Roscoe Karns

Now there's a name. Roscoe Karns (1891 - 1970) was a character actor (Bit Actor on this blog) who was most popular in the 1930s. The name Roscoe means Deer Forest, and the word roscoe is slang for handgun. Who would have thought! You don't hear that name much anymore. Maybe some classic film fans can start to bring it back into use.

Roscoe's first four films were made in 1915 at the Lubin Manufacturing Company studio, most likely in Arizona. Lubin went out of business in 1916 after a fire destroyed most of his films and business turned sour, so Karns moved over to the Christie Film Company in Hollywood. In 1919 he was in an early King Vidor (1894 - 1982) feature film called Poor Relations with Zasu Pitts (1894 - 1963). Karns would make three films with Vidor and four with Pitts.

In 1920 he made his only film, Life of the Party, with another famous Roscoe...Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (1887 - 1933). Look for Roscoe as a boy in the rain (even though he was 32 at the time) in Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 silent release of The Ten Commandments.

The reason I include some of these obscure silent films in a Bit Actors background is because I think the early days of an actor's career help to form him or her into the acting style they adopt for the rest of their lives. They have experiences and talk with others in those movies. Who knows, Roscoe may have palled around with Eugene Pallette (1889 - 1954) and Charles Farrell (1900 - 1990) who were both extras in The Ten Commandments early in their careers. Perhaps Vidor or DeMille gave him a small piece of direction that stuck with him.

His first, really big movie was also the very first Best Picture winner Wings in 1927. The next year you could look for him in The Jazz Singer, the first successful talkie with dialog. Through the transition from silent to sound, Roscoe would continue to make both. It would be well into 1929 before we can finally say goodbye to most silent films. (Except for Charlie Chaplin, of course!)

In the decade of the 1930s Karns would make 64 movies with stars galore. He was in seven with Gary Cooper, six with George Raft, five with Neil Hamilton, four with Loretta Young and also William Powell. He was in a couple with Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Jack Holt and many others.

Perhaps his finest film was It Happened One Night (1934) the winner of five Oscars. In 1937 he gets the title role in Clarence, along with top billing. In the late 1930s we will see him in a few starring roles, but none of them were big movies.

It seems by 1940 the roles are smaller for Roscoe. He is in His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant, and They Drive By Night (1940) starring Humphrey Bogart and George Raft. Through the rest of that decade Roscoe would make mysteries, comedies, musicals, war movies, whatever came along. By then he was that versatile.

In 1950 he delves into television. Right off he stars in his own series, "Rocky King, Detective" which (according to IMDb) only made nine episodes that aired over four years from 1951 to 1954. But he also had a recurring role in "Hennesey" starring Jackie Cooper in the early 1960s.

Roscoe's last two films were Onionhead (1958) starring Andy Griffith (1926 - 2012), and Man's Favorite Sport starring Rock Hudson (1925 - 1985) and Paula Prentiss (b. 1938).

You have to admit, that is quite a full career, from 1915 silent films to working with Paula Prentiss. Roscoe Karns was a good Bit Actor for sure.

A Busy Time and Stuff to Not Miss

Firstly, I would like to apologize for less frequently posting to Bit Actors than I would like. The past few weeks have been filled with family stuff and time has been short. I did get my income tax completed this week, so that's out of the way.

My new computer at home has been wonderful so far. I have moved to Windows 7 with a quad-core Intel processor, 16Gb of RAM and a 2Tb hard disk drive. Who would have thought computers would advance this fast. My first computer was a Mac 128 in 1986, with a single floppy drive and no hard drive. And I thought 128Kb of RAM was amazing. I was in Heaven when I bought a second floppy drive.

Here are some reminders of classic film related events in the Philadelphia, PA area. I will be at most of them, so look for me.

- - - - - - - - - -

A last reminder that our local Sons of the Desert tent is holding our Spring 2012 Banquet on Friday, April 20, 2012. Our guest for the evening will be Pretty, Perky, Peggy King, the star singer from "The George Gobel Show." Click on the link above or go to the link on the right to find more info on the event, and try to get in if you are in the area. If you do go, please look for me!

