Photos may take a minute to download. If you see broken links, right click the frame and select Reload Image. Clicking a picture opens a slide show of all pictures with no captions. Also available on Flickr.
Midway between Salzburg and Vienna in Austria are the remains of Mauthausen, a Nazi work camp. The Mauthausen Memorial lies on the outskirts of its namesake town and has all the barracks, barbed wire and gas chambers of more celebrated concentration camps. Mauthausen fed prisoners to over 100 smaller work camps in Austria and Southern Germany as well as forcing prisoners to excavate rock from its quarry. Estimates put deaths at between 100,000 and 300,000. The staff of the memorial asked us to take many pictures and post them everywhere.
The picture above is the front of Mauthausen taken from the memorial parking lot. Note the guard tower, stone wall and camp's entrance at the confluence of the paths. To your right, the wall with black streaks is one of many memorials on the grounds of the camp.
The front entrance to the camp opens onto a large courtyard where prisoners were processed.
The courtyard.
Prisoners were assigned a cloth winkle to wear on their prison uniforms. The form and color denoted the reason for persecution.
The stairs bring you from the courtyard up to the officer's quarters (left) or the prisoner's barracks (right).
The officer's quarters (looking over the courtyard) are protected from the elements by the rocks the prisoners mined in the quarry. This building now houses administration offices for the museum.
Prisoners enter their living grounds from the entrance at the far end of this photo. To your right are barracks; three of 25 survive. To your left are the kitchen, prison, gas chambers and crematorium. The metal box filled with rocks in the middle of the picture is a memorial.
Detail of outside of wood barrack.
The prisoners' sleeping area in a barrack. Lodovico Barbizon de Belgiojoso describes his experience.
Every evening, after the noise that a hundred people can make when cramming into bunk beds, swearing and cursing in twenty languages, the order for silence was given and the lights turned off. […] Later, when the people finally started falling asleep, the concert of wheezing and hissing, coughing fits, belching and farting, snoring in several pitches, soft moaning, sobbing and cursing began. […] These noises emerged from a hundred bodies and fused into a single, terrible sound, produced as if by a giant, monstrous being that had holder itself up in the dark.
Toilets. Stand to your right. Sit to your left.
Water ... for all your needs. Roman Foster describes his experience.
In Mauthausen I stopped washing myself […]. I simply could no longer find the strength to get up early […] and pour icy water over myself. […] The time had come to ask if there was still any purpose in continuing the hard struggle for this wretched existence.
Guard tower and electric fence.
These stone walls contained the barracks in which quarantined prisoners were kept. After United States troops liberated the prisoners in 1945, the land became a cemetery. Prisoners continued to die for weeks after the liberation.
The electrified wall.
A headstone.
Guard tower.
From the far end of the prisoners area with the cemetery on your right and the infirmary/museum on the left.
Behind the infirmary with memorial plaques on the stone wall. On the other side of this stone wall was the town of Mauthausen.
A page from the graphic training guide given to all Nazi guards.
Another page from the graphic training guide given to all Nazi guards.
Stone wall and electric fence.
Disinfectant shower room for new arrivals.
In 1941 the SS construct a gas chamber and other installations at Mauthausen for the systematic murder of large groups of people.
Gas chamber.
People leave messages of peace, hope and love on the window sills of the gas chamber.
The first oven in the camp.
Building a better oven.
The Nazis would shove as many bodies as they could into an oven. It's not like bodies were cremated with respect.
I left the prisoners quarters and walked deeper into the surrounding woods (which are, ironically, quite beautiful). I walk around the outside of the chain link fence and came upon Aschen Friedhof where the Nazis dumped the ashes of those who were cremated.
The Stairs of Death lead from the rock quarry floor up to the camp. Prisoners were forced to carry roughly-hewn blocks of stone – often weighing as much as 100 pounds - up the 186 stairs, one prisoner behind the other. As a result, many exhausted prisoners collapsed in front of the other prisoners in the line, and then fell on top of the other prisoners, creating a domino effect; the first prisoner falling onto the next, and so on, all the way down the stairs.
