TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[henrysmom]

Adding to the Fred MacMurray love--I saw him first in the Disney movies he made and in reruns of My Three Sons.  I can't say I was much impressed. Then I saw Double Indemnity.  I was young at the time, probably not more than 14 or 15 and was just blown away by his ability to make Walter Neff come alive.  I couldn't believe it was the same guy that was in the Flubber movies.  And in the dozens of times I've seen Double Indemnity since, I am so glad that Billy Wilder or MacMurray or Stanwyck didn't make the mistake of making the two leads in any way sympathetic.  There are so many instances in the film where a line or a look or a reaction could have made Walter or Phyllis less than evil.  But none of them went there.  

 

A comedy of MacMurray's I love is The Princess Comes Across.  A lot of people say Double Indemnity came out of the blue as an image change for MacMurray but I don't see the situation as that crystal clear.  Many of his earlier characters had a bit of the heel/bad guy to them.  This movie is a case in point.  He plays a bandleader--his instrument is the concertina--who is also an ex-con who isn't above moving a dead body around if he has too.  He's wonderful in the film, and so is Carole Lombard as an American girl who is trying to break into movies by pretending to be a Swedish princess, complete with Greta Garbo-esque accent.  Alison Skipworth plays Lombard's "titled" companion and William Frawley of I Love Lucy fame has some good scenes as MacMurray's manager.  

[monakane]

Speaking of MacMurray, let's not forget the heel he played in The Apartment which was another Billy Wilder film.  Wilder sure did bring out the best in him.

[bluepiano]

A comedy of MacMurray's I love is The Princess Comes Across.  

 

That's a good one. So is Too Many Husbands (1940), same theme as My Favorite Wife, except now it's a woman with two husbands. Fred is the one who's been stranded on the desert island, and comes back to find that his wife (Jean Arthur) has had him legally declared dead and is now married to his best friend and business partner, Melvyn Douglas. In a way it's more mature and racy than My Favorite Wife, as they are already married, so the move can't pretend that they haven't slept together yet. Douglas' character is the straight-laced one and Fred is the free spirit, so he gets to do the bulk of the comedy.

 

Regarding Claudette Colbert, I like her a lot, but I can see that she has some qualities that might put people off. Especially as she got older and became more and more "the great lady." But a really good director, like Sturges in The Palm Beach Story, or Capra in It Happened One Night, could bring out her playful, appealing side. (And in Palm Beach she looks gorgeous in the scenes in which she literally lets her hair down). Then there are some very early Colbert movies in which she's quite different, like Torch Singer, which TCM has shown as part of their pre-code series. She plays a woman of, shall we say, experience, and she's quite sexy.

 

As for her speaking voice, I wonder if her very precise diction is because English was not her first language. She was certainly never going to sound as natural as Barbara Stanwyck from Brooklyn.

Edited October 8, 2015 by bluepiano

[Inquisitionist]

As for her speaking voice, I wonder if her very precise diction is because English was not her first language.

 

English was not my first language either, but I don't sound like Claudette Colbert.  ;-)

 

I'll keep an eye out for Too Many Husbands.   Thanks!

[Julia]

As for her speaking voice, I wonder if her very precise diction is because English was not her first language. She was certainly never going to sound as natural as Barbara Stanwyck from Brooklyn.

 

She actually grew up in midtown Manhattan, which wasn't quite as fashionable back then :)

 

She supposedly learned english from her bilingual grandmother, who was from the Channel Islands, so that might have affected her accent?

[ratgirlagogo]

I think she had what used to be called a Mid Atlantic accent - something cultivated by theatrical people in the first half of the twentieth century, taught in acting schools, etc.  I hear it in Norma Shearer and Irene Dunne and Diana Wynyard - basically in most of the early 30's movies which were based on plays, that's the voice the actors are using and were probably taught to use by the studio voice coach.  You hear it all the time in 1930's radio as well.

[Rinaldo]

Regarding Claudette Colbert, I like her a lot, but I can see that she has some qualities that might put people off. Especially as she got older and became more and more "the great lady." 

