TopBilled

*CAROLE LOMBARD* SAFETY IN NUMBERS (1930) with Charles 'Buddy' Rogers THE ARIZONA KID (1930) with Warner Baxter FAST AND LOOSE (1930) with Miriam Hopkins & Frank Morgan LADIES MAN (1931) with William Powell & Kay Francis UP POPS THE DEVIL (1931) with Stuart Erwin IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE (1931) with Norman Foster MAN OF THE WORLD (1931) with William Powell I TAKE THIS WOMAN (1931) with Gary Cooper NO MAN OF HER OWN (1932) with Clark Gable NO ONE MAN (1932) with Ricardo Cortez & Paul Lukas SINNERS IN THE SUN (1932) with Chester Morris & Cary Grant FROM HELL TO HEAVEN (1933) with Jack Oakie & David Manners SUPERNATURAL (1933) with Randolph Scott WHITE WOMAN (1933) with Charles Laughton & Charles Bickford BRIEF MOMENT (1933) with Gene Raymond WE'RE NOT DRESSING (1934) with Bing Crosby NOW AND FOREVER (1934) with Gary Cooper & Shirley Temple THE GAY BRIDE (1934) with Chester Morris LADY BY CHOICE (1934) with May Robson BOLERO (1934) with George Raft RUMBA (1935) with George Raft HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE (1935) with Fred MacMurray & Ralph Bellamy LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST (1936) with Preston Foster PRINCESS COMES ACROSS (1936) with Fred MacMurray SWING HIGH, SWING LOW (1937) with Fred MacMurray TRUE CONFESSION (1937) with Fred MacMurray & John Barrymore FOOLS FOR SCANDAL (1937) with Fernand Gravet & Ralph Bellamy MADE FOR EACH OTHER (1939) with James Stewart THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED (1940) with Charles Laughton

*James Stewart Directed by Alfred Hitchcock* It started with some ROPE and ended with VERTIGO.

*MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE (1946)* From Agee on August 31, 1946: This one turns Booth Tarkington's story inside-out and dresses Bob Hope in it. Some of it seems to me such rock-bottom Hope formula that whether you yawn or rather wearily laugh depends chiefly on your chance state of mind. Bits of it, however, seem funny like Hope's reception in the Spanish court, his minuet and his duel with Joseph Schildkraut. For what the minor role is worth, Schildkraut understands how to make and control his points in this sort of show, much better than the star does.

*CLIFTON WEBB* LAURA (1944) with Gene Tierney & Dana Andrews THE DARK CORNER (1946) with Lucille Ball, William Bendix & Mark Stevens ELOPEMENT (1951) with Anne Francis, Charles Bickford & William Lundigan DREAMBOAT (1952) with Ginger Rogers, Anne Francis & Jeffrey Hunter TITANIC (1953) with Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner & Brian Aherne THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954) with Dorothy McGuire, Louis Jourdan & Jean Peters WOMAN'S WORLD (1954) with June Allyson, Van Heflin, Lauren Bacall & Fred MacMurray THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956) with Gloria Grahame & Stephen Boyd HOLIDAY FOR LOVERS (1959) with Jane Wyman & Paul Henried THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER (1959) with Dorothy McGuire & Charles Coburn SATAN NEVER SLEEPS (1962) with William Holden

I may've said it before, but I think we all find celebs/film stars that resonate with us. I have a very close friend that Audie Murphy had taken under his wing. Her stories of him are so vivid. Now when I watch Audie on screen, I am seeing things and responding to things are almost extra-filmic. You begin to find the real person and their mannerisms and emotions take on added meaning. It becomes very personalized. I think that is what is happening in your case with Weidler.

Today TCM broadcast ROMANCE FOR THREE (also known as PARADISE FOR THREE). This MGM delight has a good group of character actors: Frank Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Sig Ruman, Henry Hull and Mary Astor.

*THE DARK MIRROR (1946)* From Agee on November 9, 1946: This is a smooth and agreeable melodrama about twin sisters (Olivia de Havilland, sweet and dry), and a psychiatrist (Lew Ayres) and a detective (Thomas Mitchell) who find out which one is an insane murderess. The detective work involves ink-blot and word-association tests and an amusingly sinister tandem of oscillating pens which register concealed emotions as one of the sisters talks. The picture could have been more exciting if Nunnally Johnson and his colleagues had risked more subtlety and puzzlement in the psychologizing, the situations, and the everyday performance of the sisters, but it is fairly clear that they were worried about just such risks and decided to eat-and-have only bits of the frosting instead of the whole cake.

