Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 16, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Charles Coburn
In the daylight hours, it's a birthday tribute to Ginger Rogers. Tell us more, Lorraine!'Sure [Fred Astaire] was great, but remember, Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards...and in high heels. " - Bob Thaves, creator and animator of Frank 'n Ernst
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made ten films together between 1933 and 1949 and created a screen partnership that has never been equaled. Yet both Astaire and Rogers made very successful films on their own and Rogers branched off into dramatic roles which would earn her an Academy Award® for Best Actress.
She was born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911 in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of William Eddins McMath and Lela Owens. Rogers later said that her mother knew she would be a dancer because "I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months." The McMath's marriage ended before Virginia was born and Eddins McMath twice kidnapped his daughter, but both times she was returned to her mother. She rarely saw her father afterwards and he died when she was eleven. As a small child, Virginia was given the nickname "Ginja" by her cousin who couldn't pronounce her name and it became Ginger, which she kept for the rest of her life.
Lela McMath had become a screenwriter in Hollywood and later New York where she brought her daughter to live with her. During World War I, Lela joined the Marines (one of the first women to do so), became a newspaper editor and married John Rogers whose last name Ginger took as her own, although she was never formally adopted. They settled in Fort Worth, Texas where Lela became a theater critic and her daughter fell in love with the stage and its performers. "Vaudeville was in its prime at that time, and most of the top acts on the Orpheum circuit also played the Interstate circuit. Stars like George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and his wife Sadie (later Mary), Eddie Foy and his five kids, George Jessel, Billy House, and Sophie Tucker appeared in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, and I met all of them. Because of Mother's position on the newspaper, she frequently invited the headliners over to our house for some homey atmosphere and a fried chicken dinner. One evening I did an imitation of Sophie Tucker singing "One of These Days." Sadie and Jack Benny were at the house that night and enjoyed my performance. Thereafter, whenever Jack and I were at the same party, he would goad me into doing my "imitation." He would laugh until he was almost on the floor!"
Ginger began acting in school plays (usually written by her mother) and began dancing. At fourteen she won the Texas state champion Charleston contest and her career in show business began. Part of the prize for winning the state championship was a contract to tour the Interstate Circuit of theaters. Thinking it would be more professional to have a troupe, she and the two runners-up formed an act "Ginger Rogers and her Redheads" (Rogers was a redhead, then a blonde and for a brief time in the 1940s a brunette in her films) and toured Texas. The act was successful and continued for three years until her "Redheads" were hired away by a comedian and Ginger found herself on her own. She continued to tour the vaudeville circuit which took her all over the United States until at seventeen, she impulsively married an actor she'd had a crush on as a child. The marriage, as her mother predicted, didn't last long, and she resumed her career on stage in the Broadway musical Top Speed where she was noticed by the critics. Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic of the New York Times wrote that she "carried youth and humor to the point where they are completely charming." Walter Wanger and Adolph Zukor of Paramount offered her a seven year contract and she began appearing in films at Paramount's studios in Astoria, Long Island, which was convenient for Broadway actors (it was where the Marx Brothers made their earliest films). In one of her first films Young Man of Manhattan (1930) she played a flapper and spoke the line "Cigarette me, big boy" which became a national catchphrase for many years.
At the same time she was appearing in films at the Astoria Studios, Rogers got the starring role in George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy where she introduced "Embraceable You" and "But Not For Me" which have become classics. When Girl Crazy folded, Rogers went to Hollywood.
Ginger's earliest films were unremarkable until she made a splash in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She opens the film singing "We're in the Money" in pig-Latin, something she had done as a joke in rehearsals, but was ordered to sing it that way after Warner Bros. production chief Darryl F. Zanuck showed up on the set and loved it.
