An Earthquake and Hurricane in the same week? I think it's time to discuss The Rains Came (1939)

Tom Ransome (George Brent),  a nonchalant philanderer has spent years in India watching the people and the rains come and go. He has an ardent admirer in Fern Simon (Brenda Joyce), the daughter of American missionaries who is fascinated by Tom and his reputation. However, Tom regards her as a child. When he runs into an old flame who is now Lady Edwina Esketh (Myrna Loy), having married the wealthy and uncouth Lord Esketh (Nigel Bruce), Tom is alarmed by her behavior. Worse yet, he realizes he has built his reputation on behaving just like her.  

Edwina, bored with her marriage, carelessly tries making a conquest of Tom's friend, Major Rama Safti (Tyrone Power). However, the major is too preoccupied with his work as a doctor to pay her any attention. Meanwhile, as the rains fall, Tom finds himself falling in love with Fern. Then disaster strikes when an earthquake destroys the dams and releases flood waters into Ranchipur, killing Lord Esketh and the Maharajah (H. B. Warner). When the Maharani (Maria Ouspenskaya) asks Tom to help her people, Fern joins him. Plague sweeps the city and as the major fights to contain it, Edwina volunteers to help in the hospital despite the risks. The major, touched by her selflessness, finally falls in love with her. However, in the most harrowing scene Edwina accidentally drinks from a contaminated glass and falls victim to the plague. The major is unable to save her. Tom and Fern get married and the major, successfully contains the plague to become the Maharajah.

The Rains Came isn't quick entertainment, it has its slow moments but it also has a few heavy hitters. Besides some pretty good special effects, Brent, Power, Ouspenskaya, and Joyce play their parts wonderfully. The real star however, is Loy. An unusual part for her as evidenced in her future work, she nonetheless shows her dramatic chops and is most touching in her deathbed scene. Definitely worth seeing just once.


Tonight on TCM- if the power stays on...
Linda Darnell! Oh, A Letter to Three Wives sounds fun!

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Disabled women in small town are becoming prey of a serial killer. Helen (Dorothy McGuire), a mute girl who works for the Warren family, is the killer’s next victim. In the Warren manor, Helen serves as the ailing Mrs. Warren’s (Ethel Barrymore) companion. When another murder takes place in town, Mrs. Warren is convinced it’s her son Steve (Gordon Oliver), a reckless womanizer. Steve has just arrived from Europe and is staying in the mansion with his mother and step-brother Professor Albert Warren (George Brent). He is currently having an affair with Albert’s assistant and past love interest, Blanche. When Dr. Parry (Kent Smith), the young new doctor arrives to check on Mrs. Warren, she insists that he take Helen from her home immediately. Since Dr. Parry loves Helen and wants to take her to see specialists in Boston so she can regain her voice, he agrees but first he must take care of his other patients and so leaves Helen to her own defenses in the Warren home.

This film is full of wonderful suspense! The set up is great- three men, three possible murderers. Could it be the new doctor in town who professes his love for Helen? What about Steve, who’s never had a care in the world and seems to earn everyone’s dislike? Or could it possibly be Professor Warren, a kind man who has graciously taken on the care of his step-mother?

Tonight on TCM!

Richard Burton!!

Marriage Among the Stars...

In the next few blog entries I will be posting pics and information about several classic actors and actresses and their marriages. I will be focusing on star on star marriages.

It's a well documented fact that being in the limelight is not conducive to a healthy marriage. The likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, and Cary Grant to name a few, are perfect examples of serial marrieds. Hectic schedules, romantic scenes with aesthetically pleasing co-stars, and basic human error often play roles of their own.


Let's begin with the stars that married more than one star.

George Brent's first wife was Ruth Chatterton (who was married to actor Ralph Forbes beforehand). After that marriage dissolved he tried his hand years later with the lovely Ann Sheridan.

Orson Welles was a talented man, he also had great taste in women. Before Rita Hayworth "couldn't take his genius anymore", he had a torrid affair with domestic partner Dolores del Río.

I was suprised to learn that Joan Blondell (who was also married to the notorious Mike Todd) and Dick Powell were married. I always thought it was just him and June Allyson.

I think Reagan would have been a one-time marriage guy if Jane Wyman had stuck around, from what I read she really broke his heart. But Nancy Davis put it back together and thus history was made.

