Professor David Peimer
Damon Runyon: Romanticising New York Hustlers and Gangsters with Such Charm
Professor David Peimer - Damon Runyon: Romanticising New York Hustlers and Gangsters with Such Charm
- And hi, everybody, and hope everybody is well from a freezing cold Liverpool, which is raining and dark and very windy, and in these very cruel and tough times, it’s wonderful to share with you everywhere and to be able to focus on something, like the educational approach that we all have in lockdown, and just hope everybody is well and taking care. So, going to dive into, who for me, well as with many of the others that we’ve spoken about, one of the most fascinating and I think important American and global writers of the early and into the middle of the 20th century and reaches way beyond today. A man who just created a world of his own from his life and imagination, fascinating. This is some pictures of Damon Runyon, as we all know. Obviously, the one on the right is a young Damon Runyon, looking super cool, trying to be, I suppose, for his times, look cool and hip, jazz age and all of that, younger. And then, of course, next to it is Damon Runyon, the journalist, the newspaper man, the short story writer inventing and creating wonderful language and such funny and fantastically enduring stories for us still today. Just one or two things before I start is just thinking and talking to Hannah a bit earlier and I appreciate, Hannah, your questions and ideas. The idea of the gangster, we have to imagine going back to when he’s writing and of course, he’s part of Prohibition era and then, of course, the Great Depression era, and then much later the Second World War.
But I think those are such defining moments in Runyon’s life, and the idea of gangsters being so popular and I want to show today why and how in his writing, and I think it’s ultimately the idea of the outsider in American culture, in many cultures but the outsider, which it may be a stretch, but I think is where he does connect to the Jewish characters or the Jewish influence in his characters that he brings. It’s this idea of the outsider. And, of course, we have the cowboys going way back when I spoke about the cowboys some time ago, Sergio Leone and others. And then, of course, we have the gangsters, and we have a lot of examples in our own times, Scorsese, “Goodfellas” and others, “The Godfather” obviously, “Soprano,” Tarantino with “Pulp Fiction,” and so many others. But these are all, in a way, lovable rogues and outsiders. They’re not all like that in these movies, of course, but I think they all are influenced by the world that Damon Runyon created with a typewriter and an imagination. So, I want to dive into this, first of all, if we can go on to the next slide, please. So this is just a clip from one of the very early films, “Lady for a Day” in 1933, Dave the Dude and Apple Annie, one of the very early ones. And the reason I want to show it is to show also the style. I’m going to talk a lot about style of the hat, the jacket, you can just see the edge of the sleeve there. Style is so important to be not only fashionable but cool in New York. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide, please. Right, this is one of the articles that Damon Runyon wrote as a newspaper ‘cause of course, he was a newspaper man as well as writing these short stories.
Let’s look at it again here. “Never again will the giants’ erratic twirler be known as "bugs” since the downfall of the pirates, it’s Mr. Raymond. Yes, indeed, MISTER Raymond! This way, sir; your hat, MISTER Raymond, the VERY best seat in the house, sir.“ This is a newspaper guy writing. It’s just a newspaper article. He doesn’t just list this happened, this happened, the facts. He’s giving it a whole romanticised but fun, lively, colourful language in the attitude of the writer to creating characters who are real for the newspaper man, which is, I think, something of a bit of a lost art in how dry often so much newspaper writing has become and this is about sports, of course. So Damon Runyon, if we can go back to the first slide, please Hannah, the very first one, thank you. So Damon Runyon. This is the very important period that he is living in and his stories really celebrate the world of Broadway in New York City. I think primarily during Prohibition era, and then, of course, the Depression and the characters of distinctive social types, obviously, from Brooklyn and from Midtown Manhattan. There’s humour. Yes, there is, of course, some sentimentality, tales of gamblers, hustlers, gangsters and I do think this builds on the cowboy outsider or outlaw image, those who are in and out of the law, but in a lovable, affectionate way, the characters are created. So they are hustlers, gamblers, gangsters. They have such wonderfully colourful names like Nathan Detroit, Benny Southstreet Harry the Horse, Goodtime Charlie, Dave the Dude, The Seldom Seen Kid.
This also goes way back. If one looks at some of the oral literature of ancient Africa, parts of Asia as well where characters had colourful names also, which was about something they did or the way others saw them in life. Stereotyped two dimensional, yes, but colourful, endearing, and enchanting and his distinctive vernacular style created a combination, which is fascinating, of these guys trying to do a kind of high class formal speech, but also street slang, and that combination, I’m going to argue, is what gives his writing a lot of the brilliance. And, of course, the influence of Jewish wit and Jewish people that he knew and the ironic, optimistic twist in playing with those words. And I think he has very affectionate names towards the Jewish characters and I don’t mean that naively. I think it’s strong, it’s a belief. It’s humane and real inside him. From Frank Loesser, forgive my pronunciation, who wrote the music score and the lyrics for "Guys and Dolls”, the great musical that’s based on two of Runyon short stories. So to give you an example, this is from one of the songs that Loesser wrote. “All right, already, I’m just a no-goodnick. All right, already, it’s true, so new. So sue me, sue me, what can you do to me? I love you, baby.” Sorry, it’s I love you, doll, okay. So this is Frank Loesser, who is Jewish, writing the lyrics and music for “Guys and Dolls” based on two very famous Damon Runyon short stories, connecting and understanding completely the huge influence of Jewish gangsters and people who lived, Jewish wit and irony on Damon Runyon’s writing and that’s sung by the gambler, Nathan Detroit to his long suffering girlfriend Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls”.
