Arturo
-
Posts
13,696 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
9
Posts posted by Arturo
-
-
*Nancy Kelly is one that tends to be forgotten. Not many people discuss her around here. Was she friends with Linda?*
Well< I don't know if they were friends, but soon enough, it must've been obvious to Nancy that she was being bypassed for roles originally announced for her. She had started off promisingly at 20th in 1938 at the age of 17, after a child actress career, and the studio saw her as a successor to Loretta Young, who was adamant that she would not sign another contract at Fox. However, Nancy's roles demonstrated a variable acting quality, and by the end of 1939, the studio no longer were sure if they saw her as star material. After a couple of loan outs in 1940, she was reassigned to Fox' B Unit, where she pretty much remained for the duration while under contract. By 1943 or so, she was dropped, and did whatever B movie roles she could get. There was a gap where she worked on stage, and in the 50s scored a huge hit as the mother of "The Bad Seed", a role she recreated for the movie version, earning a Best Actress nomination. She did some more stage venues, but the oscar nomination did not lead to the expected revival of her film career.
-
If and when there is a Linda Darnell SOTM tribute on TCM, I am hoping they will show her debut film, HOTEL FOR WOMEN (1939), which had been on an early schedule for her SUTS day last year. After a false start in the film capital, when a horrified Darryl F. Zanuck sent her home when he found out her true age of 14, a year later she returned to Fox, where with a couple of weeks of her arrival in Spring 1939, she was given the lead in HFW. She played a prospective model coming to New York, and acquitted herself well. Her age of 15 was publicly changed to 17, so she could more believably play a romantic lead.
Zanuck was so pleased with her in this that he quickly cast about for another role for her; he found one in an epic about to begin production, John Ford's DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK. She was given the supporting role already assigned to starlet Dorris Bowden, and went on location to Utah. When she returned to Hollywood, Zanuck was more convince that he had a star-in-the-making, and decided she would be wasted in DATM. So he took her out, and Bowden was given back the role. However, the part was sharply curtailed, as the studio would not refilm those scenes done on location. To this day, Linda is in some of the long shots where her face is not recognizable.
Zanuck next cast Linda to costar with the top male star on the lot, on then one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Tyrone Power, in DAY-TIME WIFE. Loretta Young had balked at being cast in this screwball comedy, and left the studio around this time. Fox then cast their (hopefully) new star Nancy Kelly, who had been Power's costar in JESSE JAMES earlier that year. She was removed from this, and given another screwball, HE MARRIED HIS WIFE, with Joel McCrea. Darnell and Power proved to be a popular twosome, and the studio would soon re-team them three more times.
-
*Nice pictures, TopBilled ... I loved Richard Greene, particularly. I think he was married to Patricia Medina when they made that movie.*
Richard Greene was in the first year of his contract at 20th Century Fox when he made KENTUCKY in mid-1938. Fox saw him as a rival to Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor and their own Tyrone Power; he was an immediate sensation with women, including those on the lot. At the time, he seemed to be dating red haired starlet Arleen Whelan; later, he was involved with Wendy Barrie, his costar in 1939's THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. In 1940, Greene asked for release from the Fox contract, so he could return the Britain and join the armed forces against the Axis. It was only then, in 1941, that he met and married Patricia Medina. He would do the occasional propaganda British was film. He returned to Hollywood in 1945-46, principally to accompany his wife to see about a film career here. He quickly got work in films (FOREVER AMBER among others), but was unable to reestablish his pre-war popularity as a matinee idol. In the 1950s, he was doing mainly swashbuckling programmers, then found renewed success as Robin Hood on TV.
Edited by: Arturo on Dec 10, 2012 11:37 PM
-
From the FMC Website:
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11:
7:20 am EST, 4:20 AM PST:
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
An American adventurer (Clark Gable) is hired by a woman (Susan Hayward) to locate and rescue her husband (Gene Barry) in Red China. Much of the movie was filmed in Hong Kong and vicinity.