One doesn't want to overdo what I'm about to say, because people in the end make their own choices if only by agreeing, but as she got older she was to some extent hurt by the studio system as it then existed, which didn't want her to acquire a different image from the one that had made her a star. She's said that she was ready to move into "mother parts" -- mother of teenagers and so on -- but the studio heads wouldn't have it, they kept her in the same sort of romantic roles, comedic or otherwise. We're told that when she was again teamed with Fred MacMurray as "the girl and the boy" in 1944 on Practically Yours (again working with Mitchell Leisen), he casually remarked to her on the set one day, "You know Claudette, the only thing wrong with this picture is that we're both too damned old for it." And though she was taken aback by his bluntness at first, she essentially agreed.

 

It's interesting to speculate what we would think of her, and how her career might have evolved, had she played Margo in All About Eve as planned. It's hard to imagine, isn't it?

[prican58]

So I come home just now and see that today is Jack Oakie Day! My other favorite Jack after Jack Carson. Fight For Your lady with Lupino and Erik Rhodes who played Beddini in Top Hat. So adorable. 

Next is a film I have never seen called Radio City Revels (1937) that stars Oakie, Milton Berle, Ann Miller, Victor Moore and Helen Broderick. It might not be very good but it's got to be interesting. It's an RKO Radio release which is great for me because I really love that studios Art Deco sets and the glorious Black and White.

 

After that is Something to Shout About with Don Ameche, whom I love. I'm set.    

[ratgirlagogo]

I kind of had TCM on in the background while doing household stuff today (as I often do, especially on Thirties Thursdays) and damn, I wish I had checked out the schedule first - I wish wish wish I had recorded Hitting a New High.  What I did see while going in and out of the house doing other stuff was NUTS - Lily Pons as Oogahunga the African Bird Girl, twittering and cheeping and perching in a tree?!!??  Couldn't figure out if her pet bird was a live bird or a mechanical bird.  Plus not just Jack Oakie but Edward Everett Horton as a loony Frank Buck-type white hunter and Erik Blore as some kind of bandleader or something.  

Edited October 8, 2015 by ratgirlagogo

[Julia]

I think she had what used to be called a Mid Atlantic accent - something cultivated by theatrical people in the first half of the twentieth century, taught in acting schools, etc.  I hear it in Norma Shearer and Irene Dunne and Diana Wynyard - basically in most of the early 30's movies which were based on plays, that's the voice the actors are using and were probably taught to use by the studio voice coach.  You hear it all the time in 1930's radio as well.

 

Round tones ;)

[bluepiano]

Next is a film I have never seen called Radio City Revels (1937) that stars Oakie, Milton Berle, Ann Miller, Victor Moore and Helen Broderick. It might not be very good but it's got to be interesting. It's an RKO Radio release which is great for me because I really love that studios Art Deco sets and the glorious Black and White. 

 

Someone posted on IMDB that this movie used sets that had been built at RKO for the Astaire-Rogers movies. And not so coincidentally, Moore and Broderick were the comic relief in "Swing Time."

 

I'm also a Jack Oakie fan, and another one they showed today is Annabelle Takes a Tour, which was a sequel to The Affairs of Annabelle. Both of them feature Jack as the conniving press agent of a self-centered starlet played by Lucille Ball. In the recent lively discussion here of classic movie comediennes, Lucy's name has not come up. It would sound strange to call her "underrated," as she was just about the biggest TV star ever, but probably many of her TV fans don't know the young, wise-cracking Lucy, who in the '30s enlivened a number of slight but enjoyable second features like the Annabelle movies.

 

She was of course great in a small role in Stage Door, trading barbs with Katherine Hepburn, and in Room Service, holding her own with the Marx Brothers. And for me she's the best thing in Dance, Girl, Dance, which I otherwise find a bit pretentious.  Du Barry Was a Lady in 1943 was a glitzy, Technicolor musical, and I think that's the beginning of her road to true stardom. Her later starring vehicles were okay, but I'll always seek out the early Lucy movies any time they're on TCM.  

 

Edited October 8, 2015 by bluepiano

[Bastet]

She was of course great in a small role in Stage Door, trading barbs with Katherine Hepburn,

 

I think she's even better with Katharine Hepburn (and Spencer Tracy and Keenan Wynn) in Without Love.  Anyone other than Hepburn/Tracy in the lead, and Ball and Wynn would have run away with the film ... as it is, they almost do.  (And I know, for some, they succeed.)

