THE SHOWDOWN AT CINECON

 

BY

 

MARILYN SLATER

 

 

 

 

Director: Victor Schertzinger Screenplay: Hope Loring and Ethel Doherty, based on the play Wildcat by Houston Branch Photography: Victor Milner Editor: George Nichols, Jr. Cast: George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, Fred Kohler, Helen Lynch, Arnold Kent, Leslie Fenton, George Kuwa.

 

Print courtesy Library of Congress and Paramount Pictures.

 

The review in the Cinecon43 booklet, didn’t really prepare me for what was going on in the film, Sunday morning (Day 4). Most of the time I love the musical performances but if I were able to, I would have muted the sound. 

 

This was a Victor Schertzinger film, he had taken pains to add the thump, thump, thump of the oil drill with a number of visual clues, letting the audience know that the throb of the drill was powerful enough to move the dishes on the table; this film needed a persistent beat.  And then there was the dripping of the water into the tin pans setting on the floor of the cottage to catch the rain.  The phonograph that “Goldie” (Helen Lynch) moved so provocatively to, while she accepted bids on body contact dances was a major element of the undercurrent of the film. Helen understood primitive emotions, hers and those of others.  The location of this film was the Tampico Oil Fields of Tropical Mexico with screens in a cantina and yet no Mexican music, not any Latin rhythm. It would have been nice to hear a few cores from Schertzinger’s “Marcheta,” (A Love Song of Old Mexico).

 

The music and the picture pacing were very, very important to Schertzinger; the music would have carried the emotions of the images.  Of course, a month ago, this would not have affected me as much but I just did a lot of reading about Victor Schertzinger and was sensitive to the connection.

 

The original story was adapted from Houston Branch’s play “Wildcat” and the working title was tentatively titled “Honky Tonk”[1] (no this style of music was also not used).  The story was of a “Wildcat” oil driller dogged by spies from wealthy oil companies.  Here he is about to reap the reward of his toil, there comes a test of courage and honor which is at the core of this very dramatic story. The curtain of modern culture is ripped apart and this film shows us the savagery within.

 

George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent had been successfully paired in “Underworld”, he was on his way to creating a definite niche for himself, with another role of tremendous vitality, he appears to suit the character of a wandering oil-driller[2] very nicely. 

 

We are reminded that water falling drop by drop will wear its way through stone. Schertzinger built on this truism.  Into this environment comes a delicately nurtured woman from New York, she is warned by Bancroft that the stealthy menace of the jungle, its loneliness, will in the end break down her morale, she scoffs at him, refusing to leave her husband while he hopes to build up a fortune, she laughs at the jungle threat with her trunks full of evening clothes. Then as the slow months creep by the heat and loneliness begin to affect her and the rules that governed her life come to a dramatic sudden end when she goes to pieces and Bancroft finds himself faced by the necessity of saving her from 3 very dangerous men[3].

The raging, seething excitement of a new oil field where the gusher may erupt any second and George stops Evelyn’s rape adds to the heightening tension.  And then the rain stops and the oil flows and her husband returns to camp. In a final card games the husband and Bancroft, play for the oil and Evelyn Brent. Bancroft throws in his Kings and lets the 10’s win. Then Bancroft calls Helen Lynch, the ‘party girl” in the settlement’s Honky Tonk, and they leave Mexico for another oil field, perhaps Russia.

A little more information

 

George Bancroft,[4] he was born in Philadelphia, September 30, 1882, graduated from the Naval Academy, serving in the Spanish American War under Admiral Dewey. His first starring role was in Pony Express (1925).  In 1929, he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Thunderbolt. He made over 60 films. He was cast as a nasty villain most of the time.  It was said that he developed an “inflated ego” …refusing to fall down on a set after a revolver was fired at him saying, “Just one bullet can’t stop Bancroft!”[5]

He retired in 1942, became a rancher. He was married twice, his first marriage was to Edna Brothers, which  ended in divorce, at the time of his death in Santa Monica, California, October 2, 1956 at the age of 74, he was married Octavia Broske.  They had one child.[6] 

Evelyn Brent’s star is at 6548 Hollywood Blvd., down the street from the Egyptian Theater where she was shown on Sunday, September 1, at Cinecon43.

She was born Mary Elizabeth Riggs (Betty) on October 20, 1899 in Tampa Florida.  As a teenager, in New York, she modeled but after a visit to Fort Lee, she started to work for World Film Studio. She is thought to have made her major film debut in The Shooting of Dan McGrew (1915). While on a vacation trip to London after the War, she met Oliver Cromwell and accepted a role in The Ruined Lady.  She stayed in England working for English film studios until 1922 when she went to Hollywood.

Showdown was one of the more then 120 films she made before she retired in 1950 to become a successful actor’s agent.  In 1960, she made a television appearance in an episode of Wagon Train and performed in The Lita Foladaire Story.

For a time, Evelyn Brent was married to Bernard P. Fineman, the movie executive. At the time of his death in 1959, Evelyn was married to Harry Fox (the Foxtrot dance was named for him) Evelyn lived to be 75, dieing in 1975.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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