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.
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas
Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com).
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