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*CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948)* From Agee on April 24, 1948: A rather dogged but otherwise competent fact-fiction movie; good camera work on Chicago slums; intelligent use of natural sound. Next to BOOMERANG!, the best, so far, of its kind.

Five days ago, on March 27th, the Warner Archives released several of the Wheeler & Woolsey films on DVD. They include: DIPLOMANIACS, KENTUCKY KERNELS (which has aired on TCM in the past year); ON AGAIN OFF AGAIN; and THE RAINMAKERS.

I only noticed one switcheroo from the preliminary schedule you posted recently. On the day featuring those Dorothy McGuire flicks, they have changed I WANT YOU, a Sam Goldwyn picture, to RKO's TILL THE END OF TIME. The running time is nearly the same. I am disappointed in this substitution, since the RKO picture airs several times per year, and I have yet to see the other film, which costars Dana Andrews.

This really is very interesting. When I attended film school in the early to mid-1990s, Edward Dmytryk was one of our professors at USC. Another professor who was a mentor to me did not really like Dmytryk, because he recanted. Her husband had been blacklisted and they fled to Mexico to work with Luis Bunuel on ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. They spent much of that time with Dalton Trumbo's family who had also fled to Mexico. My professor and her husband eventually went on to work in Europe, particularly in Italy. They did not return to the U.S. and to Hollywood until the 1960s. Meanwhile, Dmytryk's career immediately rebounded after this testimony, and he continued to enjoy a string of hits and subsequent A-picture assignments at various studios up through the 1970s. It is interesting how this all played out, and how it had long-lasting ramifications. These were real lives dealing with real threats (and not just Communist threats).

The film was listed as having a 61-minute running time, but when it aired on TCM today, it actually ran for 88 minutes. Fortunately, I had allotted 90 minutes for it when I programmed it on the DVR.

Thanks, Ray, for the information/explanation. I truly love this film and have wondered why it has yet to be released on DVD thru the Warner Archives. I certainly hope they produce the film with its full running time restored. When I watched the 80-minute version, it felt rushed...as if there were scenes that had been left out to the detriment of the story. When Susan Hayward gets killed off at around the 45-minute mark, it seems hard to believe that the top-billed star (she outranks Robert Young on this picture) is gone for the entire second half. I kept thinking there must've been more.

The TCM database and the March TCM schedule lists a running time of 95 minutes for THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME. However, when I watched my DVR recording of it last night, it was just barely 80 minutes. That means at least 15 minutes of the film was cut. Even the entry for it on the IMDB lists it at 95 minutes. So where is the missing footage?

*ROBERT IVERS* SHORT CUT TO HELL (1957) with Georgann Johnson THE DELICATE DELINQUENT (1957) with Jerry Lewis & Martha Hyer G.I. BLUES (1960) with Elvis Presley & Juliet Prowse

*A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (1946)* From Agee on May 25, 1946: Apparently you never know when you are seeing the last of the Marx Brothers; so it is unnecessary to urge anyone who has ever enjoyed them to see A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA. It is also beside the main point to add that it isn't one of their best movies. For the worst they might ever make would be better worth seeing than most other things I can think of. Many of the things in this one which by substance and look should be level with their best fall somehow flat. The only two reasons I can get wind of are the manufacture of repetition and the fact that after all these years the Brothers are tired. But to anyone who likes them much I don't think that will get in the way.

*YVONNE MONLAUR* THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) with Peter Cushing IT STARTED IN NAPLES (1960) with Clark Gable & Sophia Loren THE TERROR OF THE TONGS (1961) with Christopher Lee

*THE POWERS GIRL (1943)* From Agee on January 23, 1943: Those who want to see evil, cruelty, and some archetypical national diseases should see THE POWERS GIRL. Few other films manage, even inadvertently, to get down so much. The subject here is American bitchery, with a demon photographer and his insurance-ad Mom and Pop thrown in, and some overloaded music from Benny Goodman, who should have refused to take off his glasses.

Thanks everyone. If I don't do too well with some of the choices, I am always open to suggestions/improvements. I think most of the daily doubles will be fun.

In a few days, I am going to start another continuing thread. For several years, I have done a 'daily double' on my Facebook page, where I put two films together and highlight a certain artist, box-office collaboration (director & actor or two popular costars), or it maybe something like a shared word in the title or a remake in a different genre. This has gone over well on my Facebook page, and I will admit sometimes my picks are inspired and sometimes they are not. LOL I am going to look through all my old Facebook posts and re-print/re-paste/re-post, whatever you call it, my best ones here. I think this will be a creative and fun thread that can stimulate some good discussion for those wanting to participate. I will try to coincide some of my daily doubles with celebrity birthdays and anniversaries of well-known films. I will probably launch this on April 1st, after I have figured out the ones I want to feature for the first month. I won't always include a picture, but most of the time I will since visuals tend to add to the overall effect. Thanks.

