The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins (46 page)

The film project had gone awry at every stage of its production. With its cast of has-been and no-name actors and its impossibly erratic script, the picture, as it was finally realized, had nothing to do with the just-can’t-lose, career-rejuvenating, money-minting blockbuster that Frisco promised the twins it would be. Even he was dispirited when the shooting was finished.

How could such a perfect idea have turned out so badly?
Chained
was an artistic disaster. Frisco hoped he could now salvage something from the celluloid mess so it could recover at least some of its costs.

He placed a small, two-column advertisement in
Variety
. The ad didn’t characterize the movie as the murder and courtroom melodrama it, in fact, was. Rather, it billed the production as a “Full Length Feature Musical,” starring “The Hilton Sisters—World Famous Siamese Twins.” Clearly, Frisco was hoping he could delude some exhibitors into believing the film was another light and frothy piece in the vein of such recent musical releases as
Singin’ In the Rain
and
Stars and Stripes Forever
.

If the twins regarded the
Variety
ad as deceptive in its characterization of the movie, they may have been even more troubled by something else: The notice advertised the picture as a “road show release.” Movies designated as such were widely understood in the industry to mean low-budget, slammed-together, exploitation pictures. Such films were largely ignored by the critics. They were also spurned by the owners of the better movie houses and typically were screened at drive-in theaters and impromptu venues created by tacking up a bed sheet screen inside a vacant store front. By advertising
Chained for Life
as such, Frisco was publicly acknowledging it was of a lower order than the films screened in respectable theaters.

The ad made no references as to when the movie might be available for bookings. Everyone who had been involved with the movie knew that liens had been slapped against it by Eagle-Lion and other creditors and that
Chained
would not be screened before all the unpaid bills were cleaned up. Said Harry Fraser: “The film became tied up in litigation shortly after its completion.”
¹

As formulaic as his films were, Fraser never took the slightest umbrage at being referred to as the “King of the B-Movies.” Still, he seemed to admit that this movie, as it finally turned out, didn’t even
manage to rise to the level of mediocrity that characterized his other works. He summed up his involvement with what sounded like resignation. “It was not a production in which I took much pride, but it had an interesting premise and two unforgettable performers who overcame a tremendous handicap.”
²

In truth, the picture was so conspicuously bad it may have struck the
coup de grace
in Fraser’s thirty-plus-year film career. He had been the producer on more than sixty movies, and the assistant director on at least sixty others, but after completing
Chained
, he never again got a Hollywood assignment of any significance.

The only even passably creditable performances in the movie were turned in by the long-time pros Alan Jenkins and Jack Mulhall, and by Alan Keys, a svelte and handsome young actor who portrays the defense attorney in the Vivian Hamilton murder trial. While Daisy and Violet comported themselves satisfactorily in the film’s three musical numbers, neither showed even the slightest talent for dramatic acting. Each delivered her lines as though reading them for the first time. The performance by Mario Laval, the leading man, was even worse. He spoke English with the diction of a Slovenian in the third week of a Berlitz course.

Fraser, Moskov, and Frisco had all been involved in the film’s editing. Because of their eagerness to win Production Code certification, they chopped out any language and every scene they thought Joseph Breen might find even slightly objectionable. They then delivered a copy of the newly cut movie directly to the film czar. Breen announced his ruling in February of 1952. Even though he had rejected the project a year earlier on the basis of reading the screenplay, he said he had had a change of heart after seeing the finished product. He finally deigned to give
Chained for Life
the Production Code’s seal of approval.

At about the same time that Frisco, Fraser, and Moskov received Breen’s tidings, they received the additional good news that
Chained
,
as edited, had passed muster with the state film censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York. Only one state body—the Ohio censorship board—suggested further pruning and declared that unless its recommended cuts were made, it would ban screenings of the film throughout the state. The Ohio film censors, in their letter to Moskov, said they were especially troubled by a wedding night scene in which André Pariseau, wearing a robe and pajamas, enters the twins’ bedroom and kisses his bride who is covered only by a negligee. The Ohioans wanted the kissing scene cut. They apparently believed it constituted a form of foreplay that all moviegoers could imagine would lead to a
menage à trois
. Frisco, Moskov, and Fraser chose to ignore the Ohio board’s objection. They apparently believed that banning the film in a single state wouldn’t seriously affect anything.

Autographed publicity still of a scene from
Chained for Life, 1952.
(Courtesy of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences)

If the principals were at all cheered upon hearing that
Chained for Life
had at last won Code approval, as well as the imprimaturs of four out of five state censorship boards, they also knew the time for pop-ping champagne corks could still be a long way off. The picture was still heavily encumbered by liens. By court order, the film couldn’t be released until all the claims were lifted.

Because Ross Frisco was more eager than ever to clean up the last of the film’s debts and get it out of hock, he started arranging bookings for the twins without regard to where they were playing or how much pay they were promised. The relationship between the agent and the sisters grew increasingly strained as the months passed. Daisy and Violet believed Frisco regarded them as his personal drudges. They were also resentful that he continued to pocket 10 percent of the proceeds from their stage appearances when he expected them to apply all their earnings to the film’s remaining bills.

Daisy and Violet had had enough. They began refusing some of the engagements Frisco lined up. They also started arranging bookings on their own, cutting off his commissions. Frisco claimed betrayal. But finally, late in 1952, Daisy and Violet quit him altogether, casting their lot with a new booking agent, Edward Salzberg of Essar Productions, Cincinnati, Ohio.

