Tag: Turner Classic Movies

Happy Birthday, Carole Lombard!

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October 6 marks the birthday of the divine Carole Lombard. As you probably know, she was taken from us far too soon, dying in 1942 in a plane crash outside Las Vegas, Nevada. She was returning to Los Angeles after participating in a war bonds rally in her home state of Indiana. She was only 33.

One of the reigning queens of screwball comedy, Carole Lombard was said to have been a great dame, with the colorful vocabulary of a sailor and a courageous and joyous spirit. Too bad she never appeared in a Preston Sturges comedy; what a team they’d have made.

Happy birthday, Ms. Carole Lombard, wherever you may be!

Carole Lombard quote

The Many Facets of Dick Powell

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Dick Powell is the featured star on Monday, August 25, during Turner Classic Movies‘ Summer Under the Stars festival that happens every August. There are any number of pictures airing that day that might be enjoyed, but we noted three particular pictures that feature an appealing diversity of style and genre and demonstrate Powell’s versatility, and so we commend them to you as a collective 4.5 hours well worth watching.

The triple feature kicks off at 8 p.m. ET with the great Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940), which finds Powell portraying an office clerk who mistakenly believes his entry has been named the winner in a coffee company’s slogan contest. Hilarity, as one might expect, ensues. Next up, at 9:15 p.m., Powell takes a noir turn as Raymond Chandler‘s shamus, Phillip Marlowe, in Murder, My Sweet (1944). Finally, at 11:00 p.m., Powell takes center stage in one of Busby Berkeley‘s more over-the-top musical efforts, Dames (1934).

We say, record the Emmys and watch these three movies on Monday night, but at the very least, fire up the DVR and record this trio of motion pictures for later viewing; you won’t regret it.

A Month of Mary Astor

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Mary Astor was never the biggest of stars, but she was a venerable one and a darned good actress. The good folks at Turner Classic Movies are honoring her as their Star of the Month, devoting Wednesday nights (into Thursday mornings) throughout March to feature her impressive output.

And TCM has picked a worthy offering to begin their tribute: Dodsworth (1936), which airs at 8:00pm ET. Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton are the stars of this terrific picture, but Astor shines as “the other woman.” You can also catch one of Astor’s many silent pictures (her career dates to 1920) tonight at midnight: Don Juan (1926), in which she appears alongside such fellow luminaries as John Barrymore, Myrna Loy and even Hedda Hopper.

Happy birthday, Kay Fwancis!

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This post is a revised version of one that appeared on January 10, 2012:

For decades, actress Kay Francis, a big star in the 1930s, was all but forgotten by contemporary critics and audiences, but not so today. The good folks at Turner Classic Movies, bless their hearts, have worked hard to place her pictures back into the spotlight.

Francis, born Katherine Edwina Gibbs on January 13, 1905, in Oklahoma City, starred primarily in what are sometimes dismissively dubbed “women’s pictures,” but her work usually rises above even the most trite and sentimental of plots and premises.

On Monday, TCM again honors Francis with what has become an annual birthday tribute, airing ten of her pictures between the hours of 6am and 8pm. Though TCM has omitted some of Francis’s best work from the tribute this time around — she’s wonderful in the Ernst Lubitsch classic Trouble in Paradise, and she excelled when paired with William Powell in several pictures in the early Thirties, especially the romantic comedy Jewel Robbery and the tear-jerker romance One Way Passage, both released in 1932 — you should, if you’ve never been exposed to the glamor and grit that is Kay Francis, be readying your DVR, even as you read this, to capture all fourteen hours of the tribute. (Those who are already Francis fans won’t need the above nudge.)

Here’s the full line-up (all times eastern):

6:00 A.M. — STREET OF WOMEN (1932)
A property developer is torn between his wife and his mistress.
Cast: Kay Francis, Roland Young, Alan Dinehart. Dir: Archie Mayo

7:15 A.M. — ANOTHER DAWN (1937)
An officer’s wife at a British outpost in Africa falls for another man.
Cast: Kay Francis, Errol Flynn, Ian Hunter. Dir: William Dieterle

8:30 A.M. — STOLEN HOLIDAY (1937)
A Paris fashion model marries a fortune hunter to protect him from the law.
Cast: Kay Francis, Claude Rains, Ian Hunter. Dir: Michael Curtiz

10:00 A.M. — SECRETS OF AN ACTRESS (1938)
A leading lady falls for a married architect who’s invested in her play.
Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Ian Hunter. Dir: William Keighley

11:15 A.M. — WOMEN ARE LIKE THAT (1938)
Years after their break-up, a couple finds each other all over again.
Cast: Kay Francis, Pat O’Brien, Ralph Forbes. Dir: Stanley Logan

12:45 P.M. — WOMEN IN THE WIND (1939)
Personal conflicts flare between competitors in a women’s air race.
Cast: Kay Francis, William Gargan, Victor Jory. Dir: John Farrow

2:00 P.M. — IT’S A DATE (1940)
Mother-and-daughter singers vie for the same man and the same stage part.
Cast: Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon. Dir: William A. Seiter

3:45 P.M. — PLAY GIRL (1940)
An aging gold digger takes a young woman under her wing.
Cast: Kay Francis, James Ellison, Mildred Coles. Dir: Frank Woodruff

5:15 P.M. — ALLOTMENT WIVES (1945)
Unscrupulous women marry servicemen for their pay.
Cast: Kay Francis, Paul Kelly, Otto Kruger. Dir: William Nigh

6:45 P.M. — DIVORCE (1945)
A frequently divorced woman sets her sights on a happily married man.
Cast: Kay Francis, Bruce Cabot, Helen Mack. Dir: William Nigh

For more on Kay Francis, check out Scott O’Brien’s well-received biography of the star, Kay Francis: I Can’t Wait to be Forgotten–Her Life on Film and Stage, published by BearManor Media and out now in a revised and updated second edition.

P.S. The title of this post refers to the widely known fact that Francis had a rather noticeable speech impediment. Listen carefully when she pronounces her Rs, and you’ll hear it.

Your New Favorite Christmas Movie

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image-Remember the Night posterIf you think you’ve seen every classic Christmas picture (and most of them one too many times, at that), you’ll be pleasantly surprised, we hope, to learn of one that’s flown under the radar of many a classic movie buff.

Remember the Night (1940) was the last movie Preston Sturges wrote before moving into the director’s chair with The Great McGinty (1940). Mitchell Leisen directs here, and though Sturges was said to have been disappointed with Leisen’s efforts, it’s hard to imagine why. It’s a terrific picture, one that should be every bit the holiday favorite that pictures such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Shop Around the Corner, and others have become.

Remember the Night finds Fred MacMurray portraying an ambitious assistant D.A. in NYC who finds himself with shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck on his hands because he has asked for a delay in her trial, so as to avoid the jury feeling any holiday-inspired sympathy for her.

It soon comes out that both the D.A. and the dame are Hoosiers, so she accompanies him on a road trip to visit their respective families. Stanwyck’s brief visit with her mother doesn’t go so well, though, so she sticks with MacMurray, whereupon romance and laughs ensue.

Remember the Night is plenty sentimental enough to qualify as a holiday classic, but like It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s got a dark side, too, delivered with gimlet-eyed bite.

It’s a favorite of ours, a picture that deserves much greater fame and acclaim that it has been afforded. Turner Classic Movies has teamed with Universal to offer it on DVD, but if you’d like to try before you buy, it’s airing on TCM on Tuesday, December 12, at 9:45 p.m. eastern. Set your DVR now and give it a look; you won’t regret it.