The Stairs of Death.
Guard tower above the quarry.
Memorial Park is visible from the quarry floor.
A grotto has emerged in the rock quarry.
Memorials have been constructed by different countries in Memorial Park, the area above the quarry. There is no memorial from the United States although...
... the United States army liberated Mauthausen on May 5, 1945 and this plaque commemorates it.
A map of Mauthausen. The red buildings still stand and the pictures here are from that area. The quarry with its circular Stairs of Death is on the your left. The area between the two is Memorial Park. To the left of the circle in the top right corner is the approximate location of Aschen Friedhof (Ash Cemetery).
A chapel has been built in the room above the disinfectant shower.
The back wall of the chapel is decorated with these paintings.
The room next to the chapel has flags of all the countries that helped in the liberation of Mauthausen.
On the side of the road that leads to (and from) the Mauthausen camp is Der Weg (The Way), a memorial art piece by Ewe Kaja. It consists of rows of stone skulls embedded in the dirt. The skulls are progressively buried deeper until the last row in which the skulls are buried to the top.
Opposite Der Weg (The Way), this lovely creek continues to flow despite the atrocities it has flowed past. It amazes that people could live in the town of Mauthausen while this was happening. I learned in the museum that there were people who hid escapees from the camp so maybe it's the mob mentality - when you can get one person away from the mob, you find humanity. Well, back then anyway but there's always hope for tomorrow.
WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE: Sweet Potato Pie recorded one song although its two members, Laurin Rinder and Michael Lewis, were the creatives behind a multitude of disco groups including El Coco (Cocomotion), Le Pamplemousse (Le Spank), Saint Tropez (One More Minute) and Tuxedo Junction. The song, Ode To Billy (sic) Joe, is a northern soul disco version of Bobbie Gentry’s Ode To Billie Joe - and it's really very good. The single was released in 1976. I have no idea why people misspell the name 'Billie' though; the movie also uses the misspelled 'Billy'. Is it more masculine?
Joan Crawford. The very whisper of her name sends shivers down the roots of rose bushes everywhere.
How I Broke Into The Movies is a book published in 1930. It contains 60 articles on the title theme, written by movie stars of the day. Each star has a portrait on the left page and text they've (purportedly) written on the right page with the star's hand-written signature at the bottom for validity. The previous articles I've published are:
How Colleen Moore Broke Into The Movies (also announced the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of the Moore's 1925 silent film Ella Cinders newly scored by me with jazz music of the 1920s)
I will continue publishing articles until the book is digitized. Here is the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of How I Broke Into The Movies written (in her own words) by Joan Crawford.
How I Broke Into The Movies Joan Crawford picture Right click to view the full-size image.
How I Broke Into The Movies by Joan Crawford Right click to view the full-size image.
Chrissie Amphlett was the lead singer and, with Mark McEntee, the driving force behind Divinyls, the Australian band behind many new wave classics including Boys In Town, Pleasure and Pain, and I Touch Myself. They stopped recording in 1997 and, I recently found out, Chrissie took on the iconic role of Judy Garland in the 1998 Australian production of The Boy From Oz. I found this tender and loving performance of Peter Allen's All I Wanted Was The Dream from the cast recording of The Boy From Oz.
As the song played I was reading that Chrissie had passed away from breast cancer in 2013. I hadn't heard this. We were both born in 1959.
So I bookend the subtlety of this moving performance with the pure rock and roll of the first Divinyls I heard. Thanks for Siren Song and all the rest, Chrissie. Peace out.
With all the Hello, Dolly-baloo last week, another small yet pivotal performance (in the annals of musical theatre history) took place on Monday March 13, 2017: the first performance in 44 years of Paul Jabara's self-proclaimed disco musical Rachael Lily Rosenbloom ... And Don't You Ever Forget It.
