It's Tough to Be Famous

One of a flock of films that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. made for Warner Brothers in the early Thirties, It's Tough To Be Famous takes a look at the cult of celebrity and those who profit off it. In his memoirs, Salad Days, Fairbanks was not especially crazy about this film, but he did some others that he felt were far worse.

Fairbanks himself acknowledged that the story came from the life of Charles Lindbergh and the cult of celebrity that came around him after his flight in 1927. Doug plays Scotty McLennan who is a naval commander and skipper of a submarine that went down in the Atlantic. As rescue vessels race to her, the only question is will the oxygen hold out long enough to reach the submerged vessel on the bottom.

As captain, Fairbanks orders his men to go up with oxygen masks out the torpedo tube and elects to stay behind and man the tubes. But fortunately before he suffocates, outside rescue arrives and he's saved and proclaimed a hero who, but for that timely intervention would have sacrificed his life for his crew.

The rest of the film is what happens afterward, the marriage he was going to have with Mary Brian becomes a public one, his life becomes run by people he's hired to exploit his name.

Oddly enough nine years later Warner Brothers would make a film about a real hero who turned his back on such lures of easy money to trade in on his good name. Gary Cooper as Sergeant York got an Oscar for playing the self effacing York as only the self effacing Cooper could have.

In real life you consent to your exploitation. This is true of celebrity heroes from Buffalo Bill to Michael Phelps. Some like Sergeant York and Neil Armstrong completely resisted the lure of fame and easy money.

Walter Catlett has a nice part in a very typical Walter Catlett role as a publicity agent, something he took a patent out on in the way he played those kind of roles.

It's Tough To Be Famous is not a bad film, but it's hardly the Sweet Smell Of Success which really takes a look at the cult of celebrity and how so many crave to be one.

Excellent Doug Fairbanks Jr. Movie From Early 1930's......All His 1930's Movies Were Unusually Good

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This is an excellent movie.

It's about the culture of celebrity creation by the mass media, politicians, and others, and shows the hard life and hard times the newly created and celebrated "hero" is put through (he actually was a hero USA Naval submarine officer).

This is an important subject, and few good examinations and treatments of it have ever been made.

The Anita Ekberg fragment of LA DOLCHE VITA (1960) also does a good job of showing "behind the scenes" truth about media professionals and treatment of celebrities, and the effects of the "celebrity life" on celebrities themselves. The Anita Ekberg fragment of LA DOLCHE VITA (1960) lasted only about 20 minutes during a movie lasting more than 2 hours, but the image of Anita became the signature image of the film, and justifiably.

IT'S TOUGH TO BE FAMOUS (1932) starring Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Brian is a blunt, no-nonsense look and implied criticism of the entire phenomenon of "hero celebrities" which most celebrities become in time, at one level or another. Readers, viewers, concert and show ticket buyers are all urged to worship the celebrated performer, and the list of celebrity victims is long....Elvis, Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, John Barrymore, and on and on and on.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had a famous movie star father, came of age for young leading man roles just as the talkie movie technology became widespread (early 1930's), and had a lot of talent performing the role of the intelligent and often unwilling hero types he was so often cast in.

All his movies are worth collecting and seeing. I've never seen one he starred in during the 1930's which was bad....quite a compliment considering how many bad movies were made then, and were made at all times.

Really good movies are rare and precious.

IT'S TOUGH TO BE FAMOUS (1932) and THE NARROW CORNER (1933) both starred Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and are both worth getting and seeing often.

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Written by Tex Allen

01/09/2014,

Columbia PA USA