Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera
Born on this date: James Finlayson in 1887; Helen Gibson in 1892; Roger Pryor in 1901; Johnny Eck in 1911; Martha Raye in 1916; and George Montgomery in 1916.
All links lead to each actor's IMDb page, set to open in a new tab.
Classic Movie Daily subscribers will find images of Martha Raye and George Montgomery at the bottom of today's issue, which also includes a shot of today's featured TCM star, Monty Woolley. Also inside today is a Monty Woolley clippings post and a new lightning review.
TCM TV Alerts through tomorrow at 7 am:
These titles play on TCM's US schedule and all quoted times are for my own local Eastern time zone.
—Thursday, TCM Summer Under the Stars, Monty Woolley day (TCM.com link).
It's almost an all 1930s and '40s schedule for Monty Woolley and his collection of irascible supporting characters, so I'm just going to type out the full schedule for you, including the stars this time, since that's not usually Woolley's role, with relevant links to my archives included along the way. Here you go:
6:00 am - Live, Love and Learn (1937) starring Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell
7:30 am - Everybody Sing (1938) starring Allan Jones, Judy Garland, Fanny Brice
9:15 am - Three Comrades (1938) starring Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young
11:00 am - Lord Jeff (1938) starring Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney, and Charles Coburn. I was sure I had reviewed this, but I was wrong, sorry about that. Anyway, highly recommended for fans of Freddie Bartholomew. There are 2 or 3 new paragraphs about it in the revised eBook edition of my Freddie biography, though that version will cost you 99¢
12:30 pm - Young Dr. Kildare (1938) starring Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore in the first entry of the series
2:00 pm - Dancing Co-Ed (1939) starring Lana Turner and Richard Carlson
3:30 pm - Night and Day (1946) starring Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, with a better-than-usual supporting role for Woolley, who plays himself. One of my earliest attempts at a review, posted in 2009. I read it over on Wednesday afternoon, and it wasn't too bad. Similar in style to the current "Lightning Reviews." Of course, I barely remember the movie, but I seemed to find it okay to middling back then.
6:00 pm - Kismet (1955) starring Howard Keel, Ann Blyth
8:00 pm - Holy Matrimony (1943) starring Woolley and Gracie Fields
9:45 pm - Molly and Me (1945) starring the same pair, Woolley and Fields
11:45 pm - The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) starring Woolley in his best role, with Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, and Richard Travis. Hopefully, it will give you an excuse to revisit my Grant Mitchell biography, as he's got a great part in this too.
1:45 am - The Bishop's Wife (1947) starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven. Sorry, I'm too close-minded to watch this outside of December.
3:45 am - The Girl of the Golden West (1938) starring Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, and Walter Pidgeon
—Friday's Summer Under the Stars spends 24 hours with Ingrid Bergman (TCM.com link) beginning with the excellent 1941 adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, also starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner, at 6:00 am.
Cliff's Note
—New Lightning Review today (and these are becoming redefined to the point where I may just drop the "Lightning" tag soon) covering unsung pre-Code gangster title Bad Company (1931), which reunited director Tay Garnett with two of his stars from Her Man (1930), Ricardo Cortez and Helen Twelvetrees. I watched this one again this week to finalize its entry in my Twelvetrees book, where I discuss it primarily from her perspective. Well, this is really Ricardo Cortez' movie, so there was plenty left to talk about on the site in today's new review, here.
—There are four pretty good-to-excellent Warner Archive new releases featuring Kay Francis just out: I Found Stella Parish (1935); The White Angel (1936); Confession (1937); and The Feminine Touch (1941). Confession is one of Kay's best movies, if you can only go for one, that'd be where I point you. I suspect The Feminine Touch will do the best of these, as it's a witty romantic comedy starring Rosalind Russell and Don Ameche. Kay was miscast as Florence Nightingale in The White Angel, and contemporary reviews weren't kind, but I didn't have any problems with this historical drama when I caught up to it a couple of years ago. If there's a clunker in this group it's Stella Parish (of course, the one I've reviewed), but it's far from terrible. As always, the Warner Archive releases are manufactured-on-demand DVD-Rs.
—Of today's birthday bunch, I've developed a special interest in Roger Pryor, who was kind of a big deal for his first couple of years in Hollywood. Love him as the lead in wild musical Moonlight and Pretzels (1933), though he's probably best known as Mae West's leading man in Belle of the Nineties (1934). I talked a little about Pryor and his background in a couple of paragraphs towards the middle of my review of Lady by Choice (1934) where, yes, he was Carole Lombard's leading man. See what I mean, kind of big.
—My 10-50% sale continues in my eBay Store through the end of the month. I'll also continue to plug it here until that time.
Have a great day,
Cliff
Above: Roger Pryor in Bullets for O'Hara (1941).
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