[prican58]

Oh yes! Lucille is always so very good in most everything she did back then. I am biased towards her. Too often, though Hollywood cast her as the wise cracking, subversive dame. She played it flawlessly I may add. I adore Stage Door and Without Love and she is rather unlikable (her character, not her) in The Big Street which is all the more intriguing because it allowed her to play pretty much against type. She was quoted once as having said that she was extremely grateful for her time in the movies as she never expected to become a star.

 

Oooh, Hazel Scott performs in Something to Shout About. Looking forward. love her.

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hazel%20scott&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=hazel%20scott&sc=8-11&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&mid=4E3D532D4FC7D78C9D214E3D532D4FC7D78C9D21

Edited October 8, 2015 by prican58

[bluepiano]

I find The Big Street almost painful to watch, because of the masochism of the Henry Fonda character, but it's a great performance by Lucy, who shows that she could have been a fine dramatic actress. (There's an old saying that most great comic actors could do drama, but very few great dramatic actors can do comedy).

 

Thanks for the heads-up on Hazel Scott, an amazing musician who got to perform in several Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, her American career was derailed by the McCarthy era blacklists.

[Julia]

I find it kind of extraordinary that Hazel Scott is remembered for what she did and not for who her first husband was.

[prican58]

That would be  Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Such a legend in this place they call New York. Yes, to her being recognized for her own achievements. 

[bluepiano]

Something to Shout About turned out to be good, silly fun, as is typical of second features of that era. As a pianist myself, I watched Hazel Scott and my jaw was dropping in astonishment. She was a marvel.

 

On the one hand, sad that that great black talents (singers, dancers, musicians) could only be used in "feature numbers" in what were essentially segregated movies. On the other hand, it's great that we have a filmed record of their performances we would not have otherwise.

Edited October 9, 2015 by bluepiano

[prican58]

Yes, bluepiano, I think the same thing whenever I see the great Nicholas Brothers. I also remember seeing the Ink Spots in a film and was amazed by the talent. They were famous and I always remember how on Sanford and Son Redd Foxx would occasionally break out into If I Didn't Care. 

Dean Martin was very much influenced by the Mills Brothers and it's wonderful to have been able to see them on many of the old variety shows back in the day. 

[Julia]

On the one hand, sad that that great black talents (singers, dancers, musicians) could only be used in "feature numbers" in what were essentially segregated movies. On the other hand, it's great that we have a filmed record of their performances we would not have otherwise.

 

Yes, bluepiano, I think the same thing whenever I see the great Nicholas Brothers. I also remember seeing the Ink Spots in a film and was amazed by the talent. 

 

I think it was pretty standup of Gene Kelly to hold out for filming the ending of the Pirate so that the southern theaters couldn't cut the Nicholas brothers out.

[bluepiano]

I had not heard that story. But I know that both Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were very vocal about their admiration for the Nicholas Brothers and other black dancers who were not able to get the credit they deserved.

[henrysmom]

 

She's said that she was ready to move into "mother parts" -- mother of teenagers and so on -- but the studio heads wouldn't have it, they kept her in the same sort of romantic roles, comedic or otherwise.

 

That would explain Colbert's role in The Egg and I, a film I would have liked a lot better if the leads were younger.  I like both MacMurray and Colbert but buying them as young newlyweds just starting out it was a stretch.  

[bluepiano]

She did play a mother in Since You Went Away in 1944, a World War II home front weeper. Her daughters were Jennifer Jones (who was not way younger than Claudette) and Shirley Temple! But maybe that was a special war thing. It was just two years after The Palm Beach Story, and two years later she was, as you said, a "young" newlywed in The Egg and I.

 

I think there were a number of actresses from that period who did not transition to playing mothers and "older women." But often I think it was because the actress herself did not want to be seen that way. I can't really remember Barbara Stanwyck playing motherly types. That is, in feature movies, and not in her much later TV career.

[mariah23]

She played a Mom in The Bride Wore Boots and Jeopardy.

