Early talkies on TCM: Rudy Vallee in The Vagabond Lover, in addition to Tanned Legs and Spring Is Here
In the United States, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will be showing three early talkies:
The musical The Vagabond Lover, starring the Elvis Presley of the late 1920s – in terms of popularity, that is – Rudy Vallee (if Elvis suffered from paralysis, he would have sung the way Vallee did). Also in the cast, future Academy Award-winning box office superstar Marie Dressler, and Loretta Young’s sister, Sally Blane.
The director, Marshall Neilan, guided Mary Pickford in numerous silent films, and was one of the top Hollywood directors of the 1910s and 1920s. Neilan’s alcoholism, short temper, and animosity toward MGM honcho Louis B. Mayer helped derail his career.
The Vagabond Lover will be followed by another early talkie directed by Neilan, Tanned Legs. This little-seen comedy also stars Blane, along with June Clyde and Arthur Lake, best-known for playing Dagwood Bumstead to Penny Singleton’s Blondie in the popular B-comedy series at Columbia in the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s.
The equally rare Spring Is Here will follow suit. This 1930 musical stars Bernice Claire – a Broadway import and potential Jeanette MacDonald who didn’t make it, as musicals quickly became box office poison at the beginning of the 1930s.
Also in the cast, silent film comedians Ford Sterling and Louise Fazenda, the wife of producer Hal B. Wallis. Four years after making Spring Is Here, director John Francis Dillon died of a heart attack at age 49.
Schedule for Wed., Oct. 11 (EDT):
7:45 AM The Vagabond Lover (1929)
Director: Marshall Neilan.
Cast: Rudy Vallee, Sally Blane, Marie Dressler.
65m9:00 AM Tanned Legs (1929)
Director: Marshall Neilan.
Cast: June Clyde, Arthur Lake, Sally Blane, Ann Pennington, Dorothy Revier, Nella Walker, Albert Gran.
66m10:15 AM Spring Is Here (1930)
Director: John Francis Dillon.
Cast: Bernice Claire, Alexander Gray, Lawrence Gray, Ford Sterling, Louise Fazenda, Frank Albertson, Inez Courtney, Natalie Moorhead.
68m