

After O’Brien decides to do a film about the murder he meets resistance from his producing partner, his agent and the deceased director’s heirs who would rather let the matter rest. But then someone fires a bullet at O’Brien, warning him to drop the film. Of course, he doesn’t, and we’re left guessing the killer’s identity until the conclusion.

A forced happy ending tacked onto “Hollywood Story” no doubt calmed the nerves of studio execs and investors who feared a dark wrap-up would result in thin box office returns. Those concerns were probably unnecessary. Few things are more appealing to B-movie audiences than the sight of a Hollywood meltdown, preferably with a hack screenwriter floating face down in the pool. 

Hazy Memories of Hollywood

Brad Pitt and Mike Moh, 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.'

Ever since it hit the screen in 2019 there’s been a lot of talk about Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood,” especially the fight scene between stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and martial arts master and actor Bruce Lee (Mike Moh). Their fictitious on-screen dustup ruffled some feathers, particularly among Lee’s kin and the actor’s fans, who say that he was unfairly maligned. On the surface, the fight scene does makes Lee out to be a delusional windbag. While Moh’s portrayal is decidedly bizarre and probably a highly exaggerated portrait of Lee, Tarantino’s intention, I think, is not to disrespect Lee but to make us wonder about the reliability of Cliff’s recollections of events and to cast doubt on whether or not certain events actually took place. 

We see the scene filtered through Cliff’s recollection of it, which makes us wonder if he merely remembers Lee in the least flattering terms possible because of animosity between the two. Some say that the real Bruce Lee had a rough relationship with movie stuntmen, whom he didn’t respect. Rumor has it that he’d intentionally hit stunt actors rather than pull his punches, leading some to refuse to work with the actor.  

Cliff and Lee’s fight, a sparring match, actually, is seen in flashback. And to make matters all the more complicated, it’s followed by yet another flashback. The sequence starts when Cliff is fixing a rooftop TV antenna for his buddy and employer, TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio). His mind wanders to an encounter with Lee on the set of TV series “The Green Hornet” (1966-’67). In the flashback, Cliff, nattily dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a silly pompadour hairpiece, gets into a verbal scrap with Lee, who happens to be the show’s co-star. Lee is holding court with a gaggle of fawning crew members, and proclaims that he could beat Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) in a fight. Cliff snickers, and that leads to a round of fisticuffs; two falls out of three wins it; no hitting in the face. Before the action starts someone clues Lee into the rumor that Cliff murdered his wife, which gives the confident martial artist a moment’s pause. Things come to a head when Cliff deflects Lee’s kick and sends the martial artist careening into a parked Lincoln Continental, leaving a huge dent in the body. Stuntman Randy (Kurt Russell) fires Cliff for messing with the actor and damaging the vehicle. 

While this seems like straightforward storytelling there are strange and subtle activities percolating in the background. Crew members sit comfortably as they take in the action. But just before Lee is tossed into the car the spectators are suddenly gone. It seems like a continuity error in editing the film, not unlike those that were intentionally placed in Tarantino’s “Grindhouse” (2007), where Tarantino mimicked sloppy mistakes endemic in cheapo grindhouse exploitation films of the 1960s and ’70s. But, in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” the disappearing spectators suggest we’re seeing a highly subjective recollection of the facts, or perhaps a total fabrication of events. And, what about that smashed car door? It’s a big, gaping dent, as if the car was hit by a slow-moving 18-wheeler. The impact would surely be enough to kill a man.

Odder still is the flashback within a flashback, in which Cliff remembers himself on a boat with his now dead wife. She’s lambasting him about their crappy vessel among other things. Cliff sits impassively, a spear fishing gun in his hands. Did the browbeaten husband finally snap and skewer his furious wife? Their tense encounter on the ocean reminds us of a real-life Hollywood death when actress Natalie Wood drowned under suspicious circumstances while yachting with her husband Robert Wagner. The sequence ends, and Cliff does not fire a spear at his beloved, but we can’t help but suspect it’s on his “things to do” list.

When the flashback sequences end, things get weirder still as Cliff, still on the rooftop, notices a scruffy, bearded dude down below on the street — Charles Manson, as it turns out, who has just paid a call on the home next door. Manson gives Cliff a big smile and a courtly wave (howdy, partner) to which Cliff looks on with suspicion. His instincts about the weird little character would prove prescient — the house next door is the residence of actress Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski and was the scene of one of the most notorious multiple murders in the city’s history. 

That encounter weighs heavily on us as we watch the story continue to unfold, expecting the worst, holding our breath, and waiting for the inevitable. But, as anyone who’s seen “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) knows, Tarantino has a way of playing with historical facts when he weaves fictional threads into his non-fictional tapestry. And just as we can’t really be sure about the veracity of Cliff’s encounters, factually, Tarantino’s tale of Hollywood at a historic crossroad is a malleable as wet papier mâché. In the end, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” is a fairytale. Not the kind you’d read to kids at bedtime, but a nostalgia-tinged farewell to a time and place that now exists mostly in our highly unreliable memories.