Sunday, January 14, 2007

If I Did It...

Newsweek has printed this summary of what was in O.J. Simpson's If I Did It book about the murders. It all sounds reasonably credible up until the part about him having an accomplice who disposed of the bloody clothes and knife.

That's possible, I suppose...and it's a nice, simple explanation to one of the difficult-to-explain parts of the whole case. The trouble is that in none of the testimony, including that of houseguest Kato Kaelin, was there any mention of Simpson hanging around with anyone else that evening. It's a bit difficult to believe that someone just dropped by and Simpson said, "Hey, let's take a ride so I can scare my ex-wife with a knife. And tell you what — if I lose control and kill her and any visitors she has, you can get rid of the evidence for me." I also don't recall investigators finding any physical evidence of another person around.

What's intriguing here, of course, is the notion of Simpson having an accomplice. As I understand it, there's a three year Statute of Limitations on murder in the state of California so the guy who helped him, if there was such a person, is in the legal clear. But I'm not inclined to believe there was such as person. It just sounds too "written."

You know: I read an awful lot about the Simpson case...more than I should have, certainly. If someone came to me and offered enough cash to whore myself out and ghost this book...and if Simpson asked me to work out a possible explanation that he could endorse...I think I'd have written something like that. Much of it is logical conjecture, and I would have skirted the explicit details of the knifework, as the account apparently does, because it would be too difficult to write something that would precisely match the physical evidence. I'd also have made up the accomplice because it would easily explain where the bloody knife and outfit went, and since Simpson might well want a detail or two that would lead researchers away from the truth.

And of course, the next step down the line, after Simpson's wrung every possible dollar out of this book, is for him to disavow it. That's when he might say, "Hell, I didn't even write that chapter. Since I didn't commit the murders, I told this ghostwriter to just put down any silly theory he could come up with. Ask him...he'll tell you." That's how I would have done it if I'd done it...but I didn't.

• Posted at 11:11 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

This is from James H. Burns...

Stop! Look! And Laugh! also features a neat opportunity — one of the only, come to think of it — to view "Officer" Joe Bolton, who hosted the Stooges shorts for years on WPIX in New York. He's a customer at the diner with Knucklehead. (He's also featured in The Outlaws is Coming, along with a whole posse of kids' show hosts from around the country — those whose shows screened Howard, Howard and Fine — as, I always thought a bit oddly, famous desperadoes.

By the way, Joe Besser told an interesting story about why he had to leave the Stooges. When the shorts were first released to TV, and met with near instantaneous success, Moe had the bright idea to begin doing live shows again with the act. Dates were planned, with the first booked, I believe, in Pittsburgh...

Moe figured it might be the only way to cash in on their new popularity, as there were — as was, of course, standard for the time — absolutely no residuals from the old Columbia pictures. Besser's wife had been sick, requiring daily care. A film schedule, particularly one where he had only to drive the short distance to the studio for a few days' work, on a two-reeler, was no problem. But there was no way he would leave California, for any amount of time, while his wife remained ill. Contrary to rumor, it was only when Besser told Moe that he couldn't tour, that the chief Stooge decided that he'd have to be replaced...

I know that's the story as it's usually told but I always thought the illness of Mrs. Besser was an excuse. I think Joe Besser just decided that at that point, he'd have more of a career as a solo comedian. If I'd been his agent at the time, that's how I would have advised him...and I'd have been right. Even assuming he'd have received a third of what the Stooges made — perhaps a faulty assumption — I'll bet he made more on his own. He certainly had more potential as a performer on his own.

One of the times I visited Larry Fine out at the Motion Picture Country Home, I asked him if my theory was correct. He said, "Probably," and went on to tell me that Besser — for whom he had nothing but fondness — never really liked being a Stooge. Didn't like the physical demands, didn't like being part of a team, didn't like the money.

Probably because of that, when I later met Mr. Besser, I asked him nothing about his days with the Stooges. We talked about his work with Abbott and Costello and he told me that after Costello died, Abbott was after him to team up for an act. I don't know if that's true or not but I think Abbott and Besser might have worked quite well as a duo, certainly better than Abbott's unsuccessful attempts to form a new team with Candy Candido. (The reason I wonder if Besser's claim is true is that he said nothing of the sort in either version of his autobiography — Not Just a Stooge or Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge. He also made some outlandish claims in them about his salary as a cartoon voice performer.)

Regarding the Stooges having all the local TV hosts in The Outlaws is Coming: One of the folks in there is Don Lamond, who was a personality on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, not only hosting the Three Stooges shorts but also at times, an afternoon movie program. He was an odd choice to emcee Stooges films — a guy in a sport coat and tie with no "character" like Skipper Frank or Engineer Bill. He had a distinctly adult presence and didn't seem to relate in any special way to the live kid audience they sometimes had in for the show. (The station eventually replaced him with Billy Barty.)

Lamond was Larry's son-in-law and he turned up in most of the Stooge movies of the sixties. I never knew if he got the job at KTTV because he was related to Larry but I'm assuming that's how he occasionally snagged Larry, Moe and Curly Joe to appear on his show. Every four months or so, they'd come on and explain to the viewing and in-studio audience that they were actors and trained professionals and that we, being stupid children, should never try to do the kinds of things they did in the films like ripping handfuls of hair out of our friends' scalps. Moe would then demonstrate on Joe DeRita how, when it looked like he was poking Joe in the eyes, he was actually hitting his eyebrows. And naturally, after he showed us the secret, we all wanted to try and do it on our buddies.

