Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #224 :: November 7•13

Syncopy

You can tell we’re moving into the holiday/awards season, at least in the latter part of the century, with some pretty major titles hitting the big screen this week. There are some films of note in the earlier part of the century as well, such as the very first screen adaptation in 1924 of a then four-year-old novel that has become a literary classic. 1934 saw one producer flirt with a new Technicolor process for the first time, and 1944 brought a famous vampire back to life although with a slightly different name. 1954 teamed Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon for the second time that year, 1964 went back to the beach, and 1974 brought a popular children’s novel to life. 1984 saw the screen debuts of several now well-known actors, all in the same movie. 1994 brought more literary vampires to life, and found a replacement for Old Saint Nick. 2004 produced a groundbreaking animated holiday film, and 2014 brought Marvel characters to animated life, and saw Christopher Nolan venture to the edges of the universe. Scroll down to see the films that made their debuts this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1924

• November 8 – Virtue’s Revolt (USA, William Steiner)
• November 9 – Broken Laws (USA, Thomas H. Ince Corporation)
• November 9 – Daughters of the Night (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
• November 9 – Reckless Romance (USA, Christie Film Company)
• November 9 – The Beloved Brute (USA, Vitagraph Company of America)
• November 9 – The Rose of Paris (USA, Universal Pictures)
• November 10 – Along Came Ruth (USA, Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation)
• November 10 – How McDougall Topped the Score (AUS, Pacific Screen Plays)
• November 10 – The Age of Innocence (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
• November 10 – Wages of Virtue (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)

How McDougall Topped the Score has no known US theatrical release date.

Lost films: Daughters of the Night, Along Came Ruth, The Age of Innocence, Wages of Virtue.

Broken Laws producer Dorothy Davenport appears in the film billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid. A print of the film exists in the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique.

A complete copy of Reckless Romance is located at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Beloved Brute is based on the 1923 novel of the same name by Kenneth Perkins. This was British actor Victor Mclaglen’s first American film.

The Rose of Paris is based on the 1922 novel Mitsi by Ethel M. Dell. A complete print is maintained in the George Eastman Museum Motion Picture Collection.

Along Came Ruth is based on Holman Francis Day’s play of the same name, itself based on the play La Demoiselle de magasin by Belgians Frantz Fonson and Fernand Wicheler.

How McDougall Topped the Score is based on the poem by Thomas Edward Spencer.

The Age of Innocence was the first film adaptation of the 1920 novel of the same name. Studio head Jack Warner sold the rights to all pre-December 1949 films to Associated Artists Productions, resulting in the film not being preserved by Warner Bros.

Wages of Virtue is based on a novel by Percival Christopher Wren. The film was shot on extremely flammable nitrate film. One copy ignited while be screened at a theatre in Finland on October 23, 1927, resulting in 40 casualties, the deadliest movie theater fire in Finland ever.

1934

• November 8 – The Prescott Kid (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• November 9 – By Your Leave (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)
• November 9 – Evelyn Prentice (USA, Cosmopolitan Productions)
• November 9 – Flirtation (USA, Salient Pictures)
• November 10 – House of Danger (USA, Peerless Pictures)
• November 10 – I’ll Fix It (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• November 10 – Kid Millions (USA, The Samuel Goldwyn Company)
• November 10 – The St. Louis Kid (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
• November 12 – Danny Boy (UK, Oswald Mitchell Films)
• November 12 – The Perfect Flaw (UK, Fox Film Company)

Danny Boy and The Perfect Flaw have no known US theatrical release dates.

The Prescott Kid was based on a short story, ‘Wolves of Catclaw’, by Claude Rister which had appeared in the November 1933 issue of Rangeland Love Magazine.

By Your Leave was based on a play of the same name by Gladys Hurlbut and Emma B. C. Wells. The film marked the debuts of Broadway actors Glenn Anders and Gene Lockhart. Lockhart would go on to have a lengthy Hollywood career.

Evelyn Prentice, based on the 1933 novel of the same name by W. E. Woodward, marks the film debut of Rosalind Russell. The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy, and was produced between their starring vehicle The Thin Man and its first sequel.

A print of I’ll Fix It is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.

