Temple Tuesday: Shirley, Susannah, the Blackfeet, and The Gorilla.

The 1939 Shirley Temple film “Susannah of the Mounties” was set in early 1880s Canada and loosely based on the 1936 Muriel Denison novel. Twelve members of the Blackfeet Indian tribe led by Chief Albert Mad Plume, came from Montana to be in the film. Chief Coward, the only one who spoke English, served as translator. Fox put up a $25,000 bond for their return. The above publicity shot shows their Los Angeles arrival and was accompanied by the below publicity blurb. I’ll just say upfront that many of the accounts from that time are racially insensitive and politically incorrect; I am just sharing the info as it originally appeared.

WILL WHOOP IT UP IN SHIRLEY TEMPLE PICTURE

LOS ANGELES, CALIF., — After giving the city of Seattle, Wash., a thrill by touring the business district, these leading braves of the Blackfeet Indian tribe of Montana descended on Hollywood to start work on their parts in the new 20th Century-Fox picture, “Susannah of the Mounties” starring Shirley Temple. Wearing their traditional colorful costumes, the braves are shown as they arrived by Southern Pacific train today. 2/8/1939.

None of the twelve had substantial roles in the film, but were rather seen in the background. The one exception was Martin Good Rider, seen below in Shirley’s bungalow on the Fox lot:



SHIRLEY’S LEADING MAN AN INDIAN

HOLLYWOOD, CALIF.: — Filmland’s First Lady’s First Leading Man is 100 per cent American — A full-blooded Blackfoot Indian. He’s Martin Goodrider, thirteen years of age, who is working with Shirley Temple in “Susannah of the Mounties.” Martin says he doesn’t want to be a movie actor for good. He fully intends, he says, to study “until I’m pretty near 30, so I can be a Jesuit.” 1/26/1939.



The Daily News reported this about Martin on June 30:

On horseback, he is a virtual centaur, hence his name. He swims like a fish, is an expert hockey player, runs like a deer and oddly enough, won his chance at film work by singing an Irish dialect song. Returning from the Eucharistic congress in New Orleans recently, where he represented his school along with several other Indian boys, his picture appeared in a New York newspaper. During his short stay in new York he was visited by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout, who had seen his picture and thought the boy looked like screen material. The boy sang a few Irish songs and several Indian chants for the talent executive and was promptly signed for the role of the Indian lad.

Martin also appeared in Feg Murray’s Seein’ Stars comic feature, which just happened to be on Shirley’s birthday, April 23, 1939:



This December 28, 1938 production schedule from the major studios lists “Susannah” for Fox (still without a director), as well as “Gone with the Wind” at Selznick. Even more interesting is the listing for “Titanic,” to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock. That one never got out of the water. Badumpbump.



Shirley’s previous blockbuster hit, “The Little Princess” (1939), was filmed in Technicolor; “Susannah” was strictly black and white. However, there were a number of color photos taken during filming that were used for publicity and the movie magazines. Of his red uniform, actor Randolph Scott had this to say: “I was cast as a member of the Northwest Mounted, but my uniform looked more like a cross between a beergarden bandmaster’s and a bellhop’s!…Now, my conception of what a Mountie looked like was a little bit different. But Bruce Carruthers, technical expert on the production and ex-Mountie, came to the rescue, and explained that the members of the famous troop dressed in just this fashion back in 1894, the period of the present film. Carruthers pointed out that the bright scarlet uniforms were meant to impress the redskins, who greatly outnumbered the Mounties. However well they may have succeeded in this intention, they had a decided disadvantage, too, for they must have made the boys dead targets for the Indians.”



The June 1939 cover of Screen Guide:



For artistic purposes, Shirley’s photo was flipped on the cover. Below is my corrected version. Melissa (aka The Colonel) can now breathe a sigh of relief.



Inside Screen Guide was this feature:



The behind the scenes image below was accompanied by this caption:

FRONTIER SEWING LESSON – J Farrell MacDonald in the role of a hardboiled Mountie in 20th Century-Fox’ “Susannah of the Mounties” makes a brae effort to give Shirley Temple a sewing lesson. It’s only a rehearsal for the camera and Director Walter Lang (seated extreme left), but the number one star evidently has her doubts concerning the veteran actor’s prowess with a needle. Shirley received a sewing basket for Christmas and since had been taking her sewing seriously.



