Movies with Alabama Connections (3): The Fighting Kentuckian

This post might have been called "That Time John Wayne Saved Alabama" or at least the followers of Napolean who settled in the state early in the 19th century. The film can be described as one of Wayne's comedy westerns; after all, in 1818 the Alabama Territory was part of the young nation's wild west, now known as the Old Southwest. 

Before we get to this story of Wayne and the Bonapartists who came to the Alabama Territory, let's review a little real history. The myth of the "Vine and Olive Colony" was born in Albert Pickett's 1851 book, History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period. According to that telling, military noblemen were forced to leave France after the fall of Napolean and were offered land grants by Congress in the Alabama Territory near what is now Demopolis if they would grow grapes and olives. Soon broken by the effort in the wilderness, they and their families returned to France.

In his article on the topic in the Encyclopedia of Alabama, Rafe Blaufarb of Florida State University demonstrates most of that story to be somewhat less than accurate. None of the French settlers were noble and few were military; most were whites who had fled Haiti after the 1791 rebellion and settled in New Orleans and Philadelphia. Congress did grant some 92,000 acres and in August 1817 about 40 of the Philadelphia group left for Mobile. There were some 347 original grantees; only 150 or so ended up in Alabama. By the early 1830's most of those had left the state. Blaufarb's article [and the book he's written on the topic] gives great detail about the fascinating true story.

The site of these true and mythical tales, Marengo County, does have a Napoleonic legacy. The county name is taken from the site where Napolean's army defeated the Austrians in Italy in 1800. The name for the county seat, Linden, originated with Hohenlinden in Bavaria, where Napolean also defeated the Austrians.

The romanticized version of this story continued to be told and expanded by historians, novelists and Hollywood well into the 20th century. The Fighting Kentuckian, released in 1949, was thus a part of the traditional mythology and what Blaufarb terms "the lowest point of historical accuracy".

The film opens with a narration that outlines the romantic history of the French in the Alabama Territory in 1818. A year later, our hero, John Breen [John Wayne], is seen in downtown Mobile, where his unit of Kentucky militia are departing as they make their way home after the War of 1812. Since the Treaty of Ghent ending the war had been signed in December 1814, the Kentuckians were obviously taking their time marching back.

Also in Mobile on that day is the beautiful Fleurette DeMarchand [Vera Ralston], daughter of General Paul DeMarchand, one of the leaders of the French settlers. She has come from Demopolis to Mobile for a day of shopping in the big city. Judging from her outfit, certain merchants will no doubt be glad to see her.

Well, our hero John Breen wastes no time making time with the beautiful Fleurette. Members of Breen's unit are trying to find him to make sure he joins them, but he quickly commandeers the beautiful Fleurette's wagon and leads his comrades on a merry chase around Mobile. 

Our hero John Breen pursues the reluctant but beautiful Fleurette and in the process is caught up in the efforts of evil Americans to steal the land granted to the French settlers. After various adventures and struggles, Breen saves the day and marries the beautiful Fleurette. A full synopsis of this fascinating tale can be found on the Turner Classic Movies web site. 

I do want to comment on a few specifics. The film runs about 100 minutes and according to the Internet Movie Database was released on September 15, 1949. George Waggner wrote and directed the movie, which was filmed at Republic Pictures in Hollywood. Much of the film is set in Demopolis. 


Waggner directed a number of films in the 1930's and 1940's, including another Wayne film, Operation Pacific (1951). In the 1950's and 1960's he directed many episodes of numerous television series, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman. Why Waggner was interested in a pretty obscure aspect of early Alabama history is unknown.

Wayne's co-star Vera Ralston made this film in the middle of her acting career. A native of Prague, Czechoslovakia, she first came to prominence as a figure skater in the 1930's. Her meeting with Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Winter Olympics makes for an interesting story. She made 26 films between 1944 and 1958.

The set for downtown Mobile looks realistic enough for the period, but was probably used in Republic westerns as well. In scenes outside the city the landscape looks more like southern California than southern Alabama. 

