Among my many inherited traits is a love of movies. Although not likely to be DNA-based, this characteristic, which was so strong in my mother, is one that I value highly and  that gives me great pleasure. I particularly love old movies and am happy even to see a snippet, whether I have seen it once or many times or not all.

Perhaps I will, in some future posting, list my favorite movies.

Often, I turn the television to my favorite channel––Turner Classic Movies (TCM)––even if I have only a few minutes to watch. It doesn’t matter if it is a classic film that I have seen a dozen or more times (e.g. Casablanca, The Third Man,To Kill a Mockingbird, etc) or if it is a clinker starring actors I may not know at all. My only constraint is that certain films should only be seen on a big theater screen (e.g. Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur,Doctor Zhivago, etc). I have no doubt that all great films should be seen in a theater with other movie-lovers around you, but, alas, there are few opportunities to do that. As example, I have watched Casablanca on the small screen––even the tiny screen of an airplane––but, after again seeing it in a real theater last year I am convinced watching every film is better seen in a theater and seeing a film on a small screen is always second best. I suspect some of the television sets now being sold––whose monstrous dimensions are unsuitable for the places in which I live until I win some lottery––would be perfectly satisfactory for viewing but I think I would still miss being surrounded by other movie-lovers.

But a ninety-six inch screen is not in my immediate future.

Recently, on December 23, 2018, at about eleven in the morning, I was putting on my shoes and socks (Sundays start later because of Meet the Press and the Sunday New York Times) and I turned the television on to TCM.

To my great pleasure, “O. Henry’s Full House,” a 1952 film, was already on with about twenty-five minutes left. Expecting to be summoned for breakfast any minute I pushed the record button. I was thirteen years old when I first saw this movie but I instantly and happily recognized it although it’s been more than sixty-five years since that one prior viewing. Released by 20th Century Fox, the film consists of five vignettes, each based on a different O. Henry story. The stellar cast includes some iconic actors still well-remembered (Charles Laughton, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark), others less well (Anne Baxter, Farley Granger, Dale Robertson, David Wayne) and some mostly forgotten (Fred Allen, Jeanne Crain, Oscar Levant, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff). Five of Hollywood’s leading directors took part and the background music was by Alfred Newman who was awarded the Academy Award nine times (Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Song of Bernadette, etc) and nominated forty-three times, although not for this film.

This was––because of the cast, the directors, the composer and a major studio––an important film, favorably reviewed by Bosley Crowther in the New York Times (October 17, 1952). Crowther, one of the most important film critics of that era, could make or break a film. The Crowther review is of some interest for a couple of reasons. Inexplicably, he only discusses four films (a “full house” in poker consists of five-cards and the heading of Crowther’s column uses the film title). Although he comments on the vignette in which she appears, he fails to mention Marilyn Monroe who was twenty-six when the film was released and, spectacularly beautiful and decidedly convincing in her role, impossible to miss.

This film is noteworthy because of the marvelous tales and the excellent cast, but additionally because it is narrated by John Steinbeck, the great American author and Nobel Prize winner. I did not recall his being in this film––I didn’t know anything about Steinbeck the first time I saw “O. Henry”s Full House”––but I enjoyed the few minutes seeing him this time. Steinbeck, author of East of Eden, Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and many more, generally avoided being filmed and this is a rare opportunity to see him.

I was already familiar with O. Henry when the film was released. My mother, who loved reading as much as she loved movies, had directed me to his stories. O. Henry was the pen name for William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910). He also wrote as Olivier Henry, S.H. Peters, James L. Bliss, T.B. Dowd and Howard Clark. Biographers have suggested a number of origins for “O. Henry.” One pointed out that there was a prison guard named Orrin Henry in the Ohio State Penitentiary (more about this later). Another suggested it is from the name of the French pharmacist Etienne Ossian Henry whose name is in the U.S. Dispensary which Porter used while working in the prison pharmacy. A third has ascribed the pseudonym to the first two letters of Ohio and the second, third and last two of penitentiary.

Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter, a physician, and his wife Mary Jane. His mother died in childbirth when he was three and he and his father moved to the home of his paternal grandmother. In 1879, he started working in his uncle’s drug store and two years later, at the age of nineteen, was licensed as a pharmacist. At this time he also showed his innate talent as an artist and often sketched the pharmacy’s customers.

When he developed a chronic cough he traveled to Texas with a family friend, Dr. James K. Hall, to see if that climate would help. He took up residence on a sheep ranch close to Austin that belonged to Dr. Hall’s son, Richard. There he worked as a shepherd, ranch hand, cook and baby-sitter and his cough improved. He learned some Spanish and some German from the mix of ranch hands and devoted his spare time to reading classic literature. He was socially active in Austin, known for his wit, story-telling and musical talents, playing the guitar and the mandolin and singing in both the church choir and as a member of a quartette of young men who sang at social gatherings and serenaded the town’s young women. He also gained a reputation as a dandy. He played cards, charmed friends with his stories, downed half-gallons of beer and published a weekly satirical magazine called The Rolling Stone. Although successful, the top circulation of 1,500 was not quite enough to provide an adequate income and the magazine failed in April 1895. His writings, however, caught the attention of the Houston Post and he moved to Houston where his popularity as a writer increased.

