Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
It’s the last week of years that end in 4, transitioning to the first day of the years that begin with 5. This week brings a lot of films in the top half of the century, several of note. 1924 gave us the first film adaptation of a popular play aimed at children, 1935 saw a major child star become the first to win an Oscar, 1945 gave us a classic screen musical that takes place during the four seasons but is remembered by many as a Christmas movie, 1954 adapted a popular novella into an animated film with a top secret background, 1964 saw a popular actress appear on the big screen for the last time, 1974 had a big screen adaptation of a popular sitcom, 1994 adapted an historical play into an award-winning film, 2004 gave us a musical biopic that was a box office bomb, and 2014 had a major hit film ridiculed for a particular prop. Plus many films this week were deemed significant enough for preservation, and many more earned nominations and awards from major organizations. Scroll down to see all the films released this week, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.
1924-1925
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation
- December 26 – The Tomboy (USA, Mission FIlm Corporation)
- December 27 – The No-Gun Man (USA, Harry Garson Productions)
- December 28 – Battling Bunyan (USA, Encore Pictures)
- December 28 – Curlytop (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 28 – In Love with Love (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 28 – So Big (USA, First National Pictures)
- December 28 – The Mirage (USA, Regal Pictures)
- December 28 – The Star Dust Trail (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 29 – Argentine Love (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
- December 29 – Peter Pan (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
- December 29 – The Dixie Handicap (USA, Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation)
- January – Breed of the Border (USA, Harry Garson Productions)
- January – Mutiny (UK, George Clark Productions)
- January – The Gambling Fool (USA, Independent Pictures)
- January – The Happy Ending (UK, Gaumont British Picture Corporation)
- January 1 – A Fool and His Money (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- January 1 – Easy Money (USA, Harry J. Brown Productions)
- January 1 – Soft Shoes (USA, Hunt Stromberg Productions)
- January 1 – The Bridge of Sighs (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
- January 1 – The Early Bird (USA, C.C. Burr Productions)
- January 1 – 3 Keys (USA, Banner Productions)
Mutiny and The Happy Ending have no known US theatrical release dates.
Lost films: The No-Gun Man, Curlytop, So Big, The Mirage, Argentine Love, The Dixie Handicap, Breed of the Border, A Fool and His Money
Status unknown: The Star Dust Trail, Mutiny, The Happy Ending, 3 Keys
A print of The Tomboy is preserved at the Library of Congress. Battling Bunyan exists and has been released on DVD.
In Love with Love is based on the 1923 Broadway play of the same name by Vincent Lawrence. The Library of Congress holds a print of this film; a nitrate from a Czech film archive (cataloged under its Czech title Co Laska Natropi!).
So Big was based on Edna Ferber’s 1924 novel of the same name which won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1925. Only a trailer survives at the Library of Congress.
Peter Pan is the first film adaptation of the 1904 play by J. M. Barrie. This film was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s 1953 animated adaptation. The film closely follows the plot of the original play, and even goes so far as to incorporate much of its original stage dialogue in the intertitles. The film omits the scene ‘An Afterthought’, which Barrie wrote after the play was staged, and in which Peter returns for Wendy, only to find that years have passed and that she is now a married woman with a daughter. Barrie himself selected Betty Bronson to play Peter Pan. As there was no money at the time to be made holding on to films, and no archive in the US in which to hold them, most prints of the film were destroyed over the years to the point that it was thought to be lost. A well-preserved copy was found in a vault at the Eastman School of Music in the 1950s, and an until then unknown 16mm copy was held at Disney Studios, which had been made when the company acquired the property in 1938. A new restoration was made in 1994 by combining the two sources, and Philip C. Carli composed new film music for it. The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2000.
The Gambling Fool is preserved in the Library of Congress collection. A Fool and His Money was remade as the sound film A Royal Romance in 1930. A copy of Easy Money is preserved at the Library of Congress. A copy of Soft Shoes survives at Národní Filmový Archiv in Prague and was screened at San Francisco Silent Film Festival on May 31, 2018.
