Category: movie

Calendar: July 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of July

Summer Heat

July 16, 1911 was the birthdate of actress, dancer and singer Ginger Rogers.

Ginger Rogers had two films in the 1933 that have now become classics. The public was enamored by her in the song and dance “Gold Diggers of 1933”, She did not have top billing but the public remembered her beauty and voice. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous “We’re in the Money”. Rogers played the character of Ann Lowell in “42nd Street”, a musical film with big stage choreography by Busby Berkeley. The film became one of the most profitable ones of the year and received two Academy Award nominations.

Ginger Roger’s real stardom occurred when she was teamed up with actor and dancer Fred Astaire becoming one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. They first appeared in the 1933 “Flying Down to Rio”, a film with marvelous dance numbers, including a breathtaking dance number on the exterior of a formation of airplanes flying over the audience.

Rogers and Astaire did two films in 1935. The first was “Roberta”, an RKO production costarring Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott. The second film of that year was probably the best remembered of her films, “Top Hat”, a screwball musical comedy with a music score by Irving Berlin and the famous dance scene with Rogers wearing a white ostrich-feather dress.

Ginger Rogers made several dramatic pictures; but it was the 1940 “Kitty Foyle” that won her an Academy Award for portrayal in the title role of Kitty Foyle, a working girl facing life-changing decisions. Rogers followed this film with a comedy in 1941 “Tom, Dick, and Harry”. playing a woman who has to decide which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but none of them near the caliber of those before World War II.

After “Oh Men, Oh Women” with David Niven in 1957, Ginger Rogers didn’t appear on the silver screen for seven years. In 1965, she had appeared for the last time in the film “Harlow”, a Paramount production about the life of Jean Harlow. Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, “Ginger, My Story” recounting her more than sixty films including those with Fred Astaire. On April 25, 1995, Ginger Rogers died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.

Calendar: July 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of July

Black Pants and Gray Cap

Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director and writer, was born on July 14, 1918.

Ingmar Bergman’s film career began in 1941 with his work rewriting scripts. His first major accomplishment was in 1944 when he wrote the screenplay for “Torment”, a film directed by Alf Sjöberg. Along with writing the screenplay, he was also appointed assistant director of the film. The international success of this film led to Bergman’s first opportunity to direct a year later. During the next ten years he wrote and directed more than a dozen films, including “Prison” in 1949, as well as “Sawdust and Tinsel” and “Summer with Monika”, both from 1953.

Bergman first achieved worldwide success with his 1955 “Smiles of a Summer Night”, which won for “Best Poetic Humor” and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes the following year. This was followed by “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries” released in Sweden ten months apart in 1957. “The Seventh Seal” won a special jury prize and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and “Wild Strawberries” won numerous awards for Bergman and its star, Victor Sjöström. Bergman continued to be productive for the next two decades.

Bergman usually wrote his films’ screenplays, thinking about them for months or years before starting the actual process of writing, which he viewed as somewhat tedious. His earlier films are carefully constructed and are either based on his plays or written in collaboration with other authors. Bergman stated that in his later works, when on occasion his actors would want to do things differently from his own intention, he would let them. As his career progressed, Bergman increasingly let his actors improvise their dialogue. In his latest films, he wrote just the ideas informing the scene and allowed his actors to determine the exact dialogue.

Bergman’s films usually deal with existential  questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith. In addition to these cerebral topics, however, sexual desire features in the foreground of most of his films, whether the central event is a medieval plague as in “The Seventh Seal”, the upper-class family activity of early twentieth century Sweden in “Fanny and Alexander”, or contemporary alienation in 1963’s “The Silence”. His female characters are usually more in touch with their sexuality than the men, and unafraid to proclaim it, sometimes with breathtaking overtness.

Ingmar Bergman retired from filmmaking in December 2003. He had a hip surgery in October of 2006 and was making a difficult recovery. He died in his sleep at the age of 89; his body was found at his home on the island of Fårö, on July 30, 2007. (It was the same day another renowned film director, Michelangelo Antonioni, also died.) The interment was private, at the Fårö Church on Fårö Island, Sweden, on August 18, 2007.

