Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) Star struck classical composer

This summer I have been away on paternal leave for almost three months. Most of the time was spent in the south of France. Most French cities have a public médiateque, a library not only for books but for movies and records as well. This allows the curious person to get a fuller picture of whatever interest one may have. It's simply brilliant to be able to get several dimensions of a subject going at the same time. I guess some would call it synergy effects. You can for instance read a biography, then complete it with a movie or a soundtrack, take everything with you for further studies at home, all for free. In my case I wanted to know more about the obscure classical composer Charles Koechlin who lived alongside giants like Claude Debussy (born 1862) and Maurice Ravel (born 1875). Koechlin's teacher was Gabriel Fauré so I wanted to investigate why Koechlin, who had a very big output was so little known. Koechlin wrote in almost any style. Ranging from very strict almost Bach-like counterpoint to outbursts of very spaced-out modernism. One could easily describe him as somewhat of a musical chameleon and as such very hard to put in a certain genre. Koechlin was no salesman and not very good at promoting himself. He was a respected teacher, wrote several important books on musicology and also the first biography on Gabriel Fauré. Koechlin was a modest man, almost a recluse, who lived uniquely for his music. Some would say he was obsessed with music and tonality. in today's vocabulary, a music nerd. I'm not going to write his biography, it can be found here. So what has this to do with classic movies and early talkies in particular? In the early 1930's when Koechlin was in his mid 60's he decided to visit one of the Paris cinemas to see what talking pictures were like. Probably by coincidence he ended up watching a movie featuring the British born German actress Lilian Harvey. He became obsessed with her screen persona. The old man was completely star struck. He went to see her movies over and over again. Almost immediately he started to write music in her honor.

One of the movies Koechlin saw in 1934

The Lilian obsession led to many many nights in different Paris cinemas. While seated in the flickering darkness of the cinema admiring Lilian Harvey, Koechlin found that many of the musical scores were ill fitting. He started to take notes and in some cases even composing music he found better suited for particular scenes. This odd behavior led to several imaginary film scores. He sent several pieces of his music to Lilian Harvey who of course was flattered at first but soon realized the old Frenchman was obsessed with her. Koechlin was very timid and kept a low profile but when it came to Lilian Harvey nothing could stop him. At one point he even showed up at her summer residence in the south of France with hopes of proposing to her. After a while (and some serious stalking) I guess he soon realized marriage or even an affair with Harvey was out of the question. To my knowledge they never met in person. However, all the movie going produced some very fine music. In most cases Koechlin's movie related music is a beautiful cross breeding of high and low culture. The finest piece is probably The Seven Stars Symphony which isn't a symphony in classical sense but a collection of tone-poems representing seven movie stars of the day. Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Harvey, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Charlie Chaplin. Plese listen to some excerpts of it: The Seven Stars Symphony (1933) 3. Greta Garbo The Seven Stars Symphony (1933) 5. Marlene Dietrich Koechlin wrote music in homage to other movie stars as well, usually chamber music and often incorporating unusual instruments in classical music like the Saxophone, Celesta or even Ondes Martenot. When Jean Harlow passed away in 1937 he wrote this absolutely beautiful epitaph. Epitaph For Jean Harlow (1937) My favorites among Koechlin's music are the Danses Pour Ginger op 163 (1937-39) for two pianos, which in some cases have almost Satie-esque qualities. At the time movie-stars were often seen as pop-stars with questionable lifestyles by the cultural elite and almost as royalty by us others. To Koechlin the talking pictures and the movie stars served as a main inspiration for over ten years. Did he care he was a well respected composer and teacher in the high brow cultural community of Paris? Was he at any time afraid to fall from grace? Probably not. He just did what he had to do. What do you think? Thanks to Wellesz for the fine You Tube clips

June Clyde - Sweetheart of the early talkies

June Clyde can be seen in quite a few movies around 1930. She did mostly supporting roles, characters with names like Polly, Bonnie, Tess or even Toddy. Names normally used for the peppy younger sister in the family. The older sister was always more serious and didn't have a singing voice. I guess June Clyde can be safely put in the ingenue drawer without hesitation.

