Warren-William.com Blog & Updates

I thought Anita Page, who passed away last Saturday morning at age 98, deserved a post and a remembrance here.  She’s being remembered as the last of the adult silent film stars, though she was really more of a pre-code starlet in my mind.  Page co-starred with Warren William in two favorites, Under 18 (1931) and as the, er, loosely moralled Jenny LeGrande in possibly the best of all pre-codes, Skyscraper Souls (1932).

Following you’ll find several links to coverage of the passing of Anita Page:
Associated Press

New York Times

Female First at the Movies

Times Online

Los Angeles Times

Telegraph.co.uk

And here’s the Tammy Stone’s Profile on the life and career of Anita Page on my other site, things-and-other-stuff.com

My sincere condolences to the family and survivors of Ms. Page.  For me her image on the screen means I’m about to have some fun, all these years later.

September 3 (Wednesday) The Dark Horse at 4:45 am as part of TCM’s Spotlight “American Politics in the Movies.”  Also starring Guy Kibbee and Bette Davis.  Directed by Alfred E. Green.

September 5 (Friday) Living on Velvet at 6:45 am.  Also starring Kay Francis and George Brent.  Directed by Frank Borzage.

September 24 (Wednesday) Lady for a Day at 4:15 pm.  Starring May Robson.  Directed by Frank Capra.

September 25 (Thursday) Doctor Monica at 9:45 pm. Also starring Kay Francis and Jean Muir.  Directed by William Keighley.

An exciting month on TCM for Warren William fans featuring him in four films highlighted for most by the popular Lady for a Day, but with three others which aren’t shown that much–in fact I haven’t seen any of the other three and I have a pretty extensive collection going.  My DVR is already set for the first two.  Enjoy them!

Cliff

Here’s another Warren William pic I added to my collection recently (click to enlarge):

It’s an 8×10 Press Photo with press tag attached on the back:

You should be able to read that if you click on it to make full-size, but in case you’re lazy here’s what it says:

“May Robson in Columbia’s “LADY FOR A DAY” adapted from Damon Runyon’s famous Cosmopolitan Magazine story.  Frank Capra directed and the imposing case is headed by May Robson, Warren William and Glenda Farrell.  They are supported by Walter Connolly, Jean Parker, Guy Kibbee, Barry Norton, Hobart Bosworth, Ned Sparks and Nat Pendleton.

“Please credit Columbia Pictures

“Opening at the Criterion for an extended run September 5th or 6th”

Here’s an old premium photo featuring Jean Parker in case you’d like to put a face to the name:

Warren William plays slick Dave the Dude in “Lady for a Day” (1933), a gambler/gangster type with a soft spot for Apple Annie (May Robson), the down on her luck woman we see in this photo.  The Dude turns her into a “Lady for a Day” to impress her visiting daughter (Jean Parker).  This is really May Robson’s picture, she was nominated for Best Actress at age 75 for it, but, of course, Warren William manages to stand out in all of his scenes.

Speaking of May Robson, I get that age 75 from the imdb which gives her date of birth as April 19, 1858.   TIME Magazine’s contemporary review of “Lady for a Day,” in its September 18, 1933 issue makes Ms. Robson a bit younger, and also tells us a little more of her career: “At 68 she is six years older than Marie Dressler, ten years older than Alison Skipworth, eight years older than the late Louise Closser Hale…May Robson played in stock for 40 years as well as starring internittently in Manhattan, London and elsewhere…For the last ten years or so she has been an expert bit-part actress in the cinema.”  A little further down the page: “She has a five-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  MGM will make a fat profit on Actress Robson for lending her services to Columbia…Like most old time actresses, May Robson is light-hearted as well as competent.  She takes tapestry pillow covers to the studio to work on when she is not acting, writes a daily letter to her son, a Manhattan stock broker, goes to the races at Agua Caliente as often as she can.”

About the film itself, the TIME review is still pretty fresh, opening “Lady for a Day (Columbia) is a Broadway sob story, highly effective because in it sentiment is used mainly as a springboard for comedy.”  Later in the article “Director Frank Capra’s light touchas much as Damon Runyon’s story makes the picture the more likable for being entirely implausible.”

Of course, Capra would himself remake “Lady for a Day”  in 1961 as “A Pocketful of Miracles.”

This one had been on eBay for awhile and I finally got up the nerve to write the seller and see if he’d accept $40 postpaid for this and another photo. I’m usually pretty cheap about publicity and wire photos, but had envied this one for awhile, so what the heck.

Just click the thumbnail to open it up, then use the back button on your browser to return.