Calendar: July 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of July

State of Equilibrium

July 11, 1931 was the birthdate of actor Tab Hunter.

Tab Hunter, born Arthur Kelm in New York City, grew up in California. His fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic body eventually steered him toward the idea of acting. An introduction to talent agent Henry Wilson, specializing in “beef cake” male stars, had Tab Hunter signing a contract and receiving the stage name of Tab Hunter. With no previous experience, Hunter had his first film debut, though a minor one, in the 1950 drama “The Lawless” with only one line in the film (cut upon release of the film). He co-starred two years later in the British-made film “Island of Desire”, set in WWII on a deserted tropical island, playing opposite Linda Darnell.

Signed by Warner Brothers, Tab Hunter achieved stardom with another WWII epic, the 1955 “Battle Cry”, in which he played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with Dorothy Malone, playing an older already married, love=starved Navy wife. He appeared in three more military films, keeping his fans, male and female, satisfied: “The Sea Chase” in 1955; a western army fort drama in 1956 titled “The Burning Hills”; and the 1956 “The Girl He Left Behind” opposite Natalie Wood,

The most notable success in Tab Hunter’s film career was his leading role as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the 1958 classic Faustian musical “Damn Yankees”, playing opposite Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston. Musically Tab Hunter was overshadowed; but he brought with him major star power and the film became a big hit in the theaters. He starred next in the WWI military movie “Lafayette Escadrille”, again playing a wholesome soldier. This was followed in 1959 with an adult comedy-drama “That Kind of Woman” with Sophia Loren.

Tab Hunter eventually left his Warner Brothers contract and appeared in several television series. He starred in 1961 with Debbie Reynolds in the film comedy “The Pleasure of His Company”; however after that, his film roles were in minor “beach films” and other popular light movies. They included “Operation Bikini”, “Ride the Wild Surf”, “City in the Sea” and “Birds Do It”.

In the 1980s, Tab Hunter bounced back- more mature, less wholesome, but still the handsome guy. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image in 1981, appearing as the romantic dangling carrot to heavyset Divine in the John Water’s delightfully tasteless “Polyester”, the first mainstream hit for Waters. Hunter went on to team up with Alan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof “Lust in the Dust”, released in 1985.

In 2005, Tab Hunter released his memoir, “Tab Hunter Confidential”.  He had met his partner Alan Glaser in 1983, together producing two movies: “Lust in the Dust” and Hunter’s final film, the 1992 “Dark Horse”, the plot revolving around a horse ranch, a passion of Hunter’s life.  He died on July 8, 2018 at his Santa Barbara residence in California, three days shy of his eighty seventh birthday. Hunter and Glaser were together as a couple for thirty-five years.

Calendar: July 8

A Year: Day to Day Men: 8th of July

Red Towel and Mirror

July 8, 1934 was the birthdate of British comedian, comedy writer, and actor, Martin Alan “Marty” Feldman.

Marty Feldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine. He suffered in childhood from thyroid disease and developed Graves’ ophthalmopathy, causing his eyes to protrude and become misaligned. By the age of twenty, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

In 1954, Marty Feldman first met Barry Took, a West End revue performer, forming an enduring writing partnership with him which lasted for twenty years. Together they wrote most of the shows of “Bootsie and Snudge”, a situation comedy for the ITV Network, and the BBC radio show “Round the Home” from 1964 to 1967. Feldman became chief write and script editor for the 1966-67 “The Frost Report”, which introduce John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett to television.

Marty Feldman’s appearance on the sketch comedy series “At Last the 1948 Show” as the fourth cast member of the group raised his profile on television. His character, frequently a harassing pest, interacted with fellow comedians John Cleese, Tim Brook-Taylor, and Graham Chapman. Thirteen series were made during the ten-month run, of which eleven complete shows survive.

