Born on this date: Holmes Herbert in 1882; Wanda Hawley in 1895; Carlotta King in 1898; and Barbara Laage in 1920.
All links lead to each actor’s IMDb page, set to open in a new tab.
Slow day on the birthday calendar (tomorrow isn’t much better). Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find an image of Wanda Hawley along with some TV-related pics 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.
—6:00 am-7:05 pm, after Dinner at Eight (1933 – 6:00 am) the Billie Burke marathon continues throughout the daytime Thursday.
Recommended titles include Finishing School (1934 – 8:00 am) starring Frances Dee at an all-girls’ school where her best pal is Ginger Rogers. Bruce Cabot, in one of his early nice-guy roles, plays Dee’s love interest.
Society Doctor (1935 – 1:30 pm) is a medical drama starring Chester Morris with Robert Taylor in support. Taylor’s subservience to Morris feels a little weird, but this is the movie that got him noticed by MGM and led to his starring in his next film, Times Square Lady (1935) with Virginia Bruce … who’s also in this one.
Also part of Thursday’s Burke marathon: Forsaking All Others (1934 – 9:30 am) with Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Robert Montgomery; Where Sinners Meet (1934 – 11:00 am) with Clive Brook and Diana Wynyard; After Office Hours (1935 – 12:15 pm) with Constance Bennett and Clark Gable; Bridal Suite (1939 – 2:45 pm) with Robert Young and Annabella; The Wild Man of Borneo (1941 – 4:00 pm) with Frank Morgan (haven’t seen this one, but sounds so bad I’ll be sure to record it!); and Small Town Girl (1953 – 5:30 pm) with Jane Powell and Farley Granger.
—TCM Friday features the final “Summer of Darkness” film noir marathon and begins with a good one, Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat (1953) at 6:00 am. Directed by Fritz Lang. Featuring a VERY nasty Lee Marvin.
—Three Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes play on GetTV Thursday, as do all of the regular Stanwycks, Lone Wolfs, and Crime Doctors. Hopefully August brings some new oldie titles.
Cliff’s Notes
—With Tuesday’s issue I discovered there is a limit to how many “posts” I can send with one mailing, ten. Here’s a link to the Thelma Todd image that should have been entry number eleven:
https://immortalephemera.com/61986/thelma-todd-film-weekly-postcard/
—As promised I have a new “Lightning Review” following this post today along with some newspaper ads teasing my next full-length review (“Coming Soon”). In addition to the Wanda Hawley image, today’s issue also features some pics of Billie Burke’s TCM co-stars. All of that follows this completely unrelated paragraph …
—I know some of you like my writing updates, well, this story is actually about today’s obstacles to writing. The obstacle, of course, was my computer. It’s not about classic movies (more old movie stuff does follow for email subscribers), but it made me laugh at the end of the day:
So I take a day off to get ahead on some projects and what happens? Life, baby, life. First, I overslept. No, I didn’t bother setting an alarm, figuring I owed myself a little extra shut-eye should I need it, but four hours wasn’t part of the plan. No biggie, I’m still at my desk by 10 am with coffee. Going to be a productive day, right? I open up my Helen Twelvetrees file to insert some footnotes I’d missed, but when I go to double-check a newspaper file online I notice that the internet is out. Okay, did some offline reading for a half hour or so, but checked back, still no web connection. I notice that the power light is off on my router. Or is it? I don’t know, I never look at the thing, is it supposed to be lit? Assuming it is, I remember that I had a problem with my router about three years ago, bought a new one, couldn’t figure out how to hook it up, tossed the box somewhere around the office. Found it. Very confident as I open it, only to discover an empty box. Well, not totally empty, I’d saved the cardboard inserts and other packaging materials. The search is on. I move piles of cardboard I’ve avoided tossing out for months to get to spaces that I haven’t peered inside for years. Nothing. Brainstorm. I shift a two-foot high pile of papers (okay, they’re bills, but old paid bills), and there’s the new and unused router, laying on its side propping up one end of the papers—I’m really not kidding. There’s the power adapter, I’m good to go. I switch the old router out for the new one and realize I don’t have the “installer software.” I have the little envelope the disc came in, but no disc. I’m really done looking for stuff by this point. I try to do a work-around. I’m not that smart. I’ve probably hooked up a router twice in my Internet life, and I’m betting that’s cheating because I remember the cable guy did it last time. I see two options: Call the cable company for directions, never an appealing choice, or buy a new router, one where everything is already in the box. Instead I spend another ten minutes switching wires back-and-forth from the new router to the old router, back to the new one. Nothing. Aha, I think, I’ll plug the old one in somewhere else and see if it lights up. Nothing. In a burst somewhere between genius and insanity I take the power adapter from the new router and plug it into the old router: Success! Now it’s 2 o’clock and I’m pretty much where I always am at this point of a day.
I put the new router back in its box this time. I also wrote myself a note that the power adapter that came with it is the one currently in use and that the installation disc is nowhere to be found.
Think back to this one if the Daily ever disappears for a few days too many. Anyway, hope it made you smile.
Have a great day,
Cliff
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