July 2, 2013 — Variety mugg Fred Lombardi was the star of a four-person panel discussion on filmmaker Allan Dwan at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

Fred authored the just-published book “Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios” (McFarland & Co. publishing 2013) and Dwan is object of a MoMA film retrospective.
Dwan was a prolific director, writer and producer whose career in the moves started in 1911 and extended well into talkies (1961). His body of work includes many well-remembered films — John Wayne war drama “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” Shirley Temple in “Heidi” and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the silent swashbuckler “Robin Hood.” But there are no cinema masterpieces, which accounts for his relative obscurity, though in total his body of work is impressive. He made movies for Paramount Pictures, Republic Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, 20th Century Fox United Artists and Universal Pictures.

Fred noted that Dawn can’t be stereotyped—which may account for being something of a “lost pioneer”– because his films touched many genres—musical, drama and comedy. His films also showed no consistent political leanings. His work in talkies is praised for brilliant visual shots, which Fred attributes to Dwan’s background in silent films where visuals are critical. Dwan films are also noted for strong female characters. While Dwan didn’t have masterpiece films, all his surviving films are considered a cut above.

Other speakers on the MoMA panel who also studied Dwan were moderator/retrospective organizer Charles Silver, and also film experts Gina Telaroli, Cullen Gallagher and Howard Mandelbaum. Mandelbaum interviewed Dwan before his death in 1981. Fred displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of Dwan, Hollywood history and provided insightful interpretation.

The book “Dwan-Rise/Decline” is a hefty 285,00 words (most books weigh in around 80,000 words) and its well-crafted prose is accompanied by many sharp pictures that make for a great visual package. Several Variety staffers are cited in the acknowledgements. Fred worked seven years assembling the book.

Earlier the same day, Fred also introduced a screening of a mostly forgotten Dwan film—Sweethearts on Parade (1953). Despite only having a poor quality print, the movie was a hit because the MoMA audience exploded into applause at the end.

– Robert & Marie Marich

New York, April 8, 2013

Former Variety mugg Fred Lombardi has just published a book in the States on the film pioneer Allan Dwan. Over seven years of research went into the project. The publication of the work, Alan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios, with 158 photos and 384 pages, softcover, selling for $75, comes in conjunction with several events honoring Dwan, including a one-month retrospective of Dwan’s films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in early June and another at the Bologna Film Festival in Italy.

Commented Fred:

“I must say that I didn’t embark on this journey until I knew I had a publisher. McFarland & Co. Inc., Publishing was interested after reading my proposal but would not commit to the project until I submitted an outline of the book with all its chapters and then with samples of chapters. After they were satisfied by all that, I was offered a contract for the book.

“Allan Dwan has long been a favorite among certain dedicated film buffs, cultists and auteur critics. His career had one of the earliest starts of any major American director as he made his first film in 1911 and continued until 1961. Yet he remained very difficult to define. John Ford could be summed up for his dedication to tradition in Westerns, military films and other genres, Alfred Hitchcock as the master of suspense, Raoul Walsh for his love of adventure.  But while critics and fans saw something very personal in Dwan’s work, they were tongue-tied or simply unable to come up with a simple way to tag his work. So I decided to take a crack at this puzzle.

“Film buffs did seem entertained and satisfied that they at least knew the basic facts of his life by Dwan’s own narrative of his career in Peter Bogdanovich’s book-length interview with him in the acclaimed Allan Dwan: the Last Pioneer. I thought that by digging up some more facts to supplement that grand interview and catching up with dozens of Dwan movies I could unlock the remaining mysteries to his career. I gave McFarland an initial estimate of one year for doing the book.

“But as I began by going through copies of journals like Moving Picture World and Motion Picture News, which were covering movies years before Variety did, in film’s very infancy, I found myself unearthing a detailed history of movies of which I had known little. I discovered many other Dwan interviews through the years. I also recognized that as film directors were basically entertainers, they were often ready to substitute a good yarn for what really happened. Some errors  or confusions caused by the passage of time also worked their way into their accounts. Dwan may have been actually more truthful than a majority of his contemporaries but still much was simplified or distorted in his accounts, though at times he was amazingly accurate.