By then, the twins had paid off the last of the outstanding debts on
Chained
. At long last, more than a year after the shooting was finished, the movie was free to be released to commercial audiences. Daisy and Violet alone now had full possession and control of the picture, and they promptly told Frisco they were cutting him out of any future interests in the property. Frisco, of course, was furious. He reminded Daisy and Violet that the idea for the picture had originated entirely with him. He also reminded them he had given up his Boston talent
agency of thirty years just so he could shepherd development of the film. Vowing he wasn’t going to disappear, he filed for breach of contract in the superior court of Boston, the city where the Hiltons still maintained an apartment. In his lawsuit, Frisco contended he held a binding contract with the twins that extended to September 14, 1953. He further claimed the contract not only guaranteed him a percentage of the earnings from all the Hilton sisters’ professional appearances, but also a portion of the proceeds from any filmed and published property by or about the two. He asked the court to direct the Hiltons to fulfill each and every term of their contract with him. He also petitioned the court to order an accounting of the sisters’ earnings during the time they were under contract with him and that they be directed to immediately make full restitution of any fees and commissions that were owed him. The court did issue a temporary restraining order which, for a time, prevented the twins from circumventing Frisco regarding professional personal appearances or commercial showings of their film. After about six weeks had passed however, the court lifted the order and directed both sides to prepare for a trial. Frisco must have concluded that if he pressed on with the case, he likely wouldn’t gain anything but a big legal bill. He gave up any additional legal maneuvers and left the lawsuit to languish. Finally, the superior court of Boston threw the case out.

Now free to make all the decisions concerning their film, Daisy and Violet started shopping for a distributor to handle its marketing and placement. They didn’t have an easy time of it. Movie patronage had been declining sharply in recent years as television sets entered more and more households. There didn’t seem to be a major film distributor anywhere interested in handling a low-budget, small-studio, black-and-white production whose leads were largely unknown. Even the lavishly produced wide-screen Technicolor releases by the major studios were having trouble attracting big audiences.

After descending lower and lower on the ladder of their expectations, Daisy and Violet finally did find a distributor for their film, Classic Pictures, Inc., a small New York operation that mostly placed its offerings with movie houses in declining neighborhoods and drive-ins. Max J. Rosenberg headed Classic Pictures, and while he could be brilliant at dreaming up promotional schemes for even the trashiest pictures, he had a quirk that was an irritant to many of his clients: He had what seemed to be an insatiable appetite for cinematic midden. As a result, he could almost never be reached at his office.

“What I remember about Max,” said a friend, “was that from about 10 o’clock in the morning until about 10 or 11 o’clock at night almost every day, he was in one or another of the Time Square movie houses, watching B-grade horror and sci-fi flicks. He had the complexion of Bela Lagosi because he was never in the sun longer than the time it took him to walk from one movie house to another. And I don’t think Max ever sat down to a home-cooked meal. He had his own interpretation of the doctors’ recommendation that people eat three square meals a day. Max observed the recommendation by only eating foods that came in boxes—buttered popcorn, Black Crows, Milk Duds.”

Even though Rosenberg was running a film distributorship, his real ambition was to be a producer. He viewed Times Square as his university, spending endless hours carrying on his studies. Ultimately, Rosenberg did achieve his ambition to become a producer. He gained distinction as grand mogul of the fright flick, presenting horror movie fans with such chiller classics as
The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957),
They Came from Beyond Space
(1967),
The House That Dripped Blood
(1970), and dozens more.

The twins had hoped
Chained for Life
would premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. After the opening, they would step out into the theater’s forecourt and, with flashbulbs exploding everywhere, press their hands and feet into wet concrete, imprinting them
alongside those of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Rosenberg swiftly disabused them of their fantasy. He was still uncertain where the film might have its first public screening, but he suggested the event was more likely to take place at a venue where the audience was about evenly divided between people and cows. While he didn’t rule out showings in real theaters, he believed the “ozoners,” the outdoor open-air theaters were more realistic. Rosenberg told the twins to get their Buick tuned up and make sure it had a new set of tires. He said his company could handle the marketing and distribution of the picture, but he expected them to go out on the road to help promote it.

Clearly, Rosenberg seemed to be the right man for ballyhooing and distributing
Chained
. His first move was to develop suitable advertising for the picture, which made only the most glancing contact with the storyline of the film. One of his posters, for example, showed Daisy smooching a lover while an insouciant looking Violet seemed to be twiddling her thumbs. In about 100-point type, Rosenberg referred to the twins as “The Seventh Wonder of the World,” and without the slightest regard for teratological accuracy, further over-drew them as “The Only Female Siamese Twins Ever Born.” Another creation, a broadside, titillated its viewers with a lot of lurid questions, none of which is answered in the film: “What Happens In Their Intimate Moments?” … “Can a Siamese Twin Have a Shy Husband?” … “Joined Together, How Can They Make Love to Separate Husbands?” Still another poster referred to the Hiltons as “Playthings of Desire” and aggrandized the screenplay as “The Strangest Love Story Every Told.”

Within about a week, Rosenberg delivered his mockups to a printer where, with some refinements by the house artists, they were transformed into billboard-sized come-ons.