So Runyon’s characters, Jewish and not Jewish are very colourful. They are two dimensional and stereotype, but because they are so affectionately portrayed, because they’re gangsters, but they’re the kind of guys who make sure they get home in time for their wife or love their wife’s cooking or will fight to the death anybody who insults their family. So they have this mix of lovable rogues, characters who are also actually killers, but have the other side as well and Runyon is the first really to capture this in writing. And, of course, it comes out in the great musical, “Guys and Dolls”. Here’s the names like Sam the Gonoph, well, Izzy Cheesecake, I mean, this is Runyon creating names, Izzy Cheesecake and Runyon describes Izzy Cheesecake as slightly Jewish. It’s such a deep affection and playfulness, which is fun with it. He takes the malice out of himself as a writer and malice out of his characters. That’s led to an accusation that the characters are sentimental, naive, and totally unreal, and they are unreal. But there’s also something endearingly humane inside the character type. When you create character type, you create comedy. You see it in Shakespeare, oh, so many writers all the way through. So much of comedy requires character as two dimensional type.
You see it in Mel Brooks, “The Producers,” it’s so many, many. Woody Allen used it at times and many others and I think that’s so important. You don’t have to go deep into psychological inner life of character. You stay with the stereotype, the two dimensional, and that’s what’s necessary so often for comedy in character and he knows it, Damon Runyon. So “Guys and Dolls” was based on two of his short stories, “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” and “Blood Pressure.” I’m going to go a little bit into those when I show some of the film clips. I’m going to show some film clips from the 1955 version of the film, which I still believe is by far the best with Frank Sinatra and Brando. Back to Runyon. So he becomes a newspaper reporter covering the news and sports. 1882, his father was forced to sell the newspaper and the family goes and lives in Pueblo in Colorado. He attended school, but only through to the fourth grade, self-taught entirely like a lot of the others that I’ve mentioned before in these talks. 1898 in his teens, he leaves school and he enlists in the US Army to fight in the Spanish-American War, and then goes back to Colorado, works for newspapers there. He was also a member later of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. ‘Cause he loves boxing, he loves horse racing, gambling, he engages in all this, Mr. Runyon. And in fact, one of his notorious games to fame is that there was a world heavyweight champion called James J. Braddock, and Runyon called him the Cinderella man. Gambling, especially on horse races, was one of the loves of his life, gambling on many things. And in fact, Runyon paraphrases from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. This is the paraphrasing, “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s where the smart money is.” 1916, he’s covering border raids of Mexican bandits for the newspaper. He works for Hearst often in newspapers in New York and when he was there in 1916, he put a bet and he asked a young girl who was there, her name was Patrice Del Grande, Spanish, and he asked the 14-year-old girl to go and put the bet on this horse for him.
She got the horse wrong. She put it on another horse, not the one he wanted, but that horse that she chose wins the race and wins him a lot of money. This is real. So he said to the 14-year-old, “Well, I’ll pay for your school and then come to New York after you finish school and graduate and after you’ve turned 18, and I’ll get you a dancing job in the city,” and he did. He paid for her school, and she eventually came later when she was 18, 19 to meet him in New York. In 1925, she arrives, they meet. He gets her work at a local speakeasy and in 1928, they’re married. She’s much younger. 1946, she had an affair with a much younger man, which I’m sure he knew would probably happen. They got divorced. 1946, sadly is when he died at the age of 66 in New York City of throat cancer and there is the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund, memorial cancer fund, and a lot of other things that have been set up based on the money from his estate. Okay, that’s briefly his life. If we can go on to the next slide, please. Sorry, the one after this will be number four. Yeah, Frank Loesser, one of his big friends. This is the guy, you see the younger and the older Frank Loesser. Forgive my translation. This is the Jewish guy who is his friend who wrote the music and the lyrics for “Guys and Dolls.” and wins a Tony Award for it. Loesser had a lot of chutzpah, in fact, he spoke with an effective working class, lower East Side accent, as if he was Nathan Detroit, one of the characters Runyon created, as if he was part of the . He came from a Jewish family in New York City.
His parents were immigrant, secular German Jews who prized very high culture and taught him the great European, German and others, the great European composers. But Frank reacts against it. This sort of, let’s call it very commerce, sophisticated, refined taste or, anyway, of the great composers and has a love for musical theatre and starts writing and his great piece of course is “Guys and Dolls”, which we’ll come to a couple of clips shortly. Okay, if we can go to the next slide, please. This is another one of Damon Runyon’s great friends. This I think was probably his best friend, Otto Berman, original name, Otto Bierderman or Abbadabba as he was known as well. Otto is fascinating character. Jewish, born to a Jewish family in New York City, becomes an accountant for what we would today call organised crime and he coined the phrase, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.” It comes from him, not from Mario Puzo or whoever else. And he’s a great friend, if not the best friend of Damon Runyon. So here’s the Jewish accountant guy who’s the best friend of Runyon, who’s writing his articles and opens the door for Runyon to meet many of these small town gangster guys and the bigger time gangster guys of New York City and of course, Jewish and many of the other Jewish gangsters and the Italian gangsters, and many others. In the 1930s, Berman was the accountant for the gangster Dutch Schultz, I’m sure everybody’s heard of. In 1935, unfortunately, Otto Berman is at a meeting with Dutch Schultz in a restaurant and Lucky Luciano sends two assassins in, they burst into the room and shoot them all dead. Next day, the newspaper, there’s a photo of the bullet ridden body of Otto next to Dutch Schultz’s body, also bullet ridden. I’m getting caught up in the fun and playfulness of the gangster genre, in the morning’s newspaper.
And in the article with the newspaper, they accused Otto of being one of Dutch Schultz’s hired assassins or hired gunmen or killers. And so Luciano has had them all killed. And Damon Runyon immediately wrote a really interesting wonderful article with his flair for language, saying that Otto would’ve been as effective of a bodyguard as a 2-year-old. So he completely dismissed the story that Otto was a gunman and a killer and ruthless and all that. He was the accountant and a great friend of his. And in fact, in one of the stories, he is called Regret The Horse Player. That’s the name of a character based on Otto Berman. I found it a fascinating life. And I think a lot of these guys, and I know Sandra talks a lot about the gangster characters and Helen, of course, about spies. But anyway, these are fascinating. They’re part of this outlaw world, this outsider world, whether it’s Italian, whether it’s Jewish, Irish, it’s part of this, and the way that it’s written again, is the kind of lovable rogue. Okay, if we can go on to the next slide, please. I want to show this because this is the kind of world that would’ve been of Damon Runyon’s times. You get the two guys, look how they dress. There’s the kid on the right, then on the left, shoes shine, the hat, the jacket, the tie in the middle.
