Silent Filmmaking in the Birmingham Area, Part 6: Homegrown Silents (2)

Over the years [after all, this blog goes back to 2014] I've written a number of pieces here about the Alabama connections to various silent films. One group, which includes this post, covers silents made in the Birmingham area. I've also written a number of items about actors and actresses from Alabama--such as Johnny Mack Brown, Lois Wilson and Dorothy Sebastian--who starred in silent films. Finally, I've done a few posts about silent films such as One Clear Call and Right of the Strongest based on a work by a state novelist or having some other connection. 

In this post I'm returning to the theme of "homegrown silents" that I covered in the fifth part. Films included in parts one through four originated with companies outside the state who came to the Birmingham area to film. However, in part five and now part six I've written about the Birmingham Amateur Movie Association  and its filmmaking efforts. In part five I also discussed two other local productions, Things You Ought to Know About Birmingham and The Love Beat. Since that post I've learned nothing more about them.   

Below I've included again two newspaper articles about the group I also used in part five. The BAMA originated in a meeting of over fifty people who met in the auditorium of the Birmingham Public Library on Friday night, August 3, 1928. At that meeting committees were established and membership determined, and the group watched The Nolfolk Case, made by a similar organization in New Haven,  Connecticut. The local organization had already joined the Amateur Cinema League of America based in New York City. The League, founded on July 28, 1926, existed until 1954. Publication of their journal, Movie Makers, began in December 1926. 

Officers elected at the first meeting:

Jack London, President
Louise O. Charlton, Director
E.C. Krug, Vice-President
J. Mont Thomas, Secretary
John E. Roberts, Treasurer

Committees/members

Scenario

Harry Garrett, Chair
Mrs. W.H. Yenni
Howard Parish

Membership

Mrs. Erwin Caldwell, Chair
Robert Bromberg
Mrs. J. Martin-Smith, Jr.

Constitution/By-Laws

David R. Solomon, Chair
Mrs. Priestly Toulman, Jr. 
Mrs. Howard Parish

Technical

C.L. Engle, Chair
John Roberts
Erwin Caldwell

Several films were either completed or mentioned in the items below.

What Price Pearls [1929, 16mm]
Trustworthy [1929, 35mm]
The World, the Flesh and Mercedes [1929?]
Man Shy [1929?]

Trustworthy, the story of a boy and his "gang", starred Donald Clayton, Edward Wilken, and Mrs. W.I. Woodcock. Movie Maker magazine, as noted below from its March 1929 issue, described The World, the Flesh and Mercedes as the group's completed "current production" and all that remained was work on the title cards. The November 1928 issue had stated the group's first production would be Man Shy, with a script by Mrs. W.H. Yenni based on a short story "Personally Abducted" by David R. Solomon. I have yet to reconcile these conflicting bits of information. 

Solomon's story had been published in The Designer and the Woman's Magazine in February 1925. In fact, he published a number of stories in various magazines between 1917 and 1934. His story "Fear" appeared in the very first issue of the legendary Weird Tales magazine. That March 1923 publication can be read here. The cover of that issue features "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud, "the extraordinary novelette" and "the tale of a thousand thrills" which is set in Alabama. I'll be posting about that state connection in the future. 

I have found a bit of information about two individuals named above. Perhaps one day I can research the others. "Jack London", the President, was actually John London III, the son of John and Edith Ward London. Birmingham Public Library has a collection of her papers, and the online description notes that Edith was also active in the BAMA, "for which she wrote movie scripts." Hmmm...

David Rosenbaum Solomon was a Mississippi native, born in Meridian on July 9, 1893. His mother Fanny was also a native of the state, and father Samuel was born in Poland. Solomon finished both his bachelor's and law degrees at the University of Mississippi, the latter in 1918. He practiced for about a year and a half in Meridian, then served as a second lieutenant in a field artillery unit in World War I. Afterward he joined the firm of Leader and Ewing in Birmingham. He married Madeline Hirshfield on November 1, 1920, and died on November 15, 1951, at the age of 58. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.

These details about Solomon were gathered from several different databases at Ancestry.com I imagine searching there would yield information about many of the people named above. Some serious research at Birmingham Public Library should also turn up more about BAMA and its activities. Perhaps one day...

Beyond these articles, I have yet to discover any information about the films named, either BAMA's or the other two local productions. Perhaps one day...

Birmingham News 4 Aug 1928 via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Birmingham News 14 July 1929 via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Movie Makers March 1929 p. 192

Movie Makers November 1928, p. 717

Movies with Alabama Connections: Stark Love (1927)

Well, I knew that Fob James, Jr., acted like a monkey while governor, but I didn't realize until recently that his father had actually appeared as the male lead in a silent movie in 1927. Let's investigate.

