First, your television schedule. Following below that is a new essay about Warren William.
Thursday, August 30 - Warren William - TCM Summer Under the Stars
Key to links: Linked titles go to Immortal Ephemera articles; linked "WW.com" open WarrenWilliam.com articles in a separate window.
- 6:00 am - Bedside (1934) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Jean Muir, Donald Meek
- 7:15 am - The First Hundred Years (1938) starring Robert Montgomery, Virginia Bruce, Warren William
- 8:30 am - Wives Under Suspicion (1938) starring Warren William, Gail Patrick, Ralph Morgan
- 9:45 am - The Mouthpiece (1932) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Sidney Fox, Aline MacMahon
- 11:15 am - Skyscraper Souls (1932) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Maureen O'Sullivan, Verree Teasdale
- 1:00 pm - Three on a Match (1932) staring Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Warren William
- 2:15 pm - The Match King (1932) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Lili Damita, Glenda Farrell
- 3:45 pm - The Mind Reader (1933) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Constance Cummings, Allen Jenkins
- 5:00 pm - Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler
- 6:45 pm - Times Square Playboy (1936) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Gene Lockhart, June Travis
- 8:00 pm - Lady for a Day (1933) starring May Robson, Warren William, Guy Kibbee
- 9:45 pm - Cleopatra (1934) (at WW.com) starring Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon
- 11:45 pm - Employees' Entrance (1933) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Loretta Young, Alice White
- 1:15 am - The Case of the Howling Dog (1934) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Mary Astor, Allen Jenkins
- 2:45 am - The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939) (at WW.com) starring Warren William, Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth
- 4:00 am - Arsene Lupin Returns (1938) (at WW.com) starring Melvyn Douglas, Warren William, Virginia Bruce
Note: All times EST
If you prefer a more visual schedule of August 30's happenings, here's my Picto-Sked.
You took the day off from work, right?
Maybe you know Warren William as Caesar in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra. Or opposite Claudette Colbert again in the original Imitation of Life. Perhaps the name rings a bell from Universal horror classic The Wolf Man. Some of his best known appearances were as Dave the Dude in Capra's original Lady for a Day and J. Lawrence Bradford in Warner Brothers' classic musical Gold Diggers of 1933.
None of those are too hard to find. Most of them are not the best showcase for Warren William.
Then there were the detectives. He was the first man to ever play Perry Mason in any capacity. He did it four times. He was Philo Vance too, twice. After his career had peaked he played Michael Lanyard, aka The Lone Wolf, nine times for Columbia Pictures. He even played Sam Spade before Bogie, and for laughs, but under a different name in Satan Met a Lady.That's not the best stuff either.
Warren William was a pre-code force - Warner Brothers' suit and tie answer to gangsters like Cagney and Robinson playing just as dirty as they ever did only from inside an office rather than loose on the streets.
He was the actor who, like his characters or not, played parts that pitted him not against man but the very force of the Great Depression. Often womanizers or cads, willing to bend the law, Warren William somehow made us sympathize with characters similar to real life figures we've especially despised in the newspapers over the past decade or so.
These are the titles you won't want to miss on TCM Thursday, in order of how they air: Bedside; The Mouthpiece; Skyscraper Souls; The Match King; The Mind Reader; Employees' Entrance.
TCM may play better movies on Thursday, but that half dozen will give you your best showcase of Warren William. A peek into the cult of Warren William. Even when he's not entrenched behind a desk (Bedside, The Mind Reader) he still presents his personal brand of larceny in way that's so layered with charm that it's not hard to root for the bad guy!
If you've yet to thrill to those half dozen titles I envy you. If you have, well you're probably among those who followed my advice and called in sick. Either way, enjoy!
More Warren William
See the Warren William Picto-Sked HERE (for subscribers it appears below).
Visit my new article about my personal discovery and witness to the growing cult of Warren William at WarrenWilliam.com HERE.
Visit the website of Warren William biographer John Stangeland - HERE.
John's biography of Warren William can be purchased through my Amazon affiliate link HERE. (And thank you!)
And check out many new Warren William articles and reviews posted around the web today at the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Access the Blogathon through either Sittin' On a Backyard Fence or at ScribeHard on Film.
[…] HERE is my general Summer Under the Stars post for Warren at Immortal […]