The Horse's Head

#24) The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939)

OR “Capital Punishment”

Directed by Robert R. Snody

Written by Reed Drummond and G.R. Hunter

Class of 2012

This is a revised and expanded version of my original “Middleton Family” post, which you can read here.

The Plot: In this Westinghouse sponsored industrial film, the Middleton family of Indiana arrive in New York to see all the technological wonders on display at the 1939 New York World’s Fair…well, at least the Westinghouse exhibits. Father, Mother, son Bud, daughter Babs, and Grandma (Harry Shannon, Ruth Lee, Jimmy Lydon, Marjorie Lord, Adora Andrews) witness such marvels as an electric dishwasher, a time capsule to be opened in 5000 years, a voice-command robot named Elektro, and a new invention called television. But all of this takes a backseat to a love triangle between Babs, her hometown sweetheart Jim Treadway (Douglas Stark) and her art teacher/Communist boyfriend Nicholas Makaroff (George J. Lewis). What follows is pure capitalism baked inside a love story baked inside more capitalism.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “a vibrant documentary record of the fair’s technological achievements and the heartland values of America”, though admits that the film is “[b]oth charming and heavy-handed”. An essay by professor and 1939 World’s Fair expert Andrew F. Wood echoes this sentiment, calling the film “more a time capsule of corporate propaganda than cinematic excellence.”

But Does It Really?: “Middleton” is an interesting little curio on this list. Anyone expecting a standard industrial short will be surprised by this film’s openly pro-Capitalism, anti-Communist agenda, complete with a story arc that dominates the film. Still, there’s enough enjoyable bits of ’30s culture throughout, and a thorough documentation of what Westinghouse had to offer us in 1939 (all in Technicolor, no less). “Middleton” is an interesting encapsulation of an optimistic country coming out of a decade-long depression, blissfully unaware of the impending darkness of another world war. A yes for “The Middleton Family” on the NFR, but definitely do your homework before viewing this.

Shout Outs: Quick references to such ’30s pop culture/NFR mainstays as Mickey Mouse, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and Frankenstein’s Monster.

Everybody Gets One: Marjorie Lord’s career was just getting started when she played Babs Middleton. While primarily a stage actor, her most famous role would be as Danny Thomas’ second wife on “The Danny Thomas Show” in the 1950s. Fun Fact: Marjorie Lord is the mother of Oscar nominated actor Anne Archer.

Wow, That’s Dated: We’ll get to the more heavy-handed dated aspects as we go, but for now we’ll settle on such then-topical references as the WPA, Dick Tracy, Barney Google, and the Dionne quintuplets.

Other notes

• World Exhibitions (alternatively known as Expositions or Fairs) started appearing in major metropolitan cities throughout the 19^th and early 20^th century, typically as large demonstrations of new technology. The first official World’s Fair was the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, with America hosting their first in Philadelphia in 1876 (the aptly named Centennial Exposition). Fairs in Chicago, San Francisco, and St. Louis followed, and New York’s 1939 fair would be the Big Apple’s first. Among the companies with exhibitions at the ’39 fair was the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, who commissioned Audio Productions Inc. to make a 50-minute film about their exhibit. The fair opened on April 30^th, 1939, with “Middleton Family” being filmed on location that June.

• Watching this movie is like watching an episode of “The Twilight Zone”: it all looks like normal life, but something is definitely off. There’s a lot of talk about how wonderful progress is, with immediate dismissal of any contrarian talk. This is all incredibly odd when being viewed through a modern lens, but try to remember its intended audience: Americans coming out of a Depression, fearful of machinery replacing manual labor, with Communism’s popularity starting to take a nosedive.
• Harry Shannon is giving me some Lee J. Cobb vibes. If Shannon looks familiar, you may be remembering him from his brief yet important role as Charles’ father in “Citizen Kane“.
• The Westinghouse Time Capsule (along with its 1965 counterpart) is still buried in Flushing Meadows Park, though it is now predicted that the capsules will be underwater in 6939 due to climate change.
• The guy playing Jim is no actor (this is Douglas Stark’s film debut), but he does have the unenviable task of delivering corporate talking points as naturally as possible. Hey, at least he memorized his lines.
• Every line uttered by Bud in this movie was followed by me saying, “Shut up, Bud.” Jimmy Lydon is the textbook bratty younger brother in this, so…good job?
• While Westinghouse did have an early display of television technology at the World’s Fair, it was the RCA exhibit that showcased this new breakthrough front and center (they even televised the fair’s opening ceremony). This may explain why TV is barely mentioned or featured in this film.