[elle]

Don't forget about the "weeper" My Reputation! (for Stanwyck)

Edited October 12, 2015 by elle

[MissT]

She also played a mother in 3 Came Home. 

[Julia]

Stella Dallas?

[Rinaldo]

Today's entry in Leonard Maltin's blog brings some remarkable news: Paramount has established a YouTube channel where it is making available a substantial number of titles from its back catalog, free. (Mostly B&W films from the 1950s and 60s, the sort that I suppose were unlikely ever to get a DVD release.) As the article says further Down, 20th Century Fox is also putting some of its older titles out online.

 

At the moment, I'm enjoying the chance to finally see Darling, How Could You?, about which I've long been curious. A Mitchell Leisen title from the early 50s, an adaptation of a seldom-seen Barrie play, with Joan Fontaine playing mother to Mona Freeman and David Stollery. What fun!

[voiceover]

All hail Crossing Delancey, and a believable single woman in her 30s onscreen: Friends she grew up with? check.  Friend from college? check.  Married lover? check.  Unavailable heartthrob? check.  gay buddy at work? check.

 

Love this movie.

[prican58]

TCM is celebrating Lillian Gish today. They will be airing The White Sister where her dad is played by Charles Lane. This excites me because I can't think of a time where this guy wasn't on your movie/tv screen. I love how he lived to be 100 years old and was still himself. Curious to see him in a silent.

 

Also, Ronald Colman is in it and I don't think I have ever seen him in a silent. And then of course there is Gish.

 

Not bad.  

 

I must correct myself. This isn't the character actor Charles Lane but some other guy who plays Gish's father. Doesn't even look like him.

 

Bummer.

Edited October 14, 2015 by prican58

[3pwood]

prican58, the Charles Lane you're thinking of was born in 1905, so he was only 18 when The White Sister was made in 1923 (whereas Lillian Gish was born in 1893 & age 30 in the movie).  My father met him during WWII, when my dad was in the Marines & Charlie was in the Coast Guard -- unlike his curmudgeon characters, he was friendly & funny, well-liked by everyone (& always recognized as "that guy!" from the movies).

[Rinaldo]

After so many of you telling me that if I like Gene Tierney, I must see her in Leave Her To Heaven, I see that it's on right now! I'll catch the whole recording later, but I had to drop in and watch it for a moment, just to see The Divine Gene in Technicolor at last. Zowie!

[prican58]

Yeah, 3pwood, I kind of thought initially before watching that it would be weird for Lane to play the father but really, I couldn't foresee that there could be more than one Charles Lane. I envy your dad.

 

Rinaldo, I can't wait to hear what you think about Heaven. Tierney blew me away when I saw it as a young teen. Don't let anything interrupt your viewing pleasure. I so wnted it to be him.

[bluepiano]

TMC also showed The Ghost and Mrs. Muir tonight, which I think shows Ms. Tierney at her most appealing  It's a charming and very romantic movie. The ending never fails to choke me up.

 

I liked the TV version when I was kid (Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare) but the original movie is the real deal.

[Julia]

After so many of you telling me that if I like Gene Tierney, I must see her in Leave Her To Heaven, I see that it's on right now! I'll catch the whole recording later, but I had to drop in and watch it for a moment, just to see The Divine Gene in Technicolor at last. Zowie!

She really was luscious. It's a shame she never worked with Douglas Sirk. She had a perfect look for the supersaturated movies he made in the fifties.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Julia

[Inquisitionist]

I recorded Leave Her to Heaven, too, also spurred by the discussion of Gene Tierney here!  Won't have time to watch it for a while, but I'll check back in after I do.

[mariah23]

Joan Leslie has died at age 90.

[prican58]

Joan Leslie has died at age 90.

Oh, really? Damn I don't even know if I even realized she was still living. I always liked her.

[elle]

Joan Leslie has died at age 90.

Of all her movies, I don't think I've seen this one.  (quote from People article) What praise from Astaire!