The year 1933 was very important for Ginger Rogers. She made ten films, including Rafter Romance, 42nd St., Sitting Pretty and Flying Down to Rio which paired her with Fred Astaire, who had been a star on the stage in London and Broadway - and who Ginger Rogers had briefly dated in New York. Now Astaire was married to socialite Phyllis Potter and the Astaire-Rogers relationship was strictly platonic. While not the stars of the film (they played supporting roles to Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond), their dance number "The Carioca" became a sensation. "Flying Down to Rio established RKO as a leader in musical film production throughout the 1930s. The film helped to rescue the studio from its financial straits and it gave a real boost to my movie career...While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of Flying Down to Rio and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential. Everyone was looking for appropriate properties for us."
They found it in The Gay Divorcee (1934). It was another smash hit and the "Fred and Ginger" franchise was born. The formula included the dapper Astaire, the beautiful Rogers, top notch character actors like Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton, and Helen Broderick, the choreography of Hermes Pan, and the music of composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. It was an unbeatable combination. The Astaire-Rogers films contained many songs now regarded as classics: "Night and Day," "Cheek to Cheek," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Change Partners." The films, Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936) - Rogers' own favorite of all her films, Shall We Dance? (1937), Carefree (1938), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) were light comedies that gave audiences a much needed escape after coming out of the economic disaster of The Great Depression and worrying about an impending war in Europe.
Although Astaire and Rogers made nine films together during the 1930s each made films apart. "Both Fred and I had been bombarding the head office with requests to do separate projects. There wasn't any antagonism on either his part or mine; we just wanted to grow in different directions and not be stereotyped." Rogers starred in comedies like Bachelor Mother (1939) with David Niven before she made the transition to serious actress - and Oscar® winner in Kitty Foyle (1940).
"I had been making films for almost ten years and the head men at RKO thought of me only in terms of musicals. I found no fault with that, except I just couldn't stand being typed or pigeonholed as only a singing and dancing girl. I wanted to extend my range. I hoped and prayed to be handed a serious role that would be both romantic and dramatic...The RKO front office knew absolutely nothing about me, and hadn't from the time I first came to them. No one had any idea about my theatrical background. Once, I talked to an assistant producer of an upcoming musical who told me, "We're looking for a girl who dances and still can read lines." He wasn't kidding! RKO didn't know what to do with me and dropped me into comedienne roles. Eventually, they gave me leading lady roles. I almost became confused as to whether I was a comedienne or a leading lady. So I become a dancing-leading lady-comedienne. I don't know how long I'd have continued in this vein had not producer David Hempstead sent me a copy of a best-seller recently purchased by RKO, Kitty Foyle by Christopher Morley." The high-class soap opera earned Ginger Rogers her only Academy Award® as Best Actress. And it proved to Hollywood that she was more than just a dancer.
During the 1940s Ginger Rogers made fifteen films - Roxie Hart (1942), The Major and the Minor (1942), Lady in the Dark (1944), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) and It Had to Be You (1947) among them. In 1949 she made her final film with Fred Astaire The Barkleys of Broadway. Made under the direction of Arthur Freed at MGM, with Rogers added at the last minute as a replacement for Judy Garland who was unable to continue the film, it was the only Technicolor film they ever made together.
Throughout the 1950s Ginger Rogers continued her film career with several films at 20th-Century-Fox, We're Not Married! (1952), Monkey Business (1952), Teenage Rebel (1956) and Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957). She also branched out into television with Producer's Showcase and The DuPont Show with June Allyson. Roles for an actress now in her fifties were few and by the mid 1960s Ginger Rogers was through with movies. "I made my last motion picture in March 1965 for Magna Pictures. Harlow, based on the life of actress Jean Harlow...I didn't know at the time that Harlow would be my last motion picture. I had been turning down scripts that were, in my opinion, too permissive in their dialogue and scenes. Hollywood was going in a whole different direction, one I didn't want to follow. I felt that the kind of films I made in my career were not the kind of films Hollywood was now interested in producing. I decided to look to my first love, the stage, to fulfill my acting needs."
