Rin Tin Tin

by Susan Orlean

  Lee never discussed Bert’s decision not to use Rinty IV, and he never wrote about it. It might have been so disappointing for him that he chose to push it out of his mind. Maybe he hadn’t trained Rinty as well as he thought he had. He had certainly begun to accept the idea that Rin Tin Tin had become something different from a single dog. In fact, the exact definition of who Rin Tin Tin actually was had gotten a little muddled. There was the character on the television show, who was named Rin Tin Tin; there was the dog, Rin Tin Tin, who was living at the ranch in Riverside; and there were Frank Barnes’s dogs, who played Rin Tin Tin on the show. In truth, they were all part of the legacy now. They were a repertory company of animals filling an identity that the public knew as Rin Tin Tin. Whichever dog showed up to put his paw print on headshots, to meet kids at a county fair—that dog was Rin Tin Tin for that moment. No public acknowledgment of the array of dogs that appeared as Rin Tin Tin was ever made.

  Lee’s connection to Rinty IV was nothing like the one he had had with old Rin, which would have made this disappointment easier to bear. His feelings about Rin Tin Tin IV are actually hard to gauge. I never found anything in his papers about the dog at all—nothing extolling his particular talent or abilities and nothing referring to Lee’s work with him. What I did find was an interview Lee gave to a small California newspaper in 1954. Under the headline, “Rin Tin Tin Discoverer Still Hopes for Dog as Great as Ancestor,” the reporter quoted Lee saying, “I have spent a fortune breeding Rinty’s progeny with dogs I thought might duplicate all of Rinty’s great characteristics . . . but there is always something missing.” The story continued,

  With his memories and his hopes, his scrap books and mementos, Duncan resides amid a living memorial to the famed canine star, who could leap almost like an antelope and mug for the cameras almost like a human being. . . . One small building at his ranch is a Rinty I museum. There’s an assortment of framed citations and photos on the walls and on tables are the mementos. There is a story in back of each one and Duncan takes great delight in relating them.

  Lee never wavered in his belief that there would always be a Rin Tin Tin. But at this point he accepted that there would never be another single, singular Rin Tin Tin—there would never be another battlefield puppy found by luck and chance, who by luck and chance had his life transformed into a wonderful odyssey. There would never be another dog he traveled with through the Sierras as a young man, alone. And Lee would never be that young man again. The idea of the dog had now fanned out to include all these other dogs. Lee must have agreed with Bert’s opinion about Rinty IV, or at least he made his peace with it. Soon after the dog’s disastrous audition, Lee signed an amendment to his contract with Bert that included the phrase “Flame, the dog which does all the work for Rin Tin Tin . . .”

  8.

  As soon as the cast was assembled, Bert shot the pilot episode of The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin and shipped the film to New York, where Screen Gems could preview it for potential advertisers. The sales brochure promised “clean action entertainment and outstanding merchandising plusses for juvenile audiences.” It continued:

  A screenful of human interest in every show: a heartwarming series about Rin Tin Tin . . . the most famous canine of all time!

  A heroic boy, Rusty (Lee Aaker), the companion and partner of Rin Tin Tin

  Dramatic conflict of Man vs. Nature, with raging rivers, forest fires, mine explosions, wild animals and Indian warfare . . .

  Rin Tin Tin’s personality, not unlike the Fairbankses and Barrymores, has outlived time and medium . . .

  Rin Tin Tin is cast in an environment in which the fullest advantage is taken of this dog’s almost human intelligence. . . . There is none of the artificiality of the environment of an FBI-dog or an atomic spy dog, stalking the city streets or flying jet planes. There is no sex element, nor any influence which will in any way detract from the wholesomeness of the action.

  MERCHANDISING OPPORTUNITIES BETTER THAN EVER WITH RIN TIN TIN. Manufacturers put in their bids for a license in anticipation of what is considered one of the hottest merchandising propositions in the field today. . . . Their enthusiasm is based upon one premise: that Rin Tin Tin is a pre-sold character! There is no question of biding their time to see if Rin Tin Tin catches on—Rin Tin Tin caught on a long time ago!