*Cast:* Clark Gable, Susan Hayward, Tom Tully, Gene Barry, Michael Rennie
*Director:* Edward Dmytryk
1955
9:00 am EST, 6 AM PST:
THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA
John Huston's romantic adventure tells the true story of Townsend Harris (Wayne), the first American consul of Japan, and his love affair with a geisha (Ando).
*Cast:* John Wayne, Eiko Ando, Sam Jaffe, So Yamamura, Norman Thomson
1958
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12:
7:20 am EST, 4:20 AM PST
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
A jealous woman (Gene Tierney) will stop at nothing to keep the man (Cornel Wilde) she loves.
*Cast:* Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Vincent Price, Mary Philips, Jeanne Crain
*Director:* John M. Stahl
1945
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13:
6:00 am EST, 3 AM PST:
TALES OF MANHATTAN
An all-star cast appears in a series of vignettes woven together to tell the story of a formal tailcoat that is passed to a collection of owners - always with a story of comedy, tragedy or love. W.C. Fields Extended version segment.
*Cast:* Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Edward g. Robinson, Cesar Romero, Margaret Dumont, W.c. Fields, Victor Francen, Elsa Lanchester, Bill bojangles Robinson, Eddie rochester Anderson, Ethel Waters, Eugene Pallette, Thomas Mitchell, James Gleason, Gail Patrick, Roland Young, George Sanders
*Director:* Julien Duvivier
1942
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14:
6:00 am EST, 3 AM PST:
HELL AND HIGH WATER
Having agreed to go into service for a noted atomic scientist, an American submarine commander (Richard Widmark) soon finds himself involved in foiling a Communist plot.
*Cast:* Richard Widmark, Cameron Mitchell, Gene Evans, Bella Darvi, Victor Francen
*Director:* Samuel Fuller
1954
8:00 am EST, 5 AM PST:
PANIC IN THE STREETS
A medical officer (Richard Widmark) races against time after he discovers two gun-happy hoodlums (Zero Mostel and Jack Palance) are running around the streets of New Orleans carrying the virus to a deadly new plague.
*Cast:* Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Jack Palance, Barbara Bel geddes, Zero Mostel
*Director:* Elia Kazan
1950
-
*I think it is good that folks purchase titles from the Fox Archives. This is where commercialism can actually help rescue Hollywood history from those dusty vaults!*
I actually think that TCM is doing a similar service, first in making available al those classics on DVD through their site, and in actually havng their own released sets of films that have had no official DVD release. Altuistic we maywant it to be, and to an extent I believe it so, but if money was not made it would dry up quickly. This is what happened with the manufactured series of classics put out by WB, Fox and others, and stopped around 2009-2010, as sales slipped for a number of reasons but also as the Recession was hitting its nadir. The studios saw no money in this. Now through the DVD-Rom releases, they are tentatively moving back.
-
I saw KENTUCKY on the schedule. I didn't mention it as I recorded it to DVD off of Fox in the last year or , thereby replacing my VHS copy. But if it is a release on the Fox Archive Classics series, I will try to buy it as well (money permitting). I really enjoy this early technicolor film, and it was the archetype of one of the stories that the studio would adapt time and again, in this case, rival horse breeing families with a Romeo/Juliet situation of love between the families. They first remade it a couple of years later in DOWN ARGENTINE WAY, as a musical with Don Ameche and Betty Grable in her starmaking role, replacing Alice Faye. In KENTUCYK I think that Loretta and Richard Greene make a stunningly beautiful couple, as they had earlier in 1938 in FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER, Greene's debut on Fox.
-
*You have my support, so between the two of us, we've got September (I'm touting Alan Ladd in a thread that has dropped back a page or two) and October covered.*
Thank you clore for your support. here's hoping that Ladd and Darnell each get a near future SOTM tribute, and we get to see many Paramount and Fox classics, respectively, that have not yet graced the airwaves of TCM.
