Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #299 :: April 16•22

This week across the last century gave us many notable and forgettable films. The highlights include a 1926 film that survives, with a Technicolor scene intact, a fourth film in a 1936 mystery series with a new leading actress, a 1946 musical film that helped keep a studio’s film division alive during wartime, a 1956 film whose release was pruposely timed to a major event in its leading actress’ life, a 1996 film which many consider to be the conclusion of a popular TV series, a 1976 film that almost became a TV series, a 1986 musical drama whose theme song was more successful than the film, a 1996 film version of a cult favorite comedy series, a 2006 parody of musical competition television shows, and a 2016 prequel/sequel that many felt was unnecessary. Scroll down to see all of the films released this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

1926  •  1936  •  1946  •  1956  •  1966  •  1976  •  1986  •  1996  •  2006  •  2016

1926

April 17 – The Unfair Sex (USA, Diamant Film Company of America)

• Cast: Hope Hampton, Holbrook Blinn, Nita Naldi, Walter Miller
• Director: Henri Diamant-Berger
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

April 17 – Wives at Auction (USA, MacFadden True Story Pictures)

• Cast: Edna Murphy, Gaston Glass, Marie Schaefer, Arthur Donaldson
• Director: Elmer Clifton
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

April 18 – Paris at Midnight (USA, Metropolitan Pictures Corporation of California)

• Cast: Jetta Goudal, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Brian, Edmund Burns, Émile Chautard
• Director: E. Mason Hopper
• Trivia: A print of the film is preserved at the Cinémathèque Française, Paris.

April 18 – Skinner’s Dress Suit (USA, Universal Jewel)

• Cast: Reginald Denny, Laura La Plante, Ben Hendricks Jr., E. J. Ratcliffe, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper
• Director: William Seiter
• Trivia: Janet Gaynor appears uncredited as a party guest. The story had been previously filmed in 1917. The film does exist and has been released on DVD.

April 18 – The Impostor (USA, Gothic Productions)

• Cast: Evelyn Brent, Carroll Nye, James Morrison, Frank Leigh
• Director: Chester Withey
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

April 18 – Tony Runs Wild (USA, Fox Film Corporation)

• Cast: Tom Mix, Tony the Horse, Jacqueline Logan, Lawford Davidson, Duke Lee, Vivian Oakland
• Director: Tony Buckingham
• Trivia: A copy of the film survives in the Czech Film Archive.

April 18 – Wild to Go (USA, Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation)

• Cast: Tom Tyler, Frankie Darro, Fred Burns, Ethan Laidlaw
• Director: Robert De Lacey
• Trivia: A print of the film is held in the collection of CINEMATEK in Brussels.

April 19 – Beverly of Graustark (USA, Cosmopolitan Productions)

• Cast: Marion Davies, Antonio Moreno, Creighton Hale, Roy D’Arcy, Albert Gran, Paulette Duval
• Director: Sidney Franklin
• Trivia: Production had to be suspended for ten days while Davies battled the flu. The film’s final sequence was filmed in Technicolor. The Library of Congress restored the film in 2019 from an original 35mm nitrate print in the Marion Davies Collection, which included the two-strip Technicolor scene. The restored film has been released to the home video market.

April 19 – That’s My Baby (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)

• Cast: Douglas MacLean, Margaret Morris, Claude Gillingwater, Eugenie Forde, Wade Boteler
• Director: William Beaudine
• Trivia: A print of the film is preserved at the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée in Paris.

April 19 – The Wonderful Wooing (UK, Stoll Picture Productions)

• Cast: Marjorie Hume, G. H. Mulcaster, Genevieve Townsend, Eric Bransby Williams, Tom Coventry, Daisy Campbell
• Director: Geoffrey Malins
• Trivia: The film has no known US theatrical release date. The film’s survival status is unknown.

April 22 – Deuce High (USA, Action Pictures)

• Cast: Jay Wilsey, Alma Rayford, Robert Walker, J. P. Lockney, Harry Lord
• Director: Richard Thorpe
• Trivia: Jay Wilsey is also known as Buffalo Bill Jr. The film is preserved in the UCLA, Library of Congress and Cinematheque Royale (Brussels) archives.

1936

April 17 – Murder on a Bridle Path (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)

• Cast: James Gleason, Helen Broderick, Sheila Terry, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis Jr., Willie Best
• Directors: William Hamilton, Edward Killy
• Trivia: Fourth film in the Hildegarde Withers series, with Broderick replacing Edna May Oliver, who had left RKO for MGM. Broderick only played the character once, succeeded by ZaSu Pitts.