I was under the impression that it wasn't really proven that Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard had married, I thoguht the general consensus was that they travelled extensively together until things went kaput. Guess they did. After Chaplin Goddard married funnyman Burgess Meredith and ironically (at least for me) I just read that she was also married to Erich Maria Remarque the author of All Quiet on the Western Front- a phrase I kept repeating to myself last night as I cooked dinner (I have no idea why).

Bogie and Bacall is practically a household name but little did I know that Bacall also married Jason Robards the crochety old man I remember fondly from Parenthood.

Ava Gardner first married Mickey Rooney (pardon me but, WTF?) Then she married Frank Sinatra who left his wife for her thus catipulting Ava into fame and leaving Frank to dependent on her studio clout to get him a desired part that brought him back into favor again. Ah, Hollywood.

Joan Crawford reportedly ended her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. due to her affair with Clark Gable (whom she starred in eight films with) and then married Franchot Tone (another repeat offender, he also married actresses Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton and Dolores Dorn) but it was Joan who reportedly took him into her home and cared for him until his death from lung cancer.

Carole Lombard knew how to pick em! She got herself two fine actors, William Powell and Clark Gable.

After his first marriage to actress Virginia Cherrill, Cary Grant went on to marry two more actresses, Betsy Drake and Dyan Cannon.

Other repeat offenders are:

George Sanders got himself two Gabors. Pictured above is Zsa Zsa and after his longest marriage stint to Benita Hume (who married him after the death of Ronald Colman), he married Zsa Zsa's sister, Magda. Whoa.
Benita Hume was married to Ronald Colman then George Sanders.

Mary Pickford left actor Owen Moore to marry Douglas Fairbanks Sr.. Then she married actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers.

Bogey was also married to actress Mary Phillips and also to Mayo Methot whom he divorced before marrying Bacall only two weeks later.

The king of them: John Barrymore married only actresses. Besides Dolores Costello, pictured below, he married Katherine Corri Harris, Blanche Oelrichs, and Elaine Barrie.

Tonight on TCM!

Summer Under the Stars: Judy Garland

Pre-Code Dip: Babyface (1933)

I took the ultimate Pre-Code Dip the other night and watched Babyface the uncensored version. The DVD offered the public release version as well and I should have watched that for comparison but totally didn't think to. I was blown away by this story and the blatant sexual message it gave off. Barbara Stanwyck plays the jaded lady to perfection. Her ability to void her face and body from any kind of womanly emotion in the face of men literally falling at her feet is a talent I will never possess.

Synopsis:
Although Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), daughter of a steel town speakeasy, struggles to protect herself fom the men her father forces on her. Finally Lily rebels and, on the advice of Nietzche the local cobbler, decides to use men to get ahead. She leaves the steel town and goes to the city where she takes a job in a bank. There she seduces meneventually working her way up to a bank executive. He provides her with an apartment, furs, jeweles and a few "pennies in her bank account" The one night in a jealous rage, her former lover and another employee at the bank kills the bank executive, creating a scandal at the bank. Lily claims she is a victim of circumstance, but instead of giving her the fifteen thousand in hush money she requires, Courtland Trenholm (George Brent), the new bank president tricks her into giving her enough money to go to Paris and make a fresh start at their bank branch there. On a visit to Paris, he too falls in love with Lily and marries her but soon after the bank is faced with bankruptcy and Trenholm is indicted. Instead of helping him by giving back all the expensive gifts he has showered on her, Lily, ever needing to be resourceful, refuses to help him. Convinced he is ruined, Trenholm decides to shoot himself, but Lily arrives in time to save his life and promise her devotion to him.


Even in today's society and as desensitized as I am, I still cannot agree with the message the movie sends out which, to me, basically says sleep with men to get what you want. I'm jaded enough to think using men is okay but with my wits not my body.

Even a young John Wayne falls under her spell!

Tonight on TCM!

The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
Oklahoma farmers dispossessed during the Depression fight for better lives in California. Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin Dir: John Ford

Suit up! Summer is almost here!

Jean Arthur

Gene Tierney

Susan Hayward

Rita Hayworth

Kim Novak

Norma Shearer

Randolph Scott and Cary Grant

Lucille Ball

Loretta Young

Joan Blondell

Jean Harlow

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Joan Crawford

Jane Wyman

Grace Kelly

Betty Grable

Greta Garbo

Donna Reed

George Brent

Deborah Kerr

Claudette Colbert

Carole Lombard

Ava Gardner

Burt Lancaster


Ann Sheridan

Tonight on TCM!

Woody Allen!