Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg with Ramon Novarro as the title character.
Norma Shearer on TCM: ‘Summer Under the Stars’ honoree
Norma Shearer may not be a household name today, but back in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s all the way to the early 1940s, Shearer’s star shone brighter than most.
Turner Classic Movies is dedicating Thursday, Aug. 12, to the actress then known as MGM’s First Lady – who would have turned 108 on Aug. 10. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, TCM will be presenting thirteen of the actress’ films, in addition to Hugh Munro Neely’s 2003 documentary Complicated Women, inspired by Mick LaSalle’s book of the same name and in which Shearer is extensively featured. (See Norma Shearer schedule further below.)
Now, Norma Shearer may take some getting used to. Her acting style may come across as coy and mannered to those unaccustomed to silent movies. Shearer, after all, went through nearly a decade appearing in dozens of silents before her transition to the more naturalistic style of talking pictures.
Among the TCM showings, my favorite Norma Shearer performances are those found in Lady of the Night (1925), in which she plays two roles (right/wrong side of the tracks); Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), looking fresh and lovely as the barmaid Kathy, enamored of Ramon Novarro’s equally flawless monarch-to-be; and W.S. Van Dyke’s Marie Antoinette (1938), in which, as the movie progresses, Shearer’s affected girlish mannerisms are replaced by a mature, darker demeanor that is unique in the actress’ career. The queen’s last scene, in which we get to see Shearer’s face devoid of make-up, is unforgettable.
Robert Morley’s Louis XVI is just as remarkable, but Tyrone Power’s fictionalized hero is totally out of place.
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Directed by George Cukor, Romeo and Juliet could well be the finest, most cinematic big-screen transfer of a Shakespeare play. (Although more prestigious, Laurence Olivier’s Oscar-pedigreed Henry V and Hamlet are more theatrical and harder to sit through.) Norma Shearer, then 36, is surprisingly believable as the teenage Juliet, albeit Leslie Howard, then 43, isn’t quite as convincing as Romeo.
Idiot’s Delight (1939)
In Clarence Brown’s political-romantic comedy-drama Idiot’s Delight, Norma Shearer does a spot-on Greta Garbo impersonation, thus rendering costar Clark Gable – second billed but with the bigger role – all but invisible.
She also holds her own as the betrayed wife in Robert Z. Leonard’s post-marital drama The Divorcee (1930), which won her the Best Actress Academy Award for the period 1929–1930.
In the 1930s, Shearer received more Oscar nominationss than any other performer. Her other nominations were for Their Own Desire (1929 – nominated the same year as The Divorcee), A Free Soul (1931), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Romeo and Juliet, and Marie Antoinette.
MGM, currently facing bankruptcy, isn’t what it used to be. The studio’s former Queen, however, remains as alluring as ever. Give her a try on Thursday.
Note: Norma Shearer can be briefly spotted – as Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street – in this montage featuring actresses from the 1920s to the 1950s, among them Jean Arthur, Patricia Neal, Teresa Wright, Laraine Day, Gail Russell, and Janet Gaynor.
Aug. 24 update
Starring Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, and Herbert Marshall, the melodrama Riptide (1934); a remastered version of None But the Lonely Heart (1944), which earned Cary Grant his second and last Best Actor Academy Award nomination and veteran stage player Ethel Barrymore her only Oscar; and the biopic Song of Love (1947), starring Katharine Hepburn (as Clara Wieck), Paul Henreid (as Robert Schumann), and Robert Walker (as Johannes Brahms) are among the seven latest additions to the Warner Archives’ DVDs.
The other four movies are:
- Between Two Worlds (1944), the worlds being those of the living and the dead, with John Garfield, Paul Henreid, and Eleanor Parker.
- John Ford’s Flesh (1932), with Wallace Beery, Ricardo Cortez, and Karen Morley.
- The film noir Crack-Up (1946), with Pat O’Brien and Claire Trevor.
- The Conquerors (1932), RKO’s attempt to repeat the success of its Oscar-winning Cimarron, starring the earlier film’s leading man, Richard Dix, and Ann Harding.
Norma Shearer TCM schedule (EDT)
6:00 AM Lady of the Night (1924)
Director: Monta Bell.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Malcolm McGregor, George K. Arthur, Dale Fuller, Gwen Lee, Joan Crawford.
61m7:15 AM A Lady of Chance (1928)
Director: Robert Z. Leonard.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Johnny Mack Brown, Lowell Sherman, Gwen Lee.
78m8:45 AM Their Own Desire (1929)
Director: E. Mason Hopper.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone.
65m10:00 AM Complicated Women (2003)
Director: Hugh Munro Neely.
Narrator: Jane Fonda.
55m11:00 AM The Divorcee (1930)
Director: Robert Z. Leonard.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery, Florence Eldridge, Judith Wood, Mary Doran, Robert Elliott.
82m12:30 PM The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
Director: Sidney Franklin.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan, Katharine Alexander, Ralph Forbes, Una O’Connor, Leo G. Carroll.
109m2:30 PM Riptide (1934)
Director: Edmund Goulding.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall.
92m4:15 PM Escape (1940)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova.
98m6:00 PM Idiot’s Delight (1939)
Director: Clarence Brown.
Cast: Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Edward Arnold, Burgess Meredith, Virginia Grey.
110m8:00 PM The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch.
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt.
106m10:00 PM Private Lives (1931)
Director: Sidney Franklin.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel.
84m11:30 PM Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, Edna May Oliver, Ralph Forbes, Reginald Denny, Conway Tearle, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Warwick, Violet Kemble Cooper.
125m1:45 AM Marie Antoinette (1938)
Director: W.S. Van Dyke.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut, Gladys George, Henry Stephenson, Cora Witherspoon, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Alma Kruger, Albert Dekker.
157m4:30 AM Strangers May Kiss (1931)
Director: George Fitzmaurice.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Neil Hamilton, Irene Rich.
81m
notes
Norma Shearer movie schedule via the TCM website.