This is a picture of Otto with his tie slightly… So look at how they’re trying to be so classy, trying to be so stylish, even if they’ve had very little school or formal or any education, they’re aspiring to belong, to fit in, but they’re of course totally outsider. But through their clothing, their hats, the way they angle their everything, is trying to fit in and be classy in the New York style of the 30s and the '40s. Okay, if we can go on to the next night, please, This is a wonderful picture, which I’ve always loved of some of the Jewish and others, gangsters of the time. Harry Tietlebaum, Ben Siegel, Bugsy Siegel, Joseph Rosen, et cetera, et cetera, you see them, and again, the hats and the angle of the hats, the tie, the jacket, the handkerchief in the pocket of the jacket. They’re not walking abound slobby, slobbish or anything. They’re trying to be classy and stylish, and I think Damon Runyon sees this, knows it. And the language is not just lateral, inverted commas, stupid or banal language. It’s an inventive one. And I think Runyon hooks onto it and makes it a thousand times more inventive, colourful, and lively. He’s creating a world of Broadway, of probably five or six or seven, eight blocks in Manhattan, a world of characters, liveliness. A world that we see here that he would’ve seen going to what was called Lindy’s, the deli down the road and all the joints and the speakeasies, et cetera. But the world that he experienced through the Jewish connection often, and the Yiddish connection and the colorfulness of the Yiddish language, he’s trying to incorporate that in his own language and the stories and the way that these guys told stories.
I remember growing up in Durban in South Africa, and two of my very good friends’ fathers’ Jewish were bookmakers and I used to love Friday nights. They’d hear all the stories of the horse races and who was this and that, trying to capture something of this world and the language of Damon Runyon and this world of Jewish small and medium sized, maybe bigger even, crooks or gangsters of New York City of this time. Okay, and what I want to do is, yeah, okay, I’m just going to hold that for a moment. And we look at some, and we’re going to come in a moment, onto some of the writing of Damon Runyon. So basically, Damon Runyon is a Depression era and a Prohibition era New York newspaper man. Let’s remember newspaper deadline. Get the story out, get it moving fast. What’s the next scoop? You’re always looking for the next gig, the next story. It’s a world of the journalist or the newspaper man is a better word for these times. For me, some of the stories are the funniest I’ve ever read. And Runyon, as I said, creates his own language. It’s his own comic world and I’m going to point out how he does it. The words, the world that he creates is awry. It’s full of colourful and exquisite irony and a very American optimism. A kind of a cheerfulness. But I don’t think it’s just sentimental or just naive. I think it comes because these guys are outsiders. They are, as I said before, and they find a way to make their humour help them make sense of their lives and life. They know they’re outsiders, they know they can be killed. They know they have to rob and do this and do that, but they’re also trying to fit in and you can see in their clothing.
It’s a world of gangsters who like Gefilte fish and that’s not only Izzy Cheesecake, but some of the other gangsters he creates. The one does like Gefilte fish. He absorbs, Runyon, all the Yiddish and the Jewish humour and reality of small time and medium time crooks and gangsters who are Jewish into his stories. It’s a world of hustlers, conmen, gamblers and they’re observed by the narrator who in Runyon’s words, “Is known to one and all,” he often used that phrase, “known to one and all” as a guy who is just around, don’t have to explain more of inner life of the character, he’s just around, so he can be the narrator. The characters of these fun names like Harry the Horse, Rusty Charlie, who’s a vicious gangster, Dream Street Rose. They speak in a slang that is both vernacular and comic, and they make up words where a gun is a Roscoe, a gun is a Roscoe, money is scratch, or money is potatoes, woman are dolls. All of this is an inventive language for his characters. He avoids the past tense and very little about the future tense in the grammar of the sentences, pardon me. It’s all in the present tense and that creates a very immediate feeling that we are involved as we are reading, for example. Now almost any doll on Broadway will be very glad indeed to have handsome Jack Madigan give her a tumble. I mean, you have to see it as wit and irony and playfulness with the language and the streetwise, by trying to be high class language, let’s put it that way. That’s from “Guys and Dolls”. Here’s another from another story where a gangster tells another character that he better do as he tells him, or he might have to find another world in which to live. These are the ways. He doesn’t write, “If you don’t do what I’ll tell you, I’ll kill you.” Very banal and very boring language. He says, “No, you’ll have to find another world in which to live.”
And they’d relish finding euphemisms, reddish finding this colourful flavoured language and that’s what Runyon contributes and that’s where a lot of the comedy comes. The stories are mostly told in the first person by a narrator protagonist, probably Runyon type himself, who’s never named but he knows the gangsters, but he’s not a criminal himself. So he’s an observer like Runyon, the newspaper man, the journalist he knows them all, observes and can write about them. And that’s a brilliant technique for any writer, especially of short stories. Just to read you one example, “It’s spring, 1931, after a long hard winter and times are tough indeed. What will the stock market going all to pieces and banks busting right and left and the Lords getting very nasty about this and that and one thing and another and many citizens in this town are compelled to just do the best they can. There is very little scratch that’s money. There’s very little scratch anywhere. And along Broadway, many citizens are wearing last year’s clothes and practically nothing else to bet on the races or anything else. It’s a condition that will touch anybody’s heart.” He creates a colourful, lively picture in the present tense. And this is a piece from the hottest guy in the world, another story, in which Big Julie describes how he passed the time shooting rats for target practise while he had to be hold up in a barn. “Well Sir,” Julie says, “I keep score on myself one day and I hit 50 rats, hand running, without a miss, which I claim makes me the champion rat shooter of the world with a 45 automatic, of course. Although, of course, if anybody wishes to challenge me to a rat shooting match, I’m willing to take them on for a side bet.” Everything is linked to betting and gambling and conmen, and that combination of characters creates the wit together with the language.