Possibly the sewing basket referred to in the caption is the same one that was auctioned off after Shirley passed in 2014. From the auction listing:

Shirley Temple's Sewing Basket by Lenci, Late 1930s: 11" h. The red-painted woven basket with handle has a colorful red/burgundy/cream checkered drawstring bag that is decorated with a bevy of colorful felt flowers of all varieties. There is a felt decorative strap with painted wooden mushroom cap. The basket was owned and used by Shirley Temple, a favorite accompaniment to her beloved Lenci dolls. Generally excellent, light spotting on one side of bag. Circa 1938. Sold for $600.



The image below shows a scene from the film featuring the members of the Blackfeet tribe. For the main speaking parts, non-Indian actors were used. For the role of Chief Big Eagle, Russian immigrant Maurice Moscovich was chosen. For the role of the traitorous Wolf Pelt, Victor Jory was selected. He was born in Canada to American parents.



VILLAGE ON STAGE — An entire Blackfeet Indian village was constructed on the Will Rogers Memorial Stage at 20th Century-Fox for one of the important scenes of “Susannah of the Mounties,” Shirley Temple’s latest film.



Tied to the stage (center) is Randolph Scott, while (l-center) Shirley argues with Big Beaver, one of the twelve Blackfeet braves brought from Montana for the picture. Just right of the camera is Shirley’s cameraman, Artie Miller, ASC, and on the other side of the microphone boom is director William A. Seiter. Sitting directly behind him is Shirley’s mother, Mrs. George Temple. The little girl directly behind her is Shirley’s standin and best friend, Mary Lou Isleib.



Another behind the scenes still, showing the big reveal of who the true villain in the movie was:



Naturally the reveal is all thanks to Shirley, assisted by Good Rider’s character, Little Chief.



Newspaper accounts of the Blackfeet were extremely rude, such as this tidbit from the LA Examiner on February 13, 1939 which was probably viewed as humorous at the time:

When [Russian-American director/actor] Gregory Ratoff walked into the Fox Studio cafe and spotted the twelve Blackfeet Indians who are working with Shirley Temple in “Susannah of the Mounties,” he told [Russian-American composer] Sam Pokrass: “If I wasn’t so hungry I’d refuse to eat in the same room with all those foreigners.”

Ed Sullivan’s column from the LA Evening Citizen News on February 13 shows the insensitivity and segregation experienced by the Blackfeet:

Blackfeet Indians are working in the Shirley Temple picture, a group of old-timers who look like the heads on the buffalo nickels. Randy Scott says that the appetites of the reservation tribesmen are prodigious. On the reservation, they get only two meals a day. At 20th Century-Fox, they have been getting three meals a day and wading in with both hands. For breakfast yesterday, three of them ordered baked apples, two plates of cereal apiece, and individual sirloin steaks with two poached eggs on each steak. They polished this off with eight cups of coffee apiece. Their appetites demoralized the regular commissary so they were assigned to a smaller lunchroom. They protested bitterly, but finally agreed when it was pointed out that they could get more food there.

Shirley appears very coy in this wardrobe test, wearing her outfit from the final scene:



A behind the scenes image taken just before the filming of the final sequence, with Shirley wearing the costume from the wardrobe test above:



How the scene appeared in the final film. And yes, Shirley smokes the pipe.



A guest to the set appears to have just given Shirley the doll in her hands, circa February 1939:



Here, NBC sports reporter, Clem McCarthy, pins a badge on Shirley as deputy sheriff of Jackson County, Kansas, where his pal, Jim Williams, was sheriff, March 1939. Shirley first saw McCarthy’s own badge the previous year and made him promise to get her one. This event took place outside her portable Fox trailer.



