Gail Patrick & O.R. Cohen in 1933 Newspaper Ads

I've mentioned in several recent posts that I've been perusing numerous issues of the Gadsden Times newspaper from the 1930s and 1940s saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright. She also had some old issues of the Birmingham News mixed in the batch. I'm finding lots of fascinating articles and advertisements. The two items here are ads that focus on two people with strong Alabama connections and both appeared in the News on February 16, 1933. 

I've done a number of posts on this blog about both individuals. In 2015 I wrote one of the early "film actresses from Alabama" posts about Gail Patrick. Since then I've covered a couple of her early films, "The Preview Murder Mystery" and "Murder at the Vanities" and an appearance in a radio production of "The Maltese Falcon". I also wrote about her work as Executive Producer on the classic "Perry Mason" TV series. 

Octvaus Roy Cohen [1891-1959] was a very prolific author of novels and short stories who lived in Birmingham during much of the 1920s and 1930s. He founded a group of local writers called The Loafers that included novelists Jack Bethea, James Saxon Childers and others. During those decades and beyond he published numerous short stories set in the city and featuring black characters; those stories are considered racially insensitive at best today. Cohen also published stand-alone crime novels and a series of stories about private detective Jim Hanvey. Seven of those tales were published together in 2021 in the Library of Congress' Crime Classics collection. 

I've posted twice about Cohen's books and their covers, here and here. He also had various stories and novels adapted for films. I Love You Again, a 1940 picture starring Myrna Loy and William Powell, is one of those; The Big Gamble, which happens to star Birmingham native Dorothy Sebastian is another. 

You can read more about The Loafers in John W. Bloomer's article ""'The Loafers' in Birmingham in the Twenties", Alabama Review April 1977. 

Comments on the advertisements are below. 

Patrick, a Birmingham native, graduated from Howard College [now Samford University] and completed two years at the University of Alabama law school. In 1932 she entered a Paramount Pictures contest for the "Panther Woman" character in an upcoming film, Island of Lost Souls. She was picked as one of four finalists from the 60,000 applicants. Patrick did not win, but was offered a standard studio contract. She met with studio brass and negotiated a better contract for herself. That law school training came in handy. 

The Mysterious Rider was the second of four films she made that year, playing Mary Benton Foster. The star of the film was Kent Taylor, who made some 110 movies in his career. In one of the others in 1932 she played a secretary and the other two were uncredited bit parts, the last ones she had in a career of more than 60 films made between 1932 and 1948. She did not watch herself in a film until 1979, when she finally screened one of her most famous, My Man Godfrey [1936]. 

The Galax Theater opened on 2nd Avenue North in Birmingham before 1920, showing silent films. The theater operated until at least 1945 and was torn down in 1963; the BTNB building opened on the site the following year. 

Zane Grey published more than 90 books, most of them Western novels. The Mysterious Rider appeared in 1921. 

Here's the ad for Cohen's radio mystery. Westinghouse was once a radio and television production behemoth that merged with CBS in 2000. This page has a paragraph about The Townsend Murder Mystery, radio broadcast, information about two of Cohen's detective characters in other fiction, David Carroll and Jim Hanvey, and a bibliography of Cohen's novels. 

On that page author Jon Breen says, "In an unusual and unsuccessful experiment, Cohen’s radio serial The Townsend Murder Mystery (1933) was published in book form the same year it was broadcast coast to coast (from WJZ’s New York studios) on NBC.  However it played on the air, it doesn’t work as a print mystery."

Excerpt from the listing of radio programming in the Birmingham News for February 16, 1933. KDKA is considered the first commercially licensed radio station in the United States, beginning broadcast on November 2, 1920.

This broadcast description was included in the book, which was actually the  script. 

This radio script was published in 1933 by D. Appleton-Century. 

A photo of Octavus Roy Cohen at Getty Images includes this original caption:

"The famous writer of Negro stories has just completed an original drama for
radio. The Townsend murder mystery, an 18 week mystery serial, begins on
February 14, on a coast to coast NBC network. The drama, which will require
a cast of 40 actors will be heard three times a week."

I've seen this work described as the "First radio play published in book form" and as the "first mystery novel to revolve around radio."

Jim Reed's wonderful Reed Books & Museum of Fond Memories in Birmingham recently had this item for sale on ABE Books: 

1933: Westinghouse Brochure Promoting Radio Show THE TOWNSEND MURDER MYSTERY By Octavus Roy Cohen (creator of Amos 'n' Andy series) with Illustration of Characters from Show Plus Photos of Westinghouse Products

Apparently Cohen did work briefly on the Amos 'n' Andy radio series but he was most certainly not the "creator". 

Tallulah, Gary, Cary & the Devil

Film poster

Source: Wikipedia

I've written several posts on this blog about actress Tallulah Bankhead [1902-1968], a Huntsville native. These pieces include her films Lifeboat and Faithless, her visits to Birmingham and then around Alabama, her appearances on Lucille Ball's TV shows and her final acting role in a two-part episode of the 1960s Batman TV show as the villain, Black Widow. Now it's time for a look at her 1932 film Devil and the Deep, made in the same year as Faithless. 

