It's the Old Army Game, co-starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926

It's the Old Army Game, co-starring Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1926. The film is a comedy about a small town druggist (played by W.C. Fields) who gets involved with a real estate scam. Louise Brooks plays the druggist’s assistant. The film was Brooks’ fourth, and it reunited her with the Fields, the film’s star. The two had worked together in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1925.

In its review, the Newark Star-Eagle stated, “This picture not only affords a good deal of typical Fields comedy in a suitable story frame, but also reveals the possibilities of Louise Brooks, Follies girl who is making decidedly good in the cinema. . . . All told, Fields need not regret his first Paramount production. Louise Brooks, with a touch of piquancy, a good range of registration, and the conception of restraint, is pleasing as the heroine.”

It’s the Old Army Game was originally announced as starring Fields and future “It girl” Clara Bow, but she was shooting Mantrap (1926), so the female lead fell to Brooks. Exhibitor’s Herald stated, “Louise Brooks is the other important person in the picture and, as insinuated rather bluntly on the occasion of her first appearance — in The American Venus — she’s important. Miss Brooks isn’t like anybody else. Nor has she a distinguishing characteristic which may be singled out for purposes of identification. She’s just a very definite personality. She doesn’t do much, perhaps because there isn’t much to do but probably because she hits hardest when doing nothing, but nobody looks away when she’s on screen. If Miss Glyn should say that Miss Brooks has ‘it,’ more people would know what Miss Glyn is raving about. But in that case she would not be raving.”

The Portland Oregonian noted “Louise Brooks, the pert young woman who will be remembered for her work in The American Venus and A Social Celebrity, the latter with Adolphe Menjou, has the lead role opposite Fields. She poses a bit. An excuse was found to get her into a bathing suit too, which wasn’t a bad move, on the whole.” 

It’s the Old Army Game received mostly positive reviews, though some critics noted its rather thin plot. Algonquin Round Table playwright Robert E. Sherwood (who would go on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and an Academy Award) was then writing reviews for Life magazine. His pithy critique read, “Mr. Fields has to carry the entire production on his shoulders, with some slight assistance from the sparkling Louise Brooks.” Ella H. McCormick of the Detroit Free Press countered with “Fields scored a splendid triumph in this picture. A great part of the success of the offering, however, is due to Louise Brooks, who takes the lead feminine part.”

Today, It’s the Old Army Game is largely remembered as a starring vehicle for Fields — a comedic great, It is also remembered for the fact that not long after the film wrapped, Brooks married the film’s director, Eddie Sutherland.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Panama, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Wight, Northern Ireland, and Scotland). In Czechoslovakia, the film was promoted under the title The Old Army Game. In Japan, it was once promoted as It’s the Old Army.

Elsewhere, It’s the Old Army Game was shown under the title El boticario rural (Argentina); Ein moderner Glücksritter (Austria); Een Apothekersstreek (Belgium); Risos e tristezas (Brazil); El Boticario Rural (Cuba); To je starí hra armády (Czechoslovakia); Miehen ihanne (Findland); Un Conte D’Apothicaire (France); チョビ髯大将 (Japan); Laimes spekuliantai (Lithuania); Un Conte d’hapoticaire! (Luxembourg); El Boticario Rural (Mexico); Pierewaaier Pilledraaier or De pillendraaier and De Dorpsapotheker (The Netherlands); Ungkar og spillemann (Norway); El boticario rural (Spain); Mannen som gör vad som faller honom in (Sweden); and El boticario rural (Uruguay).

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

 — Clarence Badger was originally assigned to direct, but the film was soon turned over to Edward Sutherland, a onetime actor and Keystone Cop who began his directing career just a few years before with the help of Charlie Chaplin. The film was announced, at first, as starring W.C. Fields and future “It girl” Clara Bow, but as she was needed on the West Coast to shoot Mantrap (1926), the female lead fell to Brooks. It’s the Old Army Game was the first of five Fields’ films directed by Sutherland.

— Outdoor scenes in Palm Beach, Florida were shot at El Mirasol, the estate of multi-millionaire investment banker Edward T. Stotesbury. In 1912, after having been a widower for thirty-some years, Stotesbury remarried and became the stepfather of three children including Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks (known simply as Louise Brooks), an American socialite and the first wife of General Douglas MacArthur. In her heyday, she was “considered one of Washington’s most beautiful and attractive young women”. Because of their names, the two women were sometimes confused in the press.

— Paramount had made other movies in Ocala, Florida – including scenes for the earlier Brooks’ film, The American Venus. (Brooks was likely not present on that occasion.)

 — Notably, It’s the Old Army Game marked the first film appearance of Elise Cavanna, who plays the nearsighted woman in search of a stamp.(She is the first character seen in the film.)  Cavanna started as a dancer (who reportedly studied under Isadora Duncan) and stage comedian before entering films in 1926. She appeared in another Brooks’ film, Love Em and Leave Em (1926), as well as four other films with Fields, most notably The Dentist (1932), where her scenes as a writhing patient in a dentist chair were deemed so risqué they were edited out of later television broadcasts.

— William Gaxton plays William Parker, Brooks’ love interest and the President of the High-and-Dry Realty Company. Born in San Francisco as Arturo Antonio Gaxiola, Gaxton worked mostly on stage, finding his greatest success in George Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing (1933) and other Broadway musicals during the 1930s and 1940s. In Lulu in Hollywood, Brooks recounts what an entertaining person Gaxton was off camera, and how funny he was when he read aloud from Gentleman Prefer Blondes when the company wasn’t working or drinking; Brooks also speculates that Gaxton was bitter about what he regarded as his failure as an actor in It’s the Old Army Game — his first film, and role he thought would launch his film career.

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