Born on this date: Otis Skinner in 1858; Valeska Suratt in 1882; Polly Moran in 1883; Frank Mayo in 1886; Lois Wilson in 1894; Constance Binney in 1896; Mary Anderson in 1897; Louis King in 1898; Richard Rodgers in 1902; Mary Lawlor in 1907; and John Harvey in 1917.
All links lead to each actor’s IMDb page, set to open in a new tab.
Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find images of Otis Skinner and Lois Wilson among the larger images inside today’s issue. At the bottom of this post another half dozen actors born July 28 are pictured on smaller-sized collectibles.
TCM TV Alerts through Monday, July 6 at 7 am:
These titles play on TCM’s US schedule (I keep forgetting to update that link! It’s right this morning.) and all quoted times are for my own local Eastern time zone.
—Sunday, 12:00 am The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927). A bit artsier than my usual picks but this silent from director Carl Theodor Dreyer is packed with unforgettable imagery, most of it featuring star Falconetti, whose performance is worthy of its legendary status.
—Tuesday, 6:00 am – 1:45 pm, Holy cow, a nearly 8-hour, 6 movie Helen Vinson marathon! The best few, or at least those I’m most familiar with, open the day:
—Tuesday, 6:00 am The Crash (1932) starring Ruth Chatterton and George Brent. Kristina tabbed it as her pre-Code pick of the month at the Speakeasy, check her post out for more about this title.
—Tuesday, 7:00 am Two Against the World (1932) starring Constance Bennett. One of two movies based on a true-life murder case. Both of the movies and the murder are covered in this post, which might work its way into an appendix of my Twelvetrees book. This is one of my favorites posts on the site, I loved putting it together and think it’s a great example of my best work.
—Tuesday, 8:15 am Grand Slam (1933) starring Paul Lukas and Kay Francis. The comedy may wear on you, but this movie is actually a wonderful satire of the contract bridge craze sweeping the nation at that time. I’ve given it a lot of consideration for coverage in one of my coming pre-Code compilation follow-ups, but despite having grown up in a house where weekends were spent listening to my parents and both sets of grandparents raise their voices across the bridge table for hours on end, I haven’t a clue as to the intricacies of the game.
—Tuesday, 9:30 am The Captain Hates the Sea (1934). John Gilbert’s last movie sees him featured in a cast including Victor McLaglen, Wynne Gibson, Alison Skipworth, and Helen Vinson. Walter Connolly as the disinterested captain on a board an all-star voyage also boasting John Wray, Walter Catlett, even the Three Stooges in brief flashes as the ship’s musicians. For more on this title, especially “Gilbert’s rueful performance,” see Ferdy on Films.
One more time, if you’re looking for info about Helen Vinson my biography is here: https://immortalephemera.com/59816/helen-vinson/
—Tuesday, 5:30 pm Blind Alibi (1939). Starring Richard Dix with Whitney Bourne, an interesting “B” movie leading lady for a short time in an interesting “B” from director Lew Landers, who specialized in entertaining quickies like this.
—Wednesday, 6:00 am – 8:00 pm, Charles Laughton birthday marathon. Stretches a bit with entries like Young Bess (1953) and especially Passport to Destiny (1944), but otherwise solid mix of less common Laughton titles. The best of the bunch is The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) at 7:30 am with Norma Shearer and Fredric March. A bit more about it from Sarah at True Classics.
—Wednesday, late night, 12:30 am – The Searchers (1956). Part of “White Men Among Native Americans” evening theme.
—Friday, July 3, the latest 24-hour “Summer of Darkness” installment includes Key Largo (1948) at 8:00 am, The Lady From Shanghai (1948) at 10:00 am, White Heat (1949) at 6:00 pm, and High Wall (1947) at 12:45 am.
—Saturday, July 4, typical Independence Day line-up highlighted by Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) at 8:00 pm.
—Sunday, July 5, 6:30 am – A Family Affair (1936), the first of the Andy Hardy films is much more Hardy Family then Andy Hardy. Lionel Barrymore plays the Judge in this first one which also includes Julie Haydon as the eldest Hardy child, the downer daughter who mentions killing herself. Her character was dropped entirely, never to be mentioned again, after this first entry. My review is HERE.
—Sunday, July 5, 12:00 pm – The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Will McKinley has a great post about this one over at Cinematically Insane.
—Sunday, July 5, 8:00 pm – Duck Soup (1933), I’ll send you over to Danny at Pre-Code.com for this one, his favorite movie and “it, more than any other force in the world, is probably why this [that] blog exists.”
—Sunday, July 5, 12:00 am – A documentary about Thanhouser Studio is followed by three early shorts, 1912-13, one featuring early star, Florence La Badie. You want more on La Badie? Go myth-busting with Fritzi of MoviesSilently, and be prepared to stay awhile!
—Monday, July 6, I plan to be back with a new issue of Classic Movie Daily.
Cliff’s Notes
—Once again: Classic Movie Daily on vacation June 29-July 5. Excepting my review of The Good Fairy, which you’ll receive sometime midweek (just as a reminder that I’m still here), I’ll be taking the week off to finish the first draft of my Helen Twelvetrees biography. I’ll be back with you the morning of July 6.
Have a great week! I hope to report even better than expected progress come next Monday!
Cliff
—Last week I put my entire eBay Store on sale. This week I’m being a bit more selective, but the discounts are steeper. I’m doing my best to blow out older stock with discounts currently ranging from 35 to a whopping 60% off. THIS LINK takes you to sales listings only in my eBay Store. My items are almost entirely vintage movie collectibles such as those that follow …
Above: Valeska Suratt
Hello Cliff. Happy Birthday Valeska Suratt whose photos intrigue me though none of her films survive. I gotta scream cause TCM’s running THE BIRDS for the 50th time this year. (The rear projection in that looks so awful and obvious, what is that? hi-def?) Plus DIAL M which features a pet hate, Bob Cummings, who ruined KINGS ROW. Does it do me any good to attempt to contact TCM or go to their blog or what? Because here’s another thing: the SHORTS. They have these shorts, Laurel & Hardy, Pitts & Todd, Our Gang that they need to run instead of the ghastly dated travelogues and Passing Parades. I’m sorry to pester you the day before your vacation but please ignore this message indefinitely and have a nice time.
I have to weigh in with Mr. Sharpley (Love That Bob—not!), though I like the travelogues and Passing Parades because they provide context. And has anyone been keeping a count on how many times The Philadelphia Story has aired???
Yeah, it’s not too hard to see The Birds or The Philadelphia Story, is it? I want more context with the shorts. If you’re going to bother theming out a day (or night) it’s not very hard to make the shorts fit in with the feature-length stuff. Or jeeze, choose something from the same year at least, maybe try to replicate the old theater experience like the “Night at the Movies” collections of shorts did on the DVDs a few years ago. Okay, Bob Cummings not a favorite, but I won’t pile on. I’ll save my fangs for when he crops up too often in a daily preview. Seriously though, I’m okay with him in a few spots.