Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #18 :: November 25 to December 1

Columbia Pictures

Thanksgiving week in the US usually brings a flurry of big motion pictures to the screen to capitalize on what is generally a long, four-day weekend. This week saw a few films that went on to become hits and earn Oscars and Golden Globes, but there were more than a few misses as well. This week saw Oscar wins for Marie Dressler and Kathy Bates, as well as a Razzie nomination for … Anthony Hopkins! This week also saw the very first film starring Zorro, and the first color version of Cyrano. W.C. Fields made a splash, Fred Astaire had a flop, and Jake & Anne got naked. Let’s take a look at this week’s movie premieres.

1920

November 27 – The Mark of Zorro

• Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, Noah Beery Sr., Charles Hill Mailes, Claire McDowell, Robert McKim, George Periolat, Walt Whitman, Sidney De Gray, Tote Du Crow, Noah Beery Jr., Charles Stevens
• Director: Fred Niblo
• Studio: Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corporation, distributed by United Artists
• Trivia: This was the first Zorro film. Based on the 1919 story The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, which introduced the masked hero. Screenwriter Elton Thomas was a pseudonym for Fairbanks. The first film released by United Artists, which was founded by Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. This marked the first appearance of Noah Beery Jr. Milton Berle is an uncredited child actor in the film. The Mark of Zorro is established in DC Comics continuity as the film the Wayne family was leaving when young Bruce’s parents are murdered. The film was remade in 1940 with Tyrone Power and in 1974 with Frank Langella. The film was selected for preservation in 2015 by the National Film Registry. The Academy Film Archive also preserved the film in 2012.

November 27 – The New York Idea

• Cast: Alice Brady, Lowell Sherman, Hedda Hopper, George Howell, Lionel Pape, Margaret Linden, Edwards Davis, Harry Hocky, Nina Herbert, Emily Fitzroy, Julia Hurley, Marie Burke, Robert Vivian, Edgar Norton, George Stevens
• Director: Herbert Blache
• Studio: Realart Pictures Corporation
• Trivia: Realart Pictures was an affiliate of Paramount Pictures. Based on the 1906 Broadway play by Langdon Mitchell. Prints of the film exist at the International House of Photography, George Eastman House and the BFI National Archive, London.

November 28 – Dangerous Business

• Cast: Constance Talmadge, Kenneth Harlan, George Fawcett, Mathilde Brundage, John Raymond, Florida Kingsley, Nina Cassavant
• Director: Roy William Neill
• Studio: Norma Talmadge Film Corporation, distributed by First National Pictures
• Trivia: The film is considered lost.

November 28 – The Devil to Pay

• Cast: Roy Stewart, Robert McKim, Fritzi Brunette, George Fisher, Evelyn Selbie, Joseph J. Dowling, Richard Lapan, Mark Fenton, William Marion
• Director: Ernest C. Warde
• Studio: Robert Brunton Productions, distributed by Pathé Exchange

November 28 – Heliotrope

• Cast: Wilfred Lytell, Ben Hendricks Sr., Julia Swayne Gordon, Betty Hilburn, Diana Allen, Frederick Burton, Clayton White, William B. Mack, William H. Tooker, Thomas Findley
• Director: George D. Baker
• Studio: Cosmopolitan Productions, International Film Service, distributed by Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: The film is considered lost.

November 28 – Idols of Clay

• Cast: Mae Murray, David Powell, Dorothy Cumming, George Fawcett, Leslie King, Richard Wangermann, Claude King
• Director: George Fitzmaurice
• Studio: Famous Players-Lasky, distributed by Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: A copy of the film survives in the Gosfilmofond Archive in Moscow.

November 28 – A Slave of Vanity

• Cast: Pauline Frederick, Arthur Hoyt, Nigel Barrie, Willard Louis, Maude Louis, Daisy Jefferson, Ruth Handforth, Howard Gaye
• Director: Henry Otto
• Studio: Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation
• Trivia: Adapted from the 1901 play Iris by Arthur Wing Pinero. The film is considered lost.

November 29 – Dinty

• Cast: Wesley Barry, Colleen Moore, Tom Gallery, J. Barney Sherry, Marjorie Daw, Pat O’Malley, Noah Beery, Walter Chung, Kate Price, Tom Wilson, Aaron Mitchell, Newton Hall, Young Hipp, Hal Wilson
• Director: Marshall Neilan, John McDermott
• Studio: Marshall Neilan Productions, distributed by Associated First National Pictures
• Trivia: Anna May Wong appears in an uncredited role which led director Neilan to create a role for her in Bits of Life for which she earned her first screen credit. The film was written specifically for Wesley Barry. With a diverse child cast that included an African American and a Chinese-American, the film was a prototype for the successful Our Gang films. The film is archived in the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. In an earlier film, Barry had a supporting role as a character named ‘Dinty’ which was used to create a similar story as a starring vehicle for Barry.

