October 7, 1933: "Wild Boys of the Road" Premieres

October 7, 1933: Wild Boys of the Road premieres, directed by William Wellman. It becomes one of the defining films of the Great Depression. Its original trailer billed it as "A Thousand Times More Sensational Than 'I AM A FUGITIVE'" -- a reference to a film from the previous year, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang.

Two boys named Eddie and Tommy decide to drop out of high school and run away from home, to ease their parents' burden of having to care for them, and to find work on their own. They meet a girl named Sally, trying to reach her aunt in Chicago. It turns out that the aunt runs a brothel, and it gets raided by the police shortly after they arrive, and they ride the rails again.

Eddie and Tommy hear from a girl named Lola that the train's brakeman has raped her. They beat him, and, as he tries to escape from them, falls off the train to his death. Eddie, Tommy and Sally jump off the train as it reaches Columbus, Ohio, but Tommy crashes into a switch stand, and falls in front of an oncoming train. He almost gets out of the way in time, but his foot is run over and has to be amputated. While in Cleveland, Eddie steals a prosthetic leg from a store, and their homeless encampment gets shut down by the police.

Eddie, Tommy and Sally get to New York. Eddie gets a job, on the condition that he wear a coat, which will cost him $3.00, which he doesn't have. (With inflation, it's about $67 in 2022 money.) While panhandling, he meets 2 men who offer him $5.00 to deliver a note to a movie theater cashier. But it's a note saying that the men are robbing the theater's box office. Eddie and the robbers are arrested, but the judge at his trial is moved by his speech, and promises to help Eddie, Tommy and Sally.

This film came out a few months before the Hays Code "got serious," and some of its scenes would not have been allowed thereafter. So it is regarded as a "Pre-Code Classic." Aside from Sterling Holloway as Ollie, none of the "boys" became a film star as an adult. The rapist brakeman was played by an uncredited Ward Bond, who became famous for his Western roles.

Actually, as has so often been the case with actors playing teenagers, they were too old for the role. Frankie Darro, who played Eddie, was 15; but Edwin Phillips, who played Tommy, was 22. So was Ann Hovey, who played Lola. Dorothy Coonan, who played Sally, was about to turn 20 -- and, the next year, married the director, and was known as Dorothy Wellman from then on.

William Wellman had directed the 1st film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, the 1927 silent film Wings. He went on to direct the original version of A Star Is Born in 1937, and The High and the Mighty in 1954. Despite the 17-year age difference between himself and Dorothy, they remained married until his death in 1975. Dorothy lived on until 2009. Frankie Darro died in 1976, Edwin Phillips in 1981, Ann Hovey in 2007.

*

October 7, 1933 was a Saturday. The World Series was decided in Game 5, when Mel Ott homered in the top of the 10th inning, for a 4-3 New York Giants victory over the Washington Senators. I have a separate entry for that event.

The only other scores on this historic day were in college football:

* The University of Michigan, with future President Gerald Ford as center on both their offensive and their defensive line, beat Michigan State, 20-6 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines would go on to be Big Ten and National Champions.

* Ohio State beat Virginia, 75-0 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Notre Dame and Kansas played to a 0-0 tie at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. It was the 1st game of a bad season for Notre Dame: They went 3-5-1, although they did close the season with a win over Army at Yankee Stadium.

* The University of Pittsburgh won their annual "Backyard Brawl" with West Virginia, 21-0 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* Alabama and Mississippi played to a 0-0 tie at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. 'Bama would end up winning the Championship of the Southeastern Conference, in this 1st season of SEC history.

* Most SEC schools had previously been members of the Southern Conference, which was also a progenitor of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Duke won the Southern Conference, including, on this day, beating Wake Forest, 22-0 at Duke Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. In 1967, the stadium would be renamed Wallace Wade Stadium, for Duke's coach at this time, and previously a National Championship winner at Alabama.

* Arkansas beat Texas Christian University (TCU), 13-0 at The Hill in Fayetteville, Arkansas, their home field before Razorback Stadium was built in 1938. They finished 1st in the Southwest Conference, but it was discovered that they had unknowingly used an ineligible player. The SWC did not recognize a champion for that season, but since intentional misrepresentation on the Razorbacks' part could not be proven, that denial was the only punishment they received.

 

* Nebraska beat Texas, 26-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Cornhuskers went on to win the Big Six Conference, which would become the Big Eight (and, later, most of the Big Twelve).

* Stanford beat Santa Clara, 7-0 at the old Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California. Stanford and Oregon were named Co-Champions of the Pacific Coast Conference, forerunner of the Pac-12, but Stanford was selected as the league's Rose Bowl participant.

* Army beat Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 32-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* Navy beat Mercer University, 25-6 at Thompson Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Lehigh, 39-0 at Baker Field in the Inwood section of Upper Manhattan. The Lions went 8-1, and were invited to play Stanford in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. Columbia won, 7-0, in a great upset. It remains the last time that any of the teams now in the Ivy League participated in a bowl game.

* New York University lost to West Virginia Wesleyan, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. Located in Buckhannon, West Virginia, WVW now plays in NCAA Division II. Even at that time, this was considered an upset.

* City College of New York had an embarrassing loss of their own, 33-0 to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at (Class of 18) '86 Field in Troy, New York, across the Hudson River from Albany. RPI now play in NCAA Division III.

