TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 20: Star of the Month -- Acting Dynasties

[Staph]

My profound apologies! I'm late again. And tonight features two of my favorite acting families, the Fairbanks (Douglas Senior and Junior, but not Senior's second wife Mary Pickford or Junior's first wife Joan Crawford), and the Fondas (Henry, Jane, Peter, and Bridget in a crowd scene in Easy Rider). I hope you had the chance to see or record Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Love Affair (1939). Enjoy!



4:30am -- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Classic adventure about the sadistic Captain Bligh, who drove his men to revolt during a South Seas expedition.
Cast: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone.
Dir: Frank Lloyd.
BW-133 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Franchot Tone, Best Director -- Frank Lloyd, Best Film Editing -- Margaret Booth, Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of department) and score by Herbert Stothart, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings and Carey Wilson

The only film in Oscar history that had three nominees for Best Actor: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone. They all lost to Victor McLaglen for The Informer (1935), the only nominee not in this film.

Actor James Cagney was sailing his boat off of Catalina Island, California, and passed the area where the film's crew was shooting aboard the Bounty replica. Cagney called to director Frank Lloyd, an old friend, and said that he was on vacation and could use a couple of bucks, and asked if Lloyd had any work for him. Lloyd put him into a sailor's uniform, and Cagney spent the rest of the day playing a sailor aboard the Bounty. (I don't know if you can spot him!)


6:45am -- The Vampire Bat (1933)
Villagers suspect the town simpleton of being a vampire.
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas.
Dir: Frank R. Strayer.
BW-61 mins, TV-PG

Majestic Pictures cashed in on the success of Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, who had been a sensation in the Technicolor thriller Doctor X (1932) and had already completed Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was also being heavily promoted at the time. Majestic was able to get this film into theaters over a month before the release of the latter one.


8:00am -- Strange Justice (1932)
A crooked banker and his assistant devise a scheme to frame an ex-con for their crime.
Cast: Reginald Denny, Marian Marsh, Richard Bennett, Norman Foster
Dir: Victor Schertzinger
BW-64 mins, TV-G

A print of this film survives in the UCLA Film and Television archives.


9:15am -- Rafter Romance (1933)
A salesgirl falls for a night worker without realizing they share the same apartment.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, George Sidney.
Dir: William A. Seiter.
BW-73 mins, TV-G

Ellen Corby, as one of the telephone solicitors, can be seen among those gathering around Robert Benchley when he announces the "banquet", and again at the picnic as one of a trio of prize winners. She's the dark haired one with her back to the camera. She's better known to most of us as Grandma Walton.


10:30am -- The Cowboy Star (1936)
A cowboy movie star retires to Arizona to fight bad guys for real.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Iris Meredith, Wally Albright.
Dir: David Selman.
BW-56 mins, TV-G

Charles Starrett is best remembered for playing the character of the Durango Kid in more than 60 movies. The Durango Kid's real name changed from movie to movie, though it was usually Steve something. His horse was named Raider, although during the run of the Durango Kid series there were actually more than 30 horses used.


11:34am -- Short Film: From The Vaults: Movies Are Adventure (1949)
This short shows that the "magic seat" of a movie theater can transport the movie-goer to all types of adventures.
Cast: Edmund Cobb, Verna Kornman.
Dir: Jack Hively.
BW-10 mins

Edmund Fessenden Cobb was the grandson of Edmund Gibson Ross (1826-1907, Governor of the Territory of New Mexico and the Senator from Kansas credited by many as having cast the deciding vote in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson).


11:45am -- The Marshal of Mesa City (1939)
A retired lawman gets back into action to fight political corruption.
Cast: George O'Brien, Virginia Vale, Leon Ames.
Dir: David Howard.
BW-61 mins, TV-G

A remake of The Arizonian (1935) starring Richard Dix, Margot Grahame and Louis Calhern.


12:52pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: The Little Goldfish (1939)
Dir: Rudolf Ising.
C-8 mins

Rudy Ising worked for 60 years in animation, as an animator, director, producer and even an actor. He was twice nominated for Oscars, for Best Short Subject, Cartoons -- The Old Mill Pond (1936), shared with Hugh Harman, and for Best Short Subject, Cartoons -- The Calico Dragon (1935), shared with Hugh Harman.


1:00pm -- Maybe It's Love (1935)
A young couple suffers through in-law and employment problems.
Cast: Ross Alexander, Gloria Stuart, Frank McHugh.
Dir: William McGann.
BW-63 mins, TV-G

Gloria Stuart is probably best known today as the older Rose in Titanic (1997). She is the oldest person ever nominated for an Oscar and the only cast member of Titanic who was alive at the time of the actual disaster.