He doesn’t just say right, I’m the best shooter of rats, and that’s it. You know, dull, boring writing. We can see it’s inventive, it’s fun, it’s playful even it’s so many years later. Lieutenant Branigan in another story, this is in “Guys and Dolls”, confronts the gambler, Sky Masterson, one of the main characters in “Guys and Dolls”. And he says, “Masterson, I had you in my big time book and now I’ll have to reclassify you under shills and decoys.” So the lieutenant, the police guy doesn’t say, right, I’ve got to arrest you and you’re not the big guy now, you’re a small guy. He creates this language again, you can see it inventive, colourful, and therefore, comic. Of course, “Guys and Dolls” and other stories romanticise the gambling and the gangsters. There’s an optimism in spite of everything, but I think because of the language, it’s a romanticization, but it’s not just naive or silly, it’s comedy and when you’d make comedy with gangsters and comedy with small time and medium sized crooks and killers, you create a world which is endearing and audiences love, and readers. Kenneth Tynan, the great British theatre critic, probably the best anyone’s read, years ago said, “Guys and Dolls” was the second best American play right after “Death of a Salesman,” number one, and Kenneth Tynan was so influential in British theatre for so many decades, the second half of the 20th century, it’s important insight. So his musical of “Guys and Dolls” was based on short stories and in “Guys and Dolls,” it’s “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown”. And it’s about a high roller courting a do-gooder woman, a doll, and “Blood Pressure,” fantastic story, and it’s set in Nathan Detroit’s illegal craps game.
Frank Loesser, the composer, had never written a musical before, so it’s his first musical ever, music and lyrics he writes, extraordinary. But he has this very classical training from his father. But Loesser fires the first lyricist, a book writer in a sense, because the guy refused to write a scene where two characters are going to have a bet on who would get a woman to bed first. It’s just fun and all these stories, these are real life things and they charm us today, don’t they? That’s a classic story of two couples that come together and their conflicts and all that. It’s almost Shakespearean in the structure of the two couples. 1950 was the Broadway premier and at 1,200 performances of “Guys and Dolls”, and it took $12 million, quite incredible for a first time writer, first time composer, and rarely, taking these stories of Runyon’s into it. So what is it? It’s a reporter who’s become a raconteur. That’s what Runyon is in his writing, and he’s enamoured with a seedy side of Prohibition America. But he gives the gangsters a gloss on the stage of the page. Characters are involved in prostitution, homicide, corruption, assassins, where you end up dead as door nails or guzzled. You’re not just murdered or killed, dead as door nails or guzzled. Again, it’s Runyon, it’s inventive with language. You have a gallery of small timers who are really lost souls and when we get that, they’re really lost souls underneath, covering it with trying to pump themselves up to be classy, higher class, much better with language, and they don’t have real malice or real rage inside them. They become so charming and endearing and lovable rogues to us.
Runyon wrote, or actually Frank Loesser wrote, “Well, I’m mean the romance business. I write romantic,” and it is, but it’s a certain kind that I’m trying to mention. Runyon also said, “To hell with plot, no one remembers the roots of Dickens, the plots of Dickens or Mark Twain even, they remember the characters,” and I think it’s very true. Remember the characters, forget a lot of the plots. Of Sky Masterson, this is in “Guys and Dolls,” he writes, “He is the sort of smoothie who breezes through life. Yeah, he is not too bothered if he wins or loses so often he ends up winning.” Then the other couple are Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide, who I mentioned before, been engaged for 14 years, ridiculous. No sign of a wedding. Is it going anywhere or not, what’s going to happen? It’s almost a bit of a ridiculous plot structure, but it’s the characters again and we get the characters Rusty Charlie, Big Julie, Harry the Horse, Nicely-Nicely Johnson. These are some of the names that we all love of the characters. It’s a parade of tough guys, but when they talk, there are virtuosos with words. Here’s one example. “If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I’d have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific with enough leftover to run the Great Salt Lake out of business.” It’s linking business with, just saying that a whole lot of guys fall in love and out of love and so on, the tears. But look at this beautiful, fun, colourful way of writing, trying to lift the language from just sort of dull, factual, informational language. It’s poetic, it’s lifting it and it’s street language, and it’s coming from this Jewish, partly Yiddish, but this very Jewish tradition that he loved so much. Okay, if we can show the first slide, please. There’s a clip from “Guys and Dolls”, and this is Ed Sullivan introducing the movie of the musical.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think you’ve all heard about the man who actually paid a million dollars for a movie story. His name, of course, Samuel Goldwyn, and the story he bought was “Guys and Dolls”. Now, because I felt that this was the greatest musical I’d ever seen, I actually made four flying trips to the Pacific Coast to film excerpts of the show for my Sunday night TVer over the CBS Network and it is my idea of a wonderful picture. Now incidentally, that million dollar check that Sam wrote was only a starter. Before he was through, “Guys and Dolls” had cost him 5.5 million dollars and in Runyon’s language, that is a lot of lettuce. Now what does Sam Goldwyn get for it? Well, among other things, he got Damon Runyon’s world of fabulous characters.
The jails must be empty tonight. Can anybody be missing? Harry the Horse, Liver Lips Louie, Angie the Ox, Society Max, and here is a face for which I cannot supply a name. May I ask where you come from?
East Cicero Illinois.
And what is your occupation there?
I’m a scout master.
[Ed] Marlon Brando never danced or sang a note in his life until he met Goldwyn, but he sings and he dances in “Guys and Dolls” and Désirée. Jean Simmons too is a dramatic star, not a singer, but as Sister Sarah of the mission doll, she’s adorable, and her singing voice is terrific. Together these two generate excitement that’s electric. Let me show you what I mean.
Would you be open to a proposition?
I’ve had those, no.
Don’t flatter yourself, I’m talking business. I am in a position to supply you with the raw material you need for your work, namely sinners.
How?
