TopBilled

We can add JEANETTE MACDONALD to August 27th.

*TAWNY PIPIT (1947)* From Agee on September 27, 1947: This is an English pastoral comedy about bird lovers. They are both lay and profession, and it is about what happens to them in mid-wartime when two very rare birds decide to breed. With sharper treatment, this might have been a real beauty of a comedy. Instead, it is an almost unimaginably genteel picture. If you were to sit in the same parlor with it, you would probably suffer a good deal. But the picture is so obviously a labor of love, and the job of a lifetime for actor Bernard Miles, an actor who has always seemed to me a particularly nice guy. He co-wrote and co-directed it with Charles Saunders. In spite of its profuse cuteness and genteelism, it has a good deal of genuine charm, humor and sweetness of temper.

*Femme Fatale: Jean Gillie* The British beauty comes to Hollywood to do DECOY and an equally interesting role in THE MACOMBER AFFAIR.

*BING CROSBY* THE BIG BROADCAST (1932) with Stuart Erwin TOO MUCH HARMONY (1933) with Jack Oakie COLLEGE HUMOR (1933) with Jack Oakie WE'RE NOT DRESSING (1934) with Carole Lombard, George Burns & Gracie Allen HERE IS MY HEART (1934) with Kitty Carlisle & Roland Young SHE LOVES ME NOT (1934) with Miriam Hopkins MISSISSIPPI (1935) with W.C. Fields & Joan Bennett TWO FOR TONIGHT (1935) with Joan Bennett & Thelma Todd THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936 (1935) with George Burns & Gracie Allen ANYTHING GOES (1936) with Ethel Merman & Ida Lupino RHYTHM ON THE RANGE (1936) with Frances Farmer, Bob Burns & Martha Raye DOUBLE OR NOTHING (1937) with Martha Raye & Andy Devine WAIKIKI WEDDING (1937) with Bob Burns & Martha Raye SING YOU SINNERS (1938) with Fred MacMurray & Donald O'Connor DOCTOR RHYTHM (1938) with Mary Carlisle PARIS HONEYMOON (1939) with Franciska Gaal THE STAR MAKER (1939) with Louise Campbell EAST SIDE OF HEAVEN (1939) with Joan Blondell IF I HAD MY WAY (1940) with Gloria Jean & Charles Winninger RHYTHM ON THE RIVER (1940) with Mary Martin & Oscar Levant BIRTH OF THE BLUES (1941) with Mary Martin & Brian Donlevy HOLIDAY INN (1942) with Fred Astaire & Marjorie Reynolds DIXIE (1943) with Dorothy Lamour & Marjorie Reynolds HERE COME THE WAVES (1943) with Betty Hutton & Sonny Tufts THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S (1945) with Ingrid Bergman BLUE SKIES (1946) with Fred Astaire WELCOME STRANGER (1947) with Joan Caulfield & Barry Fitzgerald MR. MUSIC (1950) with Nancy Olson & Charles Coburn JUST FOR YOU (1952) with Jane Wyman & Ethel Barrymore LITTLE BOY LOST (1953) with Claude Dauphin WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954) with Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney & Vera-Ellen MAN ON FIRE (1957) with Inger Stevens SAY ONE FOR ME (1959) with Debbie Reynolds & Robert Wagner HIGH TIME (1960) with Fabian & Nicole Maurey STAGECOACH (1966) with Ann-Margret, Red Buttons & Van Heflin DR. COOK'S GARDEN (1970) with Blythe Danner

August 1st: JOHN WAYNE August 2nd: MYRNA LOY August 3rd: JOHNNY WEISSMULLER August 4th: MARILYN MONROE August 5th: CLAUDE RAINS August 6th: VAN HEFLIN August 7th: SIDNEY POITIER August 8th: RITA HAYWORTH August 10th: LIONEL BARRYMORE August 11th: JAMES MASON August 12th: GINGER ROGERS August 13th: DEBORAH KERR August 14th: JAMES CAGNEY August 15th: LILLIAN GISH August 16th: ELVIS PRESLEY August 17th: KATHARINE HEPBURN August 19th: EVA MARIE SAINT August 20th: ANTHONY QUINN August 21st: KAY FRANCIS August 22nd: JACK LEMMON August 23rd: GENE KELLY August 25th: TYRONE POWER August 26th: GARY COOPER August 28th: AVA GARDNER August 29th: JAMES CAAN August 30th: WARREN WILLIAM August 31st: INGRID BERGMAN

*Denim* BLUE DENIM was marketed as BLUE JEANS in England.

*DOWN TO EARTH (1947)* From Agee on August 30, 1947: DOWN TO EARTH, and as far as I'm concerned six feet under it. It is Mr. Jordan, dry-ice mist and heaven too. A Broadway musical called Swinging the Muses. Terpsichore (Rita Hayworth) intervening to turn this rotten piece of commercial entertainment into still worse high art. There are, however, some prettier than average tunes. And a few glimpses of Miss Hayworth are also prettier than average.