• Man, Nick is such a jerk. I get that we’re not supposed to sympathize with a Communist, but did you have to make him so repellent? He doesn’t know who the Marx brothers are! Pinko!
• “Funny how a man with facts can break down an argument.” Very important to remember. Also, shut up Bud.
• If the capitalist rhetoric is too much for you, stick around for Grandma’s appreciation for electrical engineers and how they improved life for housewives. “They signed our Emancipation Proclamation.” Hoo boy.
• Easily my favorite part of this whole movie, Elektro the Moto Man. I love everything about this robot: his art deco-by-way-of-Frankenstein aesthetic, the unnatural way you have to speak to utilize his voice command, and the fact that the first trick he demonstrates for an audience is smoking a cigarette.

• Man, the love triangle really takes over the last third of this film. They’re not even at the Fair anymore. Bring back the smoking robot!
• Shoutout to Georgette Harvey, cast here in the thankless role of Elvira the maid. Harvey was part of the original Broadway cast of “Porgy and Bess”, and unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Mammy in “Gone with the Wind“.
• Among the countless exhibitions the Middleton Family missed out on at the fair by only seeing the Westinghouse building: the fair’s iconic Trylon and Perisphere, General Motors’ Futurama (a look at the cars of 1959!), the first presentations of nylon fabric and the View-Master, over 300 pieces of art by the “Old Masters”, the Jewish Palestine pavilion which introduced what would eventually become Israel, Billy Rose’s Aquacade, and the Nimatron, considered the first digital computer.

Legacy

• “Middleton” was released in October 1939 (one month after World War II began in Europe) and was one of the few industrial shorts to get a major theatrical release. “Middleton” was made available for free to any theater that wished to play it on the bottom half of a double bill.
• The New York World’s Fair ran from April to October 1939, and then re-opened for the same period in 1940. Upon its closure in October 1940, most of the fairground was demolished, though Flushing Meadows would go on to host New York’s next World’s Fair 25 years later.

• World Fairs have never really gone away, but they have evolved into World Expos (as well as Specialised Expos). At the time of this writing, Dubai is hosting the delayed Expo 2020, with the next World Expo being held in Osaka, Japan in 2025.

• Audio Productions Inc. would go on to make several industrial shorts for the next 30 years, including two that would be spoofed on MST3K: 1947’s “Body Care and Grooming” and 1948’s “The Chicken of Tomorrow”. At some point Audio Productions folded, with their catalog falling into public domain, allowing for easy access to “The Middleton Family”.

#591) The Breakfast Club (1985)

OR “Five Angry Teens”

Directed & Written by John Hughes

Class of 2016 

The Plot: Five students at Illinois’ Shermer High School spend their Saturday in a nine-hour detention session run by Vice Principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason). The five students initially see each other as their stereotypes: by-the-book academic Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), muscle-headed jock Andrew (Emilio Estevez), silent introvert Allison (Ally Sheedy), put-together popular girl Claire (Molly Ringwald), and rebellious delinquent Bender (Judd Nelson). Over the course of their day together, the five start to see that they all have much more in common; mostly their struggles dealing with parents and teachers, and their anxieties about fitting in and staying within the high school status quo. Will this group break free from their self-imposed shackles? Or will life go back to normal on Monday?

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “a comedy that delivers a message with laughs” and highlights the film’s longevity.

But Does It Really?: One of the questions I ask myself when watching a movie is “What was the director’s goal when making this, and did they achieve it?” With “The Breakfast Club”, the answer is a resounding yes. Part of the film’s longtime appeal is because it succeeds at what it wants to be: a movie for and about teenagers that treats its subjects with authenticity and respect. For a brief moment in the ’80s, John Hughes was the voice of every confused teenager, unsure of their identities and/or of their place in the world. Aided by note-perfect performances from its young ensemble, “The Breakfast Club” takes us beyond what we think teenagers are like and shows us how we truly felt in our teen years. Plus it has a bitchin’ soundtrack. No argument here for NFR inclusion.

