Vaudeville may have died a long time ago, but some of the most beloved musical satirists of yesteryear (Victor Borge, Anna Russell) can still be seen on YouTube. Few could match the energy and ingenuity of Spike Jones, the popular gum-chewing bandleader whose musicians became a featured act during the early years of television thanks to their winning combination of a big band sound with the irreverent low comedy of burlesque.
Each year, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival offers its loyal audience a chance to spend time with some of the film stars from the first two decades of the 20th century. In 2018, the audience inside the Castro Theatre got to witness the art of three once-beloved stars, two of whom have pretty much faded from the public's consciousness.
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As a child of the 1950s, my earliest exposures to cowboy culture came from such television programs as The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun – Will Travel, Zorro, The Cisco Kid, Sky King, and Rawhide. Familiar names like Davy Crockett, Gene Autry, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Jim Bowie dotted the Wild West landscape with an occasional movie musical (1950's Annie Get Your Gun, 1953's Calamity Jane, 1954's Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, and 1955's Oklahoma!) thrown in for good measure.The legendary figure I never got to see on television (or in movie theatres) was the man who became Hollywood’s first Western star, the actor whose 291 movie credits included only nine talkies. I finally got to see Tom Mix in action this year when the San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened a restored print of No Man’s Gold (1926), which starred Mix along with his best friend, Tony the Wonder Horse.
Born in 1880, Mix grew up in Pennsylvania, where he dreamed of a life in the circus (his parents once caught him practicing knife-throwing tricks while using his sister as his "assistant"). Although some describe Mix as the Jackie Chan of early Westerns, others refer to him as a perfect role model for young boys infatuated with cowboy culture. Because his father worked as a stable master for a wealthy merchant, young Tom grew up around horses and learned to ride at an early age. After being hired by the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch, he joined their touring Wild West show. Over the next two decades, his cowboy films made him so famous that, in 1929, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of Wyatt Earp.
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| Tom Mix as Tom Stone with Mickey Moore as Jimmy Rogers in a scene from 1926's No Man's Gold |
In his program essay for the 2018 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Scott Simmon writes:
“Mix was a genuinely daring horseman who went for action, horsemanship, and breathtaking stunts, with little real violence alongside a good measure of comedy. Dramatic structure was never a big concern. He directed most, and wrote many of his 170 or so short films for Selig, which are unpretentious, breezy pleasures. They’re cowboy films made by cowboys. Mix made 76 features for Fox between 1919 and 1928, of which only 13 survived complete in the United States (along with fragments from three others). No Man’s Gold remained essentially unseen for more than 90 years. Thanks to Mix’s fans around the world, prints were distributed everywhere and turned up in the most unlikely places.”
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| Poster art from 1926's No Man's Gold |
“In 1966, the single known print of No Man’s Gold was unearthed, literally, at a rural chicken farm in what was then Czechoslovakia. A traveling exhibitor had apparently buried it alongside other Tom Mix films, which, over the decades became protected (if that’s the word) under a couple feet of chicken guano. Nine other Mix features turn out also to have survived nowhere else than at this Czech farm, from where they were rescued for preservation by Prague’s Národní filmovy archiv (National Film Archive). Such were the wandering indignities of film treasures like No Man’s Gold, and hence the Czech intertitles on the generously loaned print seen here at the festival.”
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| Tom Mix as Tom Stone with Mickey Moore as Jimmy Rogers in a scene from 1926's No Man's Gold |
Based on a novel by J. Allan Dunn (Dead Man’s Gold) the plot of No Man’s Gold is quite simple. A miner draws a map showing the secret location of his buried gold but, in order to keep it safe, splits the map into three pieces which he gives to three men. One man shoots and kills the miner. The other two are determined to find and keep the gold for themselves. Tom Mix comes to the rescue, becomes a hero figure for the miner’s newly orphaned son (Mickey Moore), performs some incredible stunts, and saves the day. Mix explained the formula for his films as follows:
“I ride into a place owning my own horse, saddle, and bridle. It isn’t my quarrel, but I get into trouble doing the right thing for somebody else. When it’s all ironed out, I never get any money reward. I may be made foreman of the ranch and I get the girl, but there is never a fervid love scene.”That was all the audience in the Castro Theatre needed to be happy. With musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin on piano and Frank Bockius on percussion, No Man's Gold had the kind of old-fashioned appeal that kept people sitting on the edge of their seats while rooting for the good guys. Other than the kind of greed that drives men crazy, it was a remarkably wholesome experience.
