Blondie (1938)

Let's go back to the beginning.  The first real Blondie movie was made in 1938.  Blondie appears in various forms from Blondie of the Follies in 1932 to Bye Bye Blondie in 2010, neither of which had anything to do with our Blondie. 

She started as a comic strip drawn by Chic Young in 1930.  Her name was Blondie Boopadoop until 1933 when she married Dagwood Bumstead.  This feels really silly to write, but it is all true.

Enter Penny Singleton (1908 - 2003).  She is the quintessential Blondie, and Arthur Lake (1905 - 1987) was perfect as Dagwood.  Penny wasn't really a blond, but she remained that way after she got the role.  She was still blond when I met her in the 1980s.  They made 28 Blondie films from 1938 to 1950.  But we don't cover stars here.  Let's look at the rest.

Husband and wife actors Kathleen and Gene Lockhart are both in Blondie.  They worked together some 21 times.  As I mentioned before, they are the parents of June Lockhart, famous for "Lassie" on TV.  The three of them worked together on one film, A Christmas Carol in 1938. 

Child actor Larry Simms (b. 1934) played Baby Dumpling in the Blondie series.  He was also in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and a few other films.  I can't find much online about him.  28 of his 36 films were in the Blondie series. 

Jonathan Hale (1891 - 1966) played Mr. Dithers, Dagwood's boss.  He has 244 roles listed on IMDb starting in 1934 and into TV, with his last listed role on "Kraft Suspense Theater" in 1965.  He was in Charlie Chan's Secret in 1936 with Rosina Lawrence.  While he was making the Blondie series he also had a recurring role in The Saint series.  He was a hard worker, making over 80 films in the decade of the 1940s.

The fun part about this blog is looking at a name you know nothing about and checking out their filmography.  Mr. Beazley, the mailman was played by Irving Bacon (1893 - 1965).  He is another gold mine to be explored. 

Bacon started making films in 1923 with the Keystone Studio and Mack Sennett.  He made the switch to talkies and eventually to television.  IMDb lists 515 roles to his credit.  Yes, 515!  He was in a dozen or so Blondie films, but look for him also in nine Frank Capra feature films.  I recognize his face, but I doubt I ever heard his name.

Movies of this era are rich with the best in Bit Actors!

More Charles Lane

Since I mentioned him yesterday, I started looking at his history in acting.  Charles Lane lived for 102 years, from 1905 to 2007.  He was an actor in film and later TV, for 75 of those years.


He started in 1931 acting in films as a desk clerk, salesman or reporter.  Usual fair for a new actor getting extra work or bit parts at $35 a day.  His face allowed him to create his dour character.  


Here is a quote from IMDb written by Gary Brumburgh that sums it up.  "Glimpsing even a bent smile from this unending sourpuss was extremely rare, unless one perhaps caught him in a moment of insidious glee after carrying out one of his many nefarious schemes. Certainly not a man's man on film or TV by any stretch, Lane was a character's character."  The full biography page can be seen here.

Lane was in four Busby Berkeley films, and TEN Frank Capra films, including some of the best...Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take it with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace, It's a Wonderful Life, and State of the Union.


He must have acted with every big name in the movies, including four films with Jimmy Stewart, and many times with his good friend Lucille Ball.  He was also in three Blondie films with Penny Singleton.  Two are included in the set in the insert link at left.


I think he has made himself well known to baby boomers like me and even a younger crowd because of all of his television work.  It would be difficult to turn on a TV in the fifties and sixties and not see him on a sitcom somewhere!


And he kept on working.  In the seventies he was a regular on "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Bewitched" and "Soap."  And he appeared on other TV hits that decade, "The Rookies," "Rhoda" and "Maude."   In the eighties he was seen on Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War", and on "St. Elsewhere" and "LA Law."  He worked into the eighties and even into this millennium, but he slowed down a bit after he hit 90!


According to his bio page on IMDb he was a wonderful man in real life, and he remained married to his only wife, Ruth Covell, from 1931 until she died in 2002.  He was a class act all his life.

20,000 Leagues

I found the 1954 classic Disney film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on-demand last weekend, so I started watching it.  I have seen it several times in my youth, but not recently, and even this time I didn't quite finish it.  I remember the display at Walt Disney World where they have one of the Nautilus models used to make the movie.

A quick look at IMDB reveals there were three silent versions of the story.  They were released in 1905, 1907 (by Georges Melies), and 1916.  I haven't seen any of them, but the 1915 release apparently had underwater photography that was groundbreaking.  I will have to look for that one.

Back to 1954.  The ticket agent shown in the beginning of 20K was played by Harry Harvey.  He is credited with 417 roles on the IMDB web site, starting with the Tom Mix Destry Rides Again in 1932.  How do I always keep coming back to Destry?!?

Harvey was in Gold Diggers of 1937 with Dick Powell, the 1939 Blondie Takes a Vacation with my friend Penny Singleton, a whole bunch of B westerns, 1942 The Pride of the Yankees, 1942 A Night to Remember (but a different Night to Remember than the 1958 Night to Remember that we talked about a few days ago), a small part in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Danny Kaye in 1947, more B westerns, he was June Alyson's doctor in The Glenn Miller Story, and of course, the list is practically endless. 

The sign of a great bit actor is to remain a viable commodity for small parts.  If you become too famous, you may have a difficult time getting parts because you will be recognized.

Harvey lived from 1901 to 1985 and he was still doing TV parts in the 1970s on "Mannix," "Bonanza," "Gunsmoke," "Ironside," and "Adam-12."  He appeared in the 1970 hit film Airport as a passenger.

I thought I would have trouble finding well exposed bit actors in a Disney film.  Disney keeps stars on contract so they don't have the opportunity to do much work elsewhere.  It seems like Harry Harvey filled the bill!