A cinephilac blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age, with occasional posts about related books, music, art, and history written by Thomas Gladysz. Visit the Louise Brooks Society™ at www.pandorasbox.com
Beggars of Life
is the opening night presentation at this
year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The acclaimed 1928 Louise Brooks film,
directed by Oscar winner William Wellman and starring future Oscar
winner Wallace Beery, will be shown on Thursday, June 2nd at 7:00 pm at
the
historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. The film will be shown with
live musical accompaniment by the acclaimed Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information, including ticket
availability, may be found at HERE.
Check out this fabulous page of movie advertisements from a late, 1920s Milwaukee, Wisconsin newspaper. The description of Beggars of Life is especially intriguing. It reads "A startlingly different kind of sound and voice drama . . . . the story of love-starved, romance-hungry men . . . and a girl, their prey . . . written by the exiled literary genius, Jim Tully."
Beggars of Life
is the opening night presentation at this
year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The acclaimed 1928 Louise Brooks film,
directed by Oscar winner William Wellman and starring future Oscar
winner Wallace Beery, will be shown on Thursday, June 2nd at 7:00 pm at
the
historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. The film will be shown with
live musical accompaniment by the acclaimed Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information, including ticket
availability, may be found at HERE. This special presentation is not-to-be-missed, as you never know which "different drummer" will show up.
Los Angeles, California – October 1928
Though shot as a silent and released in some markets in that format, Beggars of Life
has the distinction of being Paramount’s first sound film: a
synchronized musical score, sound effects, a few lines of dialogue, as well as a song sung or two were added to prints at the time of the film’s release.
The addition of sound to the film lends another, even more important distinction to Beggars of Life, as the film on which a "boom mic" may have first been used. According to David O.
Selznick, "I was also present on the stage when a microphone was moved
for the first time by Wellman, believe it or not. Sound was relatively
new [this was Beggars of Life, 1928] and at that time the sound
engineer insisted that the microphone be steady. Wellman, who had quite a
temper in those days, got very angry, took the microphone himself, hung
it on a boom, gave orders to record--and moved it."
In the annals of
film history, others have been credited with first moving a microphone during
the production of a film. Selznick's anecdote, which comes from Kevin
Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By, is one of the earliest accounts.
Cincinnati, Ohio – September 1928
Though the sound elements for the film are lost, newspaper articles and
advertisements of the time tell us a little about the nature of the sound version of Beggars of Life. Commenting on its New York City premiere at the Paramount Theater, Women's Wear Daily noted "All
of these stars outdo themselves in this picture. Wallace Beery talks in
this picture, sings a hobo song and ends with an observation about
jungle rats in general." The New Yorker also commented on "the synchronized accompaniment of sentimental music."
Elsewhere, the New Orleans Item observed, "Vitaphone helps the
story along with music that is fitting and well arranged. The
'Hallelujah I'm a Bum' rhythm helps the story's speed." Peggy Patton of
the Wisconsin News wrote "Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen (also playing in Wings)
and Louise Brooks play the featured roles. All do praiseworthy work. By
the way it is a sound picture and Wallace Beery speaks a few lines and
sings a song. His speaking voice is splendid." Frank Aston of the Cincinnati Post penned, "The direction is admirable. Vitaphonic sounds lend some extra force. Beery is heard singing." The San Diego Union
added, "Accompanied by a synchronized musical score of more than
average excellence, the picture provides an hour and a half of film
entertainment radically out of line with the general run of cinema
drama. It is pungent, powerful, appealing, masterfully directed and
superbly acted."
Where the sound version of the film played, newspaper advertisements often proclaimed something along the lines of
“Come hear Wallace Beery sing!” But what that song was is uncertain. The stout, gravel-voiced actor was not known as a crooner. Reliable sources, including the director's son, site one of two similar
titles, “Hark the Bells” or “Don’t You Hear Them Bells?” While at least
two newspaper advertisements for the film, including the NYC advertisement pictured above,
mention the songs "I Wonder Where She Sits at Night" and "Beggars of
Life."