Several well-known actors besides Wayne and Ralston appear in the film. Oliver Hardy makes a rare appearance without Stan Laurel and provides comic relief as the character Willie Payne.. A scene where Wayne and Hardy discuss surveying and attempt to do it in a field on the French land grant is pretty amusing. Another funny scene has Wayne and Oliver as part of a dance band pretending to play fiddles. Late in the film Wayne, Hardy and others are riding in the countryside and pass a sign that says "Catawba", the town that became the first state capital. And the film is worth watching just for the scene where Hardy explains to a French lady how to make corn pone. 

Film noir icon Marie Windsor appears as Ann Logan, mistress of one of the evil Americans. She gets to sing a song in one scene, or at least lip sync it. I've been unable to determine if that was really Marie singing. Later in the film Wayne declares, "You sing nice." Windsor tells Oliver Hardy at one point that "You're talking to a girl who learned to drink Alabama rum out of a jug." Before you die be sure and see a film Windsor made in 1952, The Narrow Margin. 

Character actor Paul Fix also has a significant role in this film. He appeared in over 100 movies and numerous television programs. He may be best remembered as the marshal in Chuck Connors' show The Rifleman. 

One character in The Fighting Kentuckian declares that "In another few months Alabama will become a state." Since that happened in December 1819, this film's events are ostensibly taking place in the summer and/or fall of 1819. They are really taking place in some fantasy land constructed by Albert Pickett, with help from the Great American Dream Factory. 

You can watch a trailer for the movie at Turner Classic Movies.

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Source: Wikipedia

Source: Showmen's Trade Review April-June 1949

Wayne and Ralston in Dakota in 1945

Source: Wikipedia

Alabama Book Covers (5): Joseph Holt Ingraham

I am continuing this series devoted to covers and title pages from books by authors with some connection to Alabama.

Joseph Holt Ingraham [1809-1860] filled his fifty-one years with numerous accomplishments in two different fields--popular novelist and Episcopal priest. He was born in Portland, Maine, in January 1809, a son in a wealthy family. He later claimed to have studied at Bowdoin College and Yale. In 1830 he took to the sea on a voyage to New Orleans. The series of articles he published in a Natchez newspaper about the trip became his first book, The South-West, which appeared five years later. He had began teaching at Jefferson College in Mississippi and in 1832 married the daughter of a wealthy planter, Mary Brooks. 

Over the next decade and more Ingraham and his wife traveled often between the South and New York City as he developed his career as author of numerous popular works of fiction. The first of those titles, Lafitte: The Pirate of the Gulf, was published in 1836. This novel was reviewed by none other than Edgar Allan Poe, who found it "by far too frequently descriptive" and proceeded to demolish the prose filled with "unnecessary detail". By 1847 Ingraham had written at least 80 short novels published by Boston firms and often featuring tales of pirates or the dangers of urban life. He claimed to have written 20 in a year.

In 1847 Ingraham joined the Protestant Episcopal Church and took a teaching job in Nashville. He gave up writing lurid fiction and by 1852 had become an Episcopal priest. Before he died he held various teaching and clerical positions around the South. 

From December 1853 until January 1857 Ingraham served as the first Rector at St. John's Episcopal Church in Mobile. During that time he wrote The Prince of the House of David published in 1855. The book was the first best-selling fiction based on the life of Christ. The original publisher issued at least six editions, and when the copyright expired, a dozen more printed their own. Two subsequent novels, The Pillar of Fire [1859] and The Throne of David [1860], completed a Biblical trilogy of sorts. 

Ingraham moved to Tennessee for a brief period and then in September 1858 became rector of Christ Church in Holly Springs, Mississippi. On December 18, 1860, Ingraham died there of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His contemporaries considered his death to result from an accidental discharge of his pistol.

Ingraham and his wife had a son, Prentiss, who also had an Alabama connection and will be discussed in a future posting. The son had a life filled with adventure around the world before he began a second career as a novelist. Prentiss Ingraham published hundreds of works before his death in 1904, some of them revisions of works by his father. The younger Ingraham transformed the older's florid text into something more acceptable to late nineteenth century dime novel readers. Dozens of works by Prentiss were devoted to Buffalo Bill and were largely responsible for creating the myths surrounding William Cody. 

Rev. Joseph H. Ingraham

Source: This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape

This postcard dating before 1910 shows St. John's Episcopal Church on North Dearborn Street in downtown Mobile. Founded in 1853, this wooden structure was used until 1956.

Source: Alabama Department of Archives & History

Below are some book covers and title pages of a few of Ingraham's novels along with commentary on some of them.

CAPTAIN KYD;

OR,

THE WIZARD OF THE SEA.

A ROMANCE.

BY J. H. INGRAHAM

THE AUTHOR OF "THE SOUTHWEST," "LAFITTE," "BURTON," &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET.
1839.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838,
By Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

Ingraham' s The Beautiful Cigar Girl; or, the Mysteries of Broadway was based on the famous Mary Rogers case in New York City. Rogers was a young woman who worked as a clerk in a tobacco shop and whose beauty overwhelmed many a customer. In late July 1841 her body was found in the Hudson River at Hoboken, New Jersey. The murder was never solved.

However, the real event has lived on in such fiction as Ingraham's and Poe's classic short story "The Mystery of Marie Roget", which appeared in 1842. Although the victim's name was changed and the setting relocated to Paris, Poe's story is sometimes considered the first murder fiction based on a real crime. 

Daniel Stashower's article on the case can be found here. His 2006 book is The Beautiful Cigar Girl. 

Cover of the 1844 first printing of the novel

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Title page from an 1859 printing of Ingraham's Beautiful Cigar Girl

Ingraham's works remained popular long after his death. The title page above is an 1880 printing of the work.

His book The Pillar of Fire, first published in 1859, served as one of the sources for Cecil B. de Mille's 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. 

Another of Ingraham's popular works was that romantic novel based on the life of pirate Jean Lafitte and first published in 1836 as his second book. The title page below is from the 1852 edition. Many of Ingraham's works are available at the Internet Archive.

FURTHER READING 

Bishop, David H. Joseph Holt Ingraham. In: Edwin Anderson Alderman, et al, eds. Library of Southern Literature, 1909, vol. 6: 2591-2611

French, Warren. Joseph Holt Ingraham. In: Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary. Robert Bain, et al, eds. Louisiana State University Press, 1979, pp 240-241

French, Warren. A Hundred Years of a Religious Bestseller. Western Humanities Review 10: 45-54, 1955

French, Warren. A Sketch of the Life of Joseph Holt Ingraham. Journal of Mississippi History 1949 July; 11(3): 155-171

Pennington, E.L. The Ministry of Joseph Holt Ingraham in Mobile, Alabama. Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 1957 December; 26(4): 344-360

Prentiss Ingraham and Joseph H. Ingraham Papers. W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, University of Alabama

Weathersby, Robert W. J.H. Ingraham. Twayne, 1980



A Quick Visit to Mobile, Alabama (2)

Back in July we visited Mobile for a family gathering. We stayed at the Battle House Hotel and ventured up and down Dauphin Street when we had a chance and despite the heat. I covered some of what we saw in an earlier post. Here are some more of the sites along one of the city's iconic streets.

Cathedral Square is a city park across the street from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which was built between 1850 and 1884. The Square was once a Catholic Cemetery but most graves were moved in 1819.

Located across another street from Cathedral Square is the Bishop Portier House. Mobile's first Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Portier lived here from 1834 until 1859.

 

These two institutions are across the street from Cathedral Square. I found the juxtaposition interesting. More information can be found at the Mobile Arts Council web site and a 2009 article about the Police Museum. 

 

 

We could not resist getting something salty and something sweet from this business in operation since 1947.

 

 

I'm always ready to visit local bookstores, and several of us made it to Bienville Books just across from the Square on Dauphin Street. Book lovers can spend some serious browsing time in this two-story haven. I especially enjoyed the local history section.

 

 

 

 

 

We were all excited to come across this classic American icon from the film A Christmas Story in the barber shop across the street from the Battle House.

 

 

More than 25 sites now make up the Alabama Oyster Trail. Painted by local artists, the statues are meant to highlight restoration efforts in Mobile Bay.  

 

 

Beautiful Bienville Square is near the hotel. The entire block is now the park, but it started out as a plot of land deeded by the U.S. government to the city if used as a park. Over the years the city purchased the remaining land in the block and owned it all by 1849. At one time the Spanish Hospital stood in this block. The Square is named for the city's founder.

Even the squirrels seemed to be feeling the heat that day

 

This building near the hotel is another example of the wonderful architecture being restored in that part of Mobile.

 

 

 

Opened in January 1927, the Saenger Theatre was the 61st facility in a chain throughout the South started by two brothers in New Orleans. The theater was built to resemble opera houses in Europe. Like so many theaters built in that era, the Saenger had many uses over the years and faced imminent destruction in 1970. Luckily the Saenger survived to entertain another day.

A Quick Visit to Mobile, Alabama (1)

In July Dianne and I headed to Mobile for a long weekend and a little family gathering. We stayed at the Battle House Hotel and despite the heat spent some time wandering up and down nearby Dauphin Street and adjacent blocks. Here are a few of the wonders we encountered. I'll cover some more in another post. 

Step out of the Battle House's Royal Street entrance, look up and to your left and you'll see the  Van Antwerp Building. Designed by architect George Rogers and finished in 1907, the Van Antwerp was the city's first skyscraper and the first such reinforced concrete structure in the Southeast. Wealthy druggist Garet Van Antwerp financed the building and located his pharmacy there. An ad for his business, which operated into the 1960's, can be seen below.  

This ad appeared in the June 1911 issue of the Southern Medical Journal published in Birmingham.

Down Dauphin Street not far from the Battle House is a very long and colorful mural.

For some strange reason daughter Becca Leon was not interested in this pink dress we offered to buy her. Maybe 20 years ago she would have been!

The Crescent Theater is an independent movie house in downtown Mobile.

Streets in downtown Mobile have many surviving examples of wonderful architecture.

A Giant Frog in Mobile in 1877

The following item appeared on the front page of the Mobile Daily Tribune on a Sunday morning in 1877. At least, I think it was the Tribune. My copy has only "Mobile Daily" at the top and a daily Tribune was being published in the city in that year.


A HUGE FROG

PRONOUNCED BY SEVERAL OF OUR RIVER AND BAY MEN TO BE THE LARGEST EVER SEEN ABOUT OUR WATERS

One of the curiosities of our coast, is a mammoth frog, which was exhibited yesterday afternoon, to a crowd, down at the New Orleans and Mobile depot. He is evidently a stray animal in the pen, as no such frog was ever known to infest the waters or bays of our gulf coast before. Several river men and bay men declared that it is the largest frog ever known to exist anywhere in our swamps and bayous. It is estimated that its weight is a least 200 pounds. Tom Bullock, the courteous and popular agent of the New Orleans road, in whose keeping his frogship is, has determined to keep him on exhibition several days, when he will send him to Barnum. The old fellow was found under the wharf, at the foot of Government street and captured by a little negro boy. We advise all who would witness a real curiosity in the shape of abnormal growth, to go down to the New Orleans and Mobile depot and take a look at this--certainly the largest frog ever seen by us.


Well. What a sight the creature must have been for all the Mobilians who went to the depot to see him! Why, they would have found absolutely nothing! This item appeared in the April 1 edition of the paper.

Even in 1877, just a dozen years after the end of the Civil War and in the same year as the end of formal Reconstruction in the South, journalists in Mobile were pulling such jokes. April Fool's Day humor and hoaxes have a long history; April 1 was initially associated with pranks and such by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales.

The mention of "Barnum" refers of course to P.T. Barnum, already well-known in 1877. A major figure in the history of American business and showmanship, Barnum's career helped create the culture of spectacle in which so much of the world lives today.

I wonder if Tom Bullock, he of the great courtesy and popularity down at the depot, was also a real person?