That film is what is known as a pre-Code movie, Hollywood movies made from the late 1920s until 1934, when the Hayes censorship code went into effect. These films included subject matter ranging from abortion, prostitution and infidelity to profanity, illegal drug use and sexual situations. All of that disappeared when the Hays code was adopted. Crime and sin had to have consequences and punishment. I've written a blog post on one such very strange film featuring two Alabama connections, Murder at the Vanities [1934]. 

So, what is Tallulah up to in Devil and the Deep?  

In this film she is Diana, wife of submarine commander Charles Sturm, played by Charles Laughton in one of his earliest Hollywood films. He is pathologically jealous of every man she meets, including Lieutenant Jaeckel [Cary Grant]. Jaeckel and Diana are just friends, but no matter. As the film opens, Sturm is having him transferred, and the pair must say their goodbyes. 

Much of the film's first half takes place at a restaurant, but then Diana decides to leave and privately asks Jaeckel to come see her later in the evening. Sturm discovers them together and his anger at the dinner rises to hysteria after Jaeckel leaves, and he strikes Diana. She leaves the house immediately and begins walking the city streets.

Well, who should she encounter but the handsome Lieutenant Sempter [Gary Cooper], who is actually Jaeckel's replacement. Diana won't find that out until the next day, however, just as he doesn't know who she is. They talk themselves into a one night stand. Imagine their surprise when Sempter shows up at the house the next morning to report for duty.

Sturm's suspicion transfers to Sempter, and the commander begins to plot revenge. On the night the sub is to get underway, Diana goes aboard to warn her lover Sempter about Sturm. The commander orders the vessel to leave port with Diana still on board. Sturm has the sub deliberately maneuver into an oncoming ship and several compartments are flooded.

As survivors gather in the control room, Sturm and Sempter each assert command after Diana reveals her husband's madness. Sempter eventually takes control. In a long, exciting and apparently pretty accurate sequence, we see the crew and Diana use the escape trunk and Momsen lungs to exit to the surface. Laughing maniacally, Sturm stays behind to drown.

A court martial later clears Sempter of the most serious charges. He and Diana meet again in a store and leave together in a cab.

Devil and the Deep is based on the novel Sirenes et Tritons [1927] by Maurice Larrouy (1882-1939), a French naval officer and author of numerous novels. Marion Gering (1901-1977) directed the film, one of many he did in the 1930s. The movie is the only one in which both Cary Grant and Gary Cooper appear, although they had no scenes together. 

She made some 20 films between 1918 and 1966, yet Bankhead was best known for her stage performances in London, on Broadway and around the United States. Her best known film is probably Lifeboat [1944], an Alfred Hitchcock film that also stars another Alabama native, Mary Anderson. That movie is wonderful, Bankhead is in fine form and Hitchcock's cameo on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean is well done.

I really enjoyed this film, just as I did another of Bankhead's films that year, Faithless. She does a good job playing the Commander's long-suffering wife, and wearing that slinky white dress through the first half of the film. The second half turns out to be an exciting series of scenes aboard the submarine and inside the escape trunk. Oh, and Laughton, Grant and Cooper are pretty good, too!

Some more comments below. 

A famous photo of Tallulah Bankhead is hanging in the Commander office. 

Early in the film Diana ponders her fate with the Commander.

Lieutenant Jaeckel and Diana converse after his transfer dinner. 

The Commander joins them at the bar.

Diana decides to leave and asks Jaeckel to come by the house later. 

And so he does. The Commander soon arrives and after Jaeckel leaves accuses Diana of infidelity and slaps her. She immediately leaves and begins a long walk. 

Well, who does she meet but Jaeckel's replacement, although neither of them reveal true identities. 

Kisses and more soon follow. 

The next morning the new lovers are in for a big surprise. 

After that the action moves quickly and the exciting submarine sequence begins. Sturm and Sempter jockey for command, and Sempter takes over. 

Let's learn how this Momsen lung thingie works. 

Sempter and Dianna have a final confab before using the escape trunk to reach the surface. 

We'll assume they lived happily ever after. 

Advertisement from The Film Daily

Source: Wikipedia

Gail Patrick in "The Preview Murder Mystery"

One of the topics I bring out from time to time on this blog is film actresses from the state whose careers began before 1960. I've covered some others after that date, too, but today's post fits that group. 

One of those pre-1960 actresses is Birmingham native Gail Patrick. A career overview I posted in 2015 is here. In 2019 I wrote about her role as a private detective [really!] in Murder at the Vanities, a truly bonkers 1934 pre-code film. In 2020 I posted about her post-acting career as Executive Producer on the classic Perry Mason TV series and her appearance in the final episode. In 2021 I wrote about her role as the femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon--a radio version, but still....

