Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #75 :: December 29 to January 4

Paramount Pictures

The end of December to the beginning of January is a sort of ‘no man’s land’ for new film releases. Most new titles have already gotten limited releases for awards consideration, so the movies coming out now are basically entering wide release into the new year. There are a few brand new titles, but in most cases the films this week were released prior to the official nationwide release dates. Still, there are some notable films this week that earned nominations and awards, and at least one silent film that would have most likely won an Oscar if the Oscars existed in 1922. This week also saw the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock — that was never completed, the first horror film to win an Oscar, the first use of the infamous ‘Wilhelm Scream’, the first Technicolor film for Bob Hope, and the first dramatic role for Steve Martin. Are any of your favorite films on this week’s list?

1921-1922

December 31 – Tol’able David

Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Gladys Hulette, Walter P. Lewis, Ernest Torrence, Ralph Yearsley, Forrest Robinson, Laurence Eddinger, Marion Abbott, Edmund Gurney, Warner Richmond, Patterson Dial, Henry Hallam
Director: Henry King
Production Company: Inspiration Pictures, distributed by Associated First National
Trivia: Based on the 1917 Joseph Hergesheimer short story of the same name. Filmed in Blue Grass, Virginia. Star Richard Barthelmess’ first time as producer, and the first film from his newly formed production company. Selected in 2007 for preservation in the National Film Registry. A portion of the third act of the 1959 horror film The Tingler takes place in a specialty theater during a showing of the film.

January – Number 13

Cast: Clare Greet, Ernest Thesiger
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Production Company: Gainsborough Pictures
Trivia: Also known as Mrs. Peabody. Only two reels of the film were completed. It remained unfinished and unreleased, and the footage may be lost. This was Hitchcock’s first shot at directing. Clare Greet helped finance the production and Hitchcock never forgot her generosity, casting her in six more of his films.

January 1 – Rent Free

Cast: Wallace Reid, Lila Lee, Henry A. Barrows, Gertrude Short, Lucien Littlefield, Lillian Leighton, Claire McDowell, Clarence Geldart
Director: Howard Higgin
Production Company: Famous Players-Lasky, distributed by Paramount Pictures
Trivia: The film is considered lost. This was Howard Higgin’s first time as director, and Wallace Reid’s final film.

1931-1932

January 2 – Emma

Cast: Marie Dressler, Richard Cromwell, Jean Hersholt, Myrna Loy, John Miljan, Purnell Pratt, Leila Bennett, Barbara Kent, Kathryn Crawford, George Meeker, Dale Fuller, Wilfred Noy, André Cheron
Director: Clarence Brown
Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Trivia: The film opened in London on January 19, 1932, but did not get a general UK release until July 4. Marie Dressler received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, which she had won the previous year for Min and Bill. Myrna Loy’s first film for MGM.

January 3 – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert, Halliwell Hobbes, Edgar Norton, Tempe Pigott
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Production Company: Paramount Pictures
Trivia: Adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The film began an early engagement in Los Angeles on December 24, 1931, then had an official premiere in New York City on December 31, followed by an opening in the city on January 2, 1932 with a nationwide release on January 3. It opened in London on February 11, 1932, but did not get a general UK release until September 19. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards — Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography — with Frederic March winning Best Actor (in a tie with Wallace Beery for The Champ), the first Oscar win for a horror movie. The film was made before the full enforcement of the notorious Production Code, and contains strong sexual content. A 1936 re-release had eight minutes cut according to Code standards, but the footage has been restored. To achieve the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde, makeup was applied in contrasting colors with matching colored filters used to gradually reveal the changes or make them invisible. This went undetected on the black-and-white film. Wally Westmore created the simian-like appliances. Paramount wanted John Barrymore to play the title roles, recreating his performance from the 1920 silent version but he was under contract to MGM. They gave the part to contract player March, who bore a resemblance to Barrymore. When MGM remade the film ten years later, the studio bought the rights to both previous versions and had every print that could be located destroyed. For decades this film was thought to have been lost. The very first film to be screened at the world’s very first film festival: August 6th, 1932 in Venice, Italy. Until 2009, it was the only horror film nominated for the Golden Lion at the festival.

January 4 – Detective Lloyd

Cast: Jack Lloyd, Muriel Angelus, Wallace Geoffrey, Lewis Dayton, Janice Adair, Tracy Holmes, Emily Fitzroy, Humberston Wright, Gibb McLaughlin, Earle Stanley, Cecil Musk, John Turnbull, Shayle Gardner, Vi Kaley, Harry Gunn, Frank Dane, Fewlass Llewelyn
Director: Henry MacRae, Ray Taylor
Production Company: Universal Pictures, General Films
Trivia: The film did not open in London until February 16, 1932, followed by a general UK release from April 18. Also known as Lloyd of the C.I.D. and In the Hands of the Hinfu. A 12-chapter movie serial co-produced between Universal Pictures and UK’s General Films, and filmed entirely in the UK. The only sound serial produced in the UK. Edited down into a film titled The Green Spot Mystery, it was shown on British and Swedish TV in the 1970s, but it is now considered lost. It is on the British Film Institute’s BFI 75 Most Wanted list of lost films.