Everybody Gets One: This is the only NFR appearance for all five main cast members (though Emilio Estevez has a brief uncredited appearance in “Badlands“). Of the five, Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald were the only two age-appropriate cast members (both were 16). Estevez and Ally Sheedy were 22 during production, Judd Nelson 24.

Wow, That’s Dated: Other than the soundtrack and some of the clothing, there’s nothing too aggressively ’80s about “The Breakfast Club”. Unfortunately that means we have to focus on the surprising amount of misogyny and homophobia throughout this movie. For a more detailed analysis, I highly recommend this think-piece that Molly Ringwald penned for the New Yorker in 2018, in which she reexamines this film and “Sixteen Candles” from a #MeToo perspective.

Title Track: Originally titled “Detention”, Hughes’ script got its name from one of his friend’s teenage son, who attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. The school’s morning detention was dubbed “The Breakfast Club” by students, who most likely got the name from the Chicago-based radio program “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club“.

Seriously, Oscars?: No nominations for “The Breakfast Club” from the Oscars or any other voting group. The film would not receive any accolades until 2005, when the MTV Movie Awards gave the film the Silver Bucket of Excellence in honor of its 20^th anniversary.

Other notes 

• “The Breakfast Club” was meant to be writer John Hughes’ directorial debut. After completing the screenplay in 1982 and getting an option from A&M films, “Breakfast Club” sat in limbo for a few years. In the meantime, Hughes wrote a few more screenplays, including “Mr. Mom”, which was a big enough hit to get Hughes a three-picture deal with Universal. The studio agreed to greenlight “Breakfast Club”, on the condition that Hughes’ more accessible teen comedy “Sixteen Candles” be made first.
• You can’t hate a movie that begins with text from David Bowie’s “Changes”. The inclusion of the lyrics was suggested by Ally Sheedy.

• This movie excels at non-verbal character intros. We learn so much about our lead characters just from how they dress, what kind of cars their parents drive, where they sit in detention, etc. Hughes establishes these character tropes quickly to give himself enough time to break them down.
• Ah yes, the John Hughes tradition of parents and authority figures being the worst. Do people automatically become assholes once they turn 18 in this universe?
• That being said, Paul Gleason is relishing the opportunity to play the antagonistic Vice Principal Vernon. A former athlete turned actor, Gleason has the correct amount of menace and sleaze, without veering into the cartoonish buffoonery of Rooney from “Ferris Bueller“.

• Mainly I’m just amazed that a major movie studio like Universal would ever produce a low-budget character study with a single setting and a small ensemble. The days of that ever happening again are done and done.
• Wait, Bender said “Eat my shorts” first? I thought that was a Bart Simpson thing. Next you’re gonna tell me Bender never said “Bite my shiny, metal ass.“

• While never as revered as his father Martin Sheen or as eccentric as his brother Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez has maintained a steady legacy of good performances, and “Breakfast Club” is no exception. As Andrew, Estevez, perfectly encapsulates the kind of alpha male athletes who blindly follow orders without learning to think for themselves, and takes the character on a lovely arc. And for the record, Estevez is not anti-vaxx.

• Also great in this movie is Anthony Michael Hall, though mainly that’s because I was definitely a Brian-type in my high school years, and sympathized the most with his character. When you play a lovable loser as well as Hall does, you can’t fault him for bulking up and playing completely against-type in his adult years.

• Sometimes I can get a little too critical with movies on this list (I can imagine some of you vigorously nodding your heads now). Case in point: I found myself quite annoyed by the characters’ constant bickering over such inconsequential things as virginity and popularity, but I had to remind myself that’s the point. When you’re in high school, those subjects are the most important, and there’s going to be a lot of talk about them. It all stems from this film’s main theme of Image: what it means for teenagers and how they can best dismantle it. “The Breakfast Club” was not meant to be observed and analyzed like a museum artifact, it is meant to be enjoyed by its target audience: teens who feel like outsiders.
• My pick for MVP is Ally Sheedy, quietly stealing the show as “the basket case”. Even without dialogue for most of the movie, Allison’s presence is always felt in each scene, a notion reiterated by the constant cutaways to her for reaction shots.

• I got nothing against Molly Ringwald in this movie (and I have a ton of respect for her after reading the aforementioned think-piece), but most of Claire’s reaction shots in this movie are her looking dreamily at Bender. Even the ’80s fell victim to the “He’s a jerk but she’s okay with it” trope.

