Cinevent Notes: THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF

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Richard M Roberts
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Cinevent Notes: THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF

Postby Richard M Roberts » Sun May 19, 2013 3:59 am

Todays Cinevent Note is for the 1941 Universal Comedy THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF starring Brian Aherne and Kay Francis:


We seem to be having a running theme at Cinevent this year regarding lookalike Gentlemen switching identities and the wacky consequences that ensue (see Fred MacMurray and PARDON MY PAST). Well, this time it’s Brian Aherne, who discovers yet another Brian Aherne wandering around New York and after a drunken night on the town, Brian Aherne awakes in the other Brian Aherne’s bed and everyone thinks he is the other Brian Aherne when he’s really Brian Aherne. Then Brian Aherne realizes that the other Brian Aherne’s wife is Kay Francis, and she think’s he’s really the other Brian Aherne too, so Brian Aherne decides to remain the other Brian Aherne for awhile as it’s getting interesting. Then Brian Aherne has to stay being the other Brian Aherne because the other Brian Aherne has been killed in a subway accident. Bring on the wacky consequences!

Well, um-----AHERNE!-----excuse me, that’s better, had to clear my throat. In any event, that’s the set-up of our second mistaken identity doppelganger comedy of the weekend, and THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF is another fun Universal Screwball Comedy that has apparently fallen through the cracks. It stars---(need I write it again?)----Brian Aherne, fresh from his previous successful Universal comedy HIRED WIFE (shown at Cinevent in 2010) and Universal’s lower price answer to Cary Grant, but he does a fine job here as double Ahernes, though once again, Brian Aherne (I can’t stop saying it!!) was far from the first choice for this role----or roles (Aherne!). Leslie Howard had originally bought the rights to Henry Devere Stackpool’s 1918 novel in 1938 and was going to co-produce and co-direct a film version of it with Anthony Aherne------I mean ASQUITH! However, after making their film version of George Baherne----Berherne-----George BERNARD Shaw’s PYGMALION that year, Howard and Asquith parted company and Howard took the property to RKO in 1939 where he was going to again star in it. Then GONE WITH THE WIND and World War II got in the way, and the outbreak of war sent Howard homeward, but Lawrence Fox, president of General Films, another independent signed up by RKO to supply product bought the project and announced it’s revival as a film for that Studio in April of 1940. Unable to interest either Cary Grant or Melvyn Douglas in the lead, Fox moved the project to Universal, where Brian Aherne (that name! that name!) and Kay Francis were cast as the leads.

We’ll get to A-A-A-A-A---herne later. Kay Francis was in freelancing mode at the time, having finally gotten free from her Warner Brothers contract. She had been one of Warner’s most popular and highest paid stars of the 1930’s, but the Studio essentially ruined her career by putting her in endless melodramatic weepies, then a slew of B Pictures in an attempt to get her to break her contract when her boxoffice slipped. If they’d only put her in more comedies! Today, we enjoy her sparkle in stuff like TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932) or JEWEL ROBBERY (1932) and care-less about her long-suffering women in great clothes roles. Now out on her own, Kay was perhaps not faring spectacularly, but she had taken on some variance in her performances, from a grown-up Jo in LITTLE MEN (RKO 1040), to western heroines in WHEN THE DALTONS RODE (Universal 1941), to comedy parts like this film and playing the real Charley’s Aunt in CHARLEY’S AUNT (1942) with Jack Benny. However, she had reached that “certain age” for an actress, as deadly then as now, no matter how great she looked, and without a major studio looking to protect its investment, Francis found it more and more difficult to find work. After producing/starring in three films for Monogram in 1945-46, Kay Francis called it quits on the Movies, toured on the Stage for awhile, then retired to a financially stable life until her death in 1968.

As for -------steady---I’d better not say it------I’ve got to----here goes---- Always a solid, reliable character actor, (deep breath) Brian Aherne found himself as Universal’s charming comic leading man at the turn of the 40’s, and he handled the role quite successfully in films like this and HIRED WIFE. He had been in movies since 1924, and had a long, varied and comfortable career, moving seamlessly back and forth from films to stage, being married for a time to Joan Fontaine in the 40’s, living to a ripe and happy old age and passing away in 1986. Not great fodder for Hollywood legends, but a hell of an easy way to survive the movie business-------------------I DID IT!!---------------You see, the funny thing about that name is that Peter Sellers once said that he and The Goons used to use the word “Aherne” to get their American Accents in place when performing one, it apparently makes all the right pronunciations. So every once in awhile during a Goon Show, you’ll suddenly hear Peter and Spike Milligan muttering, “Aherne? Aherne-Aherne! Aherne.” like they can’t stop. I understand why now.