----------------------------

In 1943 she danced alongside Fred Astaire in The Sky's the Limit, and her nimbleness made such an impression that Astaire once declared she "had brains in her feet," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

[Milburn Stone]

She was never less than charming.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Joan Leslie was that rare breed of actress who, like Olivia de Havilland and Myrna Loy, could make "good girl" parts immensely appealing and watchable (especially in Yankee Doodle Dandy and Born to be Bad). I'm amazed at how she played adult love interest parts when she was only in her teens, and I think she's one of Fred Astaire's most underrated partners. She was a class act, to be sure, and she won't be forgotten.

 

Just a side note, am I the only person in the world who thought her character in High Sierra did absolutely nothing wrong?

[Mr. Simpatico]

I don't really think any actress - past or present - really typified "girl next door" more than Joan Leslie (well maybe Dawn Wells/Mary Ann comes close). She was as cute as a button but seemed very unglamorous (and was apparently very sweet person and a lifelong devout Catholic in real life). I remember the film Hollywood Canteen, a for charity WWII propaganda piece of perfectionary (which was filled with WB stars, since the other studios wouldn't allow theirs to appear - even though all types were at the real Canteen) Ann Sheridan originally went on suspension rather than appear in the lead since she didn't believe it was realistic to show a regular G.I. falling in love and getting involved with a real movie star (and it was against the actual Canteen's roles). So Joan Leslie filled in, playing "Joan Leslie" (and I believe her real sister played her real sister, though her on-screen parents were actors) having a romance with Robert Hutton's "Slim". Ann Sheridan was right. It was unbelievable. The only movie actress I could see pulling it off was Joan Leslie. 

 

She's also a great example of the Hollywood "Star" system at its best and worst, in manufacturing and discarding actors. By the time she was 20, Joan had been the leading lady of Gary Cooper (Sergeant York), Jimmy Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy), Fred Astaire (The Sky's the Limit) and the object of Humphrey Bogart's affection in High Sierra. All these actors were old enough to be her father. She was also paired with Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson and the above mentioned Robert Hutton in several lesser films. Yet by 1947 at age 22, she was gone from Warner Bros, billed fourth in Two Guys from Milwaukee, and was out of work for over a year since Jack Warner had blackballed her for getting out of her contract legally. She eventually had to sign with the near-Poverty Row studio Eagle-Lion and then did several westerns for Republic. By 1957 (age 32) she did her last film (a supporting role in the Jane Russell bomb in The Revolt of Mamie Stover) and basically retired to raise her family (though she did a memorable episode of Murder, She Wrote in the 80s playing the spinster sister of fellow spinster Teresa Wright). And yet not only was she incredibly photogenic but could sing, dance (and keep up with Astaire) and had a great flair for comedy. Take a look at her impressions of Cagney, Ida Lupino (both of whom she worked with): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH3L2DBPju0

 

Just a side note, am I the only person in the world who thought her character in High Sierra did absolutely nothing wrong?

 

I never felt she did anything wrong. She didn't owe Bogart's Mad Dog Earle anything. That was all him projecting. He didn't see what was in front of him - Ida Lupino's character - until the end. Ironically, when Raoul Walsh remade High Sierra into a western in 1949, Colorado Territory, with Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo, he had the Joan Leslie-analog character played by Dorothy Malone, actually curry the hero's favor and more actively betray him, rather than just being a girl with a deformed foot. 

 

Speaking of which, two of my favorite of Leslie's former WB contractees, Dorothy Malone and Janis Paige are still with us (and they are older than Joan). I now worry about them. It seems especially in the last couple of years a lot of old Hollywood has past.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Mr. Simpatico

[Milburn Stone]

I think she's one of Fred Astaire's most underrated partners.

 

I could watch "I've Got a Lot in Common with You" on an endless loop.

 

She delivers Johnny Mercer's comedic lines with perfection.

 

Edited October 16, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[aradia22]

This is only tangentially related to TCM but does anyone have an opinion on the trailer for "Hail Caesar!"?

 

I think Scarlett Johanssen is supposed to be Esther Williams. I think they want Channing Tatum to be a Gene Kelly type but that's really not how he reads. Clooney has more of a Richard Burton vibe to me but maybe that's because I'm not very familiar with the epics. I haven't gotten to Spartacus or Ben Hur yet. The cowboy character could be any allusion to anyone. Montgomery Clift? I've pretty much skipped all the Westerns.