[Ed] Frank Sinatra has amazed the entertainment world with his dramatic prowess. Now to prove he’s still the top song interpreter. Here he is as Nathan Detroit. ♪ Well, Adelaide, Adelaide ♪ ♪ Ever loving Adelaide ♪ ♪ Is taking a chance on me ♪ ♪ You’re at it again, you’re running the game ♪ ♪ I’m not going to fight second fiddle to that ♪ ♪ I’m sick and I’m tired of stalling around ♪ ♪ I’m telling you now that we’re through ♪ ♪ When I think of the times gone by ♪
Adelaide, Adelaide. ♪ When I think of the way I tried ♪
Adelaide. ♪ I could honestly die ♪
[Ed] Vivian Blaine was a comedy sensation and the original cast. She’s even funnier in the picture. With four great stars like these. Goldwyn needed a writer and a director just as big. He found both these talents in four-time Academy Award winner Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The result is sheer greatness. One short scene will show you what Jo Mankiewicz can do with a few simple words.
Whatever you do, wherever you go.
Why Sister Sarah, why?
I want to be with you.
The world’s full of souls closer to salvation than mine.
Anytime, anywhere.
Easier to save and much more worth saving.
You, you.
[Ed] The music of Frank Loesser is always a part of the story. Michael Kid’s imaginative dance direction even tops the exciting job he did in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”. Now he has the goal and girls to work with. Of all the grand entertainment ever produced by Samuel Goldwyn, an Academy Award winner himself, this is his best with it’s humour and drama and song-
If we can fade it here, please. Thanks Hannah. So I find it fascinating, this is Ed Sullivan. I mean really, really raving about this, actually makes me think, God, if TV was still like this today or even at something of this kind of civility and humility and just normal talk instead of this high pitched shrill raging polemic of today. Anyway, I like this because he’s introducing and he sees it’s all about characters, what I was saying earlier, and he isolates and identifies them and the opening scene especially, this is Harry the Horse, this is this one, and they’re each trying to play with it. Of course, they’re two dimensional stereotypes, the characters. But it’s all done in this charming, lovable, rogue way and that’s the key to it, which Runyon understood and of course, Frank Loesser understood and Sullivan. Okay, if we could show the next clip, please. There’s a clip from one of the classic songs, Frank Sinatra in the 1955 film of “Guys and Dolls”.
♪ When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky ♪ ♪ You can bet that he’s doing it for some doll ♪ ♪ When you spot a John waiting out in the rain ♪ ♪ Chances are he’s insane ♪ ♪ As only a John can be for a Jane ♪ ♪ When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent ♪ ♪ For a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal ♪ ♪ Call it sad, call it funny ♪ ♪ But it’s better than even money ♪ ♪ That’s a guy that’s only doing it for some doll ♪ ♪ When you see a Joe saving half of his dough ♪ ♪ You can bet they’ll be minting it for some doll ♪ ♪ When a bum by wine like a bum can’t afford ♪ ♪ It’s a cinch that the bum ♪ ♪ Is under the thumb of some little broad ♪ ♪ When you meet a mug lately out of the jug ♪ ♪ And he’s still lifting platinum folderol ♪ ♪ Call it hell, call it heaven ♪ ♪ It’s probable twelve to seven ♪ ♪ That’s a guy that’s only doing it for some doll ♪ ♪ When you see a sport ♪ ♪ And his cash has one short ♪ ♪ You can bet he’s been blowing it on some doll ♪ ♪ When a guy wears tails with the front gleaming white ♪ ♪ Who the heck do you think ♪ ♪ He’s tickling pink on Saturday night ♪ ♪ When some lazy slob gets a good, steady job ♪ ♪ And he smells from Vitalis and Barbasol ♪ ♪ Call it dumb, call it clever ♪ ♪ Ah, but you can’t give odds forever ♪ ♪ That’s a guy that’s only doing it for some doll ♪ ♪ Some doll, some doll ♪ ♪ That’s a guy that’s only doing it for some doll ♪
Right thanks, if we can hold it there, please, Hannah. Great, so if we can just show the next one, but just to freeze the image, thank you. Okay, so that’s obviously one of the great classic songs from the musical coming from Runyon’s stories, but I think, in the acting and performing, everything I’ve tried to say, the clothing, the classiness, the style, the language. “Guys and Dolls,” obviously the meaning of the song, what a guy will do for a doll, but it’s that optimism, that lifted quality that’s charming and endearing. But of course these guys, they’re crooks, they’re gangsters, but they’re capable of not only singing but the language and they’re capable of loving, they’re capable of all these other things. They’re not actually the stereotype, sort of just action man, killer, ruthless, end of story, goodbye. They have these human qualities, in the same way as I think some of the cowboy movies like Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven”. Some of the Sergio Leone cowboy movies, the Scorsese ones, which are much more serious, of course. They’re not doing comedy, but “Goodfellas” and “Gangs of New York” and many others. Tarantino beginning of “Pulp Fiction.” These is all contemporary versions influenced by the classical origin. So is it sentimental, yes. But does that mean that it’s destroyed and therefore it’s pointless and silly to even waste time watching, I don’t think so because it’s taking what is the language and it’s put into comedy and comedy uses sentimentality. Comedy uses stereotype of character. The two dimensional character who doesn’t have inner psychological complexity of three-dimensional characters.
Comedy requires it, and I think it’s part of Damon Runyon’s brilliance is to make assassin car gangsters comedy and lift the language, not dress it down. Look up to them as icons who are fantastically inventive with language, which makes them attracted to us as well. I want to read from “The Old Doll’s House”. This is a bit from the story or this is the story actually, “A bootlegger Lance is on the run from gangsters. He hides in the house of Abigail and she’s a reclusive elderly lady. They talk and she tells him that in her youth, she fell in love with a guy who used to sneak into the house to see her just as Lance has done. But her father discovered them, the two youngsters discovered this guy and her when she was young together one night, and he kicked him out, kicked the young boy out, and the young man was kicked out into the snowy, freezing cold winter and he froze to death outside their house.” So she tells Lance the story. Lance is a hood, is a hoodlum, is a gangster. He leaves and he tracks down the assassins who are trying to shoot him, and he shoots them. Then of course, he’s caught by the police and at his trial, Abigail, the elderly lady is called as a witness and the lawyer says to her, “What time did the defendant, Lance leave your house that night?” And she says, “12 o'clock that night.” Well, it’s the time when Lance’s assassins were murdered downtown. So if he was with her, he couldn’t have obviously killed these guys.
