Saturday Matinee #3

This is the one-year anniversary of starting this blog about films in the public domain, Café Roxy programs, what films influenced me in childhood or whatever.

The Parkway Theatre in south Minneapolis finished the second series of Saturday Matinees a few weeks ago. This past week I learned they want to keep going and ASAP, so I've been busy planning, postering and mastering the next 12.

I picked the 1935 The Phantom Empire as the 12-chapter serial. Retro sci-fi with robots and death rays is always fun, but add in cowboys, cars, planes, radium, a lost city and Gene Autry in his first starring role equals an unbelievable, unforgettable amalgam of Astounding. I don't have time to show the trailers at the Parkway, but they can add a link to them and you can watch the trailers here. The short trailer that plays first appeared in theaters after Chapter #2 had concluded. It urges kids to come back every week for more, much like the weekly trailers for what will happen next week in "Lost" or "24." All scenes in the short trailer center on the futuristic city of Murania, with no shots of Gene Autry since he presumably just got killed off at the end of Chapter #2, right? The long trailer runs nearly 5 minutes!

The first chapter of the serial runs about a half hour, so I needed something short and vastly different for the feature. Hercules and the Princess of Troy is actually a pilot for a Hercules TV series that never happened, but it's in color, stars movie Tarzan Gordon Scott and has a sea monster that rivals the one in, um, "Creature from the Haunted Sea." Popeye battles Hercules in the 1954 Paramount color cartoon "Greek Mirthology," which certainly fits into the show even if a far cry from the best of the Fleischer gems. Remember that all the films must be in the public domain. "The Other Fellow" is a delightful 1940 one-reeler from the Jam Handy company, that is actually a commercial release by Chevrolet to promote good driving. Edgar plays 4 different roles as car drivers with diverse problems on the highway.

Program #2 needed to be a big change from #1 so I picked comedy shorts. This is not an honest recreation of a Saturday Matinee (other than the serial chapter and cartoons) since the 3 comedy shorts are from the silent era. However, it will be wonderfully entertaining and hopes to attract a different audience. They will not see Harold Lloyd hang from a clock in that iconic image from the 1920s, but they will see him dangle from a skyscraper under construction in "Never Weaken" (1921). In "The Fourth Alarm" (1926) Hal Roach's Little Rascals start their own fire department with screwball vehicles and real fire to fight. Buster Keaton plays dozens of roles, including filming himself 7 times in the same scene and dancing of all things, in "The Playhouse" (1921).

The East Side Kids short feature Kid Dynamite (1943) was chosen purely because I had it in excellent quality and wanted to use it. More serious than some of the East Side Kids, Dynamite examines a rivalry between boxer Mugsy (Leo Gorcey) and Bobby Jordan who is dating his sister, all in the context of enlisting in World War-II. Daffy Duck in "Scrap Happy Daffy" (1943) battles not only enemy spies who are after the scrap heap he has saved for the war effort but he gets to bop Der Fuhrer in person! The Fleischer Color Classic "Ants in the Plants" (1940) was added for a little color, but it does feature little guys, a colony of ants, going to war against the big, bad Anteater.

And finally, for today, poster and program #4. I picked King of the Cowboys (1943) with Roy Rogers because I already had a trailer for it and did not need to make one. (The trailer of course appears in program #3 to advertise what is coming next week.) King is one of Roy's 10 or 15 best films. From IMDB: "It's World War II and saboteurs are menacing Texas. Only singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his wonder horse Trigger can save the day! The Governor sends Roy to help bring in a gang of saboteurs. Roy joins a traveling show and soon learns the saboteurs communicate during Maurice's mind reading act that uses a hidden receiver. But Maurice is on to Roy. Roy narrowly escapes when Maurice leaves him tied up in a warehouse they are blowing up. But Maurice then kills a man and blames Roy who now finds himself in jail." Curiously, Roy's sidekick this time around is Smiley Burnette, who is with Gene Autry in "The Phantom Empire." The Tom and Jerry cartoon "In the Bag" is western themed and Superman in "Volcano" is added for the color.