April 18 – Brides Are Like That (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)

• Cast: Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Joseph Cawthorn, Kathleen Lockhart, Gene Lockhart
• Director: William C. McGann

April 18 – On the Wrong Trek (USA, short, Hal Roach Studios)

• Cast: Charley Chase, Rosina Lawrence, Bonita Weber, Clarence Wilson
• Director: Harold Law
• Trivia: The short features a 13-second cameo from Laurel & Hardy.

April 18 – The Clutching Hand (USA, serial, Weiss Brothers Artclass Pictures)

• Cast: Jack Mulhall, Ruth Mix, Rex Lease, Marion Shilling, Mae Busch
• Director: Albert Herman
• Trivia: The serial’s full title is The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand. The 15-chapter serial was eventually edited into a 70-minute feature film released the same year. Cast member Charles Locher became better known as Jon Hall.

April 18 – The Harvester (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Alice Brady, Russell Hardie, Ann Rutherford, Frank Craven, Cora Sue Collins, Emma Dunn
• Director: Joseph Santley
• Trivia: Based on the 1911 novel of the same title by Gene Stratton-Porter, which had previously been filmed in 1927.

April 18 – Three Little Wolves (USA, short, Walt Disney Productions)

• Voice Cast: Billy Bletcher, Pinto Colvig, Dorothy Compton, Mary Moder, Allyce Ardell
• Director: Dave Hand
• Trivia: Third Silly Symphonies short starring the Three Little Pigs. The short includes symbolism about the threat of European fascism, and the Big Bad Wolf is a clear stand-in for Hitler.

April 19 – The Sky Parade (USA, Paramount Pictures)

• Cast: Jimmie Allen, William Gargan, Katherine DeMille, Kent Taylor, Grant Withers
• Director: Otho Lovering
• Trivia: Based on the radio series The Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen. The movie introduced aviation technologies like autopilot and air-to-ground communications to film audiences.

April 20 – The Girl from Mandalay (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Conrad Nagel, Kay Linaker, Donald Cook, Esther Ralston, Harry Stubbs, Reginald Barlow
• Director: Howard Bretherton
• Trivia: Based on the 1931 novel Tiger Valley by Reginald Campbell.

April 21 – Florida Special (USA, Paramount Pictures)

• Cast: Jack Oakie, Sally Eilers, Kent Taylor, Frances Drake, Claude Gillingwater
• Director: Ralph Murphy

1946

April – Mysterious Intruder (USA, Larry Darmour Productions)

• Cast: Richard Dix, Barton MacLane, Nina Vale, Regis Toomey, Helen Mowery, Mike Mazurki, Charles Lane
• Director: William Castle
• Trivia: Fifth of eight ‘Whistler’ films.

April 16 – The Blue Dahlia (USA, Paramount Pictures)

• Cast: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard da Silva, Doris Dowling, Hugh Beaumont
• Director: George Marshall
• Trivia: Raymond Chandler’s first original screenplay. Mae Busch and Noel Neill appear in uncredited roles. Alan Ladd was unhappy with the casting of Doris Dowling as his wife because she was six inches taller than him, but this was disguised during filming. Chandler received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

April 17 – Alias Billy the Kid (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Sunset Carson, Peggy Stewart, Tom London, Roy Barcroft
• Director: Thomas Carr

April 17 – The Virginian (New York City, Paramount Pictures)

• Cast: Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton, Fay Bainter, William Frawley
• Director: Stuart Gilmore
• Trivia: Remake of a 1929 film of the same name. The story was also filmed in 1914, and was adapted into a 1960s TV series.

April 18 – Home on the Range (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Monte Hale, Lorna Gray, Bob Nolan, Sons of the Pioneers, Tom Chatterton, Robert Blake, Kenne Duncan
• Director: R.G. Springsteen

April 20 – Devotion (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)

• Cast: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Olivia de Havilland, Sydney Greenstreet, Nancy Coleman, Arthur Kennedy, Dame May Whitty, Montagu Love
• Director: Curtis Bernhardt
• Trivia: The film is a highly fictionalized account of the lives of the Brontë sisters. This was Montagu Love’s last film role, dying almost three years before the film’s delayed release. Despite having the film’s largest role, Olivia de Havilland was billed third due to her lawsuit against Warner Bros. to terminate her contract, which contributed to the delayed release.

