Powder and Smoke (1924)

Dir: James Parrott

Cast: Charley Chase, Blanche Mehaffey, Jack Gavin, Eddie Baker, Leo Willis, Chet Brandenburg, Lyle Tayo

Prepared by Daniel B Miller

Powder and Smoke (1924) is a Charley Chase one reeler produced by Hal Roach for the popular Jimmy Jump series.

Charley Chase made 104 films for Hal Roach, many of which were directed and written by his brother James Parrott.

In addition to its highly entertaining content, this film is a true archive gem, full of long forgotten personalities, events, facts and trivia from the golden era of silent cinema.

In this delightful little comedy, Chase was joined by the usual suspects of many Hal Roach Studio comedies. Those were fronted by Blanche Mehaffey who played the daughter and his love interest, followed by Jack Gavin as the Sheriff, Eddie Baker in the role of the Real Estate Agent, and with Leo Willis as the Bandit Chief.

Mehaffey and Gavin are hardly remembered by the filmgoers of today, but their lives and careers are certainly of interest.

Blanche Mehaffey

In her early years, Blanche Mehaffey was considered a huge potential, and began her career as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Foillies,

Mehaffey’s presence was described as “truly mesmerising” by many theater lovers of the day who watched her on stage. Those dedicated fans enchanted her boss Florenz Ziegfeld with so many endless compliments, that in return she began describing Mehaffey as “the girl with the most beautiful eyes in the whole world”.

Such great publicity opened the whole world of possibilities for the young performer.

In no time she spearheaded the Baby Stars of 1924, where she was joined by Clara Bow, Dorothy Mackaill and Hazel Keneer.

Her film debut was in Hal Roach Studios one reeler Fully Insured (1923) directed by George Jeske and featuring two other silent comedy heavyweights, Snub Pollard and James Finlayson.

The success of this film had led to her pairing with Charley Chase and later Glenn Tyron. With Chase she made a selection of films in addition to Power and Smoke. Those included April Fool (1924), Just a Minute (1924), At First Sight (1924), One of the Family (1924) and Position Wanted (1924).

Her films with Tyron included Meet the Missus (1924), The Wages of Tin (1925), Tell it to the Policeman (1925), and The Haunted Honeymoon (1925).

Her comedy talent flourished when playing the love interest for those two leading men. Her biggest success of this period was in Malcolm St. Clair’s comedy A Woman of the World (1925), where she joined Paula Negri and Charles Emmet Mack.

Her persona in Powder and Smoke gave a contemporary touch to the female characters of 1920s westerns, also paving the way to prominent parts in a number of bigger productions.

Some of those films performed badly at the box office, and in 1927 she decided to use the name of Joan Alden to detach from those pictures. In 1928 she married a sound engineer and producer Ralph M Like hoping to rescue her career.

Unlike many other silent films stars, she prepared for the transition to sound in advance. She took a decision to depart from the industry for a full year, in order to study languages and enhance her voice techniques.

It is likely that being absent at the height of her silent film career, coupled with some box office failures affected her relationships with the leading producers and directors.

She returned to silver screen two years later, with her first sound feature, again a western called The Sunrise Trail (1931), where she joined Bob Steele and Jack Rube Clifford.

Her presence in westerns continued, mainly in B productions, that supported other major features. Those never brought back the early successes of her silent comedies.

Similar to other actors of the silent and early sound periods, she drifted into obscurity. Her last film was made in 1938 and she died in 1968.

Jack Gavin

Another person of interest in Powder and Smoke was the film director and actor Jack Gavin (born John Francis Henry Gavin) who played the Sheriff.

Gavin came to Hollywood from Australia.

He was one of the early filmmakers of the 1910s, and a true pioneer of Australian cinema. Gavin’s versatility, coupled with the multitude of talents and highly developed entrepreneurial skills, enabled his early rise to prominence.

He is remembered for making films in Australia about bushrangers such as Thunderbolt (1910), Moonlite (1910), Ben Hall and His Gang (1911) and Frank Gardiner, the King of the Road (1911).

He was known by the nickname “Jack” and worked in collaboration with his wife Agnes who wrote many of his films. Most of those have not survived.

Everyones Magazine remarked in 1920: “although Gavin was prolific his later surviving work shows that his entrepreneurial talent outweighed any he might have had as director.”

He displayed a variety of talents and was never afraid to take up any role offered, if it guaranteed success or career enhancement. His life was eventful and highly productive but also full of difficult challenges.

He was accredited with Australia’s first animated short, an advertising film which featured a koala taking cough syrup.

Gavin was born in Sydney and described himself as busy since his early childhood, claiming that he worked for the circus company already at age ten.

He moved to the country and worked as cattle drover, being involved in a record cattle drive from Camooweal to Adelaide. He served for a time in the Sydney Lancers as the captain of a squadron. During his service he became interested in acting and received an offer to join the touring company of Bland Holt.

He stayed with them for a number of seasons, then travelled to the USA where he worked with Barnum and Bailey’s Circus, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He married Agnes in 1898.

Gavin returned to Australia and organised his own Wild West Show which was successful at the Melbourne Cyclorama, although plagued by a number of legal troubles. Gavin eventually had a company of 150 before moving into filmmaking. In 1908 he started managing theatres which he did for the next few years, displaying versatility with entrepreneurial knowledge and skill.