*MARTA TOREN* CASBAH (1948) with Yvonne de Carlo & Tony Martin ROGUES' REGIMENT (1948) with Dick Powell & Vincent Price ILLEGAL ENTRY (1949) with Howard Duff & George Brent SWORD IN THE DESERT (1949) with Dana Andrews & Jeff Chandler DEPORTED (1950) with Jeff Chandler ONE WAY STREET (1950) with James Mason & Dan Duryea MYSTERY SUBMARINE (1950) with MacDonald Carey SPY HUNT (1950) with Howard Duff SIROCCO (1951) with Humphrey Bogart & Lee J. Cobb ASSIGNMENT PARIS (1952) with Dana Andrews & George Sanders PARIS EXPRESS (1953) with Claude Rains

*Bette Davis & Ernest Borgnine* They headline A CATERED AFFAIR with Debbie Reynolds, then hit the road in BUNNY O'HARE.

Excellent post, ginnyfan. Thanks for taking us on this search with you.

Such great posts in this thread...!

*I MET A MURDERER (1939)* From Agee on March 17, 1945: I MET A MURDERER interests me because I am forced more and more to the narrow, dismal hope that if good movies are to be made any more at all, in this country anyhow, they will have to be made on shoestrings, far outside the industry, and very likely by amateurs or at best semi-professionals. This one was made in England, several years ago; the only person involved in it whose name I know is the actor James Mason. An unpretentious murder story including a romance and a chase, and strongly influenced by Hitchcock, it seems obviously to have been made in the hope that it could get commercial distribution. There are some down-right poor things in it, some undigested-arty; and often, too, when it might be very exciting, as when the hunt for the killer and the hunt for a fox interinvolve, the picture fails in most of those establishers of casual reality. Yet this is one of the fairly few movies I have seen in years in which it was clear that its makers knew and cared and in general had lively, sensible ideas how each shot should follow the next, and what in the way of emotion, atmosphere, observation and psychological weight and progression each shot and each group of shots should contain.

*Jim Bannon as Red Ryder* It's time for THE FIGHTING REDHEAD, then THE COWBOY AND THE PRIZE FIGHTER.

*STERLING HAYDEN/STIRLING HAYDEN* VIRGINIA (1941) with Madeleine Carroll & Fred MacMurray BAHAMA PASSAGE (1941) with Madeleine Carroll & Flora Robson MANHANDLED (1949) with Dorothy Lamour EL PASO (1949) with John Payne & Gail Russell JOURNEY INTO LIGHT (1951) with Viveca Lindfors HELLGATE (1952) with Joan Leslie FLAT TOP (1952) with Richard Carlson FLAMING FEATHER (1952) with Forrest Tucker & Barbara Rush DENVER AND RIO GRANDE (1952) with Edmond O'Brien & Dean Jagger THE GOLDEN HAWK (1952) with Rhonda Fleming TAKE ME TO TOWN (1953) with Ann Sheridan KANSAS PACIFIC (1953) with Eve Miller FIGHTER ATTACK (1953) with J. Carroll Naish & Kenneth Tobey CRIME WAVE (1954) with Gene Nelson & Phyllis Kirk NAKED ALIBI (1954) with Gloria Grahame TOP GUN (1955) with Karen Booth SHOTGUN (1955) with Yvonne de Carlo & Zachary Scott THE ETERNAL SEA (1955) with Alexis Smith TIMBERJACK (1955) with Vera Ralston & Adolphe Menjou BATTLE TAXI (1955) with Marshall Thompson THE KILLING (1956) with Coleen Gray & Vince Edwards THE COME ON (1956) with Anne Baxter THE IRON SHERIFF (1957) with Kent Taylor GUN BATTLE AT MONTEREY (1957) with Mary Beth Hughes & Lee Van Cleef 5 STEPS TO DANGER (1957) with Ruth Roman VALERIE (1957) with Anita Ekberg TEN DAYS TO TULARA (1958) with Grace Raynor