2:15pm -- Love Begins at Twenty (1936)
A henpecked husband tries to help his daughter marry the man she loves and his wife loathes.
Cast: Hugh Herbert, Warren Hull, Patricia Ellis.
Dir: Frank McDonald.
BW-58 mins, TV-G

The play originally opened in New York on 5 November 1929 and ran for 178 performances. Bette Davis (in her theatrical debut) and Donald Meek were in the cast.


3:15pm -- Living on Love (1937)
A man and woman working different shifts share the same apartment without realizing it.
Cast: James Dunn, Whitney Bourne, Joan Woodbury.
Dir: Lew Landers.
BW-62 mins, TV-G

Remake of Rafter Romance (1933).


4:30pm -- Love Affair (1939)
Near-tragic misunderstandings threaten a shipboard romance.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Irene Dunne, Maria Ouspenskaya.
Dir: Leo McCarey.
BW-86 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maria Ouspenskaya, Best Art Direction -- Van Nest Polglase and Alfred Herman, Best Music, Original Song -- Buddy G. DeSylva for the song "Wishing", Best Writing, Original Story -- Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey, and Best Picture.

Remade (very well remade!) as An Affair to Remember (1957) with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and remade (very badly) as Love Affair (1994) with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

After this movie was released, restaurants were suddenly bombarded with requests for pink champagne.


6:00pm -- Three Came Home (1950)
A woman fights to survive as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II.
Cast: Claudette Colbert, Sessue Hayakawa, Patric Knowles.
Dir: Jean Negulesco.
BW-105 mins, TV-14

It was while filming this movie that Claudette Colbert sustained the back injury that forced her to give up the part of Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950) to Bette Davis.


7:46pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: American And British War Heroes To Visit La. (1946)
BW-2 mins

I can't find any information about this -- I suspect it is news reel footage.


What's On Tonight: STAR OF THE MONTH: ACTING DYNASTIES


8:00pm -- A Modern Musketeer (1917)
A young man from Kansas is inspired by the legendary Three Musketeers.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Marjorie Daw, Kathleen Kirkham
Dir: Allan Dwan
BW-69 mins, TV-G

Only the first three reels have survived; apparently, the last two reels are lost.


9:26pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: A Tribute to the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital (1940)
The Will Rogers Memorial Hospital treats patients with tuberculosis and conducts research to find a cure.
Cast: Cary Grant.
BW-3 mins

A friend, and frequent critic, of several U.S. Presidents, Rogers once visited Warren G. Harding (1865-1923, President 1921-23) and said, "Morning, Mr. President! Would you like to hear the latest political jokes?" Harding replied, "You don't have to, Will. I appointed them."


9:30pm -- Gunga Din (1939)
Three British soldiers seek treasure during an uprising in India.
Cast: Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Victor McLaglen.
Dir: George Stevens.
BW-117 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph H. August

Gunga Din Was second only to Gone with the Wind (1939) as the biggest money-maker of 1939. Howard Hawks was the original director, but was fired from the project after his previous film, Bringing Up Baby (1938), was a box office bomb.


11:30pm -- Jezebel (1938)
A tempestuous Southern belle's willfulness threatens to destroy all who care for her.
Cast: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Fay Bainter.
Dir: William Wyler.
BW-104 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis (On 19 July 2001 Steven Spielberg purchased Davis' Oscar statuette at a Christie's auction and returned it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This was the second time in five years Spielberg did so to protect an Oscar from further commercial exploitation.), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Fay Bainter

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Ernest Haller, Best Music, Scoring -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

The "red dress" sequence was based on a real-life "white ball" in Hollywood, at which all the women dutifully appeared in white - except Mrs. MGM, Norma Shearer. Comment from another guest: "Who does Norma think she is? The house madam?"


1:19am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: The Man In The Barn (1937)
One in the MGM Historical Mystery Series, covering the supposed death of John Wilkes Booth.
Narrator: Carey Wilson.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur.
BW-10 mins

In 1903 a Mr. David E. George, while on his deathbed in Enid Oklahoma, claimed to be John Wilkes Booth. This film presents evidence of the possibility that Mr. George's claim was true.


1:30am -- Sunday In New York (1963)
A philandering pilot gets real moral, real fast when his sister contemplates a premarital fling.
Cast: Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor, Jane Fonda.
Dir: Peter Tewksbury.
C-105 mins, TV-PG

Peter Nero appears as himself, playing the title song "Sunday in New York", sung by Mel Tormé.