Each show includes a coming attraction trailer to promote next week's feature film. While I had the original trailer for Roy Rogers, I make up the others using clips and "Next Week" type wording. So the trailer for Program 2 includes clips from each of the three comedy shorts. For Kid Dynamite I just took most of the first scene and faded into the Main Title and then into Coming Next Week. The trailer for Program #5 is finished since I needed to include it in Show #4, and that film is the Joe E. Brown comedy Earthworm Tractors. I took an early scene of the tractor out of control, cut it and added the main title. It looks like a fun film and should attract viewers to come back next week, as if robots in Murania are not enough!

Four posters and four shows in one week was fun to put together. I'm not sure exactly what the other 8 shows will be, but you can bet I will report them here in the near future.

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Tarzan Escapes

I have been fascinated, intrigued and obsessed with the film Tarzan Escapes since I was 8 years old when I first saw it in a movie theater as part of a double feature with the 1932 Johnny Weismuller film Tarzan the Ape Man. This was an official MGM theatrical release that played all over the country in 1954 and 1955. The films had not been reissued to theaters in years, if ever, and had of course not been released to television as yet. Tarzan Escapes was the third in the popular series with Johnny and Maureen O'Sullivan and their last solo film before Boy showed up. I don't know why the reissue bypassed Tarzan and His Mate, but that's what the double feature was. The poster shown above is from the 1954 reissue. The film could also be booked separately by theaters and was likely available for matinee bookings over the next ten years or as long as MGM kept prints of popular films in regional film depots.

I had never seen a Tarzan film before. I am not sure I had even seen a horror film of any kind before since my parents did not allow it. I was just old enough in those innocent but safe days to be dropped off by myself at a matinee showing in Madison, Wisconsin. So what's the big deal you might be wondering? Those are good adventure films but have been out on video for years. Not true! I saw a version of Tarzan Escapes that has never surfaced on video, a virtual lost film since the theater showings in the 1950s. Of course I did not know it at the time. I had never read about the films. I can't recall what I knew about Tarzan other than the newspaper ad for the double feature that sounded exciting. My parents let me go. By myself. It must have sounded like safe kiddie fare for a quarter.

The Tarzan Escapes print differed in several ways from what exists today. I am certain that it included the same lion fight that was lifted from Tarzan the Ape Man because I noticed (for the first time in my life) the use of stock footage. In the surviving copy Jane sends Tarzan out to get food. He kills a Gnu, hacks off meat and takes to the trees ahead of a lion, but in what I saw he grapples with and kills not one but two lions. It was an intense and scary scene that I had never seen the likes of before, and yet I saw it twice that day, once in each Tarzan film. I recreated this scene a few years ago and you can watch it on Youtube here!

There is a second scene that I think I saw that is totally missing today. After Tarzan is caged by the bad hunter who wants to take him back to civilization to exhibit him as a freak, he is carried away by natives from the hunter's safari. The hunter is taking Jane back with him and so naturally needs to hide Tarzan's capture from her. The missing scene is when the safari natives with Tarzan are surprised and slaughtered by the really, really bad natives who then set out to carry Tarzan back to their village. If you watch the film today you might notice this gap, or you might think that when Tarzan escapes by rolling his cage down a steep embankment that he had escaped the hunter's natives. Both the lion fight and this scene were cut after complaints of too much violence during preview showings in 1936.

The real missing scene that gave me nightmares as a child and that no one has seen since is THE ENTIRE CLIMAX OF THE FILM! You can see what surrounds the missing scene here! The escaping safari enters a forbidden juju cave. Look closely and you can count about 40 natives going in the cave but only 10 emerging safely from the other end. They were killed by giant vampire bats! These bats were so large that they could scoop up natives in their talons and fly off with them. That is the shot that reportedly sent kids screaming in terror from theaters during the 1936 previews, and alarmed mothers who protested.

New and sanitized prints were quickly made up for the 1936 release, but many reviews around the country indicate the uncensored prints with the bats were also shown, and it was this negative that was chosen in 1954 to strike the new 35mm safety prints that went out. Unfortunately, the cut version was later used for all subsequent restorations and videos. You can read much more about my experience and memories at I Saw the Giant Vampire Bats.