An incomplete print of The Bridge of Sighs survives in the French archive Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée in Fort de Bois-d’Arcy. A complete print of The Early Bird is held in the Library of Congress and UCLA Film and Television Archive.
1934-1935
- December 27 – Broadway Bill (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- December 28 – Bright Eyes (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 28 – Here Is My Heart (USA, Paramount Pictures)
- December 28 – The Little Minister (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)
- December 29 – Bachelor of Arts (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 29 – Million Dollar Baby (USA, Fox Film Corporation)
- December 29 – Sweet Adeline (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
- December 31 – The Camels are Coming (UK, Gainsborough Pictures)
The Camels are Coming has no known US theatrical release date.
Director Fank Capra so disliked the final product of his film Broadway Bill, he remade it more to his liking in 1950 as Riding High, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Years later, Paramount acquired the rights to Broadway Bill. The film was released in the UK as Strictly Confidential.
Shirley Temple received a miniature Oscar for her contributions to film entertainment in 1934, mainly for her work in Little Miss Marker and Bright Eyes. She was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award.
The screenplay for The Little Minister is based on the 1891 novel and subsequent 1897 play of the same title by J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. This was the fifth film adaptation of the story, the first with sound. Katharine Hepburn initially turned down the role of Babbie, but reconsidered when it was offered to Margaret Sullivan.
Sweet Adeline is a musical film adaptation of the 1929 Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II Broadway play of the same title.
1944-1945
- December 28 – Tahiti Nights (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- December 29 – Can’t Help Singing (USA, Universal Pictures)
- December 29 – The Whispering Skull (USA, Alexander-Stern Productions)
- December 29 – Tomorrow, the World! (USA, Lester Cowan Productions)
- December 30 – Stage Door Cartoon (USA, short, Warner Bros. Cartoon Studios)
- December 30 – The Big Bonanza (USA, Republic Pictures)
- December 31 – Hollywood Canteen (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)
- December 31 – Sheriff of Las Vegas (USA, Republic Pictures)
- January – Belle of the Yukon (USA, International Pictures)
- January – Meet Me in St. Louis (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- January – Strawberry Roan (UK, British National Films)
Strawberry Roan has no known US theatrical release date.
Can’t Help Singing was the only Technicolor film which starred Deanna Durbin. It was one of Universal’s most expensive films at that time. The film’s original title was Caroline. The film received Oscar nominations for its music score and original song.
The Whispering Skull is the 17th of 22 ‘Texas Rangers’ films from PRC. Tomorrow, the World! was based on the successful 1943 Broadway play. The play’s stars, Skip Homeier and Edit Angold, reprised their stage roles for the film.
Stage Door Cartoon was a Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd short, whose title parodied Stage Door Canteen. It was the first cartoon to features Bugs’ signature song ‘What’s Up Doc?’ playing during the title card. The Southern sheriff in this cartoon is a prototype of Yosemite Sam, almost as tall as Bugs, with white hair, and a good guy who is a fan of Bugs and his cartoons. This cartoon marks the debut of ‘Untitled Soft Shoe Number’, an original music score by Carl Stalling. The basic plotline was re-used in Hare Do and Rabbit of Seville, with the short’s high diving gag used as the entire plot for High Diving Hare.
Hollywood Canteen featured cameos from many well-known stars as themselves which caused a stop to the production as the Screen Actors Guild had salary disputes with Warner Bros. over how much the stars would earn even for the briefest cameo. The film earned Oscar nominations for Best Original Song (‘Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart’), Best Scoring of a Motion Picture and Sound Recording.
Sheriff of Las Vegas was the sixth of 23 ‘Red Ryder’ features from Republic Pictures. Belle of the Yukon was Oscar nominated for Best Original Song and Best Music Scoring.
Meet Me in St. Louis was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1994. The film introduced the songs ‘The Trolley Song’, ‘The Boy Next Door’ and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, performed by Judy Garland, all of which became hits after the film’s release. ‘The Trolley Song’ was Oscar nominated for Best Original Song, and the film earned four additional nominations, with Margaret O’Brien winning the Academy Juvenile Award. The film was based on ‘The Kensington Stories’ by Sally Benson.