- - - - - - - - - -

Here is one I just found out about today. On Sunday, April 22, 2012, there will be a lecture with photos and film clips about the Betzwood Studio of Siegmund Lubin. Lubin was the first movie mogul in the USA, and Betzwood was the largest movie studio in the country at the time. It was located across the Schuylkill River from Valley Forge, which wasn't a national park back then.

The lecture in Phoenixville, PA is free and will be given by my friend Joseph Eckhardt of Montgomery County Community College. I am sure there will be info about The Toonerville Trolly for all you fans out there. Click on the flyer below to see a larger copy and get details.

- - - - - - - - - -

Prof. Eckhardt will next be hosting the Silent Film Festival at MCCC on May 12, 2012 at 8 p.m. This is a fun evening with very old films from Lubin, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opening of his Betzwood Studios. Please buy Prof. Eckhardt's book, The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin and bring it along for an autograph.

The movies will be accompanied on the organ by Don Kinnier who is also worth the trip to Bluebell, PA.

- - - - - - - - - -

If you missed Casablanca (1942) on the big screen in March, Turner Classic Films is having an Encore Event. You can see it (or see it again) on April 26, 2012 at a theater near you. Go to this Casablanca Link to get all the info and order your tickets.

- - - - - - - - - -

That's about all I have time for today. See you at the movies.

Upcoming Stuff!

Lots of great events are coming up this spring in the Southeast Pennsylvania area. Here is a quick look at some, and also additional thoughts for the day.

- - - - - - - - - -

2012 is the 70th anniversary of the release of Casablanca (1942), one of the greatest films ever made, and THE greatest romance film. Turner Classic Films has put together a screening of Casablanca at theaters around the country to celebrate the event. There will be one (sometimes two) showings on March 21, 2012 at a theater near you, but only on that date.

Robert Osborne will present a behind the scenes look at the film, which promises to be well worth seeing. This is your chance to see Casablanca on the big screen. More info can be found here and you can also pre-order tickets at that link. I already have mine! I hope Victor Laszlo and his wife Ilsa make it to Lisbon this time.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Two Tars Tent of the Sons of the Desert will hold their next banquet on Friday, April 20, 2012. We will have as our guest Pretty, Perky Peggy King, which is what George Gobel used to call her.  Peggy was a singing star on Gobel's TV show, and also appeared in such great films as Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) and Zero Hour (1957).

George Gobel and Peggy King

Two Tars banquets are held at The Cannstatter Club in Northeast Philadelphia, and event details can be found at the Two Tars Oasis 14 web site. The food is great, the entertainment is fun, and the bar is close by.

Peggy will talk about her career and maybe sing a few songs for us. She has some stories about her friends, Liberace, George Gobel, and Abbott and Costello to share.

We will also be showing Blotto (1930), one of the funniest Laurel and Hardy shorts ever made. Blotto also features Anita Garvin as Stan's wife. This event is an intimate gathering of movie buffs, not fans, and a great opportunity to learn about the movies, while having a good time.

- - - - - - - - - -

Then, on May 12, 2012, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Betzwood Studio and ranch of silent movie mogul Siegmund Lubin. Come to Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, PA for the Betzwood Silent Film Festival. The Betzwood Ranch was the largest movie studio in the country in 1912. Lubin created some great westerns and other movies here, and the story of his rise and decline is interesting to any film buff.

Betzwood Glass Studio c. 1915

A few years ago, Betzwood was featured on the PBS program, "History Detectives," to find info about some photos of the studio. The show is available on the PBS web site, and offers some great background on Lubin and Betzwood if you want to attend the festival. Click this link to go to that show.

Professor Joseph Eckhardt is the driving force behind the festival and will introduce the films. Talented organist Don Kinnier is amazing as he accompanies the films. And once again, the theater at the college allows an intimate experience where you can approach Prof. Eckhardt and Mr. Kinnier for a chat.

The Betzwood Studio was sold by Lubin in 1917 and later produced the Toonerville Trolley series before closing forever in 1923.

The Toonerville Trolley

The Philadelphia area was not only the starting point for the USA, but also one of the starting points for the movie industry. If you are interested in this kind of history, I suggest you look for Prof. Eckhardt's book, King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin. And bring it to the festival for an autograph!

I'll be at all three events. Look for me at a table near Sam, the pianist. I'll be drinking a Cointreau.

