Single Beds and Double Standards

Notorious Hollywood scandals, the rise of the Motion Picture Association, and the establishment of self censorship are covered in the third episode of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's 13-part documentary for Thames Television, "Hollywood." Prohibition was the law of the land, and incensed by scandals and perceived licentious behavior, puritanical Americans set their sights on Hollywood.

Brownlow and Gill extensively detail the career of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, a loveable and now nearly forgotten comedic star, and his fall from stardom after the death of Virginia Rappe, a young actress, at one of his parties in a San Francisco hotel. Tried in the press and prosecuted by an ambitious district attorney, Arbuckle was eventually acquitted by a jury, but his career was finished. However, generous clips of Arbuckle's work, both solo and with Mabel Normand, highlight his talents, which included female impersonation. Although another notorious scandal, the murder of director William Desmond Taylor, is glossed over, viewers can find a detailed account in A Cast of Killers, a book by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, that relates director King Vidor's investigation and eventual solution of the long-unsolved crime. A third less public scandal, the drug addiction of matinee idol Wallace Reid, is less well known; after an on-set accident, a doctor prescribed morphine for Reid's pain, the handsome actor became addicted, and the studio facilitated his addiction to maintain his value to the company.

Clips from Reid's films introduce the less well-known actor, and extensive footage from Cecil B. DeMille's original "The Ten Commandments" illustrates the penchant for wallowing in on-screen sin, before addressing the wages of such behavior. The episode briefly deals with the formation of the Motion Picture Association, the selection of Will Hays as head, and the establishment of a self censorship that frowned on such behaviors as illegitimacy, women drinking, and married couples sharing a bed. Hollywood fan magazines are mentioned, as well as the countless young women drawn to Hollywood by dreams of stardom; many of them ended up as high-class prostitutes or in stag films. Well-chosen clips from Colleen Moore's "Ella Cinders" provide a family-friendly view of one such woman drawn to Hollywood in pursuit of an elusive stardom.

Like other "Hollywood" episodes, the interviews with stars, writers, and directors are the jewels of the series. Adela Rogers St Johns discusses the Arbuckle scandal, Viola Dana talks of the parties at the Hollywood Hotel and the injustice of the Arbuckle accusation, while writer Sam Marx, actresses Gloria Swanson and Colleen Moore, and actor Ben Lyon add depth with their recollections. The third episode in the Brownlow-Gill series is solid and engaging, although it definitely suffers from slights to the Desmond Taylor murder, to the influence of fan magazines in creating star myth, and to Hays and the Motion Picture Association; however, the quibbles are slight, and the episode, like the series, is essential viewing for silent film enthusiasts.

This episode is about the hypocrisy that was invading Hollywood in their efforts to manage public perceptions. In other words, what actors REALLY did was far, far less important than what people THINK they did! So, if the media crucifies Fatty Arbuckle (which is examined in depth in this show), then Hollywood follows suit. If, on the other hand, it can be swept under the rug (such as with William Desmond Taylor and Wallace Reid), ALL THE BETTER!! A great example was the appointing of Will Hays to represent the new censorship arm in Hollywood--a job that actually had little in the way of actual enforcement and soon gave way to the so- called 'Pre-Code Era'--the bawdy and amoral period in Hollywood in which practically ANYTHING might be in the plots of their films! Well done, though I wish the film had been a bit more clear about the lack of enforcement--though I can understand why they didn't explore this further, as it really got MUCH worse during the early talking picture days and the show is about the silents. Well worth seeing because it was made so well, so exactingly and so thoroughly.

NOTE: There is a fair amount of nudity in this one, as it talks about underground/stag films as well. Just giving you a heads up!

Hollywood: Single BEds and Double Standards (1980)

**** (out of 4)

Third film in the documentary series takes a look at how quickly Hollywood fell to its knees and almost crumbled after a notorious scandal that ripped through front pages across the country. The documentary starts off showing Charles Chaplin and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle as they're described as one of the most loved men and the other the most despised. We then get a brief bio of Arbuckle, which quickly turns to September 1921 when actress Virginia Rappe was killed at a party thrown by Arbuckle and even though he was obviously innocent of any crime, the newspapers ran stories of a brutal rape and murder. Arbuckle would face three juries and finally be found innocent but it was too late as his career was over and Hollywood was threatened as moral folks across the country got tired of this "sin town". To keep their doors open, the studios hired Will Hays to head the Motion Picture Producers Association, which called for a morality clause but in reality the double standards were thicker than they were before the Arbuckle case. Of the three episodes so far, this here is clearly the best of the bunch as it's still amazing to here the details about the Arbuckle case and see how certain newspapers pretty much made up anything they wanted and after he was found innocent these same newspapers would pretty much just hide the story. It's also interesting because a lot of people of today think the out of control behaviors in Hollywood are something new but this here shows that the drinking, drugs and sex were going on from the very beginning. The documentary also focuses on the many young girls who came to Hollywood to become stars but often found themselves working as prostitutes. We even get a few clips from a stag film, JAZZ BABIES, that features some of these young women who didn't make it big. There's no doubt this era was one of the most fascinating in the history of Hollywood and these 54-minutes do a terrific job at giving you a rundown of everything. Fans of silent films will certainly want to check this out as will those just interested in seeing the (early) dark side of Hollywood.