April 20 – Make Mine Music (New York City, Walt Disney Productions)

• Cast: Nelson Eddy, Dinah Shore, Benny Goodman, The Andrews Sisters, Jerry Colonna, Sterling Holloway
• Directors: Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Jsohua Meador, Robert Cormack
• Trivia: With much of the Disney staff drafted into the military during World War II, the studio kept the film division alive with package films made up of various unrelated segments set to music, of which this was one of six along with Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

April 20 – The Caravan Trail (USA, Producers Releasing Corporation)

• Cast: Eddie Dean, Lash LaRue, Emmett Lynn, Jean Carlin
• Director: Robert Emmett Tansey
• Trivia: Eddie Dean plays himself in the film.

April 20 – The Catman of Paris (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Carl Esmond, Lenore Aubert, Adele Mara, Douglass Dumbrille, Gerald Mohr, Fritz Feld
• Director: Lesley Selander
• Trivia: The film was produced in conjunction with Valley of the Zombies with the intention of making them Republic’s first horror double feature, but Valley of the Zombies was not released until May 1946.

April 20 – West of the Alamo (USA, Monogram Pictures)

• Cast: Jimmy Wakely, Lee ‘Lasses’ White, Ray Whitley, Jack Ingram
• Director: Oliver Drake

April 22 – The Falcon’s Alibi (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)

• Cast: Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Vince Barnett, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr.
• Director: Ray McCarey
• Trivia: Ninth, and penultimate, film in The Falcon series starring Tom Conway.

1956

April 16 – The Come On (USA, Lindsley Parsons Productions)

• Cast: Anne Baxter, Sterling Hayden, Jesse White, Wally Cassell, Paul Picerni
• Director: Russell Birdwell
• Trivia: Baxter and Birdwell were having an affair, and she agreed to forgo her salary if Birdwell was allowed to direct. She later said she knew it was the peak of their relationship and it would be downhill from there.

April 18 – Lovers and Lollipops (USA, Spire Production Company)

• Cast: Lori March, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Cathy Dunn, William Ward
• Director: Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin
• Trivia: Engel and Orkin also wrote the screenplay. Second of three films written and directed by the pair. Film debut of Gerald S. O’Loughlin. Only film of Cathy Dunn. All of the film’s sound was dubbed in post-production.

April 18 – The Bold and the Brave (Los Angeles, The Filmakers)

• Cast: Wendell Corey, Mickey Rooney, Don Taylor, Nicole Maurey, John Smith
• Director: Lewis R. Foster
• Trivia: Wide US release began on April 29, 1956. The title song was cowritten by Mickey Rooney and Ross Bagdasarian, the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks. The film earned Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor for Rooney, and Best Original Screenplay.

April 18 – The Swan (USA/France, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

• Cast: Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Agnes Moorehead, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Estelle Winwood, Van Dyke Parks
• Director: Charles Vidor
• Trivia: Remake of the 1925 silent film of the same name. The film was released the day Kelly became princess consort of Monaco. Kelly had previously appeared in a 1950 CBS Television production of The Swan. Rex Harrison was to play Prince Albert in the film but could not come to terms with the studio. He was replaced with Alec Guinness in what would be his first American film. The film was shot on location in North Carolina, at the 1895 Biltmore Estate.

April 20 – A Kiss Before Dying (UK, Crown Productions)

• Cast: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Mary Astor
• Director: Gerd Oswald
• Trivia: Opened in the US on June 12, 1956. Oswald’s directorial debut. Joanne Woodward appears in one of her first film roles. The use of the word ‘pregnant’ caused controversy, and it was removed from the Chicago preview run. Distributor United Artists was prohibited from using the word in any advertising.

April 21 – Time Stood Still (USA, short, Warner Bros. Pictures)

• Narrator: Marvin Miller
• Director: André de la Varre
• Trivia: Nominated for the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar.

April 22 – Crashing Las Vegas (USA, Allied Artists Pictures)

• Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, David Condon, Jimmy Murphy, Mary Castle, Don Haggerty
• Director: Jean Yarbrough
• Trivia: David Gorcey was credited as David Condon. 41st film the The Bowery Boys series, and the last to star Leo Gorcey, who was having a hard time dealing with the death of his father, and beginning to drink heavily. He is visibly intoxicated in most of the film. Gorcey was let go after he demanded more money following production, and the series was rebooted with Huntz Hall as the lead.

1966

April 16 – A-Haunting We Will Go (USA, short, DePatie–Freleng Enterprises)

• Voice Cast: June Foray, Mel Blanc
• Director: Robert McKimson
• Trivia: Final Looney Tunes cartoon to feature Witch Hazel and June Foray’s voice acting during the Golden Age of American Animation. Foray did not reprise the role again until a 2003 episode of Duck Dodgers. The cartoon re-uses footage of Witch Hazel from Broom-Stick Bunny.

