Classic Movie Daily for Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Born on this date: Donald Meek in 1878; Jean Dixon in 1896; Martha Mansfield in 1899; George Tobias in 1901; Paul Guilfoyle in 1902; Ken Murray in 1903; Zita Johann in 1904; Olive Borden in 1906; Annabella in 1907; Terry-Thomas in 1911; Toby Wing in 1915; Doris Nolan in 1916; Ingmar Bergman in 1918; Dale Robertson in 1923; and Nancy Olson in 1928.

All links lead to each actor’s IMDb page, set to open in a new tab.

Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find images of Zita Johann, Olive Borden, Annabella, Doris Nolan, and Dale Robertson inside today’s issue with a smaller shot of Toby Wing at the bottom of this post. Some Martha Mansfield clippings are also included in today’s Daily.

TCM TV Alerts through tomorrow at 7 am:
These titles play on TCM’s US schedule and all quoted times are for my own local Eastern time zone.

—We left off with a pair of Tarzans yesterday, and the ape movies continue on TCM throughout daytime Tuesday. The best of the bunch is the 1:00-6:00 pm triple feature consisting of the Classics King Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933), and Mighty Joe Young (1949). Well, at least the first one deserves that capital “C” in Classics. I covered Kong from a very 1933 point of view in a recent post on the site.

—9:30 pm, William Wellman’s The Purchase Price (1932) starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, and Lyle Talbot.

—12:45 am, more Wellman, and no, it’s not Wellman night, but apparently he had an affinity for this evening’s TCM theme, “Mail-Order Brides.” Do try to catch Westward the Women (1951), which I marvel over in some detail here.

—Wednesday, beginning at 6:00 am, a daytime (and a day early) Barbara Stanwyck birthday marathon begins with Illicit (1931) at 6:00 am. Just the quick overview today, it’s a 10-movie marathon running until 8:00 pm, and all of the movies were released between 1931-36. In fact, eight of them were released 1931-34.

—More Stanwyck on GetTV this morning, where last night’s run of movies continues this morning with Ladies of Leisure (1930) at 8:45 am and The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932) at 10:55 am. Between TCM and GetTV last night, today, and tomorrow, the novice Stanwyck fan can acquire a pretty full education of her early ’30s work, which is—surprise—my favorite stuff. More Stanwyck at 4:05 pm on GetTV with Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941). Stanwyck’s not in Lost Horizon (1937 – 1:00 pm), but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t catch it if you can!

Cliff’s Notes

—I was interviewed about my writing and eBooks by Hillary DePiano of The Whine Seller, an ecommerce themed blog whose author is also a published writer and playwright. Hillary is a longtime ecommerce acquaintance who has interviewed me in the past about selling stuff. That’s basically the spin on this interview, longtime ecommerce seller now selling eBooks, but there’s some info in there about my writing past that I haven’t really shared before either. You can read the interview at The Whine Seller, here.

—Referencing the birthday calendar above, Zita Johann stars in two movie I’ve accorded very high grades to since I began using my ratings plugin: The Mummy (1932) and The Sin of Nora Moran (1933), if you’d care to revisit them for her birthday.

—Sticking to the birthdays, Ken Murray times out well since, purely by coincidence, I’ve spent the past few days soaking in his voice in this:

One of those older, not always so reliable biographies, published 1976, with a cover that looks like it was designed by whoever was doing covers for Harold Robbins at that time. And it reads a bit like a Robbins novel. I give you the first sentence, chapter 1:

“Earl Carroll lost his virginity at the tender age of thirteen.”

But, despite the trashiness, despite the lack of references, it doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad as you might expect. Murray was good buddies with Carroll’s brother, plus he was actually around for most of the tales he tells. I’d rather have some footnotes for surer footing, but even with the distant publication date, it’s the only biography of Earl Carroll on the market.

Today Murray is probably best known for Hollywood Without Make-Up (1963), his collection of home movies of the Hollywood stars that TCM often fits into its schedule. You can pick up a used copy of his Earl Carroll biography pretty cheap at Amazon—be sure to read the condition notes on the copy you select.

—As usual, here the link to my eBay sales items, discounted up to 60% regular prices.