F.W. Murnau | Cladrite Radio

In Your Hat, pt. 12

In Chapter 12 of In Your Hat, the 1933 tell-all memoir by Hat Check Girl to the Stars Renee Carroll, she reveals what various celebrities wrote in her collection of autograph books, and she follows that with tales of what the stars of the day liked to eat when they patronized Sardi’s.

If you took a rabbit out of those suckers’ hats
They would squawk just the same:
They all have two strikes on them
When they are born.

TEXAS GUINAN

THAT’S an autograph left in my book by Tex. I’m not quite clear as to its meaning, and I don’t think she is either. But vaguely, it’s Broadway’s philosophy. If somebody pats you on the back, he’s only locating a spot for the knife thrust. If you give a sucker a break, he’s liable to shove his hand in and rip it apart.

Of course, all this is only sentimental hooey, and the boys and girls on Broadway are just as maudlin about one another as boys in an English boarding school. They all want to appear like awful, terrible “bad mans” with no hearts at all. The visage is stern, but the head and heart are made of mush, and it oozes through your fingers when you squeeze it.

I’ve got three books full of autographs. Perhaps a glance at some of them might throw an interesting light on the writers. I particularly like that of Frances Williams, whose cheeriness and glibness is not limited to her appeareances on the stage.

“May every hat check bring you a fat check—and may no meanie neglect my Renee—who never wrecks hats each time she checks hats—Frances Williams.”

Most of the celebrities pore over the book, seeking inspiration in the lines already written. Very few show any originality at all. Al Jolson, in one of his brighter moments, scribbled:

“Oh, look, I am in your book—thanks for letting me.”

And Louis Sobol, the Journal‘s columnist, wrote:

“To Renee, who expects something clever from me but won’t get it.”

Russell Patterson, the artist, who very rarely wears a hat, said as much, regretfully, with:

“To Renee, from her worst customer.”

Tony Canzoneri, the prize fighter, dragged his trade in by the teeth when he inscribed:

“To a real and sweet girl, with loads of knockouts.
Tony Canzoneri,
Lightweight Champion of the World.”

The professional gate crasher, Tammany Young, waxed philosophical and wrote:

“To Renee—
”Who takes what you give graciously. All life is a game of give and take. For what she takes she gives in a return a smile, a cheerful greeting and your belongings. May you go a long ways and prosper. Keep smiling Renee, it’s what we all go for.”

I think George Jessel‘s autograph amusing:

“To Renee—
            Duchess of Sardi,
               from
               Baron George Jessel,
               Colonel of the Bronx Grenadiers
               And Vis-count of Brownsville.”

Sidney Skolsky, the paragrapher, gave me away with:

“You’ll always be Miss Shapiro to me—one of my best yarns. Sidney Skolsky
P.S. She sleeps in the raw!”

If you can remember Herbert Rawlinson, you’ll remember his signature, too:

“My hat’s off to you. (Get it?) Je parle français aussi. (I hope that’s right).”

And Jesse Crawford noted:

“My autograph I here inscribe,
A member of the organ tribe
Jesse Crawford,
Poet (?) of the Organ.”

The little movie star, Marian Marsh, gave me a a straight tip with:

“Keep your face towards the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.”

And Reri who starred in F.W. Murnau‘s Tabu and was brought to American by Ziegfeld, wrote in the only language she knew:

“A mon amie Renee en souvenir des Ziegfeld Follies 1931.”

I offer the inscription of Sam Shipman, the playwright, because it is more or less typical of Broadway sentiment and ways of thinking:

“A hat girl who has more in her head than all the brains those hats cover. A little princess on a door mat—An oriental pearl in a suffocating shell—a ruby in a musty purse, but watch her.”

And Everett Marshall, the lusty-voiced baritone, dropped this:

“To Renee. In memory of my first daughter of four kilos.”

While Faith Baldwin, the author of Self Made Woman, wrote simply:

“Because I like red-heads.”

I’ve got lots of drawings, too, by famous artists, all of them too risqué for reproduction, and in some cases too combustible for safekeeping. Some of our best known illustrators have garnished the pages of my little books with drawings that would make those paintings on the bathroom walls of old Pompeii quiver with shame.