April 20 – The Night of the Grizzly (USA, Paramount Pictures)

• Cast: Clint Walker, Martha Hyer, Keenan Wynn, Nancy Kulp, Candy Moore, Ellen Corby, Jack Elam, Ron Ely
• Director: Joseph Pevney
• Trivia: Pevney’s final feature film. The film’s script was originally written as an episode of Walker’s series, Cheyenne, but never filmed. It was quickly re-tooled as a feature film, and despite the change of Walker’s character name, fans of the series consider the film to be a conclusion to the series.

1976

April 16 – Countdown at Kusini (USA, Nigeria Glipp Productions)

• Cast: Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Greg Morris, Tom Aldredge
• Director: Ossie Davis
• Trivia: Also known as Cool Red. The film was conceived and entirely financed by Delta Sigma Theta, an African-American sorority that owned DST Telecommunications which produced material to counter the ‘inaccurate portrayal of black people in media’. Dee, Davis, and Morris deferred their salaries until the film made a profit.

April 16 – Jackson County Jail (USA, New World Pictures)

• Cast: Yvette Mimieux, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Carradine, Severn Darden, Mary Woronov, Howard Hesseman, Hal Needham
• Director: Michael Miller
• Trivia: One of many ‘drive-in films’ of the era that were presented as true stories when most, if not all, were pure fiction. The film was reworked for broadcast on CBS as a pilot for a potential series starring Mimieux, titled Outside Chance, with 30 minutes of newly added material and the removal of Jones’ scenes, though his character was referenced. The film was remade in 1997 as Macon County Jail.

April 22 – The Blank Generation (USA, documentary, Poe Productions)

• Cast: Richard Hell, Patti Smith Group, Television, Ramones, The Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, Blondie, Tuff Darts, New York Dolls, The Shirts
• Director: Ivan Kral, Amos Poe
• Trivia: Earliest of the released low-budget DIY punk rock films from the No Wave scene in New York City in the mid-1970s.

1986

April 18 – Absolute Beginners (USA, Palace Pictures)

• Cast: Eddie O’Connell, Patsy Kensit, James Fox, David Bowie, Edward Tudor-Pole, Anita Morris, Ray Davies, Sade, Robbie Coltrane, Carmen Ejogo, Sylvia Syms
• Director: Julien Temple
• Trivia: First opened in the UK on April 4, 1986. Temple recruited Davis, Sade and Bowie, having previously directed music videos for each. The film was one of three produced by Goldcrest Films at the time, with The Mission and Revolution, all of which failed at the box office, leading to Goldcrest’s eventual collapse. Bowie’s theme song, however, was a hit, spending nine weeks on the charts in the UK, peaking at Number 2.

April 18 – At Close Range (USA, Cinema ’85)

• Cast: Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson, Christopher Penn, Millie Perkins, Tracey Walter, David Strathairn, Candy Clark, Kiefer Sutherland, Crispin Glover, Stephen Geoffreys
• Director: James Foley
• Trivia: The film was based on the real life rural Pennsylvania crime family led by Bruce Johnston Sr.

April 18 – Star Crystal (USA, limited,Balcor Film Investors)

• Cast: C. Juston Campbell, Faye Bolt, John W. Smith, Taylor Kingsley, Marcia Linn
• Director: Lance Lindsay
• Trivia: The film was intended as a low-budget mash-up of E.T. and Alien that would appeal to New World Pictures. The producer was a devout Christian and worked some aspects of his faith into the production. Director Lindsay said filming was a nightmare, with one actor contracting a fever which lost them seven of the planned twelve days of shooting, while another actor developed an ego and refused to come to set when needed. The special effects coordinator said Lindsay was looking for scapegoats, but it was his own ineptitude that caused the problems.

April 18 – Torment (USA, Aslanian-Hopkins Production)

• Cast: Taylor Gilbert, William Witt, Eve Brenner, Warren Lincoln
• Directors: Samson Aslanian, John Hopkins
• Trivia: The film has been compared favorably to Halloween.

April 18 – Wise Guys (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

• Cast: Danny DeVito, Joe Piscopo, Harvey Keitel, Ray Sharkey, Dan Hedaya, Lou Albano, Patti LuPone
• Director: Brian De Palma
• Trivia: This was De Palma’s first comedy since 1973, and he said no one could accuse him of ripping off Hitchcock with this one. After viewing a cut of the film, MGM asked De Palma to bring in Garry Marshall to help with a re-cut, but De Palma refused. Piscopo later said that he was playing himself more than a character, and probably should have played a character.