Charges are dropped and at the very end of the story of Runyon, we learn that Abigail, long ago when she inherited the house from her parents stopped every clock at 12 midnight, because that was the last time she saw that young lover who was alive when he was kicked out by her father and died in the freezing snow in the garden of their house. So let’s see how he twists that story and gives us the kick in the guts at the end. So it’s not just sentimental. There is a punch in the moral and in the meaning. There’s another fantastic story, “Blood Pressure,” which “Guys and Dolls” takes from, which is a world of gambling joints, speakeasies, and all night diners. The narrator character is on Broadway one night mid Manhattan, and he is contemplating his blood pressure ‘cause it’s way too high, and he’s been told by his doctor, “Avoid stress.” So then he is accosted by a vicious gangster, Rusty Charlie. Charlie drags him to a gambling den and his stress level obviously skyrockets. Everyone’s afraid of Rusty Charlie and along the way, Rusty Charlie punches a taxi driver, punches and kicks five policemen and a horse. Eventually Charlie takes him to his apartment, and there Charlie’s wife blames our main character for leading her husband Charlie astray. And she hits him on the head with a brick. Our protagonist just recovers and flees from Rusty Charlie and his wife’s apartment. He gets to a doctor and then the doctor takes his blood pressure and it’s way down and at the end of the story, the doctor says to our character, “Well, it only goes to show what just a little bit of quiet living will do for a guy.” So it’s all how he twists and turns and plays with stories and language and of course they’re improbable and they’re fun and they’re witty, but the wit and the humour, I mean, this is decades later, this is over 60, 70, 80 years later, for me, it still works.
Obviously, he’s dealing mostly with five or six blocks either side of 50th Street, Manhattan and as I said, Prohibition, Depression time. The rich and glamorous are passing through. But we never forget the lost souls, which you saw briefly in the clip with Brando at the end of that last one. These are grifters, lost souls. They’re trying to do the best they can, make a buck, get by in life. So those characters always inside the stories that Runyon creates, They’re vaudevillian names, they’re vaudeville, they’re such fun, not only Harry the Horse, but Hot Horse Herbie, the Seldom Seen Kid, Dream Street Rose, all these others. As one writer of the time said, “1939 Broadway was the district of glorified dancing girls, millionaire playboys, diamond dance hostesses, gangsters, racketeers, derelicts, youthful stage stars dreaming, ageing burlesque comedians, heavyweight champions.” That’s Runyon’s Broadway to a T. “Life in the end is a game played with weighted dice and anyone who beats the dice deserves respect.” I’m paraphrasing what a scholar has written about Runyon’s writing, which I think is brilliant. It just captures it. Everything about the dice, the betting, the gambling. There is another story of Nicely-Nicely, this is the beginning of “Lonely Heart.” And this is what Runyon writes in the story. “It seems that one spring day Nicely-Nicely Johnson arrives in a ward in a hospital in the city of Newark with such a severe case of pneumonia that the attending physician who is actually a horse player and very absent-minded, writes 140 and 10 on the chart over Nicely-Nicely’s hospital bed. It comes out afterwards, what the physician means is that it’s a hundred to one that Nicely-Nicely does not recover at all. It’s 40 to one that he will not last a week and it’s 10 to one that if he does get well, eh, he’ll never be the same again.” That’s such a fantastic idea. It’s so simple and yet so funny so many years and years later.
You imagine this doctor that really loves betting and taking odds and bets on the patients. Yeah, of course it’s cruel and of course it’s not nice if you’re the patient, and he goes on in the story. “Well, Nicely-Nicely is greatly discouraged,” present tense, “is greatly discouraged when he sees this is the price against him because he always plays the short priced favourites and he can see that such a long shot as he is, has very little chance to win. In fact, he’s so discouraged that he does not even feel like taking a little of the price against him, even though he might win.” So, he’s not even going to take the bet himself. He turns all these things into a funny, comical situation. He doesn’t need to be malicious or cruel to anybody. The situation becomes funny through the character of the physician who’s absent-minded and is obsessed with betting and Nicely-Nicely Johnson, the character, is also into betting and gambling. Life is a roll of the dice and it’s a weighted dice. You’re going to beat it or not, it’s a gamble and he lived like that, Damon Runyon, and that’s the vision of life that he’s trying to write and create inside all these stories. He was hugely influenced in 1929 by the death of Arnold Rothstein. He was of course the well-known Jewish gangster we’ve all heard of. and it was after that that he really started to crystallise his writing about gangsters that he knew as fictional characters. And the brilliant insight was to turn these gangsters into comic fictional characters, to dramatise violence on Broadway, but in a way that was funny, in situations that’d be funny. “Only a rank sucker will think of taking two peeks at Dave the Dude’s doll, because while Dave may stand for the first peek, it’s a sure thing he will get soared up at the second peek.” Again, the language says it. He’s not trying to be moralistic, he’s just trying to do everything that I’ve said. The crooks try to speak high for the same reason they polish their shoes, tip their hats, wear fancy suits. Fancy is classy, language that is fancy is classy, and they want to be classy.
