TCM’s Ronald Colman day includes some of his most important silents and talkies, among them Kiki and A Tale of Two Cities
Ronald Colman is Turner Classic Movies “Summer Under the Stars” performer on Thursday, August 4. One of the finest film actors ever, at ease in both heavy drama and light comedy, Ronald Colman will have his extensive career represented by 13 films. Among those are three TCM premieres: the silent comedies Kiki (1926) and Her Night of Romance (1924), and the 1931 romantic drama The Unholy Garden. (See Ronald Colman Movie Schedule further below.)
Kiki is notable as one of Drama Queen Norma Talmadge’s relatively rare comedy forays. Though all but forgotten today, Talmadge was one of the top two or three movie stars of the 1920s, starring in a series of melodramas that gave her the chance both to suffer for love and to wear some really fancy gowns. Women loved her. And I’m assuming many men loved her as well. In fact, had the Academy been founded a few years earlier, I find it impossible to believe that Talmadge would not have taken home at least one Best Actress statuette home. The woman exuded prestige.
Norma’s light-hearted sister, Constance Talmadge, is Colman’s costar in Sidney Franklin’s Her Night of Romance. The couple apparently worked so well together they were reunited the following year in Franklin’s delightful Her Sister from Paris, later remade as Two-Faced Woman – which is notable as Greta Garbo’s last movie.
Also on Thursday, you can spot Colman as the leading man of another silent era female superstar, Lillian Gish. The movie in question is The White Sister, about a woman who becomes a nun after learning that her lover has died in the war. But has he? Henry King, later one of 20th Century Fox’s most reliable filmmakers, directed.
Fay Wray and Estelle Taylor are Colman’s leading women in The Unholy Garden, directed by solid craftsman George Fitzmaurice. The story revolves around a gentleman thief and the woman he loves, which is kind of similar to the plot of Raffles (1930), in which Colman romances Kay Francis – another classy actress who, much like Norma Talmadge, enjoyed suffering in mink.
TCM will also be presenting four movies featuring Colman at his dramatic best:
- As Sidney Carton in Jack Conway’s outstanding film version of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1935), doing everything in his power to protect lovely Elizabeth Allan.
- In a double role as an Englishman abroad and his look-alike Central European king in John Cromwell’s rousing The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), a more effective rendition of the Ruritanian drama of love and intrigue than the 1922 version directed by Rex Ingram. Madeleine Carroll – so beautiful she doesn’t seem human – Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (perhaps the best performance of his career) and Mary Astor are also in the cast.
- As one of several plane passengers who find themselves stranded in Shangri-La, a paradisiac city atop the Himalayas in Frank Capra’s memorable Lost Horizon (1937). Jane Wyatt is Colman’s love interest.
- And as an amnesiac who finds love twice, both times with Greer Garson, in Mervyn LeRoy’s superb romantic melodrama Random Harvest (1942). I find it interesting that Now, Voyager and Casablanca, both released that same year, are much better remembered than Random Harvest. For my money, the Colman-Garson pairing – honest, mature, selfless, warmly passionate – is infinitely more moving than those of Bette Davis–Paul Henreid and Humphrey Bogart–Ingrid Bergman.
One sensational Colman performance is unfortunately missing from the TCM line-up. That’s his “method” stage actor who takes the role of Othello a little too seriously in George Cukor’s A Double Life (1947). I wonder if some of the screenwriters involved in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan were inspired by that movie. In any case, much like Natalie Portman, Colman won a well-deserved Academy Award for his psychotic, self-destructive efforts.
Ronald Colman TCM schedule (EDT)
6:00 AM LUCKY PARTNERS (1940)
Director: Lewis Milestone.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Ginger Rogers, Jack Carson.
99m7:45 AM MY LIFE WITH CAROLINE (1941)
Director: Lewis Milestone.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Anna Lee, Charles Winninger, Reginald Gardiner, Gilbert Roland.
81m9:15 AM THE WHITE SISTER (1923)
Director: Henry King.
Cast: Lillian Gish, Ronald Colman, Gail Kane.
135m11:30 AM KIKI (1926)
Director: Clarence Brown.
Cast: Norma Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Gertrude Astor.
97m1:30 PM RAFFLES (1930)
Director: Harry d’Abbadie D’Arrast.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, Bramwell Fletcher.
71m2:45 PM THE UNHOLY GARDEN (1931)
Director: George Fitzmaurice.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Fay Wray, Estelle Taylor, Warren Hymer.
75m4:15 PM ARROWSMITH (1931)
Director: John Ford.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett, Myrna Loy.
99m6:15 PM THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937)
Director: John Cromwell.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, David Niven.
101m8:00 PM A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935)
Director: Jack Conway.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone, Blanche Yurka, Donald Woods, Lucille La Verne.
126m10:15 PM RANDOM HARVEST (1942)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters, Henry Travers, Reginald Owen, Margaret Wycherly, Bramwell Fletcher, Melville Cooper, Ann Richards, Una O’Connor, Jill Esmond.
127m12:30 AM HER NIGHT OF ROMANCE (1924)
Director: Sidney A. Franklin.
Cast: Constance Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Jean Hersholt.
85m2:00 AM LOST HORIZON (1937)
Director: Frank Capra.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, Sam Jaffe, Isabel Jewell, Margo.
133m4:15 AM THE STORY OF MANKIND (1957)
Director: Irwin Allen.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Vincent Price, Hedy Lamarr, Virginia Mayo, Agnes Moorehead, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Peter Lorre, Cesar Romero, Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke, Marie Wilson, Helmut Dantine, Edward Everett Horton, Marie Windsor, Dennis Hopper, John Carradine, Reginald Gardiner, Franklin Pangborn, Cathy O’Donnell, Francis X. Bushman, George E. Stone, Melville Cooper, Henry Daniell, Anthony Dexter, Jim Ameche, Bobby Watson.
100m
“Ronald Colman on TCM” notes
Ronald Colman movie schedule via the TCM website.