  The final page of the brochure featured a haiku-like description of the show:

  The majesty of the rugged frontier . . .

  The magic of the most famous name in dogdom . . .

  The mystery of an almost human animal intelligence . . .

  The magnetism of a small boy’s engaging personality . . .

  The merriment of the good old days in an Army Cavalry fort . . .

  The magnificence of Nature’s tests and trials for men . . .

  all . . . in the greatest selling medium of our time

  The head of sales reported back to Bert with good news:

  Friskies, the dog food product—anxious to purchase the show. Henri, Hurst, and McDonald, representing Armour Meats: agency EXTREMELY excited about show. Several brand-advertising managers have seen show and are highly enthusiastic regarding it. Dancer, Fitzgerald: On basis of reaction have second screening for Peter Paul Mounds executive. Very good possibility that Chunkies will purchase about 8 markets. BBD&O: Had excellent screening for top broadcasting executives. Nestle: Had meeting with VP in charge of advertising. Enthusiastic but account just renewed Space Patrol.

  Bert wanted to shoot The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin in color. In the proposal, he wrote, “Color TV is no longer a distant dream, but will generally be available in the immediate future.” He was a little ahead of history. In 1954, color television was still quite unusual. The technology had existed for decades but was being adopted slowly. The very first color show in the United States—the Tournament of Roses parade—had only just been broadcast, on New Year’s Day of 1954. Almost all the 30 million televisions in the country were black-and-white. Even ten years later, in 1964, less than 5 percent of Americans who owned televisions had color sets.

  Screen Gems wanted to make The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin on the cheap; color was out of the question. Bert had learned to keep a tight budget from his years working for Sam Katzman, but Screen Gems wanted an even tighter budget, hoping to spend no more than $50,000 per episode, which was $5,000 less than Bert proposed. The studio suggested that the number of extras and background players could be reduced if the actors were thought of as interchangeable. Instead of having one actor play a cavalry officer, another play a Comanche brave, and another play a townsperson, why not have one actor play all three? According to Screen Gems, children wouldn’t notice if a familiar-looking face started to pop up in different and even contradictory roles. That’s what makeup was for. If different characters who were played by the same actor needed to interact with each other, it could be solved with camera angles. Shoot one side of the fight or conversation, and then change costumes, change camera angles, and shoot the other one.

  Bert had to try to make it work. Each extra was issued a complete set of costumes—a cavalry uniform, a Native American deer hide suit, and a pair of britches and a muslin shirt for playing a local citizen—and was told to bring all three costumes to the set every day. The cast was constantly changing costumes. At one point, they ran out of dressing rooms and someone draped a couple of tarps over a rope stretched between two trees to accommodate the frequent changes. The cast of twelve worked constantly. “They’d be playing an Indian one minute and a trooper the next,” Sam Manners recalled, chuckling as he described it. “We cheated with the camera angles. We sometimes had the same person killing himself.”

  The fight over whether or not the show would be in color was just a beginning: Bert clashed with the studio about almost everything. At one point I started a file called “Bert’s Conflicts with Screen Gems Etc.” just to organize the angry letters and telegrams I had come across. It is amazing that Bert did produce the show, considering how often
he threatened to quit. I could have started a second file with notes in which he announced to Screen Gems that “this will be our last year together” or “I will be discussing terminating our contract with my lawyer” or variations thereof.

  I don’t think he was bluffing. He had absolute confidence in himself, and he bristled anytime he was reminded that he was a young man producing his first television series who had to answer to senior executives. In general, the studio’s involvement struck him as an insult. “THEY have final script approval? THEY have final production approval?” he scribbled in a note to himself after a phone call with Screen Gems. “In any artistic or production dispute they have final say? Then I might as well be an EMPLOYEE.” He complained to his uncle Nate Spingold that the executives at Screen Gems “talked down” to him and that it was “becoming more and more difficult to live with these people.”

