On The Boulevard: George Marshall

Who's George Marshall? I have no idea. Let's find out.

I don't think the one we're looking for is the military leader who became Secretary of State. He's probably the second listing I'm finding claiming that George was a prolific actor/writer/producer and director of film and television. Yep, that's the owner of this star.

Not much can be said, because I can't seem to find much n him. Even though he has a resume as long a my arm.

He was born in Chicago in 1891 and died in Los Angeles in 1975. It appears he started his directing career in 1916 at the age of 25 with the silent film Across The Rio Grande. From there he'd continue on to more recognizable titles like Destry Rides Again (1939), The Ghost Breakers (1940), The Blue Dahlia (1946) and as one of the many directors who contributed to How The West Was Won (1962). It says here he shot the railroad scenes for that film.

In the 60's he moved more and more into television ending his long carer with a a few episodes for The Odd Couple. Over 176 projects by the time of his retirement. It's an impressive sum.

Well, we may not have been very aware of Mr. Marshall's contributions to cinema and they may not have been groundbreaking or himself considered an auteur. But he worked, he added to the culture, he achieved what very few people have, a long and productive career.

It is a star as deserved and even more so, than others that exist today. I'm looking at you David Spade.

On The Boulevard: Elmo Lincoln

I had no idea who this guy was when I took the picture, I just loved the name, but apparently he's got a bit of history.

Elmo Lincoln is the silver screens first Tarzan The Ape Man. Yep, he was the first guy to wear a loin cloth and do that "Ahheeeyyaaaaaa" yell. Actually, he was in the silent movies so he may have never done the yell.

He appeared in three Tarzan movies which were, Tarzan Of The Apes (1918), The Romance Of Tarzan (1918) and finished his run with The Adventures Of Tarzan (1921). He Also appeared in a few other notables like Birth Of A Nation(1915) and Intolerance (1916).

According to his Wikipedia page he gave p acting to pursue a career as a miner. Let's face it, who wouldn't give up the backbreaking work of stardom to take it easy as a miner. But apparently his mining dreams were crushed for reasons unknown and he returned to Hollywood to pick up the laborious work of acting again.

This is the factoid that I find interesting, he ended up with minor roles in later Tarzan movies as a Net Repairing Fisherman and a Circus Roustabout. Admit it, you'd love to have Circus Roustabout on your resume.

He passed away in 1952 and in 2001 his daughter decided to answer all of those questions we'd been wondering about in the book My Father, Elmo Lincoln: The Original Tarzan. All joking aside though, if you were the first Tarzan in cinematic history, you deserve a star.

It's been nice meeting you Mr. Lincoln.

On The Boulevard: The Dead End Kids

To call these guys the Dead End Kids is kind of a misnomer. They started that way, but would be renamed The East End Kids, The Little Tough Guys and The Bowery Boys through time for different production companies. Though the best films they were involved with came under the Dead End Kid years.

They were a young group of New York actors who had been cast in the play Dead End, hence their name, and moved to Hollywood to star in the film version in 1937. Over the next 20 years, they'd appear in films opposite Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Garfield and a ton of heavy hitters.

A couple of the better films they were involved with was Dead End (1937), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) and They Made Me A Criminal (1939). Some of the funnier titles include Spooks Run Wild (1941), Junior G-Men Of The Air (1952) and Hold That Hypnotist (1957). The boys would come and go replacing members like the band Menudo, finally disbanding in 1958. Makes sense, how the hell do you fly higher than the genius that is Hold That Hypnotist?

If you've never seen Dead End, it's worth a look especially for some of the character names: Dippy, Spit and Milty. The leaders name is Tommy because no one ever wants to follow a guy named Spit.

On The Boulevard: P.R.C.

Not a real star on walk of fame

We're moving a few blocks south of Hollywood Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard. What you see below is what was once one of the more famous studios of Poverty Row. See, in days of yore, Hollywood wasn't just the dream factory for big budget musicals or epic landscapes. It was also where tons of smaller production companies pumped out low budget fare that was looked at as disposable money makers.

PRC Productions (Producers Releasing Corp) was one of these studios. It may have been small, but in the 30's and 40's it held enough dough to produce, distribute and even import movies from England for U.S. distribution. They specialized in westerns, noir and horror films. Back then, much like now, genre films were an easy way to make a quick buck. Emphasis on the word "quick" since most of their movies were shot in about a week.