Here’s the back, and below that I’m going to type out the text because it’s a little rough to read:

It’s got a World Wide Photos stamp from England under the snipe (my seller was in the UK), and the following text attached to it:

B.6360-
FILM ACTOR WHO IS AMATEUR INVENTOR:
Photo shows: - Warren William, famous film actor at work in his home-made workshop at his ranch in Encino, California, U.S.A. His machine shop is equipped with every kind of power tool imaginable which he uses to build labour saving devices and gadgets, and to repair his ranch equipment, as he whiles away time between film acting.
I/7/1937 WA Los. 67480

So it’s from 1937, not sure if it’s January 7 or July 1 from the date. I have no idea what he’s working on there, but I’ve got to say, photos like this can be so much more interesting than stills from the movies. Yes, I’m sure it’s posed (though you’d think they’d want a less crazy looking shot of his eyes!), but it’s still a neat peak at a confirmed outside interest of the actor.

I know I’ve been delinquent in posting as of late, but as I said at the start this is basically my hobby site so I’ll only be able to work on it when I’m not at work on my own eBay listings or my main movie site. This time I went a little longer than I’d like to go, but the good news is I’ve bought some other WW collectibles lately, so they’ll find homes in posts such as this as well. Also, I’d really love to find time to work on some more reviews. Failing that I may just do some posts over here after watching a WW flick, as I’ve seen and/or own about 80% of them now. Thanks for reading.

Well, he ought to be, right?

I saved $35.00 for now and DVR’ed all of the great pre-code stuff on TCM last night including the documentary “Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin, and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood,” which I watched tonight. The documentary is available as part of the new DVD collection released today, TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 — while there’s definitely some cool stuff in this collection, especially satisfying for the Norma Shearer fan, there’s shamefully only one flick featuring Warren William, and that’s “Three on a Match,” where he’s more or less background noise to Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, and especially Ann Dvorak, whose performance here is as powerful as you’ve ever heard anybody proclaim it to be.

The documentary ran about 70 minutes or so and was pretty good. I’d seen most of the movies mentioned there (one notable exception being “Beast of the City” (1931), which I’m going to try and hunt down tonight!), but nonetheless enjoyed this well-organized collection of clips with comments from the usual group of critics and film pros. At the start I said to myself, well, Warren William should get mention in this, but judging how TCM has more or less ignored him in the first two volumes of their Forbidden Hollywood DVD’s I wasn’t really holding out that much hope. (This is certainly not meant as a general criticism of TCM though, as they are the only place in town to catch anything he’s appeared in outside of “The Wolfman!”)

But he made the cut, and it wasn’t easy in a documentary dominated mostly by the popular pre-code themes of violence and sex, with little focus on the stars, excepting Shearer and Jean Harlow. Towards the end though, during the topic of sex and money, Warren William grabbed mention, had a couple of clips shown (”Skyscraper Souls” and “Employees’ Entrance,” the two old VHS standards from the Leonard Maltin series of pre-coders), and even grabbed some comment, most memorably from John Landis, who always seems to dominate these documentaries. Nobody elicits as much pure joy from talking about film as Landis. Anyway, it was about two minutes in the spotlight before being passed over for the next subject, but in the end it was as much as and frankly more than I had expected.

Perhaps “Skyscraper Souls” and “Employees’ Entrance” can be resurected for Volume 3 of the collection. That’d be pretty neat, Volume 2 could be thought of as the Shearer collection, perhaps a Volume 3 with those two gems could be the William collection. Certainly a double-feature like that in a set which would certainly sell well could be Warren William’s best bet to break out beyond the fringe. It’d be a little more in your face than one of the more obscure flicks showing up on TCM at five in the morning at least!

Unfortunately I didn’t have much extra money this last week, though I would have tried to steal it for $50 if the bidding had stayed that low. Anyway, eBay seller grapefruitmoongallery sold the beautiful 8×10 photo below on eBay for $109.71 last Wednesday night (February 20, 2008). It’s signed by Warren William and dated December 13, 1941. The seller mentions that it’s addressed to a Marion, but to be honest it looks like the commonly used Sincerely above his name. I sell a lot of collectibles, but I don’t do autographs (too risky!), so I was looking forward to seeing what this would go for…now we know.

(Click the thumbnail to enlarge)

I’ll post if any others crop up, hopefully I’ll eventually own one!

Update: April 1, 2008
Here’s a small 4.5″ X 6″ page from an autograph book sold on March 14, 2008 by eBay seller nu4uold2me123 for $47.67 plus shipping:

Wow, that makes the photo look like a bargain I think. I would have gone $25 on this myself, but I am a notoriously cheap buyer.