The ‘Ice Cream Fantasy Finale’ of Kid Millions was Goldwyn’s first attempt at film with three-strip Technicolor. The cast of Our Gang appears among the children in this sequence. Among the Goldwyn Girls in the film are Lucille Ball, Paulette Goddard and Barbara Pepper.

1944

Columbia Pictures

• November 7 – Irish Eyes Are Smiling (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
• November 7 – Sheriff of Sundown (USA, Republic Pictures)
• November 9 – Cyclone Prairie Rangers (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• November 9 – Dead or Alive (USA, Alexander-Stern Productions)
• November 9 – Sergeant Mike (USA, Columbia Pictures)
• November 10 – Dead Man’s Eyes (USA, Universal Pictures)
• November 10 – End of the Road (USA, Republic Pictures)
• November 10 – Enemy of Women (USA, W.R. Frank Productions)
• November 11 – Bluebeard (USA, Producers Releasing Corporation)
• November 11 – I Won’t Play (USA, short, Warner Bros. Pictures)
• November 11 – The Return of the Vampire (USA, Columbia Pictures)

Irish Eyes Are Smiling was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1944. Dead Man’s Eyes is the second installment in The Inner Sanctume Mysteries anthology film series, based on the popular radio show of the same name.

Bluebeard is based on the famous French tale Barbe bleue. The film has fallen into the public domain. I Won’t Play won the Oscar for Best Short SUbject (Two-Reel) at the 17th Academy Awards.

The Return of the Vampire is not an official sequel to Dracula, but is interpreted as such with the vampire, played by Bela Lugosi, renamed Armand Tesla because the film was not produced by Universal. This was the last film for which Lugosi would receive top billing in a major Hollywood studio film.

1954

• November 7 – Target Earth (USA, Abtcon Pictures)
• November 9 – The Divided Heart (UK, Ealing Studios)
• November 10 – Drum Beat (USA, Jaguar Productions)
• November 10 – Phffft (USA, Columbia Pictures)

The Divided Heart was released in the US on August 11, 1955.

Target Earth is based on the Paul W. Fairman novel Deadly City. Actor Robert Roark was given a role because his father was a large investor in the film. Even though a ‘robot army’ is mentioned several times during the film, only one robot was constructed for the production, which was then used in all scenes to depict the invasion. Steve Calvert, who played the robot, was a bartender at Ciro’s on the Sunset Strip when he wasn’t appearing in B-movies.

The Divided Heart was nominated for six BAFTAs, and won three including Best British Actress (Yvonne Mitchell) and Best Foreign Actress (Cornell Borchers). Drum Beat was the first film for star Alan Ladd’s production company, Jaguar Productions.

Phffft was the second film in 1954 to star Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon, after It Should Happen to You. The script was based on a play by George Axelrod, which he cancelled on the eve of production. Columbia initially approached Axelrod to adapt his play The Seven Year Itch, but film rights were unavailable as long as the play was running on Broadway so he offered the studio Phffft instead. Lemmon left the set during production as his wife was giving birth to their son Chris. Holliday received a BAFTA nomination for Best Foreign Actress.

1964

• November 8 – Fate Is the Hunter (USA, Arcola Pictures)
• November 8 – The Inheritance (USA, documentary, Harold Mayer Production)
• November 10 – Stage to Thunder Rock (USA, A.C. Lyles Productions)
• November 11 – Pajama Party (USA, Alta Vista Productions)
• November 11 – Roustabout (USA, Wallis-Hazen)
• November 12 – Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili (Italy, Films Régent)
• November 12 – The Young Lovers (USA, limited, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Fate Is the Hunter first opened in West Germany on October 16, 1964. Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili has no known US theatrical release date, but is known in English as Samson and the Mighty Challenge.

Fate Is the Hunter is based on the novel of the same name by Ernest K. Gann. Gann was so disappointed with the film he asked to have his name removed from the credits, which deprived him of residuals from frequent TV broadcasts. Jane Russell appears as herself in a flashback sequence. Dorothy Malone makes an uncredited appearance. The film features an early score by Jerry Goldsmith. The aircraft used in the film was cobbled together from two DC-7(B) donors as no airframe manufacturer or airline was willing to be involved with the film due to its aviation disaster storyline. The ‘Fate’ aircraft in the film was later used in an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography.

The Inheritance was produced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Amalgamated Clothing Workers.