PRC Studios 1941

But it was these small budgets and a lack of supervision that allowed filmmakers like Edgar G. Ulmer to experiment and make movies with themes and stories that the big guys at Warners or MGM wouldn't touch. Ulmer would make three of his better known films for PRC. Bluebeard (1944), Strange Illusion (1945) and the noir geeks totem Detour (1945). Other fun titles produced by the company were Crime Inc. (1945), Thunder Town (1946), Nabonga (1944), and The Devil Bat (1940) starring Bela Lugosi. Overall they'd make 280 films in 13 years. Just under 22 movies a year, not too shabby.

PRC Studios 2009

In 1947, PRC would be bought up by Eagle-Lion Films Inc. and fade away into the larger myth of Poverty Row. It may not be as well known today to film geeks like Monogram or Republic Pictures, but PRC has left an indelible mark on B-movie history and has earned star (from me) on the boulevard.

On The Boulevard: Samuel Z. Arkoff

You know those stereotypes of cigar chomping movie moguls? Well, that's Sam Arkoff.

Arkoff was originally a lawyer and a shark at that. He decided to get into the movie biz and teamed up with James H. Nicholson and a very young gent by the name of Roger Corman. For those who don't know who Roger Corman is, he's the guy who helped turn b-grade movies into an empire and through that launched some of the greatest talent working in movies today. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Sayles, Ron Howard are just a few of the heavy hitters. But this story is about Arkoff.

Arkoff and Corman formed what would become American International Pictures (AIP) and off to the races they went. They'd start off with some very successful adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe's works then move into helping define the beach party film and motorcycle gang extravaganza. Arkoff was one of the kings of exploitation and produced over 125 movies in his life, 18 with Corman. The company would fold in the early eighties, but Arkoff has helped leave a mark in low budget cinematic history.

Arkoff believed his success was due to what he humbly coined, "The Arkoff Formula". It defined what makes a sucessful low budget movie.

Here's the recipe:

1. Action (exciting, entertaining drama)
2. Revolution (novel or controversial themes and ideas)
3. Killing (a modicum of violence)
4. Oratory (notable dialogue and speeches)
5. Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
6. Fornication (sex appeal, for young adults)

With that kind of mind, how could you not have a star?

On The Boulevard: Lon Chaney

There always seems to be a bit of confusion about Lon Chaney. This is because there were two of them, a senior and a junior. Lon Chaney Jr.'s real name was Creighton, but took his father's name in order to carry on the legacy of a man who was taken from us at an early age.

Lon Chaney Sr. was a master of disguise and is still considered one of the greatest character actors of all time. Chaney was a master at humanizing characters that were physically and therefore emotionally deformed. I don't think anyone today could match Chaney for the sole reason that no one today would make most of the movies that Chaney was in.

He had the popular ones which carry over to today like Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Oliver Twist (1922), as well as cult classics like The Unholy Three (silent 1925/sound 1930), West of Zanzibar (1928) and the famous lost film London After Midnight (1927).

In each of these as most of his films Chaney created makeup that created monstrous results and would then find the humanity within the character that allowed the audience to sympathize. He would also use contortion to create physical deformities like his character of The Frog in The Miracle Man (1919) or a body rigging that restricted his movements and help establish Quasimodo's uneven walk.

Chaney would create some of his most interesting characters with the help of filmmaker Tod Browning. Films like The Blackbird (1926), The Road to Mandalay (1926) as well as the before mentioned London After Midnight and West of Zanzibar. Browning is most famous for two films that don't star Chaney though. Dracula (1931) made a star of Bela Lugosi and Browning a director with power and Freaks (1932), which would rip that power away and basically destroy his career.

A film I'd like to point out is The Unknown (1927), that paired Chaney and Browning and is one of the more bizarre love stories in the Chaney cannon. In it Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless, a carnival knife thrower who just happens to be, wait for it...armless. Actually, he's not. He's pretending to be armless to hide from the police since he's a killer. Alonzo falls in love with a hotter than hot Joan Crawford who plays a carnival girl. The circus strongman is also in love with her, but she has a phobia about being touched. This is good news for a guy who has no arms. But, since he does have arms, he has them surgically removed. While he's away recuperating, Crawford overcomes her fears of being touched and falls in love with the strongman. Now Alonzo has no girl and no arms... That's gotta suck. All sorts of drama takes place and Alonzo learns to sacrifice himself for love and redemption. It's a great film with an amazing performance by Chaney and a plot line that is beyond original and could never be done today.