1954-1955
- December 29 – Animal Farm (USA, Halas & Batchelor)
- December 29 – Green Fire (USA, Loew’s)
- December 31 – Black Tuesday (USA, Leonard Goldstein Productions)
- December 31 – The Bridges at Toko-Ri (USA/Canada, Paramount Pictures)
- January – 3 Ring Circus (USA, Perlberg-Seaton Productions)
- January – The Deadly Game (USA, Hammer Films)
The Deadly Game was released in the UK as Third Party Risk.
Animated film Animal Farm, based on George Orwell’s 1945 novella, was partially funded by the CIA. Orwell’s widow did not know she had sold the rights to undercover CIA agents. The Office of Policy Coordination was funding anti-communist art for the Psychological Warfare Workshop. Newsreel producer Louis de Rochemont and his production company were chosen as a front for the organization. De Rochemont agreed so he could use frozen assets earned from his previous film which were required to be spent on film production in the UK. John Halas and Joy Batchelor were chosen to direct because of their work on documentaries produced by the Marshall Plan and the British Ministry of Information. Because of the ‘Red Scare’ and Hollywood blacklisting, only one American animator was involved, John F. Reed from Disney. Eighty animators from The Rank Organisation’s defunct animation division were also hired, but none of the directors or animators knew the project had been initiated or funded by the CIA. The CIA tweaked the film’s script to heighten the anti-Communist message, with the story’s ending rewritten to have the other animals successfully revolting against the pigs, who represented the Communists. Gordon Heath provides the narration for the film, with all of the animal voices performed by Maurice Denham. The film was a box office flop, and did not recover its budget until fifteen years after its release.
Green Fire is based on the memoir of the same name by Peter W. Rainier, a South African whose great-great-granduncle was the person that Mount Rainier, Washington was named after (by the explorer George Vancouver). MGM produced the film in both CinemaScope and standard ratio formats for theaters that had not yet converted to the widescreen format.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri, based on the 1953 novel by James Michener, featured early screen appearances by Dennis Weaver and Earl Holliman. The film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and was also nominated for Best Editing.
3 Ring Circus was the second movie to be filmed in VistaVision, Paramount’s answer to CinemaScope. An edited version removing the early military and circus scenes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis together, as well as Martin’s later music numbers, was released by Paramount in 1974 and shown at children’s matinees as Jerrico the Wonder Clown. The edited version placed more emphasis on Lewis’ character and reduced Martin’s screentime.
The Deadly Game was based on the 1953 novel Third Party Risk by Nicholas Bentley.
1964-1965
William Castle Productions
- December 27 – Nothing But a Man (USA, Nothing But a Man Company)
- December 30 – The Night Walker (USA, William Castle Productions)
- December 31 – Dungeons of Horror (Mexico, Herts-Lion International Corp.)
- December 31 – The Yellow Rolls-Royce (UK, De Grunwald Productions)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce was released in the US on May 13, 1965.
Nothing But a Man was little seen during its release due to distribution issues, but is now considered an important example of neorealistic American cinema. It was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1993. Yaphet Kotto has his first credited role in the film. The film’s title was almost changed to Duff Anderson at the last minute.
The Night Walker was the final feature film role for Barbara Stanwyck, who transitioned to television in the long-running Western series The Big Valley, and later starred in the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys. It was the last black-and-white film made by Universal in the 1960s. Instead of his usual gimmicks, director William Castle relied on the reputation of screenwriter Robert Bloch, who also wrote Psycho, and the notoriety of stars Stanwyck and Robert Taylor, who had been married from 1939 to 1951. The film was originally titled The Dream Killer, and the lead role was offered first to Joan Crawford, who turned it down as she was committed to Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (a film she began but was replaced with Olivia de Havilland due to conflicts with Bette Davis).
Dungeons of Horror, also known as Dungeon of Horror and Dungeon of Harrow, has no known US theatrical release date. The film’s director, Pat Boyette, used public domain music to score the film, and also drew the film’s poster.
