Claude Rains on TCM: CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, JUAREZ

Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse

Turner Classic Movies will be showing eight movies featuring Claude Rains, TCM’s Star of the Month of September, beginning at 5PM Pacific Time.
Of those, I’ve seen only three:
Juarez (1939) could have been a good historical biopic, but things go wrong from the start thanks to the miscasting of Paul Muni as Benito Juárez. Even Bette Davis, who plays the mad Empress Carlotta von Hapsburg, would have been more believable as Mexico’s first full-blooded American Indian to be elected president. William Dieterle was also the wrong man to direct Juarez, as Dieterle’s hand tended to be quite heavy when dealing with real-life subjects, e.g., The Life of Emile Zola, The Story of [...]

by Andre Soares | September 16, 2009
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Tags: Anthony Adverse, Caesar and Cleopatra, Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard, Juarez, Passage to Marseille, Turner Classic Movies, Vivien Leigh, William Dieterle

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 [...]

by Andre Soares | August 14, 2009
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Tags: Classic Movies, Duel in the Sun, Indiscretion of an American Wife, Jennifer Jones, Portrait of Jennie, Summer Under the Stars, TCM, Turner Classic Movies, We Were Strangers, William Dieterle

Best Films – 1935

Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable in China Seas
FILM
Alice Adams
d: George Stevens; scr: Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner
China Seas
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Jules Furthman, James K. McGuinness
The Gay Deception
d: William Wyler; scr: Stephen Avery, Don Hartman
A Tale of Two Cities
d: Jack Conway; scr: W. P. Lipscomb, S. N. Behrman
The Whole Town’s Talking
d: John Ford; scr: Jo Swerling, Robert Riskin

Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones in A Night at the Opera
CHECK THESE OUT
Broadway Melody of 1936
d: Roy Del Ruth; scr: Jack McGowan, Sid Silvers
Lives of a Bengal Lancer
d: Henry Hathaway; scr: Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
d: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle; scr: Charles Kenyon, Mary C. McCall Jr.
A Night at the Opera
d: Sam [...]

by Andre Soares | April 3, 2009
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Tags: A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Night at the Opera, A Tale of Two Cities, Alice Adams, Alison Skipworth, Amphitryon, Anna Karenina, Becky Sharp, Best Films, Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Chester Lyons, China Seas, Classic Movies, David Copperfield, Dorothy Yost, Edna May Oliver, Edward G. Robinson, Ernestine Schuman-Heink, Ernst Toch, Frances Dee, Genevieve Tobin, George Stevens, Ginger Rogers, Glenda Farrell, Gold Diggers of 1935, Gregg Toland, Greta Garbo, Hal Mohr, Hattie McDaniel, Henry Hathaway, Herbert Marshall, Herbert Stothart, Here's to Romance, If You Could Only Cook, Jack Conway, James K. McGuinness, Jean Arthur, Jo Swerling, John Ford, Jules Furthman, Katharine Hepburn, Les Miserables, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Mad Love, Max Reinhardt, May Robson, Miriam Hopkins, Oliver T. Marsh, Peter Ibbetson, Peter Lorre, Ramon Novarro, Rendezvous, Robert Donat, Robert Riskin, Ronald Colman, Rosalind Russell, S. N. Behrman, Sam Wood, Tay Garnett, The Gay Deception, The Night Is Young, The Whole Town's Talking, W. P. Lipscomb, William Dieterle, William H. Daniels, William Wyler

Best Films – 1932

Boris Karloff, Gloria Stuart in The Old Dark House
FILM
Beauty and the Boss
d: Roy del Ruth; scr: Joseph Jackson
Blessed Event
d: Roy del Ruth; scr: Howard J. Green
Jewel Robbery
d: William Dieterle; scr: Erwin S. Gelsey
The Most Dangerous Game / The Hounds of Zaroff
d: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel; scr: James Ashmore Creelman
The Old Dark House
d: James Whale; scr: Ben W. Levy, R.C. Sheriff
One Way Passage
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Wilson Mizner, Joseph Jackson

Tod Browning and cast on the Freaks set
CHECK THESE OUT
The Animal Kingdom
d: Edward H. Griffith; scr: Horace Jackson
Freaks
d: Tod Browning; scr: Al Boasberg, Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, Edgar Allan Woolf
Rain
d: Lewis Milestone; scr: Maxwell Anderson
The Hatchet Man
d: William A. Wellman; scr: J. Grubb Alexander
Trouble in Paradise
d: Ernst Lubitsch; [...]

by Andre Soares | April 3, 2009
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Tags: Beauty and the Boss, Best Films, Blessed Event, Charles Laughton, Charpin, Classic Movies, Claudette Colbert, Ernst Lubitsch, Fanny, Freaks, Guy Kibbee, Howard J. Green, James Whale, Jewel Robbery, Joseph Jackson, Kay Francis, Leslie Banks, Melvyn Douglas, One Way Passage, Que Viva Mexico!, Raimu, Roy Del Ruth, Tay Garnett, The Hatchet Man, The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Most Dangerous Game, The Old Dark House, The Sign of the Cross, Tod Browning, Trouble in Paradise, Warren William, William Dieterle, William Powell

Best Films – 1945

Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter
FILM
Blithe Spirit
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward
Boule de suif / Angel and Sinner
d: Christian-Jaque; scr: Henri Jeanson
Brief Encounter
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame
Dead of Night
d: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer; scr: John Baines, Angus MacPhail
Les Enfants du paradis / Children of Paradise
d: Marcel Carné; scr: Jacques Prévert
Leave Her to Heaven
d: John M. Stahl; scr: Jo Swerling
Love Letters
d: William Dieterle; scr: Ayn Rand
Mildred Pierce
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Ranald McDougall, Catherine Turney
A Royal Scandal
d: Otto Preminger; scr: Edwin Justus Mayer
State Fair
d: Walter Lang; scr: Paul Green, Oscar Hammerstein II, Sonya Levien
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
d: Elia Kazan; scr: Tess Slesinger, Frank [...]