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| A publicity shot of Tom Mix with Tony the Wonder Horse |
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When people think back on the silent era, they usually hone in on such actresses as Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Louise Brooks, Colleen Moore, Mary Pickford, Anna May Wong, and Clara Bow (the original “It” girl). While many remember Norma Talmadge as a major star, her sister, Constance, faded from the public’s memory (primarily because hardly any of her films have survived). |
| Poster art for 1920's Good References |
Long considered lost forever, an original nitrate print of 1920's Good References surfaced at the Národní Filmový Archiv in Prague and was provided to the UCLA Film & Television Archive for its recent restoration, where the original intertitles (written in Czech) were translated back into English. Directed by Roy William Neill, Talmadage’s comic skills and ebullient personality have no trouble filling the screen and charming the audience as her character rises up New York’s social ladder through her quick thinking and unbelievably good luck.
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| Arnold Lucy (The Bishop), Constance Talmadge (Mary) and Nellie Parker Spaulding (Caroline) in a scene from 1920's Good References |
Having just been evicted after causing a small fire in the kitchen of her apartment, it seems as if the penniless Mary Wayne’s situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. But then a friend gets sick and asks Mary to take her place on the first day of her new secretarial job. The employer is Caroline Marshall (Nellie Parker Spaulding), a staunch society woman whose irresponsible nephew, William (Vincent Coleman), has returned home from college without earning a diploma along with his close friend, Peter Stearns (Ned Sparks). Caroline’s plans for William to make a proper debut in New York social circles are constantly being undermined by the rowdy behavior of the two men as Mary tries to keep William out of trouble.
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| Constance Talmadge (Mary) and Vincent Coleman (William) in a scene from 1920's Good References |
In her program essay for this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Jeanine Basinger explained that:
“Constance's life was in many ways the definitive silent-era show business story. Her mother, the formidable Peg Talmadge, had been deserted by her husband who left her penniless with three little girls to support (Norma, Constance, and Natalie). Facing a grim future, Peg cut her daughters no slack, making it clear to them that they’d need to use their looks and brains to make her a good living. She gave them two suggestions on how to do it: marry rich or become movie stars. Probably scared witless by Peg, the stage mother of all stage mothers, both Norma and Constance got busy and, just to be safe, did both. They married rich (more than once) and became top-ranked stars. Dorothy Gish commented that Constance was ‘always getting engaged, but never to less than two men at a time.’ Her boyfriends included Irving Berlin, Richard Barthelmess, Jack Pickford, Michael Arlen, and Irving Thalberg."
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| Constance Talmadge (Mary) and Vincent Coleman (William) in a scene from 1920's Good References |
“Norma’s husband (producer Joseph Schenck) hired Anita Loos to write material specifically adapted to Constance’s personality. The talented Loos (who later wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) created fun-loving women for Constance, who appeared in contemporary settings and easily made audiences fell in love with her. She pinned down a role she owned and that defined her for her public: a female who didn’t fear society’s disapproval. She would flirt if she wanted to, work if she wanted to, and run away if she wanted to, but always have a sense of humor about it. Within five years after Good References, Constance was rich, famous, adored, and living her life as she wished. She was only 26 years old and seemed to have an unlimited movie future. But when sound came in, she quit cold in 1929 and never looked back. She had no regrets, had been at the top of the heap, had a barrel of fun, and had done what her mother told her to do: she’d earned her bread. ”
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| Poster art for 1920's Good References |
The great irony is that, of the famous Talmadge sisters, Norma became one of the most successful dramatic actresses in silent film while Constance developed a devoted following for her comedic talents. Their middle sister, Natalie (who was also a silent film actress), gained fame by marrying Buster Keaton.
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Long after their deaths, Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd remain silent film royalty whose legacy is a proud part of cinematic history. Not only does Keaton have a worshipful following to this day, as computer technology has taken over more and more special effects in today's cinema, it is a jaw-dropping experience to watch the sheer athletic prowess, comedic skill, and brilliant set-ups which make Keaton's art so timeless.The final screening of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival was a 1926 Keaton classic entitled Battling Butler which deals with bullying, corruption, mistaken identity, male privilege, and income inequality -- topics that remain shockingly relevant to today's world. The difference is that, while so much of today's society has devolved into crassness, infantile name-calling, and a gross lack of respect for others, Keaton's comedic style retains an astonishing level of innocence, craft, and wholesomeness.
Battling Butler crams a huge amount of physical comedy into 70 minutes, including car chases, train scenes, boxing and, of course, love. Watching it from a chronological distance of 92 years is like auditing a master class in storytelling and farce from a man who, like Tom Mix, performed his own stunts with a breathtaking brilliance that has never dimmed. Watch, laugh, and above all, learn.
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