Universal Pictures
Quite a few notable films were released this week across the decades, many of them recognized with nominations, awards and preservation. Sadly, none of the films from 1925 exist today. 1935 gave us a film that is considered one of the greatest sequels of all time, while 1945 also gave us another film sequel, plus a film featuring a comedy trio but in a different capacity. A 1955 film attempted to depict a realistic space journey, a 1965 film tackled a time of historical infamy, and a 1975 brought an Agatha Christie story to the big screen, again. A 1985 film is one that its director considers among his best, a 1995 film earned its lead actress a major nomination, one 2005 film made history with its location filming, while another put a new spin on the kung-fu genre, and a 2015 horror film was seen from the perspective of an online chat group. Learn more about these and the other films that premiered this week by scrolling down, and tell us in the comments if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.
1925
- April 17 – Madame Sans-Gêne (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
- April 19 – Baree, Son of Kazan (USA, Vitagraph Company of America)
- April 19 – My Son (USA, First National Pictures)
- April 20 – The Charmer (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
- April 20 – Man and Maid (USA, Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corporation)
- April 20 – Private Affairs (USA, Renaud Hoffman Productions)
- April 20 – The Crowded Hour (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)
The Charmer first opened in the UK on February 8, 1925. All of the films released this week in 1925 are considered lost.
Madame Sans-Gêne translates to Madame Careless. The film was produced in France while star Gloria Swanson was on an extended vacation there. Henri de La Falaise, her French interpreter hired by Paramount, later became Swanson’s third husband. A short trailer for the film still exists and can be found on YouTube.
Baree, Son of Kazan was based on a 1917 novel by James Oliver Curwood, and is a remake of a 1918 version.
1935
- April 18 – Fighting Shadows (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- April 19 – Private Worlds (USA, Walter Wanger Productions)
- April 19 – Reckless (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- April 19 – Star of Midnight (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)
- April 20 – Bride of Frankenstein (USA, limited, Universal Pictures)
- April 20 – Go into Your Dance (USA, First National Pictures)
- April 20 – Les Misérables (USA, 20th Century Pictures)
- April 20 – Love in Bloom (USA, Paramount Pictures)
- April 20 – Stolen Harmony (USA, Paramount Pictures)
- April 22 – Mister Dynamite (USA, Universal Pictures)
- April 22 – The Desert Trail (USA, Lone Star Productions)
Bride of Frankenstein was released in Canada on May 3, 1935, and expanded to a wide release in the US on May 6, 1935.
Fighting Shadows was originally titled Guns of the Law. The Legion of Decency gave the picture a Class A rating, meaning that the picture was suitable for the entire family.
Private Worlds is based on the 1934 novel of the same title by British writer Phyllis Bottome. Claudette Colbert was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for her work in the film. Cinematographer Leon Shamroy used early zoom lenses to create special effects for the film.
Reckless is also known as Born Reckless and Hard to Handle. Screenwriter Oliver Jeffries was really David O. Selznick using a pseudonym. Star Jean Harlow’s singing voice was dubbed by vocalist Virginia Verrill. Harlow later sang the title track for a radio broadcast in January 1935. Joan Crawford was originally cast as the lead but was replaced with Harlow a week before filming began.
William Powell was loaned to RKO to star with Ginger Rogers in Star of Midnight.