-
I see that on January16 and January 23 TCM is showing two movies that Loretta made at 20th Century Fox, which I am anxious to see. I have both on VHS, recorded years ago off the FMC (or was it AMC?). Both are also part of the early releases on Fox Archive Classics, and plan to buy them, as opposed to recording these upcoming showings, to help encourage more of these releases:
SUEZ(1938): 19th Century fictionalized epic dealing with the building of said canal, and which Loretta was unhappy filming, feeling her role as the future and present Empress Eugenie was window dressing. Well she makes the loveliest of window dressings IMO. Starring with Loretta are Tyrone Power, and Power's future wife Annabella, which turned out a fortunate accident for the pair. Originally cast had been Fox' French import, Simone Simon, but she was replaced with Annabella. How diferent for those involved might their lives played out had the original casting been adhered to.
WIFE HUSBAND AND FRIEND (1939): Funny late screwball comedy, with Loretta imagining herself an aspiring opera singer, exasperated husband Warner Baxter actually the one with the talent to do this, and Binnie Barnes as the diva encouraging him to use this talent as well as trying to seduce him. Great fun. AND in a tie-in with the thread on Linda Darnell for SOTM, Fox remade it in 1949, as EVERYBODY DOES IT, with Linda as the diva, Paul Douglas as the harried husband, and Celeste Holm as the wife. It was just as good as the original.
Edited by: Arturo on Dec 9, 2012 1:50 PM
-
*Don Ameche is one I would buy a book about in a heartbeat.*
I found one on Ameche recently on-line, called "The Kenosha Comeback Kid". Its a slimvolume, but packs a lot of information. Apparently, It was published by a new publishing house focusing on Hollywood (or so it seems), BearManor Media. I also found an excellent biography they published on Lynn Bari, Fox' own Queen of the Bs (once Claire Trevor left in the late 30s), "Foxy Lady". The author of the Ameche book is Ken Ohmart, I believe and Bari's is Jeff Gordon.
Edited by: Arturo on Dec 8, 2012 7:44 PM
-
TB,
I've always thought that a number of stars are not now given their due because when the wave of filmographical volumes on Hollywood stars, be it Citadel Press or the little Pyramid books, they were overlooked. For whatever reasons, this semed especially true of Fox stars: sure Power and Faye got theirs late in the cycle, and Shirley Temple and Marilyn Monroe were each a phenomenon, but what about Don Ameche, Loretta Young(admittedly only a short time at Fox but a star nonetheless), Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain and Linda, among others. So subsequent generations have had no clue as to their actual popularity back in the 30s, 40s etc.
And when the nostalgia wave of the 70s focused on fabulous female faces, seems that Young, Tierney and Darnell should have been prominent in that pantheon. So the search has been frustrating for long stretches.
-
*In this thread you wrote about a book that you bought regarding Linda Darnell. Thanks for mentioning that.*
*A book that is a prized possession of mine is The Alice Faye Movie Book which goes into considerable detail about all of Alice's motion pictures. The author is W. Franklyn Moshier, and there is a foreword by director Henry King.*
I also have the Alice Faye Movie Book, and enjoy perusing through it occasionally. Besides the book I mentioned, "Forever Amber: From Novel to Film", I have "Linda Darnell, Hollywood Beauty", and a home-made job I recently found online, "Linda Darnell: The Girl With the Perfect Face". This last one I can't recommend; besides poor quality picture reproduction (it's a photo book of Linda's movies basically), t]some are distorted to fit the space. Worse, some are out of order, representing the wrong movie, and there are some inaccuracies in the text, but as a fan of Linda's who has suffered a drought on published information on her since I first started to like her, it was welcome.
