20's Scandals, Ten Commandments and Christmas Time

This Week
Let's go to the Movies: Hollywod Scandals
Writers Notebook: Christmas Time

Hollywood Silents 1914-1929 (Part 10)

During the early 20's two headline grabbing scandals hit the Hollywood film community and they were both major and tragic. In September of 1921 Fatty Arbuckle was accused of rape and in February 1922 popular film director William Desmond Taylor was murdered in his apartment.
The Arbuckle case was a tragedy on two levels, a young actress Virginia Rappe died several day after attending an Arbuckle party. The second tragedy was the lie that doomed Fatty Arbuckle's film career.
Arbuckle and two of his pals, actor Lowell Sherman and cameraman Fred Fischbach threw a party for some of their friends at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. One of the guests, an aspiring actress, Virginia Rappe drank too much during the evening and became seriously ill. The hotel doctor was called and he concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication and gave her morphine to calm her.
Ms. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident. The morning following the party a rumor was started, by Maude Delmont, that Arbuckle had raped her friend. And even after Ms. Rappe's own physician found no evidence of rape Maud Delmont continued the lie by telling the police and others that Fatty Arbuckle had raped her friend.
One day after Virginia Rappe was admitted to the hospital she died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.
Following her death bold headlines continued the lie that misled the whole country into believing that Fatty Arbuckle was a rapist and a monster.
Gossip columns printed stories that he had used ice to evoke sex while others indicated that a coke or champagne bottle had been used on the victim. There were no facts, but the gossip and rumors made titillating stories for their readers.
Arbuckle endured three manslaughter trials and was eventually acquitted by a jury and given a written apology. But the big lie had done so much damage that even when the truth came out – Arbuckle's career was finished. The scandal had taken its tole and he never got back to his work or won the praise for what he had done as a pioneer comedian in Hollywood motion pictures.

William Desmond Taylor directed more than fifty films and was at one time the president of The Motion Picture Directors Association. He directed some of the great stars of the era including Mary Pickford, Wallace Reid, Dustin Farnum and Mary Miles Minter.
At 7:30 am on the morning of February 2, 1922 the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments in the Westlake Park area of Los Angeles. The forty nine year old film director had been shot in the back. An exact motive for the killing was never established although there was a sizable amount of cash known to be missing from his apartment.
During the course of the investigation sex became part of the story and more than a dozen individuals were eventually named as suspects. Newspaper reports at the time were sensational, speculative and sometimes fabricated in order to add intrigue to the murder.
Since the case was never solved, many of the stories in true crime fiction through the years have managed to keep the William Desmond Taylor murder case and the Hollywood scandal alive.

But even during those high profile scandals Hollywood managed to produce some memorable films.
Blood and Sand a Paramount Film with Rudolph Valentino.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a Universal Film, with Lon Chaney. That was one of the most memorable films of the silent era because "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney gave one of the most powerful performances of his career.


The Prisoner of Zenda a Metro Film with Lewis Stone and Alice Terry.

And Cecil B. DeMille's first really big film, The Ten Commandments, for Paramount Pictures with Theodore Roberts, Estelle Taylor and Richard Dix.
The film won high approval from Variety.
'The opening Biblical scenes of the Ten Commandments are irresistible in their assembly, breadth, color and direction; they are enormous and just as attractive. Cecil B. DeMille puts in a thrill with the opening of the Red Sea for Moses to pass through with the children of Israel...' And the review continues to praise the film.
(To Be Continued)

Writers Notebook:

Christmas Time:
Twas the Night Before Christmas, and I’m Dreaming of, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Sleigh Bells Ring, Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Do You Hear What I Hear, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Joy To The World, A Child is Born, and it’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, and Jolly Old Saint Nick, more rapid than eagles his coursers they came; and he whistled and shouted and called them by name; ‘Now, Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!’ and I heard him exclaim er he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight.”


How Did the Wise Men Know?
By
Lenora Smalley
I pondered the manger on the mantle
porcelain figures poured in flowing lines,
Mary, face encased in a blue draped shawl
reaches out to the baby in the crèche,
shepherd, cape turned back in haste
holds a lamb across his chest,
Joseph lifting a lamp leans forward
to get a  closer peek , surrounded
by cattle- oxen, donkey and sheep,
--and three wise men, so reverent
in purple, ermine-trimmed traveling robes
bring gifts of myrrh, frankincense and gold.
How did the wise men know?
How did they know which star to follow?
How did they know which road to take?
In those days gold was the gift given to a King,
frankincense was meant for One called divine.
And myrrh? Myrrh was used for wounds and pain.
How did they know which gifts to bring?

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Www.tombarnes39.com

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