Born on this date, July 28: Richard “Skeets” Gallagher in 1891; Joe E. Brown in 1892; Barbara La Marr in 1896; Lawrence Gray in 1898; Catherine Dale Owen in 1900; Rudy Vallee in 1901; Blanche Mehaffey in 1907; Ann Doran in 1911; Laird Cregar in 1913; and Darryl Hickman in 1931.
Born on this date, July 29: Maria Ouspenskaya in 1876; Theda Bara in 1885; William Powell in 1892; Slim Whitaker in 1893; William Cameron Menzies in 1896; Mabel Poulton in 1901; Clara Bow in 1905; Thelma Todd in 1906; Stephen McNally in 1911; Budd Boetticher in 1916; and Richard Egan in 1921.
All links lead to each actor’s IMDb page, set to open in a new tab.
Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find ten of the above stars pictured inside today’s issue.
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.
—TCM Tuesday, after The Thin Man it’s After the Thin Man (1936) at 8:00 am, and Another Thin Man (1939) at 10:00 am. After is the second entry with young James Stewart (plus Elissa Landi), and Another is the third featuring the debut of Nick Jr. As mentioned yesterday, if The Thin Man is your thing, you’ll likely get a kick out of Thoughts on the Thin Man, the all-encompassing group of essays collected by Danny Reid of Pre-Code.com. The entire series and all things Thin Man-related are covered within by several familiar bloggers.
—TCM Wednesday, daytime 6:00 am-8:00 pm, an eight-movie William Powell birthday marathon. Strong offerings including Powell with Kay Francis in a couple of favorites, Jewel Robbery (1932 – 6:00 am) and One Way Passage (1932 – 7:15 am), to begin the day. Read all about those in the linked reviews, but they are top choices, especially One Way Passage.
Those are followed by one of Powell’s best turns as Philo Vance in The Kennel Murder Case (1933 – 8:30 am) with Mary Astor. The overlong, but still interesting Academy Award winning Best Picture The Great Ziegfeld (1936) plays at 11:30 am, my favorite bits in this one are the interplay throughout between Powell and Frank Morgan. Powell’s paired with Irene Dunne in Life With Father (1947 – 2:30 pm), a part that brought him the last of three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. A shame he couldn’t pull one of those off, especially this one, a particularly strong case.
Other William Powell titles playing on Wednesday are Rendezvous (1935 – 9:45 am) with Rosalind Russell, The Heavenly Body (1943 – 4:30 pm) with Hedy Lamarr, and I Love You Again (1940 – 6:15 pm) with Myrna Loy. A solid spectrum of William Powell titles that make for a Summer Under the Stars preview of sorts, especially when taken with the three Thin Man movies playing Tuesday morning.
—TCM Thursday features a nine-movie daytime Billie Burke marathon beginning with the classic Dinner at Eight (1933) at 8:00 am. Burke’s birthday isn’t until August 7, but since that falls during Summer Under the Stars, a July 30 marathon makes for a nice compromise. I’ll run down the rest of that schedule on Thursday.
Cliff’s Notes
—Are you as surprised as I am that TCM isn’t playing Joe E. Brown movies all day Tuesday? Oh, I’m not complaining, it’s just that TCM seems to love playing big blocks of Joe E. Brown.
—As mentioned the past couple of issues, no issue tomorrow morning, so I’ve covered everything through early Thursday morning in today’s mailing. It’s an especially strong couple of days of birthdays, so look for many images to follow.
—This morning I added a permanent link to past single image and clippings posts at the bottom of subscriber’s emails. Organization on that page is far from perfect, but it’s the best place to revisit photo posts or check them out for the first time if you’ve only come on board recently. I may as well link it here for today too.
—I’m planning for Thursday morning’s return to include a “Lightning Review.” Of what I don’t know, likely whatever I wind up watching Wednesday night. I’ll probably also tuck in a “Coming Attraction” for my next full length review. Unless there’s another onslaught of birthdays like today’s issue brought!
Talk to you in a couple of days.
—Cliff
Leave a Reply