Classic Film Restoration

Think about how many movies have been made since 1896 and the first public exhibition of motion pictures in New York City.  It must be hundreds of millions, at least.  Well, maybe not quite that many, but it would be impossible to screen everything ever filmed, for more than one reason.  Time constraint is a concern, but sadly, the great majority of movies have been lost.

It has been said that at least 80% of all the silent films ever made are gone forever.  That is a thought that makes any movie buff angry at the way these important negatives were treated by their creators.  But most of them were making a simple business decision.  Even Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were responsible.

Movies in the silent era were made, shown, and discarded.  The studio heads didn't think they would ever be needed again, once everyone had seen them.  The film stock was nitrate based, so it was flammable (Very flammable.  It would even burn underwater.), and it would deteriorate after a few years, turning into powder.  Because it was dangerous to keep in storage, requiring fire-proof buildings, it was much cheaper to get rid of it all.  One famous incident included using the old negatives as fuel for a new film that required a big fire scene.

Many films were lost in warehouse fires.  A fire destroyed most of the negatives of the Lubin Studios in 1914, the same year that Lubin had saved Samuel Goldwyn, Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille from technical problems they had with the film The Squaw Man (1914).  MGM and Warner Brothers may never have been created if it were not for the technical advances of Lubin Manufacturing.  By 1917 Siegmund Lubin had to dissolve his business, party due to the fire, and also to World War I. 

In 1927, Talkies started coming out.  The change took several years because theaters had to invest in more equipment, as did the studios, but everyone could see that from The Jazz Singer on, movies would talk.  Again, the studios that still had negatives in storage for their silent films could see no reason to retain them.  Surely, nobody would ever want to see a silent film again.  Wrong!

Film restoration efforts began after television started to become popular.  But that was a full 50 years after those first motion pictures flickered in small theaters.  Much had already been lost forever.  Early restoration attempts were spotty at best, with new titles added to many films, complete with mistakes made in the transformation.  Much of this was for television screening, and the network heads couldn't see any reason for doing the restoration job right.  All they needed was a 16mm print made from the 35mm negative.  It would be expensive to do more, and it would probably never be needed after the first showing.  Wrong again!

In a similar mindset, the movie studios that sold their work to television saw this as a last chance to make a few dollars on old films.  Surely this would be the end of the need to keep these old negatives.  No attempt was made to properly store them...it would be too expensive.  What wasn't duped for TV was left to turn to dust.  Not only wrong, but a tragedy as well.

I recently read an incredibly detailed account by Richard W. Bann about the restoration of the films of Hal Roach Studios.  Hal Roach made the films of Charley Chase, The Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, Thelma Todd, and many others.  Bann is a film historian and writer, and was personally involved with the process.  You can find him on Facebook. 

The article is not for the faint of heart.  It is long and somewhat technical.  But it is important to give it a shot if you love old movies.  If you get through all four pages, you will learn some new terminology, and I am sure the article will bring back some memories.  Plus, it has some great pictures.

You can find a link to the article on the home page of the official Laurel and Hardy web site. 
http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com/

The web site is also a font of information about the best comedy team to ever grace the big screen.  The Sons of the Desert are championing the restoration of these films at UCLA Film & Television Archive.
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/support/laurel-and-hardy

If you love classic movies as much as I, please take a look at these links.  Spend some time there.  Donate some money if you can.  It is important to save these films for future generations, and as Dick Bann puts it, it is comforting to know that Laurel and Hardy will be around forever.  Our government is having some moderate to heavy financial trouble these days, so whatever we can do privately will help the project move along.  Thanks!

Siegmund Lubin was Silent

The first "Movie Mogul" is generally accepted as being Siegmund Lubin.  He started out as an optical manufacturer and made early movie projectors.  His business was based in Philadelphia, and he eventually had studios around the country.  Oliver Hardy, a southern boy born in Georgia, worked for him in FL.

The annual Betzwood Silent Film Festival was held earlier this month at Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, PA.  Since most of the early silent actors and actresses were little more than bit players, they certainly should be recognized here.  We saw a very good selection of silent films from 1904 to 1916.  The earlier films were little more than short visual jokes.