November 29 – Polly with a Past

• Cast: Ina Claire, Ralph Graves, Marie Wainwright, Harry Benham, Louiszita Valentine, Myra Brooks, Frank Currier
• Director: Leander de Cordova
• Studio: Metro Pictures
• Trivia: Based on the 1917 Broadway play of the same name which also starred Ina Claire. Clifton Webb has an uncredited role.

1930

November 29 – L’Age D’Or (The Golden Age)

• Cast: Gaston Modot, Lya Lys, Caridad de Laberdesque, Max Ernst, Josep Llorens Artigas, Lionel Salem, Germaine Noizet, Duchange, Valentine Penrose
• Director: Luis Buñuel
• Studio: Corinth Films (1979 U.S. release)
• Trivia: The screenplay was by Buñuel and Salvador Dali in their second collaboration, but the two had fallen out by the time of the film’s production. One of the first sound films made in France. The film’s images caused the right wing group Ligue des Patriotes (League of Patriots) to interrupt a screening of the film, throwing ink at the screen and assaulting patrons who opposed them. They destroyed works of art in the lobby by Dali, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, and others. The film was banned from public exhibition, and after attacks on the film by right wing press in Spain, the film was withdrawn from circulation for more than 40 years, although the film was privately screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933. The film had its first legal release in the US in 1979. Today the film is regarded as a key work of surrealist cinema. A restored version of the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019.

November 29 – Min and Bill

• Cast: Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Dorothy Jordan, Marjorie Rambeau, Donald Dillaway, DeWitt Jennings, Russell Hopton, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Gretta Gould
• Director: George W. Hill
• Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Trivia: Based on the 1929 novel Dark Star by Lorna Moon. Marie Dressler won the Oscar for Best Actress. Dressler and Beery went on to appear together in Tugboat Annie. The success of both films boosted the two to superstar status. Beery became MGM’s highest paid actor in the early 1930s before Clark Gable, and had a clause in his contract stating he’d be paid one dollar more per year than any other actor on the lot. Homage was paid to the film at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios with ‘Min and Bill’s Dockside Diner’ which was in the shape of Bill’s fishing trawler. The eatery has since been renamed the ‘S.S. Down the Hatch’.

1940

November 29 – The Bank Dick

• Cast: W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Evelyn Del Rio, Jessie Ralph, Grady Sutton, Franklin Pangborn, Shemp Howard, Dick Purcell, Russell Hicks
• Director: Edward F. Cline, Ralph Ceder
• Studio: Universal Pictures
• Trivia: Known as The Bank Detective in the UK. Screenwriter ‘Mahatma Kane Jeeves’ is a pseudonym for Fields. The name is derived from the Broadway drawing room comedy cliché, ‘My hat, my cane, Jeeves!’ The film was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1992. After two successful films for Universal, You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man and My Little Chickadee, Field was given complete creative control over this project.

November 29 – Contraband

• Cast: Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Hay Petrie, Joss Ambler, Raymond Lovell, Esmond Knight, Charles Victor, Phoebe Kershaw, Harold Warrender, John Longden, Eric Maturin, Paddy Browne, Dennis Arundell, Molly Hamley-Clifford, Eric Berry, Olga Edwardes
• Director: Michael Powell
• Studio: British National Films, distributed by Anglo-American
• Trivia: The film was released in the UK on May 11, 1940 with a running time of 92 minutes. The film was released in the US as Blackout on November 29 with a running time of 80 minutes. Powell wrote in his autobiography that he thought the US title was the better choice and was sorry he didn’t think of it first. Milo O’Shea makes his film debut in an uncredited role.

November 30 – Lady with Red Hair

• Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains, Richard Ainley, Laura Hope Crews, Helen Westley, John Litel, Mona Barrie, Victor Jory, Cecil Kellaway, Fritz Leiber, Johnnie Russell, Selmer Jackson, Alexis Smith, Cornel Wilde, Maris Wrixon, Doris Lloyd, Lillian Kemble-Cooper, Halliwell Hobbes, Creighton Hale
• Director: Curtis Bernhardt
• Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
• Trivia: Alexis Smith made her screen debut in the film.