Universal considered making a sequel to Frankenstein after early preview screenings, with the film’s ending changed to allow for Henry Frankenstein to survive. Bride of Frankenstein was planned to begin production shortly after the premiere of Frankenstein in 1931, but script problems delayed the project. James Whale refused to direct the film, having squeezed the idea dry with the original but his replacement, Kurt Neumann, decided to make The Black Cat instead. Whale had a success with The Invisible Man, and Universal knew he was the only man for the job. Whale agreed if he could also make One More River. He never felt the film would top the original, so he just decided to make it a ‘memorable hoot’. A treatment for the film titled The New Adventures of Frankenstein — The Monster Lives! was rejected without comment in 1932. A new script titled The Return of Frankenstein was written, and the title stuck until filming began. Whale, though, hated the script, contracting John L. Balderston, writer of the play Dracula that was adapted for Universal’s film, and it was he who came back to an incident from the original novel in which the Monster demands a mate. Whale was still not happy and two more writers were brought on board and the final script combined elements from all three versions. Bela Lugosi and Claude Rains were said to be considered for the role of Pretorius, but other sources say the role was created specifically for Ernest Thesiger. Valerie Hobson replaced Mae Clark as Elizabeth due to her ill health. Brigitte Helm (Metropolis) and Phyllis Brooks were considered for the roles of The Bride and Mary Shelley before Elsa Lanchester was hired. Lanchester modeled the Bride’s hissing on the hissing sound of swans, giving herself a sore throat in the process. Boris Karloff objected to the decision to have the Monster speak. Whale and a studio psychiatrist selected 44 words from the test papers of ten-year-olds to create the Monster’s vocabulary. Dwight Frye returned to play hunchback Fritz, but also had two other roles as an unnamed villager and ‘Nephew Glutz’, a man who murdered his uncle and blamed it on the Monster. Lanchester receives a screen credit for Mary Shelley, but like Karloff in the original, is billed only as ‘?’ for the role of The Bride. Karloff broke his hip on the first day of filming, requiring a stunt double, and Colin Clive (Henry) also broke his leg. Like the original, Whale changed the ending of the film to allow for Henry’s survival, although Clive can still be seen in footage of the collapsing laboratory. Whale ultimately cut the 90-minute film to 75 minutes only days before its release. Joseph Breen of the Hays Office objected to lines of dialogue that compared Henry’s work to that of God, and a proposed shot of the Monster running through a graveyard and attempting to ‘rescue’ a figure of a crucified Christ. The number of murders, seen and suggested, were also a problem. Whale agreed to remove some shots of Mary Shelley in which Breen felt too much of her breasts were visible. Breen had no issues with an image of the Monster lashed to a pole like a crucified Jesus, or to the coded homosexuality of Pretorius. Censors in England and China objected to a scene in which the Monster gazes at the body intended to be his bride, concerned that it suggested necrophilia. The film was involuntarily withdrawn from release in Sweden because of the number of cuts demanded, and the film was rejected outright by Trindad, Palestine and Hungary. The film is considered an improvement on the original, and is considered one of the greatest sequels ever made, hailed as James Whale’s masterpiece. The movie was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1998.
Go into Your Dance was the only film to star Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler, who were married at the time. The film was released in the UK as Casino de Paris. Following the success of the 1946 biopic The Jolson Story, Jolson’s career was revitalized and Warner Bros. cashed in by reissuing Go into Your Dance in 1947, with new opening titles giving Jolson sole top billing, and a prologue to state the film takes place in 1935.
Les Misérables was the last film from Twentieth Century Pictures before merging with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century-Fox. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Best Assistant Director, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.
1945
- April 17 – Rockin’ in the Rockies (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- April 17 – Salome, Where She Danced (USA, Walter Wanger Productions)
- April 18 – Sudan (USA, Universal Pictures)
- April 19 – Shadows of Death (USA, Sigmund Neufeld Productions)
- April 19 – The Power of the Whistler (USA, Larry Darmour Productions)
- April 19 – The Return of the Durango Kid (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- April 20 – Corpus Christi Bandits (USA, Republic Pictures)
- April 20 – Son of Lassie (USA, Loew’s Incorporated)
- April 21 – It’s in the Bag! (USA, Manhattan Productions)
- April 22 – Circumstantial Evidence (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
Rockin’ in the Rockies was a musical Western feature film starring the Three Stooges, one of the few features made during their run of shorts for Columbia Pictures. It’s the only feature with the team’s best known line-up: Moe, Larry and Curly. Moe plays a non-Stooge character straight man, while Larry and Curly act as a comedy duo. Curly’s reactions and mannerisms were beginning to slow down during production from December 1-22, 1944, and was a few short weeks away from suffering a minor stroke which would impact his career with the Stooges.
Salome, Where She Danced was originally to star Ava Gardner but she failed to show up for a costume test. Yvonne De Carlo was in MGM’s waiting room with her agent, having previously campaigned for the lead role, and was grabbed to do the test. The film made De Carlo a star.
Sudan was originally to be titled The Queen of the Nile, a successor to Arabian Nights. It was the last film star Maria Montez made for over a year because of arguments she’d had with Universal. Shadows of Death is the 24th film in the ‘Billy the Kid’ series starring Buster Crabbe.