By the way, now that we’ve got two different signatures on this post the first thing that I notice is that they look quite different. This isn’t mean to cast aspersions on either signature, it’s just something that bears watching with future posts.

Update: July 6, 2008

Very happy as I finally won a Warren William signature.  As always I want to state I’m no autograph expert, so I have no idea if this is the real McCoy or not (though I did purchase through a seller I’ve used before and trust), but I’m happy with it.  The size wasn’t stated, I’m operating on the assumption that it’s mall though, just a cut, but perhaps I can put together a display with one of the photos I have.  I purchased from seller thephotoarchive for $24.38 plus $2.50 shipping on the evening of July 6.  Here’s an image:

Again, I don’t think it perfectly matches the others shown above, and my own opinion is close to worthless on this, but I do feel better about seeing a little bit of a pattern in the W’s.  I am personally very leery of quite nearly the entire autograph industry, but I also think it would be strange to sit around forging Warren William signatures.  My guess remains that at worst all of the signatures on this page are at least vintage, likely signed by William, but then again, who knows, maybe his wife or an employee did his signing.  But I’m perfectly happy accepting this into my own collection as a Warren William signature.

I’ll keep tracking and posting these in the future so we can continue to compare.

Once I got involved watching the Lone Wolf series of movies I soon found myself looking for Inspector Crane and Dickens to pop up, which they did seven times (six and half opposite Warren William)!

(That’s Fred Kelsey as Dickens to the left of Warren William and Thurston Hall as Inspector Crane to our right).

Thurston Hall (1882-1958), who played Inspector Crane, enjoyed a better career than Fred Kelsey (1884-1961), though Kelsey shows up in so many movies that you start to think he’s part of the scenery. Taking a look at their careers on the IMDb, Kelsey appears in an incredible 412 features from 1911-1958, often uncredited but often recognized, while Hall appeared in a respectable 258 various films and television shows himself from 1915-1958.

Among the uncredited spots where Kelsey crops up and I’ve found myself shouting at the TV, “Hey, it’s Dickens” are classics such as Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), where he shares the frame with Warren William in his brief scene as the cop who’s come to break up Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, William’s last-ditch effort to stop his younger brother’s marriage which is quickly foiled when Ned Sparks (I believe) shouts down that he’s no cop, he’s just an actor; Footlight Parade (1933), where he’s similarly the House Detective, this time in a musical number; Twentieth Century (1934), which I don’t personally recall the scene at this time, but the IMDb credits him as the train detective, who I do remember; again as a cop in In Old Chicago (1937), later on in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942); in Gentleman Jim (1942); The Fountainhead (1949). Kelsey usually shows up for one quick scene as a cop and in all of those roles above, plus the great majority of the films he showed up in, he’s an uncredited extra. Not so when he played Dickens.

Kelsey and Hall did appear in an equal number of Lone Wolf films, seven, though each had one appearance without the other — Kelsey was Dickens in 1940’s The Lone Wolf Strikes, but rather than appearing alongside Hall he was paired with Don Beddoe as Inspector Conroy (Beddoe [1903-1991] showed up in various parts in 6 Lone Wolf films total). Dickens is Dickens, but Beddoe as Conroy is entirely straight-laced, while Hall as Crane is much more effective playing it straight to the bumbling Dickens. No chemistry at all between Dickens and Conroy. Hall appears in 1935’s The Lone Wolf Returns as Inspector Crane — I have this one, but haven’t watched it yet, as the Wolf is not played by Warren William, but by Melvyn Douglas.

Thurston Hall, with his booming voice, more often than not was credited for his performances as they were more substantial performances than Kelsey’s usual walk-on roles. Thus his resume does not boast the impressive titles that Kelsey’s does. Hall also made many television appearances throughout the 1950’s, most notably 5 appearances as Mr. Schuyler in the Topper series.

As Inspector Crane and Dickens, Kelsey played a bumbling cop, who for some reason was the Inspector’s right-hand man. As much as I love Dickens now, he can sometimes even grate on the viewer’s nerves–he is a total idiot. Inspector Crane seemed to be pretty good at what he did, but would always need the assistance of Michael Lanyard, the Lone Wolf, to solve a case. The main reason he required this help was because as soon as Lanyard was placed at the scene he always became the top suspect. And, of course, Lanyard, a reformed jewel thief, was always innocent (even if his own sidekick, his butler Jamison, best and usually played by Eric Blore, always wanted to get back into the game). Dickens always completely believed that the Wolf was guilty, and this usually seemed to sway the Inspector, though Crane was always without any doubt in command of Dickens, dishing out a put down or two towards his underling in each scene they appeared in together. Often the Inspector would “fire” Dickens and Dickens would bumble his way into redeeming himself to be “rehired”. Inspector Crane also enjoyed a more relaxed relationship with the Wolf, often referring to him as Mike and giving Lanyard an opportunity to explain himself.