Unfortunately there's not much information on June Clyde anywhere to be found. She was born as June Tetrazini in S:t Joseph, Missouri in 1909, made her debut as Baby Tetrazini in vaudeville at age seven. In 1929 she was contracted by RKO providing great legs, a pretty face, singing and spunky dancing to some of their earliest talkies. The press people at RKO called her "The Luckiest Girl In Hollywood", mostly because of those famous legs of hers.

The earliest moving images to be found of June singing and dancing is as an uncredited speakeasy singer in her second movie, the crime drama Side Street opening in September 1929. June's only appearence in it is performing Take A Look At Her Now, written by Oscar Levant and Sidney Clare. The reason this clip is quite well known today is because George Raft makes one of his rare appearences as a dancer in it. Who said tough guys don't dance?



June moved on to bigger parts and close to top billing two months later in the hot musical Tanned Legs. Much have been said about this summer resort imbroglio, but in my opinion it captures the essence of 1929 really well. Despite some obvious technichal flaws it still is quite unique as it is one of the very few surviving pictures featuring Ann Pennington (who deserves a separate post). Tanned Legs is also one of only three movies in which we get to see Broadway legend Allen Kearns. Let's have a look at some of June Clydes musical contributions in Tanned Legs. She gets the first number "Come In The Water - The Water Is Fine, also written by Oscar Levant and Sidney Clare.



In the title number Tanned Legs, June and Ann Pennington does this perky duet filled with pep and great legs. Look for the big microphone at 0:26 - 0:28, dropping down twice in the upper left corner of the picture, a very early use of an overhead microphone hanging from a boom.



The next movie June did was Hit The Deck, a part color musical starring Jack Oakie.
Unfortunately it's totally lost. The only known surviving element from it is a small portion of the soundtrack. As it is impossible to even imagine what Hit The Deck was like we move straight on to The Cuckoos, opening in May 1930. The Cuckoos is a great Wheeler & Woolsey comedy that was their return to the screen after the success with Rio Rita discussed earlier. June Clyde has a quite important supporting role and gets to do two really sweet songs together with her love interest, the quite wooden but handsome Hugh Trevor. The first number, All Alone Monday is written by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar.



The second and bigger number is Wherever You Are written by Cliff Friend and Charles Tobias. June and Hugh Trevor again, swooning and planning a secret engagement. "Gee! That's a swell idea!"



At the dawn of the thirties June Clyde met director Thornton Freeland who's claim for fame lies firmly in directing Flying Down To Rio in 1933. They married and moved to England in 1934 and June continued to work on both stage and screen in England.
Here's an example of Junes European work, taken from the British movie Dance Band released in 1935. The movie tells the story of a band contest where the leader of one band, Buddy Rogers, also a US import, falls in love with his competition, the leader of an all girl orchestra. June of course plays this all girl band leader. I suspect June's character and the all girl band was modelled after Ina Ray Hutton & Her Melodears as there is a striking resemblence in both moves (wiggle) and attitude. Buddy and June also get to do a great number together, as double pianists in love. Lovey Dovey, written by Arthur Young.



According to the sparse information I have found, June Clyde and Thornton Freeland stayed married for life. They moved back to the US and settled down in Florida. They both left us in 1987.

Wheeler & Woolsey - A great comedy team

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey was the first comedy team more or less made for the talkies. They met on Broadway, in the 1927 Ziegfeld production of Rio Rita. After 494 performances the successful stage show was to be filmed by Radio Pictures (RKO), a studio formed in 1929, the same year as the movie was released.
Rio Rita was RKO’s third picture but their first major production, a production so grandiose their whole existence was at stake. Rio Rita consisted of fifteen massive reels of talkie extravaganza, the last five reels in glorious Technicolor. Luckily the film version became an even bigger hit than the Broadway show. Had Rio Rita been a flop there simply wouldn’t have been any RKO in the thirties, it was that important. Wheeler and Woolsey were the only players from the Broadway show that made it to the screen. One could say that the movie version of Rio Rita was conceived around their characters since quite a lot had been changed and adapted for the screen, their part was more or less left intact.

The Swedish poster to Rio Rita

Wheeler and Woolsey had somewhat similar upbringings. Both came out of profound poverty, were technically orphaned and forced to work very early. Both had also a history in vaudeville dating back to around 1915. Bert Wheeler was born in New Jersey 1895 and had done Chaplinesque numbers together with his wife in the eastern parts of the US. Robert Woolsey was born in California in 1889, started out as a promising jockey but this career ended when a horse fell and young Woolsey broke his leg. Eventually both Wheeler and Woolsey ended up on Broadway, Ziegfeld and Rio Rita.

