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Singing Sci-Fi Cowboys: Gene Autry And Genre Amalgamation In The Phantom Empire (1935)

2013; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2013.847646

1465-3451

Blair Davis,

Digital Games and Media

AbstractThis essay examines how The Phantom Empire (1935) – a twelve-part Poverty Row serial starring Gene Autry – combines the musical, western and science fiction genres. While several attempts were made at amalgamating the musical with science-fiction in 1930s Hollywood, such efforts did not ultimately lead to a sustained sub-genre. Comparisons are drawn with the major studio musical/sci-fi efforts Just Imagine (1930) and It’s Great to Be Alive (1933) as a way of contrasting how the musical intersects with science-fiction between Poverty Row and the major studios, as well as how the additional genre of the western affects the dynamic between generic categories in The Phantom Empire. By examining how these films used particular generic elements within their narratives, how they were positioned for exhibitors and audiences at the time, and how film scholarship has subsequently understood the theoretical functions of various generic elements in these films, this essay attempts to find new perspectives on how the generic conventions of the musical, science-fiction, and western genres affected one another in 1930s cinema. Notes1. Significant musical-comedies include the films of The Marx Brothers as well as Bing Crosby, while horror films containing significant musical elements include Svengali (1931), The Mad Genius (1931), You’ll Find Out (1940), The Phantom of the Opera (1943) and The Climax (1944).2. Rosalind Schaffer, Autry a Hero of Wooly Westerns, The Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1937, F2. Autry received 2728 fan letters in one month in 1937, ‘topping his closest rival, Tyrone Power, by more than a thousand.’3. Several sources provide a fine introduction to The Phantom Empire, but none definitively examine the role of genre hybridity therein. Ron Briley’s article Gene Autry and The Phantom Empire: the cowboy in the wired west of the future, Journal of Texas Music History, 10(1) (2010), 44–54, makes the argument that the film offers a vision of technological modernism at work. J.P. Telotte’s Replications: a robotic history of the science-fiction film (Champaign, IL, 1995) examines the use of robots within the film’s science fiction premise. Both David Fenimore’s Singing Cowboys on the Moon [Western Technological Landscapes, Nevada Humanities Council (Reno, 1998)] and Jeffrey Richardson’s Cowboys and Robots: The Birth of the Science Fiction Western [http://crossedgenres.com/archives/006/cowboys-androbots-by-jeffrey-richardson/] chronicle the production history but offer sparse analysis of the film itself. While the role of multiple genres in Autry’s films has been little-studied, most recently Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Von Riper’s article Blending genres, blending time: steampunk on the western frontier, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 39(2) (2011), offers an analysis of how the western genre has incorporated technological imagery.4. Todd Berliner, The genre film as booby trap: 1970s genre bending and The French Connection, Cinema Journal, 40(3 (2001), 25–26.5. Many screenwriting resources encourage pitching your screenplay in these reductive terms because it allows Hollywood executives to quickly ‘envision’ your film (typically because two previously successful films have been invoked). See for instance, http://www.filmscriptwriting.com/thelongpitch.html.6. Thomas O. Beebee, The Ideology of Genre: a comparative study of generic instability (University Park, PA, 1994), 9–11.7. Steve Neale, Genre and Hollywood (New York, 2000), 258. Judith Hess Wright, Genre film and the status quo, in: Barry Keith Grant (ed.), Film Genre Reader III (Austin, 2003), 42. In 2011, Turner Classic Movies programmed a month of singing cowboy films in honor of Roy Rogers’ one hundredth birthday. Host Robert Osborne noted that this sub-genre of Westerns ‘has not only disappeared but has basically been forgotten,’ becoming a ‘vanishing breed of movie …’ (Singing Cowboys, 26 Films, Fridays in July, http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/410830%7C0/Singing-Cowboys-TCM-Spotlight.html). For further scholarship addressing the cultural and cinematic vitality of the singing cowboy film, see Douglas B. Green, Singing in the saddle: the history of the singing cowboy (Nashville, 2005); Bill C. Malone, Singing cowboys and musical mountaineers: southern culture and the roots of country music (Athens, 1993); Peter Stanfield, Horse opera: the strange history of the 1930s singing cowboy (Urbana, 2002). The latter, while an impeccable account of the origins of the singing cowboy film, contains only one brief mention of The Phantom Empire, a further symptom of the film’s scholarly marginalization.9. Neale, 37.10. Rick