Tonight's movie at CSUN was "Speak Easily" (1932), the next to the last of Buster Keaton's films for MGM. We've already discussed the general consensus of these works among film critics and Buster fans : some like 'em, most don't, some are lukewarm and some hate 'em. Few would say they love them nowdays, even though when the films were released in the 1930s they were big box office. But now, a cult has grown around Keaton, and like with all cults, a groupthink mentality has descended. Therefore, in this case since Buster himself called signing with MGM "the worst mistake I ever made", so do many in the Buster Cult automatically second that emotion. This is why you have the myth that the MGM Talkies suck, just because Buster said so, and so if you are a Film Hipster you have to agree.
Thank goodness I am not a Film Hipster, and if Buster was alive I'd say, "Hey Buster, not one of these movies is awful, and some are downright hilarious". And if he was alive I would've taken him to tonight's screening, so that he could watch the show with a bunch of college kids who were laughing their butts off, 85 years after the movie was made. Yes, it's true that Buster had lost creative control when he signed with MGM. He was no longer writing or directing his movies, only acting in them. But Irving Thalberg & Mr. Mayer knew a thing or two themselves about making pictures. Yes, the MGM Talkies are more of Ensemble Comedies, in which a lot of actors trade gags and share scenes. It's not Pure Buster, he is more of a Team Player in these films. But some of them are as funny as anything he did independently in the Silent Era, and some are downright crazy, like "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath", or tonight's movie.
"Speak Easily" stars Buster as a college professor, an erudite fellow who speaks in gramatically correct sentences, and is formal and polite in conversation. However, his life is a bit sedate, so his assistant at the college sets up a ruse to get The Professor out into the world, to put some spice into his life. The assistant sends him a made-up letter from a non-existent lawyer telling Buster he has inherited 750 Grand, which in 1932 was a truckload of money (and it still is today, but even more so back then).
The assistant convinces Buster to take some time off, take a train trip, which he does. Here I must interject to note that the train station that was used for this scene was certainly in the Valley, and I am thinking it was in the West Valley, because of the mountains that were visible. All of the train station depot buildings back then had a uniform look, like woodframe schoolhouses. Google the Northridge Train Depot from 1912 and you'll see what I mean. Anyway, the station in the scene may have been Northridge or Chatsworth, or maybe Van Nuys, but it was definitely the Valley, and it was a trip because there was nothing on the horizon but open land. Oh, to have lived here back then. :)
Back to the movie - at the train station, Buster meets a young lady who is part of a theater company.
Now that you are a veteran of Buster movies, what do you think happens next?
You are correct. He falls for her.
Her theater group is struggling, and so Buster offers to bankroll their upcoming Broadway production, with 750,000 dollars that he actually doesn't have, because his inheritance isn't real. It was faked, you will recall, by his assistant at the college. No one knows this at the time, however. And the Show Must Go On. So the whole trainload of troupers heads to New York, to Broadway, and the zaniness begins.
Jimmy Durante co-stars (and we just saw him two nights ago with Esther Williams), and once again he adds some Pure Show Biz pizzaz. Also front and center is the great Sidney Toler, who we saw star in all those classic "Charlie Chan" movies that I watched way back last February. Here he plays the director of the theater group. But the co-star who really makes a mark is the legendary but terribly tragic Thelma Todd.
You may or may not have heard of Thelma Todd. She was a budding star in early Golden Era Hollywood, with knockout looks and style. I had never seen her in a movie before tonight, but I can now vouch that she had mega Star Power. She and her boyfriend, who I believe was also her manager, opened a nightclub/restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway in the mid-30s, and it soon became a hotspot for the Hollywood crowd.
And then - here's the horrible part - one night in 1935, just three years after she made this picture with Buster Keaton, Thelma Todd was found dead in her car, on the property of her nightclub. Her house was on the same property, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. She had died of "carbon monoxide poisoning", and her death was then ruled a "suicide" by the county coroner.
The only problem with this scenario was that she had a successful nightclub, near the beach to boot, and local gangsters had been pressuring her to sell it to them so that they could turn it into a gambling den. She had refused to sell. This was the era of the Mafia and out-in-the-open organised crime, and the era of law enforcement looking the other way, because there was money to be made.
And so the very talented Thelma Todd, who should have been a star on the level of Marilyn Monroe, had her career and life cut short. Many years later, her boyfriend supposedly confessed, on his deathbed, to conspiring in her murder along with local mobsters.
I write all of this because the story of Thelma Todd is part of the dark side of Hollywood Legend, and because I had never seen her in a movie before tonight, and because she deserves to have her case solved.
And also......because I absolutely hate bad guys, people who take advantage of other people aka Sociopaths. I especially hate it when crimes are never solved.
I should have been a Homicide Detective, it is true. Or an astronomer. I would solve every crime while gazing at the Universe...
It should be noted that "Speak Easily" was made in the pre-Code era, so there is some racy stuff for the time the movie was made. And as always, the raciness is done with innuendo and class, and a lot of humor. Nothing is ever crude or blunt, or stupid.
Boy were they cool in the 1930s! Excuse me while I start up my Time Machine.....
SB, are you coming with me?
Okay, good. Have a seat right here. :):)
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