Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #286 :: January 15•21

While many new movies made their debuts this week across the decades, there were few that were remarkable but there were some bright spots. A 1926 silent adapted a literary classic for the very first time, a 1936 film brought two Universal horror icons together again but not in the intended project, a 1946 musical started as a straight drama and reunited two stars from a 1939 musical classic, a 1966 action film spoofed a popular British secret agent, and saw an Emmy-winning star in his first movie project after leaving his TV series, 1986 had two films that got some notice from Academy voters, 1996 brought two directors together for the first time with one as writer and actor, 2006 had a film that courted controversy because of its star, and 2016 had one of the worst films ever for an Oscar-winning actor. Scroll down to see all of the films released this week over the last century, and tell us if any of your favorites are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

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

1926

January – Good Cheer (USA, short, Hal Roach Studios)

• Cast: Joe Cobb, Jackie Condon, Mickey Daniels, Johnny Downs, Allen Hoskins, Mary Kornman, Jay R. Smith
• Director: Robert F. McGowan
• Trivia: The 46th Our Gang short.

January 15 – His Jazz Bride (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)

• Cast: Marie Prevost, Matt Moore, Gayne Whitman, John Patrick, Mabel Julienne Scott
• Director: Herman C. Raymaker
• Trivia: Warner Bros. may have destroyed the nitrate film negative, a practice of the studio in the 1940s and 1950s due to pre-1933 film decomposition, suggesting the film is lost.

January 15 – The Blind Trail (USA, Maloford Productions-Clarion Photoplay)

• Cast: Leo D. Maloney, Josephine Hill, Nelson McDowell, Bud Osborne, Jim Corey
• Director: Leo D. Maloney
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

January 15 – The Pay-Off (USA, W.T. Lackey Productions)

• Cast: Robert McKim, Marcella Daly, Charles Delaney, Otis Harlan
• Director: Dell Henderson
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

January 15 – The Sea Beast (USA, Warner Bros. Pictures)

• Cast: John Barrymore, Dolores Costello, George O’Hara, Mike Donlin, Sam Baker
• Director: Millard Webb
• Trivia: The first film adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, adding prequel and sequel elements not in the original story. The film survives intact. It was so successful that Warner Bros. remade it in English and German in 1930.

January 16 – The Cheerful Fraud (USA, Universal Pictures)

• Cast: Reginald Denny, Gertrude Olmstead, Otis Harlan, Emily Fitzroy, Charles K. Gerrard
• Director: William A. Seiter
• Trivia: The film is preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

January 17 – My Stars (USA, short, Goodwill Productions)

• Cast: Johnny Arthur, Florence Lee, Virginia Vance, George Davis, Glen Cavender
• Director: Roscoe Arbuckle
• Trivia: Arbuckle directed the film under the pseudonym William Goodrich. A 16 mm copy is held by George Eastman House.

January 17 – The Lady from Hell (USA, Stuart Paton Productions)

• Cast: Roy Stewart, Blanche Sweet, Ralph Lewis, Frank Elliott, Edgar Norton
• Director: Stuart Paton
• Trivia: Released in the UK as Interrupted Wedding. The film was discovered in a New Zealand archive after being thought lost for decades.

January 17 – The Outsider (USA, Fox Film Corporation)

• Cast: Jacqueline Logan, Lou Tellegen, Walter Pidgeon, Roy Atwell, Charles Willis Lane
• Director: Rowland V. Lee
• Trivia: The film is considered lost. It was remade in the UK with sound in 1931.

January 17 – The Traffic Cop (USA, Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation)

• Cast: Maurice ‘Lefty’ Flynn, Kathleen Myers, James A. Marcus, Adele Farrington
• Director: Harry Garson
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

January 18 – The Enchanted Hill (USA, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation)

• Cast: Jack Holt, Florence Vidor, Noah Beery Sr., Mary Brian, Richard Arlen
• Director: Irvin Willat
• Trivia: The film is considered lost.

January 19 – The Checkered Flag (USA, Banner Productions)

• Cast: Elaine Hammerstein, Wallace MacDonald, Lionel Belmore, Robert Ober, Peggy O’Neil, Lee Shumway
• Director: John G. Adolfi
• Trivia: The film’s survival status is unknown.

January 21 – The Girl from Montmartre (USA, First National Pictures)

• Cast: Barbara La Marr, Lewis Stone, Robert Ellis
• Director: Alfred E. Green
• Trivia: The film was released the day after star Barbara La Marr died.