In January 1887, Porter was hired by Richard Hall, then Texas Land Commissioner, to work as a draftsman in the Texas General Land Office, where he was paid $100 a month. Six months later Porter eloped with Athol Estes, then sixteen, despite the objections of her mother who expressed concern about her daughter’s tuberculosis and Porter’s ability to take care of her. Athol greatly encouraged Porter to write and he soon earned enough from his contributions to magazines and newspapers to make them financially secure. Their first child, a boy, died hours after birth. Their daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, was born a year later. When Hall ran for governor in 1890 and lost, Porter resigned from his government job and began working at the First National Bank of Austin as a teller and bookkeeper. Considered careless in keeping books, he was accused of embezzling funds and was fired.

While Porter was in Houston, federal auditors came to the First National Bank of Austin and subsequently arrested Porter for embezzlement. He was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896 but, the day before, he fled to New Orleans and then to Honduras, a country with which the United States did not have an extradition treaty. In Honduras he became friends with Al Jennings, a notorious train robber, who shared his experiences with Porter. Athol became too ill to join him and, when he learned his wife was dying, he returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the court. Athol died five months later. Another version suggests that Porter and Jennings met after Honduras when they were both in prison. Porter subsequently transformed some of Jennings’ recollections into published stories.

Porter had little to say at his trial and was convicted of embezzling $854.08. He was sentenced to five years and imprisoned at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus where he was able to work in the prison hospital as the night pharmacist. This responsibility led to his never actually sleeping in a prison cell, having been given his own room in the hospital wing. While in the penitentiary, Porter wrote a book, Cabbages and Kings, published in 1904, in which he coined the term “banana republic” to describe a small, unstable, Latin American nation with a narrowly focused agrarian economy. He was released after three years for good behavior and reunited with Margaret in Pittsburgh where she was living with Athol’s parents.

A century later, in 1998, the Friends of the O. Henry Museum in Austin, enacted a new, albeit completely fictional, version of Porter’s trial. A mock court convened. John Hightower, retired Texas Supreme Court Justice and former United States Senator, presided over the court and said, “I think this jury heard a lot more than the original one did.” In one report William Porter’s grown daughter (she was only ten at the time of the actual trial), ” … at the last minute … springs from among the courtroom spectators … ” and presents evidence that supports her father’s plea of innocence.” (Porter always maintained that he was innocent of embezzlement. Some said the bank’s owners and their friends helped themselves to monies that, more often than not, were never recorded or repaid). The 20th century jury, which included many leading Austin attorneys, rendered a unanimous verdict of not guilty.

The fourteen stories published during his prison years were under various pseudonyms including “O. Henry.” One of his most successful stories, based on characters he met in prison, was “A Retrieved Reformation.” This introduced the amiable bank robber, Jimmy Valentine. O. Henry earned $250 for the story and later sold the dramatic rights for $500. Paul Armstrong wrote the script for the stage version, “Alias Jimmy Valentine,” after O. Henry decided not to write the script. The show was a great hit and ran a long time. Armstrong received more than $100,000 in royalties.

Porter’s most prolific writing period started in 1902 when he moved to New York to be near his publishers. Although he was not particularly appreciated by critics, his stories were adored by readers for their wit, warmth, keen characterizations and surprising plot twists.

He was considered the American answer to Guy de Maupassant. In 1907 he married his childhood sweetheart, and fellow writer, Sarah Lindsey Coleman. His daughter also had a career as a writer but, just as her mother, died of tuberculosis when she was thirty-eight years old.

Porter changed the spelling of his middle name from “Sidney” to “Sydney” when he was thirty-six for reasons unknown. Porter was a heavy drinker and, by 1908, his health and his writing became affected. Sarah left him in 1909 and he died June 5, 1910, at age fifty-seven, of liver cirrhosis, complications of diabetes and heart failure. He was visiting New York City from Asheville, North Carolina, where he had recently moved. Penniless when he died, friends collected money to hold services in New York and then transfer him to Ashville where he was buried in Riverside Cemetery; his grave is marked by an inconspicuous stone bearing his given name but not identifying him as “O. Henry.” As you can see from the photographs below, a visitor arranged the coins left there to form his name. O. Henry published more than 250 short stories and about a dozen poems.

Once, when he dined with several friends at a New York restaurant favored by theatrical and literary people, a relatively new member of the community asked O. Henry how he wrote, how he found his plots. “Oh, everywhere,” O. Henry replied. “There are stories in everything,” he said, picking up the menu on which the dishes of the day were typed. Pointing to one of the items, he said, “There’s a story in this,” and then outlined, in some detail, the tale that became “Springtime à la Carte.” It’s a typical O. Henry story, filled with happy musings, local color and atmosphere, imagined smells, subtle illusions to literature (including two for Shakespeare), wit enough to make you smile and even laugh aloud and the surprising (of course) dénouement, imaginable only to O. Henry and loving enough to almost, but not quite, be schmaltzy.

