Tag: Joel McCrea

A Quartet of Screwball Comedy Classics on TCM

cladriteLeave a comment

Tonight’s a big night for fans of classic romantic and screwball comedies: Beginning at 8 p.m. ET, TCM is airing four favorites in a row, so set those DVRs now (that’s assuming you’re not prepared to stay up until 4 a.m.):

8:00 p.m.
His Girl Friday (1940)
An unscrupulous editor plots to keep his star reporter-and ex-wife-from re-marrying.
Dir: Howard Hawks; Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

10:00 p.m.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
A zany heiress tries to help a tramp by making him the family butler.
Dir: Gregory La Cava; Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady

12:00 a.m.
Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
A woman’s two lives as small-town innocent and author of torrid romances collide.
Dir: Richard Boleslawski; Cast: Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas, Thomas Mitchell

2:00 a.m.
The More the Merrier (1943)
The World War II housing shortage brings three people together for an unlikely romance.
Dir: George Stevens; Cast: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn

10 Things You Should Know About Claudette Colbert

cladriteLeave a comment

Here are 10 things you should know about the lovely Claudette Colbert, born 115 years ago today.

We saw her perform on Broadway 33 years ago opposite Rex Harrison in a drawing room comedy called Aren’t We All? and it remains among our greatest regrets that we didn’t play Stage-Door Johnny after the show to tell her how we admired her. In fact, we try very hard not to think about it, so much does it torment us.

Goodbye to Another Glorious Gal: Mary Carlisle

cladriteLeave a comment

There are precious few stars of the 1930s who are still with us today, and it is with sadness that we share the news that Mary Carlisle, born Gwendolyn Witter in Boston, Massachusetts, has passed at the age of 104.

The last of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, an annual promotional campaign sponsored from 1922-1934 by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers that honored 13 young actresses (the number was 15 in 1932, the year Carlisle was honored) whose careers showed great promise, Carlisle was discovered in 1928 by studio executive Carl Laemmle, Jr. while dining at the Universal Studios commissary. She was just 14.

Mary Carlisle

In 1930, Carlisle signed a one-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, appearing mostly as a dancer in musical shorts, but it was with Paramount Pictures that she would achieve her greatest success. She appeared opposite Bing Crosby in three films—College Humor (1933), Double or Nothing (1937) and Doctor Rhythm (1938)—and would go on to appear in more than sixty pictures in the course of her 14-year career, most of them “B” pictures with titles reminiscent of the early scene in Preston Sturges‘ Sullivan’s Travels, in which successful but artistically frustrated director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is reminded of some of his greatest successes: Ants in Your Plants of 1939, Hey Hey in the Hayloft, and So Long, Sarong.

Some of Carlisle’s pictures could’ve been plugged right into John L. Sullivan’s filmography, titles like Hotel Haywire (1937), Ship A Hooey! (1932), and Handy Andy (1934), and we’d pay good money and line up early to see that triple feature tonight, if only some bijou were screening it.

Carlisle was wed to actor James Edward Blakeley (he would go on to become an executive producer at 20th Century-Fox) in 1942 and retired from motion pictures soon thereafter. But more than five dozen pictures is nothing to sneeze at, nor is living (and staying vital) to 104 years of age. What a rich, full life Ms. Carlisle enjoyed.

Rest in peace, Ms. Carlisle, and thank you.

This story originally appeared in a slightly different form on February 3, 2016.