Walt Disney Pictures
Another week that may include Thanksgiving in the US means that there are very few new releases across the decades, with three having no new releases at all. 1922 had two of the top silent comedy stars in competing films, while 1932 saw silent film star Clara Bow make her penultimate film appearance. 1942 put Errol Flynn in the boxing ring, and 1962 featured the pairing of Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. 1992 was the biggest year this week with Disney’s animated Aladdin becoming a worldwide success, while Whitney Houston made her film debut and scored the biggest selling soundtrack album of all time. Read on to learn more about the films celebrating anniversaries this week and tell us about your favorites in the comments section below!
1922
November 26 – Dr. Jack (USA)
- Cast: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, John T. Prince, Eric Mayne, C. Norman Hammond, Charles Stevenson
- Director: Fred C. Newmeyer
- Production Company: Hal Roach Studios, distributed by Associated Exhibitors
- Trivia: Harold Lloyd’s first intentional ‘five-reeler’. Previous films were conceived as two-reelers and expanded to five during production. Copies of the film exist in the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the British Film Institute’s National Film Archive.
November 27 – Day Dreams (USA, short)
- Cast: Buster Keaton, Renée Adorée, Edward F. Cline, Joe Keaton, Joe Roberts
- Director: Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline
- Production Company: First National Pictures
- Trivia: The film is considered partially lost, with incomplete versions available in the public domain.
1932
November 27 – Call Her Savage (USA)
- Cast: Clara Bow, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd, Monroe Owsley, Estelle Taylor, Weldon Heyburn, Willard Robertson
- Director: John Francis Dillon
- Production Company: Fox Film Corporation
- Trivia: Clara Bow’s second to last film. The film is one of the first to portray homosexuals on screen, including a scene in a gay bar. The film was restored in 2012.
1942
November 25 – Gentleman Jim (USA)
- Cast: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, John Loder, William Frawley, Minor Watson, Ward Bond, Madeleine Lebeau, Rhys Williams, Arthur Shields, Dorothy Vaughan
- Director: Raoul Walsh
- Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures
- Trivia: Based upon James J. Corbett’s 1894 autobiography, The Roar of the Crowd. Errol Flynn took boxing lessons for the film and was rarely doubled during the boxing sequences.
November 27 – The Undying Monster (USA)
Twentieth Century-Fox
- Cast: James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather, Halliwell Hobbes, John Rogers, Matthew Boulton, Holmes Herbert
- Director: John Brahm
- Production Company: Twentieth Century-Fox
- Trivia: Based on Jessie Douglas Kerruish’s 1922 novel of the same name. Also known as The Hammond Mystery.
1952
November 27 – Thunderbirds (USA)
- Cast: John Derek, John Barrymore Jr., Mona Freeman, Gene Evans, Eileen Christy, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Wally Cassell, Ben Cooper, Slim Pickens, Mae Clark, Barbara Pepper
- Director: John H. Auer
- Production Company: Republic Pictures
- Trivia: Features the exploits of the 45th Infantry Division in the Italian campaign of World War II. Some sequences wer filmed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
1962
November 24 – Two for the Seesaw (USA)
Argyle Productions
- Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine, Edmon Ryan, Elisabeth Fraser, Eddie Firestone, Billy Gray
- Director: Robert Wise
- Production Company: Argyle Productions, Seesaw Productions, Talbot Productions, The Mirisch Corporation, distributed by United Artists
- Trivia: Adapted from the 1958 Broadway play written by William Gibson. Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor were originally cast as the leads, but Taylor had to drop out due to overruns on Cleopatra, which freed up Newman to star in The Hustler. The song ‘Second Chance’ was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar, and became a pop and jazz standard by Ella Fitzgerald and other artists. The film was also nominated for Best Cinematography – Black and White.
1972
- No new films were released this week in 1972.
1982
- No new films were released this week in 1982.