At the time of the film's release, various 78 rpm recordings of “Beggars of Life” (by J. Keirn
Brennan and Karl Hajos) were released. The label
on some of those recordings describe it as the “Theme Song of
the Film." The best known and most popular of these recordings was by The
Troubadours (pictured here); others recordings were issued by Scrappy Lambert, Seger Ellis, and other
artists of the time.
Recordings of the theme song proved somewhat popular, and the availability of discs were advertised in newspapers in the United States, England and elsewhere. Below is a newspaper advertisement from Yorkshire, England which promotes the Troubadours' recording of the song.
Below is a video recording The Troubadours' version. It was issued as Victor 21683-B in 1928. Press play to listen. Otherwise, follow these links to hear versions by Scrappy Lambert or the Bar Harbor Society Orchestra. These versions and others can be heard as well on RadioLulu, the online radio station of the Louise Brooks Society.
Recordings of the "Beggars of Life" theme song are one of a small number of product tie-ins issued around the time of the film's release. Along with an illustrated photoplay edition of Jim Tully's book (the basis for the film), at least two different versions of the "Beggars of Life" sheet music were also issued, each with Wallace Beery on the cover.
There was even a music roll of "Beggars of Life" released at the
time. A copy of this recording, by Harold Wansborough on the QRS label (# 4437), is in the archive of the Louise Brooks Society. However, since it meant for playback on player piano, the LBS doesn't have a way to play or record it! (To get some sense of what this obsolete technology would have sounded like, a piano roll of Wansborough playing "C'est Vous" can be seen and heard here.)
"Beggars of Life" is a rather enjoyable song. The lyrics read:
"Beggars of life, beggars of life;
Gypsy hearts that are sighing
For skies of blue, sunlight and dew,
Out where swallows are flying.
Each one longing to be led
To a happy homestead,
Where love will cry,
'Don't pass me by!'
Beggars of life, come home!"
UPDATE Beggars of Life in the 21st century: According to Mark Kermode’s book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex (2012), The Dodge Brothers musical group once accompanied Beggars of Life at the inaugural New Forest Film Festival in 2010, where in accordance with the Festival theme of sustainability, the film projector at the event was powered by a bicycle! The musical group, which includes Kermode (a popular British film critic) and Neil Brand (a well known silent film accompaniest), has played to the film all over England, including once in 2014 at a historic screening at the famed Glastonbury Music Festival.
UPDATE: It
has just come to the attention of the Louise Brooks Society that a
Vitaphone disk for reel 1 of "Beggars of Life" still exists, and is in
the hands of a private collector.
Beggars of Life
is the opening night presentation at this
year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The acclaimed 1928 film,
directed by Oscar winner William Wellman and starring future Oscar
winner Wallace Beery, will be shown on Thursday, June 2nd at 7:00 pm at
the
historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. The film will be shown with
live musical accompaniment by the Mont
Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information, including ticket
availability, may be found at HERE.
This advertisement promotes sound versions of two great William Wellman films. For Beggars of Life,
the ad elicits viewers “Come hear Wallace Beery sing the theme song, ‘Beggars of Life,’ destined to be
as big a hit as ‘Ramona.’” Buffalo, New York – September 1928
Here is some trivia about the film:
— Beggars of Life (1924) is one of five autobiographical books Jim Tully
(1886 – 1947) wrote which detail his transient childhood; a
fictionalized memoir, it contains stories of the criminal tramp Oklahoma
Red and the prostitute Nancy, who shoots and kills her abusive father. A
play loosely based on these stories was woven into Outside Looking In
(1925), a Broadway drama by Maxwell Anderson which starred James Cagney
(as Oklahoma
Red) and Charles Bickford and was produced by a group that included the Nobel Prize winning dramatist Eugene
O’Neill. In 1925, Louise Brooks attended a performance of the play in the company
of Charlie Chaplin.
One of my treasures: Colleen Moore's first edition copy of Beggars of Life, with her bookplate and an
inscription by the author to the actress.