Below, Shirley is surrounded by Yellow Kidney, Spotted Eagle, and Many Guns:







The above plaque was given to Shirley and auctioned off after she died in 2014. Filming for portions of “Susannah” took place in the Lake Arrowhead area. From the Heritage Auction listing:

Shirley Temple - "Blackfoot Indians" Plaque, Signed Photograph, and Ribbon. A plaque bearing the engraved names of twelve actual Blackfoot Native Americans who were featured in Temple's 1939 film, Susannah of the Mounties; names include Chief Mad Plume, Little Blaze, Iron Beast, Jilted Edge and eight others. Measures 7.5" x 4" x 1.5", the metal placard showing some light scratching and oxidation; together with a signed photograph of these individuals plus a blue badge/ribbon measuring 8" in diameter with blue lettering on a gold background reading "Mayor / Lake Arrowhead, Calif" [the Southern California town where Susannah of the Mounties was filmed].



The LA Examiner had a full page spread promoting the film on Sunday June 25, 1939 that read:

To her countless fans she’s still Shirley Temple, but among her fellow Blackfeet tribesmen her name is “Bright Shining Star.” 20th Century-Fox imported full-blooded Indians from Montana to support Shirley in “Susannah of the mounties.” So completely did she captivate the ugh-men they made her a member of their tribe.



Finally, we get to the Gorilla in the title. “Susannah” was double-billed with the Ritz Brothers comedy, “The Gorilla.” It also starred Bela Lugosi and Patsy Kelly.



When the studio held a preview on February 6, 1939 of “Second Fiddle,” an Irving Berlin musical with Tyrone Power and Sonja Henie, “Susannah” got bumped, not “The Gorilla.” Oh, the indignity!



Below, Shirley seems to be consoling Lockwood about her American film career going nowhere after “Susannah,”  in this photo from the LA Times, June 26, 1939. Or maybe it was about being bumped for a gorilla. The film made a profit, but was tepid by the typical Temple standards. The Daily News reported on June 28th, “Temple authorities may hold that ‘Susannah of the Mounties’ is not the best of Little Miss Box Office’s films, but after all, she’s young yet.”



When Shirley completed filming of “Susannah,” she took a much needed vacation to Hawaii.



Waving to fans from the deck of the ship:



Playing the ukulele while on vacation, awaiting word for the start of her next film, “The Blue Bird” (1940):



When Shirley returned from her trip, the Daily News reported:

…several letters were waiting at her bungalow on the 20th Century-Fox lot from three Indian children who had played in the film and are now back in school on the Fort Browning, Montana, reservation. The letters, written by Little Blaze, Wolf Cry and Cho-cho Gun, requested that Shirley buy for them in Los Angeles such items as 50 eagle tail feathers, three pounds of multicolored beads, a flashlight with red, green and white bulbs, a bottle of glue and 300 feet of kite string. The studio offered to buy the articles for the little actress, but she declined the offer in favor of a trip to town with her mother on a buying jaunt.

And so concludes another Temple rabbit hole!
 
See more 1939 Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Mommie Dearest and the Marmont

The unintentionally campy “Mommie Dearest” with Faye Dunaway began production January 1981. I solely mention Faye because if you’ve seen the movie, you know that she completely devours everyone else in the cast. Choppy, over-dramatic, and full of poorly written dialogue, I am still fascinated by this movie that tries to be too many things and in the end, fails at all of them. And yet, you can’t help but be entertained by it…for all the wrong reasons. The AFI website has lots of interesting details about the production. According to the Village Voice, Anne Bancroft was originally cast by November 1979 with Franco Zeffirelli as director. By September 1980, Variety announced Bancroft was out and Dunaway was in, with Frank Perry replacing the legendary Zeffirelli. 



Filmmakers toured Crawford’s Brentwood home at 426 North Bristol but found it “unsuitable” for filming.



Other film locations included Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA, the administration building at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Perino’s Restaurant (at 4101 Wilshire Boulevard, torn down a few years after filming). The beach scenes at the beginning of the movie were shot in Malibu.

