Temple Tuesday: Little Miss Marker sets, Pt. 3

Time to bring this series of “Little Miss Marker” (1934) set stills to a close! First up is the plush apartment of Bangles Carson (Dorothy Dell). In the screenshot below, crusty Sorrowful Jones (Adolphe Menjou) drops by to see how Marker/Marky (Shirley Temple) looks in the new clothes Bangles picked out for the little girl.



A detailed view showing the thought and care that went into decorating the set, right down to the curios on the table.



Another angle of Bangles’ apartment:



This part of the set is shown during a key scene where the relationship between Bangles and Menjou begins to change.



Despite the age and appearance gap, the expert performances between Menjou and Dell make the chemistry appear real. Makes me think of “Easter Parade.” Even though Peter Lawford seems like a better physical match for Judy Garland, you still root for Fred Astaire!



And speaking of performances, the musical number between Dell and Temple (“Laugh, You Son of a Gun”) shows the loving chemistry between these two performers. Dell had the sex appeal of a Mae West and the husky voice of an Alice Faye. In addition, she had a vulnerability that made her even more appealing. It makes one wish she hadn’t died so young and that she and Temple could have been paired again. Personally, I think she could have given “Now and Forever” a bit more heart than Carole Lombard did.



When Marky needs an operation, the best doctor for the job must be torn away from his wedding day to perform the surgery. This overhead shot is most likely a combination of a set and a matte painting:



The lobby of the church was definitely a set:





Combining a few screenshots, I was able to get this panoramic view from the film, showing the Doctor (Frank Conroy):



A closeup of the “stained glass”:



A few stills showing the lobby and elevator of the hospital:





Big Steve (Charles Bickford) exits the elevator with the intent of revenge on Bangles and Sorrowful for their betrayal of affections:



Another view of the hospital lobby including the nurse’s desk:



A corresponding screenshot where everyone waits anxiously for a donor for Marky’s surgery:



With some Photoshop magic, I was able to create this panoramic view from the set stills:



The set for the operating room; note the crude sketch showing which bed Shirley would be in. You can also make out the faint writing that states as much:



The corresponding screenshot where Big Steve is the blood donor for Marky:



Even for a movie oft-watched, you can catch new details, such as the Nurse getting high on what I would “assume” is oxygen, but in Hollywood, one never knows!



The Damon Runyon story on which the film drew its inspiration was first published in Collier’s magazine, March 26, 1932: 



The story is darker and doesn’t have the same ending as the movie.



One of the ads in the magazine features a Philco 112X floor model console radio; remember, this was back in the day when families gathered around a large radio for their entertainment instead of a TV or computer screen.



A detailed view of the radio, housed in a gorgeous wood cabinet:



I was able to find a few shots online of one for sale:



Can you imagine if this kind of craftsmanship was put into TV/Computer Screens today?!? Edited from tuberadioland:

The Philco model 112X was introduced in January of 1932, billed as the first radio scientifically designed as a musical instrument. It used an updated version of Philco's 11-tube superheterodyne plus chassis and was the company's first model to use the inclined sounding board, a new invention that was their latest salvo in the ongoing battle for superior tone. It looked radically different to any Philco that had preceded it and this prompted the use of another catchy marketing phrase: It Looks Different. It Sounds Different. It IS Different! The importance of this innovation was such that, starting with the 112X, models using it would have an X appended to the model number. The 112X's cabinet was styled by Edward L. Combs (patent), who was also responsible for the design of the cabinets for the very successful models 70 and 90, introduced the previous June. The "inclined sounding board" was designed to provide clearer high frequency reproduction by directing high notes up towards the listener and away from the floor - keep the music off the floor they proclaimed. Furthermore, according to ads for the 112X, high frequencies emitted from the cabinet's rear were not only attenuated by Philco's new echo absorbing screen, mounted behind the speaker chamber, but were moreover directed down to the floor instead of being reflected back to the listener off of walls behind the radio.



One of the illustrations from the Collier’s article:


 
…and the corresponding scene from the movie:
 


Stay tuned for another upcoming series featuring set stills from Shirley’s other Paramount film, “Now and Forever”! 
 
See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Mitzi at the Marmont

In 2013, USA Today did an article on actress/dancer Mitzi Gaynor, which included the story of how she met her husband:

She was 18 years old. She'd just broken up with Howard Hughes, and her agent wanted her to go out to hear Harry Belafonte. She assumed he was some Italian singer. Her agent was going to send a guy to escort her. She was all dressed up in her black velvet outfit, sexily cut down the front. She opened the door to the penthouse at Chateau Marmont that she was sharing with her mother to find this tall handsome fellow ready to take her out drinking and dancing. He asked for Mitzi Gaynor. "I'm Mitzi Gaynor," she told him. "Don't you recognize me? I'm in all the movies." "I'm so sorry," he told her. "I only go to foreign films." She went outside to find he'd brought his old two-door Plymouth, which needed to be washed, and whose backseat was loaded with his dirty clothes. They arrived. She stepped out. Flashbulbs started going off. "I'm 18, I'm hot, I just broke up with Howard Hughes," she remembers. "I'm like Paris Hilton or something." And then his laundry fell out of the backseat onto the ground around her feet. Gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons were standing together watching – one of the few times they got along, Gaynor says – and Hopper turned to Parsons and said, "Who's that with Mitzi?" "I don't know," Parsons said. "But Mitzi must really like him." And she did.