Pajama Party was the fourth in the series of ‘Beach Party’ movies starring Annette Funicello, although the film has not always been considered part of the series. Funicello’s character name is Connie instead of Dee Dee, and Frankie Avalon appears as a Martian, but only the back of his head is seen until the final moments. The film does tie to the others with the return of Eric von Zipper and his Rat Pack, and Candy Johnson as Candy for the fourth time. Teri Garr and Toni Basil appear as Pajama Girls. This was the only film in the series in which Donna Loren has a speaking role. The film’s story seems to be based on a play written by animator Joseph Barbera titled The Maid and the Martian, although no one associated with that production receives credit. Funicello even recorded a song with the same title for her Pajama Party album, leading many to conclude the film and play are one and the same. This is one of only two films in the series not directed by William Asher. Syndicated columnist and game show panelist Dorothy Kilgallen has a cameo in the film, and her son Kerry Kollmar has a recurring role as a little boy who declares disgustedly ‘Mush!’ whenever he spies romance in action. This was the only film for 1963 Miss Colorado Cheryl Sweeten. It was the first AIP film for Buster Keaton and Tommy Kirk, and the last film to feature Dorothy Lamour in a musical appearance. The film features prominent product placement of Dr. Pepper and the new Ford Mustang.

Roustabout‘s screenplay was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Written American Musical. Uncredited actors include Billy Barty, Teri Garr, Richard Kiel, Kent McCord and Raquel Welch. The film’s soundtrack was one of Elvis Presley’s most successful, reaching Number 1 on the Billboard Album Chart.

Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili (Samson and the Mighty Challenge) was re-released in 1993 as a comedy titled Hercules Returns, with the original dialogue over-dubbed by Australian actors and the addition of a number of newly filmed extra scenes.

The Young Lovers was the only film directed by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. The film was based on the 1955 novel of the same name by Julian Halevy (pen name of blacklisted screenwriter Julian Zimet), which had initially been optioned for a Broadway play but no stage production resulted.

1974

Walt Disney Pictures

• November 7 – Persecution (UK, Tyburn Film Productions Limited)
• November 7 – The Little Prince (USA, Paramount Pictures)
• November 10 – Lenny (USA, Walt Disney Pictures)
• November 13 – The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (USA, Sunn Classic Pictures)
• November 13 – The Trial of Billy Jack (USA, Taylor-Laughlin Productions)

Persecution was released in the US in October 1975 as Sheba and The Terror of Sheba, and was released on VHS in the 1980s as The Graveyard. Star Lana Turner called the film a bomb and listed it as one of her worst performances.

The Little Prince was based on the 1943 classic children-adult’s novella, Le Petit Prince, by the writer, poet and aviator Count Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The musical features music and lyrics by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, their last musical. Lerner also wrote the screenplay. The film was produced and directed by Stanley Donen. The film features appearanced by Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder, Donna McKechnie and Joss Ackland. Fosse’s dance sequence, including a variation on the moonwalk, and costuming in the film is believed to have been a major influence on Michael Jackson’s costume and choreography in the Billie Jean video.

Lenny, directed by Bob Fosse, is based on Julian Barry’s play of the same name. The film earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Dustin Hoffman) and Actress (Valerine Perrine), three BAFTA nominations and one win for Perrine (Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles), and three Golden Globe nominations for Actor, Actress and Director in the Drama category.

The popularity of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams led to an NBC TV series of the same name.

The Trial of Billy Jack is the third film in the Billy Jack series. It has a running time of nearly three hours. The film’s release in more than 1,000 theaters was one of the widest releases ever at the time. Two more films followed, with the fourth not getting a wide theatrical release, while the fifth was never completed.

1984

• November 9 – No Small Affair (USA, Delphi II Productions)
• November 9 – Oh, God! You Devil (USA)

No Small Affair features the film debuts of Jon Cryer, Jennifer Tilly, Tim Robbins and Tate Donovan. The film stared production in 1981 under director Martin Ritt with Matthew Broderick and Sally Field set to star, but the film was shut down two weeks later due to Ritt’s health problems. Mark Rydell was considered to replace Ritt, but the project was scrapped altogether. The project was rebooted in 1984 with Cryer and Ellen Barkin, but after a rehearsal Barkin was replaced with Demi Moore.