Wait a minute…Anne Bancroft? I would be fascinated to have seen her version of “Mommie Dearest.” Something tells me she would have been more restrained and given a more nuanced performance than Faye. The book With Love, Mommie Dearest by A. Ashley Hoff gives some background as to why Bancroft left the project just before filming was to begin:

Bancroft had been discussing the project with [producer Frank] Yablans for over a year but would not commit herself to it until she saw a script she liked—and was sure the film would be directed by someone of whom she approved. When it was announced Yablans had signed Franco Zeffirelli to direct, Bancroft’s commitment followed. Production at the time featured a screenplay by James Kirkwood, and filming was slated for the following spring. Spring came and went. Columnists speculated Bancroft was getting cold feet at the notion of playing a beloved film icon in a negative light.…“Producer Frank Yablans is suddenly back to square one with his screen adaptation of ‘Mommie Dearest,’” gossip maven Marilyn Beck announced in her column in the spring of 1980. “Production on the controversial project was to have started this spring with Anne Bancroft playing that sorry Mommie, Joan Crawford. But now Yablans says that director Franco Zeffirellis is out and ‘all that I can tell you about Anne’s involvement at this point is that I think she’s still in.’”

“Along came ‘Mommie Dearest,’” began legendary comedy writer and raconteur Bruce Vilanch.…“This is what I know: Anne Bancroft was going to do the picture, and Paramount ran a trade ad with a picture of Anne, the Joan Crawford portrait in the frame, which they subsequently used with Faye [on the poster]. And they were ready to go with the movie. And the day the picture appeared in the trades, as I understand it, Anne Bancroft went to her husband Mel Brooks, who is a friend of mine, and asked, ‘Do I look like Joan Crawford?’ And he said, ‘You look like a woman in the home who thinks she looks like Joan Crawford, and has dressed up to look like Joan Crawford.’ And she said, ‘Should I not do this picture?’ And he said, ‘Look, we’ve all read the book. It’s one thing to picture Joan Crawford chopping down a tree in the backyard. It’s something else when you actually put on the makeup and the costume and do it. The audience’s reaction will be laughter because it won’t sync with their view of who it is, and it’s such an over-the-top conceit.’ So she quit, she backed out of it.…That alone makes him a genius, the fact he had that observation before anybody else did.

The book is an excellent account of the trials and tribulations of the making of “Mommie Dearest” along with the aftermath and how the film is evaluated in present day. If you want to view the script that Bancroft “approved” you can see it at The Concluding Chapter of Joan Crawford. It is an interesting look at what would have been a very different movie. Below is a shot of Joan with Bancroft in 1963 from the The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia website, when she gave Anne her Oscar for “The Miracle Worker.” This is the Oscar that Crawford famously swept by loser Bette Davis to accept on behalf of Bancroft.



For an insider’s look at the production itself, look no further than Rutanya Alda’s book, The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All.



You might recall that Alda played Crawford’s frumpy and mousy assistant, Carol Ann. The character and the performance given by the actress inform the audience that this person lives only for Joan. Carol Ann is based on a medley of people in Crawford’s life, including her real-life assistant, Betty Barker (left $35k in Crawford’s will) as well as secretaries/assistants Florence Walsh and Anna Marie Brinke, according to Hoff’s book. In it, he also adds “As far as Christina Crawford’s book was concerned, Barker denied having ever seen or heard of Joan Crawford abusing her children. Christina, on the other hand, told Rutanya Alda she and Christopher loathed Betty, saying ‘She lied about us and was always making trouble.’”



Regardless of who is telling the truth or not, the Carol Ann character doesn’t add much to the film other than to show an example of the fawning adoration that Crawford fans possessed. No matter what behavior she witnessed, Carol Ann continued to suck up to Joan in the film. Back to Rutanya’s book. It’s a short and breezy read that is nowhere near as lurid as the cover art and title imply. The photo on the back shows a very glamorized Alda; this is a look that is so far from Carol Ann that at first glimpse it is hard to believe the two are one and the same.