The Power of the Whistler was based on The Whistler radio drama, and was the third of eight ‘Whistler’ films produced in the 1940s. The Return of the Durango Kid was the second of 65 films in the ‘Durango Kid’ series.
Son of Lassie is also known as Laddie, Son of Lassie, and is a sequel to Lassie Come Home. Elsa Lanchester was originally cast in the role of the adult Priscilla, but June Lockhart took over the role shortly after filming began. Lockhart would later go on to portray Ruth Martin in 1958 on the long-running Lassie TV series.
It’s in the Bag! featured Fred Allen in his only lead film role. The film is loosely based on the comic novel The Twelve Chairs (1928) of Ilf and Petrov, later filmed by Mel Brooks in 1970. Jack Benny co-stars in the film during the time he and Allen were involved in a famous ‘feud’ which went on for over a decade. One of the film’s screenwriters was Alma Reville, Alfred Hitchcock’s wife. An alternate version of the film includes voice-over by Allen which periodically obscures some of the dialogue, including punchlines to jokes. The film has been preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive.
1955
Paramount Pictures
- April 19 – Cell 2455, Death Row (USA, Columbia Pictures)
- April 20 – Conquest of Space (USA, Paramount Pictures)
- April 20 – Violent Saturday (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
Cell 2455, Death Row is based on Caryl Chessman’s 1954 memoir, Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man’s Own Journey, the first of his four books written on Death Row, convicted for robbery, rape and kidnapping. Chessman’s case led the movement to ban capital punishment. By the time he was executed in 1960, Chessman was the longest-living Death Row inmate in modern history.
Conquest of Space was based on the non-fiction book The Conquest of Space, and was intended to be as realistic as possible in depicting the first voyage to Mars. The book’s illustrator, Chesley Bonestell, provided the film’s photorealistic matte paintings. The film also incorporated concepts from Werner von Braun’s 1952 book The Mars Project. Director Byron Haskin stated von Braun was on set as a technical advisor. A decision was made to not use major stars for the film. Walter Brooke turned down a five-year soap opera contract to make the movie, and Eric Fleming left the Broadway cast of My Three Angels to appear in the film. Stanley Kubrick’s space wheel in 2001: A Space Odyssey was almost certainly influenced by the space wheel station in the film, as Kubrick took it upon himself to view as many previous science fiction films as possible to see what had been done to that point.
Violent Saturday was the first CinemaScope movie made for under a million dollars. Though Victor Mature was feuding with Fox at the time, he agreed to take the lead in the film.
1965
- April 20 – The Pawnbroker (USA, Landau Company)
The Pawnbroker was the film debut of Morgan Freeman. The film was the first produced entirely in the United States to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor. It launched Rod Steiger’s career as an A-list star, and he received Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, winning the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor. It was among the first American films to feature a homosexual character and nudity during the era of the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. The approval was announced as a ‘special exception’, but the controversy was just the first of similar challenges that lead to the end of the Code. The film was selected for presevation in the National Film Registry in 2008.
1975
- April 20 – Alfie Darling (UK, Signal)
- April 21 – The Maids (USA, Cine Films Inc.)
- April 23 – Ten Little Indians (USA, Corona Filmproduktion)
Alfie Darling was released in the US in April 1976. Ten Little Indians first opened in West Germany on September 24, 1974.
Alfie Darling, also known as Oh Alfie!, is a sequel to Alfie with Alan Price taking over the title role from Michael Caine, although Caine was open to reprising the role but producers were looking for younger actors for the part. Price was the original keyboardist for the Animals. He had appeared as a singer in O Lucky Man!, but this was his first acting role.
The Maids was one of thirteen film adaptations of plays presented by the American Film Theatre. The filmed version uses the same principal cast as the play which ran at the Greenwich Theatre in London, which included Glenda Jackson and Susannah York.
Ten Little Indians, based on Agatha Christie’s 1939 mystery novel, was released in the UK as And Then There Were None. It was the second of three versions adapted to the screen by Harry Alan Towers. This version uses the script of the 1965 version, even retaining the name for Oliver Reed’s character Hugh, even though he’s named Phillip in the novel. Herbert Lom appears in both this and the third version in 1989, but as different characters. Much of the film was shot on location in pre-revolution Iran. The European cut of the film featured a pre-credit sequence that showed the guests arriving by plane before boarding a helicopter to be transported to the hotel. However, this prologue was cut from the US release.