• I’m enjoying John Kapelos’ down-to-earth performance as Carl the janitor, though I would give a lot to have seen Hughes’ first choice Rick Moranis, who apparently grew out a beard and planned to play the role in a Russian accent. “The Breakfast Club” could have been a weirder, very different movie.

• Ah man, Bender’s joke about a naked lady walking into a bar was made-up. The internet has provided a few possible punchlines, my choice being “You’re telling me. I thought I was buying a dachshund.”
• The big scene is of course when our five leads, sitting comfortably on the library floor, finally open up about their true selves and why they’re in detention. All five actors do an excellent job playing the scenes naturally, with any emotional hysterics coming across as justified and not forced. I just wish I was this insightful when I was 17.

• And now for everyone’s favorite part, the dance montage! I’ll take this time to shout out legendary film editor Dede Allen, removed from her auteur days cutting “The Hustler” and “Bonnie and Clyde“, injecting the right amount of kinetic energy to a movie that’s just “people talking”.

• I’ve only seen “Breakfast Club” a handful of times, but I always roll my eyes when Allison gets a makeover and suddenly turns the heads of her male colleagues. What message is this sending?

• But perhaps the film’s most iconic moment comes from its final shot: Bender walking across an empty football field, raising his fist in triumph as the screen freeze-frames on him and the credits roll. I’m pretty sure this is the epicenter for the ’80s freeze-frame trope.

Legacy 

• “The Breakfast Club” premiered in February 1985, and was a decent (if not spectacular) hit; receiving praise from most critics and earning $45 million on a $1 million budget. In the ensuing years, the film has become a beloved encapsulation of its time and a rite of passage for generations of teens.
• Immediately following “The Breakfast Club”, Hall and Ringwald continued with John Hughes’ follow-ups (“Weird Science” and “Pretty in Pink”, respectively), while Estevez, Nelson, and Sheedy joined the cast of Joel Schumacher’s “St. Elmo’s Fire” (playing college graduates!). In the lead-up to “Elmo’s” premiere in June 1985, reporter David Blum wrote an article for New York magazine about this new roster of young talent. Comparing the popularity of Estevez, Nelson, and “Elmo’s” co-star Rob Lowe to the Rat Pack of the ’50s and ’60s, Blum dubbed the group “The Brat Pack”, a name that continues to define these actors and their 80’s filmography. For the record, no one in the “Brat Pack” likes the name or its implications, and Blum subsequently admitted he regrets writing that article.

• Like any iconic movie, “The Breakfast Club” has had its share of parodies and homages. The TV show “Community” gets its overall vibe from “Breakfast Club”, citing the film in its pilot episode, and casting Anthony Michael Hall in a guest role a few episodes later.

• There was occasional talk of a sequel by John Hughes in the late ’80s, which would have seen the characters in their ’20s and ’30s, but the writer/director’s falling-out with Molly Ringwald (and his dislike of working with Judd Nelson) stalled those plans. Similarly, talks of a reboot have mercifully never come to fruition.
• Perhaps the film’s biggest breakout star wasn’t one of its actors, but rather one of its songs. Scottish rock band Simple Minds was reluctant to perform “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” for the movie, but relented, recording the entire song in one three hour session (the “la la las” at the end were filler). The success of “The Breakfast Club” gave Simple Minds their only number one hit, and the song remains a staple of the ’80s and the ’80s teen film genre.

#6) Zapruder Film (1963)

Filmed by Abraham Zapruder

Class of 1994

This is an expanded and revised edition of my previous post, which you can read here. While I am maintaining my vow to never watch that disturbing footage again, I feel that my decision to keep that original post to its bare minimum shortchanged the film’s historical significance. As always – and this cannot be stressed enough – this post is about the film itself, and not the Kennedy assassination, which I have zero interest in doing a deep-dive on.

1941: 36-year-old Ukranian-Jewish immigrant Abraham Zapruder moves to Dallas, Texas with his wife Lillian and their two children Henry and Myrna. Zapruder emigrated to America from the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1920, residing in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan’s garment district.

1949: Zapruder co-founds Jennifer Juniors Inc., a dress manufacturing company. Zapruder’s office is at the Dal-Tex building on Elm Street in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, across the street from the Texas School Book Depository. 