— Brooks disliked Tully. “He was the
most repulsive little Quilp I ever knew,” Brooks wrote years later to
film historian Kevin Brownlow. “Short and fat with his belly hanging
over his belt, yellow teeth to match his face and hair, full of the
vanity of Vanity Fair and H.L. Mencken.” Nevertheless, Tully —
who once served as Charlie Chaplin’s press agent, had his admirers,
including the famed critic H.L. Mencken. Robert E. Howard, who authored
the “Conan the Barbarian” stories, is oftentimes famously quoted as
remarking that of all the writers living and working in his time there
were only two whose work would endure — H. P. Lovecraft and Jim Tully.
— Brooks respected director William Wellman. Her account of the making of Beggars of Life is found in her Lulu in Hollywood
essay “On Location with Billy Wellman.”
— The Wellman connection to the film didn't end with the director. Included among the cast was
Jacque Chapin, Wellman’s then 17-year old brother-in-law. Wellman’s wife
served as script girl.
On location with Beggars of Life: from left to right, Jim Tully, Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen.
— Girls will be boys: By dressing her in men’s clothing, Beggars of Life was the first film to capitalize on Brooks’ androgynous appeal. The August 1928 issue of Motion Picture Classic
ran a full-page spread of Brooks in male attire, stating “Many a girl
has wished – or said she wished – she were a boy. Louise Brooks goes one
better and becomes one in her portrayal of one of the Beggars of Life
in Jim Tully’s screen story." Motion Picture Classic approved. The article went on to say, "Any time Louise wants a nickel for a cup
of coffee, she has only to come to us. In fact, if she’d let us have one
with her, we’d go as far as to wrench loose a dime.”
— Included in the cast in a supporting role is the African American actor Edgar Washington (1898 – 1970), a one-time prizefighter and noted semi-pro baseball
player (in the Negro Leagues) who entered films in the late Teens.
He was a pioneer among African-American actors, and was given the
nickname “Blue” by friend Frank Capra. The Afro-American newspaper wrote, “In Beggars of Life,
Edgar Blue Washington, race star, was signed by Paramount for what is
regarded as the most important Negro screen role of the year, that of
Big Mose. The part is that of a sympathetic character, hardly less
important to the epic of tramp life than those of Wallace Beery, Louise
Brooks and Richard Arlen, who head the cast.” Beggars of Life has a second baseball connection. Also in the film in a bit part
was Michael Donlin, an outfielder whose Major League career spanned from 1899 to 1914.
Beggars of Lifewas especially popular throughout the American West. Reno, Nevada – March 1929
Beggars of Life
is the opening night presentation at this
year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The acclaimed 1928 Louise Brooks film,
directed by Oscar winner William Wellman and starring future Oscar
winner Wallace Beery, will be shown on Thursday, June 2nd at 7:00 pm at
the
historic Castro Theater in San Francisco. The film will be shown with
live musical accompaniment by the Mont
Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. More information, including ticket
availability, may be found at HERE.
Beggars of Life was a big hit in the United States, and was perhaps even more popular abroad. Under its American title, documented
screenings of the film took place in Australia, Canada, China, France,
India, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, and the
British Isles (England, Isle of Man, and Scotland).
Elsewhere, this
motion picture was known to have been shown under other-language titles
including Bettler des Lebens (Austria); Meias indiscretag (Brazil); Mendigos da vida (Brazil); Mendigos de la Vida (Chile); Žebráci života (Czechoslovakia); Žebráky živote (Czechoslovakia); De Lovløses Tog (Denmark); Menschen Zijn Nooit Tevreden (Dutch East Indies); Les mendiants de la vie (France); I mendicanti della vita (Italy); Bettler des Lebens (Latvia); Bettlers des Lebens (Les Mendiants de la Vie) (Luxembourg); Mendigos de vida (Mexico); Menschen Zijn Nooit Tevreden (The Netherlands); Zwervers (The Netherlands); Ludzie bezdomni (Poland); Mendigos da vida (Portugal); Strada cersetorilor (Romania); and Mendigos de vida (Spain).
Here are vintage advertisements for Beggars of Life which ran when it showed around the world.