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Claire Bloom on TCM

Claire Bloom, Julie Harris in The Haunting. Photo: Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.

Claire Bloom, one of the most talented and stunning-looking actresses of her generation, will have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Monday, Aug. 31.
Handpicked by Charles Chaplin to be her young leading lady in the 1952 melodrama Limelight, the British-born Claire Bloom developed into a fantastic actress; one who should have become an international film superstar. That never happened, perhaps because Bloom was more enamored of the stage (A Streetcar Named Desire, The Cherry Orchard, A Doll’s House) than she was of film, and wasn’t as discerning in her film choices as she should have been.
I knew of her, but was mostly unfamiliar with her work [...]

Claire Bloom TCM Schedule

Claire Bloom on Turner Classic Movies

Claire Bloom, Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Claire Bloom on TCM
Pacific Time
31 Monday
3:00 AM Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm, The (1962)
Fanciful biography of the German fairy-tale collectors, with reenactments of three of their stories. Cast: Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Barbara Eden. Dir: Henry Levin, George Pal. C-136 mins.
5:30 AM Outrage, The (1964)
A Mexican bandit’s crimes receive wildly different interpretations from four witnesses. Cast: Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson. Dir: Martin Ritt. BW-96 mins.
7:30 AM Brothers Karamazov, The (1958)
In this adaptation of the Dostoevsky classic, four brothers fight to adjust to the death of their domineering father. Cast: Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, [...]

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 [...]

Peter Sellers on TCM

Peter Sellers in Lolita. Photo: Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.

Peter Sellers will have his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Saturday, Aug. 29.
Turner Classic Movies will present thirteen Peter Sellers vehicles, including two TCM premieres, John Guillermin’s Waltz of the Toreadors and Robert Day’s Two-Way Stretch.
First of all, I must admit that I’m not that familiar with Sellers’ film career. Among the few of his films I’ve seen are a couple of the Pink Panther flicks — neither of which was very good — in addition to his two Oscar-nominated performances in Dr. Strangelove and Being There. So, this Peter Sellers Day on TCM will be a good opportunity for myself — and others — to become better [...]

Frank Sinatra on TCM

Bobby-soxer-turned-blue-haired-matron idol Frank Sinatra will have his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Friday, Aug. 28.
Turner Classic Movies will show twelve of the actor-singer films, the best of which is On the Town, a zesty musical about three sailors and their three girls (four, if you include Alice Pearce) spending a day together in New York City. The three guys — Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Jules Munshin (above) — are all likable and fine, but it’s the female quartet that does it for me: in addition to Pearce, there’s Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett, and Ann Miller. In my view, those women are the ones who should have been the superstars of Hollywood musicals of the ’40s and ’50s. Anyhow, Kelly [...]

Ida Lupino on TCM

Ida Lupino, one of the top Warner Bros. stars of the ’40s, will have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Thursday, Aug. 27.
More than a second-rank Bette Davis but less than a truly great talent, Ida Lupino — whether at her best or at her worst — was invariably interesting. Yet, I can’t say that I’m an inveterate Ida Lupino admirer. My problem with the likes of Lupino, Anne Baxter, Susan Hayward, and, oftentimes, Bette Davis is that when they emoted, they ***EMOTED*** — in caps, italics, bold, and with asterisks all around it. Just in case you didn’t get that their characters were going through some really rough times.
That said, what makes those actresses interesting — as [...]

Yul Brynner on TCM

Yul Brynner’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Inevitably, The King and I (1956), the movie that earned Brynner an Academy Award and turned him into a major international star, is included in Turner Classic Movies‘ Yul Brynner Day line-up. Brynner is great in it and so is Deborah Kerr as the Englishwoman who teaches the King of Siam how to dance, but the movie itself, directed by Fox stalwart Walter Lang, takes quite a bit to get going. In fact, I prefer the more modest 1946 non-musical, Anna and the King of Siam, with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison — even though Brynner is much more believable (and funnier) than Harrison.
The other Yul Brynner-Deborah Kerr pairing, The [...]