1962: Zapruder purchases an 8mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic camera, a then-state of the art model.

November 22^nd, 1963

• President John F. Kennedy arrives in Dallas as part of an extended tour of the south; partially to smooth things over with Texas Democrats, and partially to begin his 1964 re-election campaign. A few days earlier, the path of the President’s motorcade through downtown Dallas was finalized and released to the public. The president’s car would drive from Love Field to the Dallas Trade Mart by way of Dealey Plaza, carrying himself, his wife Jackie, Texas Governor John Connolly, and Connolly’s wife Nellie. 
• A big supporter of Kennedy, Zapruder considers filming the motorcade, but initially doesn’t bring his camera due to an early morning rainfall. Upon arriving at work, an assistant convinces Zapruder to go home and bring his camera. Zapruder initially plans to film the motorcade from his office window, but decides to capture the footage on Elm Street.
• Approximately 12:15 pm: Zapruder leaves the Dal-Tex building to stake out a good observation spot for President Kennedy’s motorcade. He settles on a 4-foot concrete abutment on a grassy knoll in the center of Elm Street. Zapruder’s secretary Marilyn Sitzman volunteers to hold onto his coat to help him with his vertigo.
• 12:30pm: Zapruder begins filming the president as his car arrives in front of the Book Depository and down Elm Street. In the 26.6 seconds (486 frames) captured by Zapruder, both President Kennedy and Governor Connolly are shot by an off-camera assailant. While Governor Connolly survived this attack, President Kennedy would be pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital a half hour later. Zapruder would later recall that he knew at that exact moment the President had been killed. 
• 12:45pm: Amidst the ensuing chaos, Zapruder returns to his office, and is visited by Harry McCormick, reporter for The Dallas Morning News, and Forrest Sorrels, agent with the Secret Service’s Dallas department. After some discussion, Zapruder agrees to give the footage to Sorrels, on the condition that it only be used for investigation, and not public viewing.
• 2:00pm: The three arrive at TV station WFAA to get the film developed. It is discovered, however, that the station does not have the right equipment to develop Zapruder’s footage. While at WFAA, Zapruder is interviewed on-air, giving his account of the assassination, calling it “terrible, terrible” and saying that he’s “just sick”.

• 2:30pm-8pm: The film is developed at the nearby Eastman Kodak processing plant, and three copies are made at the Jamieson Film Company. Zapruder keeps the original film and one copy, while Sorrels takes the other two copies to Secret Service headquarters in D.C.

November 23^rd, 1963: Zapruder meets with Life magazine editor Richard Stolley, and sells the rights to the footage for $150,000 (Life outbids, among others, CBS). Still traumatized by what he had witnessed (and additionally distressed from a nightmare he had that evening), Zapruder sells the film on the condition that the frames showing the actual murder be omitted from Life‘s printing. Zapruder donates $25,000 of the Life money to the widow of J.D. Tippit, a police officer killed by Dallas resident and former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after the assassination.

November 25^th 1963: CBS News correspondent Dan Rather, who happened to be in Dallas on November 22^nd, describes his viewing of the Zapruder film on-air, the first national report of the footage’s existence. Rather erroneously describes Kennedy’s head as having moved “violently forward” following the shot, although the actual footage shows the head moving backwards. This discrepancy is believed to be the germ from which several conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination arose. 

November 29_^th, 1963: Life publishes 30 frames from the Zapruder film in black and white. Later publications would include these frames in color, as well as additional frames.

1964: Abraham Zapruder gives his recollections of the day’s events to the Warren Commission, who ultimately determine that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in his assassination of the President.

January 29^th 1969: New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw is brought to trial by local D.A. Jim Garrison for his alleged involvment in the Kennedy assassination. The Zapruder film is shown as evidence, its first public screening. Zapruder himself is brought in to testify on February 13^th. Clay is ultimately found not guilty on March 1^st. During the trial, attorney and conspiracy theorist Mark Lane obtains Garrison’s copy of the Zapruder film (subpoenaed from Life), and makes several copies. These copies start getting distributed on the black market, adding to the film’s notoriety.

February 14^th, 1969: The Zapruder film has its US television premiere on KTLA in Los Angeles. The footage is shown in conjunction with news of the Clay Shaw trial.