3:30am -- Easy Rider (1969)
A cross-country trip to sell drugs puts two hippie bikers on a collision course with small-town prejudices.
Cast: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson.
Dir: Dennis Hopper.
C-96 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Nicholson, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern

Peter Fonda wore the Capt. America jacket and rode his chopper a week around L.A. before shooting began to give them a broken-in look and to get used to riding the radically designed bike. The American flag on the back of the jacket and on the gas tank of the bike caused him to be pulled over several times by the police. Fonda's daughter Bridget appears briefly in a crowd scene. She was five years old at the time.


5:30am -- Festival of Shorts #7 (1998)
Two shorts from the beloved Dogville Comedies titled Hot Dog(1930) and College Hounds(1930).
Dir: Zion Myers and Jules White.
BW-33 mins, TV-G

The Dogville comedies were live-action shorts, with dogs dressed in costume and manipulated by wire to move. To simulate talking, the dogs were fed peanut butter. There were ten Dogville Comedies released by MGM between 1929 and 1931.

[Staph]

1. A Modern Musketeer (1917)

Before he became the quintessential swashbuckler -- in such films as The Three Musketeers (1921), The Mark of Zorro (1920) and The Black Pirate (1926) -- Douglas Fairbanks was a screen idol of a different stripe. During the 1910s, he was more of a homespun hero, a positive-thinking Horatio Alger character who conquered adversity through physical agility, pluck and wit.

Sort of a Will Rogers with muscles, Fairbanks poked fun at the modernized world, and proved that down-home resourcefulness was the key to romantic, financial, and social prosperity. He tried to maintain this persona off-screen as well. In 1917, he published a book entitled Laugh and Live, containing chapters such as "Energy, Success and Laughter," "Cleanliness of Body and Mind," and "Self-Education by Good Reading." The book was offered for sale in hardcover, as well as in a series of six "inspirational" pamphlets. This was followed, in 1918, by Making Life Worth While.

As much as the public loved Fairbanks as a little man with big dreams, the actor himself yearned to slip into larger-than-life roles. But letting go of the old Fairbanks was not so easy. In 1917, the actor found a way to play the European swordfighter without abandoning his "aw shucks" persona. He dipped his toe into deeper waters with the help of a story called "D'Artagnan of Kansas" by Eugene P. Lyle, Jr., published in Everybody's Magazine September, 1912.

The story, which would reach the screen as A Modern Musketeer on December 30, 1917, concerns a small-town man who is obsessed with the exploits of d'Artagnan, the protagonist of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. As rendered on screen, most of the story occurs in contemporary times. However, Fairbanks and director Allan Dwan indulged their interest in romantic swordplay by opening the film with an extended prologue set in 18th-century France. In it, d'Artagnan (Fairbanks) defends a maiden's honor and takes on a tavern full of miscreants in an agile display of fencing and acrobatics.

Fast-forward to 1917 and d'Artagnan is transformed into a clean-cut modern man, Ned Thacker (Fairbanks), who walks in his hero's footsteps and defends a woman's honor in a den of street thugs.

From birth, Thacker seems destined for a different kind of life. His mother (Edythe Chapman) reads The Three Musketeers during her pregnancy, and gives birth during a tornado, virtually sealing her child's fate as a feisty adventurer. Or, as one snappy intertitle explains: "2 + 2 = 4. Cyclone + D'Artagnan = Speed!!!" Just as d'Artagnan was sent out into the world on a knobby yellow steed by his father, Thacker is dispatched in a rattling jalopy and promptly mows down the neighbor's fence.

In these Kansas scenes, look quickly for a glimpse of Zasu Pitts in an uncredited role as a potential object of Thacker's affection.

On his cross-country trek, Thacker encounters Dorothy Dodge (Marjorie Daw), a "sweet unspoiled Park Avenue flapper" who is being wooed on a trans-continental auto tour by a slimy socialite, Forrest Vandeteer (Eugene Ormonde). Thacker helps the stranded motorists reach an inn in El Tovar by mounting his car on the railroad tracks and improvising a wagon for their luggage. In spite of his help, Thacker is shunned by Vandeteer and warned away from his fourth wife-to-be.

But Thacker isn't Vandeteer's only rival. A hot-blooded cliff-dwelling Navajo named Chin-de-dah (Frank Campeau) has a taste for white women. The last one who fell into his clutches is shown, in flashback, driving a knife into her own heart. As might be expected, Chin-de-dah makes off with the virginal Dorothy, and it is up to Thacker to rescue not only the fair maiden, but her bumbling would-be husband. He is assisted in his crusade by a social outcast (the wonderfully slimy Tully Marshall), who is harboring a dark secret about the influential Mr. Vandeteer.