Written almost entirely by Jabara (with book help from Tom Eyen), Rachael... never made it to Broadway despite seven previews at the Broadhurst Theatre. Since the musical Carrie has been revamped and is now produced often, Rachael... captures the crown as the most notorious flop in Broadway history. Unfortunately, even with the tweaks afforded the show for this concert staging, one can see why. The book is a pastiche of musical theatre references and campy laughs that don't really gel as a compelling story. And the characterization of Rachael makes no sense within the context of, for example, the title - Rachael changes her name to Raquel halfway through the show. In other words, we've forgotten it.
The songs are fun but then Paul Jabara writes fun songs. Remember It's Raining Men, The Main Event, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) and his Oscar-winning Last Dance? The latter was appended to this concert as a finale but none of Rachael...'s score is as memorable as the aforementioned pop hits although Dear Miss Streisand and Broadway Rhythm immediately come to mind as standouts. (Jabara did record a revision of the musical's Ocho Rios on his 1986 album De La Noche: The True Story (A Poperetta).)
Interestingly, on my very rare audience recording (puff, puff) of one of the 1973 previews (starring Ellen Greene and Anita Morris), the audience is quite receptive to the performance - as was the audience last week at Feinstein’s/54 Below. In my opinion, it had more to do with the performers and audience than the material being performed. Bonnie Milligan (as Rachael), Julia Mattison (as Stella Starfuckoff, the role originated by Morris) and Anastasia McClesky had the showiest roles but all the performers and the band made the hour and 15 minute concert quite enjoyable. My conclusion though is Rachael... will now be forgotten for another 44 years.
In the new revival of Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, Bette Midler doesn’t so much inhabit the character of Dolly Gallagher Levi as allow Dolly to inhabit her own divinity. With double takes and side eyes, Bette's Dolly breaks the fourth wall while mining all the laughs from Michael Stewart’s classic book. (Breaking the fourth wall is a typical conceit of original playwright Thornton Wilder.) Midler is ably aided by David Hyde Pierce, a perfect foil as Horace Vandergelder and someone who the producers felt worthy enough to add the previously cut Vandergelder solo, Penny In My Pocket, as the second act opener. The rest of the supporting cast sing and dance joyfully in the ageless musical: Gavin Creel as Cornelius Hackl is adorable, Kate Baldwin as Irene Molloy is resplendent, Taylor Trensch as Barnaby Tucker is a mensch and Beanie Feldstein as Minnie Fay is a revelation. The sets are darling, dances energetic throwbacks, costumes colorfully vintage and Herman’s songs tuneful as ever.
Undoubtedly though everyone in the house for this first (March 15) preview was there for Midler’s return to the musical theatre. Exhilaration was in the air as we braved the 20 degree weather for the 8:00 PM curtain. (No late seating EVER … for this engagement.) When Bette finally enters on a trolley, there’s a standing ovation. Bette lifts her skirts to dance at Irene Molloy’s, there’s a standing ovation. She sings the act one closer Before The Parade Passes By, there’s a standing ovation. And following the always entertaining Waiters’ Gallop, when the Harmonia Gardens curtains part and Bette descends the stairs to the strains of the classic title tune, the roar of approval is deafening. Bette’s Dolly is, at once, boisterous, reflective, quirky … and quite hungry. This role would be her star-making turn - if she hadn’t already been a star for almost fifty years! Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! is an event that comes along once in a lifetime and lucky me I have tickets for two more events. How lucky can you get!
I just uploaded to archive.org the complete English text, in PDF, of four plays by German playwright Frank Wedekind!
Spring Awakening
The Lulu Plays is comprised of:
Earth Spirit
Pandora's Box
Death and the Devil
Spring Awakening is known today as the basis of the musical Spring Awakening with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik. The musical opened on Broadway in 2006 and played for a little over two years. This original production won several Tony awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. It has been revived a number of times since then - most recently on Broadway in 2015.
Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, the first two in The Lulu Plays trilogy, are the basis of the 1929 silent film Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks and directed by G.W. Pabst.
Samuel A. Eliot, Jr. wrote the introduction to the collection in 1923, presumably the year it was published in the United Kingdom under the title Tragedies Of Sex. What a find!
The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay, although set during Christmas time, is more about the love between and parent and a child than the holidays. I've been thinking a lot about love this week as my Pop-pop sits in a hospital waiting for the go-ahead to fix his fractured hip. He will miss the holiday celebration I flew down to enjoy with family and we will miss him being there terribly. The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver has been recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash and its author, the aforementioned Millay, but my favorite version has to be the recording by Mabel Mercer
“Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
“There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.
“There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
Nobody will buy,”
And she began to cry.
That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
“Son,” she said, “the sight of you
Makes your mother’s blood crawl,—
“Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you’ll get a jacket from
God above knows.
“It’s lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy’s in the ground,
And can’t see the way I let
His son go around!”
And she made a queer sound.
That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I’d not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.
I couldn’t go to school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
Passed our way.
“Son,” said my mother,
“Come, climb into my lap,
And I’ll chafe your little bones
While you take a nap.”
And, oh, but we were silly
For half an hour or more,
Me with my long legs
Dragging on the floor,
A-rock-rock-rocking
To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour’s time!
But there was I, a great boy,
And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a daft way?
Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
And food was dear.
A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat on the floor.
All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn’t break,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity’s sake.
The night before Christmas
I cried with the cold,
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year-old.
And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes.
I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
From I couldn’t tell where,
Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Leaned against her shoulder.
Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things.
Many bright threads,
From where I couldn’t see,
Were running through the harp-strings
Rapidly,
And gold threads whistling
Through my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.
She wove a child’s jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.
She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
“She’s made it for a king’s son,”
I said, “and not for me.”
But I knew it was for me.
She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.
She wove a pair of mittens,
She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.
She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the thread never broke.
And when I awoke,—
There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.
And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son,
Just my size.
Juzo Itami is a Japanese actor and film director. His most internationally famous film is his second, the 1985 noodle WesternTampopo. In October, 2016 Nobuko Miyamototo, the late director's wife and actress in most of his films, travelled to New York City for the premiere of the restoration of Tampopo (Dandelion) at the Film Forum. Following are pictures from that question and answer session which was filmed for inclusion on the upcoming Criterion release of the film. Until then, it can be heard here.
Participants in the Q&A included Ms. Miyamoto, moderator Bilge Ebire and Chairman of the Itami Juzo Museum (web site in Japanese), Yasushi Tamaki, a translator and me - the only audience member to ask a question at 27 minutes and 3 seconds.
In 1987, Itami's third film Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) would have an American run. In anticipation of its theatrical run, the film was premiered on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Itami and Miyamoto came to the United States for a question and answer session following the screening. I took these pictures at the question and answer.
On December 20, 1997, Itami killed himself by leaping from the building in Azabu, Tokyo in which the offices of Itami Productions were located. News of an extra-marital affair in which he was allegedly involved was to be published that week. He left a suicide note which read "Death will prove my innocence." In my opinion, it has; why would anyone cheat on the magnificent Nobuko Miyamoto?
Here are some pictures of pieces on exhibit (until July 31, 2016) at the Queens Museum. The exhibit is named Hey! Ho! Let's Go! Ramones and the Birth of Punk and it's a wow!
Check out some 70s and 80s themed music tees at crewdtees.com
Sophie Tucker was an American vaudeville singer whose meteoric career lasted the 80 years of her life. In 1910, after years of amateur performances Tucker was given the opportunity to perform on a legitimate vaudeville stage. The theater owner though said she could only perform in blackface. Much to her chagrin but needing to make a living, she did it. Over the ten years she performed in blackface her color went from 'burnt cork' to 'high yellow'. Once 'high yellow' she then ended her performances by removing her wig to reveal blonde hair, and her gloves to reveal white skin. One day in Chicago, she 'forgot' her makeup and went on as herself. She never used the makeup again.