Most of O. Henry’s stories are memorable and stand the test of time. The film, “O. Henry’s Full House”, presents just five of his marvelous writings: “The Cop and the Anthem” starring Laughton, Monroe and Wayne; “The Clarion Call” with Widmark and Robertson; “The Last Leaf” (at least two hankies required) featuring Baxter (Frank Lloyd Wright’s niece), Peters and Ratoff; “The Ransom of Red Chief” highlighting the comic and poignant talents of Fred Allen (how many of you remember hearing Fred Allen’s slightly nasal voice on the radio?) and Levant (a brilliant pianist in most of his films); and, last but certainly not least, “The Gift of the Magi,” perhaps O. Henry’s most famous story and one of the shortest, with Crain and Granger. So many of O. Henry’s other stories would also translate well to the screen.

Although a North Carolinian and a Texan, O. Henry is often thought of as one of the legendary New York writers along with Poe, before him, and Damon Runyon, after him. O. Henry’s stories bring forth the manners of the decade in which they were written but, as with any great work of literature, the human elements transcend time and space. Today’s haircuts are different, the skirts are shorter, the pace of life is faster, but the emotions remain the same.

O. Henry was a kindly, considerate man, who liked to walk through the city at night, studying the panoply of faces and then creating stories about them. “I’ve got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts and newspaper stands,” he said. He avoided publicity and cherished quiet meals with people he liked. Robert H. Davis, his editor and good friend, said, “He was a childlike individual, absolutely without guile, and at times almost helpless.” Scholars suggest his genius was in grabbing something commonplace and transforming it to something unforgettable. He might tell of two lovers kept apart by the complexity of a great city, to be finally united by some accident of providence, often testing the reader’s willingness to accept coincidence but containing the key elements of love and longing and hope. At the end of almost all of his stories victory overcomes fears and frustration. It was said that he put a romantic glow on everyday living.

O. Henry was one of the best regarded American writers whose stories earned him great wealth and international renown. His tales appeared in more than a dozen different collections and fill 1,692 pages of the two-volume “The Complete Works of O. Henry – the Definitive Collection of America’s Master of the Short Story” (my slightly worn copy, purchased new in 1953, has bruised and weary dust covers and is as comfortable as an old friend). Despite his great success, not one of his works appears in either of the two best regarded short-story anthologies

I surveyed the more than two hundred fifty people on my blog circulation list, asking if they heard of O. Henry, if they had read his stories and, if so, if they could recall the name of one. The list includes junior high school classmates, colleagues (pathologists, internists, surgeons, psychotherapists), other friends, fellow students from my MFA program, and relatives. There are Californians, New Yorkers, Chicagoans, Floridians, D.C.ers, Virginians, Marylanders, Massachusettsians, Georgians and a half-dozen people from other countries, a few of whom did know and read O. Henry. A few respondents are younger than 30 and a few are older than 80.

Sixty-eight people responded; approximately 25% of 260 individuals surveyed (a relatively high response rate for a survey). Fifty-seven of the respondents knew O. Henry’s name and approximately 90% of those had read one or more of his stories.

Not surprisingly the story most often recalled is “The Gift of the Magi.” Almost half of those responding remember it. This gentle Christmas-eve tale of love is warm and amusing, despite the seemingly sad ending. It is a masterpiece of short story writing, capturing the reader with the very first lines: “One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.” I was surprised to see the second most remembered is “The Ransom of Red Chief,” wry and witty and, like so many O. Henry stories, filled with irony. Six people recalled this one. Three mentioned “The Last Leaf.” This melancholic telling of despair is unforgettable because of its imagery and, especially, the sacrifice described. It is one of O. Henry’s most poignant and beautiful narratives. Other stories mentioned by my blog readers––one citation for each––are “The Furnished Room,” “Memoirs of a Yellow Dog,” “An Unfinished Story,” “The Pendulum,” and “A Midsummer Knight’s Dream.” There are quite a few other stories to recommend, including the particularly amusing “A Snapshot of the President.”

In preparing this commentary I have, of course, read or reread a number of stories, most for the third or fourth time. They are wonderful––filled with wit and warmth–– as O. Henry depicts in three or four pages the human condition with wonderment and love and, of course, an entirely believable but completely unexpected surprise ending.

Try O. Henry.

You’ll like him.

 

 

Selected references:

Anon. A Dead Writer’s Fans Create a New Ending. New York Times, February 22, 1998.

Burrell, Angus and Cerf, Bennett. An Anthology of Famous American Stories. New York. The Modern Library, 1953.

Crowther, Bosley. Four O. Henry Short Stories Offered in Fox Movie at Trans-Lux 52nd Street. New York Times, October 17, 1952. (https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res-9906E0DF103AE23BBC4F52DFB6678389649EDE).

O. Henry. The Complete Works of O. Henry – The Definitive Collection of America’s Master or the Short Story, volumes I and II. New York, Doubleday & Company, 1953.

Updike, John and Kenison, Katrina (editors). The Best American Short Stories of the Century. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.