Rio Rita was a huge success and Wheeler and Woolsey became big stars almost instantly. If the stage version made them famous, it was the movie version that made them real stars. They came to do 21 films for RKO between 1929 and 1937. In most of them they were supported by their perennial leading lady and co-star, the beautiful, petite and ever perky Dorothy Lee, who appeared in 13 of their features, almost making her a part of the team. The athletic Dorothy Lee was born in California in 1911 as Marjorie Millsap and started out as a successful LaCrosse player before singing with Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Dorothy Lee was one of the first actresses contracted by RKO and starred together with Morton Downey in the first RKO movie Syncopation (1929).

Dorothy Lee and Robert Woolsey in Half Shot At Sunrise (1930)

Wheeler and Woolsey were among the few comedy teams that did not combine the straight man with a funny man. Like Laurel and Hardy, Wheeler and Woolsey developed individual comic characters that provided an excellent contrast and were likable as well as amusing.  Wheeler played the traditional romantic lover, a sweet, naïve, almost childlike character, constantly eating either bananas, oranges, apples or other edibles dreaming of his Dolly. Woolsey on the other hand, the mastermind of the team, always with a cigar, horn-rimmed glasses and a penchant for loud clothes. Wheeler's feminine counterpart, often and best played by Dorothy Lee, combines the innocence of the ingenue with the roguishness of the flapper, creating a perfect match for Bert's personality.  Woolsey's feminine partners are often worldly-wise and boldly flirtatious, complementing his characterization. Today Robert Woolsey is often mistaken for George Burns who later used some of Woolsey’s trademarks including the cigar and glasses, and even some of the loud vests.

Here's a risqué little clip from Hips Hips Hooray (1934) where Wheeler and Woolsey tries out a new kind of lipstick, one with a flavor.

Wheeler and Woolsey are often compared to other comedy teams of the thirties, particularly Laurel and Hardy and The Marx Brothers, comparisons that are easy to make but essentially the three teams are very different. The general idea of The Marx Brothers is anarchy and their assaults upon a completely and hopelessly sane and rational society. The comedy of Laurel and Hardy is based on their failure, due to their incompetence, to adjust to a regulated world which they aspire to join.

But with Wheeler and Woolsey, the basis of their world of comedy lays in the belief that the whole world is a crazy place where anything can happen and where every institution is essentially insane. The result is that the comic view of their films emphasizes the absurdities of the institutions with which we live and take for granted as normal. Lawyers, divorce suits, the prison system, the military, big business, all are targets for satire in the Wheeler and Woolsey comedies. The music, song and dance always play a greater part in the Wheeler and Woolsey movies as well.

The team dissolved in 1938 with the premature death of Robert Woolsey. Neither Bert Wheeler nor Dorothy Lee had much success after Woolsey's passing. Bert Wheeler did appear on television now and then throughout the 50's and finally left us in 1968. Dorothy Lee retired from show business in the early 40's but stayed with us until 1999.

Let's enjoy some selected clips.

One of the most moving scenes in Rio Rita (1929) is this little number written for the movie version. Sweetheart We Need Each Other, written by Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy, performed by Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee.

Weeler and Woolsey figthing over Dorothy Lee in Dixiana (1930). We also get a wonderful romantic duet, My One Ambition Is You written by Harry Tierney and Anne Caldwell.

Also from Dixiana (1930), Here's Robert Woolsey on his own trying to impress the ladies, eventually ending up in song and dance, but also a glimpse of Bert Wheeler in drag. A Lady Loved A Soldier written by Harry Tierney and Anne Caldwell.

This totally insane number is taken from Hips Hips Hooray (1934). Keep On Doing What You're Doing, written by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar performed by Bert Wheeler, Dorothy Lee, Robert Woolsey and Thelma Todd. This song was actually intended for inclusion in the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup (1933) but ended up here instead. Swell!

2009 marks the 80th anniversary of the screen debut of Wheeler and Woolsey. Let's hope this means we will get loads of their movies on DVD this year.

Robert Woolsey's great grandson Robert Woolsey is continuing the family tradition and has a comedy site: Bob And Andrew.com