  In 1954, however, studios were still supreme in Hollywood. Writers and directors and, to some degree, actors, were viewed as fungible goods, easy to move around as needed and ultimately replaceable. That year, François Truffaut published his essay “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema,” which counterpunched, arguing that directors were the true authors of their films, the way writers were the authors of their books. In Hollywood, as of 1954, the “auteur” theory hadn’t yet changed most minds, but Bert embraced it. He was fearless and determined when it came to his show, entirely possessive of it, which he made clear in memos, letters, phone calls, telegrams, and personal confrontations. Sam Manners bubbled over with stories of Bert’s quarrels and altercations, and after he finished telling me several of them, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. Then he brightened and said, “Ah, Bert. I loved him. He antagonized everyone he ever knew.”

  Bert was especially affronted whenever his judgment was questioned. He sparred regularly with the two Briskin brothers, Irving and Fred, who were among Screen Gems’ top executives and were supervising The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin. Before filming even began, the Briskin brothers questioned Bert’s choice of Douglas Heyes as the show’s head writer. Bert was furious. He pounded out a note that made quick mention of Heyes’s qualifications and then launched into what he considered the real problem: the Briskins’ disrespect. “I have spent seven months thinking and creating this show. . . . I am not an amateur in making pictures. I will always take advice—to accept or reject at my own discretion.” The note apparently took Irving Briskin aback. He replied, “BERT LEONARD: I don’t like the tone of this note and think it is entirely uncalled for—maybe we three had better meet and get things settled quickly. . . . You haven’t got a DIME in these pictures & I want to protect my money.” In a note, after yet another of Bert’s inflammatory memos, Briskin scolded, “Bert, I think we’ll all be better off in the future if you stop making federal cases out of ordinary suggestions.” One of Bert’s grievance letters was sent back to him with no reply, except for a comment from Fred Briskin, scribbled in thick black pencil in the right margin, which said, “BERT: What can you accomplish by writing a letter like this other than make an enemy?”

  He tangled most frequently with Ralph Cohn, the founder of Screen Gems and the nephew of Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures. Cohn was only a few years older than Bert, but he wore his seniority with a flourish. He was involved with The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin from the beginning and paid scrupulous attention to the show’s every detail. Bert sent his first belligerent memo to Cohn just one week after Screen Gems had decided to make the show, following a perceived slight of which there is no record. “I personally feel that my ability to see this series through to a successful conclusion is not to be questioned,” Bert wrote. “The fact that I have an open mind and am willing to discuss and incorporate certain of your suggestions does not mean that I am willing to subjugate my thinking on this series to anyone’s. This is my show and I intend to run it.”

  He was right to feel that Cohn had reservations about him. In February 1954, Bert had gotten hold of a letter Cohn had written to Irving Briskin criticizing two scripts for the show. Cohn complained to Briskin that even though there was nothing “actually wrong” with the scripts, he thought they were “inadequate.” For instance, he noted, the show lacked a trademark phrase—“in the sense that ‘Hi Yo, Silver!’ is a trademark of the Lone Ranger,” as Cohn put it—even though he had asked Bert to develop some. He didn’t like that the “Apache Chief” episode began with a scene of Apache warriors and “The Education of Corporal Rusty” with a scene of Rip Masters. He wanted the show to always open with Rin Tin Tin.

  He urged Briskin to make sure Bert kept the focus on Rin Tin Tin. “The dog is the most interesting element in the series,” Cohn wrote. “His actions, smartness, and relationship to the characters should be accentuated throughout.” He wanted more scenes “in which the dog is involved purely for entertainment, and which demonstrate its extraordinary intelligence.” Cohn went on: “[Rin Tin Tin] should be developed much more fully as a character which the kid audience will come to love for his talents, and will try to emulate with their own dogs. I asked for bits of business between the boy and dog which would make every kid in the audience envy our boy and try to imitate him.”

