Polly of the Precodes

Buster Crabbe as Tarzan (1933). He's not bad in the role, although he must have been experiencing continuous wedgies.

Star Wars novelist says Disney won’t pay him royalties it owes him “If we let this stand, it could set precedent to fundamentally alter the way copyright and contracts operate in the United States,” Kowal wrote. “All a publisher would have to do to break a contract would be to sell it to a sibling company.” More likely they'd try to declare that the transfer of BDSB and other Fox properties to Disney nullified any outstanding rights issues. 😡

Moreover, TCM was probably burning off Fox movies that had been licensed before Disney acquired assimilated acquired the Fox catalogue. I'd love to see the titles you mention and other surviving pre-1935 Fox titles. But Disney appears to have put these films--at least for now?--in the vault alongside Song of the South.

No disrespect of you intended, but when was this covered up? That Playboy interview that pops up every few years has never been denied or discredited. And his war record, or lack thereof, has been common knowledge from the start.

Speaking of Universal and the early Paramount films it controls: After the...events...of yesterday at the U.S. Capitol, I wish Universal would license The President Vanishes (1934) to TCM. It's not a great movie, but it has some interesting parallels to contemporary politics. Would make a great double feature with Gabriel Over the White House.

Back Street (John M. Stahl, 1932) Source: The Criterion Channel A couple of years ago director John M. Stahl (1886-1950) had a moment when Husbands and Lovers (1924; saw this at LOC-Culpeper; a delightful comedy of remarriage that ought to be on DVD YESTERDAY) and The Lincoln Cycle (1917; was anticipating seeing this at AFI-Silver when the lockdown hit) made the rounds of the film festivals. So when The Criterion Channel posted a selection of Stahl, I jumped at the chance to see this in a studio-sanctioned copy. And was I disappointed...I knew the man was known for studio-era melodrama.

It would be just like the film industry to remake Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure (1929). (WARNING: Search this title at YOUR OWN RISK to your computer and/or SANITY.)

Those Paramount films are for the most part controlled by Universal; but from your keyboard to the TCM programmers' ears!

TCM already has on its schedule several silent films (LA MUETTE DE PORTICI, ROSITA) that aren't their usual warhorses; I hope to see this continue in 2021. In the wishful thinking department, I'd love to see TCM license more pre-1935 films from Fox, Universal, and Columbia. Although I'm not holding my breath, given that every studio with a back catalog is wading into proprietary streaming services. And my dream of dreams: In 2020 TCM-US untangled whatever rights issues were preventing them from showing THE SILVER CORD. Any chance of TCM following this in the new year by releasing LET

In a row?!?

Maybe for your next writing project? After Jimmy Stewart aged out of romantic leads, he made a number of Westerns in which he played darkly driven characters (other film friends of mine insist on calling these films "Oedipal," and I probably don't want to know what they mean). I don't hate TSAtC, but I don't get people who think it's the greatest film ever (Cluny Brown, Design For Living, and Trouble in Paradise leave it in the dust). Granted, I have issues with Stewart, but I'd love to see something exploring the darkness that his "aw shucks" fans don't seem to get.

The NFR does solicit popular votes on titles to add to the registry. Maybe it does increase popular awareness of film history and preservation...but I was seriously side-eying the inclusion of Shrek and The Dark Knight.

Also from Siodmak: 1932's Tumultes (French-language version, starring Charles Boyer)/The Tempest (German-language version, starring Emil Jannings). I think the German version was the better of the two, but it was so severely cut I can't be sure. For what it's worth, the 2020 edition of Muller's Noir City festival featured several foreign-language titles, including EL VAMPIRO NEGRO (Argentina, 1953; a localized version of M (1931)) and RAZZIA SUR LA CHNOUF (France, 1955). I'd love to see titles like this either on Noir Alley or TCM Imports.

Please please please try to license her early Fox films. Please?

At the very end Nick and Nora are supposed to have separate bunks on the train. But then Nick put Asta into the top bunk, and...CUT! There's an amusing subversion of the twin beds convention in Young Bride (1932). The camera pans upwards to show the feet of a pair of beds...then pans up further to show the newly married couple cuddling in one of the two beds.