Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

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David B Pearson
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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:14 pm

Gregg Rickman wrote:Hi, a question for David Pearson. Where did Karl Thiede publish the real amount of money Keaton's UA releases made?


Thiede released the numbers regarding Steamboat Bill Jr. for an article in the Keaton Chronicle in 2005. As the actual gross ($722,000) was slightly twice what Dardis posted ($358,000), it seems logical that The General and College would have comparable domestic vs. foreign grosses. Using the same scale -- 49.6D vs. 50.4F -- The General (Dardis $474,264) would have a projection number of $956,177, and College (Dardis $423,000) would be projected at grossing $852,822.

Now, these numbers of The General are only an educated guess... but they would be in line with the numbers Buster had been consistently grossing until Battling Butler, and from The Cameraman onward. Because we can't be sure until Theide should grace us with the final numbers -- I tend to place the estimate towards the conservative side, and therefore lowered the estimate to $900,000 for The General. But $1,000,000 estimate is just as likely (if not more so), with a bell curve probability working either way. Therefore, it most probably topped Battling Butler's $749,000.

Regardless, The General is bound to have made a hell of a lot more money claimed Dardis claimed, as the one certainty in all this is that we know Dardis released incomplete numbers on the Keaton UA silents. Considering Dardis repeatedly tries to hammer home the point that The General and other Keaton UA silents were financial "failures," and then uses these "failures" as the basis for Buster losing his independence, his drinking, and ultimately his ruin as a Hollywood film star -- it looks like Dardis had one serious agenda going on. It looks like Dardis, finding no major reason for the major crisis in Keaton's life for his bio (ergo novel), decided to create one of his own with "creative accounting."

Gregg Rickman wrote:I appreciated the info in your post very much. As Keaton always said in his interviews that THE GENERAL made about a million, it's good to know that he wasn't that wrong. Where did Dardis admit that his info in his bio was misleading?


"All earnings reported for the Keaton films distributed by MGM are worldwide; the figures for the United Artists releases are for the United States, Canada, Cuba and all of Central and South America."
-- Keaton: The Man Who Wouldn't Lie Down, page vii (in the "Acknowledgments," directly following five long paragraphs of the typical thank yous.)

Looks like Dardis was trying to hide that little tidbit, doesn't it?

And the note is only in the later editions of the book, such as the infamous 1996 Limelight edition with "numerous factual corrections" that STILL misspells the name of the town Buster was born in, even though Rudi Blesh's bio spelled it right 14 years earlier.

If you only have an earlier edition of Dardis, such as the 1979 edition Scribner, you are out of luck. He hadn't slipped it in the book yet.

Anyway, I regret going on about a VERY BAD book on a thread that should be praising a VERY GOOD one.
Last edited by David B Pearson on Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Gregg Rickman
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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gregg Rickman » Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:20 pm

Thank you, Mr Pearson. I agree that this thread should be dwelling more on Mr Walker's book! I have the '79 hc of the Dardis. I am still curious as to where Dardis (and Thiede) got their info on Keaton's grosses and if the Metro figures were broken down into domestic and foreign returns (which would speak to what Pearson is discussing). But that's another thread.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gary Johnson » Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:34 pm

SAY!!!!
It looks like people do like talking about film finances somewhat.......after all.

Gary J.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:40 pm

Gary Johnson wrote:SAY!!!!
It looks like people do like talking about film finances somewhat.......after all.

Gary J.


Only when somebody proudly makes a FUBAR with the numbers.

DBP

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gary Johnson » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:57 pm

Well David, you're putting a lot into these anti-Dardis numbers. I never quoted his figures. I never cared for his book and I don't think I ever finished his book because I didn't care for his writing style. I was merely stating an accepted fact (meaning!!...a fact that has been accepted because facts have always backed it up) that Keaton's three features he made for UA did not make the same profits that those distributed by Metro did. With the convoluted distribution system that UA used in the Twenties it seems that the only people that came out with real profits in those early years were the original partners. All of the other stars, from Swanson to Talmadge to Valentino - and Keaton! - found dwindling profits because they were acting as their own producers, supplying up front costs and securing their profits after UA took their cut. In the movie business of today that's known as a backdoor deal and no big stars do it anymore. Keaton's budget on "The General" has been estimated between 600,00 to 750,00. It eventually brought in less than that. Now if you have some brand new revisionist figures that show that Keaton's masterpiece actually brought in "Godfather" type numbers and that he was ceremoniously dropped from his independence status two years later for being too overly successful then I'd love to hear that and I will cancel my subscription to UFO Today.