At the time of the film's production, Fairbanks and "America's Sweetheart," actress Mary Pickford, had become romantically involved, in spite of the fact that both of these all-American icons were currently married to other people. According to Booton Herndon's 1977 book Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks: The Most Popular Couple the World Has Ever Known, Pickford's husband, actor Owen Moore, had threatened to kill Fairbanks, so Fairbanks thought it best to leave Los Angeles for a while, until Moore's temper cooled. Fairbanks booked a cross-country train ticket, gathered a stack of literary properties being considered for films, and headed to New York, accompanied by his half-brother John Fairbanks.

During his flight, Fairbanks learned that one of his favorite directors, Allan Dwan (who directed him in The Half-Breed in 1916, and would later helm Robin Hood <1922> and The Iron Mask <1929>) was also on a cross-country voyage, heading to L.A. from New York. Fairbanks wired Dwan to meet him halfway so they could ride back to Manhattan together and begin cooking up another project. Dwan gamely consented and it was on this impromptu rail journey that "D'Artagnan of Kansas" emerged from a pile of stories and began its evolution into A Modern Musketeer.

By October 27, 1917, a cast and crew had been assembled and was heading to Arizona, where location photography was set to commence. Ralph Hancock and Letitia Fairbanks report in their 1953 book Douglas Fairbanks: The Fourth Musketeer that Fairbanks, Dwan, and cinematographer Victor Fleming (who would later direct Fairbanks in The Mollycoddle <1920> before going on to make Gone with the Wind <1939>) engaged in a bit of perilous horseplay on their way into the desert. "Once they all climbed out a window of the train while it was speeding along, worked their way along the side by holding on to the narrow window ledges, and then peered into the Pullman windows. The passengers who saw three grinning heads staring at them through the windows of the speeding train were, to put it mildly, frightened out of their wits. Two women fainted. The conductor pulled the emergency cord, stopped the train, and gave the crazy trio hell."

Filming occurred at the Grand Canyon, as well as the cliff dwellings at the Canyon de Chelly. In one scene, Fairbanks demonstrates a bit of derring-do by vaulting into a handstand mere inches from the edge of a vast canyon. It makes for quite a thrilling scene, until one learns that the camera was carefully placed to conceal the fact that there was a lower ledge that would safely catch the actor should he miscalculate the stunt.

One reason Fairbanks's acrobatic feats are so amazing is that they seem so graceful and effortless. This was due to his physical finesse as well as the meticulous planning of his crew. In shooting one scene of A Modern Musketeer -- in which Thacker escapes from a band of thugs by trotting across a series of rooftops -- the phony houses were placed approximately six to eight feet apart for him to leap across. Booton writes, "When Doug saw the distances, he protested, 'I can jump farther than that!' Dwan, knowing that Doug could indeed jump twice that far, pointed out that the idea was not to set records, but to look good. It was Dwan who convinced Doug to accent the ease and grace of his screen actions by doing less than he was capable of, eliminating any appearance of strain in favor of smooth, flowing, effortless movement."

As another example, the prop department would routinely saw off the legs of tables to perfectly match Fairbanks's leaping abilities, so he could spring upon them almost casually.

While on location, the crew experienced at least one brush with Native American spiritualism. "They had set up camp under an overhanging cliff at the bottom of the Canyon de Chelly, but the resident Indians, who claimed the place was haunted, insisted that they go to the trouble of moving to the other side of the canyon," wrote Herndon, "That night, Dwan said, a huge portion of the cliff fell with a roar right where their tents had been."

For years, A Modern Musketeer existed only in an incomplete form, missing its final two reels. The lost footage was eventually rediscovered and the film was restored to its original length by the Danish Film Institute.

In the end, Fairbanks's experiment with a costumed hero was the most significant aspect of A Modern Musketeer. Its success gave him the confidence to venture further away from the small-town roles he embraced in the 1910s, and begin to take up the foil and feathered cap of more exotic protagonists. But no matter what the historic or geographic setting, Fairbanks made sure that his characters maintained the charming good nature and virtuous behavior that had become and would forever remain his personal trademark.

Director: Allan Dwan
Producer: Douglas Fairbanks
Screenplay: Allan Dwan
Based on the story "D'Artagnan of Kansas" by Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.
Cinematography: Victor Fleming
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks (Ned Thacker, d'Artagnan), Marjorie Daw (Dorothy Dodge), Frank Campeau (Chin-de-dah), Eugene Ormonde (Forrest Vandeteer), Tully Marshall (James Brown), Kathleen Kirkham (Mrs. Dodge), Edythe Chapman (Mrs. Thacker).
BW-66m.

NOTE: Douglas Fairbanks's book Laugh and Live can be downloaded free of charge through Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12887

by Bret Wood