So it’s that lift them up, don’t put them down, they’re just gangsters and crooks, small time or big. That’s the brilliance of his insight, I think in the language. The narrator is reporting. The other brilliance is that the key character is a narrator who’s a journalist type reporter. He’s reporting the slang of the streets. He’s also writing the story. Here’s an examples. Maya Marmalade is a most superior character who is called Maya Marmalade because nobody can ever think of his last name, which is something like Mamma Delosky and he is known far and wide for the way he likes to bet on any sporting proposition such as baseball, horse races, ice hockey, and especially contests of skill and science. That writing is not easy and I think it’s so fantastic how you can see everything that I’ve been saying. For me, and I love Sorbello but that generation is much more ironic and detached for the Jewish narrator. But with Runyon, we have a gentile author who is expressing his wonderment, his love for language of Yiddish and Jewish people that he’s meeting in Broadway, gangsters and not gangsters. Gefilte fish loving, passionate, fun, smart, tough, family-first. Discovery is hard to get. Runyon gets to the core of the soul, if you like, of street speakers, by dressing the language up, not dress it down and it’s fancy, it’s over formal, it’s elaborate and it’s combined with street slang, just like shining the two-tone shoes. So the humour is so Jewish, it’s a totally Jewish art form that Runyon is helping to develop together with Loesser and others, and of course there’s Hammerstein, there’s so many others before Hammerstein, half Jewish. Because the American musicals, putting Cole Porter aside is basically Jewish and African American. And that’s not me, that’s Nick Hytner who’s a fantastic British theatre and musical theatre director who did a brilliant production of “Guys and Dolls” in London. Okay, I want to show just a little bit of the next slide, please, which is a clip from the movie of “Guys and Dolls”. This one, can you can show it, please.
♪ I got the horse right here ♪ ♪ The name is Paul Revere ♪ ♪ And here’s a guy that says ♪ ♪ If the weather is clear ♪ ♪ Can do, can do ♪ ♪ This guy says the horse can do ♪ ♪ If he says the horse can do ♪ ♪ Can do, can do, can do ♪ ♪ I’m pickin Valentine ♪ ♪ 'Cause on the morning line ♪ ♪ A guy’s got him figured at five to nine, has a chance ♪ ♪ But look at Epitaph ♪ ♪ He wins it by a half ♪ ♪ According to this here in the Telegraph ♪ ♪ For Paul Revere I’ll bite ♪ ♪ I hear his foot’s all right ♪ ♪ Of course it all depends if it rained last night ♪ ♪ I know it’s Valentine ♪ ♪ The morning work looks fine ♪ ♪ Besides the Jockey’s brother’s a friend of mine ♪ ♪ And just a minute, boys ♪ ♪ I’ve got the feed box noise ♪ ♪ It says the great grandfather was an Equipoise ♪ ♪ I’ll tell you Paul Revere ♪ ♪ Now this is no bum steer ♪ ♪ It’s from a handicapper that’s real sincere ♪
Okay, we can hold it there. , thanks. And then the next clip I’m going to show briefly. Just wanted to show that because it’s the small time crooks, but they’re making out there much bigger, betting real big money, but pardon me, actually, they’re betting very small stakes on the horses. They are lost souls, but they’re not going to live as lost souls. They’re going to live with the optimism of America and the optimism of life and they’re bigger and they’re going to dress like that. They’re going to fancy language and fancy talk and street slang over the pain of their life and the level of poverty or semi poverty that they might live in. Okay, this is Brando. I’m going to show you the brief scene from “Guys and Dolls.”
That’s very interesting and maybe with honest dice, I can make a pass to save his soul and yours and yours and yours. I’m going to roll these dice, one roll. And on that roll I’m going to bet each of you $1,000 against your soul. 1000 cash against the market for your soul. If I win, all of you show up at the mission tonight. Have I got a bet?
Hold it, let me get this. If you lose, then you got to give us each a thousand bucks, huh? But if you win, then we all got to show up at the Mission Dallas Cabaret?
Save a Soul mission, midnight tonight, one meeting.
If you lose a thousand a piece?
A thousand a piece.
Well, that’s so okay by me.
What’s the delay Sky, you tonne of chicken.
You know better than that Horse, you’ve seen me roll for twice as much. Only I got a lot more than money riding on this one.
Yeah, just hold it there. Thanks, so that goes in, of course into Brando and of course we know Brando’s not really a singer or a dancer, but so the way of singing very cleverly by Joseph Mankiewicz is to make it more Brando is sort of talking the song rather than actually trying to hit many notes in singing. But Brando, of course, is a huge star at the time with Sinatra, whether they got on or not, and Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine. They’re all part of this and there’s a reason I think they all get together and do it, something they connect to in all of these pieces, in this musical. What I do want is it’s the image of the dice and what I was saying about life is a roll of weighted dice, okay?
Then this here is an image from Nick Hytner’s fairly recent production in London and just to see how in very contemporary theatre production, this is a theatre, not film obviously, trying to capture this whole world that I’ve been describing of Midtown Manhattan with all the characters, the hats, the colours, each one trying to be individual, each one trying to stand out, be classy and fancy and with that language. Okay, and then the very last one, if we can show it for a moment and of course, is it all today cartoon? Is it all today? Okay, it’s fascinating, it’s interesting, but it’s such a bygone era never to come back and it’s gone and it’s sweet, nice clap and let’s go have a cup of coffee, goodbye. I think that they saw something profound inside it, which is not only how they took musical theatre further, Runyon and Frank Loesser and others with the directors, but also it’s a vision of life. It’s a vision of the world, but it’s not where you have to show malice just because the characters are a bunch of New York gangsters. You can show them in a comic way and ironic and you can show them in a way where the language is so colourful and lively and you can take out the real vicious cruelty and malice and show just another side, not only to be pleasing and entertaining for the moment or over romantic, but I think that it reminds us of just something, just a little bit humane in perhaps inside us, that’s all. Okay, so, but of course it can also be seen as just kitsch cartoony today, which is where I wanted to end with this. Okay, thank you very much everyone, and let’s do some questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Okay, hi Rita, thank you.
Carla, oh, yeah, and to you, exactly, thank you. Back at you.
Rita, oh yes, gosh, how could I forget? Healthy and happy Hanukah to everybody and Rita, thank you so much for reminding me.