Rogers' career had now come full circle. She made several appearances on stage in Bell, Book and Candle (1961), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1963), Hello, Dolly! (1965-1968) and for four years, her own stage review The Ginger Rogers Show (1974-1979). Her last stage appearance was in a 1984 production of Charley's Aunt.
After being in ill health for several years, Ginger Rogers passed away at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, on April 25, 1995. She is buried in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California, next to her beloved mother, Lela, and only a few yards away from Fred Astaire.
by Lorraine LoBianco
Sources:
Ginger: My Story by Ginger Rogers
The Internet Movie Database
www.GingerRogers.com (official site)
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made ten films together between 1933 and 1949 and created a screen partnership that has never been equaled. Yet both Astaire and Rogers made very successful films on their own and Rogers branched off into dramatic roles which would earn her an Academy Award® for Best Actress.
She was born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911 in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of William Eddins McMath and Lela Owens. Rogers later said that her mother knew she would be a dancer because "I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months." The McMath's marriage ended before Virginia was born and Eddins McMath twice kidnapped his daughter, but both times she was returned to her mother. She rarely saw her father afterwards and he died when she was eleven. As a small child, Virginia was given the nickname "Ginja" by her cousin who couldn't pronounce her name and it became Ginger, which she kept for the rest of her life.
Lela McMath had become a screenwriter in Hollywood and later New York where she brought her daughter to live with her. During World War I, Lela joined the Marines (one of the first women to do so), became a newspaper editor and married John Rogers whose last name Ginger took as her own, although she was never formally adopted. They settled in Fort Worth, Texas where Lela became a theater critic and her daughter fell in love with the stage and its performers. "Vaudeville was in its prime at that time, and most of the top acts on the Orpheum circuit also played the Interstate circuit. Stars like George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and his wife Sadie (later Mary), Eddie Foy and his five kids, George Jessel, Billy House, and Sophie Tucker appeared in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, and I met all of them. Because of Mother's position on the newspaper, she frequently invited the headliners over to our house for some homey atmosphere and a fried chicken dinner. One evening I did an imitation of Sophie Tucker singing "One of These Days." Sadie and Jack Benny were at the house that night and enjoyed my performance. Thereafter, whenever Jack and I were at the same party, he would goad me into doing my "imitation." He would laugh until he was almost on the floor!"
Ginger began acting in school plays (usually written by her mother) and began dancing. At fourteen she won the Texas state champion Charleston contest and her career in show business began. Part of the prize for winning the state championship was a contract to tour the Interstate Circuit of theaters. Thinking it would be more professional to have a troupe, she and the two runners-up formed an act "Ginger Rogers and her Redheads" (Rogers was a redhead, then a blonde and for a brief time in the 1940s a brunette in her films) and toured Texas. The act was successful and continued for three years until her "Redheads" were hired away by a comedian and Ginger found herself on her own. She continued to tour the vaudeville circuit which took her all over the United States until at seventeen, she impulsively married an actor she'd had a crush on as a child. The marriage, as her mother predicted, didn't last long, and she resumed her career on stage in the Broadway musical Top Speed where she was noticed by the critics. Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic of the New York Times wrote that she "carried youth and humor to the point where they are completely charming." Walter Wanger and Adolph Zukor of Paramount offered her a seven year contract and she began appearing in films at Paramount's studios in Astoria, Long Island, which was convenient for Broadway actors (it was where the Marx Brothers made their earliest films). In one of her first films Young Man of Manhattan (1930) she played a flapper and spoke the line "Cigarette me, big boy" which became a national catchphrase for many years.
At the same time she was appearing in films at the Astoria Studios, Rogers got the starring role in George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy where she introduced "Embraceable You" and "But Not For Me" which have become classics. When Girl Crazy folded, Rogers went to Hollywood.
Ginger's earliest films were unremarkable until she made a splash in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She opens the film singing "We're in the Money" in pig-Latin, something she had done as a joke in rehearsals, but was ordered to sing it that way after Warner Bros. production chief Darryl F. Zanuck showed up on the set and loved it.
