Movies with Alabama Connections: Murder at the Vanities

Dear readers, in this post we're going to look at a film that has it all. Two murders by two different killers, for one thing. Lots of high concept musical production numbers, including one at the end featuring Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. Lots of nearly naked cuties in those production numbers. The introduction of a classic big band tune, "Cocktails for Two." The introduction of another song that may not be a classic in the same way, but still--"Sweet Marijuana". All from a film made in 1934 and featuring not one but TWO Alabama connections. Let's investigate.

On September 12 1933, a musical revue/murder mystery opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City. "Murder at the Vanities" was just one of many "Vanities" mounted by producer Earl Carroll over the years. One secret of his success was the fact his shows featured the most scantily-clad singers and dancers on Broadway. This particular show ran until early November before moving to the Majestic Theatre and finally closing on March 10, 1934. I scanned the lengthy cast list for this production; the only name I recognized was Bela Lugosi. 

On May 18, 1934, Paramount Pictures released a film version. The movie barely  beat the July 1 final implementation of the Hays Code, which severely restricted subject matter in Hollywood films. Murder was thus one of the last Pre-Code films, those made from 1930 when the code was first accepted by the studios until that final deadline. Many of these films are still striking today in their depictions of drug abuse, crime of all sorts, abortion, prostitution, infidelity, promiscuity, homosexuality and the display of copious amounts of bare female flesh. 

Murder at the Vanities takes place during a performance of a musical review of that title. Danish actor and singer Carl Brisson plays Eric Lander and actress/singer/future game show panelist Kitty Carlisle is Ann Ware; the two are the stars of the show. Ware has replaced Rita Ross (Gertrude Michael) as both the female lead of the show and in Lander's heart. The pair are getting married the next day. Naturally Rita is not too happy about this situation, since she loves Lander, too. 

The film has an interesting structure, alternating between the production numbers and the police investigation going on backstage. Thus the entire film happens in real time except for a few flashbacks near the end. Other stars include Jack Oakie as producer Jack Ellery and Victor McLaglen as police lieutenant Bill Murdock. 

I'm sure by now, dear readers, you're thinking, "This is all very nice, but what are those Alabama connections?"

Those connections are Gertrude Michael and Gail Patrick, both natives of the state. Michael was born in Talladega and graduated from Talladega High School. She started at the University of Alabama, but soon left and spent several years studying music in South Carolina, Cincinnati and Italy. By 1929 she was on stage back in Cincinnati, and Broadway soon followed. She made her first film in 1932. Other films and then television shows followed until her death on Christmas Eve in 1964. 

Patrick's first film was also in 1932. Born in Birmingham, she graduated from Howard College. On a lark she entered a Paramount Studios beauty contest and did not win, but was awarded train fare to Hollywood. She appeared in numerous films, including such well known ones as Brewster's Millions and My Man Godfrey. She retired in 1948, but keep busy with other projects. For instance, she served as executive producer for the entire television run of Perry Mason from 1957 until 1966. She died in 1980. 

I've done a blog post on Patrick in my series on film actresses from Alabama before 1960. I'm planning one on Michael in the future. 

As you might imagine, this film has been discussed by various film bloggers over the years. Some like it for its sheer inventive craziness, others can't seem to wrap their heads around it. You can read some of those takes at The Mystery File, Pre-Code.com, and Random Pictures Blog. The film is 89 minutes long. 

I really enjoyed Murder at the Vanities. The costumes and sets are jaw dropping and the dialog is often snappy and funny. Of course, you have to overlook the silliness of the whole thing in order to enjoy it. Something I did notice is that we hear their applause but never see the audience in the theater.

Murder at the Vanities sort of strikes me as what might have resulted if Samuel Beckett and Busby Berkeley collaborated on a murder mystery musical. Or something.

The full length video of the film is available on YouTube but for some reason is  awkwardly cropped. However, if you watch it you can follow the action pretty well. Murder is also available on the 2009 six disc set "Pre-Code Hollywood Collection." 

More comments are below some of the images. 

A number of posters seem to have been created for this film. 

The film's title card

The film is full of elaborate production numbers featuring numerous young women. This scene appears in the long opening number, "Where Do They Come From and Where Do They Go?" which is sung by Kitty Carlisle wearing a floor-length dress. 

This scene appears in another number in which Carlisle is barely covered by a few strategically placed leaves. That's Kitty lounging at the top of this photo with Carl Brisson. During the number they discuss the need to delay their wedding in the wake of the first murder. 

The sets on this film are something else. Somewhere in the large chorus of young ladies in these production numbers danced future stars Lucille Ball and Ann Sheridan.  

Gail Patrick plays Sadie Evans, private detective, the first of two murder victims. 

Gertrude Michael as Rita Ross in a non-singing moment

And here's Gertrude Michael in the big set and production for "Sweet Marijuana".

Gertrude really gets to make her feelings known in this number. I was pleasantly surprised by her voice, which I like much better than that of Kitty Carlisle. 

"Sweet Marijuana"

Music: Arthur Johnston / Lyrics: Sam Coslow

Soothe me with your caress Sweet marijuana, marijuana Help me in my distress Sweet marijuana, please do You alone can bring my lover back to me Even though I know it's all a fantasy And then you put me to sleep Sweet marijuana, marijuana (Instrumental Break) You alone can bring my lover back to me Even though I know it's all a fantasy And then you put me to sleep Sweet marijuana, marijuana

Source: International Lyrics Playground

The song titled "Marahuana" was recorded in 1976 by Bette Midler for her Songs for the New Depression album.

Oh, wait, in the midst of all this musical excitement, a murder mystery is going on behind the scenes. At the end of "Sweet Marijuana" blood from the first victim Sadie Evans drips from the rafters onto one of the ladies atop a cactus. 

Here's Duke Ellington in the midst of his number near the end of film.

This number, "The Rhapsody, the Rape and the Revenge" is shall we say very strange. Eric Lander, in a white suit sitting at a white piano, sings while dancers in vaguely 18th century wigs and costumes cavort. Before long Rita Ross is singing and Duke Ellington and his Orchestra are playing as a chorus and black and white women sing and cavort wildly. The original classical sounding music is transformed into a very uptempo big band number. 

Eric Lander singing and playing "The Rhapsody"

This spectacle must have jarred movie audiences since blacks and whites were performing together on the same stage. Alas, Lander soon reappears with a machine gun and mows down the offending dancers and musicians, including Rita Ross. As things turned out, Ross has really been killed with a revolver shot. 

These dancers in the Ellington number seem to be wearing someone's idea of erotic maid outfits.

Reality intrudes in a few places in the film. There is Helene Smith, the wardrobe woman working at her sewing machine. Norma, who is dressed like a maid, helps the lovelies get ready for their numbers, and is treated terribly by Rita Ross. And then we see this cleaning lady working under a sign that reads, "Through These Portals Pass the Most Beautiful Girls in the World."  

Gertrude Michael with an accessory in a scene from another film

Gail Patrick a bit later in her film career

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

Movies with Alabama Connections: The Sin of Nora Moran

If I followed the Alabama connection in this film into other movies, I would never have to find other topics for this blog. Late in his career Henry B. Walthall, a major star in silent films, appeared in this 1933 crime drama. Walthall was a Shelby County native and made dozens and dozens--and dozens--of films between 1909 and 1936. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

As The Sin of Nora Moran opens we learn that Nora, lover of a married Governor, sits on death row convicted of a murder that the District Attorney, the Governor's brother-in-law, helped her cover up. She has refused to tell the truth about the crime in order to save people she loves. We can sympathize because she had killed a man who raped her. We eventually learn she claimed to have murdered him to cover the accidental death actually caused by her lover--the Governor. Got that?

Early in the film we follow Nora as she unsuccessfully looks for a job until she's hired as the assistant to a circus lion tamer. He eventually rapes her, and Nora leaves the circus for New York City. Before that we get to see an incredible wrestling match between the tamer and one of the lions.

This film is a strange amalgam of scenes set in the present as Nora awaits her fate and flashbacks--and flash forwards within those flashbacks-- to various periods as we learn about her earlier life. There are visions of the dead and from the soon-to-be-dead. District Attorney John Grant narrates the tale to his sister, the wife of Governor Dick Crawford, who is Nora's lover. There are also interesting tracking shots,  montages, and at one point a rather lingering focus on the backsides of some young ladies in a chorus line.

Zita Johann who plays Nora was an Austrian-American actress with some credits in Broadway productions and a few films. In addition to this one, she's also remembered for her role in the classic 1932 horror film The Mummy. 

Walthall has a small role as Father Ryan, who has known Nora since her days as a little girl in his orphanage. By this time, three years before his death, Walthall was acting in smaller roles but many of them. He finished his final film only three weeks before he died of an intestinal illness at age 58.

We can find Walthall listed in the 1880 U.S. Census at age two. His parents, Junius L. and A.M. Walthall, were living on their farm near Harpersville with young Henry, an older sister, and his father's mother. By 1900 they were living in Columbiana, and Henry, then 22, was a deputy sheriff. He had been educated mostly at home, but attended Howard College for six months. Walthall served in the military during the Spanish-American War, but caught malaria and was not deployed overseas before the end of hostilities. 

At some point he left Alabama for New York and began a career on the stage. By 1909 he had made his first film for D.W. Griffiths' Biography Studios. His role in Griffith's infamous 1915 film Birth of a Nation made him a star. I'm planning a blog post on Walthall in the near future and will explore his career on the stage and in the movies.

You can read appreciations of the film here and here. Nora Moran was the product of Majestic Studios, a Poverty Row outfit that operated from 1930 until 1935. This crisp 65-minute film is a strange one, but well worth watching. You can find it online at the Internet Archive.

This film is known as a pre-code Hollywood film, meaning it was made before the implementation of strict content rules for motion pictures rigidly enforced from 1935 until the mid-1950's. The rules are widely known as the Hays code after the man who developed them. I've written about another pre-code film with Alabama connections, the very strange--and I mean very--1934 production, Murder at the Vanities. 

More comments are below some of the images. 

One of the film's original posters, designed by Alberto Vargas. This same image was used on the 2013 DVD release. 

Born in Peru, Vargas moved to the U.S. as a young man after art studies in Europe. He soon began poster designs for the Ziegfield Follies and then Hollywood studios. He is most famous for the many pin-up paintings he did for Esquire during World War II and later for Playboy. 

We learn that Nora was a resident at the orphanage run by Father Ryan. She was adopted by a couple who are soon killed in a car wreck.

In this fantasy sequence three men gather around Nora's casket to talk about her execution, which has not yet taken place. Father Ryan is there, along with the District Attorney and the Governor. Her former lover, on the right in the photo below, notes that he doesn't like the way they've fixed her hair. His companion the district attorney replies that they shaved part of it so the current would go through her body. Her lover insists that's not true....Father Ryan remains silent and stoic. 

In another of several fantasy sequences in the film, an adult Nora visits Father Ryan in his office at the orphanage. 

Walthall did make it into the main credit sequence, but his role is rather small. 

Henry B. Walthall [1878-1936]

Source: Wikipedia