This is my original small tribute (8 Nov 08) to actor/comedian Willie Best who I knew very little of until I did a post on the film The Monster Walks. I was really pissed off that he had no grave marker and my  humble post it seems launched the great folks at Celluloid Slammer into action and they took care of the problem in grand fashion. All credit goes to them but I am happy I was some small part.

There was a time when black actors in Hollywood actually had names like G. Howe Black and Stephin Fectchit. Especially prior to the 1960’s it would hard to point to a black actor who ever had a significant role in any motion picture. Among the actors who possessed genuine talent but never had the chance to show was Willie Best, who was billed under one of the most denigrating of all names in movie history. As unbelievable as it may sound he was cast for many years simply as Sleep ‘n Eat. While a talented actor and comedian, as well as musician and song writer, Best is sadly remembered for his myriad portrayals as lazy, simple minded and cowardly porters, servants and janitors. The lazily drawled line “yussuh”, expressed with drooped mouth and half awake eyes, can be traced back to many of Best’s characters. They are not necessarily by any stretch the roles Best would have wanted to portray, but as he stoically confessed in a 1934 interview, “ I often think about these roles I have to play. Most of them are pretty broad. Sometimes I tell the director and he cuts out the real bad parts… But what’s an actor going to do? Either you do it or get out.”

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Sometimes we bloggers are just wrapped up in our own little worlds. Creating and pandering our little websites and checking stats for high numbers and comment boxes for adulations and praise. But most of us are kind human beings as well as far as I am concerned and sometimes some of us figure out a way to use the Internet for a genuinely benevolent cause. Such is the case with the people over at the Celluloid Slammer who took it on themselves to try and raise funds to buy black actor Willie Best (sometimes billed as Sleep ‘n Eat) an actual head stone. I wish I could say I was able to help by running a link in my sidebar for a while but I do not know if I was able to at all. I hope at least a few people from here clicked on it to at least check it out.  I am glad they asked me for even some small support as I got interested in the man after I did a small post on him after a reviewing a film he was in in the 1930′s called The Monster Walks. In fact Willie Best’s performance is the only reason to even watch that movie. I was sent a copy Willie’s obituary and found a picture of his new grave stone. An improvement on what was there before. Nothing.

Drop by the Celluloid Slammer and thank them for their efforts.

THE MONSTER WALKS

1942/ Director: Frank R. Strayer/ Writer: Robert Ellis

Cast: Rex Lease, Vera Reynolds, Sheldon Lewis, Mischa Auer, Martha Mattox, Sidney Bracey, Willie Best  (as Sleep ‘n’ Eat)

There is not really much to say about this movie but I can give it a marginal recommendation if you enjoy bad movies or early cinema. I do, but I am aware that what I like is not everyone’s cup of tea.  It would have made it to my new Quikie category except for the fact that while watching the credits I noticed the name of Sleep ‘n Eat and recalled it from the days when I used to really read up on films. But we can go into that in part two of this post. This film was made in 1932 and has all the trademark characteristics of a film shot in those days: stiff, melodramatic acting, terrible sound quality and poor music score, static photography (a scene often being shot for minutes from one camera angel), and loads of stereotyped characters. The film is supposed to be a remake of a 1927 silent film called the Cat and the Canary and is basically a whodunit that takes place in an old mansion over the course of one night during a thunder storm. After family members gather for the reading of a will left by the estate’s owner, an eccentric scientist, tensions develop amongst some of the family and staff who feel cheated because the man’s daughter, Ruth Earlton (Vera Reynolds) has basically received the entire fortune. Most upset is the deceased man’s invalid brother  Robert Earlton (Sheldon Lewis) who is receives only the assurance that he can still live in the house and get care,  and his staff Mrs. Krugg and her sinister son Hans (Martha Maddox and Mischa Auer). (more…)