“It was difficult to find a pattern for truthfulness. An account that had been accepted as gospel and reprinted in numerous publications would turn out to be false. On another occasion, where a major film historian thought one of Dwan’s stories lacked credibility, I found evidence that Dwan was telling the truth. I was ready to dismiss another one of Dwan’s tales as a fabrication, since he seemed to always tell it a different way, only to find some proof that his basic story was true.

“The work that I thought would take one year would wind up taking over seven years.

“In addition to following a paper path through various libraries and archives, my research also constituted tracking down various survivors of Dwan’s association. Dwan was childless. But after several years I finally managed to locate Dwan’s goddaughter who had been like a granddaughter to him. And she was able to supply me with both fascinating stories and photographs.

“I can say that all the major questions I had about Dwan  at the outset were answered by the time I finished this book. Still more questions were raised during my quest but some will have to remain for future exploring as my fascination with the man and his work remains.

“Finally, in my Acknowledgments (which can be read on Amazon), I cited a number of my Variety friends for services rendered both in connection with the book and for past inspiration. The good memories of a number of those friends helped bolster my morale as I worked on this book.”

More information on Fred’s book can be found at: http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3485-5

For info on the MoMa retro, click on: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1374

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In view of the spectacular lack of feedback from sections posted on the Simesite, it is heartening to quote the following e-mail sent to us from former Daily Variety ad manager, Mike Malak.

Los Angeles, March 25, 2013

Take heart. The site, periodically, is cited as an authority for outside news organizations seeking information about our era and I’ve seen it referenced this way at least twice, once recently I believe. The site also keeps our very different thought processes alive. That is really the heart of things: our continued admiration and belief in Sime’s independence that has been honored on two coasts and through multiple generations. More than showbiz, that’s the real bond between everyone on both papers.

My late brother, Patrick, worked at the Daily for a brief period around the time of the 50th Anniversary. He continued to feel, long after he’d left, that he had been somewhere special and important. That wasn’t just because of the movie premiere passes. When he and Mike Silverman built the museum exhibit featuring 50 years of Daily Variety to accompany the tented party for 2,000 guests he got to see, close up, what the paper meant and how it worked over five decades. That continued to impress him until he died three years ago.

Here’s my nickel analogy: My father was on a historic WWII Navy ship, the USS Landsdowne. For legendary service in the Pacific it was called upon to ferry the Japanese surrender delegation from the shore of Tokyo Bay to the U.S.S. Missouri at anchor in the center of the Bay, and back. It was a really big deal. There were approximately 2,500 sailors who served on the Landsdowne during the War.

The survivors have published a hard copy newsletter since the War ended and I’m on their mailing list. At last count, a few weeks ago, the ship was down to 45 living men but, they all agree, by continuing to report in and “say” a piece every now and then, even if it’s just their present “commander” speaking, they’ve kept their ship alive. Sometimes there’s more to say than others and some issues have a lot of death notices.

The silly point here, one I can never express as well as you, hence this story, is that I, for one, would be sadly disappointed if our ship slipped below the waters while there’s still a few of us around who can climb the fore-mast to shout out when called for.

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Comments and observations on this historic occasion by:

Peter Besas
Mark Silverman
Paul Rosovsky
Larry Michie
Mike Malak
(more…)

Last Tuesday, Feburary 26, it was announced in Los Angeles that the last issue of Daily Variety would be published on March 18th. That issue, under the paper’s new management, Penske Media, which purchased Variety last October, will mark the end not only of the Hollywood sheet founded by Sime Silverman in 1933, but also of the current Weekly Variety. A new weekly, also bearing the Variety logo, will replace the current weekly. The first issue of the new publication, printed in a 13 ½ x 10 ½ inch format, will appear on March 26th. It will be run by a triumvirate of editors who will be in charge of film, TV and digital content, respectively.

In addition to the imminent scuttling of the currently-printed editions of Variety and Daily Variety, Penske has already dropped the online “paywall” on Variety’s website, meaning that access to it is now free, compared to a former official yearly fee of $349, though print subscribers obtained access for $99. In addition to Variety Penske also owns the highly successful online blog Deadline Hollywood edited by Nikki Finke.

ON MARCH 15 THE SIMESITE WILL BE POSTING A SPECIAL “OBITUARY” SECTION FOR THE DEMISE OF VARIETY, WHICH WILL INCLUDE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM A SELECTION OF EX MUGGS.

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