Ladies Last

Ladies Last (1930) High Gear (1931) Call a Cop! (1931) Blood and Thunder (1931) Air-Tight (1931) Director George Stevens turned out some of the most well-respected films in Hollywood history – his filmography includes such classics as Swing Time (1936), Woman of the Year (1942), A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953) and Giant (1956). Stevens began his nearly 50-year career at age 17, as an assistant cameraman for Hal Roach Studios. He soon moved up to director of photography (and sometimes gag writer) on Roach's Laurel and Hardy comedies. And in 1930, he made his directorial debut on a series of shorts for Roach called The Boy Friends. Stevens directed seven shorts in the series, including: Ladies Last (1930), Blood and Thunder (1931), High Gear (1931), Air-Tight (1931) and Call a Cop! (1931). The Boy Friends was a sort of teenage/college version of the popular Our Gang series. Two of the original Our Gang kids, Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman, grew up to play sweethearts in The Boy Friends shorts. The films also featured the acrobatics of future stuntman David Sharpe as Dave and the slow Southern wit of Grady Sutton as Alabam. The first Boy Friends short was Doctor's Orders (1930) -- Stevens co-wrote and photographed the film. He also worked as cinematographer on the series' second entry Bigger and Better (1930). For the third Boy Friends short, Stevens was finally promoted to director. He made his directorial debut with Ladies Last. The two-reeler's plot was uncomplicated. It revolved around the boys boycotting the dance after the girls insist they wear tuxedos. Nonetheless, Stevens' handiwork makes the short rise above its story limitations. The opening sequence, for example, features an overhead shot of a couple lying on the beach with waves washing over them. For its day, the approach was innovative. As Stevens put it, "I guess those shots would look elementary now because we've all seen them, but they hadn't then." Stevens also directed the fourth short in the series Blood and Thunder. This time the plot involved Mickey mistaking the gang's play rehearsal for a real situation. This comical set-up leads Mickey to steal a baby – twice. The Boy Friends were, like most early comedies, written for gag value first. As Stevens remembers it, "the script was really written without any regard for dialogue. In The Boy Friends pictures, all of a sudden somebody would stop and say something. Because [the dialogue and action] were not homogeneous, they were two different things, and we depended on situations and sight gags...and we were inept with dialogue." High Gear was the fifth Boy Friends short and the series' only three-reeler. In this entry, Mickey borrows his father's car for a Sunday drive. He's warned not to get a scratch on the newly painted auto – needless to say, high jinx ensue and dad's car is abused in every way possible. High Gear features some genuinely funny moments, including the girls flattering a cop by saying that he looks like Wallace Beery to try and get out of a ticket. The short is also a showcase for the acrobatics of David Sharpe. He would later be nicknamed the "crown prince of stuntmen"; Sharpe doubled everyone in Hollywood, from W.C. Fields in The Bank Dick (1940) to Tim Holt in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) to Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953). Stevens' next Boy Friends outing was the series seventh (and perhaps best) film Air-Tight. It focused on Alabam and his fear of heights – as one of the other kids puts it "the highest off the ground you've ever been is upstairs." When the gang forms a glider club, Alabam is inadvertently in a plane that takes off. Again Stevens' vision makes the short a more thrilling ride than it might've been. Most interesting is the Alabam POV shot looking down the rope towing his plane to the ground. Steven's recalls shooting Air-Tight saying, "there was a cliff...that we could move along. We got one of these big sticks, which they use to hoist girders; it's on a caterpillar tractor. We got two of them...and I hooked the glider on a 100 foot one and then I took an 80 foot one and put a camera on it; it was just alongside it, and we ran it along the edge of the cliff. It was absolutely terrifying." He wasn't kidding. Grady Sutton, who played Alabam, never forgot the production either. "I was in the air, all right," he remarked. "I didn't have any more sense in those days. The little thing was light, and I was in there going crazy. I wouldn't do it today, but I trusted everybody in those days." Next up for The Boy Friends and Stevens was Call a Cop!. In this short, the girls think there's a burglar in the house. They call the boys and the cops – who end up chasing each other around the house. The end of Call a Cop! is reminiscent of the madcap ending of High Gear. And Stevens would later re-use the final sequence of Call a Cop! in the Wheeler and Woolsey film The Nitwits (1935). The Boy Friends series ran for fifteen installments. Stevens would direct a total of seven. His final two Boy Friends shorts were Mama Loves Papa and The Kick-Off! (both 1931). Stevens continued directing shorts at Universal before moving to RKO. He directed his first feature in 1934 – his big break coming the following year when he directed Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams (1935). Despite claims that Stevens later said he hated two-reel comedies, he remembered The Boy Friends cast fondly as "a pretty good bunch of kids." by Stephanie Thames Ladies Last (1930) Producer: Hal Roach Director: George Stevens Film Editing: Richard C. Currier Music: Leroy Shield Cast: Mickey Daniels, Grady Sutton, David Sharpe, Mary Kornman, Dorothy Granger, Gertrude Messinger. BW-20m. High Gear (1931) Producer: Hal Roach Director: George Stevens Screenplay: H.M. Walker Cinematography: Hap Depew Film Editing: Richard C. Currier Music: Leroy Shield Cast: Mickey Daniels (Mickey), Grady Sutton (Grady), David Sharpe (Dave), Mary Kornman (Mary), Gertrude Messinger (Gertie), Betty Bolen (Betty Daniels). BW-25m. Call a Cop! (1931) Producer: Hal Roach Director: George Stevens Film Editing: Richard C. Currier Music: Leroy Shield Cast: Mickey Daniels (Mickey), Mary Kornman (Mary), Gertrude (Gertie), David Sharpe (Dave), Grady Sutton (Alabam), Harry Bernard (Captain Daniels). BW-19m. Blood and Thunder (1931) Producer: Hal Roach Director: George Stevens Film Editing: Richard C. Currier Music: Leroy Shield Cast: Mickey Daniels, Grady Sutton, David Sharpe, Mary Kornman, Gertrude Messinger, Dorothy DeBorba. BW-20m. Air-Tight (1931) Producer: Hal Roach Director: George Stevens Music: Leroy Shield Cast: David Sharpe (Dave), Gertrude (Gertie), Mary Kornman (Mary), Mickey Daniels (Mickey), Betty Bolen (Betty), Grady Sutton (Alabam). BW-17m.