This is a constant theme throughout the book about the filming; any time that Alda looked too pretty, Dunaway would talk to the crew and made sure that either Alda was made frumpier or in the worst case scenario, the scene was cut. For the scene where Joan marries Pepsi Cola magnate Al Steele, Alda recalls:

I have my middle age makeup on and a beautiful gray taffeta wedding party dress. This is the dress Ms. [Irene] Sharaff mentioned was by a famous French designer when we were having wardrobe fittings at the beginning of the film. It is gorgeous and fits me perfectly. I have a cute hat on and I look so good. Faye is in a beautiful pink satin dress that buttons down the front with an orchid corsage. Harry Goz was there as Al Steele, as well as about twenty-five extras. One lady comments that I have the smallest waist. Faye overhears this and gives me a look.…Frank P. comes by and and says they will not use me in the wedding scene. What! How can you not have Carol Ann at the wedding? “You look too good, Rutanya,” Frank says. “I told you this at the beginning, you can’t look good. I have no control over this.” “But Frank,” I stammer, “This costume was approved in the test shots, I mean I can justify Christina not being there, if she is in school or in New York, although I think she should have been there too. But Carol Ann! She should be making sure the photographers get really good shots, and she could be giving last-minute photos to sign, as Joan was always signing her eight-by-tens, and she should be making sure Joan looks good. There are twenty-five strangers there who have never been seen in the film. They don’t mean anything.” “It’s out of my hands, Faye doesn’t want it,” Frank says, and quickly. leaves. Incredible! Frank is so afraid of Faye. He’s afraid of being fired by her!

Was Carol Ann really necessary for this brief scene? Not really, especially when you look at a press photo from the actual event. I don’t seen anyone buzzing around Alfred and Joan, do you? What you see in the finished movie is mainly Al and Joan, intercut with VERY brief clips of guests/photographers/columnists asking questions and taking photos. For a movie already pressed for time to tell a complicated story, why would you add extraneous bits about signing autographs and futzing with Joan’s makeup and outfit? These are the type of tales in Alda’s book that inform me that she really didn’t have a grasp of what the overall movie was about. While she did a more than capable job as Carol Ann, the success of the film did not ride on Alda’s shoulders or her character’s.



Alda kept a diary during the production of “Mommie Dearest,” so despite the book being written more than thirty years after the film’s release, the details she gives are very specific. The reason I bought the book was to see what she had to say about the Chateau Marmont, which is where she stayed during filming.

I am booked to live at the famous Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles for the indefinite duration of the film. I had driven by that place so many times when I lived in L.A. I’ve always wanted to stay there, but it’s been beyond my budget. At last, months at the Marmont. It’s wonderful.…[actor] Richard [Bright, Alda’s husband] will come later, after he’s made arrangements to bring our cat, Kukums, with us. (He was a black and white beauty who found me one day during a huge rainstorm in New York and followed me home. He had been very sick and recovered sleeping on my bed for a solid week. He was the smartest, most fearless cat I’ve ever had, and we made quite an entrance at the Marmont’s gardens and pool, as I put the leash on him and he went out for his daily constitutional.)…The lobby of the Chateau Marmont is beautifully decorated and the Christmas tree that greets me is spectacular. I am checked into room thirty-five, a one-bedroom suite.



Recently, I was able to check room 35 off my Chateau Marmont bucket list. Here’s what the interior looks like now:



The kitchen (below), where according to Alda “…the too loud, too sensitive fire alarm goes off twice from cooking on the stove in my room at the Marmont. Scares me like crazy.”



The bathroom:



The bedroom:



A great view of the pool and Sunset Boulevard from 35:



One of my favorite stories in Alda’s book is about do-gooder Jane Fonda:

Met Gita Breslin at the Writers Guild for screening of film “9 to 5.” It was fun going with her, as Gita had worked as being a stand in for Jane Fonda on many of her films and was also her personal masseuse. She told me they had broken their relationship when Gita had somehow gotten injured on Jane Fonda’s film set and filed for disability insurance and Jane had gotten very angry at Gita for doing that. Jane never hired Gita again.

I never believed for a minute that Jane Fonda was as much of a champion for the underdog as she publicly portrays herself to be.



From Sunday, January 18th:

I take Kukums [shown above in room 35] for a walk around the pool. He can’t wait to get out for a walk every day. He still waits for me with the leash. Everyone thinks it’s so strange to see a cat out for a walk. He loves to eat grass. We walk and sit for a while. Go shopping at Quinn’s health food store for dinner. Make chicken at the Marmont.

