{"id":38186,"date":"2022-11-25T09:54:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T14:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=38186"},"modified":"2022-11-25T09:55:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T14:55:53","slug":"the-bootleg-files-windy-riley-goes-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/25\/the-bootleg-files-windy-riley-goes-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Windy Riley Goes Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 820: <\/strong>\u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d (1931 short starring Louise Brooks and directed by Roscoe \u201cFatty\u201d Arbuckle under a pseudonym). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On public domain labels and as a special feature on a Kino Lorber Blu-ray offering.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> A lapsed copyright enables endless dupes.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> It was already on a commercial label, but the public domain dupes never stopped.<\/p>\n

The 1931 Educational Pictures short \u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d is not remembered today for its content \u2013 which, quite frankly, is terrible \u2013 but as a low point in the creative lives of two iconic talents of the silent screen who came into the talkie era with their respective careers in shambles.
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The film\u2019s direction is credited to William Goodrich, which was the pseudonym for Roscoe \u201cFatty\u201d Arbuckle, the comic actor\/director whose life was ruined by one the most horrendous miscarriages of justice of the 20th century. (And if you don\u2019t what I\u2019m referring to, make a note to yourself to read up on the Arbuckle trials after finishing this column \u2013 the story is too complex to recall here.) While blacklisted from appearing on camera, the friends of Arbuckle enabled him to continue working behind the camera \u2013 but he could not use his name on the screen credits and, thus, was forced to hide behind the William Goodrich moniker.<\/p>\n

The other talent who made an unfortunate stop in this dismal little film is Louise Brooks, who was a fast-rising star in the mid-1920s before she abruptly left Hollywood to make films in Europe. By the time she returned to America in 1930, the Hollywood studios had lost interest in her and she could only obtain a few supporting roles in minor films. For someone who had been the toast of Hollywood, Berlin and Paris a few years before, Brooks hit a nadir by showing up in a crummy two-reeler for the low-rent Educational Pictures studio.<\/p>\n

Windy Riley was a comic strip character that was semi-popular in the 1920s and early 1930s \u2013 he was a cigar chomping fool whose sense of self-importance was out of touch with his intellectual shortcomings. For this screen adaptation, Educational recruited Jack Shutta, a vaudeville comedian who was new to films, to play the character.<\/p>\n

The only reason Windy Riles goes to Hollywood is due to a mistake \u2013 the character is in a New York to San Francisco auto race but takes a wrong turn in California and winds up in the movie capital. As soon as he arrives in the city, his car is repossessed \u2013 but the repo man gets into a fender-bender with the head of a movie studio and quickly blames Windy, even though he wasn\u2019t driving the car at the time. Nonetheless, the studio chief decides to make Windy work for him in order to pay for the damage to his car \u2013 and Windy gets assigned to the studio\u2019s publicity department.<\/p>\n

The studio has a problem with its leading lady, Betty Grey (played by Louise Brooks), who keeps getting bad publicity. The arrogant but dumb Windy is unaware of this problem and unilaterally hatches a publicity scheme tied to Betty\u2019s new movie, \u201cThe Boxcar Mystery\u201d \u2013 he kidnaps and ties up the film\u2019s director and hides him in a boxcar in a nearby railroad depot. But when a reporter finds out the director is missing and threatens to implicate Betty in his disappearance, Windy races to retrieve the abducted director.<\/p>\n

\u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d is one of the slovenliest paced comedy shorts imaginable. Even by the admittedly stiff filmmaking styles of the early talkies, this film\u2019s lethargy is grueling \u2013 there isn\u2019t any reason to laugh at the tired, dull and contrived situations forced on the screen. Louise Brooks would later recall that Roscoe Arbuckle\u2019s heart and soul were nowhere to be found in the film\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made no attempt to direct this picture at all,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cHe just sat silently all through the three days of filming in his director’s chair like a dead man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks dismissed the short as a \u201cbroken down picture,\u201d but she made no effort to invigorate the proceedings. Her performance is flat and stale, and outside of a very brief dance number she seemed bored by her surroundings. Granted, she didn\u2019t have any funny lines and had to play the straight role to Jack Shutta\u2019s obnoxiously overbearing attempts at being funny, but whatever star power she displayed in the silent movies was nowhere to be seen here.<\/p>\n

According to the Louise Brooks Society website, \u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d was given a relatively scant theatrical release in 1931, although it had more visibility later when it was offered as 16mm Filmsound rental by the Bell and Howell Company for the home movie market. It also was the first Louise Brooks film shown on television, turning up on November 18, 1948, on WJZ-TV in Asbury Park, New Jersey.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, the film was a turning point for Arbuckle, Shutta and Brooks. One year after making this film, Warner Bros. broke the blacklisting of Arbuckle and cast him in a few short films. The popularity of these works encouraged the studio to plan a feature film for him, but tragically he died of a heart attack in 1933 on the day he signed the Warner Bros. contract to make his return to features.<\/p>\n

Shutta\u2019s film career continued in supporting parts in a few short films and uncredited bit parts in features \u2013 his cinematic output was a classic case of starting with a starring role and then working one\u2019s way down the ladder. Brooks never regained her footing in Hollywood, with a few bit parts and the female lead in the 1938 low-budget John Wayne Western \u201cOverland Stage Raiders.\u201d She left Hollywood and went through a series of jobs, including work as a call girl, and was mostly forgotten until European film scholars rediscovered her work \u2013 she spent her latter years writing about her Hollywood experiences and has been belatedly hailed as one of the great stars of the silent era.<\/p>\n

As with the bulk of the Educational Pictures releases, \u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d had a lapsed copyright and has been in the public domain for years. The film did have a commercial Blu-ray release via Kino Lorber\u2019s 2015 offering of Brooks\u2019 German-made \u201cDiary of a Lost Girl,\u201d but it was badly placed as a special feature in this presentation of G.W. Pabst\u2019s artistic masterwork \u2013 it was startling to see Brooks\u2019 career collapse from Pabst\u2019s stunning master work to the dismal two-reeler made only two years afterwards. Poor copies of the film have popped up on public domain labels \u2013 these seem to be sourced from the 16mm prints made for the home movie market \u2013 and those awful prints have been the subject of multiple postings on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cWindy Riley Goes Hollywood\u201d is a sad little blot that overlapped the body of two great stars. Except for those who have a morbid curiosity on how low someone\u2019s career can fall, there is no reason to seek it out.<\/p>\n