1985
Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions
- April 19 – The Purple Rose of Cairo (USA, Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions)
The Purple Rose of Cairo was inspired by the films Sherlock Jr. and Hellzapoppin’, and the play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Michael Keaton took a pay cut for the role of Tom Baxter/Gil Shepherd, but after ten days of filming Woody Allen felt he was too contemporary and hard to accept in the period role and was replaced with Jeff Daniels. Several scenes featuring Tom and Cecilia are set at the Bertrand Island Amusement Park, which closed just prior to the film’s production. Allen has cited it as one of the few films that turned out the way he envisioned when writing it, and earned an Oscar nomination for his Original Screenplay. The film also earned four BAFTA nominations, winning two for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay, and four Golden Globe nominations, winning again for Best Screenplay.
1995
- April 19 – New Jersey Drive (USA, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks)
- April 21 – Clean, Shaven (USA, DSM III)
- April 21 – Kiss of Death (USA, Twentieth Century Fox)
- April 21 – Swimming with Sharks (USA, Cineville)
- April 21 – The Basketball Diaries (USA, Island Pictures)
- April 21 – The Cure (USA, Island World)
- April 21 – While You Were Sleeping (USA, Caravan Pictures)
Clean, Shaven was shot on 16mm film with a budget of $60,000. Production took place over a noncontinuous period of two years due to the piecemeal financing. A robbery scene filmed in New York caused a delay in shooting because the police thought it was real.
Kiss of Death is a remake of the 1947 film of the same name. David Caruso was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst New Star for his work in both this movie and Jade, but lost to Elizabeth Berkley for Showgirls.
Swimming with Sharks is also known as The Boss and Buddy Factor. The director Buddy hires in the film, Foster Kane, is named after Orson Welles’ character in the 1941 film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane.
The Basketball Diaries was the feature directorial debut of Scott Kalvert, and is based on an autobiographical novel by the same name written by Jim Carroll.
Universal Pictures was to handle distribution of The Cure, but became concerned when several name directors including Martin Brest, Sydney Pollack, Rob Reiner and Paul Brickman turned it down. To save the film, producers cut the budget in half and hired Peter Horton to direct. The film’s script in which two boys, one of whom has AIDS, set out to find a cure they had heard existed, has been accused of being homophobic with gay slurs hurled at the boys and an effeminate male nurse character. To help the film’s box office potential, Horton tried to cast ex-wife Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan but both declined. The film’s score by Dave Grusin received a Grammy nomination.
Meg Ryan, Demi Moore and Julia Roberts turned down the lead role in While You Were Sleeping, which went to Sandra Bullock. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Bill Pullman tried to quit the film after an infamous table read which the producer called the worst of all time, but his agent told him he could not quit another movie.
2005
China Film Co-Production Corporation
- April 21 – The Extra (AUS, Macquarie Film Corporation)
- April 21 – Three Dollars (AUS, Arenafilm)
- April 22 – A Lot Like Love (USA, Mile High Productions)
- April 22 – King’s Ransom (USA, New Line Cinema)
- April 22 – Kung Fu Hustle (USA, China Film Co-Production Corporation)
- April 22 – The Interpreter (USA, Working Title Films)
The Extra has no known US theatrical release date. Three Dollars was screened in the US at the Newport Beach International Film Festival but did not receive a theatrical release. Kung Fu Hustle first opened in China on December 23, 2004.
The Extra suffered a delay in production because the producers of a short film titled The Extra sued over claims of plagiarism regarding the feature film’s storyline, origin and title. The film’s producer reached a settlement out of court, admitting the claims were true and tried to impose a gag order on the short’s win, unsuccessfully. The film’s star and co-writer Jimeoin also admitted to holding talks with the producers of the short about plans to co-develop it into a feature film.
The King’s Ransom screenplay was written by Wayne Conley, who was a writer on the Nickelodeon series Kenan & Kel.
