Hapless Helen and the Dangers of the Internet Movie Database

You may have noticed that I have kvetched a little bit about the Internet Movie Database on these pages. I don't really mean to be to negative, though. The Imdb is as good, and only as good, as its compilers. Which means you and I or anyone else who have something to contribute. All I ask, however, is a bit of vigilance. Don't quote me something like “but the Imdb says ...”

I have the perfect example of how ludicrous the Imdb can be at times. As I have stated elsewhere, I used to write for the All Movie Guide and this material is now more or less in public domain. But please transcribe it with care. I once received an email from a fellow B-Western nostalgia writer inquiring if I had truly married Republic Pictures Western and serial star Helen Talbot! The Imdb, I learned, claimed that Helen Talbot (1924-2010), who was still with us at the time, was indeed married to a Hans J. Wollstein. This was news to me and, undoubtedly, to Miss Talbot herself. An honor, to be sure, but, alas, I had never met the lady. I had, however, written a short career capsule for the AMG. And here is how the essay appeared on such websites as Blockbuster or New York Times, both subscribers to AMG material:

Blonde and voluptuous, Helen Talbot was the girl on the conveyor belt in chapter nine of the 1946 serial King of the Forest Rangers. Bound and gagged and the very picture of a damsel-in-distress, 1940s style, the girl is helplessly headed for the whirling maw of a huge paper-shredder but audiences had to wait a whole week to learn whether she would manage to extricate herself. Under contract to enterprising Republic Pictures from September 10, 1943 to January 6, 1946, Talbot also co-starred in the 12-chapter Federal Operator 99 (1945) -- where she was nearly cremated in an incinerator and helplessly placed in front of a whirling airplane propeller -- and in three above-average B-Westerns opposite offscreen boyfriend Donald "Red" Barry. A Don Loper discovery, Kansas-born Talbot had been a "Goldwyn Girl" in Danny Kaye's Up in Arms (1944) under her real moniker of Helen Darling prior to signing with Republic. She left Hollywood in 1946 to marry an ex-Navy pilot. Hans J. Wollstein.

See what happened? Some idiot – well what else would you call him/her? – missed the all-important full stop between “pilot” and “Hans.”

So use Imdb all you want – I know I do – but please exercise some care.

All Movie Guide (now, apparently, Rovi!?)

I was an associate editor with the former All Movie Guide 1998-2003, a salaried position that in the end end resulted in more than 3000 essays on everything classic and not so "classic" movie lore. A lot of silent screen stuff and plenty of B-Westerns. Between Hal Erickson and myself, we pretty much covered the whole range in those heady years at AMG. Although I'm thoroughly retired I still receive hundreds of e-mails regarding many of the personalities I covered. I don't know how to put this delicately, but I am not keeping anything from you. In other words, please don't waste your time enquiring abut your mother's great uncle Jeb, who appeared in a Jack Hoxie movie back in 1923. Whatever I wrote about Uncle Jeb, that was it. That was what I had been able to unearth. Granted, I didn't go to the end of the world uncovering this material, i.e. did on site research at the Margaret Herrick Library, UCLA or Lincoln Center. What we editors were asked to do was to write brief articles, encyclopedic-style, of literally thousands of performers and behind the scenes talent. Often, I don't even recognize the name of the person some relative is searching for; after all, I wrote at a furious pace. And I really didn't keep any notes. I sold my stuff to AMG and that, as they say, was that. As I stated before, I'm now very much retired. To a thatched roof cottage on the edge of the marshland in Southern Jylland, Denmark. 5km, in fact, from the German border. I have a minor heart problem, which sometimes makes concentration a bit of a chore (the medicine, will do that to you) but, who cares? I have all the time in the world. So I thought I would get back into the swing of things, so to speak, at my own, leisurely pace. I don't plan to publish any more books. Don't have the patience and they really aren't worth the trouble, economically. Recently, I came across a wonderful (and highly recommended) blog about bit players and movie extras,
http://morethanyouneededtoknow.typepad.com/the_unsung_joe/2010/11/eddie-hall.html
This blog is so well written -- in fact, much better writing here than you come across even from major publishers -- that it gave me the idea for this one. So blame the guy behind "Unsung Joe" for "suggesting" this blog!