Altman, The American Film Musical (Bloomington, 1987), 93.11. Tom Gunning, ‘Those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush’: the origins of film genres, Iris, 19, 49; 53.12. One of the more compelling instances of how a scientific element is used in 1930s and 1940s cinema is the way that television is positioned as a futuristic technology with the potential for unwanted surveillance and other malicious intents in such B-films as Murder by Television (1935), Trapped by Television (1936), Shadow of Chinatown (1936), Television Spy (1939), among other films. While these films are not outright science fiction efforts in full, they demonstrate the continuing experimentation with particular sci-fi imagery throughout the decade. Other examples with occasional sci-fi elements include: the 1934 western serial Mystery Mountain, featuring the villainous character The Rattler who uses electronic weaponry (and also featuring a brief appearance by Autry as an outlaw in his first minor film role); the1935 film serial The Miracle Rider, featuring an explosive mineral called X-94; the 1936 western Ghost Patrol in which a Professor creates a device that can cause planes to crash.13. See Blair Davis, The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the rebirth of low-budget cinema (New Brunswick, NJ, 2012) for a full explanation of how science fiction became solidified as genre in 1950.14. Paul Kerr, Out of what past?: notes on the B film noir, in: Paul Kerr (ed.), The Hollywood Film Industry (New York, 1986), 232.15. Fran Mason, Hollywood’s Detectives: crime series in the 1930s and 1940s from the whodunnit to hard-boiled noir (Basingstoke, 2012), 24–25.16. Andre Bazin, What is Cinema? (Berkeley, 2004), 29.17. Thomas Schatz, Stagecoach and Hollywood’s A-western renaissance, in: Barry Keith Grant (ed.), John Ford’s Stagecoach (Cambridge, 2003), 22.18. Kathryn Kalinak, How the West was Sung: music in the westerns of John Ford (Berkeley, 2007), 57–59.19. Mordaunt Hall, A Clever Fantasy Film, The New York Times, November 30, 1930, X5.20. Quoted in J.P. Telotte, A Distant Technology: science-fiction film and the machine age (Middletown, CT, 2006), 195–196. Telotte also examines Just Imagine, in Just Imagine-ing the Metropolis of Modern America, Science Fiction Studies, 23(2) (1996), 161–170.21. Richard Barrios, A Song in the Dark: the birth of the musical film (New York, 2009), 5.22. Ibid., 249.23. World Minus Men Plot of Lavish Farce, The Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1933, 13. Another example reads: ‘Fox had the opportunity of making one of the funniest films in history … [but] the beginning of the film is just thirty-five minutes of boredom’ [quoted in: Aubrey Solomon, The Fox Film Corporation, 1915–1935: a history and filmography (Jefferson, NC, 2011), 178].24. It’s Great to be Alive, Review, Billboard, July 15, 1933, 11.25. Advertisement, The New York Times, July 9, 1933, X2.26. Jon Tuska, The Vanishing Legion: a history of Mascot Pictures 1927–1935 (Jefferson, NC, 1982), 5; 136.27. Holly George-Warren cites Jon Tuska’s description of how the film ‘hit big’ at the box office [Public Cowboy No. 1: the life and times of Gene Autry (New York, 2007), 131], while Don Cusic states that The Phantom Empire was ‘the third highest grossing serial in the history of Mascot’ [Gene Autry: his life and career (Jefferson, NC, 2007), 52], although neither source provides any figures. Variety does not provide box-office grosses for the film, as was the case for most serials at the time.28. Guy Barefoot, Who watched that masked man? Hollywood’s serial audiences in the 1930s, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31(2 (2011), 179; 183.29. Display Ad 14, Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1935, 16; Display Ad 15, Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1935, 18; Display Ad 55, Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1935, E4; Display Ad 15, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1935, 18.30. Display Ad 14, Chicago Tribune, February 9, 1935, 16; Display Ad 14, Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1934, 14; Display Ad 21, Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1934, 22; Display Ad 16, Chicago Tribune, November 17, 1934, 16; Display Ad 17, Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1934, 16; Display Ad 14, Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1934, 14; Display Ad 14, Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1934, 14.31. Quoted in Richardson. While such strips as Buck Rogers did not feature outright Western elements as per The Phantom Empire, there did exist a strong tradition of integrating fantastic scientific premises into Western-themed stories throughout the history of pulp literature in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1865, Edward S. Ellis’ dime novel The Steam Man of the Prairies depicted a ‘steam-powered mechanical man’ that aids a group of miners in their fight