Tarzan Escapes was an even more troubled film than having its climax cut at the last minute. It was first filmed in 1935 but the film turned out so bad that MGM could not release it. Instead, they completely re-wrote it, added actors and re-shot for a 1936 release. The only thing they kept was the attack of the vampire bats. And then they cut that! Many stills and lobby cards survive that show scenes from the scrapped 1935 film, scenes that are not in the present film. One basic change is that in the lost 1935 film Tarzan and Jane lived in a cave, while for the "remake" they built that elaborate tree house. The 1935 film had Great Apes (men in ape costumes) like those in both Tarzan the Ape Man and Tarzan and His Mate, while the 1936 film had none.

Go read my article for more details. Since I wrote that article a few seconds have surfaced from the 1935 film. Alas, not a single frame of a bat flying! The few seconds show Jane with a Great Ape. This is part of a 1935 MGM promotional reel made for France. It includes Laurel and Hardy and Jimmy Finlayson and can be seen here. The promo reel was obviously made some months before the intended 1935 release of Tarzan Escapes, a release that never happened of the original film. Also made well in advance is a 1935 trailer for the film that mentions the bats although, again, no actual frames of them attacking are shown. This fascinating trailer is at the head of the promo reel.

Hey, everybody, the vampire bat footage might still exist! It could have been included in foreign versions of the film sent to Europe or South America in 1936, and could survive in foreign archives. The bats could survive if any of the 1954 prints on safety film found their way into private collections. A more modest goal is to talk to anyone else who saw the bats in a theater in the mid 1950s. While I am certain I did see Tarzan and his natives fighting those giant bats in the swamp, I do not recall how they escaped. Did a tribe of pygmies carrying torches enter and scare off the bats? That is in the original script for the 1935 film, but no pygmies are in the surviving 1936 film.

And so the quest goes on!

Visit my website at Festival Films.

B Westerns on My Mind!

I've been going through the 300 or so B-Westerns I have on DVD recently to organize, check quality and see just what exactly I do have. That's not a large collection considering there must have been 2,500 or more made in the 1930s and 40s. B Westerns are inexpensive series westerns that run about an hour starring Buck Jones, Tex Ritter, Tom Tyler, Bob Steele, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Harry Carey, Tim McCoy, Ken Maynard and some I would have trouble picking out of a lineup like Bob Baker, Art Accord, Kermit Maynard or Yancey Lane (never heard of him in my life until last week).

My resource for some time has been The Old Corral website. I encourage everyone to visit for hours of reading about every single B-western cowboy star and sidekick. But no amount of research beats watching a good B.

How can you keep watching those things? They're all the same! What do you see in George O'Brien? I hear similar questions from time to time. As my friend Ron Butwin once said: "I just like watching stuff."

Anyway, today's spotlight is on "Mystery Ranch" starring Tom Tyler. A famous Western fiction writer is invited to a real ranch where the owners hope to entertain him with a series of stunts similar to those found in his phony stories. Tom catches on to the gags, but when an actual bank robbery takes place he believes it to be another stunt. Since I like the plot about dude goes west and makes good (though muscular Tom Tyler who played Captain Marvel could scarcely pass for a sissy) I took a look.

What often grabs me is anything different. The film opens with a melodramatic scene from the writer's book, as in old-time Victorian melodrama with a mustachioed villain who ties up the heroine and is about to have his way with her. The dialog is overblown, to say the least -- "Marry me or I'll tear you limb from pieces." The hero and heroine clinch in possibly the most passionate smooch in western history. "Crash into my arms and kiss me, my sweetheart, my angel, my darling..." Cut to Tom's father who has been reading the scene. "This stuff is terrible, son, simply terrible. Why I'm surprised that you're writing such worthless trash." Tom: "Not so worthless, Dad, that book has sold 50,000 copies to date."

Here is something different -- alert the media!!! -- the heroine's mother is still alive! This only happens 1 in 100 westerns. I recall one Buck Jones and one Hoppy with mothers. The moms always die in childbirth. The girls usually live on the ranch with their dads, who get killed by the bad guy in the first ten minutes. Heroines have a lot to look forward to at the end of the film -- marry the hero, have a kid a year later and most likely it's curtains for them.