* Fordham beat Muhlenberg, 57-0 at Murphy Field in The Bronx. Muhlenberg now compete in NCAA Division III.

* In New Jersey, Princeton beat Amherst, 40-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton. Amherst now compete in NCAA Division III.

* And Rutgers beat Providence College, 21-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick. Providence suspended their program after the 1941 season, due to World War II, and have never restarted it.

August 12, 1927: The Film "Wings" Premieres

Left to right: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen

August 12, 1927: Wings premieres, directed by William Wellman, starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen as combat pilots in World War I, rivals for the affections of a woman played by Clara Bow, who became a superstar earlier in the year by starring in It. She was still "The It Girl."

Gary Cooper had a small role in the film, launching him to stardom. Two months later, The Jazz Singer opened the door for talking pictures, and Wings almost immediately became a relic.

On May 16, 1929, the 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held, honoring the best films of 1927 and 1928 -- a last gasp for the Silent Film Era. Wings was awarded Best Picture, and it remains the only silent film so honored. (The Artist was awarded Best Picture for 2011, but became a "talkie" at the end.)

Bow died in 1965, Wellman in 1975, Arlen in 1976. Rogers, known as "America's Boyfriend" for his romantic leading roles, married silent film legend Mary Pickford in 1937, following her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. They remained together until her death in 1979. Rogers lived on until 1999.

The 1990-97 NBC sitcom Wings was also about pilots, but, aside from the title, bears no resemblance to the silent film.

*

August 12, 1927 was a Friday. Country singer Porter Wagoner was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers -- or, rather, the Brooklyn Robins, as they were known while Wilbert Robinson was their manager from 1914 to 1931 -- 7-6 at the Polo Grounds. The Robins led 6-0 going to the bottom of the 8th, and blew it. Mel Ott was batting in the bottom of the 10th inning, and hit a ground ball to 1st base, where Babe Herman, normally an outfielder, proved he couldn't play 1st base, either, allowing Rogers Hornsby to score the winning run. Hornsby had 4 RBIs in the game, and Bill Terry went 4-for-5 on the day.

* The Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-6 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Ty Cobb, now with the A's, proved he wasn't just playing out the string, going 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Nor was former Brooklyn star Zack Wheat playing out the string, as he went 4-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-3 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. "Sunny" Jim Bottomley hit a home run to win the game in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds were not scheduled. At the time, Babe Ruth had 36 home runs, and Lou Gehrig had 38.

August 2, 1939: "Beau Geste" Premieres

Left to right: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston

August 2, 1939: Beau Geste premieres, directed by William Wellman, and based on P.C. Wren's 1924 novel of 3 English brothers joining the French Foreign Legion in the years before World War I.

Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston star as the brothers. Among the other actors are Susan Hayward, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, and, just 13 years old, Donald O'Connor as the child version of Cooper's character, Michael "Beau" Geste.

This film was yet another reason why 1939 was Hollywood’s greatest year -- but the trailer's tag "Savage Desert Tribesmen!" shows that this was well before the era of sensitive American movies.

It had first been filmed in 1926 (silent, of course), and would be again in 1966 (the 1st color version). It has been parodied many times, including by Laurel & Hardy (Beau Hunks, 1931), the Carry On films (Follow That Camel, 1967), and the Peanuts comic strip (one of Snoopy's many fantasies). In 1977, a parody film was made, The Last Remake of Beau Geste. In spite of that title, the BBC would make a serious miniseries (or a "serial," as they'd say in Britain) in 1982.

The French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army created to allow foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831, at a time when many people in Europe were trying to escape a hard life in their own countries.

Legionnaires are today renowned as highly trained soldiers whose training focuses on traditional military skills and on the Legion's strong esprit de corps, as its men come from different countries with different cultures. Consequently, training is often described as not only physically challenging, but also very stressful psychologically.

Legionnaires may apply for French citizenship after 3 years' service, or immediately after being wounded in the line of duty. This latter provision is known as "Français par le sang versé": "French by spilled blood."

In the English-speaking world, the Legion is best known from old movies such as Beau Geste. But in the rest of the world, it has never recovered from its reputation of being part of the Armée d’Afrique, committing terrible acts in the Algerian War of 1954 to 1962.

*

August 2, 1939 was a Wednesday. Horror film director Wes Craven was born. So was someone who made a true horror: George  W. Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snow.

This was also the day that Albert Einstein and Leo Szilárd sent their letter concerning the building of an atomic bomb to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And it was the day the Hatch Act became law. I have separate entries for those events.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 7-2 at Yankee Stadium. Bill Dickey hit a home run, but Atley Donald did not have good stuff.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Joe Bowman pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 12-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Mel Ott went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Cleveland Indians won the opener, 8-2. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 5-4. Red Sox rookie sensation Ted Williams went 0-for-6, although he did draw 2 walks.

* A doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Athletics won the 1st game, 13-4. The Chicago White Sox won the 2nd game, 2-1.

* The Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The St. Louis Cardinals were supposed to play the Boston Bees (as the Braves were known from 1936 to 1940) at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, but were rained out. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Cards swept, 5-1 and 4-3.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, but were rained out. It was rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on September 14. The Cubs swept, 13-1 and 5-2.