*LUCILLE BALL* BUNKER BEAN (1936) with Owen Davis Jr. GO CHASE YOURSELF (1938) with Joe Penner NEXT TIME I MARRY (1938) with James Ellison & Lee Bowman TWELVE CROWDED HOURS (1939) with Richard Dix BEAUTY FOR THE ASKING (1939) with Patric Knowles THAT'S RIGHT?YOU'RE WRONG (1939) with Kay Kyser, Adolphe Menjou & May Robson MARINES FLY HIGH (1940) with Richard Dix & Chester Morris LOVER COME BACK (1946) with George Brent & Vera Zorina TWO SMART PEOPLE (1946) with John Hodiak HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS (1947) with Franchot Tone & Edward Everett Horton SORROWFUL JONES (1949) with Bob Hope & William Demarest FANCY PANTS (1950) with Bob Hope & Bruce Cabot THE MAGIC CARPET (1951) with John Agar MAME (1974) with Robert Preston

Okay, Fred. Can't wait for your thread about telephones in old movies and your thread about airplanes in old movies. No hard feelings!

Thanks, Jake, for the note. I didn't like the PEYTON PLACE thread, but at least that was focused on a film.

The original title of the thread was 'Why the word STOP was used in telegrams...' _not_ 'Why the word STOP was used in movie telegrams...' In fact, nothing in the original post referred to movies. And there was a link provided that went to some website that said nothing about movies. I don't understand why lessons have to be shared with posters about inventions when this is a classic film website. Am I missing something here...?

I would like to see less nonsense threads. I feel they are spamming up the boards, and this is a site devoted to classic film discussion.

I still fail to see how this thread relates to classic film. Where are the references to films and the uses of telegrams in films? I think if people wanted to know more about the telegram, they could just study it on their own and they would be posting about it in a forum that discusses inventions.

5 AGAINST THE HOUSE has a great cast and it is a delicious blend of film noir and caper/heist film. From Columbia Pictures in the mid-50s.

I'm watching GRANNY GET YOUR GUN which TCM aired this morning. It has a bonanza of character actors. Among them: May Robson, Harry Davenport & Granville Bates. In fact, Robson and Davenport are top-billed. It's a B-film, but it dawned on me how this type of casting would not occur today. In youth-conscious Hollywood, no major studio and certainly not Warners (which produced this picture) would bankroll anything with two older veteran actors in the lead roles. It continues to be our loss.

Sounds interesting. Some of Virginia Weidler's films will air in July on TCM. I was happy to see a few of them on the schedule.

*Bit Part James Dean* Early film roles include a part as a soda fountain customer in Universal's HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL? and as a boxing opponent in Paramount's SAILOR BEWARE.

*KERWIN MATHEWS* 5 AGAINST THE HOUSE (1955) with Brian Keith & Kim Novak THE GARMENT JUNGLE (1957) with Lee J. Cobb TARAWA BEACHHEAD (1958) with Julie Adams & Ray Danton THE LAST BLITZKRIEG (1959) with Van Johnson THE WARRIOR EMPRESS (1960) with Tina Louise MAN ON A STRING (1960) with Ernest Borgnine & Colleen Dewhurst JACK THE GIANT KILLER (1962) with Judi Meredith MANIAC (1963) with Nadia Gray BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH (1967) with Robert Ayres BARQUERO (1970) with Lee Van Cleef, Warren Oates & Forrest Tucker

*WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? (1945)* From Agee on August 11, 1945: A fantasy in which Fred MacMurray strolls through American history to music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, it is nine parts heavy facetiousness to one part very good fun.

John Qualen has a very memorable face. I always thought he and Dick Powell sort of resembled each other.

Maybe I misunderstood. Why not mention specific scenes from movies? It seemed like a random thread topic. In war films, it usually means a message about the death of a soldier to relatives back home. In fact, THE HUMAN COMEDY, where Mickey Rooney plays a telegram delivery boy, is a perfect film to discuss here.

This topic could very easily be linked to the use of telegrams in classic movies. Yet the original post neglects to make the connection.

Right...there are types of character actors...sub-categories, if you will. I would list Barbra Streisand as a character actress, and I am sure many would object to that classification. But after she wound up eighth-billed in a Ben Stiller franchise, that is exactly the kind of role she was doing. She may be a great singer, but she is no longer selling movie tickets based on sex appeal. I think even in something like YENTL, she is doing a character-driven part. As for the purest form of a character actor or actress, I think that even if we look at the ones from the studio era that never got the guy or never got the girl, we could probably look at their resume, and we would see they likely did play leading roles when they were younger on stage, if not in movies. In James Robert Parish's book on character actors, he lists Gordon Westcott. I don't exactly consider him a character actor. He was leading man material, but he was working his way up the ladder in supporting roles like many of his fellow Warners-First National costars. Except unlike the others, he died very young and his promising career was tragically cut short. He would've made it to the A-list.

That's a great comment. You are fast becoming my favorite fellow poster around here. Personally, I think there should be a series of 'In Search of...' threads. I think you are on to something, and I certainly hope we can officially unravel the mystery of Weidler's exit from show biz. I would suggest trying to get in contact with any of her immediate family if possible.

Fred, you make an interesting point. However, McCarthy tends to be the fall-guy for this particular time in history. Something that is overlooked is how reactionary certain groups were in the early 1930s, which led to the establishment of the Production Code in Hollywood. The McCarthy era was not the first time that content in motion pictures was being censored and that careers were ending in the motion picture capital because of an enforced change in programming.