1936

January 16 – Ceiling Zero (USA, Cosmopolitan Productions)

• Cast: James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, June Travis, Stuart Erwin, Martha Tibbetts, Isabel Jewell
• Director: Howard Hawks
• Trivia: Based on the play of the same name by Frank Wead.

January 16 – Strike Me Pink (New York City, The Samuel Goldwyn Company)

• Cast: Eddie Cantor, Ethel Merman, Sally Eilers, Parkyakarkus, William Frawley, Brian Donlevy
• Director: Norman Taurog
• Trivia: The US release expanded nationwide on January 24, 1936. Eddie Cantor’s sixth of six films for Goldwyn, all produced within seven years.

January 17 – Chatterbox (USA, RKO Radio Pictures)

• Cast: Anne Shirley, Phillips Holmes, Edward Ellis, Erik Rhodes, Margaret Hamilton, Lucille Ball
• Director: George Nicholls Jr.
• Trivia: The film is based upon the play Long Ago Ladies by David Carb.

January 17 – Exclusive Story (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

• Cast: Franchot Tone, Madge Evans, Stuart Erwin, Joseph Calleia, Robert Barrat
• Director: George B. Seitz

January 17 – Her Master’s Voice (USA, Walter Wanger Productions)

• Cast: Edward Everett Horton, Peggy Conklin, Laura Hope Crews, Elizabeth Patterson, Grant Mitchell
• Director: Joseph Santley

January 17 – Paddy O’Day (USA, 20th Century Fox)

• Cast: Jane Withers, Pinky Tomlin, Rita Cansino, Jane Darwell, George Givot
• Director: Lewis Seiler
• Trivia: Rita Cansino, in her fourth screen appearance, would be known a year later as Rita Hayworth.

January 17 – Soak the Rich (USA, Hecht-MacArthur Productions)

• Cast: Walter Connolly, John Howard, Mary Zimbalist, Lionel Stander, Ilka Chase, Alice Duer Miller, Francis Compton
• Directors: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur

January 17 – The Improper Duchess (London, City Film)

• Cast: Yvonne Arnaud, Hugh Wakefield, Wilfrid Caithness, Arthur Finn, Gerald Barry, Finlay Currie
• Director: Harry Hughes
• Trivia: The film entered wide release in the UK on June 1, 1936, but has no known US theatrical release date.

January 17 – The Mysterious Avenger (USA, Columbia Pictures)

• Cast: Charles Starrett, Joan Perry, Wheeler Oakman, Edward LeSaint, Lafe McKee, Hal Price
• Director: David Selman
• Trivia: The film features an early appearance by Jon Hall.

January 18 – Freshman Love (USA, Warner Bros.)

• Cast: Patricia Ellis, Warren Hull, Frank McHugh, Mary Treen, Joseph Cawthorn, Alma Lloyd
• Director: William C. McGann
• Trivia: The first film of Lloyd Bridges. A print is preserved at the Library of Congress.

January 18 – The Oregon Trail (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: John Wayne, Ann Rutherford, Joseph W. Girard, Yakima Canutt, Frank Rice
• Director: Scott Pembroke
• Trivia: The film is considered lost. In 2013, film collector Kent Sperring discovered 40 photographs that were taken during the making of the film.

January 19 – Blazing Justice (USA, Ray Kirkwood Productions)

• Cast: Bill Cody, Gertrude Messinger, Gordon Griffith, Milburn Morante, Budd Buster, Frank Yaconelli
• Director: Albert Herman

January 20 – Black Gold (USA, Conn Pictures Corporation)

• Cast: Frankie Darro, LeRoy Mason, Gloria Shea, Berton Churchill, Stanley Fields
• Director: Russell Hopton

January 20 – Dancing Feet (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Edward Nugent, Joan Marsh, Ben Lyon, Isabel Jewell, James Burke, Purnell Pratt
• Director: Joseph Santley
• Trivia: Based on the 1931 novel Dancing Feet by Rob Eden.

January 20 – King of the Damned (USA, Gaumont British Picture Corporation)

• Cast: Conrad Veidt, Helen Vinson, Noah Beery, Cecil Ramage, Edmund Willard, Percy Parsons
• Director: Walter Forde
• Trivia: The film first opened in London in December 1935. The film is based on a play set on Devil’s Island. To avoid French protests, the location was changed to Spain and all the characters were given Spanish names. The film was still banned in France.

January 20 – The Amateur Gentleman (UK, Criterion Film Productions Ltd.)

• Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Elissa Landi, Gordon Harker, Basil Sydney, Hugh Williams, Irene Browne, Corale Brown, Margaret Lockwood
• Director: Thornton Freeland
• Trivia: The film was released in the US on April 27, 1936. Based on the 1913 novel of the same name by Jeffrey Farnol, which had previously been filmed as silent films in Britain and the US. The 1926 US title was The Amateur Gentleman.

January 20 – The Invisible Ray (USA, Universal Pictures)

• Cast: Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton, Violet Kemble Cooper, Walter Kingsford, Beulah Bondi
• Director: Lambert Hillyer
• Trivia: Karloff and Lugosi were to star in a film titled Bluebeard, which did not go into production but Universal wanted them in a film released by the end of 1935 so The Invisible Ray was created. Due to production delays and replacement of the director, the film did not open until 1936. Footage from the movie was re-used in the Universal serial The Phantom Creeps.

January 20 – The Leavenworth Case (USA, Republic Pictures)

• Cast: Donald Cook, Jean Rouverol, Norman Foster, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Maude Eburne
• Director: Lewis D. Collins
• Trivia: Based on the 1878 novel The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green.

1946

January 18 – Gun Town (USA, Universal Pictures)

• Cast: Kirby Grant, Fuzzy Knight, Lyle Talbot, Claire Carleton, Louise Currie
• Director: Wallace Fox

January 18 – The Harvey Girls (USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

• Cast: Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, Preston Foster, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Cyd Charisse
• Directors: George Sidney, Robert Alton (musical numbers)
• Trivia: This is Cyd Charisse’s first speaking role. Oscar-winner for Best Original Song, ‘On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe’. Judy Garland and Ray Bolger worked together for the first time since The Wizard of Oz (1939). The film was intended to be a dramatic Western for Lana Turner until an MGM exec saw Oklahoma! Comic actress Virginia O’Brien was pregnant during filming, causing several scenes with Bolger to go unfilmed, and she disappears from the film after singing ‘Wild Wild West’.

January 19 – The Face of Marble (USA, Hollywood Pictures Corporation)

• Cast: John Carradine, Claudia Drake, Maris Wrixon. Willie Best
• Director: William Beaudine

1956

January 20 – Jaguar (USA, Mickey Rooney Productions)

• Cast: Sabu, Chiquita, Barton MacLane, Jonathan Hale, Touch Connors, Jay Novello
• Director: George Blair
• Trivia: Touch Connors would later be known as Mike Connors, star of TV series Mannix.

1966

January 15 – Duel Personality (USA, short, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

• Voice Cast: June Foray, Mel Blanc, Chuck Jones
• Directors: Chuck Jones, Maurice Noble
• Trivia: The 143rd Tom & Jerry animated short. Features the first score credited to Dean Elliott, who would score the Tom & Jerry shorts until 1967.

January 16 – Our Man Flint (USA, 20th Century Fox)

• Cast: James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb, Gila Golan, Edward Mulhare, Benson Fong
• Director: Daniel Mann
• Trivia: An uncredited Dick Wilson appears in the film. Wilson later gained fame on the Charmin TV commercials as Mr. Whipple. Van Williams provided the voice of President Lyndon B. Johnson, which he also did that same year for Batman: The Movie. Williams was also TV’s The Green Hornet. Preparations for a sequel began even before the film was released. Composer Jerry Goldsmith created the ringtone for the ‘presidential hotline’, which was re-used in Hudson Hawk.

January 20 – Judith (USA, Command Productions-Cumulus Productions)

• Cast: Sophia Loren, Peter Finch, Jack Hawkins, Hans Verner, Frank Wolff
• Director: Daniel Mann

January 20 – The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (USA, Universal Pictures)

• Cast: Don Knotts, Joan Staley, Liam Redmond, Sandra Gould, Dick Sargent, Skip Homeier, Philip Ober, Lurene Tuttle, Charles Lane, Reta Shaw, Ellen Corby, Dick Wilson
• Director: Alan Rafkin
• Trivia: This was Don Knotts’ first major project after leaving The Andy Griffith Show (he starred in The Incredible Mr. Limpet in 1964). Griffith actually suggested a story idea based off of an episode of the series featuring an old house, and contributed to the screenplay, uncredited and with a token payment. The film’s working title was Running Scared. The ‘Simmons Mansion’ in the film was re-used, after some architectural alterations, as Gabrielle Solis’ house in Desperate Housewives. It stands next door to The Munsters house on Universal’s Colonial Street.