1992
November 25 – Aladdin (USA)
- Voice Cast: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, Douglas Seale, Jim Cummings, Charlie Adler, Corey Burton
- Director: John Musker, Ron Clements
- Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Animation, distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
- Trivia: The 31st Disney animated feature. Based on the Arabic folktale of the same name from the One Thousand and One Nights. The animators based their designs on the work of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, although the design of Jafar was not so he would be a contrast to the other characters. The highest grossing film of 1992 with over $504 million worldwide. Nominated for two Academy Awards, and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for ‘A Whole New World’. ‘Humiliate the Boy’ was the last song Howard Ashman worked on before his death in March 1991. Sir Tim Rice joined Ashman’s partner Alan Menken to complete the film’s songs. The parrot Iago was conceived as an uptight Brit, but the part was rewritten after the filmmakers saw Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop II. A major rewrite of the original script also eliminated Aladdin’s mother, strengthened Princess Jasmine, and made Aladdin into a young Harrison Ford type. While the Magic Carpet was hand animated, the carpet’s pattern was applied digitally. Aladdin’s original design was a 13-year-old who resembled Michael J. Fox, but he was too boyish and lacked appeal so he was changed to an 18-year-old with features derived from Tom Cruise and Calvin Klein models. John Candy, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy were suggested for the role of Genie, but the character was always conceived with Robin Williams in mind. Much of his dialogue was improvised, unusual for an animated film, and the best gags were animated. Out of gratitude for his success with Good Morning, Vietnam, Williams worked for SAG scale — $75,000 — instead of his usual $8 million fee, on the condition that his name and image were not used in marketing, and his character could not take up more than 25% in advertising artwork. Williams voiced the character while he was starring in two films, Hook and Toys. Disney got around the artwork limitation by having Genie take up 25% of the artwork but making all of the other character smaller. Disney also used Williams’ voice in TV commercials and used the Genie character to sell merchandise without having to pay Williams or give credit. Williams was so upset with the studio he refused to reprise the role in the direct-to-video sequel, but when Joe Roth took over as the studio chairman, he issued a public apology and Williams did agree to return for the second sequel in 1996.
November 25 – The Bodyguard (USA/Canada)
Warner Bros. Pictures
- Cast: Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, Gary Kemp, Bill Cobbs, Ralph Waite, Tomas Arana
- Director: Mick Jackson
- Production Company: Tig Productions, Kasdan Pictures, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
- Trivia: Whitney Houston’s acting debut. Debbie Reynolds appears as herself during the scene at the Academy Awards. Lawrence Kasdan originally wrote the screenplay in the mid-1970s as a vehicle for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross. While the film was panned, the soundtrack became the best-selling soundtrack of all time, selling more than 45 million copies. It also won the Grammy for Album of the Year. The songs ‘I Have Nothing’ and ‘Run to You’ were both Oscar nominated for Best Original Song. The film also received 7 Golden Raspberry Awards nominations including Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Actress.
November 26 – The Story of Qiu Ju (Belgium)
- Cast: Gong Li, Lei Kesheng, Liu Peiqi, Ge Zhi Jun, Ye Jun, Yang Liu Chun
- Director: Zhang Yimou
- Production Company: Sil-Metropole Organisation, Youth Film Studio of Beijing Film Academy, distributed by AFMD (France), Sony Pictures Classics (USA)
- Trivia: Adaption of Chen Yuanbin’s novella The Wan Family’s Lawsuit. The film was submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards but was not accepted as a nominee. It won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1992. Many of the street scenes in the cities were filmed with a hidden camera so the images are a sort of documentary of China during the time of Deng Xiaoping.
2002
- No new films were released this week in 2002.
2012
November 23 – Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger (UK/Ireland)
- Cast: David Tennant, Marc Wootton, Jason Watkins, Joanna Page, Ian McNeice, Jessica Hynes, Pam Ferris
- Director: Debbie Isitt
- Production Company: Mirrorball Films, Moviehouse Entertainment, Media Pro Six, Premiere Picture, distributed by Entertainment One
- Trivia: Prior to filming starting, writer/director Debbie Isitt and actor David Tennant spent a week in Coventry, spending time in real classrooms and with school choirs and plays, and helping with the auditions for the child roles. The film was originally going to be called Nativity 2: The Second Coming. The film was completely improvised with no script. The actors only had bits of the plot revealed to them during filming.
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