Now we come to her role in The Preview Murder Mystery from 1936. I watched this one recently on TCM and really enjoyed it. There's a rather interesting framing device--it's a movie about the making of a movie and features quick action, witty dialog and some murders. Director Robert Florey would helm over 50 movies and numerous episodes of TV shows in his long career. By the time he made this one, he had already directed such classics as the Marx Brothers first feature, The Cocoanuts [1929] and Murders in the Rue Morgue [1932]. 

The film being filmed is "Song of the Toreador", and we get to see some extensive scenes in its preview screening. We also see even longer scenes involving the filming process, so that the cast and crew of "Toreador" are much of the cast and crew of Preview. Very meta. "Song" is a remake of a silent film starring the late husband of Patrick's character, Claire Woodward Smith. 

A lot of this film's snap, crackle and pop is courtesy of the performances by and dialog written for Reginald Denny and Frances Drake as they play the studio publicity head and his secretary. A running gag is Denny's constant proposals of marriage, and refusals by Drake, whose character is an astrology nut and keeps telling him the stars are not aligned properly.

Catch this movie if you have a chance. It's only an hour long and is available on YouTube. 

Some more comments are below. 

The entrance to the movie company's lot is actually the entrance to Paramount Studios, lightly disguised. 

The film has a number of shots making interesting compositions. Florey's cinematographer was Karl Struss, who worked on numerous Hollywood films and was a pioneer in 3-D. 

And here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Gail Patrick!

Now we see Patrick as she appears in "Song of the Toreador". 

And now we see Patrick in the preview audience watching herself onscreen.

As the murders mount up, Patrick is questioned by police. 

This film has a lot of shadow-and-light interplay in various scenes.

Gail Patrick in "The Maltese Falcon"

For a long time I've been looking for an Alabama connection to the classic Humphry Bogart film The Maltese Falcon [1941]. Well, not really, but I have found one--almost. 

The original novel by Dashiell Hammett began life serialized in Black Mask magazine; the first installment appeared in September 1929. Alfred A. Knopf issued the entire novel in hardback the following year. The work fell between a pair of other Hammett novels, The Dain Curse and The Glass Key. Except for a few short stories, the work is the only appearance of the iconic detective Sam Spade. 

In the years since, the book that chronicles the search for a mysterious bird statue has been adapted in a series of films and other properties. The first one appeared soon after Hammett's novel was published in book form. The 1931 The Maltese Falcon starred Bebe Daniels as the femme fatale Ruth Wonderly and Richard Cortez as Sam Spade. Like the 1941 version, this Falcon follows closely the book's story except more of Hammett's homosexual elements are present in this Pre-Code film and removed in the later one. For a number of years after the mid-sixties this film was known as Dangerous Female to distinguish it from the Bogart remake. I've seen this version and it's pretty enjoyable if you can forget about Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and the other excellent actors. But we do get Bebe Daniels!

In 1936 Bette Davis and Warren William appeared in Satan Met a Lady, a very loose adaptation. Warner Brothers studio owned the rights to Hammett's novel and decided to milk the property for another release. Very little of Hammett's work survived. Then that best known 1941 version has been followed in more recent decades by The Maltese Bippy [1969], a vehicle for Dan Rowan and Dick Martin of Laugh-In fame with Rowan as Sam Smith. In 1975 The Black Bird featured George Seagal as Sam Spade, Jr., in another comedic take. With Hollywood's current fascination with recycle and reuse, a new version could well appear soon. A stage version by Bryan Colley did appear in 2008. 

On February 2, 1943, a serious interpretation of the story was broadcast on the Lux Radio Theatre. Lux [named after its soap sponsor] ran on various networks from 1934 until 1955, adapting Broadway plays in its first two seasons and then films. For eleven of those years the great Cecil B. DeMille introduced the stories, including The Maltese Falcon. That version starred Edward G. Robinson as Sam Spade and Gail Patrick as his female nemesis Miss Wonderly, or Brigid Shaughnessy or whatever. You can read the script of this adaptation here & listen to it on YouTube. 

And there's the Alabama connection to The Maltese Falcon--Gail Patrick. I've written about Patrick's extensive film career as well as her years as executive producer of the classic Raymond Burr Perry Mason TV series. Patrick was born in 1911 in Birmingham as Margaret LaVelle Fitzgerald. She graduated from Howard College, remained there for a brief period as acting dean of women, then spent two years in law school at the University of Alabama. On impulse she entered a contest by Paramount Studios; although she did not win, she was offered train fare to Hollywood for herself and her brother. She made her film debut in 1932; she died in 1980. She had many prominent acting roles before retiring in 1948. I've also written about her early role as one of the murder victims in the very strange, very fascinating 1934 film Murder at the Vanities. 

I wonder what other radio goodies are to be found in Patrick's career? 

A couple of Patrick's studio glamour shots