coffeedan1927

Here's a couple more: The scene after the 1907 BEN HUR is from RESCUED FROM AN EAGLE'S NEST. And the scene where the train flips over the car is from THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

I just found this poem by Baron Ireland in a 1928 issue of Life magazine. It's too good not to share: Oh, some like Charlie Chaplin And some like Harold Lloyd And some there are who think no star Shines bright as William Boyd. But the best of 'em all's John Gilbert. Say, isn't he a darbo With his nose fast grown to her collar bone, Inhaling Greta Garbo?!

TCM has shown some of the Monogram-era Charlie Chan movies starring Roland Winters. They've also shown THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and (I believe) THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, but, so far, none of the other films in the Sherlock Holmes series. But since they've been showing more Paramount and Universal releases in recent months, these are definitely possibilites, so make a few requests and see what happens!

That was 16-year-old June Preisser, who at that time was doing a dance act with her sister Cherry. June later went on to appear in such movies as BABES IN ARMS and STRIKE UP THE BAND with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

Just click on the announcement on the home page and it'll take you right there.

Moviejoe, you'll be glad to know that TCM/Rhino has already released David Raksin's exquisite music for THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL on CD, so you don't have to go that circuitous route. TCM/Rhino has made dozens of movie scores available on CD -- you can click on the Rhino link on the Shopping page, and go right to the site!

I think this might change when TCM airs COMPLICATED WOMEN (the documentary based on Mick LaSalle's book of the same name) later on this year. Knowing that TCM often ties its Theme of the Month to the documentaries it airs, we could see a whole MONTH of pre-code favorites. A whole month of early Norma Shearer, Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, Kay Francis, Dorothy Mackaill, etc. would certainly lift a lot of spirits contributing to these folders. This could be what everybody's waiting for.

Only the films that TCM owns outright are listed in the TCM library. The Kurosawa films aren't there because TCM doesn't own them; it leased the films from the current owner. The same goes for LA STRADA -- TCM doesn't own it, therefore it isn't in the library.

Seems to be. Greta Garbo was TCM's first Star of the month when they first went on the air in 1994, and she was Star of the Month again just last May. While I don't remember a Star of the Month being repeated in the nearly six years I've been watching TCM (and a little over four years of receiving the NOW PLAYING guide), this proves it isn't impossible. Just keep watching and hoping, and give TCM a lot of feedback (believe me, it works!).

The film sounds like TOO HOT TO HANDLE (1938), in which Gable plays a newsreel cameraman. It also features Myrna Loy as an aviatrix.

Ed, don't even START comparing TCM to AMC! AMC has positioned itself so far from TCM that there's just no comparison any more. TCM simply keeps doing what it has been doing quietly for years -- showing the most classic films anywhere, uncut and commercial-free. On rare occasions, they will show a film twice in a month, on rarer occasions three times, but never more than that. They've never had a "Featured Film of the Month" like AMC did, which was shown at least every third day. And if you look at the January and February NOW PLAYING guides, in sheer numerical terms, the showings of classic films (i.e., 1920s-1950s) outnumber the showings of newer films by almost 2 to 1. If anything, the variety of older films on TCM has gotten better since AMC tanked its old format. But I will agree with you about the new message boards. I've lost some posts, duplicated others, the message threads are harder to follow, and I've sometimes been kicked out of the system for no apparent reason. But there are some nice things about it -- the search function works better here, I can add titles to my posts again (hooray!), and I can see all the new posts at a glance. I guess you just have to work around the quirks of the system, and hope for the best.

The movie you're talking about is HANGOVER SQUARE, a 20th Century-Fox picture which starred Laird Cregar and Linda Darnell, but not Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet (they were laboring mightily at Warner Brothers at the time).

Hey, Ed, it's good to see you back again! I've missed discussing the early talkies with you. Interesting thing about this film -- it was originally scheduled to be shown on January 23 (I've still got the printout that shows this), but for some reason it and rest of that evening's schedule was moved lock, stock and barrel to February 26. But I'm as excited as you are about seeing another early Ernst Lubitsch classic from Paramount on the schedule. Now if they could only get DESIGN FOR LIVING . . .

Honestly, if I had a nickel for every TCM newbie who panicked over newer films in the schedule, I could start TCM2. But as a longtime viewer of TCM and subscriber to the NOW PLAYING guide (almost six years now), I can assure you that they have always had a smattering of films from the last couple of decades in their schedule, and that the bulk of their programming comes from their substantial holdings of the MGM, RKO, and pre-1948 Warner Brothers film libraries. Nothing much has changed in that time. In fact, it's gotten better -- TCM is leasing more of the films that AMC was showing in its glory days, primarily the pre-1948 Paramount and 20th Century-Fox libraries. And it's already been pointed out here that TCM does a real bang-up tribute to the Oscars every March, during which regularly scheduled showcases are suspended. But I think you'll be very happy with April's offerings, when the Star of the Month will be (drum roll, please) -- HAROLD LLOYD!

I still tape a lot of movies off TCM, and I find the NOW PLAYING guide indispensible. When I get the new issue every month, I circle the movies I want to see or tape, and "X" out the ones I already have. Sure beats my old system of writing everything out on a legal pad, and at $11.95 a year, it's a bargain.