Edited by: Arturo on Dec 8, 2012 6:18 PM
-
I see that later this month, on Dec, 22, TCM will be showing TWIST OF FATE, which had been released originally in England under the title of BEAUTIFUL STRANGER. Ginger Rogers and her new husband, Jacques Bergerac, are two of the stars of this movie. Prior to their involvement, director David Miller had discussed the possibility of Linda Darnell doing this film. These talks fell through; I believe Miller was trying to have Linda invest in the venture, something she was unwilling or unable to do at this time. So Miller approached Ginger with the proposal. Ginger agreed to it, with the specification that her new husband, who was quite a bit younger than her, be cast in it.
-
I woke up to the tail end of this. But I too enjoy this every chance I get,
-
Well a bit of tie-ins here. Artie Shaw married Lana Turner, and later Ava Gardner, who was married to Mickey Rooney. I'm sure if thefull picture of Hollywood' musical beds was knwn, **** would bogle the mind.
-
*I've never seen Forever Amber.........*
Hibi,
If you like historical epics, with a wealth of accurate period detail, sumptuous sets and costumes, colorful cinematography, a rousing score and a compelling storyline, then you will probably enjoy FOREVER AMBER. Better than its middling reputation would have you believe IMHO, it is flawed but has much to recommend it. Crippled in being able to recreate the most salacious material of the bestseller, from its inception as a movie due to ever-present production code, it still emerge as a creditable telling the (then) well-known tale. Hopefully, it will be broadcast soon on TCM, whether as part of a Linda Darnell SOTM celebration or not. And with widespread exposure of this type, maybe it will signal the beginning of its reputation being rightfully rehabilitated IMHO.
-
*Well a fair number of Linda Darnell's movies are on DVD:*
**I'm not sure, but I thin there is a DVD release of BUFFALO BILL also.**
-
*With five wives in the mix, the film would have been too "busy" and confusing.*
Which is why Zanuck, known for his skills as an editor, even ruthlessly so, had Mankiewicz cut out one, then another of the wives.
-
*No, sorry, I meant Faye in that State Fair remake. I've never seen Forever Amber.........*
My bad lol. Here I go on a tirade about the wrong filmand actress. Sometimes I'm not sure what post someone is referring to; earlier, here, Topbilled answered me about an "Interesting post". But I have no idea which of my posts he was referring to (not that I think all of my posts are interesting lol). Anyway, I'm not sure why Faye would take the rather secondary role in SF, especially since she had rejected the lead in the 1945 version, as this was when she was rejecting musicals left and right.
-
From the FMC Website:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7:
6:00 am EST, 3 AM PST:
A ROYAL SCANDAL
Russia's Catherine the Great falls in love with a handsome young army officer who is really a revolutionary plotting her downfall.
Cast: Anne Baxter, Charles Coburn, Vincent Price, Tallulah Bankhead, William Eythe
Director: Otto Preminger
1945
7:40 am EST, 4:40 AM PST:
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
William Faulkner's steamy drama of a young girl (Joanne Woodward) seeking independence in a strict Southern family with issues of alcoholism, illegitimacy and ****.
Cast: Yul Brynner, Joanne Woodward, Margaret Leighton, Stuart Whitman, Ethel Waters, Jack Warden, John Beal, Albert Dekker
Director: Martin Ritt
1959
9:40 am EST, 6:40 AM PST:
TALES OF MANHATTAN
An all-star cast appears in a series of vignettes woven together to tell the story of a formal tailcoat that is passed to a collection of owners - always with a story of comedy, tragedy or love. W.C. Fields Extended version segment.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Edward g. Robinson, Cesar Romero, W.c. Fields, Margaret Dumont, Victor Francen, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Mitchell, James Gleason, Gail Patrick, Bill bojangles Robinson, Eddie rochester Anderson, Ethel Waters, Eugene Pallette, Roland Young, George Sanders
Director: Julien Duvivier
1942
-
*It is surprising that FOREVER AMBER has not had a North American DVD release.*
Surprising to me also. A decent version plays occasionally on Fox Movie Channel, as well as recently on HBO/Cinemax. Maybe it'll be a part of the Fox Archive Cinema series, but it really deserves a full-blown legitimate release. I've mentioned a number of times on these boards that one of my most fervent wishes is for a restored version of FOREVER AMBER, with (hope against hope) extra footage as a special feature. Seems that quite a bit that was filmed was not used, partially because Zanuck seemed to confine his epics to no more than two and a half hours, and partially because some cuts were made to appease the overactive censors.
