the celluloid fairy
Hal
Conklin and H. M. Walker (writers), Ralph Ceder (director) The Soilers /
1923
The
1923 silent western The Spoilers directed by Lambert Hillyer was an
enormous hit, remade in 1930 with Gary Cooper playing the hero and in 1942 with
John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich playing the leads. In the 1923
version, the cast included Milton Sills, Anna Q. Nilsson, and Noah Beery, Sr.
The original plot, based on a novel by Rex
Beach, is somewhat complicated, but boils down to a simple matter of claim
jumping in the Alaskan gold fields, in particular a wealthy mine called the
Midas, originally claimed by Roy Glennister and his partner Dexter, but
illegally taken from them through the auspices of a crooked state judge and the
Nome, Alaska attorney, both of whom are paid nicely by Alex McNamara for their
evil doings. Meanwhile the judge’s niece, Cherry Malotte (Nilsson) has become
attracted to McNamara, but when she perceives his evil doings, switches her
love to Glennister, who is such an innocent that he cannot even bring himself
to allow a gunfight to be waged in her presence, particularly with Malotte
being part of the judge’s family. Soon after the Duke appears in blackface,
later in Dietrich’s feather boa, and after in half drag. But we’ll speak of
that at another time.
Only have he is jailed and freed on the
sly by Malotte does he seek revenge, fighting it out in the local saloon and,
of course, winning back his property and the hand of Malotte.
I describe this only because that same
year, Stan Laurel starred in a parodic version of this film, The Soilers,
a kind of Saturday Night Live-like satiric skit. Directed by Ralph Ceder
for the Hal Roach Studios, this version stars Laurel as Bob Canister (in the Glennister
role) and James Finlayson as Smacknamara (as the McNamara villain). Canister’s
sweetheart, Helen Chesty, in this rendition making only a brief appearance, is
played by Ena Gregory.
In this case the director allows his
central hero to get down to business soon after the mine is stolen from him and
Dexter by Smacknamara and his gang, meeting up with him again in his offices
above the local saloon and demanding they fight it out by fisticuffs.
The humor of this scene depends on the
fact that neither of the wranglers are the typical macho types represented by
Cooper, Wayne, or Scott, but are themselves weaklings, trying to best one
another with a seemingly endless series of embraces as they destroy the
contents of Smacknamara’s office before spilling downstairs into the saloon. Neither
one can get the better of the other as they pointlessly struggle, biting one
another’s arms, slinging pots and other pieces of furniture instead of pies in
the face, and finally ending it all it a ridiculous pillow fight. Their battle,
in short, appears less as a western-like donnybrook and more like the postures
of a dance or even a kind of absurd series of sexual couplings as time and
again they reach out to get hold of one another, flailing their arms into mid-air
before pulling their adversary to the ground once again, turning and tumbling
each over the other like as in a slightly berserk wrestling match. As artists such
as Thomas Eakins, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Robert Longo have long made
clear, visually there is little difference between two males intensely fighting
and two males rolling in sexual ecstasy across their bed.
Soon after he re-enters to reach up for a
shirt remaining amidst the pandemonium of papers, carefully dons it tucking it
into his tight denims, straightens his cowboy hat, and primps for a few moments
before the mirror, the fighters pausing until he leaves to resume their own activities,
as if he has indeed caught them in an untoward act.
Downstairs, on the other hand, the
patrons literally ignore their physical efforts, and when Laurel finally wins
by the accidental spillage from a high shelf of several bottles upon Smacknamara’s
now dizzy noggin, he enters the street with his shirt half torn off as if imitating
Marlon Brando after having been beaten up behind the shipyards of On the
Waterfront, announcing to cowboys about to enter the chaos-riven joint that
he has “won.”
They appear to be equally unimpressed as
those within and quickly walk around him as if he was a blathering madman.
On the balcony upstairs, however, the effeminate
office clerk, now dressed up as if ready for a night on the town, looks down at
him while batting his eyes as if telegramming his love and admiration while putting
forward his hands as if about to play patty-cake, shouting “My hero!”
Canister looks his way only to dismiss
his advances, to which the campy cowboy replies by picking up a potted plant
and dropping it upon the battler’s head, knocking him out just as Canister had
Smacknamara. One might almost expect this celluloid fairy to suddenly swoop down
and scoop up the body, but the local garbage cleaners accomplish a far more
rapid removal of the remains.
Los
Angeles, September 26, 2020
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review and My Queer Cinema blog (September
2020).
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