1941-1942

December 31 – Babes on Broadway

Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Fay Bainter, Virginia Weidler, Ray McDonald, Richard Quine, Donald Meek, Alexander Woollcott, Luis Alberni, James Gleason, Emma Dunn, Frederick Burton, Cliff Clark, William Post Jr., Donna Reed, Will Lee, June Preston
Director: Busby Berkeley
Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Trivia: Vincente Minnelli directed Judy Garland’s big solo numbers. The movie ends with a minstrel show performed by the main cast in blackface. A comedy sequence featuring Garland and Rooney, ‘The Convict’s Return’, was filmed but deleted before release. Margaret O’Brien’s film debut.

December 31 – Louisiana Purchase

Cast: Bob Hope, Vera Zorina, Victor Moore, Irène Bordoni, Phyllis Ruth, Dona Drake, Raymond Walburn, Maxie Rosenbloom, Donald MacBride, Andrew Tombes, Robert Warwick, Charles La Torre, Charles Laskey, Emory Parnell, Iris Meredith, Catherine Craig, Jack Norton, Sam McDaniel, Frances Gifford, Brooks Benedict, Kay Aldridge, Karin Booth, Rebel Randall, Barbara Britton, Brooke Evans, Blanche Grady, Lynda Grey, Margaret Hayes, Louise LaPlanche, Barbara Slater, Eleanor Stewart, Jean Wallace
Director: Irving Cummings
Production Company: Paramount Pictures
Trivia: The film premiered on December 25, 1941. Adaptation of Irving Berlin’s 1940 Broadway musical of the same name. Bob Hope’s first feature film in Technicolor. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color, and Best Cinematography. Irène Bordoni and Vera Zorina both repeated their roles from the original Broadway stage version.

January 1 – They Died with Their Boots On

Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charley Grapewin, Gene Lockhart, Anthony Quinn, George P. Huntley Jr., Stanley Ridges, John Litel, Walter Hampden, Sydney Greenstreet, Regis Toomey, Hattie McDaniel, Minor Watson, Joseph Crehan
Director: Raoul Walsh
Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures
Trivia: The film premiered in New York City on November 20, 1941. Three stuntmen were killed during the production from a fall, a heart attack, and being impaled on a saber. Errol Flynn collapsed from exhaustion while filming. To fill the background with ‘Indians’, hundreds of Filipino extras were filmed while the 16 Sioux were used for the close-ups.

1951-1952

December 29 – Distant Drums

Cast: Gary Cooper, Richard Webb, Mari Aldon, Arthur Hunnicutt, Carl Harbaugh, Ray Teal, Robert Barrat
Director: Raoul Walsh
Production Company: United States Pictures, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Trivia: Premieres were held on December 22, 1951 in Los Angeles, California and St. Augustine, Florida. Contains the earliest known use of the Wilhelm Scream sound effect, voiced by cast member Sheb Wooley and originally used to vocalize a character being bitten by an alligator.

December 31 – Westward the Women

Cast: Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel, John McIntire, Hope Emerson, Julie Bishop, Lenore Lonergan, Henry Nakamura, Marilyn Erskine, Beverly Dennis, Renata Vanni
Director: William A. Wellman
Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Trivia: The film premiered in London on December 16, 1951. The actresses all had to learn how to drive a four horse team pulling a wagon.

January 2 – Indian Uprising

Cast: George Montgomery, Audrey Long, Carl Benton Reid, Eugene Iglesias, John Baer, Joe Sawyer, Robert Foster Dover, Eddie Waller, Douglas Kennedy, Robert Shayne, Miguel Inclán, Hugh Sanders
Director: Ray Nazarro
Production Company: Edward Small Productions, distributed by Columbia Pictures
Trivia: Filmed in Supercinecolor, a two-color motion picture process.

1961-1962

January – Solo for Sparrow

Cast: Anthony Newlands, Glyn Houston, Nadja Regin, Michael Coles, Allan Cuthbertson, Ken Wayne, Jack May, Murray Melvin, Peter Thomas, Michael Caine, Neil McCarthy, Susan Maryott, William Gaunt, Nancy O’Neil, Yvonne Buckingham, Bartlett Mullins, Wanda Ventham, Eric Dodson
Director: Gordon Flemyng
Production Company: Merton Park Studios, distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (U.K.)
Trivia: Based on The Gunner by Edgar Wallace. The exact UK release date is unknown. The film eventually opened in West Germany on August 9, 1963. While Michael Caine had been toiling as an actor since 1946, he was still not very well-known at the time of this film’s release. His breakthrough came two years later in Zulu, which led to Solo for Sparrow being released in the US in 1966 to capitalize on Caine’s newfound fame, placing his name above the title.