She married Bean on November 18, 1954, and stayed with him until his death in 2006. The above recently acquired photo shows Mitzi posing on the balcony of the Chateau Marmont Penthouse (room 64). For the backstory of that photo shoot, I consulted the best book about Chateau History, Life at the Marmont by Raymond Sarlot and Fred E. Basten.

Noted Hollywood photographer, Wally Seawell, was the person responsible for bringing [Howard[ Hughes to the Marmont. As associated of the famed Paul Hesse, whose magnificent color portraits of stars first graced the covers of Photoplay magazine, Seawell had been asked to shoot a series of glamor portraits for his latest protege, an unknown but promising teenage dancer-singer named Mitzi Gaynor. According to Seawell, the Gaynor assignment was one of his most difficult, even more challenging than his sessions with Hughes discovery, Faith Domergue. (“We took a million pictures of her, and nothing happened.”) “When Mitzi first came in,” Seawell says, “she was so unattractive. We finally had to call in hair stylist Larry Germaine, who completely did her over, creating an entirely new look for her. It took three days to get her ready to shoot, but we got some marvelous shots.”



During the lengthy and arduous “shoot” Seawell learned that Hughes intended to set Gaynor and her mother up in an apartment at Sunset Tower, but it first had to be redecorated. He contacted Walter Kane, Hughes’ right-hand man, to tell him that the penthouse at the Marmont was not only vacant but available for far less than Sunset Tower was asking. Best of all, the penthouse had just been redone by celebrated fashion and interior designer, Don Loper, who had incorporated a number of his own luxurious touches, such as black-and-white harlequin tiles in the entry hall and floor-to-ceiling antique mirrors encasing the fireplace. Kane called the Marmont immediately and secured the penthouse. When Gaynor arrived with her mother, she was overheard to remark, “Won’t it be wonderful? When I sit on the john, I’ll be able to see all of Hollywood!” Mitzi Gaynor remained at the Marmont until Hughes discovered he wasn’t the only man in her life. As Seawell remembers, “She was also seeing [talent agent] Jack Bean on the sly at night—after she had been out with Howard. When Howard learned about that, he dumped her.”

Mitzi Gaynor - so unattractive?!? Makes me think about this line from “Legally Blonde”:



About the only way people today would know who Don Loper is would be if they watched reruns of “I Love Lucy.” In one of the most famous episodes, “The Fashion Show,” which first aired February 28, 1955, Lucy is in Hollywood and wants to buy a Don Loper original. It turns out even a basic little black dress costs $500 at the Don Loper salon (the equivalent of almost $6000 today). In order to prevent husband Ricky from getting mad at her expenditure, Lucy gets a painful sunburn, thinking Ricky will feel sorry for her instead of angry. It doesn’t work. Loper saves the day by giving Lucy the dress for free when she agrees to change outfits for the celebrity fashion show in which she will be appearing. A rather wooden Loper appears as himself in the episode.



Below is Loper’s harlequin tiled entrance of the Chateau Penthouse, which still exists today and makes it easily recognizable in the many film and TV appearances for which it has been used.



Back to Lucy…the tweed suit Lucy must wear only exacerbates her sunburn; Loper’s “fixing” of the collar does nothing to help poor Lucy’s discomfort!



Here are some of Loper’s fashions worn by the other celebrity wives, starting with a dancing costume called “Baldini” modeled by Mrs. Dean Martin:



Mrs. Van Heflin wears another dancing costume called “Palmer”:



…and Mrs. Forrest Tucker wears a ballgown called “Sonata” in the color “Pink Mink”:



Three years later, Shirley Temple would wear costumes designed by Don Loper on her TV series, “Shirley Temple’s Storybook”:



If you want to see the fashion show portion of the “I Love Lucy” episode, here you go!



See more Chateau Marmont photos at my main website.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure: 40th Anniversary

Hard to believe that it’s been forty years since “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” was released and yet… it has. And in case you didn’t know, the Secret Word for today is “Anniversary.” Do you know what to do when you hear the Secret Word? 



While it baffled me when I first saw it, the film has become one of my favorites, thanks to Paul Reubens’ creativity and the ability to create one of the most memorable characters to grace both film and television.



Pee-Wee didn’t care what others thought about him. He carried his childish innocence into his adulthood, while gaining a bit of a naughty yet sweet quality that made him all the more endearing.



His house was just like the character; it appealed to both children and adults. Children wanted to play with all the toys and marveled at the incredible gadgets. Adults were taken in by the nostalgia and yearned to be able to play like a child just one more time…without being teased. Pee-Wee didn’t care; he did what he wanted to.



Who wouldn’t want fresh-squeezed orange juice from a dinosaur?



When it came to “road” movies, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” ranks right at the top. Wanting his bike back, Pee travels all the way to the Alamo, hoping to fetch it based on a bum tip from a fortune-teller.



The movie’s big chase scene is through the Warner Brothers’ lot. What a hilarious treat to see Pee-Wee riding through the various film and video sets on his fully-loaded bike!



The final scene at the drive-through theatre really sells the magic of Pee-Wee. All of the diverse characters he has met along his journey have assembled to celebrate his film debut: a biker gang, a waitress who yearns to go to France, an escaped prisoner, and so many more. If Pee-Wee can get along with everyone, why can’t we?

If you haven’t seen the film yet, sit in your favorite over-stuffed chair and do so tonight.



Many thanks to the late Paul Reubens for forty years of fun! Happy Anniversary - AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

See more “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” photos at my main website.