1976

• No new movies were released this week in 1976.

1986

January 16 – Sky Pirates (Australia, John Lamond Motion Picture Enterprises)

• Cast: John Hargreaves, Meredith Phillips, Max Phipps, Bill Hunter, Simon Chilvers, Alex Scott, Adrian Wright
• Director: Colin Eggleston
• Trivia: The film was released in the US on May 20, 1988. It is also known as Dakota Harris. The film’s music was composed by Brian May, who scored the first two Mad Max films.

January 17 – Heathcliff: The Movie (USA, DIC Audiovisuel)

• Voice Cast: Mel Blanc, Peter Cullen, Marilyn Lightstone
• Director: Bruno Bianchi

January 17 – Iron Eagle (USA, Delphi Films-Falcon’s Flight)

• Cast: Louis Gossett Jr., Jason Gedrick, David Suchet, Shawnee Smith, Melora Hardin, Larry B. Scott, Lance LeGault, Tim Thomerson
• Director: Sidney J. Furie
• Trivia: The Iron Eagle series consists of four films, with Gossett the only actor to appear in all four.

January 17 – Runaway Train (USA, Golan-Globus Productions)

• Cast: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay, John P. Ryan, T. K. Carter, Kenneth McMillan
• Director: Andrei Konchalovsky
• Trivia: Feature debuts of Danny Trejo and Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister. Voight and Roberts were Oscar-nominated for Best Actor and Supporting Actor, respectively.

January 17 – The Adventures of the American Rabbit (USA, limited, Murakami-Wolf-Swenson/Toei Animation)

• Voice Cast (English): Barry Gordon, Laurie O’Brien, Bob Arbogast, Russi Taylor
• Directors: Fred Wolf, Nobutaka Nishizawa
• Trivia: The film was based upon the poster character of the same name created by pop artist Stewart Moskowitz.

January 17 – The Clan of the Cave Bear (USA, The Guber-Peters Company)

• Cast: Daryl Hannah, Pamela Reed, James Remar, Thomas G. WaitesCurtis Armstrong, Paul Carafotes, Bart the Bear
• Director: Michael Chapman
• Trivia: The film’s dialogue is conducted mostly through a form of sign language which is translated for the audience with subtitles. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Makeup.

January 17 – The Longshot (USA, Orion Pictures)

• Cast: Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Jack Weston, Ted Wass, Stella Stevens, Jonathan Winters, Frank Bonner, Eddie Deezen, Edie McClurg
• Director: Paul Bartel
• Trivia: Tim Conway wrote the film’s screenplay, and Irene Cara performed the title song.

January 17 – Troll (USA, Empire Pictures)

• Cast: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Sonny BonoJune Lockhart, Anne Lockhart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gary Sandy
• Director: John Carl Buechler
• Trivia: The father and son characters in the film are named Harry Potter Sr. and Harry Potter Jr.

1996

1996 – Baniyala: The Yirrkala Film Project (AUS, documentary, Film Australia)

• Cast: Wokuthi Marawali, Mootapuie
• Director: Ian Dunlop
• Trivia: The film has no known US theatrical release date.

1996 – Hungry for You (USA, Mystique Films Inc.)

• Cast: Michael Phenicie, Rochelle Swanson, Gary Wood, Nancy Hochman, Ritchie Montgomery, Michael Gregory
• Director: Dimitri Logothetis

1996 – I’m Still Here: The Truth About Schizophrenia (USA, documentary, Worldwide Documentaries)

• Cast: Susan Gingerich, Fredrick J. Frese
• Directors: Robert Bilheimer, Richard Young
• Trivia: The film was completed in 1992, but not released until 1996.

1996 – Puddle Cruiser (USA, Broken Lizard Industries)

• Cast: Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan, Erik Stolhanske
• Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
• Trivia: The first feature-length film from the Broken Lizard comedy group.

1996 – Roam Sweet Home (USA, documentary, ITVS International)

• Cast: Ellen Spiro, Sam the Dog
• Director: Ellen Spiro
• Trivia: The film is narrated by Spiro’s dog Sam, voiced by Allan Gurganus.

1996 – The Fragile Promise of Choice: Abortion in the United States Today (USA, Dorothy Fadiman)

• Director: Dorothy Fadiman
• Trivia: The film was narrated by Fadiman. It is the last of three films called the Trilogy on Reproductive Rights or the From the Back-Alleys to the Supreme Court & Beyond.