Toho

January 1 – Sanjuro

Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yūzō Kayama, Reiko Dan, Takashi Shimura, Kamatari Fujiwara, Takako Irie, Sachio Sakai, Masao Shimizu, Yūnosuke Itō
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Production Company: Toho, Kurosawa Production, distributed by Toho
Trivia: The film opened in Japan on January 1, 1962, then made its way to the US on May 7, 1963. Originally an adaptation of the Shūgorō Yamamoto novel Hibi Heian, the script was altered with the success of Kurosawa’s 1961 Yojimbo to incorporate the lead character of that film. While most of the sets were built in the studio or out in the lot, the shrine in the first scene was a real, unused shrine in Gotemba. Film composer Masaru Satô was only given one week to compose the film’s entire score. The film’s final duel was improvised and accomplished in a single take.

1971-1972

January 1 – J. W. Coop

Cast: Cliff Robertson, Geraldine Page, Cristina Ferrare, R. G. Armstrong, R. L. Armstrong, John Crawford, Wade Crosby, Marjorie Durant Dye, Paul Harper, Son Hooker, Richard Kennedy, Bruce Kirby, Larry Mahan
Director: Cliff Robertson
Production Company: Robertson and Associates, distributed by Columbia Pictures
Trivia: The film was screened at the Chicago International Film Festival in October 1971. The film opened in the UK on March 29, 1973. The film was made with the cooperation of the Rodeo Cowboys Association.

1981-1982

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

January 1 – Pennies from Heaven

Cast: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Harper, Vernel Bagneris, John McMartin, John Karlen, Jay Garner, Robert Fitc, Tommy Rall, Eliska Krupka, Christopher Walken, Raleigh Bond, Nancy Parsons, Duke Stroud, Will Hare
Director: Herbert Ross
Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, distributed by United Artists
Trivia: Film adaptation of a BBC miniseries. MGM required writer Dennis Potter to buy back the rights from BBC and then forbid the miniseries from being broadcast for a decade. Dennis Potter received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, which he rewrote 13 times. The film was also nominated for Bob Mackie’s costume design and Best Sound. The film also received three Golden Globe nominations for Picture, Actor and Actress, with Bernadette Peters winning in her category. Steve Martin’s first dramatic role. Martin trained for six months to learn the art of tap dancing. Christopher Walken’s bar-top dance scene took two months of rehearsal and two days of shooting.

1991-1992

No new films were released this week in 1991-1992.

2001-2002

January 4 – A Beautiful Mind

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, Jason Gray-Stanford, Judd Hirsch, Austin Pendleton, Vivien Cardone, Killian, Christian, and Daniel Coffinet-Crean
Director: Ron Howard
Production Company: Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, distributed by Universal Pictures (North America), DreamWorks Pictures (International)
Trivia: The film’s Beverly Hills premiere was held on December 13, 2001. The film entered limited release in the US on December 21 for awards consideration deadlines, and opened in limited release in Canada on December 25. The film went into wide release in Canada and the US on January 4, 2002. The film did not open in the UK until February 22. Inspired by the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1997 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning four including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominated for six BAFTAs, winning two for Best Actor and Supporting Actress. Nominated for six Golden Globes, winning four: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Screenplay, Best Actor – Drama, Best Supporting Actress. About 90% of the film was shot chronologically. Bryce Dallas Howard and Seth Gabel have uncredited cameos.

Touchstone Pictures

January 4 – The Royal Tenenbaums

Cast: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Danny Glover, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Grant Rosenmeyer, Jonah Meyerson, Stephen Lea Sheppard, Kumar Pallana, Seymour Cassel, Aram Aslanian-Persico, Amedeo Turturro, Irene Gorovaia
Director: Wes Anderson
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, American Empirical Pictures, distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Trivia: The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 5, 2001, then in Hollywood on December 6. The film went into limited release in the US for awards consideration on December 14, and in Canada on December 28. The film went into wide release in the US on January 4, 2002. The film’s UK premiere was held on February 27, 2002, and the general release began on March 15. Gene Hackman won a Golden Globe for his performance. The part of Royal was written specifically for him, but he nearly turned it down and Michael Caine was considered. Hackman’s agent persuaded him to take the role. With Hackman cast, it was easier to bring on other big names. Hackman was difficult on set, verbally bullying Anderson to the point that Anjelica Huston and Gwyneth Paltrow would avoid him on set, and Bill Murray would come in on his days off to watch over Anderson while working with Hackman. The film was Oscar nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Wes Anderson drew inspiration for his story from Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart, The Fire Within, The Magnificent Ambersons, the novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, and the film Les Enfants Terribles. Throughout the movie, everyone wears the same clothing (or some variation of the same clothing).