Meanwhile, once Tom reaches the ranch, the three real baddies are played by three guys you've seen a hundred times (if you've watched a lot of these things.) First is Tom London, who has the reputation of appearing in more movies (other than extras without lines) than anyone else. The IMDB lists 614 roles from "The Great Train Robbery" (1903, uncredited) to an Old Timer in a 1961 episode of "Cheyenne." Second is George Chesebro, little man from Minneapolis with a sneer who excelled as henchmen in 416 listed roles from 1915 on.

Third is everyone's favorite (who knows him, that is) -- Charles "Blackie" King -- 410 roles on IMDB from "Birth of a Nation" (1915, uncredited) to "The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd" (1953, and again suitably "uncredited"). Charlie is the pudgy one who played head villains early in his career and a comic buffoon baddie later on. He turns up in nearly all the Bob Steele and Buster Crabbe westerns. He seems to have lived on the PRC ranch and made a couple films a week. Bob Steele commented that "they would always do his fight scenes with Charlie King at the end of the filming. He and Charlie would go out and drink a little lunch then come back, do the scenes, and totally tear the place apart."

The sheriff who arrests them all at the end is (surprise, also uncredited in this film!) Lafe McKee, who the IMDB credits with 407 roles from 1912 to 1948. See if you can pick out the 4 western stalwarts from the photos below.



And that is one reason for watching lots of B-Westerns -- to enjoy the character actors!

-- Ron Hall
952-470-2172
email to ron@caferoxy.com
Visit the website at www.caferoxy.com

Sagebrush Sagas!

I continue to be fascinated by films I saw in early childhood that thrilled, scared or amused me, that I forgot while growing up, only to re-discover years later... and still like! Films such as serials, Van Beuren cartoons, spooky mysteries with hidden panels and masked villains. I am still trying to identify and see a jungle film that I probably mis-remember. Buster Crabbe, I'm pretty sure though maybe not, plays a wild man like Tarzan. The safari brings the heroine into his life. At the climax on a mountain top the ape man needs to fight and kill his pet gorilla to save the girl. It's not Nabonga or White Pongo or Jungle Siren or King of the Jungle. It is ... some film I remember from my youth. Digression done.

In the first year that my family had a TV set, around 1953-54, there was no daily programming until 5pm when Howdy Doody came on. There was Saturday programming all day in the Madison-Milwaukee (Wisconsin) viewing area. I vividly recall a period when Saturday morning and afternoon on several channels was filled with non-stop B-westerns and serials. I especially liked westerns with hooded villains and secret panels, and also saw most of the Three Mesquiteers westerns, lots of Bob Steele, Tom Tyler, Ken Maynard, Alan Lane and the rest from PRC, Monogram, and on and on. No Hopalong Cassidys, or else they left little impression. I'm not even sure about Roy Rogers and Gene Autrys in that period, other than it must have been when I first saw "Phantom Empire" serial. I remember spotting Roy Barcroft in almost everything, which would be a tip-off that I saw a lot of Roy Rogers.

Like comic books and Boy Scouts, I put B-westerns behind me from my early teens until fairly recently. They were not that easy to see on TV until the Western Channel came along. About 5 years ago I noticed they showed a new B-western every day and I started watching and taping them. Lots of Charles Starrett Durango Kid westerns from Columbia that I had never seen before, maybe never heard of before. (It's still hard to see Tim Holt westerns!) After a little over a year the Western Channel went into re-runs and I don't think ever got a new batch of B-westerns. I have all the Gene Autrys and before the Encore logo appeared in every frame, so that's something.

DVD releases of obscure westerns are running wild. Most are public domain releases from Alpha Video or Mill Creek Entertainment with four 50-packs of Bs, which they even compiled into a 250 western super pack. I have this but it takes awhile to watch that many films.

Last night I watched Man of the Forest, a really interesting film from the pen of Zane Grey and released by Paramount in 1933. The battered source material had numerous jump cuts, poor contrast in some scenes and weak focus, which is why I had put off watching for some years. Excellent setting up in the mountains with tall trees, but the main interest is in the cast of western greats. Randolph Scott stars vs. baddie Noah Beery. Harry Carey, a leading western star from 1917 through the 1930s, plays a minor role as does future hero Buster Crabbe and sidekick Guinn Williams, who is actually called "Big Boy" in the film. Scott has a family of mountain lions as pets, male, female and three cubs, that play a part in the story. Anyone have a mint 16mm print?