Click here for information about Sophie's autobiography.
Josephine Baker was an American vaudeville performer who also performed in the legitimate theater in New York City. Her most famous theatrical performance was in the chorus of 1922's Shuffle Along (currently being revived on Broadway) but it was her blackface performances that were noticed and landed her the opportunity to open in La Revue Negre in Paris, France where Baker's erotic performances and infamous banana skirt earned her notoriety and money. Ultimately she gave up her American citizenship and became a French citizen.
In 1951, Baker was invited back to the US for an engagement in Copa City, a nightclub in Miami, Florida. She agreed to the run only if the audience would not be segregated. Baker received death threats and bricks were thrown at the club. Tucker, who was booked to play Copa City following Baker, heard this and called a press conference in which she announced she would introduce Josephine Baker so if anyone wanted to do bodily harm to Ms. Baker they'd have to go through Sophie first. Opening night went off without a scuffle, the show received rave reviews, was standing room only and Baker was named the NAACP's Woman Of The Year.
The two icons became friends for life.
For more pictures, see Sophie Tucker & Josephine Baker on Pinterest.
On May 7, 1981, Elizabeth Taylor made her Broadway debut when she opened in Lillian Hellman's classic play The Little Foxes at the Martin Beck Theatre. The role of Regina Giddons, originally played on Broadway by Tallullah Bankhead and in the 1941 film by Bette Davis, was (again) perfectly cast and Taylor received nominations for both the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play.
Nearly $1 million worth of ticket sales were realized during the week after advertisements announced Taylor's theatrical run. The cast also included Tom Aldredge as her husband Horace, Dennis Christopher as Leo, Maureen Stapleton as Birdie, and Anthony Zerbe as Benjamin. Tony nominations also went to Austin Pendleton for Best Direction of a Play, Aldredge for Best Featured Actor in a Play, Stapleton for Best Featured Actress in a Play, and the play itself for Best Reproduction. I fortunately was enthralled by this production and this WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE is a scan of the program that was sold during the theatrical engagement. I don't remember what the program cost but I still have it so I think the money was well spent.
Here are some interesting links with more information on The Little Foxes and Regina, the opera created from the play by Marc Blitzstein.
The first time I took notice of Gloria Swanson she was playing a version of herself in Airport '75. I recognized her as the actress that Carol Burnett lampooned on her eponymous television variety show. A few years later when I became vegan I read how Ms. Swanson had been a vegetarian since 1928 and helped to promote her husband's book Sugar Blues (William Dufty). But it wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles that I became familiar with her career as an actress - first in silent films and then in her iconic role as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard.
Swanson began her career in early Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett comedies. By 1919 she was working for Paramount Pictures and with director Cecil B. DeMille. Stardom followed with films such as romantic lead in such films as Don't Change Your Husband (1919), Male and Female (1919) (based on a play by J.M. Barrie), Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Something to Think About (1920), The Affairs of Anatol (1921) and Beyond The Rocks (with Rudolph Valentino). By 1926, she was making independent films as a part owner of United Artists including Sadie Thompson (a huge hit famously remade as Rain starring Joan Crawford) and Queen Kelly (the infamous unfinished film directed by her Sunset Boulevard co-star Eric Von Stroheim).
How Gloria Swanson Broke Into The Movies continues after the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of How I Broke Into The Movies by Gloria Swanson.
How I Broke Into The Movies Gloria Swanson picture Right click to open the image in a new tab.
How I Broke Into The Movies by Gloria Swanson Right click to open the image in a new tab.
Aside from the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of Gloria Swanson's essay, I've also uploaded Killer Bees, a 1974 ABC Movie Of The Week considered her last true acting role. (Despite being touted as her television debut, Ms. Swanson had been working in the medium since 1948 when she hosted The Gloria Swanson Hour.) She stars in Killer Bees (produced by Aaron Spelling) with a pre-Charlie's Angels Kate Jackson and Edward Albert.
Killer Bees is considered in the public domain.
In 1957, Swanson performed Those Wonderful People In The Dark written for a musical version of Sunset Boulevard she was shopping around. Swanson held numerous backer auditions and performed the numbers at cocktail parties, but the show didn't progress any further than that.
A cross-dressing Gloria Swanson in Mack Sennett's The Danger Girl 1916
These musical tracks are recordings Swanson made for her films The Trespasser (1929), Indiscreet (1931) and Perfect Understanding (1933)
How I Broke Into The Movies was published in 1930 and contains articles on the title theme written by movie stars of the day like John Gilbert, Al Jolson, Greta Nissen, Will Rogers, and 55 other notable actors. The previously published articles are:
How Colleen Moore Broke Into The Movies (also announced the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of the Moore's 1925 silent film Ella Cinders newly scored with jazz music of the 1920s)
After the 1953 success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell as showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, United Artists bought the rights to But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, the 1927 novel written as a sequel to the original 1925 book by author Anita Loos.
Jeanne Crain was signed to do the movie (retitled Gentlemen Marry Brunettes) with Richard Sale directing and Mary Loos (his wife and niece to the book's author) writing the screenplay. The novel's continuing adventures of storyline was dropped in favor of a completely new story about the Jones sisters rise to showgirl prominence in Paris. When Jane Russell's contract with Howard Hughes expired in 1954, she and her husband, Robert Waterfield, decided to form their own production company Russ-Field. The couple was courted by United Artists and offered a six picture deal - with the caveat that Jane star in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.
Jane didn't like the idea of doing the sequel nor did she like the script but she agreed because United Artists allowed Russ-Field to join Sale and his company, Voyager, as producer although they had little say in the project. Among their concerns were the film's big Cinemascope and Technicolor budget (with Travilla gowns and location shoots) and how they were going to bring in the customers. Jane liked her co-star Jeanne Crain immensely but she was also aware that Crain was no Marilyn Monroe at the box-office; this left UA dependent on Russell to make the picture a financial success.
Ultimately Jane was greatly disappointed in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes and considered it a mess. And after viewing it, I can see she was right. Her pixie haircut makes Russell look old, the cannibal/blackface production number of Ain't Misbehavin' is just too weird for words and Crain is no foil for Russell. Inexplicably Russell plays the dumb showgirl and Crain the smart one; the film might've worked better had the parts been switched to more closely resemble the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes chemistry. Audiences of the day agreed with Russell's opinion and the (jukebox style) musical did poorly at the box-office when it was released in the fall of 1955.
Amidst all of this Gwen Verdon was hired to play a sexy French maid and had one scene in which her sexy moves were considered too obscene; the scene was cut and re-shot with a non-musical performer. This 25 seconds is the only glimpse left of Ms. Verdon's sexy moves in the 1955 film.
Oscar Micheaux was an African-American film director and author. At the time of their release, his black cast films were categorized as race movies and played only theaters that catered to African-American audiences. This post is to introduce you to his work rather than his biography - which can be read (in short) on his Wikipedia page. Many of his films and books can be viewed and read (respectively) and downloaded from archive.org. Posters from several of his films can be worn on crew d'tees t-shirts - the only Oscar Micheaux fashion available!
In 1953 MGM distributed the independently produced Main Street To Broadway which (fictionally) documents the behind-the-scenes process of producing a dramatic play on Broadway from origination to opening. Despite the barest plot (attributed to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright/screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood), the producer managed to gather a stellar cast of theatre luminaries. Some of the ensemble play themselves in small scenes that have nothing to do with the plot and some play parts in the screenplay by Samson Raphaelson (Ernst Lubitsch's screenwriter).
The story concerns playwright Tony Monaco writing a play in which he hopes Tallulah Bankhead will star. (Tom Morton plays Tony Monaco, a few years before he took the stage name Tony Monaco and toured in the national company of I Can Get It For You Wholesale.) He meets actress Mary Craig (Mary Murphy from The Wild One) who is ready to quit the New York theatrical scene and go back to South Terre Haute to marry. They fight, they kiss and they fall in love only to be separated by their different worlds.
If for no other reason, this film exists to allow Tallulah Bankhead to caricature herself - something she did often in real life but rarely on screen. Monaco is persuaded by his agent (played by Agnes Moorehead) to write a play that shows off Bankhead as a normal American housewife. (At one point, Bankhead opines "Aren't they writing plays for nice people like ME ANYMORE?!?!") He goes home with Mary - actually follows her in a stalky type thing - and literally dreams up Calico and Lust after watching Mary's parents (Rosemary DeCamp and Clinton Sundberg) living their life. In the dream, Tallulah is dressed in calico and an apron, sewing and welcoming neighbors to the door (although it ultimately turns into a camp version of a Bankhead-type melodrama).
All Tallulah's scenes in a badly digitized TV rip See below if you want a good version
Another fascinating scenario concerns the evolution of the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II song There's Music In You. From Hammerstein's lyrical inspiration after seeing playwright Tony and Mary kissing on the street to Rodgers plunking out a tune while Hammerstein sings to the final incorporation of the finished song by Mary Martin in a new (fictional) musical, these scenes mark the only time the two musical geniuses appeared on screen. There's Music In You was written especially for Main Street To Broadway and was considered a trunk song (term for a songwriter's stash of unused material) until 1997 when it was interpolated into the new television production of Cinderella and sung by Whitney Houston. The song was also used in the 2013 Broadway production of Cinderella.
From Tallulah Bankhead to Mary Martin continues after the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of the Mary Martin Sings There's Music In You video compilation.
Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Mary Martin in There's Music In You. Note the spelling of 'Rogers' name in the call board.
Main Street To Broadway also has the following scenes and attributes.
Helen Hayes instructs a young actress how to focus before introducing the film and discussing the soon-to-be-demolished Empire Theatre. She returns to narrate the play's opening and list the luminaries attending.
Cornel Wilde acts in a workshop reading of the playwright's somewhat misogynistic first play with ingenue Mary.
Rex Harrison and then-wife actress Lilli Palmer discuss what's in their refrigerator; Rex wants a bagel and salami.
Radio and television's Molly Goldberg, Gertrude Berg, plays Tony's motherly landlady.
Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Louis Calhern bail the despondent playwright out of jail and offer him hope after Bankhead rejects the new play.
John Van Druten works with Constance Carpenter (as Anna) and the cast of the still running The King And I which he had directed the year before.
Al Hirschfeld draws one of his trademark caricatures.
New York Giants manager Leo Durocher gets a dugout scolding from Tallulah.
After having testified for the House Un-American Activities Committee, Jack Gilford was hired to play behind the bars of the theatre box office as treasurer.
Humorist Herb Shriner, father of director Wil (Frasier) and actor Kin (General Hospital), sympathetically plays Mary's hometown boyfriend.
Academy Award winner James Wong Howe was cinematographer for Main Street To Broadway.
Main Street To Broadway has never been released on DVD. It was released on VHS tape - a used version of which you can buy on Amazon from a third party for $100. Or you can send me an email and I can send you link to download a nice rip of the VHS for free. Your choice.
Mary Martin's studio version of There's Music In You
Whitney Houston's version of There's Music In You 1997
The High Bridge (originally the Aqueduct Bridge) is the oldest bridge in New York City. On June 9, 2015 it reopened as a pedestrian and bicycle thruway after being closed for over 40 years. It connects The Bronx and Manhattan over the Harlem River. The eastern end is located in the Highbridge section of The Bronx near the western end of West 170th Street, and the western end is located in Highbridge Park in Manhattan, roughly Washington Heights. These are pictures taken on a walk over the bridge on July 11, 2015.
The High Bridge Water Tower was built in 1866-72, and was accompanied by a 7-acre reservoir. The High Bridge system reached its full capacity by 1875 and, with the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, the High Bridge system was less relied upon. During World War I it was shut down. In 1949 the tower was removed from service, and a carillon (bell) was installed in 1958. The tower was damaged by arson in 1984. It was restored in 1989-90.
Is this the last remaining Howard Johnson's Motel in existence? It's on The Bronx side of the High Bridge.
She made more movies than Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn combined. She was more recognized by moviegoers than Meryl Streep. She equaled Hedy Lamarr by inventing something society still uses to this day. And she had plastic surgery before Joan Rivers made it vogue. Yet no one remembers her: The Biograph Girl, The Imp Girl, The Girl of a Thousand Faces. Historically, she is referred to as the first Movie Star but it was the early 20th century before actors and characters were documented on film stock. Anonymously, she was so loved that the American public demanded to know her name and soon they found out: Florence Lawrence.
The Taming Of The Shrew 1908
Florence started performing on stage and in vaudeville as Baby Florence, the Child Wonder before finding work as an extra for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in the fledgling film industry of turn of the century New York City. D.W. Griffith was her director and Billy Bitzer her cinematographer. Her natural abilities turned into bigger parts and the public started writing letters to Biograph asking who she was. Florence was soon hired by the Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP). The company even capitalized on her fame by referring to her in IMP advertisements as The Biograph Girl. It was this marketing move by IMP that forced other film production companies to start advertising the names and faces of the actors appearing in their pictures.
The Lure Of The Gown 1909
Before these production companies followed suit though, they tried to nip it in the bud by announcing to the national press that Miss Lawrence, The Biograph Girl, had been killed in an automobile accident. Lawrence's pictures and the story were plastered all over the national newspapers. The story was so ensconced in the mindset of the film-going public that she had to travel to St. Louis (where the story originated) to quell the rumors of her demise. The plan worked but by her own admission Florence took a sabbatical from motion pictures starting in 1913.
Growing Up With The Movies is the story of Florence’s early career as told to writer Monte M. Katterjohn. This PDF (also accessible on archive.org) contains all four parts as published in Photoplay magazine issues dated November/December 1914 and January/February 1915.
The Country Doctor 1909
According to Kelly R. Brown’s 1999 biography The Biograph Girl, Florence was able to afford an automobile. In 1914, she developed a mechanical signaling arm that, with the press of a button, raised or lowered a flag on the car’s rear bumper that signaled which way the car would turn. She also devised a brake signal that worked on the same principle: with the press of a button, a “STOP” sign flipped up from the back bumper. Because Florence never bothered to file patents, unlike Hedy Lamarr, she never got the recognition she deserved. (Her mother, also an inventor, patented the first electrical windshield wipers in 1917 but never got credit either.)
Florence did attempt a comeback in 1922 by starring in The Unfoldment but nothing much came of it. It was around this time she reportedly got a nose job to help in procuring work. She ultimately found work at M-G-M usually in uncredited bit parts. In 1937, she was diagnosed with a disease described a rare bone marrow disease which was incurable at the time. On December 28, 1938, Florence called in sick and some time in the afternoon swallowed cough syrup and ant paste. She was found by a neighbor and was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital where she was pronounced dead at 2:45 p.m. A suicide note found in her home was addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow and stated:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence - P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health" and she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery). In 1991 an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker which reads The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star. In 2000 William J. Mann published The Biograph Girl which blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, a doctor helps Lawrence fool the public into thinking she committed suicide but instead lives at a nursing home. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home and decides to write a biography about her. In 2013, the Gale Theatre Company introduced Florence which tells her story through dance, video, and physical theater.
