Son of Fury as Son of Dickens
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| Charles Dickens Surrounded by the Fabulous Characters He Created |
Movies had to derive from something, or some things, among them literature and the stage. Virtually any film tells a tale already told, just a matter of what, how often, or from where. To pick a single writer who influenced pictures most profoundly, I propose Charles Dickens, whose specter looms over most all, period-set or not, England, greater Europe, or the Ozarks. He still impacts, structure and people-wise, on what has been, or is being, made. Characters in Dickens’ day were really characters. No one, it seemed, was ordinary. When did un-commonality among men and women cease? Dickens himself was like no one living then, or since. Convention was less observed because there was perhaps less convention to observe, or am I backwards? Growing up I knew doctors and lawyers who were bigger than life, each on top, or getting there, porterhouse steak at the Elk Lodge to show for success and life taken on their terms. Dickens creations were believable because these people I knew seemed right off his colorful pages. We wonder what became of very well-defined character actors that once thrived on stage, later in movies. Dickens being an actor himself based many of his creations on players he had known or observed, so naturally actors drew on characters that Dickens had devised. I read a Broadway play review from 1910 where one performance was identified as “Pickwickian.” No telling how often observers spotted on-stage borrowing from Dickens. He supplied a blueprint, I think, for much of what would be acted on screens, many a performer cut from molds Dickens-cast. Son of Fury is filled with such specimen, is far from being alone among movies for being so, but one where the application is most apparent and splendidly satisfying.
“Every writer of fiction, even though he may not adopt the dramatic form, writes, in effect, for the stage,” said Dickens, who regarded his characters as “real persons” to cement a lifelong affinity between the author and his readership. Dickens did reading tours wherein he portrayed the hundreds of personalities accumulated by his novels. Acting was second only to writing for Dickens’ fascination. He kept it up upon gaining fame, wistful at having missed a life spent on stages and having “the public at my feet” (as if that wasn't achieved by the novels). Such magnificent ego, Dickens raking in wealth as to put plum puddings on each day’s table, feasting multitudes that were friends and neighbors (plus ten children he sired). Dickens wanted to be a presence in every home and became so. His novels were popular beyond modern capacity to grasp. Most were serialized in magazines. Fans used to chase down mail carriers to get theirs first or gather at taverns where someone shared aloud the latest chapter. This was help for those illiterate, but knew what they liked. Many learned to read just so they could read Dickens. The author often composed letters in the voice of his characters, becoming “Wilkins McCawber,” for instance, where a point might be better made through that memorable figure from David Copperfield. Dickens would walk fifteen to twenty miles through London nights to dial down from writing rigor of the day so he might return home well spent and get some sleep. I’m told there were four authors who achieved immortality above all the rest with not just academia, but a general public: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain, this consensus from those who know better our literary past, at least better than I could hope to.
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| Edison Marshall Bags More Big Game |
Son of Fury did not per se derive from Dickens, but sure plays like it did. Source novel was by Edison Marshall, who wrote a whopping forty-eight novels besides this one, having been talented, lucky, at least motivated enough to make a living off books from earliest on, as in comparative youth just out of WWI uniform. Think of discipline required to write 49 novels, and Marshall was a high adventurer as well, once tracking a “man-killing tiger,” then grizzly bears (aren’t they supposed to be the worst kind?), plus “the wild ox of Malaya” (which I assume there was more than one of, unless “the” really means the). Marshall and wife moved to Augusta, GA, lived a high life, of which he said best, “I went after the two big prizes --- fame and fortune --- and I got them both.” Would he care that posterity sort of forgot his works? If plum puddings were any criteria, I’d say no. Besides, he wrote Son of Fury, and that will do for my eternal vote. The book was originally Benjamin Blake, which I tried reading, 443 pages, thus fidget, then abandon, as who wouldn’t prefer 98 minutes to tell this story? I read slow besides, especially where not fully engaged, which I wasn’t by Benjamin Blake, narrative sprawling and my focus dimming. Incidents differ much between book and film, always to advantage of the film, which was screen-written by Philip Dunne, who like any scripter that adapted from novels had to hear “The book was better” from any number who probably never read the book. Dunnes of the business bore burden that was unwieldy tomes they were charged with turning into coherent films. Benjamin Blake reminded me of plowing through whole of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae to realize the 1953 movie dramatized but a portion of what went to unpardonable length in print. You can tell a phony by reflex they have to malign movies in favor of source books. Two different arts, each with much to appreciate and enjoy.