August 30^th, 1970: Abraham Zapruder dies of stomach cancer at the age of 65.

March 6^th, 1975: The Zapruder film makes its national TV debut on ABC’s late-night program “Good Night America”. Public outrage over this airing leads to a royalties suit between the Zapruder family and Time Inc. (owners of Life).

April 1975: In a settlement, Time Inc. sells the rights of the footage back to the Zapruder family for $1.

1978: After years of hesitation, the Zapruder family finally agrees to have the original footage stored in D.C.’s National Archives and Records Administration. The family does, however, retain the film’s ownership and copyright.

October 26^th, 1992: President George H. W. Bush signs into law the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act (aka the JFK Act). This act automatically classifies the Zapruder film as an “assassination record”, and therefore government property. After some back and forth with the Zapruder family over ownership, the film is eventually purchased by the U.S. government from the Zapruders in 1999 for $16 million.

November 15^th, 1994: The Zapruder film is inducted into the National Film Registry. In their annual write-up, the NFR calls the film “the most authoritative record” of the JFK assassination.

December 1999: The Zapruder family donates the film’s copyright (retained after the JFK Act settlement) to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, thus ending any ownership of the film by the Zapruder family. In the ensuing years, the Zapruder film has been digitized and made available on the internet, making it one of the most viewed and analyzed pieces of film in American history.

Further Reading: David Wrone’s 2003 book “The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination” is a detailed account of the film’s chain of evidence.

This hard to find short is available courtesy of Indiana University’s Media Library. [NOTE: Currently the film is available for public viewing on the IU site, but has been limited to IU students only in the past. All the more reason to watch this movie when you have the chance.]

The Plot: Nurse Marge Nelson (Naomi Feil) is frustrated with her job at a local hospital, offering little support to her patients. When Marge stumbles down a flight of stairs, she suffers brain damage and develops global aphasia, losing her ability to comprehend speech or communicate with others. Through her inner monologue, we hear Marge’s frustration as she struggles with basic words, exacerbated by the nurses’ lack of empathy or understanding. With help from fellow aphasia patient Jack Campon (Actor Unknown), Marge begins the long, hard process of re-understanding the world, and ensuring that the world understands her.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “empathetic and often poetic”, praising Naomi Feil’s “powerful performance” and admiring the film’s “innovative artistic qualities”.

But Does It Really?: As always, I’m looking for movies on this list that stand out for their creativity and individuality, and “Aphasia” passes the test. There’s a few rough edges in this film, but the Feils prove with their compelling storytelling that low-budget does not have to equal low quality. “Aphasia” surprised me with its delicate balance, showcasing the struggles of the disorder without ever becoming too saccharine. A yes for “The Inner World of Aphasia” and Edward & Naomi Feil.

Shout Outs: In a moment when Maggie is mentally berating herself for being “dumb”, she imagines herself as the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz“, saying, “No brain, only straw.”

Everybody Gets One: A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Edward Feil was born to a family of doctors, but his love for movie making started early. After a stint in the Army and a B.A. from Yale, Feil founded Edward Feil Productions in 1952. Feil spent the next 50 years making short films and documentaries, many of them centering around the sick, disabled, and elderly, all treated with empathy and respect. As with “Aphasia”, Edward collaborated on many of these projects with his wife Naomi, a social worker and founder of Validation, a therapeutic method supporting elderly patients in cognitive decline.

Wow, That’s Dated: Hopefully the empathy towards brain damage victims by hospital staff has improved in the last 50 years.

Wow, That’s Not Dated: Understaffed hospitals. Man, we really suck at healthcare. Are we sure we don’t want Canada’s system? This is a situation where it’s okay to cheat off the guy sitting next to you.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar love for “Aphasia”, or any of the Feils’ filmography (“Feilography”?). For the curious, the 1968 Live Action Short winner was Charles Guggenheim’s timely “Robert Kennedy Remembered“.

• Naomi Feil is still with us at age 89, as is Validation therapy and the Validation Training Institute. Feil is also the author of several books on the subject of elder care.

• The Feils’ filmography was donated to the Moving Image Archive of Indiana University, and much of it can be viewed on Ed Feil’s YouTube channel.