Merle Oberon on TCM

Merle Oberon, who’ll have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Tuesday, Aug. 25, is one of those actresses I’d say unjustly suffered (and continue to suffer) from the Marion Davies Syndrome.
As I wrote in my Jennifer Jones on TCM post, I believe that many film critics and historians dismiss actresses such as Marion Davies (whose film career was a direct result of her relationship with William Randolph Hearst), Norma Shearer (MGM’s second-in-command Irving Thalberg), and Jennifer Jones (producer David O. Selznick) because they had powerful backers.
The fact that Davies and Jones could quite possibly have become even bigger stars had their sponsors been less controlling and more discerning, and that Shearer would probably have reached superstardom [...]

Fredric March on TCM

Carole Lombard, Fredric March in a Nothing Sacred publicity shot.

Fredric March has his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Monday, Aug. 24.
Turner Classic Movies will present 13 Fredric March films, including the TCM premiere of Richard Boleslawski’s Academy Award-nominated Les Miserables (1935), a handsome — if dramatically stale — adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel that pits March’s bread-thief Jean Valjean against Charles Laughton’s law-enforcing sociopath Inspector Javert.
Among the other Fredric March must-sees that day are:
Produced by David O. Selznick, William Wellman’s 1937 version of A Star Is Born features Janet Gaynor the actress doing a delicious impersonation of Janet Gaynor the persona, here named Esther Blodgett (and later renamed Vicki Lester), an ambitious but [...]

Angela Lansbury on TCM

Angela Lansbury’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Sunday, Aug. 23.
Thanks to the popular TV series Murder She Wrote, Angela Lansbury became a bigger star in the last two decades than she ever was during her heyday as an MGM contract player in the 1940s, supporting (or antagonizing) the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Ironically, most people today probably know who Angela Lansbury is, while names such as Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, and Greer Garson — three of MGM’s top stars of that era — have dimmed (at least) somewhat.
Turner Classic Movies‘ Angela Lansbury Day will offer only one TCM premiere: A Lawless Street (1955), a minor Joseph H. Lewis Western starring Randolph Scott. [...]

Sterling Hayden on TCM

Sterling Hayden’s "Summer Under the Stars" Day will take place on Saturday, Aug. 22.
Now, Sterling Hayden is an interesting choice for the Turner Classic Movies series. Like previous TCM "Summer Under the Stars" honoree Gloria Grahame, Hayden — though tall, blond, and handsome — was never a major Hollywood personality or a top box-office attraction. And despite his presence in several important and still well-known films — The Asphalt Jungle, Johnny Guitar, Dr. Strangelove, The Godfather — he’s hardly a recognizable name today. And that’s why TCM’s decision to dedicate a day to him is so welcome. I mean, let’s take a break from Judy Garland…
Sterling Hayden Day will offer no less than five TCM premieres, of [...]

Gene Hackman on TCM

Gene Hackman’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Friday, Aug. 21.
Turner Classic Movies will present 11 films featuring or starring two-time Academy Award-winner Gene Hackman (The French Connection and, in the supporting category, Unforgiven), whom some consider one of the best American actors of the last four decades.
I can’t say that I agree with that assessment, though throughout his long career Hackman has delivered some truly remarkable performances. My personal favorite is his paranoid surveillance expert in writer-director Francis Ford Coppola’s intriguing The Conversation (top photo, 1974), which is part of TCM’s Hackman line-up.
This Academy Award-nominated and Palme d’Or-winning drama, released not long after the Watergate scandal (though made before the shady events became public knowledge), [...]

Miriam Hopkins on TCM

An early photo of Miriam Hopkins. Photos in this article: courtesy of Allan Ellenberger

Miriam Hopkins, one of the most underrated performers of the studio era, will have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Thursday, Aug. 20.
Turner Classic Movies will present fourteen Miriam Hopkins films, including one TCM premiere — the Samuel Goldwyn production of Barbary Coast — and three of Hopkins’ saucy pre-Code vehicles made at Paramount.
Although there are no Hopkins rarities in the program — TCM must lease the Universal library, which contains both the Universal and Paramount classics — it’s great to have a day dedicated to an actress who, no matter how good, has been usually dismissed because of her (alleged) off-screen behavior.
As I’ve [...]