Anyway! Straighten up Roberts, back to the notes: Nils Asther makes his first film appearance in over three years and his first American Film in nearly seven. A popular actor since the Silent Era, Asther was apparently blacklisted in Hollywood in 1934 for breaking a contract with a major studio. He had worked in Britain until the late 30’s when he returned to America because of the War. After his appearance in this film, Nils would stay busy in America until the end of WW2, usually in supporting roles in films like NIGHT MONSTER (1942) or SUBMARINE ALERT (1943), but he occasionally had the lead in interesting fantasy films like THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET (1944). Unfortunately, work petered out for Asther in post-war Hollywood, and the Swedish-born Actor returned to Stockholm and acted in films in Europe until the early 60’s. He died in 1981.

Another of THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF’s fine supporting cast is Siegfried “Sig” Ruman, who gives us one of his patented German Doctors. Everyone’s favorite Kraut, Ruman was indeed Hamburg-born and raised, had a degree in Electrical Engineering before he decided that acting was his future. Coming to the United States after serving in the Imperial German Forces during WW1, Ruman became a busy and successful Broadway Actor by the mid-20’s, but did not seriously try his hand at the Movies until he came to Hollywood in 1934, and he immediately became the go-to man for anything requiring a big-time generally Germanic accent. From Lion-tamers to Doctors to uniformed bureaucrats, Ruman switched easily back and forth from genuine villainy to wonderful comic foil, even very effectively playing the occasional sympathetic part like Dutchy in Howard Hawks’ ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939) and Louis Bouriette, the blind man who became the first to be cured at Lourdes in Henry King’s THE SONG OF BERNADETTE (1943). World War Ii made Sig just that much busier as his name went to the top of casting directors list of Nazi Impersonators, but Ruman basically never stopped working. In the late 1940’s, he bought a mountain home in the small town of Julian, California, an hour or so from San Diego, where he commuted back and forth to Hollywood and became one of Julian’s leading citizens, frequently speaking at the local High School’s Graduation ceremonies, and lecturing the Science classes on his passionate hobby of insect collecting. Sig Ruman is buried in the town’s mountainside cemetery, and this Author visited the gravesite on a recent trip to Julian last year.

Brought in to helm THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF was none other than Edward Ludwig, a solid craftsman Director who had a forty-plus year career in Pictures, handling every type of film one can imagine. Russian-born and real name Isidor Irving Litwack, he began in the Silent Era as an actor in the late teens but soon moved behind the camera specializing first as a gagman and write. As Edward Luddy, he began megaphoning short comedies in 1920, first for Reggie Morris’s Special Pictures Corp, then moving over to the Century Comedies produced by the Stern Brothers for Universal. By the mid-1920’s, Luddy was busy working for several independent comedy producers, including former comedian Billy West who was making comedies for Arrow and the notorious Weiss Brothers, and Larry Darmour at Standard Cinema releasing through FBO. By the end of the Silents, Luddy was back at Universal, scripting early talkie comedies for them like SEE AMERICA THIRST (1930) with Harry Langdon and Slim Summerville and THE COHENS AND KELLYS IN AFRICA (1930) with George Sidney and Charlie Murray. Changing his name to Edward Ludwig in 1932, he began directing feature films at both Universal and RKO, notably the interesting anti-war film THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD (1934) with Claude Rains and the College Musical OLD MAN RHYTHM (1935). In the late 30’s. Ludwig was freelancing and very busy with films like MGM’s THE LAST GANGSTER (1937) with Edward G. Robinson and had just finished SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1940) for RKO when he started THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF.

Ludwig had a major hit at Republic in 1944 directing John Wayne in THE FIGHTING SEABEES and Wayne liked him so much that he had Ludwig handle the Duke in two Wayne-Produced films, WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1948) and BIG JIM MCCLAIN (1952). This John Wayne connection developed a reputation for Ludwig as an action director in the late 40’s, and this kept him busy into the 50’s making a string of enjoyable, if not earth-shattering programmers, one of his last features being the sci-fi big-bug chiller THE BLACK SCORPION (1957). Ludwig segued into Television and continued to specialize in westerns, slowing down as the sixties commenced and retiring in the last-half of the decade. Though never one you’ll see getting an Auteurists Retrospective at Bologna, Ed ward Ludwig was another long-time Hollywood Professional whose films certainly still entertain today.

Oh No!---------(Aherne)-----it’s starting up again------Aherne? Aherne-Aherne!----------(picks up phone, dials)-----Hello, Doctor?-----Aherne---------I’ve got this problem-------Aherrrrrrne!------No, it’s not sinus, it’s Brian Aherne--------No, the Actor, I can’t seem to stop--------No, not personally! He’s dead you know-----------I’m sorry, this is going to take awhile, go on to the next film, start without me…….



RICHARD M ROBERTS

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