Kung Fu Hustle features a number of retired actors famous for 1970s Hong Kong action cinema. The film was converted to 3D for a tenth anniversary re-release. The 1973 film The House of 72 Tenants was the inspiration for the Pigsty Alley setting. It took four months to construct the set, and it was filled with props and furniture that were antiques from all over China. While auditions for the role of Landlady were being held, Yuen Qiu, who did not audition, was spotted during her friend’s screen test smoking a cigarette with a sarcastic expression on her face, which won her the part. Qui had appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974 at the age of 18, and had retired from films in the 1980s. Landlady was her first role in nineteen years, and in order to fulfill director Stephen Chow’s vision for the character, she gained weight by eating midnight snacks every day. The film was also Bruce Leung’s return to the film industry after fifteen years. Television actress Eva Huang (Huang Shengyi) was chosen for the role of Fong over 8,000 women. In her film debut, she asked to have no dialogue so she could stand out using her body gestures. Production lasted for five months, with two-thirds of that time spent on the fight sequences. Sammo Hung was the original fight choreographer, but quit after two months due to illness, tough outdoor conditions and arguments with the production crew. He was replaced with Yuen Woo-ping, known for the fight choreography for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix. The film received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Film.
The Interpreter was the first film to be shot in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council chambers, and was the last film directed by Sydney Pollack before his death in 2008. The UN initially refused a request to film in the building, and production was prepared to relocate to Toronto with a constructed set, which would have increased the budget substantially, so Pollack approaced UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan directly to negotiate permission. Filming took place on weekends, public holidays and at night so as not to disturb the regular working day at the UN. Actual ambassadors hoped to appear in the film, but actors were hired to play the diplomats.
2015
- April 17 – 1915 (USA, Avalanche Entertainment)
- April 17 – Alex of Venice (USA, Electric City Entertainment)
- April 17 – Beyond the Reach (USA, limited, Square One Cinema)
- April 17 – Child 44 (UK/Canada/USA, Summit Entertainment)
- April 23 – Far from the Madding Crowd (Denmark, BBC Film)
- April 17 – Monkey Kingdom (USA, Silverback Films)
- April 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (USA, Happy Madison Productions)
- April 17 – The Road Within (USA, limited, Amasia Entertainment)
- April 17 – True Story (USA, New Regency Productions)
- April 17 – Unfriended (USA, Bazelevs Production)
Beyond the Reach was released simultaneously digitally and theatrically on April 17, 2015. Far from the Madding Crowd received a limited US release on May 1, 2015.
1915 is the first feature film by directors Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian. Filming took place almost entirely on location at the historic Los Angeles Theatre, in downtown LA. Long believed to be haunted, the theater is its own character in the story, and the deleted scenes include references to one of its founders, Charlie Chaplin.
Alex of Venice was the directorial debut of actor Chris Messina, who was working on both the film and The Mindy Project simultaneously. Beyond the Reach premiered at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival as The Reach, and was acquired by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions. The first trailer released on February 5, 2015 revealed the film’s new title.
Child 44 was very loosely based on the case of Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. For the brief scene in the Moscow underground the Prague metro was used. It was the first time in its history that it was shut to the public.
Far from the Madding Crowd is the fourth film adaptation of the 1847 novel of the same name by Thomas Hardy. Carey Mulligan claimed she hand-picked Matthias Schoenaerts to play Gabriel Oak after seeing him in Rust and Bone.
Monkey Kingdom is the eighth nature documentary released under the Disneynature banner. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 was the first film shot at the Wynn Las Vegas casino resort. The film was budgeted at $45-$50 million, but star Kevin James took a pay cut which brought it down to $38 million. The film earned six Golden Razzie Award nominations including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (James) and Worst Director. James expressed interest in making a third film in 2022, with co-star Lauren Ash also willing to come on board.
The Road Within, a remake of the German film Vincent Wants to Sea, was writer/director Gren Wells feature directorial debut. Zoë Kravitz dropped her weight to 90 lbs for the film to play a character with an eating disorder. True Story was Rupert Goold’s directorial debut.
Unfriended was originally titled Offline, then Cybernatural. The film is told almost entirely through a screencast of a MacBook. The film was a massive success, earning nearly $70 million against a $1 million budget. Filming consisted of long ten minute takes shot over six 12-hour days, but Shelley Henning found this method difficult for her and the other actors to maintain the energy and motivation needed, so she requested they film at least one full 80 minute take with each actor in separate rooms on separate computers. The film’s ending was drawn from one of these feature-length takes.