TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 22, 2019 -- Summer Under the Stars: Leila Hyams

[Staph]

Today's star is Leila Hyams. From IMDB's biography:

Leila Hyams was born May 1, 1905, in New York City to vaudeville comedy performers John Hyams (1869-1940) and Leila McIntyre (1882-1953). Both her parents had careers in films, and can be seen together in The Housekeeper's Daughter (1939).

As soon as she could walk, Leila appeared onstage with her parents, and as a teenager she worked as a model and became well-known after appearing in a successful series of newspaper advertisements (she was the first person to model for Listerine mouthwash). This success led her to Hollywood, and she made her first film appearance in Sandra (1924) with Barbara La Marr. Her blonde hair, delicate features and innocent sex appeal led to a variety of supporting roles, where she was required to do very little but smile and look pretty. She proved herself capable of handling these parts, and she came to be taken seriously as an actress.

By 1928 she was appearing in starring roles, and achieved success in MGM's first talking film, Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928) opposite William Haines, Lionel Barrymore and Karl Dane. She was once described as "The Golden Girl" by an artist because of her perfect pink skin and blonde hair coloring and, according to a 1928 Photoplay Magazine article, she carried a small satin case suspended from her garter that contained an extra pair of stockings, in case the ones she was wearing were damaged.

Leila appeared in the popular murder mystery The Thirteenth Chair (1929), a role that offered her the chance to display her dramatic abilities as a murder suspect. The quality of her parts continued to improve, which included a role as Robert Montgomery's sister in the prison drama The Big House (1930), with Chester Morris and Wallace Beery, for which she again received positive reviews.

She is best remembered,though, for two early 1930s horror movies--as the wise-cracking, kind-hearted circus performer Venus in Tod Browning's controversial Freaks (1932) and the heroine in Island of Lost Souls (1932) with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi. Another memorable performance was as the good-natured saloon girl who teaches 'Roland Young (I)' (aqv) to play the drums in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). One of Hyams' favorite hobbies was fishing, and she was the original choice to play Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), but she turned it down. The role was ultimately played in that film and several other Tarzan films by Maureen O'Sullivan.

Her last film was Yellow Dust (1936). After ten years and 50 films, Leila decided to concentrate on her personal life and retired from acting in 1936, continuing to remain a part of the Hollywood community. Apparently she was very shrewd about protecting her assets, putting a picture of herself on all her checks so they would be impossible to cash if they were stolen. She was married to agent Phil Berg for 50 years, from 1927 until her death.

Leila Hyams passed away from natural causes on December 4, 1977, in Bel-Air, CA at age 72.

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- THE IDLE RICH (1929)
A typist's relatives turn up their noses at her rich husband.
Dir: William C. de Mille
Cast: Conrad Nagel, Bessie Love, Leila Hyams
BW-80 mins, CC,

This was an adaptation of a Broadway play titled "White Collars" by Edith Ellis. The original stage production opened at the Cort Theatre in New York on Feb. 23, 1925 and ran for 104 performances. There was a later film adaptation called Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938) starring Robert Young, Lew Ayres, Ruth Hussey and Lana Turner.


7:30 AM -- THE BISHOP MURDER CASE (1930)
Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a series of murders inspired by Mother Goose rhymes.
Dir: Nick Grindé
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Leila Hyams, Roland Young
BW-87 mins, CC,

Several times Roland Young's character sarcastically calls Basil Rathbone's investigator character "Sherlock Holmes". Nine years later Rathbone would take the role of Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and it became his iconic role.


9:00 AM -- THE GIRL SAID NO (1930)
A college sports star surprises everyone with his money-making schemes.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: William Haines, Leila Hyams, Polly Moran
BW-91 mins, CC,

M-G-M also released this film as a silent version.


10:45 AM -- SINS OF THE CHILDREN (1930)
A young man fights to overcome his criminal past.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Louis Mann, Robert Montgomery, Elliott Nugent
BW-86 mins, CC,

The $200 Johnnie pilfers from the electric company equates to about $2,900 in 2016.


12:15 PM -- WAY FOR A SAILOR (1930)
A devoted sailor jeopardizes his love life for love of the sea.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: John Gilbert, Wallace Beery, Jim Tully
BW-85 mins, CC,

The system of rigging used to transfer the men from one ship to the other during the rescue is called a "breeches buoy".