The first film was called A Dog Lost, Strayed or Stolen released in 1905 and made on the streets in Philadelphia.  A woman has placed an ad in the paper to find her lost dog.  About a hundred people show up at her listed meeting place to claim the reward...all with dogs!  The group of people with dogs chases the woman all around the streets, and that is basically the entire film.  It was about 5 minutes long, with no inter titles to explain what was happening.

At one point in the beginning of the film, a carriage drives in front of the camera.  The driver realizes what he did and amicably tips his hat to the camera!  Those were the days.  I don't remember the name of the lead actress, but I hope she went on to have a fulfilling movie career.

Another film was Thrilling Detective Story released in 1906.  The film starts as a woman is buying a book at Leary's Book Store.  Leary's is gone now, but it was next door to one of the Lubin buildings.  It was fun to see a book cart in the store go buy with the name prominently displayed to advertise his neighbor.  Of course it would be way to dark to actually film inside a book store, so the scene was shot on the roof of the Lubin building with a canvas backdrop painted to look like the store.

The woman starts reading what must have been a great book, and she also starts bumping into things.  She (although I suspect it as a cross dressing man who could handle all the prat falls) walks all around the city, bumping into things, getting hit by a car, and run over by a steamroller!  She eventually falls into the Schuylkill River near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is rescued into a row boat...still reading of course!  The movie ends with her sitting in a chair with the book.  She looks into the camera and smiles.

I hope you can search out some of these early films.  They contain the seeds of what would become the films of the golden age of movies, and would evolve into today's blockbusters.  Plus, they are great fun!  You can find more about silent films at the Silent Movie Blog or tune onto Turner Classic Movies on Sunday nights at midnight when they screen silent films.

Silent Movies

Of course, movies got their start without sound.  The actors of those days would typically be folks off the street, rather than stage actors, who looked down on the cinema.  If they needed a butcher, the director went to the butcher shop.

I am fortunate to live within a short distance of the Betzwood Studio of Siegmund Lubin.  Lubin had studios in other states, Florida being famous as Oliver (Babe) Hardy's first employer in films.  Babe made about 65 films for Lubin before Hal Roach snapped him up.  Lubin's office in Philadelphia was on Arch St., but didn't have much room for location shooting.  He did most interior shots on the roof of this building, outside for light, with painted canvas backdrops.  Some of his early Philadelphia movies contain recognizable locations around the city.  He also had a studio at 20th and Lehigh, which was near Shibe Park (later Connie Mack Stadium).

The Betzwood Studio was active from 1912 to 1923, but Lubin went into bankruptcy in 1916.  One of his original storage buildings is newly renovated and is being rented as office space.  It can be seen if you drive West on Route 422, and look down from the Betzwood Bridge over the Schuylkill River.  After Lubin left, the studio was used by others, and the old Toonerville Trolly series of shorts was made there and on location in Phoenixville, PA.  IMDB credits Lubin with 1,948 films from 1897 thru 1916.

On May 1, 2010, my wife and I attended the 38th (I think) annual Betzwood Film Festival at Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, PA.  They showed Lubin films from 1904 to 1916.  It was interesting to see how movies grew up in just 12 years, with the later films showing much more polish.

My favorite part of the festival was the organist, Don Kinnier.  He has been doing the festival for many years and he knows how to put music with each scene, to bring life to these old movies.  I spoke with Mr. Kinnier after the show and he was very nice.  That is what I like about these old movies and the folks who enjoy them...everyone is knowledgeable AND approachable. 

At the festival we saw a 1916 Lubin film, A Ready Made Maid, with Billie Reeves.  Reeves played a drunk who put on a found maid's uniform and was hired to help at a dinner party, with predictable results.  Before movies, Reeves was with the Fred Karno troupe in England, along with Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.  He used to do a bit for the English music halls where he was a drunk heckler in a box near the stage.  When Reeves left Karno to go out on his own, Chaplin took the role of the drunk in that skit.  It was a part that he did so well, he became famous.

According to a source on the Internet (so it must be true!) Reeves was asked to play a drunk later in his career, and imitate Chaplin's performance.  He was indignant about that and said that he was the Original Drunk!

Check out MCCC's silent film site at:
http://faculty.mc3.edu/jeckhard/betzwood.htm
Maybe I'll see you there next year.