Tonight's program, as you know, is unplanned, extra-curricular and somewhat unofficial. Since we are able to pick the print up only an hour or so ahead of showing time, there has been no chance to pre-screen it or
to assemble program notes. (Second-hand program notes assembled from ancient writers of others are something we've always tried to avoid). We can offer no guarantee as to the condition or completeness of the print, but we assume that both are A-1, and certainly the rental fee indicates that they should be!
Since this showing was so hastily set up, there has been little time to work up a supporting bill. In any case, with a film like THE BIG HOUSE we're presumably all too anxious to get at it to worry about a second feature.
However, so that well feel in an appropriately stir-crazy frame of mind, we have a short (30-40 mins) introductory reel with some appropriate excerpts from other prison movies. (Alas, the wonderfully sadistic "Big House Bunny", a cartoon we ran a few years ago, isn't available tonight! ) These will probably be more fun if left unannounced, but since the main title is missing from the final short, perhaps we should identify it here. It's The Last Chapter, an MGM Crime Does Not Pay short of 1943, with Cameron Mitchell, Walter Sande, Addison Richards.
We hope you'll enjoy renewing, acquaintance with all the cons, screws, finks, fish and stoolies who've been pretty much absent from the screen ever since Cagney and Bogart moved out of Warners.
At a time when two, and sometimes three, different foreign versions were being made on all the really important early talkies, MGM really went to town with a minimum of four versions of THE BIG HOUSE, and possibly more. Andy McKay has been doing some of his customary delving, and has come up with the following information on foreign versions, which we are printing following the American credits:
THE BIG HOUSE (MGM, 1930) Dir: George Hill Author: Frances Marion
Scenarists & Dialogue: Frances Marion, Joe Farnham, Martin Flavin Camera: Harold Wenstrom; editor: Blanche Sewell; Recording Engineer, Douglas Shearer; Art Director, Cedric Gibbons; General Press Representatives: Howard Dietz, Pete Smith; Premiere - Century Theatre, Minneapolis, June 7 1930; Release; June 21, 1930. Length is given alternately as 80 mins and (copyright length) 10 reels.
Cast: Chester Morrie, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, George Marion, J.C. Nugent, Karl Dane, DeWitt Jennings, Mathew Betz, Claire McDowell, Tom Kennedy, Robert Emmet O'Connor, Tom Wilson, Eddie Foyer, Roscoe Ates, Fletcher Norton.
German Version
Title: Menschen Hinter Gittern (Men Behind Bars); Directed by Paul Fejos; photographed by Harold Wenstrom; additional scenarists: Walter Hasenlever, Ernst Teller, E.W. Brandes.
Berlin premiere: June 24 '31.
Cast:
Heinrich George, Gustav Diesel, Egon von Jordan, Anton Pointner, Paul Morgan, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Karl Etlinger, Dita Parlo, Peter Erkelenz, Adolf Edgar Licho, Herman Bing.
French Version Also directed by Paul Fejos
Italian Version Directed by Emile de Recat.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
NEXT Thursday's FILM GROUP showing will include the interesting TUNDRA, made in the mid-30's by Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises -- a seemingly "authentic" adventure-documentary that is actually 40% actuality, 15% clever editing, and 25% cunning utilisation of stock footage from "SOS Iceberg", "Alaskan Adventure" and other films. A fascinating film in many ways. Plus the (at this stage undetermined) usual transient silent and sound material.
Von Sternberg's THE SCARLET EMPRESS with Dietrich is currently en route to us and we'll be playing it in April.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Wm. K. Everson - - - - - -
|