Lummox | |
---|---|
Directed by | Herbert Brenon Ray Lissner (assistant) |
Written by | Fannie Hurst (novel, dialogue) Elizabeth Meehan (adaptation) |
Produced by | Joseph M. Schenck |
Starring | Winifred Westover |
Cinematography | Karl Struss |
Edited by | Marie Halvey |
Music by | Jack Danielson Hugo Riesenfeld |
Production company | Feature Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English intertitles |
Lummox is a 1930 American pre-Code sound film directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Winifred Westover. It was released through United Artists, and based on a 1923 novel by Fannie Hurst. [1] [2]
Sound engineer Ed Bernds did not have fond memories of Brenon. "So many of the silent film directors were phonies. I didn't think highly of Herbert Brenon, for instance. He was the old, imperious type of director. Lordly, demanding. There was a scene in Lummox, where Winifred Westover was supposed to be betrayed by Ben Lyon, who has gotten her pregnant. He throws some money down and she takes the money and tears it up with her teeth. Well, Brenon demanded real money! And several takes. The poor propman was going around borrowing money from the crew. It was the Imperial syndrome of silent film directors." [3]
Berta Osberg, an uneducated Swedish servant, was given the derogatory nickname of Lummox, which means a slow or stupid person. Most people she met criticized her, but Rollo Farley, her employers' son, felt inspired by Berta, and wrote poetry about her, with lines that included "A tower of silence under the sea."
Rollo seduced Berta, and when she discovered she was pregnant, she left her employment without telling anyone of her condition. Her child was given to a wealthy family, and she sometimes learned about him from one of the family's servants. She was told the boy played the piano, and that his parents were sending him to Europe to study music. He was inspired to be a musician because of a concertina Bertha anonymously sent to her son.
Berta learned her son will be playing at Carnegie Hall. She bought a standing-room ticket and was able to see and hear her handsome son play the piano. At the end of the film Bertha was too old to be hired as a servant. She went into a bakery run by a kind widower, and was asked to live in his home and care for his motherless children. [4]
In order to portray the heavyset servant Westover ate fatty food, avoided exercise, and gained forty pounds. To help her appear to be a person who worked long hours of wearying labor the director gave her shoes soled with fifteen pounds of lead, and had her wear a dress with five pounds of lead weights in the collar, five pounds of lead in each of the sleeve cuffs, and ten pounds of weights in the hem of her skirt. [5]
She received praise for her acting, with one newspaper stating: "Winifred Westover’s characterization of the buxom servant girl, whose little world has been the drab atmosphere of cheap lodging houses, shabby humanity and cruel employers, reaches heights rarely ever attained." [6] It has at times been incorrectly reported that she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film. [7] Academy Awards databases make no mention of such a nomination however. [8]
A copy of the film survives at the British Film Institute, [9] and archival copies of the soundtrack are preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive on five discs. [10] The film had a Movietone soundtrack, however, discs were prepared for theaters not yet wired for sound-on-film.
Herbert Brenon was an Irish-born U.S. film director, actor and screenwriter during the era of silent films through 1940.
Fannie Hurst was an American novelist and short-story writer whose works were highly popular during the post-World War I era. Her work combined sentimental, romantic themes with social issues of the day, such as women's rights and race relations. She was one of the most widely read female authors of the 20th century, and for a time in the 1920s she was one of the highest-paid American writers. Hurst also actively supported a number of social causes, including feminism, African American equality, and New Deal programs.
Mary Brian was an American actress who made the transition from silent films to sound films.
Dorothy Janis was an American actress.
Laugh, Clown, Laugh is a 1928 American silent drama film starring Lon Chaney and Loretta Young. The movie was directed by Herbert Brenon and produced by Irving G. Thalberg for MGM Pictures. A sound version of this film was released in the second half of 1928 and featured a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was written by Elizabeth Meehan, based on the 1923 Broadway stage production Laugh, Clown, Laugh by David Belasco and Tom Cushing, which in turn was based on a 1919 play Ridi, Pagliaccio by Fausto Maria Martini.
Enchantment is a 1948 American romantic drama film directed by Irving Reis and starring David Niven, Teresa Wright and Evelyn Keyes. It was produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and based on the 1945 novel A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden.
Neptune's Daughter is a 1914 American silent fantasy film featuring the first collaboration between actress Annette Kellerman and director Herbert Brenon. It was based on Kellerman's idea of "a water fantasy movie with beautiful mermaids in King Neptune's garden together with a good love story." It was filmed by Universal in Bermuda during January and February, cost approximately $50,000, and grossed one million dollars at the box office.
Winifred Westover, birth name Winifred Heide, was an actress of the 1910s and 1920s. Her career included films made in Hollywood, Sweden and New York.
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is a 1929 American Pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay by Hanns Kräly is based on the 1925 play of the same name by Frederick Lonsdale which ran on Broadway for 385 performances. The film was remade twice, with the same title in 1937 and as The Law and the Lady in 1951.
The Racketeer is a 1929 American Pre-Code drama film. Directed by Howard Higgin, the film is also known as Love's Conquest in the United Kingdom. It tells the tale of some members of the criminal class in 1920s America, and in particular one man and one woman's attempts to help him. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper appears in a minor role. The film is one of the early talkies, and as a result, dialogue is very sparse.
Amy Roberta (Berta) Ruck was a prolific Welsh writer of over 90 romance novels from 1905 to 1972. She also wrote short stories, an autobiography and two books of memoirs. Her married name was Mrs Oliver Onions from 1909 until 1918, when her husband changed his name and she became Amy Oliver.
Harold Kyrle Money Bellew was an English stage and silent film actor. He notably toured with Cora Brown-Potter in the 1880s and 1890s, and was cast as the leading man in many stage productions alongside her. He was also a signwriter, gold prospector and rancher mainly in Australia.
Gentle Julia is a 1923 American silent romantic drama film based on the popular novel Gentle Julia by Booth Tarkington. Directed by Rowland V. Lee, the film starred Bessie Love. It was produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation, and is considered a lost film.
The Love Contract is a 1932 British musical film directed by Herbert Selpin and starring Winifred Shotter, Owen Nares and Sunday Wilshin. The screenplay concerns a young woman who becomes the driver of a wealthy stockbroker who lost her family's savings. It was based on a play by Jean de Letraz, Suzette Desty and Roger Blum. It was produced by Herbert Wilcox's company British & Dominions Film Corporation. Alternate language versions were made in French and in German, both of which were also directed by Selpin.
Spring Handicap is a 1937 British comedy film directed by Herbert Brenon and starring Will Fyffe, Maire O'Neill and Billy Milton. The film was made by the Associated British Picture Corporation at their Elstree Studios and based on the play The Last Coupon by Ernest E. Bryan.
Elizabeth Meehan was a British screenwriter who worked in both Britain and Hollywood.
Beloved is a 1934 American pre-Code drama film directed by Victor Schertzinger and written by Paul Gangelin and George O'Neil. The film stars John Boles, Gloria Stuart, Morgan Farley, Ruth Hall, Albert Conti and Dorothy Peterson. The film was released on January 22, 1934, by Universal Pictures.
Marie Halvey (1895–1967) was an American film editor active during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Fannie Bourke, also known as Fan Bourke or Fannie Burke, was an American stage and film actress, suffragist, and motion picture exhibitor. She worked on Broadway and appeared in silent films from the 1910s until the early 1930s.
Myrta Bonillas was an American actress of the silent film era known for her roles in films such as Shackles of Gold (1922), The Custard Cup (1923), The Claw (1927) and Lummox (1930).