Still, it’s concept and basic ideas that count, and we must credit authors with those, but where or from whom did studio scribes get recognition for yeoman’s work their thankless lot? Viewers paid little heed but to H’wood writers family related, or hailing from hometowns. Tyrone Power paid what he thought was a complement to Dunne by citing “Nice words” in Son of Fury’s script. How’s that for praise but faint? A Power or anyone who spoke dialogue figured same plugged into jigsaws that were screenplays, and why not assume that? The things were puzzling, as in pages added, yanked out, different colored to designate changes made overnight. By the time a movie finished, scripts looked run over by a trolley. Then there were directors, stars, bootblacks .. claiming they had rewritten what was lousy by their inexpert estimation. I’d drink to excess like so many writers were this my daily grind, or play dumb tricks on fellow sufferers as “Shmucks with Underwoods” were wont to do. But then I wonder how much better Zanuck had it. Bucks stopped at his desk, DFZ the final fixer of all sickscripts. Did he see himself as anything more than a cobbler who got last lick at shoes? I read his memos and think how brilliant this man was. So who walked up and told him that? --- nobody I figure, because the only ones who knew were minions under his heel, and he’d not trust praise from them. Besides, what did a Son of Fury matter? Just another crotchet of action, exotica, Tyrone Power doing what he does to expectation of fans who’d seen approximate same before and were ready to spring paid admission for more. Still, there were standards to meet, and Zanuck took those seriously. By what was Son of Fury by studio estimate in comparison with How Green Was My Valley? That was one DFZ might be stopped on the street to take bows for (Best Picture of the Year!, so why have I seen How Green once and Son of Fury dozens of times?).
When a film was new, it was epochal, but not for long. Fruit doesn’t last either, no matter how ripe or cherry red it starts out being. I bought bananas two days ago that will never get ate, just because the market has prettier ones now. Studios knew a public’s fascination was brief, and so again, why attach undue importance to any one of offerings? No wonder so many looked upon Academy Awards as jokes, except of course those who wanted an Academy Award all their own. No worry though, because Son of Fury was not and never intended to be a world-beater, but where you look at ads and publicity and realize the thing is going to come and go like last month’s Collier’s, well, one could cry. I remember when the monster magazines would print a lavish promo from back when some chiller off late shows was spanking new, and I’d think, wow, Dead Man’s Eyes was a big deal once. Here is the thing: They were all big deals once. By the time Son of Furyfirst came my way in the early seventies, it was … what’s the cliché term … chopped liver. There was a UHF channel in the town where I attended school. They had a Fox package, expired, only they didn’t send all the prints back, Son of Fury among laggers. Got to where I would call them in the afternoon and “request” it for that night. Like asking the radio outlet to play a Top 40 favorite, except this was a full-length feature. But what did they care? Broadcast time had to be filled, so why not with Son of Fury? A station in Charlotte did Sunday morning movies with animal themes, My Friend Flicka one week, Thunderhead --- Son of Flicka the next. Somehow Son of Fury turned up. I asked a friend who worked there. He said they thought it was about son of “Fury,” the horse. Oh, but to bring back befuddlement that was UHF in antiquity.
It was the people whose loyalty to film was forever. Would we, if given authority, have allowed Hollywood’s past to deteriorate or be destroyed? Best custodian for movies was always the fans, but they did not have a voice. I watched some of Nightmare Alley last night, from Criterion on Blu-Ray. They had to use a surviving 35mm print for the transfer, Fox’s negative dealt out years ago. How was a thing like this permitted to happen? Had that 35mm not been at UCLA, we’d have really been up a crick. Alright, so back to topic re fan fealty. You Tube has a 1979 episode of Merv Griffin, also a Mike Douglas show, each with Gene Tierney the principal guest. We would have called Merv and Mike “fanboys” had we used such annoying terminology then, as both revered a film past in ways we have lost. To sit beside Gene Tierney and converse with her was an undoubted highpoint in the careers of these men. Mike Douglas was born in 1920, Merv Griffin in 1925. Each would have come upon Laura at impressionable age. They are carried utterly away by Gene Tierney's presence. Mike even serenades his guest by singing the Laura theme, having done so long ago as vocalist for Kay Kyser’s band. Further magic of a 1944-45 moment that we can scarcely calculate: the impact of Laura’s music (by David Raksin). I spoke with Conrad Lane about this. He was as much transported by Laura as anyone, recalls well an RCA Red Seal soundtrack album he bought in August 1945 (flip side: music from Universal’sFlesh and Fantasy). Then there was Dick Haymes’ recording of the Main Theme, the 78 of which Conrad also had.
A most “electrifying” scene in Laura? Conrad says it was when Tierney enters her apartment halfway through the film to find Dana Andrews as “Mark McPherson” asleep in her chair. Merv Griffin plays that portion in his lookback with Gene, so we can assume many including Merv got a same jolt as Conrad. Griffin and Douglas clearly count Laura among defining experiences of moviegoing life. Never mind “moviegoing” … let’s just say “life.” So giddy as to often interrupt Gene, she simply talks through her hosts to conclude points she’s making. Tierney was there to promote Self-Portrait, her just-released memoir, point of the book to pre-empt unauthorized explore of mental illness the actress long had, and now freely discussed for promotion purpose. Talk shows were gentler arenas then, as were perhaps all places, so Tierney has a soft pillow to sit upon, that is until a next guest Griffin introduces, of all people Cornel Wilde, Gene’s one-time co-star of Leave Her To Heaven. Merv wants to pursue ongoing topic of Golden Days, but Cornel will have none of it. “What Golden Days?” he asks. Tierney reminds him of all the money they made as Wilde looks back instead on Zanuck having never liked him and him not liking Zanuck. Griffin mentions “that extraordinary film” Leave Her To Heaven, a balloon Wilde pops, “It was an ordeal for me to make it,” to which Gene reproofs, “You must never say that about a picture that was successful. It just isn’t done.”
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| At-Center Dudley Digges Takes Character Acting Command |
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| Again At Center Dudley Digges on Broadway |
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| Baddest Aristocrat Sanders Prepares to Take Down Another Opponent |
Dudley Digges then. He is a highlight in Son of Fury, Dickension as the author might so easily have conceived him. Digges had been around since seeming Creation, a face that might register any emotion save glee. “Character” was the fence that confined him, as what else could Digges begin to be accepted at? Dudley Digges surely dreamed of a morning he might wake up and be Tyrone Power, just as Power hoped he could approach Digges for color and conviction, but would either have been well-served by such role-reverse? Digges had scratched his way slowly up, beginning in small parts, but showing more aptitude as George Arliss’ stage manager, a job at which he proved too good, Arliss not of a mind to forfeit backstage assist just to have another actor to play against. Digges realized he would get nowhere as an actor with Arliss and so struck out alone, his 1919 legit breakthrough (after years effort) in John Ferguson, where he’d not be the title figure, but “a cowardly, braggart, oily tradesman.” Oily became Digges as charm became Ty Power, but each fed upon the other to register in Son of Fury. Eccentric Elsa Lanchester needed Power to represent what for her is a fleeting vision of romance. Same down the character line: John Carradine a refugee from debtor’s prison whose face was mutilated by captors, him the cracked reflection of Power. Then George Sanders the brute heavy who can never be attractive to a woman and hates Power because he is. Son of Fury was occasion for Sanders to put real physical strength behind his villainy. It’s almost implausible having Power defeat him at the end. Melodrama, steeped heaviest in contrasts and conflict, was policy upheld through literature, the stage, and pictures, a broadest and most satisfying category for reading or watching, a hot wire to emotions not disposed toward nuance. Son of Fury places outstanding from that noble tradition, but what are chances Disney will get it out on Blu-Ray? They too might think it was a son of Fury the horse, that is, if any of them could recall Fury the horse.
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