*VERONICA LAKE* I WANTED WINGS (1941) with Ray Milland & William Holden SO PROUDLY WE HAIL! (1943) with Claudette Colbert & Paulette Goddard THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN (1944) with Franchot Tone OUT OF THIS WORLD (1945) with Eddie Bracken & Diana Lynn HOLD THAT BLONDE (1945) with Eddie Bracken & Albert Dekker BRING ON THE GIRLS (1945) with Sonny Tufts & Eddie Bracken MISS SUSIE SLAGLE'S (1946) with Sonny Tufts & Joan Caulfield RAMROD (1947) with Joel McCrea & Don DeFore SAIGON (1948) with Alan Ladd THE SAINTED SISTERS (1948) with Joan Caulfield & Barry Fitzgerald ISN'T IT ROMANTIC? (1948) with Mona Freeman & Mary Hatcher SLATTERY'S HURRICANE (1949) with Richard Widmark & Linda Darnell STRONGHOLD (1952) with Zachary Scott & Arturo de Cordova

*THIS TIME FOR KEEPS (1948)* From Agee on February 14, 1948: Jimmy Durante; Esther Williams; some shiny bellowing from Lauritz Melchoir; an attempt at off-beat locale work in Michigan; MGM's customary brats and goodwill; a lot of boring music; Technicolor. The money spent on this production might easily have kept Mozart and Schubert alive and busy to the age of sixty, with enough left over to finance five of the best movies ever made. It might even have been invested in a good movie musical.

*Doctor Robert Taylor* Taylor went to college to become a doctor but dropped out. Instead, he became a glamorous movie star who played medics in several films like SOCIETY DOCTOR and the original MAGNIFICIENT OBSESSION.

*Unlikely Duo: Peter Lawford & Sammy Davis Jr.* SALT AND PEPPER return ONE MORE TIME.

*BERT LAHR* FLYING HIGH (1931) with Charlotte Greenwood & Pat O'Brien MERRY-GO-ROUND OF 1938 (1937) with Jimmy Savo & Alice Brady LOVE AND HISSES (1937) with Simone Simon JUST AROUND THE CORNER (1938) with Shirley Temple & Joan Davis JOSETTE (1938) with Don Ameche, Simone Simon, Robert Young & Joan Davis ZAZA (1939) with Claudette Colbert & Herbert Marshall SING YOUR WORRIES AWAY (1942) with June Havoc & Buddy Ebsen MISTER UNIVERSE (1951) with Jack Carson & Janis Paige THE SECOND GREATEST SEX (1955) with Jeanne Crain & George Nader

*THE IRON CURTAIN (1948)* From Agee on June 19, 1948: If it could be proved that there is any nation on earth which does not employ spies, that would be news. This is just the same old toothless dog biting the same old legless man. However, it is efficient melodrama, and fairly restrained in delivering its world-shaking message.

Well, Hale had a successful career and a fairly strong reputation within the industry. What I meant by referencing her first is that I think, like you said, with better assignments and more glamorous treatment, she could've been presented with an emphasis on her sex appeal. I agree completely about THE JACKPOT. I consider it her best film. I also like the westerns she made with Joel McCrea, especially THE LONE HAND, where she plays a more romantic part.

*Jean Arthur Directed by George Stevens* Starting with THE TALK OF THE TOWN and concluding with SHANE, which was her last feature film.

*TO EACH HIS OWN (1946)* From Agee on July 6, 1946: I cannot recommend TO EACH HIS OWN highly enough to those who can still bear to be interested in what goes on in the cerebral powder-rooms of middle-class American women. And I cannot recommend it highly enough to those who still care to measure the depths to which some professionals will dive, self-deluded or otherwise, in the effort to profit by the pathological appetites of such women. In these terms it is an extraordinary illuminating and skillful movie. It is skillful, in fact, however you look at it. But if you lack my interest in such stuff, you have fair warning.

*ELLA RAINES* CORVETTE K-225 (1943) with Randolph Scott ENTER ARSENE LUPIN (1944) with Charles Korvin THE SUSPECT (1944) with Charles Laughton THE RUNAROUND (1946) with Rod Cameron & Broderick Crawford WHITE TIE AND TAILS (1946) with Dan Duryea & William Bendix THE WEB (1947) with Edmond O'Brien, William Bendix & Vincent Price TIME OUT OF MIND (1947) with Phyllis Calvert, Robert Hutton & Eddie Albert THE WALKING HILLS (1949) with Randolph Scott & Arthur Kennedy SINGING GUNS (1950) with Vaughn Moore & Walter Brennan FIGHTING COAST GUARD (1951) with Brian Donlevy & Forrest Tucker THE MAN IN THE ROAD (1956) with Derek Farr

Some of the Boston **** films have been released on DVD. Sony released BOSTON ****'S CHINESE VENTURE in November 2011. And in two days, on May 15, 2012, Sony is releasing ONE MYSTERIOUS NIGHT and A CLOSE CALL FOR BOSTON ****.