Slim Tinsel Presents: Lionel Barrymore’s Pants (Uncredited)

Before we begin, Slim Tinsel, aka The Rant’s holiday alter ego, would like to send out holiday condolences and crying emojis to the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish¹ football squad for being left out of the College Football Shameless Money Grab . . . we mean the glorious playoff system that crowns a righteous champion each year.² After being sent to the kiddie table of meaningless bowl games, America’s best known Catholic University refused to participate in any bowl, including the greatest football spectacle ever created, the Pop Tarts Bowl.³ Slim Tinsel hears through the secret cabal of Bishops that run the world with Jewish bankers that they have also refused to celebrate Advent or have any of their future children baptized. But they will help raise NIL funds to perform an exorcism on the University of Alabama Campus. Old Nick, Nick Saban. It all becomes clear when you apply RFK Jr.’s patented scientific method and wart remover. Well then.

Slim hates to be churlish during the holidays, but this is the same team that has been stuffing piles of money in secret grottos by refusing to to join a conference and negotiating a separate television deal for their home games and asking for special rules to make said playoff. They’re probably all glad the school refuses to believe in Karma.

Now on with Rantmas. Today we examine our favorite holiday villain and the man that played him, Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. Enjoy.

Lionel Barrymore, part of the vast Barrymore acting dynasty, including our very own Drew Barrymore, remains best known for his role as Henry Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. The wheelchair Barrymore occupies in that movie served as no mere prop; for years he had to use it, probably due to a combination of a broken hip and arthritis. Stories abound of Barrymore coping through enormous consumption of morphine or even of a chronic cocaine habit, allegedly supplied by studio head Louis B. Mayer. So Lionel didn’t require any method technique to play a grouchy old man.

But like any pop culture figure fixed in time by a single role or song or book, Barrymore’s complexity gets lost behind the looming figure of Potter each Christmas. An artist in every sense, he composed music, wrote novels and created beautiful etchings still collected today. He also expended much energy fuming about the income tax; his wages were garnished until his death, and part of his art had to be auctioned to cover his remaining debt to the IRS.

While enormous strides have been made in access and awareness, what actor today could have such a prolific career as Barrymore did in a wheelchair? Quite often, as happens in Life, Barrymore’s confinement hardly bears mentioning. Today, something as extraordinary as a wheelchair among all the beautiful people requires feature articles and major plot points and long interviews of how the performer (nearly always able-bodied) heroically spent time among actual disabled people (imagine the sacrifice) to discover the true meaning of the role.

Sometimes, though, Barrymore’s presence in the chair became a crucial element of the film. In Key Largo, he threatens and rails against the gangster Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G. Robinson, who has taken over his hotel for the score that will make him a  player again. Both men are has-beens, but will the spent evil of Robinson or the spent goodness of Barrymore prevail? That the question remains in doubt until Humphrey Bogart, playing a broken war hero, summons up the will to destroy Rocco once and for all, keeps the movie fascinating and relevant. Made in 1948, Key Largo joined several other films right after World War II that questioned whether America had the energy to put a shattered world back together. And then Technicolor and VistaVision and America’s economic might broke out all over and such questions faded away.

As good as Barrymore is in the film, his pants steal the show. They start off all humble and quiet, but as the film progresses they slowly work their way into view up under his armpits, and then nearly swallow the actor as a farcical sign of his impotence. Once Bogart triumphs they settle back down to lead a peaceful life of admiring Lauren Bacall’s scorching good looks. Sadly, Barrymore’s pants remain uncredited in the film, joining a list of  stars like Dr. Strangelove’s wandering arm, the bride of Frankenstein’s hair, and the moose in Arthur that quietly toiled without recognition or the fame they deserved.

Of course actual actors suffered the same fate. In Wonderful Life, Potter’s constant bodyguard looms like a vulture beside his wheelchair. His name was Frank Hagney, and he may hold the uncredited role title belt on IMDB. Hagney worked in obscurity but he worked steadily: he has a staggering 426 film and television shows to his (un)credit. He began his career in 1919 and appeared to chug along until his death in 1973. Hagney immigrated from Australia and didn’t begin his long career until age 35. Among my favorite uncredited roles, Card Player Who Doesn’t Know French, Gold Smelter, and Trainer Giving Rubdown rise above the rest. He appears to have specialized in Henchman, Tough, and Barfly, especially ones that got into brawls. He will live on uncredited forever, working in a time when studios cranked out nearly a movie a week to meet demand. Frank Hagney and others like him made that incredible level of  production possible.

Unlike Arthur’s prospective father-in-law, we should never forget the moose. Or Barrymore’s pants. Or the prolific Frank Hagney. Their contributions make entertainment possible and real and accessible. Live on uncredited legends.

1. Let’s all hear it for the casual cultural stereotyping that allows our beloved brawlin’, drunken mascot to roam free in South Bend. As the Irishman on the Simpsons likes to say, “Tis all in good fun.” Now where did we put our shillelagh? Might have left it at the donnybrook we got into at the wake.
2. You get a Cease and Desist from ESPN’s snarling bear of a corporate parent, Disney, and see how brave you are. We have children to consider.
3. We’re no great theologians, but long years in Purgatory await those refusing such a sublime, dare we say divine, offer. Can we review? An anthropomorphic Pop Tart sacrifices itself to a giant toaster so it can be consumed by the winning team. On live television! You can read about in our upcoming book, Pop Tart Iconography and Christ Figure Echoes in Modern Athletics. We would QB the fourth grade Salvation Army flag football squad to view the wonder of it in person. Sinners.