Some of my film friends did not cast off their first film loves and return like I did. Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy expert and author, Richard W. Bann, lived the 1950s western craze on TV, collected original prints of B-westerns all his life, still attends western film convention at Lone Pine and still dresses as Hoppy for halloween. I wish I could join Dick some year in a horseback ride past those fabulous rocks that were filmed so often in the golden age of Oaters and discuss who hid behind or jumped off which rock in such and such picture.

Then go home and watch the films.

Thanks to Facebook, I just found a picture of Dick and some rocks. He captions it: "In this photo: Richard W. Bann, Brad Farrell, Bob Satterfield. Richard W. Bann Shot late in the day in Lone Ranger Canyon out in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine. The location got its name from the ambush scene in the 1938 Republic serial, THE LONE RANGER. May 25, 2009."

This true fan lives out his dreams and has as much fun with it as when he was 8 years old.


-- Ron Hall
952-470-2172
email to ron@caferoxy.com
Visit the website at www.caferoxy.com

King Buster!

I am convinced that any audience will love Buster Keaton, spread the word and come back for more. In my college years, as I recall, I only happened to see the great man in COPS and BALLOONATICS and possibly SHERLOCK JR. at the U Film Society. Of course Keaton was still alive and active at the time and I had noticed him earlier on "Candid Camera" doing embarrassing stunts at a lunch counter while they filmed customer reactions. I also saw THE GENERAL at an early age but don't really remember the circumstances. It was around 1970 when Raymond Rohauer revived unseen gems like SEVEN CHANCES and all the Keaton silent features. These eventually made their way to video release by Kino on Video and sold many thousands.

The time is ripe to discover Buster anew, and this time with audiences in Café Roxy venues. Every episode of the All-Star Series (for lack of a better series name) contains one of Buster's silent comedy shorts made from 1920 to 1923. All are in the public domain and all are hilarious.

Locally, the Parkway Theater is showing a Buster Keaton Festival today and Sunday as part of their Matinee series. Silent shorts were never part of the Saturday Matinee experience, but who cares? It will be a terrific show with 4 cartoons and Flash Gordon serial. See the poster for details. All the details you need are that the 3 Keaton shorts are NEIGHBORS, THE SCARECROW and COPS.

A surprising development over at the Suburban World Theater is that they brought in a band to play every Sunday from 11 am to 2 pm. Cartoons run from 9 to 11, and then run silent behind the band. Music for movies is a natural. Remember silent movies? The band does and is excited to try playing for Buster Keaton in an unannounced trial run this Sunday. The short will come on with a Felix the Cat cartoon and the band will shift their music to accompany the films. If this turns into a weekly event they will add it to their poster. The current poster is shown here.

I have considered making Keaton wallpaper DVDs that only contain two shorts each that then repeat on the disc. That way a venue that finds success with the concept can obtain 10 different shows. They can advertise Buster Keaton night every Thursday, or whatever/whenever. A diner or bar patron may not stay longer than 40 minutes so he can catch the entire short that he happened to walk into the middle of.

I am also expanding programs of silent comedy shorts. The general public has a vague notion that silent comedy is funny and they can't easily find it elsewhere. Therefore they are likely to give it a try, or warm to the films if they walk in cold and find them playing. Meanwhile, anyone not interested will not be put out by silent films playing on large-screen TVs. The poster for a proposed showing in Oregon is a sample they will test soon. It is not yet a show that has played. Looks like a winner to me!

-- Ron Hall
ron@caferoxy.com
See all the Roxy programs at www.caferoxy.com

Harold and Me!

After weekly posts for 8 months, I fell out of the habit. Nothing wrong here, except I have been a Minnesota Vikings football fan for 40 years and they lost the big game again when they had it nearly wrapped up. I will remove this comment in a week, but in case any weekly readers have wondered what happened to me... my spirits have been down. Also been busy on a big project, and busy is always good.

I meant to talk about a hoped-for revival of interest in Buster Keaton. Maybe next time.