The year 1933 was very important for Ginger Rogers. She made ten films, including Rafter Romance, 42nd St., Sitting Pretty and Flying Down to Rio which paired her with Fred Astaire, who had been a star on the stage in London and Broadway - and who Ginger Rogers had briefly dated in New York. Now Astaire was married to socialite Phyllis Potter and the Astaire-Rogers relationship was strictly platonic. While not the stars of the film (they played supporting roles to Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond), their dance number "The Carioca" became a sensation. "Flying Down to Rio established RKO as a leader in musical film production throughout the 1930s. The film helped to rescue the studio from its financial straits and it gave a real boost to my movie career...While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of Flying Down to Rio and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential. Everyone was looking for appropriate properties for us."
They found it in The Gay Divorcee (1934). It was another smash hit and the "Fred and Ginger" franchise was born. The formula included the dapper Astaire, the beautiful Rogers, top notch character actors like Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton, and Helen Broderick, the choreography of Hermes Pan, and the music of composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. It was an unbeatable combination. The Astaire-Rogers films contained many songs now regarded as classics: "Night and Day," "Cheek to Cheek," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Change Partners." The films, Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936) - Rogers' own favorite of all her films, Shall We Dance? (1937), Carefree (1938), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) were light comedies that gave audiences a much needed escape after coming out of the economic disaster of The Great Depression and worrying about an impending war in Europe.
Although Astaire and Rogers made nine films together during the 1930s each made films apart. "Both Fred and I had been bombarding the head office with requests to do separate projects. There wasn't any antagonism on either his part or mine; we just wanted to grow in different directions and not be stereotyped." Rogers starred in comedies like Bachelor Mother (1939) with David Niven before she made the transition to serious actress - and Oscar® winner in Kitty Foyle (1940).
"I had been making films for almost ten years and the head men at RKO thought of me only in terms of musicals. I found no fault with that, except I just couldn't stand being typed or pigeonholed as only a singing and dancing girl. I wanted to extend my range. I hoped and prayed to be handed a serious role that would be both romantic and dramatic...The RKO front office knew absolutely nothing about me, and hadn't from the time I first came to them. No one had any idea about my theatrical background. Once, I talked to an assistant producer of an upcoming musical who told me, "We're looking for a girl who dances and still can read lines." He wasn't kidding! RKO didn't know what to do with me and dropped me into comedienne roles. Eventually, they gave me leading lady roles. I almost became confused as to whether I was a comedienne or a leading lady. So I become a dancing-leading lady-comedienne. I don't know how long I'd have continued in this vein had not producer David Hempstead sent me a copy of a best-seller recently purchased by RKO, Kitty Foyle by Christopher Morley." The high-class soap opera earned Ginger Rogers her only Academy Award® as Best Actress. And it proved to Hollywood that she was more than just a dancer.
During the 1940s Ginger Rogers made fifteen films - Roxie Hart (1942), The Major and the Minor (1942), Lady in the Dark (1944), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) and It Had to Be You (1947) among them. In 1949 she made her final film with Fred Astaire The Barkleys of Broadway. Made under the direction of Arthur Freed at MGM, with Rogers added at the last minute as a replacement for Judy Garland who was unable to continue the film, it was the only Technicolor film they ever made together.
Throughout the 1950s Ginger Rogers continued her film career with several films at 20th-Century-Fox, We're Not Married! (1952), Monkey Business (1952), Teenage Rebel (1956) and Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957). She also branched out into television with Producer's Showcase and The DuPont Show with June Allyson. Roles for an actress now in her fifties were few and by the mid 1960s Ginger Rogers was through with movies. "I made my last motion picture in March 1965 for Magna Pictures. Harlow, based on the life of actress Jean Harlow...I didn't know at the time that Harlow would be my last motion picture. I had been turning down scripts that were, in my opinion, too permissive in their dialogue and scenes. Hollywood was going in a whole different direction, one I didn't want to follow. I felt that the kind of films I made in my career were not the kind of films Hollywood was now interested in producing. I decided to look to my first love, the stage, to fulfill my acting needs."