#50) The Front Page (1931)

OR “All the Film That’s Fit to Print”

Directed by Lewis Milestone

Written by Barlett Cormack and Charles Lederer. Based on the play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

Class of 2010

This post is based on my viewing of the Domestic print (aka the “A” print), and is an updated and revised version of my initial post.

The Plot: “The Front Page” is a fast-talking comedy about reporters in the heyday of the printed press. On the eve of the hanging of political prisoner Earl Williams (George E. Stone), Chicago newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson (Pat O’Brien) announces to his tough-as-nails editor Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) that he’s leaving the business to live happily ever after with his fianceé Peggy Grant (Mary Brian). When Williams escapes the jail and takes refuge in the Criminal Courts press room, Hildy knows a scoop when he sees one and is torn between his love and his career. What follows is some classic screwball hijinks that sound awfully similar to another movie…

Why It Matters: The NFR praises this film for its “strong performances” and for having “one of the best screenplays of the 1930s”. The write-up goes on to highlight “Front Page” as an example of an early movie that “realiz[es] the capabilities of sound technology to invent new film narratives”.

But Does It Really?: On its own, “The Front Page” is a perfectly fine time-capsule of the pre-Code era that managed to get a few decent laughs out of me 90 years later. That being said, it’s hard to judge “Front Page” on its own merits when you have “His Girl Friday” just around the corner, surpassing this movie on almost every front. Throw in the discovery of two different prints of this movie, and “Front Page” seems more like an historical NFR choice rather than an artistic one. Presently, the cultural significance of “The Front Page” can be summed up by its Blu-Ray release: as a supplemental feature to “His Girl Friday”.

Wow, That’s Dated: Um…everything? This movie is jam-packed with so much ’30s jargon and dated references, even I couldn’t keep up, and I actually pay attention to this kind of thing!

Seriously, Oscars?: A modest box office hit in 1931, “The Front Page” received three Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Adolphe Menjou. Perhaps due to Milestone’s wins at the previous ceremony for “All Quiet on the Western Front“, “Front Page” lost to, respectively, “Cimarron”, “Skippy”, and “A Free Soul”.

Other notes

• Before we go any further, a quick clarification of the multiple prints of “The Front Page”. During the silent era, many movies were shot with multiple cameras at once, with different prints using different angles of the same scene, culminating in slightly different versions of the same film. With the advent of sound, simultaneous filming was made impossible (early sound cameras were too noisy), so early talkies would use alternate takes for different prints. Documentation of “The Front Page” shows that for each scene, Lewis Milestone used the best take for the Domestic (“A”) print, the second best for the UK (“B”) print, and the third best for the General Foreign (“C”) print. For years, the B print (or possibly the C print) was the most widely available, but a discovery (and verification) of the film’s A print led to “The Front Page” getting a proper restoration in 2016.