January 19 – From Dusk till Dawn (USA, A Band Apart-Los Hooligans Productions)

• Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Michael Parks, Kelly Preston, Tom Savini, John Saxon, Danny Trejo, Fred Williamson, John Hawkes
• Director: Robert Rodriguez
• Trivia: Quentin Tarantino wrote the screenplay from a story by Robert Kurtzman. The ‘El Rey’ hideout in Mexico was taken from The Getaway, a 1958 crime novel by Jim Thompson. Salma Hayek’s character, Satanico Pandemonium, is a reference to the 1975 nunsploitation film Satánico pandemonium. The production employed a non-union crew, unusual for a film with a budget higher than $15 million. The film was banned in Ireland due to its ‘irresponsible and totally gratuitous violence,’ according to the Irish Film Censor Board. Tarantino received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actor.

2006

January 17 – Half Light (USA, Lakeshore Entertainment)

• Cast: Demi Moore, Hans Matheson, Henry Ian Cusick
• Director: Craig Rosenberg
• Trivia: Filmed on location in Wales, the production benefited the island economy by over £1.5 million ($2.7 million).

January 20 – A Cock and Bull Story (UK/Ireland, Baby Cow Productions)

• Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Raymond Waring, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Gillian Anderson, David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Northam, Benedict Wong, Naomi Harris
• Director: Michael Winterbottom
• Trivia: The film received a limited US release on January 27, 2006, retitled Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. In the film-within-a-film storyline, several actors play characters and themselves including Coogan, Brydon, and Anderson. The fictionalized versions of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon seen in the film reappear as the central characters in Michael Winterbottom’s 2010 BBC series The Trip.

January 20 – End of the Spear (USA, Bearing Fruit Communications)

• Cast: Louie Leonardo, Chad Allen, Jack Guzman, Christina Souza, Chase Ellison
• Director: Jim Hanon
• Trivia: Based on actual events in 1956, wherein five male missionaries were speared by a group of the Waodani tribe, it is told from the perspective of Steve Saint (son of Nate Saint, one of the missionaries killed in the encounter), and Mincaye, one tribesman who participated in the attack. Some Christian groups questioned whether they should promote the film due to openly gay actor Chad Allen in the role of Nate Saint. Steve Saint was also concerned but claimed God told him that Allen was the proper choice, which helped quell the controversy.

2016

January 15 – 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (USA/Canada, 3 Arts Entertainment-Bay Films)

• Cast: John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Max Martini, Dominic Fumusa, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Toby Stephens, Freddie Stroma
• Director: Michael Bay
• Trivia: Based on the 2014 non-fiction book 13 Hours by Mitchell Zuckoff. Oscar-nominated for Best Sound Mixing.

January 15 – Breakdown (UK, Screen 360-Impact Entertainment)

• Cast: Craig Fairbrass, James Cosmo, Mem Ferda, Tamer Hassan
• Director: Jonnie Malachi
• Trivia: The film has no known US theatrical release date.

January 15 – The Benefactor (USA, limited, Audax Films)

• Cast: Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James, Clarke Peters, Brian Anthony Wilson, Dylan Baker
• Director: Andrew Renzi
• Trivia: The film was originally titled Franny, which is the nickname of Gere’s character.

January 19 – Nina Forever (Japan, Casualties Bureau)

• Cast: Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Abigail Hardingham, Cian Barry, Elizabeth Elvin, David Troughton
• Directors: Ben Blaine, Chris Blaine
• Trivia: The film received a limited US release on February 12, 2016. The Blaine brothers funded the film with a Kickstarter campaign so they could make the film they wanted.

January 20 – Dirty Grandpa (Egypt, BillBlock Media)

• Cast: Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, Zoey Deutch, Aubrey Plaza, Julianne Hough, Dermot Mulroney, Jason Mantzoukas, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Adam Pally, Danny Glover
• Director: Dan Mazer
• Trivia: Released in the US and Canada on January 22, 2016. Jeff Bridges and Michael Douglas were considered before De Niro was cast. Several critics called the film the worst they had ever seen. The film earned four Golden Raspberry Awards nominations including Worst Picture, Actor (De Niro), Supporting Actress (Hough and Plaza), and Screenplay.

January 21 – The Boy (UAE/Netherlands, STXfilms)

• Cast: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Hardcastle, Ben Robson
• Director: William Brent Bell
• Trivia: Released in the US and Canada on January 22, 2016. The film, which was originally titled The Devil Inside, was a co-production between China and the US.