There Are Passages And Then There Are Passages.

Hollywood has always been famous for the old switcheroo.  They'll buy a novel or a play and by the time the picture comes out, precious little is recognizable from it's source material.  If you're a DeMille you even get to change the bible for dramatic purposes.  Sometimes, they are content to just change the title because the brain trust has decided that story is okay but the name needs a little more zing.

Paramount's 1941 Caribbean potboiler "Bahama Passage" is a case of the latter. 

It may very well  be a case of the former too - I've never read the book.  Visually spectacular it was made in Technicolor on location in Grand Turk, a rarity for the time.  It starred beautiful Madeline Carroll, a mostly shirtless Sterling Hayden and included an 18 year old Dorothy Dandridge in a bit part as a (you guessed it) maid.

If the story had been as compelling as the scenery, it might be more remembered today.  Come to think of it, if they had kept the original title, I'm certain it would have been more remembered today:

Captain DeMille's Army

The Vine Street Corps

The Lasky Home Guard was formed in Hollywood in 1917 during America's involvement in WWI.  It was made up of Famous Players-Lasky studio employees. Heading up this "regiment" was none other than Cecil B. De Mille, who was appointed their "Captain." His brother, William, and movie idol Wallace Reid were also in the Lasky Guard.  Reid held the office of "Color Sergeant".  On Wednesday evenings DeMille would drill the troops, marching in formation on the street outside the studio gate, wearing uniforms from the Costume Department and carrying rifles from the Prop Shop.


In 1918, the governor of California reviewed the Lasky Guard and Mary Pickford had the opportunity to present them with their colors, a silk flag with hand-embroidered stars that she had had made herself.

It's reassuring to know that if the Kaiser's ground troops had ever stormed Vine Street, more than likely, they would have been defeated.  Or perhaps put under contract.

The Elegant Silent Type

In his 1975 book, "The Silent Clowns", film critic Walter Kerr make the strong argument that when considering the top four silent comedians (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Langdon) a fifth should and must be added.  That man is Raymond Griffith.

While his contemporaries costumed and positioned their characters as vagrant to middle class, Griffith adopted the upper crust persona of white tie, tails and silk top hat.

“The things that happen to a man in a soft hat may be humorous or tragic, as the case may be; the same things happening to a silk-hatted individual are excruciatingly funny . . . Why? I don't know exactly. Maybe because it is incongruous. Maybe it is because we have a prejudice against snobbishness or the qualities the silk hat suggests.” - From Motion Picture Magazine, 1925.

The talkie revolution sent the denizens of Hollywood scurrying like nothing before or since.  Who could record well and who couldn't.  Who would successfully make the transition and who wouldn't.  I was utter pandemonium.  But not for Raymond Griffith.
See, despite his great stardom with the Lasky Company in the silent era, he had no illusions of continuing his career in the talkers.

Griffith was born with grease paint in his veins on January 23, 1895 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, James Henry Griffith, was an actor from San Francisco, California. Mary Guichard, his mother, was a stage actress who was born in France. Griffith's grandfather, Gerald Griffith had also been an actor, as was his great grandfather Thomas Griffith.  He was fifteen months old when he made his stage debut, playing a baby in his parents' stage company. When he was seven years old, he starred as Little Lord Fauntleroy. He even played “the little girl” in a production of Ten Nights In a Barroom at the age of eight.

Everything was Jake for the child performer until he contracted respiratory diphtheria.  A common childhood disease of the era, the diphtheria bacterium could enter the body through the nose or mouth. A membrane would form over the throat and tonsils. If untreated, this disease can be fatal or cause paralysis. In Griffith's case, diphtheria permanently damaged his vocal chords, and for the rest of his life he was unable to speak in a volume above a hoarse whisper.

It's ironic then that his swan song in front of the camera was a talkie, and would be his most remembered role!


A harrowing, gruesome, morbid tale of war, so compelling in its realism, bigness and repulsiveness that Universal's "All Quiet On The Western Front" becomes at once a money picture.  Nothing passed up for the niceties; nothing glossed over for the women. Here exhibited is a war as it is, butchery.- Daily Variety, May 6, 1930

Lew Ayers as Paul Baumer and Raymond Griffith as Gerard Duval.

  In a poignant scene, Grifftiths' Duval is killed by Lew Ayres' character Paul Baumer. As Duval lays dying, Baumer realizes the horror of the war. Griffith's wordless cameo performance was a highlight of the movie.  The film won the Academy Award for best picture of 1930.  The Variety review went on to say, "Raymond Griffith is the Frenchman stabbed and who died in the trench. He didn't have to talk for Griffith died as no one else has on the screen."

...and scene.


As they say in business, diversification is the key.  Around the same time as 'Western Front'  Griffith hired his friend Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) construct a Produce Market for him.  The modernism style of the now demolished structure was seen a precursor to both the Googie architectural style and the modern strip mall.

Now if you're thinking he turned away from the industry and just sold fruits and vegetables for the rest of his life, let me ally your concerns.  The vegetables were just a sideline.

Ray quickly became a go to 'script doctor' around town and was soon tucked firmly under the wing of Darryl Zanuck.  By the mid 30s he was a full fledged Producer under Zanuck at Fox and gave us hours of fun, music and merriment in films starring, The Ritz Brothers, Sonja Henie, and Miss Shirley Temple.

Griffith grabbed his top hat and cane and headed for Fabulon in 1957.  While dining with friends at "The Masquers Club"  he choked to death on his dinner.