[bluepiano]

Joan Leslie was that rare breed of actress who, like Olivia de Havilland and Myrna Loy, could make "good girl" parts immensely appealing and watchable (especially in Yankee Doodle Dandy and Born to be Bad).

When people were posting about the movie in which an actress was at her most beautiful, I mentioned Joan Leslie in Sergeant York. She may not have been your traditional Hollywood beauty, but she had a smile that could melt your heart, and she always seemed so genuine. I don't think any other Hollywood actress of the period could've been so completely believable as Gracie, the mountain girl, in Sergeant York.

 

One of her best roles was as the younger sister who Ida Lupino pushes to stardom in The Hard Way. Definitely worth catching when it's on TCM again. (Especially if you also like Jack Carson).

Edited October 16, 2015 by bluepiano

[Crisopera]

I can hardly wait for "Hail, Caesar!".  I'm a big Coen Brothers fan, and that trailer looks hysterical.  I believe the Clooney character is more than likely based on Robert Taylor, star of "Quo Vadis" and other epics (besides every other genre, in all of which he was mediocre, but a HUGE star).  The cowboy character seems to be a bit generic, but possibly Audie Murphy?  MGM didn't really have "cowboy" stars, per se.  And I assume Tilda Swinton is playing a cross between Hedda Hopper and Sheilah Graham (looks like Hopper, sounds like Graham).  And of course, Josh Brolin is playing a real person, Eddie Mannix, MGM's "fixer".

[Rinaldo]

Speaking of which, two of my favorite of Leslie's former WB contractees, Dorothy Malone and Janis Paige are still with us (and they are older than Joan). I now worry about them. It seems especially in the last couple of years a lot of old Hollywood has [passed].

I understand the feeling -- there's always a pang when someone (part of our past) leaves us. But it's in the nature of things, and I mind less when they've had good long lives (and, one hopes, comfortable as well).

 

It's tangential to this thread, but a lot of old Broadway last left us in the past couple of years too. I'm thinking of Jean Darling (original Carrie in Carousel), Roger Rees, Elaine Stritch, Marian Seldes, and I recall that both leading ladies of Oklahoma! died within a few weeks of each other (Joan Roberts, Celeste Holm). A few old-timers from the 1940-60 era are still with us: Allyn Ann McLerie, Tommy Rall, Chita Rivera, Barbara Cook, Julie Andrews of course. And Patricia Morison (original Lilli in Kiss Me, Kate) seems inspiringly together at 100: She appeared onstage to receive birthday honors this year, and sang on a gala just last year.

 

The characters in Hail, Caesar! seem to be amalgams for the most part. I too am anxious to see it. A blog that I follow expressed similar feelings: "'I Can't Wait' Doesn't Even Begin To Cover It." She imagines "Scarlett Johanssen as a cross between Esther Williams, Jean Harlow, and Carole Lombard?" I hope it lives up to what it seems to promise.

[elle]

The characters in Hail, Caesar! seem to be amalgams for the most part. I too am anxious to see it. A blog that I follow expressed similar feelings: "'I Can't Wait' Doesn't Even Begin To Cover It." She imagines "Scarlett Johanssen as a cross between Esther Williams, Jean Harlow, and Carole Lombard?" I hope it lives up to what it seems to promise.

Oh, Rinaldo!   Thanks! for introducing me to this film, I had not heard of its production yet. I already love Josh Brolin! And a little "shake of the fist" for introducing me to that blog!   :0) Another interesting site about movies from a fellow movie lover, I already lost some time reading about "Bugsy Malone" terrorizing the Cinderella cast.

[Charlie Baker]

Angela Lansbury is 90 today.

 

Fitting duplicate post on Theater Talk.

[Milburn Stone]

It's interesting how the Coen Bros. manage to keep their movies under wraps. When I saw the preview last week (before a screening of Steve Jobs), I was like, "What the hell?!??? Why did nobody tell me about this!?!?!???"

[ratgirlagogo]

 

The cowboy character seems to be a bit generic, but possibly Audie Murphy?  MGM didn't really have "cowboy" stars, per se. 

I was going to say that actor looks amazingly like Audie Murphy to me.  I was almost thinking Brando for the Clooney character.