One of my favorite aspects of the Lone Wolf movies with the Inspector and Dickens is how they just happen to appear in the same out of the way locations where Lanyard has planted himself. (Hmm, maybe this is why they are always so suspicious of Lanyard). In The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date (1941) they run into each other in Cuba, while in Counter-Espionage (1942) they find themselves in London during the bombings of World War II. Sure, we can believe the Lone Wolf being in each of these spots, as he actually has a reason to be in both instances, but when the Inspector and Dickens show up so out of place in each they are guaranteed their first of many laughs.

I thought these were neat. They are quick one-line review excerpts culled from Appendix II of Ted Sennett’s 1971 book Warner Brothers Presents. This appendix actually includes reference to every Warner Bros. film reviewed by the Times and Variety from 1930 - 1949. The Times reviews are actually available in complete form through their online archives, I haven’t come across the Variety reviews anywhere else.

These are just the Warren William titles from Warner Brothers, as this is a Warner’s centered book. The dates note when the review was published, which I’d guess is right around the time each film enjoyed theater release. Enjoy:

September 1931 - Expensive Women - “Mild drama suffering from weak plot and incongruous situations” from Film Daily

October 1931 - Honor of the Family -”Mildly Diverting” from Andre Sennwald of T

December 1931 - Under 18 - “Routine presentation” from Variety

January 1932 - The Woman from Monte Carlo - “A silly story” from Variety

February 1932 - Beauty and the Boss - “Grade B stuff” from Variety

May 1932 - The Mouthpiece - “Few screen performances have equaled Warren William’s superb characterization” from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times

June 1932 - The Dark Horse - “Okay, if exaggerated, film fare” from Variety

October 1932 - Three on a Match - “Both tedious and distasteful” - from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times

December 1932 - The Match King - “Good entertainment, unusually well-acted” from Variety

January 1933 - Employees’ Entrance - “A fine piece of screen entertainment” from Variety

April 1933 - The Mind Reader - “A rather lame but frequently ingenious production” from Variety

June 1933 - Gold Diggers of 1933 - “Imaginatively staged, breezy show … More than once the audience applauded the excellent camera work and the artistry of the scenic effects” from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times

September 1933 - Goodbye Again - “Perfect for audiences of quick wit, but too slick for others” from Variety

March 1934 - Bedside - “Its deviations from the formula are too wild-eyed to be classed as dramatic virtues” from Andre Sennwald of the New York Times

June 1934 - Dr. Monica - “Not especially suspenseful … It moves apace and the acting is excellent” from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times

August 1934 - The Dragon Murder Case - “A poorly paced detective yarn with several incredible sequences” from Variety

October 1934 - The Case of the Howling Dog - “A well-knit story, swiftly paced” from Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times

February 1935 - The Secret Bride - “Fast-moving melodrama” from Variety

March 1935 - Living on Velvet - “It is not the fault of the cast that the picture does not merit unqualified praise” from Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times

April 1935 - The Case of the Curious Bride - “Good whodunit entertainment” from Variety

July 1935 - Don’t Bet on Blondes - “Good original idea, victim of too much hoke” from Variety

November 1935 - The Case of the Lucky Legs - “A gay, swift, and impertinent excursion into the sombre matter of murder” from Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times

May 1936 - Times Square Playboy - “Alternately amusing and dull” from Thomas M. Pryor of the New York Times

July 1936 - Satan Met a Lady - “A cynical farce of elaborate and sustained cheapness” from B.R. Crisler of the New York Times

August 1936 - The Case of the Velvet Claws - “Felonious photoplay” from John T. McManus of the New York Times

September 1936 - Stagestruck - “A rather moldy slice off the loaf which produced 42nd Street in better days” from Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times

February 1942 - Wild Bill Hickok Rides - “Will only be remembered as the one in which a Bennett sister slummed” from Bosley Crowther of the New York Times

Comment/Conclusion: It seems that once Warren William caught on with “The Mouthpiece” reviewers would have at least something nice to say about his films at Warners. I’ve seen that “Three on a Match” review before and it still surprises me to read.

