RAYMOND HATTON
July 7th, 1887 -- October 21st, 1971

Above: An older but still crusty-looking Raymond Hatton in a publicity portrait from the early 1950's.

Raymond Hatton was an atypical and very wonderful comic sidekick. While most of the comic sidekicks got their laughs by playing characters who were complete and utter morons, the rusty-voiced, banty-like Hatton made his roles funny by playing his characters as smart, crafty old codgers with a dry wit. Usually some kind of veteran scout or seasoned guide, Hatton's characters were long-winded and given to fabrications, but they always had a supply of clever tactics that made you feel that not all of their exploits were fictitious. Sometimes you could mistake his swaggering sarcasm for grouchiness, but the cheery twinkle in his eye always told you otherwise.

Above: Raymond Hatton (second from left) was a very big star in the silent era. This scene is from NOW WE'RE IN THE AIR, one of the many silent comedies he made with Wallace Beery (far right).

Born in Red Oak, Iowa, in 1887, Hatton spent a colorful, checkered boyhood. He delivered papers on a pony, hunted frogs, and, together with his friends, put on plays in his family's barn loft. His love of acting led him to get a job as a water boy (and later an usher) at the local opera house at the age of 13. He made his stage debut at the opera house, but was persuaded by his parents to finish high school before taking up acting as a profession. He traveled with various touring companies, in one of which he met his future wife, actress Frances Roberts. They moved to Los Angeles after their marriage, and shortly after, in 1912, Raymond made his first movie, a picture called OH, THOSE EYES. He went on to become a major silent star, something I had not realized till I began researching this article. He did comedy, drama, adventure, the whole works, but began to concentrate more and more on comic roles as his career went on. He joined with Wallace Beery in the 1920's, and the duo made a long line (ten, in all) of popular comedies from 1925 to 1928. Hatton kept working steadily into the sound era, appearing in the famous early western LAW AND ORDER as well as Cecil B. DeMille's THE SQUAW MAN (Hatton had made a lot of his silent dramas for C. B. as well). Like fellow silent stars Henry B. Walthall and Jack Mulhall, Raymond was hired by shoestring Mascot Pictures to lend a famous name to their low-budget adventure films. It was Mascot who cast Hatton in his first cliffhanger, the 1933 serial THE THREE MUSKETEERS, an "updating" of the Dumas novel set in the French Foreign Legion. Ray was one of the titular Musketeers, Renard; the other two were Clancy (Jack Mulhall) and Schmidt (Francis X. Bushman Jr.). The three were saved from an Arab ambush by American flyer Tom Wayne (a young fellow named John Wayne, just starting out at the time). The man behind the ambush, El Shaitan, was a secret leader of an evil secret society known as the Devil's Circle; when the brother (Lon Chaney Jr.) of Wayne's fiancee (Ruth Hall) attempted to cancel his membership in the group, El Shaitan murdered him and put the blame on Wayne. The Musketeers helped Wayne escape from jail and clear himself by tracking down the Devil's Circle and unmasking the mysterious El Shaitan. THREE MUSKETEERS was a hopelessly complicated serial, plot-wise, but maintained a fast pace and featured some good action, along with strong performances. Hatton was given an opportunity to display the versatility of his silent days; he was fully believable as the courtly, dignified Renard, complete with a convincing French accent.

Above: Raymond Hatton grapples with an Arab as John Wayne comes to the rescue in THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Mascot, 1933).

Hatton's next serial was a pivotal one; it debuted the sidekick persona that he would use in all his other cliffhangers, and it teamed him with Johnny Mack Brown for the first time (seven or eight years later, Johnny and Ray would team up as hero and sidekick for over forty B-westerns). The serial was RUSTLERS OF RED DOG (Universal, 1935), a well-written, top-drawer Western adventure. Hatton was Laramie, a grizzled old scout and frontiersman, who, together with ex-marshal Jack Wood (Johnny Mack Brown) and gambler Deacon (Walter Miller, in a vivid characterization) defended the settlers in the town of Red Dog against marauding Indians and a clever gang of outlaws headed by Rocky (Harry Woods). Thanks to the three stars, who maintained a great chemistry, and to the script and production values, RUSTLERS emerged as one of Universal's best serials and a prototype for the other great western serials Universal would turn out in years to come.

Above: Walter Miller (far left) and Raymond Hatton are about to be burned at the stake by hostile Indians in RUSTLERS OF RED DOG (Universal, 1935); hero Johnny Mack Brown (next to Hatton) is about to offer himself in exchange for his pals (don't worry, all three of them get away).

Following the excellent RUSTLERS OF RED DOG, Raymond moved over to Republic Pictures the following year. UNDERSEA KINGDOM, the first of two serials Hatton did for Republic, miscast the great sidekick as a henchman named Captain Gasspon, second in command to Unga Khan (Monte Blue) despot of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Ray's second Republic made up for the first, however, by giving him the role of Whipsaw, a cagey old mountain man who, together with fellow scout Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, aided California landowner Don Loring (Robert Livingston) to avenge the deaths of his father and brother and overthrow the regime of General Burr, a renegade American officer who seized control of California and attempted to sell it to the Russian government. Hatton was at his best in VIGILANTES, whether exchanging sarcastic banter with Williams, playing his harmonica, or providing an amusing running gag as he greeted each suggestion of Livingston's with the comment "that's a good idee!"

Above: Bob Livingston (center), Raymond Hatton (far left), and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams tend to the injured Lloyd Ingraham in THE VIGILANTES ARE COMING (Republic, 1936).

Hatton made his second and last Universal cliffhanger in 1936 as well. It was fully as good as his first outing for the studio, and a good valedictory to his cliffhanger career there. The serial was JUNGLE JIM, based on the famous comic strip by Alex Raymond. Hatton was sharpshooting, impudent Malay Mike, faithful sidekick to Jungle Jim (Grant Withers), and played his role as an explorer version of his usual scout characters with very amusing results. In the serial, Jim and MIke ventured into the jungles of Africa to locate Joan Redmond (Betty Jane Rhodes), an heiress who had been supposedly lost in a shipwreck years ago. The two find that the girl has grown up as the Lion Goddess of the lost Basumba tribe, and have to fight the natives and their evil ruler, the Cobra (Henry Brandon) to get Joan back to civilization. To make things more complicated, Bruce Redmond, Joan's uncle, has designs on the family fortune and wants to make sure his niece never reappears. Between battling the natives, Redmond's henchmen Slade and LaBat, and wild animals of all kinds, Hatton and Withers had it tough, but still managed to make their safari a success and return the "Lion Goddess" to America. JUNGLE JIM has been lost to collectors and fans for a long time, but has recently made a triumphant return to video. Most of them (including myself) feel it was well worth waiting for.

Above, from left to right: Malay Mike (Raymond Hatton), Joan Redmond/the Lion Goddess (Betty Jane Rhodes), and Jungle Jim (Grant Withers) in the recently-rediscovered classic JUNGLE JIM (Universal, 1936).

Hatton returned to Republic shortly after, and re-teamed with two of his serial costars, first John Wayne and then Robert Livingston, to play "Rusty Joslin" in the Three Mesquiteers B-western series. He still continued to appear in some notable movies, including a cameo in the tailor-made role of Jim Bridger in Jon Hall's KIT CARSON. After the Mesquiteer series concluded, Hatton made one more cliffhanger, this time at Columbia. WHITE EAGLE (Columbia, 1941) portrayed Raymond's character, Grizzly, as a more typical, trip-over-buckets and stumble-over-your feet, character (probably at the request of director James W. Horne). Hatton seemed to enjoy a chance to return to the slapstick comedy of his silent days, but the serial was somewhat upsetting to Raymond's fans, who had appreciated his cunning, witty sidekicks in his other cliffhangers. Still, he deserved a chance to ham it up a little in his last serial, in view of his roster of terrific cliffhanger performances.

Above: Raymond Hatton (in coonskin cap) and Buck Jones are featured on this lobby card for WHITE EAGLE (Columbia, 1941).

Hatton shortly after moved to Monogram Pictures, where he and Buck Jones, together with Tim McCoy, starred in the Rough Riders B-western series. When Buck met his heroic and tragic demise in the Coconut Grove fire, Ray teamed with his old saddlepal Johnny Mack Brown and rode with him from 1943 to 1948, when Monogram cut the budgets on the Brown films and decided Johnny didn't need a sidekick. Ray kept his hand in the acting world for a while longer, appearing on TV shows such as MAVERICK and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN as well as popping up in all of Jimmy Ellison and Russell Hayden's B-westerns at Lippert Pictures. Hatton's last film role was as a hitch-hiker in IN COLD BLOOD with Robert Blake; he retired in 1967 and passed away in California at the grand old age of eighty-four.

To fans of silent films, Raymond Hatton was a superstar of the top rank, a man worthy to be put on the same level as Lionel Barrymore or Lon Chaney. To B-western fans he was to Johnny Mack Brown what Gabby Hayes was to Roy Rogers. To those who watched major movies, he was an always-reliable character actor. And to the serial fan, ol' Ray was a sidekick like no other and a shining light in the pantheon of cliffhanger actors.

Above: A young Ray gives us a knowing smile in this early publicity portrait.