One love has always been silent comedy, especially Buster Keaton and watching him with an audience. I first experienced silent comedy with an audience in college at the University of Wisconsin. I recall a few showings of Laurel and Hardy silents with live organ accompaniment, outdoors as well at the student union. There was also a season where they showed Chaplin shorts during lunch in a community room, like every Wednesday or some special day of the week. The most memorable event was a screening of Robert Youngson's "When Comedy Was King" (or else it was "TheGolden Age of Comedy") in a packed classroom one evening. It was for the film history class but word got around that anyone could attend and it would be fun. No one present had seen this stuff before and they really got into it. The highlight was Laurel and Hardy's "Big Business" feud with Jimmy Finlayson -- a fall out of your chair and laugh till it hurts pandemonium. I saw later Robert Youngson compilations in movie theaters like Days of Thrills and Laughter and Four Clowns.

I also saw Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy in a theater when I was still in high school (double-featured with Jack the Giant Killer!) This pre-dates the above U. showing. Which reminds me that Harold came to the U. to test his second compilation "Funny Side of Life." I got to meet him and shake his hand at a reception. He was very thankful for the laughs at the screening and ate up reassurances that we enjoyed the show, which the audience did find hilarious. The IMDB lists "Funny Side" as a 1963 release but I am positive I saw it in college which would be after 1964. I would not have gotten invited to the reception if I was not in college. My guess is Harold made the film earlier but took it around to campuses in 1965.

From IMDB: With the success of his first compilation film, HAROLD LLOYD'S WORLD OF COMEDY (1962), it was only natural that a sequel would soon follow. It is important to remember that for decades these two films were the only way in which to enjoy Harold's classics, as he was adamant that they would not be butchered by television.

We are shown Harold's shipboard confrontation with the villain and a romantic interlude in the woods from THE KID BROTHER (1927). Harold's desperate dash to his own wedding while in charge of a group of drunken bums is shown from FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE (1926) and his taxi troubles in SPEEDY (1928) are included. As a grand conclusion, we are treated to Harold's THE FRESHMAN (1925) in its entirety. This wonderfully funny look at a determined young fellow's drive to succeed on his college football team is still touchingly poignant. The inclusion of the song ‘There Was a Boy, There Was A Girl' by Ned Washington & Walter Scharf lends a gentle, evocative touch to the movie.

Also present at the reception after the screening was movie pioneer Roy Aitken, one of the producers of "Birth of a Nation," who lived in Wisconsin and was in fact still alive (!) in his upper 90's.

From Wikipedia: "Triangle Film Corporation (a.k.a. Triangle Motion Picture Company) was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in the summer of 1915 in Culver City, California, and envisioned as a prestige studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett. It was founded by Harry and Roy Aitken, two brothers from the Wisconsin farmlands who pioneered the studio system of Hollywood's Golden Age; Harry was also DW Griffith's partner at Reliance-Majestic Studios, who had also been fired by the Mutual Film Corporation as a result the aftermath of The Birth of a Nation's unexpected success that year, as the film also lead to riots in major northern cities due to its racial content."

I heard Harold say to Roy: "Mr. Aitken, I used to work for you when I first got into pictures, but I never got to meet you. This is a real pleasure for me." I left with the impression that Harold Lloyd was a humble and gracious man.

Visit the website at www.caferoxy.com

Gorilla Suit Day -- It's International, you know!

Plans are well underway around the world to celebrate Gorilla Suit Day on Jan. 31. Since that's a Sunday, feel free to have a party Saturday as well. International plans are being coordinated by Brett Stone out of Australia. Please visit his Facebook Page, join, become a fan and start those party plans.

Now what exactly do gorillas like to do at a party besides eat bananas? Watch gorilla movies, perhaps?

I have 3 distinct programs ready to roll on Gorilla Suit Day Weekend, Jan. 30-31. The first is Gorilla Brunch for the Minneapolis Suburban World Theater. This is a one hour program of trailers for gorilla films and monkey cartoons. Since it is usually a Cartoon Brunch, I include Superman in "Terror on the Midway," Simon the Monk in "Monkey Doodle," "Marty the Monk" and Grandpa Monkey in the color "A Busy Day" (1940). The show repeats after an hour as it is meant to be viewed casually by whoever comes to eat brunch in the theater-cafe.