... and how it was unleashed on comic actor Roscoe Arbuckle and ushered in an era of self censorship into Hollywood.

The first half of the episode is concerned with the Roscoe Arbuckle case involving his alleged rape of actress Virginia Rappe that was supposedly so violent that it culminated in her death due to a ruptured bladder days later. This allegedly happened during a Labor Day weekend party being held at a San Francisco hotel by Arbuckle and two of his friends. It was the original "bonfire of the vanities" in which the press printed big headlines about Arbuckle's alleged debauchery, the local district attorney saw a chance to make a name for himself by bringing down such a big star, and then there was "the crowd", just as dangerous and easily swayed as it always has been. Arbuckle went through three trials before he was ultimately acquitted with even an unprecedented apology being issued by the jury to Arbuckle.

By the time this happened, though, nobody was paying attention anymore, and the land was calling for Hollywood to clean itself up or shut down. The industry was not so entrenched that this could not have happened at this point either. The studio execs called on postmaster general Will Hays to be the industry censor, and he managed to convince all of the local and state censorship boards that Hollywood would police itself. But first, there had to be a sacrificial lamb, and that was Arbuckle, who at the peak of his career was ousted from motion pictures despite the acquittal which nobody remembered anyways.

The rest of the episode is about how Hollywood continued to broach taboo subjects and even have licentious scenes by showing an orgy, such as in De Mille's Ten Commandments, but then saying "BUT THAT WAS WRONG!". There were other taboos such as not showing women drinking, holding kisses to three seconds, etc. But the censorship would not become severe until the sound era starting in 1934 with the Joe Breen era which would usher a naive viewpoint of life into the movies that would last through the 1950s and not die out completely until the mid 1960s. But that's another story.

I'd recommend this one, but do realize that some of the statements made about Virginia Rappe and about Arbuckle are now known to be wrong. I would point the interested viewer in the direction of the book "Room 1219", which has its problems too, but is a more complete picture of what happened.

This episode is interesting as history but it also resonates with certain, more recent events. Around 1915, wild parties were the norm. Many of the actors and actresses at the center of the social world were making money for the first time. A secondary concentric circle consisted of wannabees, including small-part actresses like the attractive Virginia Rapp, a name she pronounced "Rappé." The talking heads were were period witnesses described her as not a tramp but a girl who did what she had to do in order to become better known.

One of the most famous comedians of the time was comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He was Chaplin's equal for a period. On a vacation in San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel, Arbuckle threw one of the parties he was famous for. He retired to his room with Virginia Rapp. She later died of a ruptured bladder. An acquaintance came forward and had Arbuckle charged. The charge was murder. The vision was that the notoriously plump Arbuckle had raped the virginal girl, stifling her screams, and had ruptured her bladder in the process. Physicians testified that there was no evidence of rape. Virginia Rapp was no virgin; she'd already had several abortions.

But it didn't matter. Rumors circulated that Arbuckle had violated her with a liquor bottle. The newspapers, particularly those of William Randolph Hearst, leaped on the story and built it into a fairy tale of unbridled lust and homicide. "Tried by the press and convicted by the public," says a contemporary. The scandal spread across the world, or at least as far as the movies reached. Arbuckle was round condemned, though the charge was reduced from murder to manslaughter. The DA was running for reelection and made the most of his opportunity to become a celebrity, as did Virginia Rapp's friend. Arbuckle became a black joke and was imprisoned.

I said that this resonates with more recent events and I'm thinking of Bill Cosby, a comedian now in his seventies, charged by dozens of women of having given them liquor and drugs thirty years ago and then raping them while they were unconscious.

As I write this, the matter is a monumental scandal, and the aging comedian is the subject of late-night talk show jokes. The editorial pages and the TV screens are filled with overwrought citizens whose assumptions now include pedophilia and, if this were twenty years ago, probably Satanism. There is no evidence that Cosby did anything that other celebrities of the period were doing with groupies and eager fans, but it doesn't matter.