Red Skelton on TCM

Ann Rutherford, Red Skelton, Virginia Grey in Whistling in the Dark. Photo: Courtesy Turner Classic Movies

Red Skelton’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Wednesday, Aug. 19.
Turner Classic Movies will show fifteen Red Skelton films, most of which I’ve never seen. With perhaps one or two exceptions, they’ve been on TCM a number of times — there are no premieres in the list — but Skelton, for some inexplicable reason, remains one of the few stars of the ’40s that I don’t know very well. (In fact, I’m totally unfamiliar with his television work.)
That’s strange, I admit, as I actually find him more likable (though not necessarily funnier) than the majority of film comedians then or now, and his [...]

John Wayne on TCM

John Wayne in The Alamo. Photo: Courtesy Turner Classic Movies.

It’s John Wayne day on Tuesday, Aug. 18, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" series.
One of the most popular film stars ever, John Wayne was almost invariably John Wayne (or the screen version of himself) no matter who or what he played. But then again, the same can be said of Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and other well-respected actors of the studio era. I’m not quite sure why Wayne is generally regarded as less of an actor than those other performers, but perhaps one explanation is that Westerns and war movies aren’t perceived as settings for a real actor, and Wayne made his [...]

Jennifer Jones on TCM

Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones in Portrait of Jennie. Photo: Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.

Jennifer Jones‘ "Summer Under the Stars" day on Turner Classic Movies is Monday, Aug. 17.
A very popular actress in the 1940s and 1950s, Jennifer Jones isn’t as well remembered today as she should be. After all, she won an Oscar in 1943 for her performance as Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette, and starred in three of the biggest box-office hits of the ’40s — the aforementioned The Song of Bernadette, Since You Went Away, and Duel in the Sun — and two major hits of the 1950s, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing and A Farewell to Arms.
So, why isn’t she better remembered? Lack of good [...]

Elvis Presley on TCM

Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas. Photo: Courtesy Turner Classic Movies.

I can only think of one Elvis Presley song I like: "Can’t Help Falling in Love." I don’t know if he sings it in any of his films.
In other words, Turner Classic Movies‘ "Summer Under the Stars" day dedicated to Elvis Presley isn’t exactly my cup of Hawaiian punch. But for all those Elvis fans out there, TCM’s Sunday, Aug. 16, programming is a whole tastier smorgasbord, I’m sure.
I’ve seen a handful of the movies listed below and they all look and sound the same to me. The leading ladies, however, do vary, even if I can’t quite figure out why they bothered since Elvis’ gals were [...]

Deborah Kerr on TCM

Deborah Kerr’s day in the Turner Classic Movies"Summer Under the Stars" series will feature two TCM premieres: The Day Will Dawn / The Avengers, a British-made 1942 spy drama, and Leo McCarey’s An Affair to Remember (1957), one of Kerr’s best-known films.
I haven’t seen The Day Will Dawn, but An Affair to Remember is an effective romantic comedy-drama, with both Kerr and Cary Grant in top form as the couple who fail to meet as near to heaven as possible, but who go on loving one another, anyways.
As I’ve said before in this blog, Deborah Kerr is one of my favorite dozen or so actors. Her performances, however cool and composed on the surface, always carry within them [...]

Sidney Poitier on TCM

Sidney Poitier’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Friday, Aug. 14.
Turner Classic Movies will have no Sidney Poitier premieres, but fans of the groundbreaking actor will have the opportunity to catch him in some of his most important roles.
Poitier’s acting always looked and sounded like Acting (capital "A") to me, while the characters he played tended to be much too stolidly dignified for my taste. Had I been Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner I’d have told my daughter to go find herself someone — whatever the skin color — less one-dimensionally perfect. And that’s why I’ve never been a Sidney Poitier fan. Yet, Poitier’s crucial role in film history is undeniable. Therefore, those unfamiliar with [...]