1996

April 19 – Celtic Pride (USA, Caravan Pictures)

• Cast: Daniel Stern, Dan Aykroyd, Damon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Gail O’Grady, Paul Guilfoyle, Darrell Hammond
• Director: Tom DeCerchio
• Trivia: Deion Sanders, Bill Walton, Larry Bird, Marv Albert, Bob Cousy appear as themselves. The film was written by Judd Apatow, and Bill Murray credits the film with why he turns down roles from Apatow.

April 19 – Mrs. Winterbourne (USA/Canada, A&M Films)

• Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Ricki Lake, Brendan Fraser, Miguel Sandoval, Loren Dean, Jane Krakowski
• Director: Richard Bemjamin
• Trivia: The story was based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel, I Married a Dead Man, which had previously been filmed in 1950 as No Man of Her Own. Bobcat Goldthwait and Paula Prentiss (Richard Benjamin’s wife) appear in uncredited cameos.

April 19 – My Favorite Season (USA, D.A. Films)

• Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Marthe Villalonga, Jean-Pierre Bouvier, Chiara Mastroianni, Carmen Chaplin
• Director: André Téchiné
• Trivia: First opened in France on May 14, 1993 as Ma saison préférée. Third film in which Deneuve and Auteuil starred together. Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, and Carmen Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, make their film debuts. The film was nominated for seven César Awards.

April 19 – Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (USA, Best Brains)

• Cast: Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, Jim Mallon, John Brady
• Director: Jim Mallon
• Trivia: The film takes place between Seasons 6 and 7 of the television series. About 30 minutes was cut from the film-within-the-film, This Island Earth. The film was originally set up at Paramount, but the studio wanted to delve into the backstories of the characters rather than have them heckling movies.

April 19 – The Substitute (USA/Philippines, Dinamo Entertainment)

• Cast: Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Diane Venora, Glenn Plummer, Marc Anthony, Cliff De Young, Luis Guzmán, William Forsythe
• Director: Robert Mandel
• Trivia: The film spawned three direct-to-DVD sequels, with Treat Williams replacing Tom Berenger.

2006

April 20 – American Dreamz (AUS, Depth of Field)

• Cast: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Marcia Gay Harden, Willem Dafoe, Mandy Moore, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge, Seth Meyers, Judy Greer, Shohreh Aghdashloo
• Director: Paul Weitz
• Trivia: Opened in the US, Ireland and UK on April 21, 2006. Jeff Ross appears in an uncredited cameo.

April 20 – The Sentinel (Singapore, Epsilon Motion Pictures)

• Cast: Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Martin Donovan, Ritchie Coster, Kim Basinger, Blair Brown, David Rasche
• Director: Clark Johnson
• Trivia: Opened in the US on April 21, 2006. Based on the 2003 novel of the same name by former Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich.

2016

April 21 – Elvis & Nixon (Russia, Autumn Productions)

• Cast: Michael Shannon, Kevin Spacey, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Knoxville, Colin Hanks, Evan Peters, Tate Donovan, Sky Ferreira, Tracy Letts
• Director: Liza Johnson
• Trivia: Opened in limited US release on April 22, 2016. Cary Elwes was one of the film’s writers. Eric Bana was originally cast as Elvis, but dropped out of the project, replaced with Shannon.

April 22 – The Huntsman: Winter’s War (USA/Canada, Perfect World Pictures-Roth Films)

• Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Nick Frost, Sam Claflin
• Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
• Trivia: First opened in the UK on April 4, 2016. Nicolas-Troyan’s directorial debut. The film is billed as both a prequel and sequel to Snow White & the Huntsman, taking place before and after the events of the first film. Fred Tatasciore provides the voice of the Magic Mirror, and Liam Neeson is the film’s narrator. A direct sequel to the first film, with Kristen Stewart to reprise the role of Snow White, was originally planned with Frank Darabont to direct, but the plan was changed to a prequel without Stewart, who turned down an offer to appear in a cameo. Darabont also exited the film.

April 22 – A Hologram for the King (USA/Canada, limited, Playtone-X Filme-Creative Pool-Primeridian Productions)

• Cast: Tom Hanks, Alexander Black, Sarita Choudhury, Sidse Babett Knudsen, David Menkin
• Director: Tom Tykwer
• Trivia: Omar Elba is credited in the film as Alexander Black. Tom Tykwer wrote, directed and co-scored the film.