1:45 PM -- GENTLEMAN'S FATE (1931)
A bootlegger falls apart when his wife leaves him.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: John Gilbert, Louis Wolheim, Leila Hyams
BW-93 mins, CC,

The prominent portrait on the wall of Papa Tomasulo's room is that of Pope Pius XI - the pope at the time this film was made.


3:30 PM -- MEN CALL IT LOVE (1931)
A man leaves his mistress to court a happily married woman.
Dir: Edgar Selwyn
Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Leila Hyams, Norman Foster
BW-72 mins, CC,

Early product placement: Jack tells his butler Brandt he always needs a supply of White Rock on hand, then a refrigerator shelf is shown full of bottles of the actual product. The company, founded in 1871, is still in business as of 2016.


4:46 PM -- LOVE ON TAP (1939)
A man tries to woo the manager of a dance troupe in this musical short film.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Patrick Cunning, Mary Howard, Charles McAvoy
BW-11 mins,


5:00 PM -- STEPPING OUT (1931)
After catching their husbands with other women, two wives go on a girls-only vacation.
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
Cast: Charlotte Greenwood, Leila Hyams, Reginald Denny
BW-73 mins, CC,

Based on a play by Elmer Harris.


6:30 PM -- RED-HEADED WOMAN (1932)
An ambitious secretary tries to sleep her way into high society.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone
BW-79 mins, CC,

Although the film was actually banned from public showings in Great Britain when it was originally released, King George V had a personal copy. It was finally passed uncut with an 'A' certificate in 1965.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: LEILA HYAMS



8:00 PM -- FREAKS (1932)
A lady trapeze artist violates the code of the side show when she plots to murder her midget husband.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova
BW-62 mins, CC,

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a member of the MGM writing department at the time the movie was in production. It is said, one day as he came into the studio commissary for lunch and saw the Hilton sisters, one reading the menu and the other seemingly understanding it, he was horrified, became nauseous and left the lunchroom. He would later go on to write of a studio filming a "circus" picture.


9:15 PM -- THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR (1929)
A phony medium tries to prove her protege innocent of murder.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Margaret Wycherly
BW-73 mins,

Completed July 16 1929, the first sound feature in which Bela Lugosi's famous Hungarian tones were heard.


10:45 PM -- WAY OUT WEST (1930)
When a carnival barker gets caught conning the local cowboys, he's forced to work off his sentence on the open range.
Dir: Fred Niblo
Cast: William Haines, Leila Hyams, Polly Moran
BW-70 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Alfred Block and Byron Morgan.


12:01 AM -- CRAZY HOUSE (1930)
In this short film, a woman takes a tour of the "Lame Brain Sanitarium" and meets some of its strange patients.
Cast: Gus Shy, Cliff Edwards, Earl Tucker
C-13 mins,


12:15 AM -- THE BIG HOUSE (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone
BW-87 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

In Frances Marion's original script, the characters played by Leila Hyams and Robert Montgomery were husband and wife. After the film flopped in a preview screening, MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg decided that the problem was that audiences, especially women, didn't want to see the Chester Morris character have an affair with a married woman. So the script was rewritten to make Montgomery and Hyams brother and sister. Scenes were reshot and the film, in its modified form, became a major hit.


2:00 AM -- ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)
On a remote island, a mad scientist turns wild animals into human monsters.
Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
BW-70 mins, CC,

In response to British censors who claimed the film was "against nature", Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton) is said to have stated, "Of course it's against nature. So's Mickey Mouse!"


3:13 AM -- MACKINAC ISLAND (1944)
This short films takes the viewer to Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins,


3:30 AM -- THE PHANTOM OF PARIS (1931)
A magician is charged with killing his fiancee's father.
Dir: John S. Robertson
Cast: John Gilbert, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone
BW-74 mins, CC,

This film is adapted from the novel "Cheri-Bibi," written by Gaston Leroux, who is better known for his novel "The Phantom of the Opera."


4:45 AM -- YELLOW DUST (1936)
After he's accused of a series of stagecoach robberies, an innocent man has to find the real crooks.
Dir: Wallace Fox
Cast: Richard Dix, Leila Hyams, Moroni Olson
BW-69 mins, CC,

Final film of Leila Hyams.