His debut feature film was about Thunderbolt in 1910, produced by H A Forsyth, and its success launched his career.

He followed this up with Moonlite  in the same year. He directed and starred in both films which was well noted. By February 1911 The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People described:”more film has been used over Jack Gavin than over any other Australian biograph actor.” They described him as “the beauteous bushranger”.

Overall success of Gavin’s bushranging films was attributed to two main factors: the quality of horsemanship in them, and the fact they were normally shot on the actual locations where the events occurred.

General Gossip: The Referee stated in 1911 that “The pictures already turned out by Mr. Gavin demonstrates that in biographic art Australian producers are in no way behind their European and American brothers. Clearness in detail and execution, with the cleverly-constructed stories by Agnes Gavin enable Mr. Gavin to offer attractive films.”

Gavin’s films were also often accompanied by popular lecturer Charles Woods, whose tales would delight the audiences country wide.

His first two movies were made for H.A. Forsyth at Southern Cross Motion Pictures but he and Forsyth had a falling out and Gavin went his separate way, publicly announcing the fact in January 1911.

In July 1911 he set up his own company, the Gavin Photo Play Company, based out of Waverley.

He was involved in the formation of the Australian Photo-Play Company, but then established his own production company in October 1911. When bushranging films were banned in Australia in 1912, he turned to dramatising other true characters, such as Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt.

In 1912 Gavin was arrested for owing money to a business associate though he was later released.

In January 1917 he took out a lease on a studio at North Sydney and announced plans for make four feature films over a year, starting with The Murder of Captain Fryatt. He also started up a film school and spoke of offers from America.

As making movies in Australia became increasingly difficult for him, Gavin moved to Hollywood, where he lived for eight years.

He told reporters from The Film Trade: Maitland Weekly Mercury NSW in 1927, that he appeared in over 300 films. Claimed he was a good friend of Lon Chaney, Rudolph Valentino and Lon Chaney.

In Hollywood he also worked with harold Lloyd and Snub Pollard.

Gavin always stated that he was particularly pleased with his public efforts to popularise the drinking of tea in Hollywood.

He returned to Australia in February 1922 to make several outback films, including a serial based on notorious criminal Ned Kelly. He also set up a new company in Brisbane, but faced serious censorship problems and could not raise enough capital for what was to be his major project.

Disappointed, he went back to Hollywood in May 1923, where he faced further challenges with casting and overall working conditions, then returned to Australia in 1925.

As a great supporter of the domestic production and the Australian cinema overall, he gave evidence at the 1928 Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia.

He passionately argued for a regular and easily verifiable quota for Australian films.

His contemporaries described Gavin as “a big man with a generous and naive personality… more enthusiasm and stubborn persistence than talent.”

Towards the end of his life he lived in a flat in Neutral Bay and suffered from rheumatism.

He died in 1938 survived by his wife Agnes and their daughters.

His personality, highly cinematic presence in so many one and two reelers as well as versatility, drive us to futher research and strongly stimulate further learning about his contemporaries from the 1920s.

Eddie Baker

Eddie Baker, who played the Real Estate Agent, is another actor and director from the golden age of silent cinema. He made more than 300 films.

Baker played supporting roles in many silent comedies with Gale Henry, Snub Pollard, Jobyna Ralston, James Parrott, Stan Laurel, Katherine Grant, Charlie Chase, Harry Langdon, Bobby Vernon, Bill Dooley and Jimmie Adams. He was also one of the original Keystone Cops.

Sadly he is only remembered for his presence in Laurel and Hardy films, and for his uncredited role as a boxing referee in Charles Chaplin’s City Lights (1931).

He represented those early cinema actors who subscribed to the Hollywood assembly line of mass production, men and women who would embrace any opportunity offered.

Baker would play any given role from cafe owner, laundry worker, german agent, stable hand, cop, prospector, boss, to detective, train official and plantation owner.

His talent for slapstick and situational comedy thrived when in some of the films he joined the biggest stars of that period.

With Stan Laurel he excelled in Oranges and Lemons (1923), A Man About Town (1923), Short Orders (1923) Gas and Air (1923) and Smithy (1924). With Charley Chase in addition to Powder and Smoke he was in Hard Knocks (1924), and Publicity Pays (1924). With Harry Langdon he was in Sea Squawk (1925), Tied for Life (1933), Knight Duty (1933) and Tired Feet (1933).

With the onset of sound in pictures, he was demoted to minor, episodic roles for which he was rarely credited. Baker died in 1968 from emphysema.

Leo Willis

Leo Willis was also a veteran of early silent years, whose career began in films of Thomas Ince with William S Hart.

Similar to Edie Baker he played tough characters on either side of the law and a selection of comic villains in films with Chase, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.

He was a Hal Roach Studios regular and is best remembered for The Bulls Eye (1917), The Rent Collector (1921), Timber Queen ,(1922), Wild Bill Hickok (1923), Isn’t Life Terrible (1925), and The Kid Brother (1927).

Similar to Baker, in sound pictures he was given insignificant parts and worked as an extra. He died in 1952.