Classic Movie Daily for Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Born on this date: Guy Standing in 1873; Glenn Anders in 1889; Betty Blythe in 1893; Marilyn Miller in 1898; Richard Arlen in 1899; Johnny Mack Brown in 1904; Miriam Seegar in 1907; Arleen Whelan in 1914; Vittorio Gassman in 1922; Yvonne De Carlo in 1922; and Sunny Jim McKeen in 1924.

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

Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find a couple of Yvonne De Carlo images following this post, as well as large-format images of Miriam Seegar, Johnny Mack Brown, and Richard Arlen. That’s in addition to a few smaller “birthday” images at the bottom of this page. Today’s mailing also includes an obituary and related clippings for Sir Guy Standing, plus an announcement of a new pre-Code eBook collection that I’ve contributed an original article to.

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

—Mostly cowboy “kids” throughout the day Tuesday, including (“Born on this date”) Johnny Mack Brown in King Vidor’s Billy the Kid (1930) at 8:00 am. Cagney and Bogart are featured in The Oklahoma Kid (1939) at 11:00 am.

—Tuesday night marks the beginning of TCM’s “Five Came Back” spotlight with first focus on Frank Capra. The evening begins conventionally with Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941) playing at 8:00 pm, but then gives way to his various war-related specials, including entries from the “Why We Fight” series of documentaries that he was involved in making. The most interesting bits of Tuesday night’s schedule are the inclusion of several of the Capra-produced Private Snafu cartoons throughout the evening. See Lou Lumenicks’s recent article in the New York Post for more about these animated shorts created for American soldiers during World War II.

—There will be no issue of the Daily on Wednesday, but I wanted you to be aware of the daytime marathon of movies directed by George Cukor, especially the two Constance Bennett pre-Codes, Rockabye (1932 – 6:30 am) and Our Betters (1933 – 7:45 am) at the start of the day. Bennett also appears later on Wednesday in Greta Garbo’s final feature, Two Faced Woman (1941 – 11:15 am), and in a cameo as herself in It Should Happen to You (1954 – 6:30 pm). TCM does skip over one Cukor and Bennett film, the best of the bunch, What Price Hollywood? (1932), but that one will be playing on Friday the 4th as part of an afternoon mini-run of five inside-Hollywood movies. Actually, that makes for a better marathon than the Cukors, so I’m glad they left it off Wednesday’s schedule!

—Other notable George Cukor titles playing on Wednesday are A Woman’s Face (1941 – 1:00 pm) with Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas, and The Actress (1953 – 4:45 pm) starring Spencer Tracy and Jean Simmons.

—There’s a Mexico theme on for Thursday daytime, beginning with In Caliente (1935) at 6:00 am. Starring Dolores Del Rio and Pat O’Brien. Directed by Lloyd Bacon with Busby Berkeley handling the dance numbers.

Cliff’s Notes
—I needed a day this week and didn’t want to abandon you on the first of the month, plus I wanted to be back in time for Susan Hayward’s debut as Star of the Month on Thursday. So Wednesday won out.

—Watched King for a Night (1933) again tonight—Chester Morris stars, but Helen Twelvetrees is second-billed—no lightning review because I gave it a little coverage some time back, when I first came across it. If you’d like a refresher, you’ll find what I had to say at the top of this post.

—Been proofing the Twelvetrees book the past couple of weeks, but couldn’t admit that I was stuck on something until this past weekend, when a moment of clarity revealed exactly what it was. I had originally planned an Introduction and an Afterword, to introduce (duh!) and wrap up the work. I had drafts of each section, but they both bugged me. The intro seemed sloppy, and I think that was because I was repeating much of what I already had in the Afterword (which I wrote first). So I pulled out about ten of my favorite biographies and spent a little time deconstructing how other authors had handled the two sections. That lit the spark. The Afterword is out, some of it merged into the final chapter, some blended into the Introduction, some completely removed. Paragraphs have been shifted around with notes added to mark a few missing ideas. I’ll be working, reworking, and polishing this new, improved Introduction over the next 24-36 hours, which is why I’m skipping Wednesday’s issue.

—Speaking of skipping issues: Just a word of warning, I’m probably going to take another week off to smooth out my footnotes, work on building the index, and scan the images I plan to include. The writing will be done by that point, and we’ll be getting close to publication. So hopefully the week that I’m referring to is coming soon! I’ll give fair warning at least a day or two ahead of time.

Have a great couple of days. Talk to you Thursday morning —
Cliff