1950

November 28 – The Mudlark

• Cast: Irene Dunne, Alec Guinness, Andrew Ray, Beatrice Campbell, Finlay Currie, Anthony Steel, Raymond Lovell, Marjorie Fielding, Constance Smith, Edward Rigby, Ernest Clark, Wilfrid Hyde-White
• Director: Jean Negulesco
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Trivia: The film was released in the UK on October 30, 1950. Based on the 1949 novel by Theodore Bonnet. The film was a hit in Britain and made an overnight star of Andrew Ray, who played the title character. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design – Black & White.

November 29 – Let’s Dance

• Cast: Betty Hutton, Fred Astaire, Roland Young, Ruth Warrick, Lucile Watson, Gregory Moffett, Barton MacLane, Shepperd Strudwick, Melville Cooper, Harold Huber, George Zucco, Peggy Badley, Virginia Toland
• Director: Norman Z. McLeod
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: Paramount hoped to cash in on the success of MGM’s Easter Parade, which paired Astaire with Judy Garland, the studio’s biggest female star, and paired Astaire with Hutton but the film did not repeat the earlier film’s success. The film was overshadowed by Hutton’s other 1950 musical, Annie Get Your Gun, one of the highest grossing films of the year. Hutton had been loaned to MGM for that film to replace an ailing Judy Garland. The Eastern Color Movie Love #7 comic adaptation was released in February 1951.

DisCina

November 29 – Orphée (Orpheus)

• Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer, María Casares, Marie Déa, Henri Crémieux, Juliette Gréco, Roger Blin, Édouard Dermit, René Worms
• Director: Jean Cocteau
• Studio: DisCina
• Trivia: The film was released in France on September 29, 1950. The film is the second part of Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy which included The Blood of a Poet (1930) and Testament of Orpheus (1960). Jean-Pierre Aumont claimed in his autobiography that Cocteau had written the film for him and his wife Maria Montez but decided to make it with other actors.

November 29 – Woman on the Run

• Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O’Keefe, Robert Keith, John Qualen, Frank Jenks, Ross Elliott, Jane Liddell, Joan Shawlee, J. Farrell MacDonald, Steven Geray, Victor Sen Yung, Reiko Sato, Syd Saylor, Tom Dillon
• Director: Norman Foster
• Studio: Fidelity Pictures Corporation, distributed by Universal Pictures
• Trivia: The film’s title is misleading as the ‘Woman’ is never on the run, but her husband is. Based on the short story ‘Man on the Run’ by Sylvia Tate. Filmed on location in San Francisco and at Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica. The film has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

December 1 – Highway 301

• Cast: Steve Cochran, Virginia Grey, Gaby André, Edmon Ryan, Robert Webber, Wally Cassell, Aline Towne, Richard Egan, Edward Norris
• Director: Andrew L. Stone
• Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

December 1 – The Killer That Stalked New York

• Cast: Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, Barry Kelley, Carl Benton Reid, Ludwig Donath, Art Smith, Whit Bissell, Roy Roberts, Connie Gilchrist, Dan Riss, Harry Shannon, Jim Backus
• Director: Earl McEvoy
• Studio: Robert Cohn Productions, distributed by Columbia Pictures
• Trivia: The film was based on the real threat of a smallpox epidemic in New York City as described in a 1948 Cosmopolitan magazine article.

December 1 – The Second Face

• Cast: Ella Raines, Bruce Bennett, Rita Johnson, John Sutton, Patricia Knight, Roy Roberts, Jane Darwell, Paul Cavanagh, Frances Karath, Mauritz Hugo, Pierre Watkin, Charles Lane, Grandon Rhodes
• Director: Jack Bernhard
• Studio: EJL Productions, Inc., distributed by Eagle-Lion Classics

1960

December 1 – Cimarron

• Cast: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow, Robert Keith, Charles McGraw, Aline MacMahon, Harry Morgan, David Opatoshu, Edgar Buchanan, Lili Darvas, Mary Wickes, Royal Dano, L. Q. Jones, George Brenlin, Vladimir Sokoloff, Eugene Jackson
• Director: Anthony Mann, Charles Walters (uncredited)
• Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Trivia: Despite a high budget and experienced case, the film was released with little fanfare. Based on the novel by Edna Ferber which had previously been adapted in 1931. That version won three Academy Awards. MGM bought the remake rights from RKO with the plan to film an operetta version in 1947 with Kathryn Grayson. That did not happen. MGM announced a remake in 1958 with Glenn Ford attached to star. King Vidor turned down an offer to direct. Bitter disagreements with producer Edmund Grainger led to Anthony Mann leaving the project halfway through production, replaced by Charles Walters. The climactic Oklahoma Land Rush scene utilized over 1000 extras, 700 horses and 500 wagons and buggies. Ford and Schell began a clandestine relationship while filming that turned sour, causing the two leads to barely speak to each other. The film received two Oscar nominations, Best Art Direction and Best Sound, but lost both.