That film was Stark Love, set in the Great Smokey Mountains where it was filmed near Robbinsville, North Carolina. Directed by Karl Brown and written by him and Walter Woods. the movie was financed by a major Hollywood studio--what is now Paramount Pictures--and intended as a realistic portrait of people in Appalachia. 

To that end the two lead characters Rob Warwick and Barbara Allen are played by non-professional actors, Forrest Hood James, Sr., and Helen Mundy. Director Brown wanted to tell a story about mountain people that would be realistic in a way unseen before in Hollywood films. "Hillbilly" movies had been popular but full of stereotypes. The article about Mundy linked previously has some interesting background about casting and filming Stark Love. Numerous comments about the film can be found here. 

Brown located his two leads in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mundy was a 16 year-old high school student. Filming was done so far in the backwoods a new road had to be constructed. In the story Rob is the son of a harsh father who mistreats his mother. Rob learns to read and wants a better life for himself and the neighbor's daughter he's attracted to, Barbara [Mundy]. After various hardships and the death of his mother, Rob and Barbara escape their isolated community for a better life. Director Brown portrayed stereotypes of his own in his film; he had no direct knowledge of or experience with Appalachian mountain people. 

According to one source, [Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes & Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs. New South Books, 2012, p. 143] the premier of Stark Love took place at the first commercial movie theater in Auburn, the original Tiger Theater, which operated from 1926 until 1928. Owned by Foreman Rogers, the business was located on North College Street in an old storefront. The date was September 21-22, 1927; admission was 35 cents for adults and 15 cents.  In contrast, the IMDB says the film was released on February 28, 1927, and in those days films took time to make their way around the country due to limited numbers of prints, slower transportation, etc. I'm just not sure about the "premier" discrepancy. 

Stark Love was presumed to be one of the many lost silent films until a copy was discovered in a Czech archive in 1968 by film historian Kevin Brownlow. Although still little seen today, it was added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2009. A blurry copy is available on YouTube. 

Neither lead ever appeared in another film. Mundy married, moved to Michigan and died in 1987. 

His Word War II draft card [found via Ancestry.com] tells us a bit about Forrest James, Sr. He was born in Waverly, Alabama, on August 10, 1905, and married to Rebecca Ellington James. He was 5'9" tall, weighed 160 and had brown hair and blue eyes. Karl Brown offered to take James to Hollywood, but he followed his mother's wishes and returned to finish college at what is now Auburn University. James and his twin brother William both lettered in three sports at Auburn. James then taught high school and coached baseball before pursuing a business career. He died July 2, 1973, in Birmingham and is buried in Garden Hills Cemetery in Opelika.

By the way, I can highly recommended Brownlow's massive 1968 book The Parade's Gone By as a wonderful history of silent filmmaking. 

FURTHER READING

Articles by John White:

"Hollywood Comes to Knox County," Kentucky Humanities, Spring 2010: 29-34. Published by the Kentucky Humanities Council.

"Forrest James, Hollywood's Reluctant Star." Alabama Heritage. Number 93, Summer 2009: 44-53. Published by the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

"Myth and Movie Making: Karl Brown and the Making of Stark Love." Film History, an International Film Journal. Volume 19, 1 (2007): 49-57. Published by Indiana University.

This book has a long chapter on the film:

Williamson, Jeremy Wayne. Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and what the Mountains Did to the Movies. North Carolina: UNC Press Books, 1995.

Source: Spokane [Wash.] Woman 19 July 1928

Movies with Alabama Connections: Henry Browne, Farmer [1942]

Usually the films I examine in the "Movies with Alabama Connections" series are fictional, but this one is a "documentary" short made during World War II. I ran across it recently and thought it featured several interesting elements. The film was released in 1942 by the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Created during the New Deal, the agency promoted modern agricultural methods and agriculture's importance to the nation. Henry Browne, Farmer was nominated for a Documentary Academy Award in 1943. 

In its nearly eleven minute running time, the film has three parts. The first is a brief opening that sets the context of agriculture's importance to the nation's effort in World War II. We see marching soldiers, tanks, a scene in a factory. Then the narrator tells us agricultural production is just as vital. The second, main section depicts a day in the lives of Henry Browne and his family on the farm. Finally, we see the family make a special visit to Tuskegee. 

Below are some screen shots and further comments. This film, along with three earlier ones from the Agriculture Department dealing with African-Americans, are  given extensive analysis in J. Emmett Winn's 2012 book, Documenting Racism: African Americans in US Department of Agriculture Documentaries, 1921-42 [Continuum, 2012]. You can find the detailed chapter on Henry Browne, Farmer and the rest of the book here. 

Winn notes, "As with the other films addressed in this book, the filmmakers constructed a reality that informs and persuades the audience to understand and accept the content as accurate and believable. Henry Browne accomplishes these goals by showing the Brownes as they go about their lives on the farm; segments include the introduction of the members of the Browne family and their farm, the family eating a nutritious breakfast, the merits of the family garden, the importance of raising livestock, the preventive maintenance and reusing of materials, and the careful use of the land. Each of these segments demonstrates that the Brownes are model farmers who utilize the best judgment and practices in managing their farm and home." He also observes that unlike the other agency films about African-Americans, the race of the Brownes is never mentioned.

Despite the realism, the family is apparently fictional. No one is named except the father and his son Henry Jr. The individuals playing the father, mother, children and older brother may have been Macon County residents, but are not credited in the film. I presume the Agricultural Adjustment Agency would not have had the budget to bring in actors from elsewhere. I did not find a Henry Browne and family in the 1930 or 1940 U.S. Census for Macon County. 

In the final pages of his chapter, Winn addresses the ultimate irony of Henry Browne, Farmer. "The Brownes live in a black America that is separate from white America, and the film suggests that the situation is not just okay; it is good. I argue that the film is deceptive in its support of the doctrine of separate-but-equal Jim Crow racism. The Brownes thrive in a racially separate world where everything is not only going well but also improving. In the last year the Brownes have improved their meals, livestock, and crops. In comparison with the other USDA films about rural black populations, Henry Browne presents favorable conditions for African American farmers in Alabama." The Browne family seems to exist in its own successful world outside the realities of segregation and the real status of blacks in America at the time.

The film was a success in that it was shown to many black audiences around the country by extension agents and distributed to some 500 theaters by Republic Pictures. Walter White, who was Executive Secretary of the NAACP for many years, wrote to the Agriculture Department praising the work. You can watch the film at the U.S. Library of Congress' web site.

Three men are credited on the film. Roger Barlow [1912-1990] has various director and cinematographer credits listed on the IMDB between 1937 and 1973. Gene Forrell [1915-2005] was a composer and conductor with various credits--mostly documentary shorts--on the IMDB between 1942-1965. His Wikipedia entry has a bit more information. 

After working as a jockey, boxer and musician, Canada Lee [1907-1952] became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project and worked in Orson Welles' 1936 production of Macbeth featuring an all-black cast. Before World War II Lee was also active in civil rights causes. After the war he was blacklisted and died just before he was to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

After the scenes of marching soldiers, tanks on the move and industrial factory production, the camera moves to a rural scene and pans from the Browne's barn to the house. 

We see farmer Browne washing his face first thing in the morning. 

The younger son is shown milking a cow. 

After their initial household and barn chores are done, the husband, wife, and two younger children sit down to a hearty breakfast.

Then Henry Browne heads to one of his fields to begin plowing after checking soil conditions. 

Before she and her mother head to the garden to weed, the younger daughter goes to the hen house to collect some eggs. 

These stills have an artistic feel, foregrounding the iron pot and ax with the hen house/barn in the background and the bucket and tools hanging on a wall. 

Mother, son and daughter hoe the garden; Henry Browne can be seen at the plow in the background. This scene shows the family working together as a team to make their land as productive as possible. 

Here the family climbs into their wagon for the trip to Tuskegee. No rest for the mules!

In the background we can see the marquee of the Macon Theater which opened in 1935. The facility featured two auditoriums, one for whites and one for blacks. Of course, restrooms, drinking fountains, ticket offices, entrances and concessions were also duplicated. 

The Brantley grocery store apparently began operation in 1933. 

Their son is at the gate to meet his family, and they walk toward the airfield. 

Here the son is being helped into his parachute before his practice run as a pilot. 

The rest of the family watches proudly as his and other planes take off.

Washington [DC] Star 18 Nov 1942

Source: Chronicling America/Library of Congress

Michigan Chronicle 12 Dec 1942

Source: Chronicling America/Library of Congress

Northwest Enterprise [Seattle] 30 December 1942

Source: Chronicling America/Library of Congress

Lois Wilson's "Deluge"

I've written a couple of blog posts about Lois Wilson, an actress born in Pittsburgh who grew up in Alabama. She won the first contest of what became the Miss Alabama pageant before heading to Hollywood. Wilson had a long career in both silent and sound films between 1915 and 1949. She also had roles on several television soap operas in the 1950's. Wilson never married and died in 1988. 

In the first post I covered her life and career in some detail. In the second one I wrote about Birmingham sculptor George Bridges and the work he created inspired by her 1934 film No Greater Glory. 

In one of her 1926 roles she played Daisy Buchanan in the first film version of The Great Gatsby. That film is currently lost; in this post I'm discussing one of her sound films believed lost for many years, the 1933 work Deluge. A copy was discovered in a film archive in Italy in 1981. This Italian-dubbed copy was issued with English subtitles. In 2016 a 35mm negative with an English soundtrack was located and restored by Lobster Films. 

Deluge is perhaps the first in a genre familiar to us today--the natural disaster film that focuses on small groups of survivors. We get the buildup as scientists follow the signs of coming events, the disaster itself, and two romances in the ruins. Special effects footage from this film were used in at least three other movies in the 1930's and 1940's. 

The film's source is a 1928 novel of the same name by English author S. Fowler Wright. He wrote a number of science fiction novels, as well as historical fiction  and mysteries. Deluge: A Romance became a best-seller in both the United States and the United Kingdom. A sequel, Dawn, was published the following year but was not as successful.  

Deluge the film was made in what is known as "pre-code Hollywood". This period lasted from the beginning of widespread use of sound in 1929 until mid-1934, when the "Hays Code" of censorship accepted by the studios went into effect. Many films addressed topics later to be banned: infidelity, abortion, illegal drug use, sexual relationships between blacks and whites, promiscuity, prostitution and more. Oh, and what passed at the time for an abundant exposure of female flesh. Most of these films seem tame compared with today's movies and television, but were bold and groundbreaking for sound films in the early 1930's. Deluge manages to include some infidelity and a few glimpses of ladies in their underwear and such. 

A lot of the same subjects had been explored in silent films, however. An over the top example is The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, a Sherlock Holmes parody in which Douglas Fairbanks plays Coke Ennyday, who injects you-know-what. The short comedy film is a riotous depiction of cocaine use that seems shocking even now. 

All topic drifting aside, I enjoyed watching Deluge. The film holds up remarkably well; the flooding of New York City is especially impressive. Contemporary audiences, not jaded by CGI effects in so many films, could watch in awe as a model Big Apple was swept away. The scene in which the city if totally flooded and most inhabitants drown would be recreated in the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow. Deluge, which cost $171,000 to make and filmed entirely in Los Angeles, is only 70 minutes long and moves quickly. You can watch Deluge on YouTube. 

Wilson made a number of other films after Deluge; her final one was The Girl from Jones Beach in 1949. In the early 1950's she appeared in three different television soap operas. She never married and died at age 93 in 1988.

Actress Peggy Shannon, who plays Claire, died in 1941 at the age of 34. In May of that year her husband Albert Roberts returned to their apartment to find Peggy dead in a chair at the kitchen table. She had died of a heart attacked resulting from alcoholism. Three weeks later Albert committed suicide sitting in the same chair. 

The cover of Wright's 1928 novel 

Source: Wikipedia

Cover of a 1998 VHS release

Source: Amazon

Early in the film we meet Claire [Peggy Shannon] getting a rubdown and displaying some skin. 

Scientists all over the world are watching the signs of impending apocalypse. 

Just before the apocalyptic events reach them, there is a touching family scene with Helen [Lois Wilson], Martin and their two children. They soon have to evacuate their home for higher ground.

Some four minutes of the film are devoted to the destruction of New York City. 

After the deluge, Martin awakens in a devastated landscape. Helen and the children are nowhere to be found.

Helen is rescued by two lowlifes who do no have the best intentions toward her. We get another bit of Pre-Code female flesh in this scene. At this point we have no idea what's happened to the children. 

The two men soon fight over Helen, and the big one, Jephson, survives. In order to escape, Helen heads to the water and swims off. 

Pre-Code films got away with this sort of thing. 

Meanwhile, Martin has found a cabin and nearby mineshaft to live in. Guess who washes up on his beach--Claire, of course.

Claire and Tom quickly develop feelings for each other in this almost-bucolic Adam-and-Eve situation. 

Meanwhile, in the ruins of a seaside town, Helen is reunited with her children and living with a man named Tom.

Some of the men with Jephson have entered the cavern to search for Claire and Martin. 

Claire and Martin are ready for them. 

Some townspeople happen to be in the area and rescue the pair. The group returns to town, and Martin and Helen are reunited.

 Needless to say, Claire and Tom are devastated by this development.  

Helen visits Claire and they discuss their mutual love, Martin. Claire is determined not to give him up. 

However, when Claire sees Helen and Martin at a town meeting, she realizes they are a happy couple. She heads to the beach.

In a scene that mirrors Helen's earlier in the film, a distraught Claire swims away, presumably to her death. Martin has followed her and watches her go.

The End