Okay, Monty, Damon Runyon was an anti-Semite, this was known by many at the time, and I’m not sure, I would have to differ, Monty, but it’d be interested to know where you find that or where you got that, because everything I’ve read about Otto Berman, about all these other characters I’ve mentioned, Frank Loesser, all the Jewish people he worked with who created these pieces, not just Jewish gangsters you might have met in the streets or in Lindy’s Deli. I get the different impression. It’s a debate about Scott Fitzgerald and the one character, Scott Fitzgerald in Gatsby. But I would differ with you here, Monty, but I’m open to hearing.
Obviously Rita given before my time. Do you have any reference, ah, Rita? Yeah, okay, thank you.
Elliot, about the begging of the gossip columns, yeah.
Ruth, wonder what you’re doing in my hometown, my late father, was a big fan. Immediately spotted the Jewish connection, absolutely. I think it’s so Jewish and almost every Jewish friend. Well, I’m Jewish and my sister, my whole family, everybody, everybody loves him and Runyon, I dunno a single person who doesn’t actually.
Ron, it’s pronounced Lesser. Thanks for that Ron, appreciate and hope you well. His second wife was dubbed the evil of the two Loessers by the same, I know, exactly. Great, thanks, thanks for that Ron, the great quip.
Paula, thank you. Frank Loesser, it’s my South African accent, thank you.
Estelle, my kids grew up thinking of themselves as Dave the Dude, Andy the Dandy and Righteous Richard. Yeah, great.
Carol, Damon Runyon was my dad’s favourite author. He loved “Guys and Dolls”. He would do characters like that with funny names and that was fantastic, Carol, thank you.
Ron, the Nathan Detroit character was originated by Sam Levine, a great actor, yes who played the victim in “Crossfire.” A scene seen detective in the “Thin Man” films. Frank Loesser wrote “Sue Me” especially for him. I didn’t know that Frank Loesser wrote that. I knew it was based on Sam Levine. Oh, that’s great, interesting, thanks, Ron.
Sky Masterson was originated by Robert Elder, yes. Alan Elder’s father. And he also played George Gershwin, exactly. “Rhapsody in Blue.” Great, thanks Ron.
Barry, I was living in Joburg in the 70s. One of the restaurants opened was a Jewish deli called Damon Runyon. I remember it, Barry, and thanks for reminding, exactly. I know exactly what you’re talking about, thank you.
Q: Bernard, have you seen the production of “Guys and Dolls?”
A: Yes, that’s the one at the Bridge Theatre. That’s the one I was mentioning right at the end. That’s the Nick Hytner, the one that was on.
Martin, full of energy, yep. It was Nick Hytner who said, “American musical theatre except for Cole Porter is basically African American and Jewish in origin.” I’m paraphrasing it.
Q: Lawrence, would Runyon ever romanticise Trump as a lovable rouge?
A: That is a very interesting question and I doubt it.
Okay, perhaps a job for Mel Brooks, yeah. Thank you, thank you, Claire, very nice. Yeah, it’s important. I think, we have to have… I mean Freud, I think it was. Humour is a way, I’m paraphrasing, way of coping with adversity, and how we do, of course, and Jewish people know it and anybody knows it. Irony and humour and wit is such a classic way of trying to cope with tragedy and serious massive adversity.
Ron, you may be from Durban, but in a prior life you may have inhabited my native island of Manhattan. Ah, thank you Ron. I did, I lived there for five years 'cause I had a Fulbright and I studied at Columbia. That’s where I did my postgrad. This was in the late 80s to the early 90s, and that’s where I met Art Garfunkel.
Carol, New York’s biggest conman and hustlers is Donald Trump. No, it’s certainly P.T.Barnum type showman, that’s for sure. Entertainer, unfortunately it affects many real people’s lives and democracy. Human has, Herbert has, thank you, Damon. Oh yeah, thanks, Danette.
Esther, two uncles who were bookies, typical Damon run characters. That’s exactly where my two very good friends in Durban, Esther, and both their fathers were called Monty. And they were both Jewish and they were both bookmakers in Durban on the races and I love and still remember some of those stories as a kid, a teenager, as a kid listening around the Friday night table to Monty and then the other Monty.
Francine, thanks. The movie “Chicago,” I think it’s great. I think it’s really, really powerful and interesting and well, that’s for another whole time. But I really like it.
Q: William, any homosexual characters?
A: Not that I know of, William, interesting question. Interesting to look at.
Paula, does Brando talk to his sons, so did Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady,” exactly. And that’s the trick when you get an actor who can’t rarely sing, you get them to talk more so you don’t have to play with too much of a pitch and trying to hit too many tones and calls.
Dawn, , Happy Hanukkah to everybody and Christmas to everybody listening as well. Elma, thanks from Tel Aviv. All my thoughts to you, Nima, sorry, all my thoughts to you. I know my sister was in Tel Aviv recently and now she’s gone back. She lives in Jerusalem with her family and her children and grandchildren all there. So, all thoughts to you, Nima, and lot of cousins all over in Israel. Kathleen, what a pocket full of miracles, exactly. It is, it’s Runyon. The language again.
Marin, my first date with my husband, good God. Okay, well, hope it brings happy and I’m sure wonderful memories.
Hannah, I grew up in the east end of London, so many of my dad’s friends had funny names also, loved it. Such characters. Yeah, it’s the session, it’s the names and the characters. It was fantastic. I worked at Wits University in Joburg for quite a while and there were obviously Black South Africans from all over and from Malawi and Mozambique and Congo, and some of them had fantastic, I’m going to go into it, but in the vernacular names, which are also so expressive in a way. And it goes way back, as I said, to ancient oral literature in parts of, in Africa, in Asia, in Europe where even, it is all the character names, a lot of fun, Shakespeare.
Okay, Jean, thank you, loved his books. Oh, okay, yeah, his characters on the streets. Sandy “Guys and Dolls” once played in Washington. All black cast wearing very bright suits, its great. Okay, and Rita, thank you.
Okay, I think that’s everybody’s cover. I missed anyone here? No, I think that’s it. Okay, so thank you so much everybody, and hope you have a great Hanukah and those of you, maybe at Christmas, and hope everybody takes care, stay as well. Thank you so much Hannah, take care, cheers.