  Cohn also wanted to cut several items, which he listed for Briskin:

  1. Scenes in which children in the stories are subjected to undue horror or fright. In the Indian script, the children’s lives are threatened by the Indians. Large advertisers, intensely aware of PTA, Child Guidance Groups, etc. . . . will not buy a program to which these groups object. 2. Overlong, pointless dialogue scenes. 3. Western-type dialogue. Heyes maintained that it was Southern more than Western, but I asked for avoidance of it. 4. Lines and words in lines that were over the heads of children. Example: ‘Disembowel potatoes’ in one script.

  In closing, Cohn said he thought Bert needed guidance “in almost every detail.” He mentioned that Bert was planning to have the boy “ride a cute white mule” in the show. Cohn hated the idea and said he had pointed out to Bert that a white mule—even a cute white mule—“would not represent the wish fulfillment of every boy or girl in the audience.” He wanted the boy to ride “a beautifully marked Indian Pinto pony.”

  The letter, with its prickly tone and fixation on minutiae, could have been topped only by one thing: the sight of Bert Leonard and Ralph Cohn—both New Yorkers, both opinionated, bossy, and blunt—actually facing off on a Hollywood soundstage in early 1954 over the question of whether an orphan on the Great Plains in 1870 would be more likely to ride an Indian pinto pony or a cute white mule.

  Bert’s injuries were not all narcissistic. He loved the characters he had created for The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin and felt protective of them. Ralph Cohn was in charge of overseeing the radio version of The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin, which was meant to complement the television show. The radio show, in Bert’s opinion, was a disaster; he thought the scripts were weak and the actor playing Rin Tin Tin was “way off on his barking.” He made sure to let Cohn know his opinion. After reviewing one of the scripts, Bert wrote, “I can only tell you, Ralph, that this is one of the most miserable jobs of writing I have ever encountered. . . . The writing is unimaginative and the relationship of the people are foreign to the way they are being handled on the TV show. If action on these points is not forthcoming immediately, I will have to turn this matter over to [my lawyer] to protect my interest.”

  Just a few weeks later, Cohn told Bert that he thought Rusty should mention “Ivanhoe” during a radio episode. Bert was as aghast at this suggestion as Cohn had been at his plans for the cute white mule. His note to Cohn pointed out that “Rusty . . . living at Fort Apache and having no schooling or education, would know nothing about Ivanhoe or the Crusades.” Then, for good measure, he added, “Ralph, you told me you were closely supervising creation and adaption of the radio show. Yet character relationships and treatment of the dog do not follow in line with established and proven thinking. For example, Rin Tin Tin would not sleep under the barracks b
ut [would be] quartered in Rusty’s room, as every kid knows. And Rin Tin Tin does not growl or menace Rusty under any circumstances. Rip Masters does not consider taking a razor strop to the boy. In all situations the boy and dog are treated with the dignity they deserve for the heroes they are.” Satisfied that he had made his points to Cohn, he signed off, “Anxiously awaiting your answer.”

  In early spring Bert was scrambling to settle all the details of the show so they could begin shooting; he and his wife, Willetta, also had their first baby, a boy they named Steven. Names were an issue elsewhere in his life. Even though Bert had decided to call the boy in the show Rusty, Irving Briskin infuriatingly persisted in referring to the character as Dusty and then, suddenly, told Bert that he wanted the boy to be called Dakota Bill. Briskin also was concerned about how the dog would be addressed. Would he be Rin Tin Tin? Rinty? Just Rin? Even though this was a decision Bert undoubtedly would have considered his to make, Briskin announced, in a memo to Bert, “I am cautioning you here not to use the name ‘Rin Tin Tin’ when it is spoken, particularly by Dusty. Never have him call him anything other than ‘Rinty,’ and please avoid the use of people calling him ‘Rin.’ By those who do not know him, such as strangers, they can refer to him as ‘Rin Tin Tin,’ but immediately people around him should call him only ‘Rinty.’”