Posts by Les Adams

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  • In Old Oklahoma (1944)


    Actually, Yakaima Canutt was the Stunt Co-ordinator (and also stunted) Other stunt people in this one included Cliff Lyons, Post Park (stages and wagons driver),Joe Yrigoyen, Bill Yrigoyen, Bud Geary, Fred Graham, Eddie Parker, Ben Johnson, Tom Steele, Ted Mapes...and Nellie Walker and Babe De Freest.


    Les

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)


    Chester,


    I'm not certain exactly which IMDb decision you had reference to when you wrote I might be able to shed a little light on the reasoning. But, they recently installed a new program they call Full Episode Support, that is supposed to be able to list the cast/crew credits on every television program by the episode...e.g....each episode of "Gunsmoke" will now have a site page of its own. Before, the "Gunsmoke" listing had just the regulars shown (from all the years) and below that the people who appeared in various episodes were all lumped together under "Guest." Never mind that these people were actors hired to play a fictional role in some "Gunsmoke" episode and calling them a Guest was inane to the Nth degree.
    Anyway, this Full Episode Support program, in theory, would have enabled an IMDb "User" to look up specific episodes of ANY television series to see who played what on each. But, when this program went "live" a few days after the first of the year, it appears to have had a mind of its own (the site is really, really good about installing programs they run amok, as they evidently don't do any cause-and-effect or consequences measurements before they let a mad cow out of the barn)...and, at the moment, Full Episode Support has screwed up just about everything on site in huge glumps, including the few site pages on films and people that were correct...and those were few indeed to begin with.


    One more time...if any of you see something on there that appears a bit off plumb, the odds are about 99-1 that it indeed is plumb off plumb...and one needs to walk carefully through this mine field of misinformation...especially at the moment, and until they get this mess fixed. Don't hold your breath. They have programmed-created messes from Day One that still have not been corrected. On their present course, they are rapidly approaching Wikipedia for unreliability.


    Les

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)


    Vera,


    Other than working titles ( the title used while in production that was often changed prior to release), most of the films with two titles came about years after original release, when some distribution company would purchase a film from the original releasing company/studio in 1938 and re-release it in 1952...and change the title for various reasons, including: the hope that someone who had seen the original would go see the reissued title thinking it was a different film (and for years the re-release companies didn't have to show in their ads that this was an old film under another title); or some other film carrying a title the same as the original film had was made later, and the original film had to take on a different title to avoid confusion. Plus, in the early years when the studios were selling their old films to television (circa 1949-55), they often changed the titles so the theatre exhibitors, whom they depended on for their major income, wouldn't know some film they were about to run as a double feature or at their drive-in theatre had already been seen for free on television.


    There are some other reasons, but these were the primary ones for title-changes.
    Les

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)


    Ethan,
    Thanks for the appreciated imput, but I think, based on the records from Tiffany I'm looking at and not from other sources, the dates and series number on "The Voice of Hollywood #13" are a tad bit off. It wasn't made or released in 1932 (none of them were) and isn't part of the Second series. As I'm sure you know, Hollywood's definition of a "production season" was the films a studio produced from September of one year through August of the following year. The first series of "The Voice of Hollywood" was made in the production season of 1929-30, and they produced and released a new one every four weeks during that season, and then produced and released 13 more of these during the 1930-31 production season. Tiffany has #13 as the last one made during the 1929-30 season, so the correct designation for this one with Wayne (as the radio announcer) was #13, First Season. It was made in late July 1930 and was released in August of that year. The first entry of the Second series was #14 and was made in September of 1930....and #26 in August of 1931 was the last one made.


    That 1932 date for #13 has been floating around for many years because that is the date one of the trade journal reviewers caught it playing in one of the grind-house theatres in New York and that date comes from that review. All of these "Voice of Hollywood" shorts were available and stocked in various states rights exchanges around the country for many years, consequently any one of them (once released) could be rented and shown anywhere around the US in any order for several years.


    And this may fall under the heading of coals to Newcastle, as I'm sure you already know this, but the Charles King, mentioned in another thread above in "The Hollywood Handicap" is the Charles King who was in MGM's 1929 "The Broadway Melody", and not the long-time sound-era movie villain Charles "Blackie" King. The "Newcastle" mention is because after close to 45 years of semi-hacking around as a film historian, I quickly learned that many of the most-knowledgeable people regarding American-made films, that I was in communication with, resided in the UK or in Denmark and Sweden.

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)



    Arthur,
    as usual and par for your course, you are about 100% right on regarding 1932's THE HOLLYWOOD HANDICAP. It was produced by The Thalins Club as a fund-raiser for their charities, not unlike the later-day (post 1935 ) Will Rogers annual appeals to the theatre audiences for funds for the Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. Like the Will Rogers annual appeals, the various studios took turns paying for the production and distribution costs, and 1932 was Universal's year. Outside of club-members James Burke, Vernon Dent, Monte Collins and Jack Duffy, the cast was made up of footage featuring players that had appeared in Radio Pictures (not quite yet fully RKO Radio) features from that year, plus Wayne, Tully Marshall and Billy Curtis (Little Billy) were there in footage from Mascot's THE SHADOW OF THE EAGLE. Just exactly how footage was used from the Radio Pictures features and the Mascot serial, I don't know.