Rogers' career had now come full circle. She made several appearances on stage in Bell, Book and Candle (1961), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1963), Hello, Dolly! (1965-1968) and for four years, her own stage review The Ginger Rogers Show (1974-1979). Her last stage appearance was in a 1984 production of Charley's Aunt.
After being in ill health for several years, Ginger Rogers passed away at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, on April 25, 1995. She is buried in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California, next to her beloved mother, Lela, and only a few yards away from Fred Astaire.
by Lorraine LoBianco
Sources:
Ginger: My Story by Ginger Rogers
The Internet Movie Database
www.GingerRogers.com (official site)
Then in prime time, there are five films featuring character actor and all-around charmer Charles Coburn. Enjoy!
6:30 AM -- ANDY HARDY GETS SPRING FEVER (1939)
A teenage boy falls in love with his drama teacher.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker
BW-85 mins, CC,
The seventh of sixteen Andy Hardy films starring Mickey Rooney.
8:00 AM -- TENDER COMRADE (1943)
Lady welders pool their resources to share a house during World War II.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk Cast: Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey
BW-101 mins, CC,
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and director Edward Dmytryk were known for their left-wing political beliefs - they were among the infamous "Hollywood Ten" blacklisted during the McCarthy-era anti-Communist hysteria after the war - and Ginger Rogers, a staunch Republican, began noticing what she interpreted to be "anti-American" speeches in her dialog. Upon complaining, the speeches were given to other actresses.
10:00 AM -- THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE (1939)
True story of the dancing team who taught the world to two-step.
Dir: H. C. Potter Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver
BW-93 mins, CC,
Irene Castle criticized the casting of white actor Walter Brennan to portray her life-long companion and manservant Walter, who WAS Black. She also noted that she and her husband always toured with a Black orchestra, James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, not a white band. Studio executives overruled Castle's protests in order for the film to play in theatres throughout the Southern United States. Due to the film's factual errors and conservative depiction of the era, Castle disowned the film.
11:47 AM -- SO YOU WANT TO BE A SALESMAN (1947)
Joe McDoakes is starting a new job as a vacuum cleaner salesman but cannot seem to make any sales in this comedic short.
Dir: Richard Bare Cast: Charles Sullivan, Rose Plumer, George O'Hanlon
BW-10 mins,
12:00 PM -- THE FIRST TRAVELING SALESLADY (1956)
A corset designer takes a job selling barbed wire in the wild West.
Dir: Arthur Lubin Cast: Ginger Rogers, Barry Nelson, Carol Channing
C-92 mins, CC,
Ginger Rogers quipped that this movie shut down R.K.O. Radio Pictures (it was the last movie produced by that studio). This very slight Western comedy went unremarked upon by contemporary movie critics at The New York Times.
1:35 PM -- THE MERCHANDISE MART (1956)
This short documentary focuses on The Merchandise Mart, one of the largest buildings for the display and sale of wholesale goods.
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
BW-8 mins,
1:45 PM -- IN PERSON (1935)
A movie star runs off to the mountains for an incognito vacation.
Dir: William A. Seiter Cast: Ginger Rogers, George Brent, Alan Mowbray
BW-87 mins, CC,
Most critics agree that it is in this film that Ginger Rogers achieved solo movie stardom. Her studio, RKO, tried to insure this by not releasing any publicity stills of her with her buck-toothed, bespectacled, brunette persona.
3:30 PM -- STAR OF MIDNIGHT (1935)
A New York lawyer tries to track down a kidnapped actress.
Dir: Stephen Roberts Cast: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly
BW-90 mins, CC,
A consummate worker, Ginger Rogers started working on this film within a week of finishing the filming of Roberta (1935) with co-star Fred Astaire. Six days after this film finished shooting, she went to work on her next Astaire film, Top Hat (1935).
