“When former Olympic star Johnny Weissmuller was approached to play Tarzan, he was under contract with BVD to advertise their underwear and swimming trunks. BVD strenuously objected to its spokesman appearing in just a loincloth — the company only wanted him to appear wearing its product. In return for letting Weismuller play Tarzan, MGM allowed BVD to run ads featuring the studio’s contract players in BVD swimsuits (including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, and Marie Dressler).”
Independently produced by Sherman S. Krellber, The Lost City (1935) was a 12-part low-budget serial that mixed not-so-convincing jungle locales with cool-looking mad scientist laboratory equipment. If the laboratory equipment looks familiar, it may be because Ken Strickfaden also created the electrical effects for Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Produced by Hal Roach and directed by Fred Guiol, Flaming Flappers (1925) may survive today only as a fragment. Sadly, the majority of silent films are lost forever.
“It is widely believed that Ted Turner had plans to colorize Citizen Kane, but that wide public outcry led to his decision not to. The rumor came from a tongue-in-cheek comment from Turner that he would colorize the film in order to bait critics of the process.
“In actuality, Orson Welles had the rights to the film, and Turner couldn’t have colorized the film even if he had wanted to. Nonetheless, the controversy over the potential alteration of this film was one of the catalysts that eventually led to the film industry requirement that all future video and TV releases of films that have been altered in any way — including the standard conversion from widescreen to ‘pan and scan’ — must carry a disclaimer indicating the film has been ‘modified from its original version.’
“It is also widely believed that when he heard about it, Welles supposedly roared, ‘Tell Ted Turner to keep his crayons away from my movie!’ However, being that he owned the rights to the film, it is highly unlikely that he ever made any such statement.”
“The running time for The Wizard of Oz was originally 120 minutes. Producer Mervyn LeRoy realized that at least 20 minutes of the film needed to be deleted to get it down to a manageable running time. Three sneak previews aided LeRoy in his decision in what to cut. The original film in its entirety was seen only once by an audience in either San Bernadino or Santa Barbara, and it was the only time the famed Jitterbug number was seen by the public.
“After this preview, LeRoy cut the aforementioned Jitterbug number and the Scarecrow’s extended dance sequence to ‘If I Only Had a Brain.’ A second preview was held in Pomona, California, where the film ran 112 minutes. After the preview, LeRoy cut Dorothy’s ‘Over The Rainbow’ reprise and a scene in which the Tin Man turned into a human beehive, and the Emerald City reprise of ‘Ding Dong The Witch is Dead,’ as well as a few smaller scenes and dialogue, notably two Kansas scenes in which the Hickory character was building a machine to ward off tornadoes, as well as dozens of threatening lines by the Wicked Witch of the West.
“By the third preview, held in San Luis Obispo, the film finally was down to its 101-minute running time, where it has remained ever since.”
“Thirty-seven doctors in the continental U.S. had the same name the writers had given to Groucho Marx in A Day at the Races. It was feared the studio would be sued the minute they were portrayed on the screen by Groucho as horse doctors.”
What name was dropped and replaced with Hackenbush? The answer is Quackenbush.
Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) had a very limited budget. Instead of a full-size giant lobster, or even a model-sized replica, producer-director-writer Tom Graeff choose to use the shadow of a regular-size lobster. And one of the skeletons serving as a dead body still has its medical ID tag attached.
The traditional Chinese name for cinema is made up of the two characters dian and ying, which translate as “electric shadows.”
Dianying: Electric Shadows is the name of an excellent history of Chinese films from 1896 through 1967. The book was written by Jay Leyda, who worked with the Chinese film industry in Peking from 1959 to 1964. Leyda is best known for his books on Sergei Eisenstein and the Soviet cinema, though he also published studies of Herman Melville, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Emily Dickinson.
Unfortunately, Dianying: Electric Shadows is currently out of print. You can still find it in both hardback and paperback through used booksellers.