I haven't seen anything here on film reference books, so I'll list a few of my favorites . . . Absolutely indispensible are the current editions of HALLIWELL'S FILM AND VIDEO GUIDE and LEONARD MALTIN'S MOVIE AND VIDEO GUIDE. Halliwell is best for detailed technical information, but I like Maltin's book for its ratings, film synopses, and fascinating trivia. These two books cover about 97 percent of available films -- rare indeed is the film that isn't covered by one or both of these books. For biographical reference, the leaders again are Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin. HALLIWELL'S WHO'S WHO IN THE MOVIES (formerly THE FILMGOER'S COMPANION) probably has more entries on more movie people than any other reference work, but LEONARD MALTIN'S MOVIE ENCYCLOPEDIA is more detailed and fun to read, even if it does have fewer entries and filmographies. Ephraim Katz's FILM ENCYCLOPEDIA is right up there with Maltin, but it has more errors. (Future editions of Katz need to be edited more tightly.) I love quoting my favorite movie lines, and Harry Haun's THE MOVIE QUOTE BOOK is a great source for the best of them. Cross-indexed by film and subject, complete with acting and writing credit for each film quoted, this is a great book for browsing. Also good is CASSELL'S MOVIE QUOTATIONS, edited by Nigel Rees, which adds the best quotations from and about Hollywood's finest. Some of the entries are almost biographical in scope, and the book is well-illustrated with stills (great picture of Joan Crawford on the cover!).

Sad to say, you're just not looking. The Feedback page is a good place to look for the most frequently asked questions about TCM -- and if what you're looking for isn't there, you can post one of your own. And for more specific inquiries, you can write TCM at their all-purpose e-mail address, tcm@turner.com. As for Robert Osborne, you can write to him c/o the Hollywood Reporter. If you go to their website, you can e-mail him directly.

The film composer competition BEGINS on February 1. The competition won't be on the TCM website until then.

I know that some additional footage of THUNDER was discovered in Los Angeles about two years ago, which makes for a total of somewhere between four and five minutes. Nearly two minutes of that footage was used in the TCM documentary LON CHANEY: A THOUSAND FACES. But I had found THUNDER in the TCM library a few months ago before they started revising the listings, and noticed then it had a running time of 87 minutes. Was that a mistake, or does somebody know something we don't know? More curious still is that two other Lon Chaney films considered lost, TOWER OF LIES and THE BIG CITY, are also listed in the TCM library. I'm not sure what to make of all this . . . some of the TCM library listings elsewhere indicate if a film is a short or a fragment, but I saw no such notation for any of these films. Hmmm . . . curiouser and curiouser . . .

This sounds like DOUBLE OR NOTHING, a 1937 short that featured the doubles of many Hollywood stars such as the one you mentioned.

I posted this over in the Hot Topics folder, but I thought something here would be even more appropriate . . . I just got my copy of Mick LaSalle's latest book DANGEROUS MEN, and his biological blurb on the dust jacket mentioned that he is the associate producer of a documentary based on his previous book, COMPLICATED WOMEN, co-produced by Timeline Films and Turner Classic Movies. And just last night, I heard Robert Osborne say between the features that TCM will be airing this documentary later on this year. Knowing TCM's programming tendencies, that will probably mean a future Theme of the Month will center on the films covered in that documentary! Now, if they could only give us 72 hours of pre-code films each week of that month (as they did with the westerns back in November), my joy would be complete . . .

Oh Lord, I posted twice again. Thought I lost my first post, so I did it again. Darn these boards!

Funny, I've always noticed a brotherly resemblance between Victor Mature and Robert Mitchum, particularly since they were both playing a lot of the same noir roles in the 40s and early 50s. The little-known Gwili Andre, who I saw in a few of David O. Selznick's films on TCM back in October, looked so much like Joan Crawford it was spooky! Again, because both of them often played the best friend of the hero/ine in the screwball comedies of the 30s, I've also noticed a sisterly resemblance between Ruth Donnelly and Jean Dixon. Lastly, going back to the silent days (I'm really reaching here, aren't I?), Neil Hamilton and Ralph Graves looked enough like brothers to cause serious comment in the press.

Funny, I've often noticed a brotherly resemblance between Victor Mature and Robert Mitchum, particularly since they were playing the same kind of noir film roles back in the 40s and early 50s. And then there's Gwili Andre, who I saw in some of David O. Selznick's films on TCM back in October. She looked so much like Joan Crawford, it was spooky! There's also a sisterly resemblance between Ruth Donnelly and Jean Dixon as well, again because they were frequently playing the friend of the hero/heroine in the screwball comedies of the 30s. Lastly, going back to the silent days, there's Neil Hamilton and Ralph Graves, who looked enough like brothers to invite serious comment on the subject.

TCM has shown THE DARK HORSE a couple of times in the last two years, once as part of a salute to Bette Davis. I taped it the second time, watched it twice, and then mistakenly taped over it because I didn't label the cassette! DARN! Oh well -- I've requested it again, and I've had good luck in the past (I got six of my requests aired on TCM last year). Here's hoping . . .