against Indians and outlaws. ‘The Steam Man proved extremely popular and was reprinted at least six times under different titles,’ notes Tim DeForest. This would lead to similar efforts from other publishers, and ‘By the 1890s, a legion of young inventors [in pulp stories] were creating a deluge of mechanical men, horses, submarines and flying machines, powered at first by steam and later by electricity. With these fantastic devices, secret treasure troves were uncovered, lost cities found and evil villains foiled’ [Storytelling in the Pulps, Comics and Radio: how technology changed popular fiction in America (Jefferson, NC, 2004), 18–19].32. Advertisement. Billboard, March 9, 1935, 2.33. Tuska, 20; 87.34. Ibid., 160; 169.35. William C. Cline, In the Nick of Time: motion picture sound serials (Jefferson, NC, 1984), 28.36. Of particular interest to the setting of Autry’s westerns is that they predominantly take place in the modern era, as do many of Roy Rogers’ films. As such, Autry is alternately seen riding in cars as well as on horseback, while the costumes of some characters often involve modern clothing. As such, the imagery in these films often stands in sharp contrast to certain conventions of the western as the genre developed in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and 1950s with regards to historical setting and resultant props and costumes.37. George-Warren, 131.38. Rosalind Shaffer, Singing Cowboy of Films Corrals Fans, The Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1937, F2.39. Tuska, 4.40. Davis, 68–69. This source cites a study from Motion Picture Herald in January of 1952, yet despite the findings being 17 years ahead of The Phantom Empire’s release the study is demonstrative of the general audience preferences of the classical Hollywood era. Theater-going patterns began to change dramatically after the Federal Communication Commission lifted its freeze on television station licensing in April of 1952, hence the relatively applicable nature of the study’s data to prior years.41. Shaffer.42. Bosly Crowther, A Cowboy Without a Lament, The New York Times, August 6, 1939, X3.43. Quoted in Shaffer. Despite the role that class seemingly played in Autry’s audiences demographics, Stanfield argues that the cowboy as a historical figure embodies a sense of ‘classlessness’: ‘While the hillbilly retained the signs of an overdetermined class system, the cowboy suggested classlessness. If the hillbilly suggested a South forever stalled at the frontier of modernity, the cowboy suggested a figure able to transverse this imposing boundary without the fear of losing his identity to the forces of urbanization and factory wage labor’ (p. 72).44. Paul Green, Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns (Jefferson, NC, 2009), 32; 170.45. Quoted in Green, 86. The film also stars Louise Brooks in one of her final film roles.46. Altman, 114.47. Adam Knee, Generic Change in the Cinema, Iris, 19, 34–35.48. Cline, 187.49. Steve Neale, Genre (London, 1980), 8.50. Peter Bradshaw, Cowboys and Aliens, The Guardian, August 18, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/aug/18/cowboys-and-aliens-review; Richard Lindsay, We Have Met the Aliens and They Are Us, Pop Theology, August 5, 2011, http://www.poptheology.com/2011/08/cowboys-and-aliens/. Other examples of recent hybrid-westerns include the supernatural-themed films Jonah Hex (2011) and Solomon Kane (2009), along with the ninja-western The Warriors Way (2010). Other examples include the Jackie Chan martial-arts comedy-western Shanghai Noon (2000) and its sequel Shanghai Knights (2003), as well as the much-ridiculed remake of the television series Wild Wild West (1999).51. See, for instance, Barefoot’s 2011 article, as well as Kyle Dawson Edwards, Monogram means business: B-film marketing and series filmmaking at Monogram Pictures, Film History, 23(4) (2011).52. Cline, Serials-ly Speaking: essays on cliffhangers (Jefferson, NC, 1994), 11. More recently, film scholar Scott Higgins notes in his preparation for a forthcoming manuscript on serials that they are considered a ‘disreputable form’ (http://shiggins.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2010/10/11/serial-art/).Additional informationNotes on contributorsBlair DavisBlair Davis is an Assistant Professor of Media and Cinema Studies with the College of Communication at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the rebirth of low-budget cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2012), and has chapters featured in such anthologies as American Horror Film: the genre at the turn of the millennium (University Press of Mississippi, 2010), Caligari’s Heirs: the German cinema of fear after 1945 (Scarecrow Press, 2007), Reel Food: essays on film and food (Routledge, 2004) and Horror Film: creating and marketing fear (University Press of Mississippi, 2004). He has previously published two articles about B-films in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.