Right, who says a SOTM has to be an American...? It seems to be implied that it is usually a Hollywood performer, but why not look at a few international stars who had crossover appeal, as Dirk Bogarde certainly did. And more importantly, his filmography contains many titles by the Rank Organisation and many titles by MGM, which are in the Turner library. Hello... This is a no-brainer. LOL

*ROY THINNES* JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN (1969) with Ian Hendry & Patrick Wymark CHARLEY ONE-EYE (1973) with Richard Roundtree THE HINDENBURG (1975) with George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft & William Atherton

*JOURNEY FOR MARGARET (1943)* From Agee on January 23, 1943: The film contains a few poignant flashes on children and parental emotion; some writing as awful as the people who talk like that, and a well-meant performance by Fay Bainter which suggests that if Anna Freud, whom she is supposed to echo, really treats children like that, they are far better left shocked in the bomb-rubble than deshocked in her clinic.

Well, we shall find out in just a few short days what the remaining films are on the June 2012 schedule. As for July, we do know that Leslie Howard is the featured performer. And we know there will be all those traditional patriotic films at the beginning of the month. Last year, they showed THE HOWARDS OF VIRGINIA which was not on the schedule the year before. It would be nice if they could show STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER on July 4th.

>Bogarde is such an interesting actor. There's an aura about him that seems to suggest he inherently harbours secret knowledge. Well-said. I would like for him to be featured as Star of the Month, if that hasn't already happened before. He has a rich filmography. He's my second favorite British actor, just after Richard Burton and slightly ahead of Laurence Harvey. I love these British matinee idols who truly could act!

*A WALK IN THE SUN (1946)* From Agee on January 6, 1946: A WALK IN THE SUN is often very alive and likeable, thanks to several of its players, particularly Herbert Rudley, Richard Conte, Lloyd Bridges, and Dana Andrews. The gradual increase of daylight which opens it is atmospherically and technically wonderful. You can seldom get your eyes hurt, as I did here, by the manipulation, against dark contexts, of a little bit of cloudy light on a screen. In motion and shooting, much of the film is worked out with very unusual vitality and care, much of which, unfortunately, is related more nearly to ballet than to warfare. But mainly I think it is an embarrassing movie. The dialogue seems as unreal as it is expert. Most of the characters, as distinct from the men who play them, are as unreal and literary as the dialogue. The aesthetic and literary and pseudo-democratic preoccupations are so strong that at times all sense of plain reality drops out of the picture. At the end, for instance, with their farmhouse captured, various featured players are shown completing the gags which tag their characters: chomping an apple, notching a rifle-stock, and so on as the camera lets you know that their wounded comrades are still writhing unattended in the dooryard.

*JUNE LAVERICK* THE SON OF ROBIN HOOD (1959) with David Farrar & George Colouris THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEMAN (1959) with Melina Mercouri MANIA (1961) with Peter Cushing & Donald Pleasence FOLLOW A STAR (1961) with Norman Wisdom

>I wonder if Maltin actually saw I LOVED A WOMAN. If he had, he could not help but see the similarities to CITIZEN KANE in the story. I agree, clore. I also think UPPER WORLD, with Warren William, Mary Astor and Ginger Rogers is a precursor for KANE, and I have no doubt that Herman Mankiewicz borrowed heavily from UPPER WORLD and I LOVED A WOMAN and that Welles went along for the ride. The piano playing scene with EGR and Kay Francis in I LOVED A WOMAN is shamelessly stolen by Mankiewicz and Welles and inserted into the get-to-know-each-other bit between Kane and Susan Alexander. There is a similar scene in UPPER WORLD, too.

I think the role in TAXI was perfect for him...it is a shame he was not able to do it. At some point, he probably would've done foreign film productions, the blacklisting aside, because most of them did enter into that phase of their career, especially in British productions that were co-financed by Hollywood studios. I love Michelline Presle, so I am biased because UNDER MY SKIN is my favorite of Garfield's films, with THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE a close second. As for the House committee defeating him, I have a feeling that if Garfield was here today speaking, his pride would kick in and he would definitely not say McCarthy or McCarthy's cronies licked him.

Fay's status in Hollywood had improved when Zanuck offered him the role in LOVE NEST. He had been a hit on Broadway in the original stage production of HARVEY, which Jimmy Stewart snagged for the film version over at Universal.

Glad to see the Dick Foran tribute on June 18th. I love those B-westerns!

I am going to agree with those who say that the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (technically it is HCUA, not HUAC) did not destroy Garfield's acting career. He was freelancing at this point, and when you are not under contract exclusively at a studio, thrown into one film after another, your output tends to slow. This said, Zanuck liked hiring him at Fox. He had a multi-picture deal at Fox. He did a fine job in GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, then made UNDER MY SKIN with Fox's European import Michelline Presle in 1950, several years after giving testimony. And he was slated to begin production on a story about immigrants, called TAXI, when he died. That film was made, though it switched from an A-film to a tidy little B-film and starred Dan Dailey in the role that Garfield would've had. I am sure that if Garfield hadn't died, he would've continued to work in films and television as well as on stage. It's easy to say the blacklisting did him in, but he was v-e-r-y resilient, and even if his career in Hollywood had ended, which it did not, he would have rebounded in European productions I'm sure.