Oh, God! You Devil is the third and final film in the Oh, God! series. George Burns returns in the roles of God and the Devil.

1994

• November 11 – Interview with the Vampire (USA, The Geffen Film Company)
• November 11 – The Santa Clause (USA, Walt Disney Pictures)

Interview with the Vampire is based on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel of the same name. The film was Oscar-nominaed for Art Direction and Score. Kirsten Dunst was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Rice had initially adapted the novel for the screen with French actor Alain Delon in mind for the role of Louis, which went to Brad Pitt. Julian Sands was Rice’s choice to play the vampire Lestat, but Sands was not well-known at the time and the studio wanted a star so the role was given to Tom Cruise. Rice was not happy with the casting, at one point suggesting Pitt and Cruise swap roles. After seeing the completed film, Rice approved of Cruise’s performance. To combat Rice’s perception of Hollywood’s homophobia, she rewrote the part of Louis as female and considered Cher for the role. Cher even co-wrote a song for the film which was rejected when Pitt was cast. River Phoenix was cast as Daniel Molloy but died four weeks before production was to begin. Christian Slater replaced him and donated his entire salary to Phoenix’s favorite charitable organizations. The film carries a dedication to Phoenix. Dunst was the first girl seen for the role of Claudia, but thousands of other girls were auditioned, including Julia Stiles whom director Neil Jordan felt was too old. Pitt called the filming miserable because of the almost exclusive night shooting and tried to buy himself out of his contract. After having read the book, he also found the script — which he received two weeks before production — to be disappointing. To achieve the blue veins on the actors’ faces, they were required to hang upside-down for 30 minutes so the blood would rush to their heads, causing the veins to protrude, enabling the makeup artists to trace realistic patterns.

The Santa Clause was originally to be released by Hollywood Pictures, but after successful test screenings it was transferred to Walt Disney Pictures. The reindeer used in the film were all from the Toronto Zoo. Chevy Chase and Bill Murray were offered the role of Scott Calvin, but Chase had scheduling conflicts and Murray didn’t want to do another holiday film after Scrooged.

2004

• November 10 – Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Poland, Working Title Films)
• November 10 – The Polar Express (USA, Castle Rock Entertainment)
• November 12 – After the Sunset (USA, Firm Films)
• November 12 – Ladies in Lavender (UK, Future Films)
• November 12 – Seed of Chucky (USA/Canada, Rogue Pictures)
• November 12 – A Way of Life (UK, AWOL Films Ltd.)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was released in the US, Canada and the UK on November 12, 2004. A Way of Life has no known US theatrical release date. Ladies in Lavender was released in the US on May 27, 2005.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was based on the novel of the same name by Helen Fielding. It is the second film in the series. During the fight scene between Daniel and Mark, actors Hugh Grant and Colin Firth were simply asked to fight each other any way they could. In one scene, Bridget indulges in a fantasy of Mark coming out of water in a wet white shirt, just like Colin Firth did in the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Bridget’s obsession with the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice in the novel is not included in the film. Renée Zellweger earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.

The Polar Express is based on the book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. The film was the first to use motion capture with live actors to create the animated characters. The film was the last for Michael Jeter before his death in 2003 and is dedicated to his memory. Jeter died before completing his voice work, so André Sogliuzzo redubbed the already recorded dialogue and completed the remaining work (Jeter’s voice work for the character of Steamer was retained). Van Allsburg had been unwilling to sell the rights to the book but changed his mind after Tom Hanks became involved. The original agreement with Van Allsburg was that the film not be animated. Rob Reiner was originally set to direct, but after repeated postponements, Robert Zemeckis was hired to replace him. Zemeckis felt a live-action adaptation of the story would look horrible and cost a billion dollars, robbing the audience of the style of the book which made it so popular. He also felt a conventionally animated movie would also be a poor adaptation, so he looked into using the motion capture process, allowing them to create CGI characters and environments that retained the look of the illustrations in the book. The process would cost $1 million per minute of film. Zemeckis envisioned Hanks playing all the roles in the film, but after playing five, including a little boy (whose voice was dubbed by Daryl Sabara), Hanks was exhausted. The only two characters created through traditional animation were Smokey and Steamer. The film earned three Oscar and one Golden Globe nominations.