    And, as usual and par for their course, the IMDb is all wet regarding the date of THE VOICE OF HOLLYWOOD # 13. Tiffany made 26 of these (13 a year for the 1929-30 and 1930-31 production seasons) and the IMDb has # 26 as being made ahead of #13. The Tiffany people, unlike the IMDb people could count, and they produced # 13 as the last production made in the 1929-30 season, and # 26 was the last in the 1930-31 season. (That 1932 date the IMDb uses might possibly be an overseas first showing, as opposed to a US release date, possibly in the U.K., although U.K. release dates of American films didn't ordinarily fall that far behind the original U.S. date. More likely, just another typical IMDb error.)


    Tiffany had a pretty good thing going with their "Voice of Hollywood series." The major studios, eager to promote their own productions at no cost to them, would lend their contract players to Tiffany---"hike yourself free-gratis over to Tiffany for a short they are making"---and, in turn, Tiffany got the talents and services of the players used in these shorts...also free gratis...and the proceeds from the theatre rentals. Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez are there because they were in Paramount's "Wolf Song" at the time, as was George Bancroft in Paramount's "Ladies Love Brutes"; Hal Roach sent over Jackie Cooper, Thelma Todd and "Farina" Hoskins (all regulars in Shorts he was producing at the time) and Fox supplied John Wayne and El Brendel from "The Big Trail." All the players did something new before the Tiffany cameras---no stock footage from their films---but mention of the films they were currently appearing in took place. Not unlike some movie star making a guest appearance on the Bob Hope or Bing Crosby radio (television without pictures) shows of the 1940's.


    Oops, dang me...there goes another rubber-plant molehill.


    Les

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)

    Reference Movies vs. TV shows and, for whatever it is worth, and I have no bones to pick whichever side of this fence others may fall on:


    1.A Movie is a film that was booked into a theatre and people spent cold cash at the theatre box-office to see.


    2.A television show is something that was never booked into a theatre, and the viewers paid nothing to watch it...but it is a far removed from being a theatrical movie. ("Lonesome Dove" might be the only TV show exception I'd make to this list.)


    Bottom line---his filmography should consist of any film that fits the definition found in No. 1.


    Those that fit the second definition should be listed below the Movies in his filmography...as television appearances and footnoted whether it was a filmed show or live as a host or a guest or whatever. And television showings of the films that fit the first definition are not included in this list...else the list would grow day-by-day because some station somewhere( local, cable, network) is showing a real Wayne Movie 24/7.


    (I would not include studio weekly newsreels, even though up until the major studios discontinued sending twice-a-week newreels to theatres that had signed up for their newsreel services--- RKO-Pathe, Universal, Paramount News, Warners, MGM, 20th Century-Fox et al--- the premiere of any Wayne film made for or distributed by those studios most likely was covered by those newsreels a few days later. Most of them were, the Republic's excepted, in the newsreels I watched in a theatre in the 40's and 50's.)


    I have no issue with anybody who "figgers" otherwise regarding the way I would list Wayne's films by being either Movies or Televison. Or as "Dandy Don" Meredith was fond of saying...'different strokes for different folks" (and as Meredith was quick to point out, he wasn't the originator himself.)


    One other possible pitfall I don't recall being mentioned, and this happens mostly on Wayne films beginning in the 1960's (and on some made much earlier): the Production Company and the Distribution Company listed on the same film were often completely different companies which, for total accuracy, calls for a column for Production and another one for (primary) Distributor. Hey, never said it would be easy.


    But if anybody can eventually put together the Ultimate Wayne Check List, my money is on the members of this Message Board.


    Les

  • Duke's Filmography- Past Discussion (Archive)


    Chester,
    In the plot summary and notes on each page for the Wayne films, in Fred's book, there is a mention on most of them of when production started and ended, first showing date and official release date. That alpha listing for the films in his book was the publishers idea as Fred's final draft (which I have on a CD he sent me) had each film in original release order. If the publisher hadn't of changed the format, then Fred's book would have been several times better, as a reader (in the way Fred submitted the book) could have followed Wayne's career in a progressive and aging order. But, at that, I go along with Boyd Magers at "Western Clippings" and Chuck Anderson of "The Old Corral" when they advise to get the Landesman book and throw away any other books one has that deal with Wayne's films. And I'm still looking for the first one that deals with Wayne's personal life that is of any value. There may be one but it isn't among the dozen or so that I've seen.


    There are a few minor errors in Fred's book, but they are of no consequence as they are primarily printing typos on a few names...none of them effect the data regarding production dates and release dates. Listing a player's films in order of first release date is the standard way of compiling a filmography, but I also include the production dates in my own database, because of such late-release films as RED RIVER and JET PILOT, just to keep up with when and where an actor was working.


    Every film Wayne appeared in had its first release date in the US, whether it was filmed here or overseas. Some of the later overseas productions may have had a Premiere overseas but a premiere and being available for theatre bookings are two different animals. The reason that some of these films seem to have conflicting original-release dates is, among other reasons, some of the people who did earlier books on Wayne's films relied upon data found in the trade annuals---Motion Picture Herald, Film Daily yearbooks, etc.---and some of the dates found in those sources are the dates that paticular trade paper "Reviewed" the film and not the actual release date. Film Daily, in the early 30's, would show both release and review dates, but later just started showing only their own review date. And AFI has a lot of those FD review dates listed in their books as the release date. Why? Because their file-clerk researchers didn't know any better. "Aha, here's a date...use it" school of research.


    Anyway, ya'll seem to have it all coming together great, and it is nice to read the posts from people who care about accuracy, and will work together to ensure the finished product.


    Les