On film, Marty Feldman is best known for his portrayal of Igor  (pronounced Eye-Gore) in the now-comedy classic by Mel Brooks “Young Frankenstein”, released in 1974. The screenplay was written by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, who had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. Feldman improvised many of his scenes’ lines during the shooting.

Feldman later in his career, appeared as a guest on “The Dean Martin Show”, ventured into Italian cinema in the sex comedy “Sex with a Smile”, appeared with Gene Wilder in Wilder’s directorial debut “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother”, played Marty Eggs in Mel Brook’s “Silent Movie”, starred in his own written and directed comedy “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”, and showed up in a cameo role with the Cookie Monster on “The Muppet Show”.

Marty Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on December 2, 1982 at the age of forty-eight, while filming “Yellowbeard”. He is buried in Forest Lawn- Hollywood Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage.

Calendar: July 4

A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of July

Seeking New Horizons

July 4, 1924 was the birthdate of American actress and producer, Eva Marie Saint.

Eva Marie Saint’s introduction to television began working as an NBC page, the internship program where pages rotate through assignments in the media environment. She appeared in the very early live NBC TV show “Campus Hoopla” in 1946. Her performances on this program are recorded on rare kinescope and audio recordings of these telecasts are preserved in the Library of Congress.

Eva Marie Saint won the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the 1953 Horton Foote play, “The Trip is Bountiful”, in which she co-starred with such experienced actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. She received her first Emmy nomination, a Best Actress award, for playing the young mistress of E. G. Marshall in “Middle of the Night”. She won another nomination for her role in the 1955 television musical “Our Town”, co-starring with Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra.

In the 1954 “On the Waterfront”, Eva Marie Saint made her first feature film appearance in the role of Edie Doyle- a performance for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated by the British Academy of Film in the category of ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ for this role of Edie Doyle. “On the Waterfront” starring Marlon Brando was a major success and launched Saint’s movie career.

Director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing Eva Marie Saint over dozens of candidates for the femme fatale role in the 1959 suspense classic “North by Northwest” starring Cary Grant and James Mason. The change in Saint’s screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant off balance, was widely heralded. The film became a box office hit and an influence on spy films for decades.

In the 1960s, Eva Marie Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and offbeat pictures. She co-starred with Paul Newman in the1060 “Exodus”, directed by Otto Preminger, a historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel adapted from Leon Uris’ novel. She also portrayed a tragic beauty in John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film “All Fall Down”, with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury.

Eva Marie Saint has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for her television work at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she is now 94 years old.

Calendar: June 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of June

The Amazing Technicolor Man

June 29, 1995 marks the passing of one of MGM’s biggest stars: Lana Turner.

Born to working-class parents in northern Idaho, Lana Turner spent her early life there before her family relocated to San Francisco. In 1936, while still in high school, she was discovered while purchasing a soda at the Top Hat Malt Shop in Hollywood. At the age of 16, she was signed to a personal contract by Warner Brothers director Mervyn Le Roy who took her with him when he transferred to MGM in 1938.

Turner attracted attention playing a murder victim in her first film in 1937, LeRoy’s crime drama “They Won’t Forget”. During the early 1940s, Turner established herself as a leading actress and one of MGM’s top performers, appearing in such films as the film noir “Johnny Eager”, the musical “Ziegfeld Girl”, and the horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, all in 1941. She starred in the 1942 romantic war drama “Somewhere I’ll Find You”, one of several films opposite Clark Gable.

At the advent of World War II, Turner’s increasing prominence in Hollywood led to her becoming a popular pin-up girl and her image appeared painted on the noses of U.S. fighter planes, bearing the nickname “Tempest Turner.” In June 1942, she embarked on a ten-week war bond tour throughout the western United States with her co-star Gable. Throughout the war, Turner continued to make regular appearances at U.S. troop events and area bases.