1970

• No new films were released this week in 1970.

1980

November 26 – Rockshow

• Cast: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Jimmy McCulloch, Joe English
• Director: Bob Mercer
• Studio: MPL Communications, distributed by Miramax Films
• Trivia: The concert film features segments from four performances of the Paul McCartney and Wings US tour, although the film’s promotion only acknowledges the Seattle performances. The film premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York but McCartney did not attend as he was in the studio at the time. He did attend the London premiere on April 8, 1981. The film was originally released at 125 minutes, but edited to 102 minutes for its Betamax home video release. After a 1982 VHS and laserdisc release, McCartney withheld the film from the general public for 31 years. The original cut was restored in 2013 from the 35mm film negative with the soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound, and was given a limited theatrical release before coming to DVD and Blu-ray in June 2013.

December 1 – A Change of Seasons

• Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Hopkins, Bo Derek, Michael Brandon, Mary Beth Hurt, Edward Winter, K Callan, Rod Colbin, Steve Eastin, Billy Beck, Karen Philipp, Paul Bryar
• Director: Richard Lang
• Studio: Film Finance Group, Polyc International BV, 20th Century Fox, distributed by 20th Century Fox
• Trivia: The film received three Golden Raspberry Awards nominations – Worst Actor (Hopkins), Worst Original Song and Worst Screenplay – in its inaugural year. Hopkins and MacLaine did not get along during filming, with Hopkins calling her the most obnoxious actress he’d ever worker with. Noel Black was the film’s original director but left after shooting the first half of the film due to creative differences with producer Martin Ransohoff. The film’s working title was Consenting Adults.

1990

November 30 – Misery

• Cast: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen, Lauren Bacall, Graham Jarvis, J. T. Walsh
• Director: Rob Reiner
• Studio: Castle Rock Entertainment, Nelson Entertainment, distributed by Columbia Pictures
• Trivia: Based on Stephen King’s 1987 novel. Bates won the Oscar for Best Actress, making it the only film based on a King novel to win an Oscar. In the novel, Annie Wilkes amputates one of Paul Sheldon’s feet. Reiner insisted that the scene be changed to her breaking his ankles. Screenwriter William Goldman argued for the amputation, but later agreed Reiner made the right decision as the amputation would cause audiences to hate Annie instead of sympathizing with her madness. The part of Paul Sheldon was offered to William Hurt (twice), Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman and Robert Redford. Warren Beatty was interested but wanted the character to be less passive. He had to drop out due to extensive post-production work on Dick Tracy. James Caan accepted the role because it was unlike any of his other roles, saying being a totally reactionary character was a much tougher job. Reiner has said it was Goldman who suggested the unknown Kathy Bates for the lead. King has called the film one of the top ten favorites from his own works. Bates also won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

December 1 – Cyrano de Bergerac

• Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez, Jacques Weber, Roland Bertin, Philippe Morier-Genoud, Pierre Maguelon, Sandrine Kiberlain
• Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
• Studio: UGC
• Trivia: Based on the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand. The film was a co-production between film companies in France and Hungary. This is the first film adaptation of the story in color, and the second theatrical version of the play in the original French. Depardieu was the second actor to be nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the role of Cyrano. The film received four other nominations — Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Foreign Language Film — winning one for Best Costume Design. Depardieu won the Best Actor award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for 13 César Awards (the French version of the Oscars), winning a record 10 including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Director. It also won the Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTAs out of eight nominations.

2000

• No new films were released this week in 2000.

2010

November 26 – Love & Other Drugs

• Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht, Judy Greer, George Segal, Jill Clayburgh, Nikki DeLoach, Katheryn Winnick, Natalie Gold, Michael Chernus, Michael Buffer
• Director: Edward Zwick
• Studio: Fox 2000 Pictures, Regency Enterprises, New Regency, Stuber Pictures, Bedford Falls Productions, Dune Entertainment, distributed by 20th Century Fox
• Trivia: The film premiere at the AFI Festival on November 4, 2010. Based on the 2005 non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. The film was shot on location in Pittsburgh, which doubled for Chicago in some scenes. A former limousine car park was the film’s studio. Gyllenhaal and Hathaway had final cut over their nude scenes. Hathaway had five seconds cut from one scene in which she felt the camera lingered too long. The two actors were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances.