Tag Archives: 1935

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

TOD BROWNING’S LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927) & MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

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London After Midnight (1927) is the most sought after and discussed lost film of the silent era.  Whether it actually deserves to be the most sought after has been intensely debated, but the fact that London After Midnight is lost is solely the fault of MGM.

MGM head Louis B. Mayer was something akin to the devil incarnate.  For Mayer, film was strictly profitable, escapist fare to corn feed and increasingly dumb down audiences.  At the opposite end of the spectrum was his in-house studio competitor, producer Irving Thalberg, who nurtured the Tod Brownings and Lon Chaneys of the world.  Thalberg was hardly infallible (he sided with Mayer, against Erich von  Stroheim’s 9-hour version of Greed [1925,] which resulted in the film being excised and led to an actual fistfight between Mayer and Stroheim).  However, Thalberg’s concern was to make quality films, as he saw quality.  Hardly the egoist, Thalberg never took a producer’s credit.  He could turn out escapist family fare, but he was eclectic in his tastes and had a penchant for edgy, risk taking films with only the side of his eye on the profit meter.

London After Midnight (1927) lobby cardSometimes the devil wins, and when Thalberg died at the age of 37, Old Nick (Mayer) had no one to rein him in.  MGM, under Mayer, had a notorious  habit of buying out rivals—the original versions of the studio’s watered-down remakes—and then would make every attempt to destroy and/or suppress the superior original.  For instance, they bought out the 1940 British version of Gaslight and unsuccessfully attempted to destroy all the copies just in time for the debut of their inferior 1944 version, starring Charles Boyer.  MGM did destroy many, but not all, Continue reading TOD BROWNING’S LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927) & MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE MIRACLE RIDER (1935)

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The Miracle Rider was the last film of Tom Mix and his horse Tony, Jr. (Tony Sr. had departed this earthly realm). It is a sound serial from Mascot with twice the normal Mascot budget. Mix was 55 when he made this and showing it. Although his voice was deep and suitable for sound, and he was still in good shape, Mix looked his age and was now using a stunt double for complicated stunts. Mix had made several sound films for Universal, but they fared only moderately well. Mix had officially retired and was promoting his Tom Mix circus when he was talked back to the silver screen for one last go round. It is fortunate he did. The Miracle Rider was an astounding success, making both Mix and Mascot over ten times its investment. The serial is one of the better serials of the period, too, and so Mix went out on top, dying five years later in an automobile accident. Even though Mix had been out of the public eye for five years following Miracle Rider, his death caused a large outpouring of grief. Mix’s enigmatic life, career and tragic demise are the stuff of legend.

The Miracle Rider begins with the history of native Americans and how they were treated by white men. Daniel Boone (who looks nothing like Fess Parker) warns white men to leave the Indians alone, to no avail. Later, Davey Crocket (who looks nothing like Fess Parker) warns white men to leave the Indians alone, to no avail. Buffalo Bill does the same, again to no avail. Tom’s on-screen father, a Texas Ranger. is killed by white men as he tries to protect Indian land.  Many years later, the adult Tom Mix, as “Tom,” steps into his father boots as a Texas Ranger himself.

Tom is made an honorary chief of a tribe and is called “the Miracle Rider.” The evil oil baron with the very serial-sounding name of Zaroff (played by Charles Middleton, so memorable a villain in films like Mystery Ranch and Flash Gordon) is not pleased. Zaroff wants the Indians off the land so he can mine something called X-94, which is an explosive that can make kings and queens grovel at his feet. The Ravenhead reservation is rich in X-94 deposits and now, but with Texas Ranger Tom being made an honorary chief, this complicates things.
Still from The Miracle Rider (1935)
The Miracle Rider is another B western that mixes sci fi elements and modern automobiles within the old west. Zaroff receives transmissions from a radio control apparatus, which bleeps a lot. The transmission informs Zaroff that Europe is wanting more orders of X-94. What is an evil madman to do? Well, in addition to henchman Jason Robards (Sr.) Zaroff hooks up with a Judas of an Indian named Longboat, who is a half-breed aspiring to be chief. With Longboat’s help, Zaroff makes the tribe believe they are cursed by the great firebird, courtesy of some x-94 effects. Zoroff’s has an evil scientist assistant, hiding in a secret lab, who makes X-94 bullets and a robot glider, meant to scare the Indians off the land.

Chief Black Wing (Bob Frazer) will not be frightened by the robot glider, so he is dispensed with. Tom goes after Black Wing’s murderers, jumping from Tony, Jr. onto a speeding truck carrying a shipment of X-94.

Black Wing’s daughter Ruth, played by Joan Gale, has the arrow that killed her father and she knows that this is no arrow made by a Ravenhead. But, the arrow is stolen and, in pursuit of the thief, Tom finds himself trapped inside a flying robot glider!

There’s plenty of intrigue and derring-do atop oil rigs, in automobiles driving off cliffs, amidst explosions, and inside secret caves. There seems to always be a hidden telephone inside a rock for henchmen to call Zaroff. Tony, Jr. sees plenty of action too, and the whole serial has the feel of a wild and wacky 20th century wild west show being filtered through primitive sci fi sensibilities.

Zaroff tells Tom, “If it wasn’t for your meddling…”, sounding just like a Scooby Doo villain. Of course, Tom saves the day and lives to ride off into one more sunset.

Surprisingly, Tom is not given a love interest at all. Perhaps a white man hooking up with an Indian girl would have been too much for 1935 audiences, even if she is being played by a white girl. There are no actual Indians in Miracle and, par for Hollywood’s course, the greatest Indian is a white man, ala Dances With Wolves; but unlike the mawkish, overblown Kevin Costner film, this Miracle is fun.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

BIG CALIBRE (1935)

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Robert North Bradbury often seemed to add a pinch of the offbeat into his westerns, but when it came to directing his son, star Bob Steele, there was a downright oedipal underpinning because, quite often, Bob was thrust into an onscreen situation in which he lost his father.

Big Calibre utilizes this plot situation yet again, but regardless what Sigmund would have to say about it, it is of little consequence to this enjoyably odd oater. Bob’s father is killed and robbed of his cattle cash by a local chemist, played by screenwriter and Steele friend Perry Murdock. Bob pursues him, but the chemist escapes. Some time later, Bob, still in pursuit of his father’s murderer, is accused of holding up a stagecoach and murdering Peggy Campbell’s father, who also was robbed and killed with corrosive gas while en route to save his ranch from foreclosure.

The local banker wants Peggy for himself and is behind her father’s supposed killing (the body is missing).  He has a hunchbacked, fanged, bespectacled assistant/henchman. Peggy knows Steele is innocent since it was she who held up the coach in order to prevent the delivery of a letter, from the banker, seizing her ranch.

Still from Big Calibre (1935)The local mob is itching to hang Bob, and so an anonymous benefactor breaks Bob and his comedy relief sidekick out of jail, using corrosive gas! There is an unintentionally surreal, misplaced barnyard dance with Bob and the sidekick dancing with Peggy while masked! The dance ends in a planned brawl and Bob barely escapes with his life. Unsurprisingly, the hunchbacked assistant is none other than the low-life chemist who butchered Bob’s pa. When Bob knocks him to the ground his fake fangs and glasses come off to reveal his true identity.

An exciting and atmospheric desert chase follows with the assistant making his getaway in an automobile. All ends well, of course, with the bad guys reaping what they sow, the hero and his girl hooking up after she finds out her daddy is still alive, and Bob’s sidekick being chased off by an ugly childhood sweetheart who won’t leave him alone.

Big Calibre has more loopholes than plot. The loopholes hardly matter because it has an admirable low budget, authentic western weirdness. It’s strangeness is organic and subtle, rather than on-the sleeve. The lack of a musical score, which is the norm in early 1930’s B westerns, actually adds to the unique flavor.

Bob Steele possibly made more B westerns than anyone and few of them were good, but he had an amiable and hip personality that audiences responded to. He is probably best known as the low-life Curley in Lewis Milestone’s 1939 version of Of Mice and Men. Big Calibre, released by Sinister Cinema, is available on Amazon and the Sinister Cinema website.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

BETWEEN MEN (1935)

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Another B-Western from Sinister Cinema’s “Sinister Six Gun Collection”.

Between Men is a strongly composed “B” directed by Robert North Bradbury (Courageous Avenger and several of John Wayne’s Lone Star Westerns).  Bradbury was also the father of B-Western star Bob Steele, and his expertise in the genre is delightfully natural.  Between Men has a strong cast in Johnny Mack Brown as the stalwart hero, and this may well be his best role.  Beth Marion excels as the love interest, as does William Farnum in his scene-stealing role as Brown’s tormented father and Earl Dwire as the standard slimy villain.

Between Men has a richly melodramatic plot.  Farnum (great wide- eyed acting) believes he has killed his young son (Brown) and flees west.  Actually, the boy was only injured and is adopted by Lloyd Ingram.  Twenty years pass and the visuals shift from the upper-scale Virginia countryside to the stark New Mexico desert as Johnny embarks on a journey to find his adopted father’s long lost granddaughter (Marion).  Farnum has assumed a new name and is now Marion’s guardian after his hired hand (Dwire) rustles her cattle, kills her father, and attempts to raper her.  Marion is saved by a “drifter” whom Farnum hires for protection, not realizing that Brown is his son, whom he believes to be dead.

Soon however, Farnum believes Brown is putting the make on Beth.  Drifter Brown is not worthy of her.  The film does not state, but seems to imply, that Farnum himself lusts after her.  After Johnny fails to heed Farnum’s warning to stay away from Marion, a brawl between father and son breaks out, during which our dimpled hero obligingly loses most of his shirt.  Farnum sees an identifying scar on Brown’s chest and belatedly realizes this is his son.  Oddly, the film ends with Farnum sacrificing his life for the young lovers without ever revealing to Johnny that he is his father.  Needless to say, the dastardly bad guys are killed off, with Johnny and Beth walking arm in arm into the New Mexico sunset.  There is as much plot as action in this oater, which is a rarity in the genre of the thirties.  This, along with assured direction, photography by Bert Longenecker and aptly over-the-top acting make Between Men one of the better B Westerns from the period.