Turner’s reputation as a glamorous femme fatale was enhanced by her critically acclaimed performance in the 1946 film “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, a role which established her as a serious dramatic actress. Her popularity continued through the 1950s in dramas such as “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Peyton Place”, the latter of which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Turner’s 1959 film, “Imitation of Life”, proved to be one of the greatest financial successes of her career. Her last starring role in the 1966 “Madame X” earned her a David di Donatello Award for Best Actress. Turner spent most of the 1970s and early 1980s in semi-retirement, making her final feature film appearance in “Witches’ Brew”, released in 1980. She accepted in 1982 a much publicized and lucrative recurring guest role in the television series “Falcon Crest”, which afforded the series notably high ratings.

Turner maintained her glamorous image into her late career; a 1966 film review characterized her as “the glitter and glamour of Hollywood.” While she consistently embraced her glamorous persona, she was also vocal about her dedication to acting and attained a reputation as a versatile, hard-working actress. One of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s biggest stars, Lana Turner earned the studio over $50 million during her eighteen-year contract with them.

Calendar: June 26

A Year: Day to Day Men: 26th of June

The Art of Concentration

June 26, 1925 marks the release of the Charlie Chaplin film “The Gold Rush”.

The 1925 American comedy “The Gold Rush” was in every respect the most elaborate undertaking of Charlie Chaplin¹s career. For two weeks the unit shot on location at Truckee in the snow country of the Sierra Nevada. Here Chaplin faithfully recreated the historic image of the prospectors struggling up the Chilkoot Pass. Six hundred extras, many drawn from the vagrants and derelicts of Sacramento, were brought by train, to clamber up the 2300-feet pass dug through the mountain snow.

For the main shooting the unit returned to the Hollywood studio, where a remarkably convincing miniature mountain range was created out of timber (a quarter of a million feet, it was reported), chicken wire, burlap, plaster, salt and flour. The spectacle of this Alaskan snowscape improbably glistening under the baking Californian summer sun drew crowds of sightseers

In addition, the studio technicians devised exquisite models to produce the special effects which Chaplin demanded, like the miners’ hut which is blown by the tempest to teeter on the edge of a precipice, for one of the cinema’s most sustained sequences of comic suspense. Often it is impossible to detect the shift from model to full-size set.

“The Gold Rush” abounds with now-classic comedy scenes. The historic horrors of the starving 19th century pioneers inspired the sequence in which Charlie and his partner Big Jim  are snowbound and ravenous. Charlie cooks and eats his boot, with all the airs of a gourmet. In the eyes of the delirious Big Jim, he is transformed into a chicken – a triumph both for the cameramen who had to effect the elaborate trick work entirely in the camera; and for Chaplin who magically becomes a bird.

The lone prospector’s dream of hosting a New Year dinner for the beautiful dance-hall girl provides the opportunity for another famous Chaplin set-piece: the dance of the rolls. The gag had been done before, by Chaplin’s one-time co-star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle; but Chaplin gave unique personality to the dancing legs created out of forks and rolls. When the film was first shown audiences were so thrilled by the scene that some theaters were obliged to stop the film, roll it back and perform an encore.

“The Gold Rush” was the first of his silent films which Chaplin revived, with the addition of sound, for new audiences. For the 1942 reissue he composed an orchestral score, and replaced the inter-titles with a commentary which he spoke himself. The film today is accepted to be one of Chaplin’s most perfectly accomplished films and declared by him to be the one by which he wanted to be remembered.

Calendar: June 22

A Year: Day to Day Men: 22nd of June

A Horticultural Marvel

June 22, 1920 was the birthdate of the American voice actor and comedian Paul Frees.

Paul Frees was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago, Illinois. He had an unusually wide four-octave voice range. In the 1930s, he first appeared on vaudeville as an impressionist, under the name of Buddy Green. He began his career in radio in 1942; but it was cut short when he was drafted into World War II. Frees was wounded in action and returned to the United States for a year of recuperation.

Frees appeared frequently on Hollywood radio series, playing lead roles and alternating with William Conrad as the announcer on the 1940’s “Escape”. One of his starring roles on radio was as Jethro Dumont (the Green Lama) in the 1949 Series “The Green Lama”, a show about a caped crime fighter with mystical powers. Frees in that year voice all the parts in the “The Player” syndicated anthology series.

