Born on August 25 …
Today’s birthdays: George Fawcett in 1860; G.W. Pabst in 1885; Chic Sale in 1885; Alice White in 1904; Michael Rennie in 1909; Ruby Keeler in 1910; Bob Crosby in 1913; Don DeFore in 1913; Van Johnson in 1916; Mel Ferrer in 1917; and Richard Greene in 1918.
TCM Notes
If you’re looking to follow-up Constance Cummings day with some reading, please do see my past posts about The Mind Reader (1933), Attorney for the Defense (1932), and The Criminal Code (1931).
Friday, August 26 is Boris Karloff day on TCM’s Summer Under the Stars. A Picto-Sked is under consideration. If I go ahead and put one together it should land in subscriber’s inboxes just before the movies start Friday morning.
Speaking of Picto-Skeds, I’m aware that sometimes these image-intense posts fail to make it past your spam filters. Just in case you’re among those few who have had this problem, the complete catalog of Summer Under the Stars 2016 Picto-Skeds to date consists of: Fay Wray, Jean Harlow, Janet Gaynor, and Ruby Keeler.
For those who wonder why I’d write a book about an actress whose movies are never on TV, TCM backs me up with a mini-marathon of six Helen Twelvetrees movies on the morning of Monday, October 24 — yeah, it’s a ways away, but hey, you’ll want to take a sick day, won’t you?
A half-dozen Twelvetrees’ titles play that day between 6:00 am and 2:15 pm ET. The scheduled movies are: Is My Face Red? (1932), Panama Flo (1932), Unashamed (1932), A Woman of Experience (1932), My Woman (1933), and Hollywood Round-Up (1937).
Look, her birthday is December 25, and she’ll never preempt King of Kings (1961), so you’ll want to give a look come October 24.
Warren William and Company
Have you ever seen the one starring Warren William, Ruth Donnelly, Dick Powell, and Bette Davis. Oh, and Joan Blondell and Preston Foster?
Just Around the Corner is a 1933 short produced by General Electric featuring the boss and his wife (William, Donnelly) visiting the home of a young employee and his wife (Powell, Davis) and being impressed by all of their wonderful appliances: all GE, of course.
There’s been a copy of it on YouTube for a few years now, but I was recently informed by the gentleman who had uploaded it that he had put up an improved copy. Here it is:
I also posted this to my Warren William site, where I added links and embeds to a few other videos also featuring William.
Going, Going, Gone
A rare direct sales message, because I think several of you would probably want to hear about these:
I’m currently running eighty eBay auctions for vintage actor portraits from the late-1940s. Several of these are the best shots I’ve ever held on these stars. Many are in promotion of popular film noir titles. Auctions close throughout this Friday night. The bidding opens at just $7.99 per photo on each of these, and US bidders will receive free first class shipping if they win more than $25 worth of photos (or other items).
E-mail subscribers will find nine different photo posts featuring some of my favorite shots from that sale following this post inside today’s newsletter. I’ve included temporary direct links to each specific auction on those photo post pages.
You can find all eighty photo auctions through this link to my eBay Store. Again, all auctions close this Friday night, August 21.
In Closing
I may be back tomorrow with a Karloff Picto-Sked, I just have to see how Thursday goes. I hope you enjoyed today’s round-up of items. Whether or not it’s tomorrow that I get back to you, I’ll be talking to you real soon!
Thank you, Cliff
Leave a Reply