I guess this is what happens when you’ve been dead for nearly 60 years. I’m reading a couple of books about Warner Brothers movies and stars right now, Daniel Bubbeo’s “The Women of Warner Brothers” from 2002 and the Ted Sennett’s 1971 “Warner Brothers Presents.” I’m about two-thirds of the way through each of these titles and sadly there isn’t any worthwhile Warren William information in either. This is basically what you get:

“(Name of Warner Bros. star here) next appeared in (Name of Warner Bros. movie here) starring (choose one: dapper, suave, caddish) leading man Warren William.”

I’ve run into this sentence in other books previously as well. The Sennett book is 36 years old, I really thought I’d hit upon a gem or two in there, but alas, Warren William is already dead 23 years at its time of publication and already, it seems, forgotten.

Poor Warren William, it seems, did not live long enough to enjoy any possible retrospective on his career. William died September 24, 1948, his wife, Helen, passed just a few months later on December 31, 1948. The couple had no children. From the information I’m gathering, it’s pretty clear that William was a bit of a loner on the studio lots and usually raced home as soon as his work day was over. So there has been no family to keep his legend alive and it appears his co-workers didn’t have much of a reason to prop him up either.

I have found a couple of great articles about Warren William in different issues “Classic Images” that I’ll be referring to at some point. But I’ve found the best resources to be online newspaper archives. These cost a few dollars, so I’ve been buying articles only when I’ve had a few extra bucks lying around, but so far I’ve accessed articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Daily Tribune. These primary sources actually treat Warren William as the star he obviously was in the early 1930’s. He and his films are popular and usually well-reviewed (especially by Mae Tinee of the Chicago Daily Tribune who really seemed to love his work). Beyond the standard reviews I’ve also come across some more general articles about Warren William’s life. I’m slowly buying them, reading them, arranging them and trying to decide how to best use the information I find in these papers. Perhaps a “Press” section on the site, we’ll see.

I was happy today to locate an article I’d been searching for without having to buy the back issue and wait for it, etc. Also, I wasn’t sure if the information I had on this back issue was correct–it was, however the article was just a single page column rather than the longer feature I’d expected. Seeing it, I was glad to save a few dollars for a change!

This was in Film Comment, the May-June 2005 issue, which somebody was gracious enough to scan and place on their site. It’s Guy Maddin’s column, “My Jolly Corner” titled this issue “Slippery When Wet.” Maddin opens his column by stating, “Buttery joy is mine when I consider the career of Warren William. His Most Oleaginous Imperial Potentate of the Pre-Code.” Maddin mentions The Mouthpiece, Skyscraper Souls, Employees’ Entrance, The Mind Reader, and Gold Diggers of 1933 all by name as proof of William’s talents. Of William’s performances in these, all favorites of mine as well, Maddin writes “…William typically portrays a ruthless entrepreneur whose conscience was somehow lost at birth (one can’t help thinking of William’s 1894 genesis in Minnesota as some kind of natal oil spill), a man who knows what he wants … and wastes no time embezzling his way to this end, pausing only to feast at the banquets of adultery that the era spreads before him like soup kitchens transmogrified by the collective lust of the movie-crazed public.” He remarks that Breen and the code “squeezed the juice out of William’s unambiguous, all-American powerlust,” which is largely true. Afterwards “he was shunted into dull series work,” which is partially true–the Perry Mason and Lone Wolf movies are certainly altogether different from William’s pre-code work, but they are far from dull. Maddin closes by declaring “Long live the suave and smeary stain of Warren William!”

The photo below comes from a December 9, 1934 copy of the Duluth News-Tribune that I picked up on eBay. The photo accompanies an article by Edwin Turnbladh, Hollywood Correspondent of the News-Tribune.

Mrs. Warren William (Krech), formerly Helen Barbara Nelson, is described as “red-headed and practical” by The Washington Post (September 9, 1934). That brief article mentions that the couple had been married since soon after the end of the World War and though Mrs. William is constantly house-shopping the couple has lived in the same little hillside house in Hollywood since their arrival about three years prior to the time of publication. The article mentions Warren William’s hobbies of fencing and archery and the couple’s shared love of boats and dogs.

Bob Becker’s article “Mostly About Dogs,” which appeared in the January 5, 1936 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune, includes a photo of Warren William with one of his wire-haired terriers–William, an enthusiastic tinkerer and inventor, as will be covered here in the future, has outfitted the dog with a strange looking wide collar. It kind of looks like the dog is wearing a wire steering wheel around his neck. The caption on the photo remarks that the device is supposed to keep the dog from crawling through holes in fences.