Gloria Grahame on TCM

Gloria Grahame is Turner Classic Movies‘ star of the day on Thursday, Aug. 13.
TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" series continues with an offbeat choice, for Gloria Grahame was hardly what one would call a top star or one who fit the mold of your usual Hollywood personality of that era, whether on or off screen.
In films, Grahame usually came across as vulgar, sleazy, and untrustworthy — and I mean that as a compliment; in my book, shady movie characters have almost invariably been much more interesting than clean-cut movie heroes. Off-screen she could be just as interesting: for instance, footage from the 1954 A Star Is Born premiere shows the actress clearly intoxicated (and not [...]

Clark Gable on TCM

Clark Gable has his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Wednesday, Aug. 12.
Turner Classic Movies will present thirteen of the actor’s films, all of which have been shown before. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what a rare Clark Gable movie would be, unless one includes the pre-1931 films in which Gable was an extra. Else, I believe that just about every single one of those films in which he starred or had supporting roles have been shown either on TCM or elsewhere a number of times — something that’s quite unusual.
Now, the King of Hollywood would never have risen to the throne had I had any say in the matter, but I didn’t. Lots [...]

Audrey Hepburn on TCM

Audrey Hepburn has her "Summer Under the Stars" day today, Tuesday, Aug. 11, on Turner Classic Movies.
All of the Hepburn vehicles have been shown before on TCM; even so, there are two premieres in the schedule: Laughter in Paradise and The Secret People, two British productions in which Hepburn has small roles. (Actually, she has a mere bit part in Laughter in Paradise.) The former is a comedy with a first-rate cast that includes Alastair Sim and Fay Compton; the latter is a thriller starring the capable Valentina Cortese and Serge Reggiani.
As for the actual Hepburn vehicles, all of them are worth checking out because, well, Audrey Hepburn is in them. Now, to be honest, I don’t think [...]

Cary Grant on TCM

Cary Grant, Myrna Loy in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (top); Cary Grant, Gail Patrick, Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott in My Favorite Wife

Cary Grant will have his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Sunday, Aug. 9.
Turner Classic Movies will not present any Cary Grant rarities or little-seen films, which is unfortunate, but if Cary Grant is in it, no matter what it may be, it will be worth a look. Or perhaps even a second (or third or fourth or fifth…) look as well.
One look is more than enough for the dreary Irving Reis-directed comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), which happened to be one of the biggest box-office hits of the year and the Oscar winner [...]

Bette Davis on TCM

No rare Bette Davis flicks on her Turner Classic Movies‘ "Summer Under the Stars" day, Saturday, Aug. 8.
That’s too bad, as TCM now has access to Columbia’s film library. They could have unearthed Davis’ early Columbia flick The Menace (1931), which isn’t very good, but it’s rare and it’s Bette Davis. Also, there’s the little-seen, Columbia-distributed, political drama Storm Center (1956), in which Davis co-stars with Kim Hunter, who happened to be blacklisted during the anti-Red hysteria of the 1950s. Well, maybe later in the year…
I can’t say I’m a huge Bette Davis fan, but I do like watching her. In fact, I find several of her performances to be among the best ever committed to [...]

Glenn Ford on TCM

Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford in Gilda

Glenn Ford will have his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Friday, Aug. 7.
The Turner Classic Movies Glenn Ford marathon will include three TCM premieres: Convicted Woman, Mr. Soft Touch, and A Time for Killing. The first one sounds like a B flick that may be quite enjoyable (hey, it revolves around women behind bars); the one in the middle is directed by Gordon Douglas, which is almost invariably a good sign; and the third one is a wild card: it could be a forgotten gem; it could be the sort of dreary star vehicle that ruined Ford’s film career at about that time.
Now, I must admit that I haven’t seen most of the [...]

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