Frees was often called upon in the 1950s and 1960s to “re-loop” the dialogue of other actors, often to correct for foreign accents, lack of English proficiency, or poor line readings by non-professionals. These dubs extended from a few lines to entire roles. Frees read fo Toshiro Mifume’s performances as Admiral Yamamoto in the movie “Midway. He also provided much of Tony Curtis’ female character in the film “Some Like It Hot”. Frees also dubbed Humphrey Bogart in his final film “The Harder They Fall”. Bogart was suffering at the time from what would be diagnosed as esophageal cancer and thus could barely be heard in some takes, hence the need for Frees to dub in his voice.

Frees worked extensively with at least nine of the major animation production companies of the 20th century. He was a regular presence in the Jay Ward cartoons, providing the voices of Boris Badenov in “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”, Inspector Fenwick in “Dudley Do-Right”, commissioner Alistair and Weevil Plumtree in “George of the Jungle”, Fred in “Super Chicken”, and many others. Frees portrayed the radio-reporter in the 1953 film “War of the Worlds”, where he is seen dictating into a tape recorder as the military prepares the atomic bomb for use against the invading Martians. Memorably, his character says that the recording is being made “for future history… if any”

Although Frees was primarily known for his voice work (like Mel Blanc, he was known in the industry as “The Man of a Thousand Voices”), he was also a songwriter and screenwriter. His most notable screenwriting work was the little-seen 1960 film “The Beatniks”, a screed against the then-rising Beat counterculture in the vein of “Reefer Madness.

Calendar: June 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of June

Not Clark Kent

June 18, 1969 was the release date of Sam Peckinpah’s western “The Wild Bunch”.

In 1967, Warner Brothers-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Sam Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film. At the time, William Goldman’s screenplay “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox. It was quickly decided that “The Wild Bunch”, which had several similarities to Goldman’s work, would be produced in order to beat “Butch Cassidy” to the theaters.

Peckinpah’s epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to film work, the violence seen in 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde”, America’s growing frustration with the Vietnam War, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but as well the crude men attempting to survive the era. Multiple scenes involving slow motion action sequences inspired by Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession, and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, would become fully realized in “The Wild Bunch” film.

The film was shot in the anamorphic format, a technique of shooting a widescreen picture on a standard 35 mm film. This arose from the desire to maximize the overall image detail while retaining the use of standard cameras and projectors. Telephoto lenses were used by cinematographer Lucien Ballard to compress foreground and background images in perspective. The editing of the film is notable in that shots from multiple angles were spliced together in rapid succession, often at different speeds, placing greater emphasis on the chaotic nature of the action and the gunfights.

Peckinpah would film the major shootouts with six cameras, operating at various film rates, from 24 frames per second stepping up to 120 frames per second. When the scenes were eventually cut together, the action would shift from slow to fast to slower still, giving time an elastic quality never before seen in motion pictures up to that time. By the time filming wrapped, Peckinpah had shot 333,000 feet of film with 1,288 camera setups. Editor Lou Lombardo and Peckinpah remained in Mexico for six months editing the picture.

The violence that was much criticized in 1969 remains controversial. Peckinpah noted it was allegoric of the American war in Vietnam, the violence of which was nightly televised to American homes at supper time. He tried showing the gun violence commonplace to the historic western frontier period, rebelling against sanitized, bloodless television Westerns and films glamorizing gunfights and murder: “The point of the film is to take this façade of movie violence and open it up, get people involved in it so that they are starting to go in the Hollywood television predictable reaction syndrome, and then twist it so that it’s not fun anymore, just a wave of sickness in the gut … it’s ugly, brutalizing, and bloody awful; it’s not fun and games and cowboys and Indians.”

Calendar: June 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of June

Beachwear

June 16, 1924 was the birthdate of Faith Marie Domergue, the American television and film actress.