The second show is a Saturday Matinee for the Parkway Theater. This is a two hour show at noon both days. Because it is a Matinee it includes a chapter of "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" serial. Instead of the very hip "Monkey Doodle," I am inflicting a pretty dreadful Betty Boop cartoon called "My Friend, the Monkey." It is not only a late Betty from 1939, but features her cuddly dog Pudgy. A swingin' hurdy-gurdy man goes by Betty Boop's house; she wants to buy the monkey, which causes plenty of trouble for Pudgy the Pup. Finally friends. This runs first and hopefully everyone will come ten minutes late that day. The matinee feature is "White Gorilla." (The brunch only shows the 4-minute trailer for "White Gorilla.")

Developing the 2 shows for 2 specific venues led to the ultimate hybrid Gorilla Suit Day Video. I dropped Betty Boop and the serial and added Monkey Doodle and more trailers. The result is the show in the poster above. You can download the poster for your showing here and email it to all your guests. Here is a run-down of every film in the program:

1) Opening with a segment of "White Gorilla" Trailer and credit to Don Martin for creating the insanity.
2) Trailer for "Bride of the Gorilla" (1951) that makes the film sound more exciting than it actually is. Name a trailer that doesn't work this way! A decent cast includes Raymond Burr, Tom Conway, Lon Chaney Jr. and Barbara Payton. Most of the gorilla scenes are in the trailer.
3) A five-minute or so segment from "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla." (1953) Two goofy entertainers meet a mad scientist on a jungle island. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis look-alikes get mixed up with two gorillas in pretty good suits.
4) "White Pongo" (1945) -- the climactic fight between white and black gorillas. Made the same year as "White Gorilla" and with Ray Corrigan inside one of the suits, Pongo employs more tree bashing than "White Gorilla," so I would guess it was made right afterward or by a more creative director. "How can we top that White Gorilla bash-a-thon? Hmm...."
5) Simon the Monk in "Monkeydoodle" (1931). One of the strangest and rarest cartoons you will ever see, animated by Les Elton.
6) Ape climax from "House of Mystery" (1934). Secret corridors, mystery, murder and a rampaging ape. Great ending when the detective tries to take off the head of the dead ape to see what mystery villain is inside the suit. "His head won't come off. Why, this ape's the real mccoy!"
7) "The Bride and the Beast" trailer (1958). This one is wild and campy from the demented pen of Ed Wood, Jr. "On her wedding night her husband's love brought the beast to raging fury." Why they keep a caged gorilla in their bedroom is not explained in the trailer.
8) Superman in "Terror on the Midway" (1942). Guess what escapes?
9) The awesome trailer for "Robot Monster" (1953), which needs little introduction.
10) Trailer for the original "King Kong" (1933).
11) Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and a gorilla suit in "Road to Bali" (1953).
12) Tribute to Ray Crash Corrigan with the clip from "Come on Cowboys" (1937) that you can view right this second on Youtube.
13) White Gorilla complete and uncensored! It only runs 61 minutes and has nothing objectionable that anyone would cut. I first saw this film in the Minneapolis Walker Art Center, presented by William K. Everson in a program called "Movies out of nothing." Ray Corrigan spends half the film in a tree or behind a bush watching footage from a 1927 serial, all the while pretending to be in that movie. It is great fun and features two gorillas, as you can see in the White Gorilla trailer.

How can one see this ape-or-ific grandiosity on Gorilla Suit Day, one might ask? Here is how! I normally sell shows for $25, but will ship Gorilla Suit Day to you for a mere $5 bucks, which includes shipping. I just want it to be seen and enjoyed on the day of days. Money back guarantee if you don't love the program. What else will you be doing at your gorilla day party?

All films are in the public domain. You can show them publicly, advertise and charge admission if you like. The special contents of the program are copyrighted by me, so you can not copy and re-sell the disc. The $5 complimentary price to cover shipping and handling is meant for home showings where no admission is charged. If you manage to show it in a theater that rakes in the dough (!), kindly send me a modest cut of the take. I am not really joking here. This program has enormous potential to find a cult audience, but that will only happen when it is widely shown and earns a reputation.

I take Paypal to fesfilms@aol.com, personal checks made out to Ron Hall or a $5 bill in the mail sent to:

Ron Hall
6115 Chestnut Terrace
Shorewood, MN 55331

Or contact me at:
952-470-2172
email to ron@caferoxy.com or fesfilms@aol.com
Visit the website at www.caferoxy.com