5:15 PM -- CHANCE AT HEAVEN (1934)
A society girl steals a simple gas station attendant from his working-class girlfriend.
Dir: William Seiter Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marion Nixon
BW-71 mins, CC,
One joke needs explanation. When Joel McCrea brings his bride to their new house, he says that it's all theirs: "No plaster!" She says, "Oh, that's all right, dear. We can have it put on later." In contemporary slang, a plaster was a mortgage.
6:30 PM -- BACHELOR MOTHER (1939)
A fun-loving shop girl is mistaken for the mother of a foundling.
Dir: Garson Kanin Cast: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn
BW-82 mins, CC,
Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Felix Jackson
After making this movie, David Niven returned to England to serve in the British Army during World War II. At the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, German infiltrators into American lines caused roadblocks to be established and military police asked all suspicious persons questions about things no German was likely to know. Lt. Col. David Niven was stopped at a roadblock and was asked who won the baseball World Series in 1940. He replied, "I haven't the faintest idea. But I do know that I made a picture with Ginger Rogers in 1938." The MP replied, "OK, beat it Dave. But watch your step, for Chrissake."
TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: CHARLES COBURN
8:00 PM -- THE MORE THE MERRIER (1943)
The World War II housing shortage brings three people together for an unlikely romance.
Dir: George Stevens Cast: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn
BW-104 mins, CC,
Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn
Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jean Arthur, Best Director -- George Stevens, Best Writing, Original Story -- Frank Ross and Robert Russell, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster, Frank Ross and Robert Russell, and Best Picture
Joel McCrea didn't originally think he was right for the part of Joe and thought Cary Grant would have been better suited. Ironically, Grant would appear in the remake, Walk Don't Run (1966), albeit in the Charles Coburn role.
10:00 PM -- LOUISA (1950)
To her family's discomfiture, grandmother Louisa starts dating two men...a grocer and her son's boss.
Dir: Alexander Hall Cast: Ronald Reagan, Charles Coburn, Ruth Hussey
BW-90 mins,
Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Leslie I. Carey
Edmund Gwenn's character claims to be 64 but we find out he's really 67. In reality, he was 73 years old when he made this film.
11:45 PM -- GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953)
Two singers work their way to Paris, enjoying the company of eligible men they meet along the way.
Dir: Howard Hawks Cast: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
C-91 mins, CC,
Much of the film's success was due to the distinctive sense of humor director Howard Hawks brought to the project, as well as a sharp and witty screenplay by Charles Lederer, who wisely bypassed much of the original stage script in favor of dialogue and situations tailored specifically to the strengths of Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe and Charles Coburn. Lederer also dramatically reimagined the character of Henry Spoffard III, originally written as Dorothy's love interest on stage and reconfigured as an eight-year-old boy on screen, played by George Winslow.
1:30 AM -- THE GREEN YEARS (1946)
An orphaned Irish boy is taken in by his mother's Scottish relations.
Dir: Victor Saville Cast: Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler
BW-125 mins, CC,
Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- George J. Folsey
Not only was Jessica Tandy two years older than Hume Cronyn who played her father, they had been married for four years (1942 to her death in 1994) and their second child Tandy Cronyn was born 26th November 1945, so she could have been carrying her during filming.
3:45 AM -- B.F.'S DAUGHTER (1948)
A professor doesn't know his wife is an heiress.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Charles Coburn
BW-108 mins, CC,
Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Irene
Van Heflin and Charles Coburn both previously appeared in another film version of a John P. Marquand novel - H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941).
5:36 AM -- THE MAGICIAN'S DAUGHTER (1938)
A magician's daughter falls in love with a reporter, but heartbreak ensues when the reporter's magazine runs a story exposing the magician's secret methods in this short film.
Dir: Felix E. Feist Cast: Eleanor Lynn, Frank Albertson, Maurice Cass
BW-18 mins,
Tommy Bond, in an uncredited role, was familiar to younger viewers across the country as bully Butch in the Our Gang comedies.
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