The Yellow Rolls-Royce song ‘Forget Domani’ won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. It was also nominated for Best Original Score. The film’s title vehicle is a 1931 Phantom II which links the three stories of the film.
1974-1975
- December 26 – Man About the House (UK, Hammer Films)
- December 26 – Open Season (UK, Arpa Productions)
- December 28 – ESPY (Japan, Toho-Eizo)
- January 1 – Teenage Seductress (USA, Lima Productions)
Man About the House has no known US theatrical release date. Open Season was first released in the US in August 1974. ESPY, also known as Esupai, has no known US theatrical release date.
Man About the House was based on the British sitcom of the same name (which was adapted in the US as Three’s Company). It was the last big screen adaptation of a popular television comedy made by Hammer Films.
Open Season was shot in Spain and England, standing in for the American backwoods. The film was based on the novel The All Ameicans by David Osborn.
1984-1985
- No new films were released this week in 1984-1985.
1994-1995
Close Call Films
- December 28 – The Madness of King George (USA, Close Call Films)
The Madness of King George is adapted from the play The Madness of George III. Nigel Hawthorne reprised the role of King George III from the play. The title was tweaked from George III to King George for American audiences to clarify George III’s royalty. There was also a suggestion that it was assumed American audiences would think the III meant the film was a sequel, having missed I and II, which the director admitted wasn’t untrue but also felt it was necessary to get the word King in the title. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Actor, winning one for Best Art Direction. It scored fourteen BAFTA nominations including Best Film, winning for Outstanding British Film, Best Actor and Best Make-up and Hair.
2004-2005
- December 27 – Aussie Park Boyz (UK, Allumination)
- December 29 – The Assassination of Richard Nixon (USA, limited, Esperanto Filmoj)
- December 29 – Beyond the Sea (USA, Archer Street Productions)
Aussie Park Boyz was released in the US on July 12, 2005. The Assassination of Richard Nixon first opened in Greece on October 22, 2004. Beyond the Sea first opened in the UK on November 26, 2004.
The Assassination of Richard Nixon was based on the story of would-be assassin Samuel Byck, who plotted to kill Richard Nixon in 1974. The character’s name is changed to Bicke for the film.
Beyond the Sea starred Kevin Spacey as singer Bobby Darin, using his own voice for the musical numbers. Spacey also directed, co-produced and co-wrote the film. The film was a box office bomb but Darin’s widow Sandra Dee, son Dodd Darin and former manager Steve Blauner responded enthusiastically to Spacey’s work on the film. The film was originally under development by Barry Levinson in 1994, with Spacey offering his services to play Darin. Levinson felt at the time that Spacey was too old, and coincidentally around the same time he had performed Darin’s version of ‘That Old Black Magic’ for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. At least three times a year Spacey’s manager would call Warner Bros. to ask what was happening with Levinson’s Darin movie. Levinson left the project in 1997 to make Liberty Heights, and Warner Bros. lost the music licensing rights, which reverted to Darin’s estate. Spacey acquired the film rights from Warner Bros. in 2000, and received the music rights at no charge from Dodd Darin. Paramount was interested in financing the film but also told Spacey he was too old, preferring to cast Leonardo DiCaprio. Spacey kept close relations with Darin’s family and assured them he would treat Bobby’s legacy with respect. An early script featured more of Darin’s darker side, which Spacey opted to omit, later admitting he portrayed Darin too sympathetically, but the earlier scripts made him too unlikable. Spacey declined to be paid for his work on the film. He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, losing to Jamie Foxx for Ray, and he and Phil Ramone were Grammy nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album, also losing to Ray.
2014-2015
- December 26 – The Water Diviner (AUS, Fear of God Films)
- January 1 – American Sniper (Italy, Mad Chance Productions)
American Sniper opened in limited release in the US on December 25, 2014 for awards consideration, and expanded on January 16, 2015, also opening in Canada and the UK on that date. The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, first opened in Kuwait on December 25, 2014, and received a limited release in Canada and the US on April 24, 2015.
American Sniper was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), winning for Best Sound Editing. Many felt the use of an obviously fake baby hurt the film’s chances of winning Best Picture.
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