Anyway, thanks for the message, James. And doesn't it feel nice to be discussing something important here instead of nonsense like our current Iraq policy? (...which, by the way, I think the Stooges were also responsible for...)

• Posted at 4:34 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Let's set the Waybac Machine for 1960, Sherman. The place is in front of your television set. Get comfy as we watch an old campaign commercial for John F. Kennedy. They don't write 'em like this anymore: No attacks on his opponent, no campaign promises, not even a claim of what J.F.K. would do as president. I think the idea here is that we vote for him because someone wrote a catchy jingle and it's nicely sung. (I doubt it's him but the lead male vocalist sounds to me like Mike Douglas, who did a lot of studio singing gigs before he became a talk show host.) It's not as effective as the recording of "High Hopes" that Sinatra made with the special "vote for Kennedy" lyrics but it's interesting.

• Posted at 1:44 PM · LINK

Another Cheapo Movie With A Crummy Title And Moe

Judging from the e-mail, many of you "enjoyed" (in some odd sense of that word), Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, which ran last week on Turner Classic Movies. If so, you're the kind of person who needs to know about Stop! Look! And Laugh!, which runs this coming Tuesday on TCM...at 5:30 AM Pacific Time.

Interesting story about this film. For several centuries, the Three Stooges made two-reel shorts for Columbia Pictures on ever-diminishing budgets. The studio's attitude was, more or less, that a Stooge short would bring in X dollars and if they could be made for less, fine. They'd keep on making them. If they couldn't, that was it. For a time, they could...though this was achieved by some of the most outrageous cost-cutting techniques imaginable. Many of the new shorts released in the last few years of their Columbia contract were "new" only in that they had new titles and a few new scenes, while the bulk of the footage was culled from earlier films.

By 1959, it became impossible for a short comedy to make back its cost, even shooting them the way the Stooges did. They made a feature for Columbia called Have Rocket, Will Travel and then their association with the studio ended. This was the first film with the new third stooge. "Curly Joe" (Joe DeRita) replaced Joe Besser, who had replaced Shemp Howard, who had replaced Curly Howard.

As it happened, Have Rocket, Will Travel was quite successful at the box office. The Stooge shorts had been released to television and were scoring big with kids who were eager to see the guys on the big screen. Columbia wanted the three knuckleheads back to make more features but Larry, Moe and Curly Joe got a better deal from Fox and began shooting Snow White and the Three Stooges there. Undaunted, Columbia decided that they really didn't need the Three Stooges to make a Three Stooges movie..and based on that realization, they whipped up Stop! Look! And Laugh! The popular ventriloquist Paul Winchell was engaged to film new segments and he, of course, brought along his dummies, Jerry Mahoney and another Knucklehead named Smiff. New footage was also shot of the animal act, The Marquis Chimps, who were about to star in a Columbia TV sitcom called The Hathaways. (You can hear June Foray's voice dubbed in during the apes' segment in Stop! Look! And Laugh!)

The new footage was combined awkwardly with segments pulled out of ten old Stooge shorts that featured Curly. As you can see from the above lobby card, star billing went to "The Original Three Stooges," which may have been some sort of dig at Curly Joe. The patchwork film was released, primarily for matinee programming, and it did rather well, especially for the Stooges. They sued and wound up settling for some of the best money they ever got out of Columbia. They also dumped their old manager, Harry Romm, who'd produced the Columbia paste-up film. Instead, they put their careers in the hands of Norman Maurer, a former comic book artist who'd married Moe's daughter, Joan. Norman used some of the cash from the lawsuit to fund the Stooges' own production company which made some of their later films.

You might want to set the ol' TiVo for Stop! Look! And Laugh! because individual segments are fun, especially the ones showing Winchell in his prime. The Stooge clips are well-selected and edited down to the essentials, too. The pieces just don't all connect into a real movie.

While we're here, let's see what else is interesting on TCM this week. Monday night, they have an interesting line-up: Lawrence of Arabia, The Gold Rush (with Mr. Chaplin), Rashomon and Judgment at Nuremberg. The logical theme that flows through those four movies should be obvious to anyone.

Tuesday night, they have Kiss Me, Stupid, a Billy Wilder film I've never been able to make it through. Then later that evening, they have If You Could Only Cook. This is the Jean Arthur comedy made in 1935 which Frank Capra had nothing to do with but Columbia (them, again) released it overseas as "A Frank Capra Production" because his name enabled them to charge more for it. Capra sued and wound up sitting out a year of his contract during a time he was at his filmmaking peak, only to finally drop the suit and return to making movies for the studio. He claimed in his autobiography that he did this out of personal loyalty to the studio head, Harry Cohn, who was going to be fired if and when Capra prevailed in court. But so much in that book is demonstrably false that it makes you wonder. In any case, it's not that great a picture and it certainly wasn't worth Capra making no movies for a year there.

There are plenty of other treasures on TCM this week but I'll just mention two more. On Thursday, they're offering Cain and Mabel, one of Clark Gable's more obscure films. If you want to see how good Gable was, you need to stop watching him in great movies and see how he could make stuff like this viewable and pleasant. The same could be said for Jack Lemmon in Phffft!, which runs on Friday.

• Posted at 12:47 PM · LINK

January 13, 2007 • Current • January 15, 2007