The making of this movie, trouble-plagued as it was, has always fascinated me. I recently found, and bought, on Amazon a book on the making of AMBER. For a rather slim tome it covers a lot of ground, and helped me fill in some of the blanks. It describes the storylines of the various successive scripts, successive casts and directors. As in all stories of the making of classic Hollywood movies, I found it hard to put down. It;s called "Forever Amber: From Novel to Film".
-
*But considering how commercial TCM has become and how it is so market-driven now, my guess is that they would go with a more sell-able name like Gene Tierney or Betty Grable. More sell-able because more of their films are available on home video. DVDs, kaching.*
Well a fair number of Linda Darnell's movies are on DVD:
DAY-TIME WIFE
BRIGHAM YOUNG
THE MARK OF ZORRO
BLOOD AND SAND
CITY WITHOUT MEN
IT HAPPENED TOMORROW
SUMMER STORM
HANGOVER SQUARE
FALLEN ANGEL
ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
UNFAITHFULLY YOURS
A LETTER TO THREE WIVES
NO WAY OUT
ISLAND OF DESIRE
BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE
ZERO HOUR
So that's 17 movies on DVD, if that is what drives TCM's selections.
Plus, at least two of her films have been announced and/or released under the Fox Archive Classics:
SLATTERY'S HURRICANE
EVERYBODY DOES IT
And, at least a couple have been released in Spain (probably not compatible with our DVD players):
FOREVER AMBER
TWO FLAGS WEST
Seems if TCM sells most or all of these titles, that would make a significant tie-in to their SOTM.
Edited by: Arturo on Dec 6, 2012 8:58 PM
-
*What I want to know is who negotiated the deal for her to return in the remake of STATE FAIR. Was that when Zanuck had been ousted? Or was he back in charge at that point? Maybe he and Alice Faye had kissed and made up.*
I think the 1962 version of STATE FAIR was probably green-lighted (-lit?) before Zanuck's return. But Faye was also ready to do another one, as her daughters were grown and away in college by this point.
-
*Alice Faye is a rare example of a star whose image is mostly branded with one studio. She did not get the chance to freelance like other big names in Hollywood.*
Well most stars in the 30s and 40s were unable to freelance; they were locked to their studio. They were sometimes able to go on loan-out to another studio, but that varied quite a bit. Often times valuable stars were not allowed to be borrowed (Alice Faye, Betty Grable or Lana Turner in the 40s), or if they were, an exorbitant fee might be charged. Or a loanout might be deemed as having NOT been beneficial to the star, even harmful (Tyrone Power in MARIE ANTOINETTE-Zanuck never allowed him to be borrowed again, to Power's frustration) Sometimes a star was loaned out to punish him (Clark Gable in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, but after GWTW he remained at MGM for the duration of his contract). Some studios with lesser resources often had their stars become stars, or remain so, by loaning them out often to better-endowed studios (Jane Russell/RKO).
-
Yes, the original story and the early treatments had five wives; later it was announced as Four wives, with Anne Baxter cast as the fourth. Zanuck is the one who felt it would work better dramatically if Mankiewicz concentrated on less characters, as well as being better able to flesh out the individual stories.
Loretta Young's legacy: Films, sainthood, victimized by Clark Gable
in General Discussions
Posted
*The war interrupted many careers. Of course, Loretta continued to appear in motion pictures at this time and her career continued along nicely in the 1940s.*
Well yes, but it was specifically the men who went to war who's careers were interrupted. Not all were able to get back on keel when they returned.