Chaney died at the age of 47 from lung cancer.

On The Boulevard: Signe Hasso

(An ongoing look at the stars on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame)

So who is Signe Hasso? A good question, because I had no idea. Sometimes walking down the street you see a name that strikes you and this is one of those names.

Signe is an actress who hails from Sweden. Born in 1910 she was one of the youngest students accepted to the Royal Dramatic Theater. That was in 1922, so I'm guessing there has been one or two younger since then. Maybe not.

She started making movies in Sweden in 1930 and was spotted by Hollywood where she moved to in 1940. RKO signed her and they tried to work the image promoting her as, "The Next Garbo!" Since most of us know Garbo's name and scratch our head at the name Signe Hasso, I'd say it didn't pay off.

But Ms. Hasso did have a decent little career. She starred opposite Spencer Tracy in The Seventh Cross (1944), George Raft in Johnny Angel (1945), as well as the Douglas Sirk film A Scandal In Paris (1946). For those who haven't seen Scandal, I'd highly recommend it. George Sanders plays a criminal who sees the light and becomes a cop... Or does he? It is one of Sirk's more underrated films and Hasso is quite luminous.

The other title I recognized was The House on 92nd St. (1945). This was another Henry Hathaway noir special. Shot mostly on the streets of New York it deals with the FBI taking down a nazi spy ring within the states. Hasso has an accent, so guess what she plays. The film is passable and entertaining. It even has J. Edgar Hoover introducing the film. He's not wearing a dress, so the film does lose a point for betraying reality.

Hasso's Career slowed down in the late fifties. Her husband passed away in 1955 and her son died in a car accident in 1957. That is just tragic. It looks like she gave up on Hollywood and went back to Sweden to make movies. She also spent some time on the New York stage according to Wikipedia, but I can't back that up. It also says she spent her later years as a poet and translated Swedish folk songs into english, which isn't something you hear about every day.

She passed away in 2002 at the age of 91. A good run you might say.

Though not a recognizable name, she earned her star, which means she has/had her followers. I'd also say that with A Scandal In Paris and House On 92nd Street, the following is well deserved.

On The Boulevard: Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino is one of those women that, in my book, has it all. She had looks attitude and a brain. That is an awsome package. Just look at her cute as a button nose and you'd never know she could play hard ass femme fatales or even have the nerve to start her own production company and succeed as a director for the second half of her career. She's a pretty amazing woman in my book, but then again I tend to romanticize.

For me it was movies like They Drive By Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941) that showed me she could hold her own and even control scenes against the likes of Humphrey Bogart and George Raft. In Moontide (1942) she gave a layered performance of a tough girl who wanted real love and found it in Jean Gabin. In Roadhouse (1948) she made me fall in love with her singing, if it was her. If not, I'm in love with someone out there. Last but not least she tamed a savage Robert Ryan (his best performance) as a sensitive blind woman in On Dangerous Ground (1952).

According to Wikipedia, Lupino is uncredited as director for On Dangerous Ground. There is no reference to it other than that so I don't know how valid it is. But Lupino did direct several great films. She had grown tired of the fact that women’s issues were never portrayed accurately on screen, so she decided to do it herself.

Outrage (1950) dealt with a woman who was raped. Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) dealt with a woman deciding over a career or love. She is also considered the first woman to direct a film noir with the B classic The Hitch-Hiker (1953). She also directed the young ladies classic Trouble with Angels (1966), but I've never seen it so I can't comment. She'd go on to a directing career in television where she worked on The Twilight Zone, Batman, The Untouchables and Gilligan's Island just to name a few. That alone is an impressive resume.

She'd continue to act and direct until the late seventies and passed away in 1995 at the age of 77 from a stroke. At the time she was undergoing treatment for colon cancer, so it seemed she was gonna-get-got one way or another around that time. But it was a hell of a life and career she lived the way she wanted to. That's more than most people can say.

Lupino actually has two stars on the Boulevard, one for her work in television and one for her work in film. Beat that.