After the Sunset features several cameos including Jeff Garlin, Dyan Cannon, Edward Norton and Shaquille O’Neal as themselves. Star Pierce Brosnan was the first choice for the role of Max Burdett. John Stockwell was to direct but dropped out due to creative differences, replaced by Brett Ratner. Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan were offered cameos as police officers, a nod to their Rush Hour films also directed by Ratner, but they turned them down.

Ladies in Lavender is based on the 1908 short story by William J. Locke. The film marked the directorial debut of actor Charles Dance. Dance approached Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, who were appearing together in a play in the West End, with the project and they accepted without reading the script. Dance said they were the only choices and without them the film would not have been made. Freddie Jones did not like his role but took it to work with Dench. The film was the first English-language film for Daniel Brühl.

Seed of Chucky is the fifth film in the Child’s Play film series. The film was writer Don Mancini’s directorial debut. It was the last film from the original continuity to be released theatrically. The following films were direct-to-video releases until the 2019 reboot. The sequel to Bride of Chucky was originally to be titled Son of Chucky and production began two days after the release of the previous film. Director Ronny Yu was unable to return due to scheduling conflicts. Don Mancini wanted to explore LGBT-related themes and wrote the screenplay with inspiration from Ed Wood’s 1953 cult classic Glen or Glenda, making Chuck’s son an innocent suffering from gender dysphoria. Mancini also decided to continue the series’s shift from pure horror to horror comedy. The series’ original distributor, Universal Pictures, rejected Mancini’s script as being ‘too gay’, but production resumed under the studio’s off-shoot Focus Features, and was ultimately released through Rogue Pictures.

A Way of Life is Amma Asante’s directorial debut.

2014

Walt Disney Pictures

• November 7 – A Merry Friggin’ Christmas (USA, limited, Sycamore Pictures)
• November 7 – Big Hero 6 (USA, Walt Disney Pictures)
• November 7 – Interstellar (US/Canada, Syncopy)
• November 7 – Jessabelle (USA, Lionsgate)
• November 7 – The Better Angels (USA, Brothers K Productions)

Interstellar was first released in France on November 5, 2014.

A Merry Friggin’ Christmas is also known as A Merry Christmas Miracle. Robin Williams appears in the film but died before it was released. It was dedicated to his memory, and the first to be released after his death.

Big Hero 6 is loosely based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel characters after the acquisition of Marvel in 2009. The film received seven Annie Awards nominations and a Golden Globe nomination. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Disney deliberately chose the obscure title from the Marvel catalog so they had the freedom to construct their own version. It was decided early on not to connect the film to the established Marvel Cinematic Universe. To create San Fransokyo as a detailed digital simulation of an entire city, Disney purchased the actual assessor data for the entire city and county of San Francisco. The final city contains over 83,000 buildings and 100,000 vehicles. A new system called Hyperion was developed to produced illumination possibilities like light shining through translucent objects. Disney, in turn, had to assemble a new super-computing cluster just to handle Hyperion’s immense processing demands. The end credits scene was created late in production after the creative team saw Guardians of the Galaxy and realized the Marvel fans would be sitting through the credits expecting a final scene.

The screenplay for Interstellar was developed by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher’s brother, in 2007 for Steven Spielberg. The film was the last for producer Lynda Obst before her death in 2024. Obst and the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who collaborated on Contact, conceived the premise for the film. Warner Bros. wanted a stake in the film from Paramount, and agreed to give Paramount rights to co-finance the next film in the Friday the 13th franchise. Christopher Nolan came on board as director and shot on 35mm film and IMAX 70mm film. To maintain Nolan’s penchant for secrecy, the film was shot under the title Flora’s Letters. To minimize use of CGI, many practical locations were built, including the interior of a space shuttle. For a cornfield scene, 500 acres of corn was planted which would be destroyed by an apocalyptic dust storm. Some location shooting took place in Iceland to represent an ice planet and a water planet. Anne Hathaway suffered hypothermia while filming a water scene because her dry suit had not been properly secured. The film earned five Oscar nominations, winning for Best Visual Effects.

Jessabelle was intended to shoot in New Orleans, where the story is set, but moved to Wilmington, North Carolina when no suitable locations could be found.