Quinn’s Health Food store (once called Quinn’s Nutrition Center) was a popular local store just off Melrose Avenue at 226 North Larchmont Boulevard. Of course it no longer exists.

Wednesday, January 31st:

Joanna [wife of Michael McClure, also staying at the Marmont] got up early for a conference in Pasadena. I met Richard and Michael at Schwab’s at 10:30 for breakfast. (Schwab’s was a famous drug store and coffee shop where a lot of actors hung out there and Lana Turner was rumored to have been discovered. I once had lunch at the counter and Jerry Brown, who was then the young governor of California, sat right next to me without any bodyguards and we chatted like we knew each other. It was that kind of place.) Back to the Marmont and run into the wonderful actress, Cathleen Nesbitt. She looks fabulous at ninety-two.

You might recall Nesbitt (below right) from her role as the snooty grandmother in Disney’s “The Parent Trap” (1961) with Maureen O’Hara and Hayley Mills.



Wednesday, February 4th:

Take Kukums for daily walk around the pool—we save little Billy’s life, a two-year-old English boy who falls in. There is no one else around, no parents watching. Richard hears me yell and jumps across some tables and we both bend over the deep end and grab his arms and hoist him up. He doesn’t cry—he doesn’t realize how serious this was. No, actually, he does start crying, because his green lollipop is still in the pool. Richard rescues his green lolly with the big pool scoop and he stops crying. His parents finally show up and we tell them what happened and they don’t seem concerned at all. This should have at least quivered their stiff upper lip. Lucky for them we were there. Do they know that?



Below is a photo from Alda’s book taken at the Marmont with Joanna McClure, Michael McClure, and Richard Bright. The McClures were prominent figures in the San Francisco Beat poetry movement back in the 1950s. Michael died in 2020; Joanna appears to still be alive.



This was a hard match for me; possibly it is showing poolside cottage 89 on the second floor  at right behind them. Below is a contemporary shot from a different angle of where I believe Alda’s photo was taken. Cottage 89 is above the ping pong table.



The best part of Alda’s very short book is the story of her early years in Latvia and glossed over all too quickly. The hardships she endured and overcame would make a very interesting movie. Instead, more time is spent on Faye’s poor treatment of the cast and crew of “Mommie Dearest.” It’s enough to make your eyes cross.



On the recent blu ray of the film, Producer/Screenwriter Frank Yablans had this to say about Faye’s performance:



Maybe it turned out to be more of a caricature than a character, but when you’re dealing with something that’s bigger than life, you have to present it bigger than life, and so we did, and I’m very proud of where we went with it. There were a couple of times I guess we could have toned her down a little bit, particularly when she attacks the rose bushes, which is considered one of the rare moments on film. I take a little bit of the blame, because I should have asked Frank [Perry] to pull her back a little bit on that scene, but you’re watching this thing and you’re watching her go and you’re watching where she’s going with it and I got swept up in the moment of this absolute rage, “Hollywood Royalty!” This woman has just been given a death sentence in Hollywood and so she has all this rage in her, so it probably went over the top. Maybe in another lifetime I’ll bring it down a little bit! Ha!

Rutanya was also interviewed for the featurette and gave this amusing anecdote:

I gotta’ tell you a story; when I was in Christina Crawford’s house, I took a look in her closet. There’s a lot of wire hangers!



I will end this post with another insightful quote from Yablans:

Aren’t we all in some way villains, and aren’t we all in some way angels? That’s what makes an interesting subject. Joan Crawford, she was who she was before she ever got to Hollywood or she wouldn’t have become what she became. Hollywood doesn’t destroy people; people destroy themselves. This is an industry that you’re going to have high highs and low lows. You learn early on to deal with rejection and you learn not to take your success too seriously because it’s going to be fleeting, and if you don’t learn those things, I don’t care whether you’re in Hollywood or in Peoria, Illinois, you’re going to get destroyed because you’re not true to yourself.



And so ends today’s post about “Mommie Dearest” and the Chateau Marmont.

See more Chateau Marmont photos at my main website.