November 17, 2011
One of the most vexing matters about researching my father’s career is that so much material from the 1930’s and 1940’s has so little relevance today. His own personal collection from his Hollywood days bears photographs of stars who have long since been forgotten, but who were quite fashionable in the day. Slowly these people have been revealed, their films logged with dates and title and photos previously unknown have in themselves become familiar. Usually this process happens all of a sudden when I am able to pair a dress or hairdo or a background item which I find on eBay to similar features in a photo in the collection. And it was this process which lead to the newest movie discovery for Ned Scott: “Fit for a King” in 1937 with Joe E. Brown and Helen Mack. There are some very fine heavy fiber prints of Helen Mack in portrait and some very funny prints of Joe E Brown in the collection, but no film designation for them until now. The Mack prints are all off stage prints, and she is posed with the same costume as several images currently on eBay with the film designation listed. A clear fit, and the same can be said for the Joe E. Brown prints. Here’s Brown, dressed in drag as a maid, confronting Mack’s character Jane in a hotel bedroom. The film was directed by Edward Sedgwick and produced by David L. Loew. A 1941 letter from my mother to her mother in Seattle mentions that the Loews attended one of their parties in their new house in La Canada. I bet that Ned Scott did more films for Loew in the late 1930″s, I just have not found them as yet. I can suggest from the quality of the Helen Mack prints that Ned Scott made them himself, and I can further suggest that the paper used may have been platinum 8 x 10 from the Platinotype Company in London. He was buying and using this paper at that time period.
Joe E Brown and Helen Mack in “Fit for a King” 1937 by Ned Scott