Jean Arthur on Turner Classics

Jean Arthur is one of my all-time favorite performers. So, it’s great to see her listed as one of Turner Classic Movies‘ "Summer Under the Stars" stars. Jean Arthur Day will take place on Sunday, Aug. 30.
Jean Arthur was Columbia’s top star from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, when Rita Hayworth became the studio’s reigning queen and Arthur semi-retired from films. Her characters were cynical but idealistic, strong but vulnerable, independent-minded but deeply devoted to whoever her leading man might be. In other words, Jean Arthur was the Ideal Woman: complex, passionate, warm — and she had sparkling eyes only matched by her equally sparkling smile. (And there was that voice. It should have been trademarked.)
Of course, since [...]

Jean Arthur Month on TCM II

Jean Arthur on TCM: Part I
But I actually do like both You Can’t Take It with You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington despite Frank Capra’s overbearingly idealistic mindset and the presence of James Stewart as Arthur’s romantic interest. Stewart — seemingly most everyone’s idea of the perfect all-American Average Man — is my idea of the perfectly phony All-Hollywood Actor. (In the photo, Stewart hugs Arthur while Lionel Barrymore plays the harmonica in the madcap You Can’t Take It with You.)
Jean Arthur, however, shines in both Capra films (even though her role in Mr. Smith is subordinate to Stewart’s), and in The Whole Town’s Talking, in which she initially feels superior to and then [...]