Gary J.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:03 pm

Gary Johnson wrote:Well David, you're putting a lot into these anti-Dardis numbers. I never quoted his figures. I never cared for his book and I don't think I ever finished his book because I didn't care for his writing style. I was merely stating an accepted fact (meaning!!...a fact that has been accepted because facts have always backed it up) that Keaton's three features he made for UA did not make the same profits that those distributed by Metro did.


Well Gary, I do read books on Keaton, and I think I've read most every book on Keaton (in English) all the way through -- including the footnotes -- whether the book was good or bad. Most of them repeatedly. So I can say this with some authority: those so-called FACTS you are babbling aren't facts at all... as the foundation for all later claims regarding those numbers date back to what Dardis wrote in 1979. Kevin Brownlow, for example, accepted Dardis' numbers at face value in 1988, and it looks like everybody else took those numbers for granted as well.

I will say it bluntly:

The claims that Keaton's UA films made less than than the Metro films did are HORSEPUCKY, because there's simply nothing to back up that claim, except some numbers Tom Dardis posted 30 years ago that we know were sandbagged.

Gary Johnson wrote:Keaton's budget on "The General" has been estimated between 600,000 to 750,000. It eventually brought in less than that.


Gary, you have absolutely no evidence that The General brought in less than than $600,000.

Zero. Zip. Zlitch. Nada.

Your numbers are either based on Dardis, or are based on another source that trusted Dardis.
And -- I'll say it one more time so it will sink in -- we know Dardis' UA numbers are faulty.

Gary Johnson wrote:Now if you have some brand new revisionist figures that show that Keaton's masterpiece actually brought in "Godfather" type numbers


Excuse me? The Godfather has brought in a total of $245,066,411. That's quite a ways from my $900,000 projected estimate for The General. As for my so-called revisionism, it is nothing of the sort. It is simply a correction to what was certainly a real (and possibly purposeful) error in these films grosses. And I said straight up, I think The General still probably lost money, even with a $900,000 gross. Indeed, the number is not only not a revision, it returns the number to what Buster Keaton claimed for it in the first place, undoing the Dardis revisionist drivel.

Gary Johnson wrote:and that he was ceremoniously dropped from his independence status two years later for being too overly successful then I'd love to hear that and I will cancel my subscription to UFO Today.


UFO Today. (sigh)

Gary, you should not get so butt-hurt about being wrong about those UA grosses.

Everybody trusted those numbers for over 20 years. That included me.

But today, we know those numbers were nonsense, and the Damfinos have been aware that they're nonsense for over eight years now, when I first discovered Dardis' confession of his omission while comparing the editions of the biography back in 2002.

Karl Theide confirmed the problem with Dardis existed when he posted new numbers for Steamboat Bill Jr. in 2005. The new numbers are even in Kevin Brownlow's new book on Buster published last November in Italy. (Soon to be in English). So if you want to go on insisting on a bunch of numbers that have no basis in credibility, that's your right. But that would make you look rather stupid, wouldn't it?

The gist of this is that the Keaton UA films -- like the Keaton MGM films -- did okay. Minor hits, but not blockbusters, and any slightly extra gross profit on The General did not justify the extra costs. With studios consolidating in the late 1920s, moving Buster into Metro likely seemed the logical move for the Schenck Brothers. Had Buster's grosses really fallen the way Dardis portrayed them, it seems more likely Buster would have been given the same "bum's rush" treatment Harry Langdon was getting over at First National. Instead, Buster had his salary raised, and promoted as MGMs outstanding comedy star -- at (alas) the cost of creative independence.

Now, I'm sorry that that's not quite the dramatic story you want to read Gary, but that, as far as we can tell, is what happened.

If you don't like it, tough. Get over it, and stop writing knee-jerk reactions.

DBP

PS: Buy Brent Walker's Mack Sennett book.

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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby Gary Johnson » Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:54 pm

Wow!...
Brent & Richard were right. Talking film finances IS a drag.

Now pardon me, I have to go out and strangle my CPA.

Gary J.

David B Pearson
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Re: Scott Eyman revews Brent Walkers Sennett Book

Postby David B Pearson » Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:07 pm

Gary Johnson wrote:Wow!...
Brent & Richard were right. Talking film finances IS a drag.

Now pardon me, I have to go out and strangle my CPA.

Gary J.


Yup.

Talking finances would make Billy Dooley seem funny.

DBP


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