• Based on Hecht and MacArthur’s own experience working as Chicago newspapermen, “The Front Page” premiered on Broadway in 1928 and was an instant smash hit. Film producer/future cautionary tale Howard Hughes snatched up the film rights and offered Lewis Milestone the chance to direct following his success with “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Neither of the show’s Broadway leads – Lee Tracy and Osgood (father of Anthony) Perkins – were considered to reprise their roles for the film. Milestone wanted “Western Front” alumni Louis Wolheim as Walter Burns, but the actor died before filming commenced. Hughes vetoed Milestone’s first choices for Hildy (James Cagney and Clark Gable) opting instead for Pat O’Brien, who previously played the role in a Chicago production.
• Speaking of Chicago, for whatever reason the censors of the day wouldn’t allow the film version of “The Front Page” to be set in Chicago (I guess to avoid accusing “The City That Works” of corruption). As the opening text proclaims, this film is “laid in a Mythical Kingdom”…whatever that means.
• That being said, the censors obviously had no problems with the frequent sexism and occasional racist terminology sprinkled throughout this movie.
• Oh Edward Everett Horton, how I’ve missed you. Mr. Fractured Fairy Tales appears here as Bensinger, the stuffy reporter whose germaphobia would fit right in during today’s pandemic lifestyle. Bensinger definitely would have worked from home before it was mandated.
• The rest of the reporters get a decent amount of screentime, though none of them leave a big impression. Among them is actor Walter Catlett, best remembered today for his work in “Bringing Up Baby“, and his vocal performance as Honest John the fox in “Pinocchio“.
• Of course you can’t have a movie where the lead character is referred to as “Mr. Burns” without making me think of the “Simpsons” character. I’d give anything to see Adolphe Menjou steeple his fingers and declare something as “Exxxxcellent“.
• This movie is definitely in the “Applause“/”Hallelujah” category of early sound films trying to stay visually dynamic with the new technology. There’s plenty of inventive camera angles and dolly shots to help “open up” the play, plus some intercutting between scenes and at least one jump cut. Kudos to everyone involved.
• This movie is covering a lot of subjects that would have been definite no-nos in the Code era: political corruption, Communism and “the red menace”, yellow journalism, not to mention a few jokes about sexual perversity. “His Girl Friday” may be the better movie, but “Front Page” has a lot more pearl-clutching in its dialogue, which I found more entertaining.
• Pat O’Brien is definitely one of your standard-looking All-American leading man types. With his jet black hair he kinda looks like Steve Martin in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”.
• This movie has another one of my favorite early movie tropes: Censoring by interruption. “Here’s a feature on the manhunt that’ll knock you right on your – excuse me, miss.”
• Having “His Girl Friday” to compare this movie to definitely has its pluses and minuses. For one thing, it’s interesting to watch this story without a love triangle, making it more a tale of corruption and power than just a rehash of “The Awful Truth“. On the other hand, while this movie retains the fast talking of its source material, there’s little to no overlapping dialogue. Everyone talks fast, then pauses while the next person speaks, and then hurries through another line. It’s like watching a train travel in quick short spurts: the speed is there, but not the momentum. 
• O’Brien and Menjou have a lovely rapport with each other. It’s just a shame you have to wait until the second half of the movie to see it.
• “Get back in there, you Mock Turtle!” Wait, I thought Cary Grant ad-libbed that line for “His Girl Friday”. Is nothing real anymore!?
• The film’s finale retains the original ending, with one noticeable difference. The play’s curtain line “That son-of-a-bitch stole my watch!” remains, but is partially censored by Burns resting his elbow on a typewriter’s carriage, causing the ding of the bell to obscure the most offensive part.
• As for the two widely available prints, the A print is the overall better movie, with tighter editing and better delivery. The B print, however, is worth a viewing for the curious; its lackluster timing compensated for with alternate lines, and a shot of one reporter flipping off the mayor!

Legacy

• While largely forgotten today, “The Front Page” has its devotees who champion it for depicting the kind of fast-talking reporters associated with this era of film. Some historians even go as far as calling “Front Page” the first true screwball comedy, even though that subgenre is typically reserved for romantic comedies.
• Lewis Milestone’s directing career was hit or miss after “Front Page”, but he does have one more movie on the NFR, the 1945 war drama “A Walk in the Sun“.

• Howard Hughes’ film career continued with another NFR movie set in not-Chicago with a Hecht/MacArthur screenplay: “Scarface“.

• Nine years after this film’s release, another famous Howard – Hawks – was considering a remake, with the goal of making “Front Page” faster and funnier. While there are different accounts of how inspiration struck, Hawks’ key difference with this remake was the gender-swapping of Hildy, making him Burns’ ex-wife. The resulting movie – 1940’s “His Girl Friday” – is widely considered one of the rare remakes that surpasses the original.

• Aside from its most famous remake, “The Front Page” received a more faithful update in 1974. Directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, and reuniting Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as Hildy and Burns, this “Front Page” seemed like a recipe for success…”seemed” being the operative word. Like the 1931 version, the ’74 “Front Page” has all the essential elements, but nothing fully gels.

• The original stage version of “The Front Page” still gets revived on Broadway from time to time. A 1960s revival saw MacArthur’s wife Helen Hayes in a supporting role, an 80’s revival starred John Lithgow and Richard Thomas, and a 2016 revival featured an all-star cast led by Nathan Lane and John Slattery.

• In addition to its revivals, “The Front Page” was musicalized in the 1980s as “Windy City”. The New York Times review used words like “mundane”, “mediocre”, and “forgettable”, which explains why no one’s heard from “Windy City” since.
• While the film maintained its status as an underrated classic for decades, it wasn’t until 2014 – and the discovery of the original “A” print – that things got interesting. This video from the California Film Institute does a very succinct job of explaining the differences, perhaps too succinct because the narrator talks really fast.