Q&A with Henry Nicolella, author of You Have to Run Fast - The Feature Films of Edward L. Cahn
1. What drew you to Edward L. Cahn and his work?
Years ago I saw his 1932 film “Afraid to Talk”. It was a stylish kind of proto-noir and startling in its cynicism about civic corruption. They did change the play it was based on to allow the hapless hero to survive and a couple of the villains to get their just desserts but in the end the bad guys are still in charge with no indication anything will change. Not exactly “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington!” Later I saw his chain gang drama “Laughter in Hell”, a film that audiences scorned because of its brutality.. I wondered why I had never heard of Ed Cahn in spite of my familiarity with Pre-Code films but it turned out I had seen many of his movies.
2. What was actually your first Cahn film?
That would be “Curse of the Faceless Man” (1958) which I saw when I was eight years old. It scared me and it turns out I was not the only one; years later when it was released on Blu Ray more than one reviewer mentioned how it had spooked them in their kiddie matinee days. Cahn’s horror and sci-fi movies were staples at my neighborhood theater. I saw all of them there or on television. His most famous film from that period is “It! The Terror from Beyond Space”, often thought to be one of the inspirations for “Alien.”
3.How did Cahn go from directing films like “Law and Order”, the first film about the gunfight at the OK Corral and considered a classic today. to low budget fifties potboilers like “Girls in Prison” and “Motorcycle Gang”?
One factor was the very negative public and critical reaction to “Laughter in Hell” which resulted in the end of his association with Universal where he’d worked for many years, earlier as their top editor. He was tired of Hollywood and went to England where he hoped he could produce it as well as direct. It proved to be a terrible mistake. He got there to find that the company he was supposed to do a film for had gone out of business. He had little funds and his optimism about finding another job right away proved very wrong. He spent months in dire financial straits and got nowhere. Eventually he directed a modestly budgeted racing film that never even played in America. He went back to Hollywood with nothing to show for his year away and his fine earlier work already forgotten.
4. In spite of all that, he did get a contract at MGM. Didn’t that improve his fortunes?
Initially but MGM wasted him and kept him doing mostly short subjects for his 10 years there. A couple of them won Academy Awards but that really didn’t add to his luster.since the studio would take all the credit. He even ended up making a bunch of Our Gang comedies, certainly one of the oddest matches imaginable.
5. What did he do after his MGM contract ended in 1945?
He worked in low budget films, eventually teaming up with producer Edward Small to do a whole series of cheaply made pictures in the late fifties and early sixties. The horror films and noirs he did for Small have merit but the westerns are nondescript
6. What made you want to do a book on Edward L. Cahn’s films?
I got really annoyed at some of the disparaging comments made about his work on the internet and sometimes in film books as well. Wiseacres seemed to think he was no better than Ed Wood. There was no appreciation or even awareness of his earlier films or the exigencies of low budget filmmaking. Cahn’s granddaughter Deborah Scott Cahn worked at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science in 1995 and discovered the file on him was empty despite his having made over 70 films and dozens of shorts.
7. So the Cahn family helped with the book?
They were indispensable. Cahn’s three granddaughters-who never knew their grandfather-gave me behind-the-scenes stills from his movies. Most important of all, they put me in touch with their father David, Eddie’s only son. David, in his eighties but spry and sharp, was enthusiastic about the book and provided a lot of information. He let me borrow some letters his father had written to his mother while he was stranded in England, and these proved both poignant and funny
8. Did Ed Cahn ever do a career interview?
He did not. In his Universal days there was some publicity about him but really nothing after he came back from England. Of course, he was mentioned in the reviews of his films but that’s about it. People who worked with him in the fifties and sixties sometimes talked about him a little in interviews done years after his death, mainly about how quickly he worked. Luckily, we have his letters to flesh out what would otherwise be a pretty insubstantial picture.
9. Were you able to see all of his movies?
Regretfully no. UCLA has what sounds like a good thriller, “The Checkered Coat” as well as “Silent Fear”, a film Cahn produced and directed in Mexico. I was planning a trip to Los Angeles to see them but health problems (and the fires in LA) prevented that. Nobody else seems to have copies. I hope to see them both eventually but obviously it’s too late for the book. Fortunately, I was able to find scripts to use in my essays on those movies. But of course, that’s not the same as seeing them.
10. What do you hope to accomplish with your book?
I hope that it will result in more respect for Cahn and his work, even the lesser items. Happily, in the last few years, attention has been paid by Dave Kehr, Bertrand Tavernier and others. I would like to see Blu Rays of “Afraid to Talk” and “Laughter in Hell”. Perhaps in some small way this book will nudge that possibility along.