But not all the good things happen in autograph books or at penthouse parties. I have a lot of laughs right in the restaurant.

07 Sep 10 | Tags: Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Carl Laemmle, Claudette Colber, Eddie Cantor, Everett Marshall, F.W. Murnau, Faith Baldwin, Florence Reed, Florenz Ziegfeld, Fran Webb, Frances Williams, George Gershwin, George Jessel, George Kaufman, George Metaxa, George White, Gus Edwards, Harry Hershfeld, Harry Rosenthal, Helen Morgan, Herbert Rawlinson, Jed Harris, Jesse Crawford, Jimmy Walker, John Henry Mears, Junior Laemmle, Kate Smith, Lee Shubert, Lewis Milestone, Louis Sobol, Marian Marsh, Mark Hellinger, Marlene Dietrich, Max Lief, Morris Gest, Morton Downey, Paul Whiteman, Pepy De Albrew, Reri, Rian James, Ring Lardner, Robert Ripley, Rudolph Valentino, Rudy Vallee, Russell Patterson, Sam Shipman, Sidney Skolsky, Tabu, Tallulah Bankhead, Tammany Young, Ted Healy, Tex Guinan, Tony Canzoneri, Walter Winchell, William "Stage" Boyd
| Cladrite Culture, In Your Hat | Read on | Comments (0)

Better late than never

Though they’ve understandably slipped out of the spotlight, silent movies still inspire fascination and devotion among cineastes and good old-fashioned movie buffs. Turner Classic Movies devotes the midnight timeslot to silents every Sunday night, and museums and revival houses across the country still screen silent classics, often with live accompaniment by pianists and small musical combos.

We’re convinced that one of the reasons Ms. Cladrite fell for us was the eight consecutive Mondays we spent laughing our heads off during a Buster Keaton festival at New York’s Film Forum. There’s nothing like seeing a great silent movie in packed house with adept accompaniment provided by a deft pianist (Steve Sterner, in this case).

There was little in the way of film criticism in the silent era, so to a large degree it fell to later critics and film scholars to keep alive the discussion and scholarship surrounding these movies. One of the key figures in silents criticism was H.A.V. Bulleid, an English writer who was still with us until about ten months ago.

Bulleid’s key work of film criticism, Famous Library Films, never saw the light of day (or, rather, the ink of print). Comprising reviews of silent movies written in the early 1940s for Amateur Cine World, Famous Library Films was to be published in book form in 1947, but the publisher fell prey to the still-struggling postwar economy in England, and Bulleid was forced to shelve the project.

But finally, more than sixty years later, Bulleid’s not-quite-forgotten collection is finally being made available to the public, free of charge, at SilentsAreGolden.com. Included is a previously unpublished preface written for the book’s planned 1947 edition by director Fritz Lang and a contemporary introduction provided by esteemed silent film scholar Kevin Brownlow.

Among the twenty-three pictures Bulleid critiques in the book are Sergei Eisenstein‘s Battleship Potemkin, the German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Piccadilly starring Anna May Wong, Lang’s own Metropolis (too bad Bulleid didn’t live long enough to see the recent restoration of this classic), and F. W. Murnau‘s Faust.

16 Jun 10 | Tags: F.W. Murnau, H.A.V. Bulleid, Kevin Brownlow, Sergei Eisenstein, Silent movies
| Cladrite Movies | Read on | Comments (0)

Are You Having Any Fun?
Hey fellow with a million smackers
And nervous indigestion
Rich fellow, eats milk and crackers,
I'll ask you one question,
You silly so and so,
With all your dough...

Are you having any fun?
What you getting out of livin'?
What good is what you've got
If you're not having any fun?

Are you having any laughs?
Are you getting any lovin'?
If other people do,
So can you, have a little fun.

After the honey's in the cone,
Little bees go out and play.
Even the old grey mare down home
Has got to have hay. Hey!

You better have some fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and gray, feel okay.
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!

Why do you work and slave and save?
Life is full of ifs and buts.
You know the squirrels save and save,
And what have they got? Nuts!

Better have a little fun.
You ain't gonna live forever.
Before you're old and grey, still okay,
Have your little fun, son!
Have your little fun!
Are you havin' any fun?

---Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics), 1939

In Your Hat, pt. 12

Better late than never

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