While just a sophomore at high school, Ann Marie Domergue signed a contract with Warner Brothers and made her first on-screen appearance as a walk-on in the 1941 “Blues in the Night”. After graduating high school in 1942, Domergue pursued her career in acting; but after sustaining injuries in a near fatal automobile accident, she put her plans on hold. While recuperating, she attended a Howard Hughes yacht party.

Howard Hughes, emanored with her, bought her contract from Warner Brothers and signed her to a three picture deal with RKO Pictures. She was cast as the lead in the 1950 thriller “Vendetta”. The film had a four year troubled production period and, after its release in 1950, was dismissed as a trivial, slow paced period piece. After the film release, Domergue separated from Hughes and freelanced as an actor.

Domergue played a femme fatale in the 1950 film noir “Where Danger Lives”, opposite Robert Mitchum and Claude Rains. Signing a contract with Universal Pictures in 1953, she appeared opposite Audie Murphy in the western adventure “The Duel at Silver Creek”. In 1955, she appeared in another western, “Santa Fe Passage” playing Aurelie Saint Clair, an ammunition retailer on a wagon train, opposite John Payne and Rod Cameron.

Domergue then appeared in a series of science fiction films which earned her the reputation as an early “scream queen”, the films’ damsel in distress. The first was the “Cult of the Cobra” released in 1955 where airmen discover a cult of snake worshippers. Faith Domergue played the female lead role of the cult leader who transforms herself into a deadly cobra.

The next role was in the now famous sci-fi movie “It Came from Beneath the Sea” produced by Columbia Pictures. This 1954 film about a giant octopus was a major commercial success, grossing almost two million dollars at the box office and later becoming a cult classic. She played marine biologist Lesley Joyce who helped destroy the creature with an atomic torpedo. The following year, Domergue starred in the first color sci-fi film “This Island Earth”, which received praise for its writing and inventive special effects.

By the late 1960s, Domergue was appearing mainly in low-budget “B” horror movies and European productions. She relocated to Europe permanently in 1968, moving from Rome to Geneva, Switzerland, and Marbella, Spain. Her final film credit was for the 1974 “The House of Seven Corpses”, an independent horror film shot in Salt Lake City. Faith Domergue spent her later years in retirement in Palo Alto, California. She died on April 4, 1999, of unspecified cancer at the age of 74.

Calendar: June 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of June

A Scattering of Suds

June 10, 1971 marks the passing of the English actor, Michael Rennie.

A meeting with a Gaumont-British Studios casting director led to Michael Rennie’s first acting job, a  stand-in for Robert Young in the 1936 film “Secret Agent” directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  He put his film career on hold for a few years to get some acting experience on the stage, working mostly in repertory theater in Yorkshire. Rennie eventually became a lead actor with the York Repertory Company.

Rennie played minor roles in films during this period including “Conquest of the Air” in 1937, “Bank Holiday” in 1938 and the 1939 “This Man in Paris”. After the outbreak of war in September of 1939, he began to receive offers for larger film roles, in particular Leslie Howard’s 1941 anti-Nazi thriller “Pimpernel Smith” which became one of the most valuable films of British war propaganda.

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie was given his first film break, when cast alongside Margaret Lockwood, who was at the peak of her popularity, in the 1945 musical “I’ll Be Your Sweetheart”, for Gainsborough Studios. Rennie was billed below Lockwood and star Vic Oliver and given an “introducing” credit; but his character was the actual protagonist of the film. Although the movie was not a large hit, Rennie received excellent notices for his perfomance.

After moving to Hollywood in 1950, Rennie was signed to a 20th Century Films contract by studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1951, Robert Wise became the director of the first post-war, large budget science fiction film “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, Originally cast with Claude Rains in the lead, Rennie received top billing when Rains turned down the role. The film was a serious, high-minded exploration of mid-20th century suspicion and paranoia, combined with a philosophical overview of humanity’s coming place in the larger universe. Rennie’s portrayal of the spaceman Klaatu is arguably his most popular role and a classic in the science fiction genre.

After the film’s release, Rennie worked as a supporting actor for eight years until his return to England in 1959. At that time, he took the lead role of Harry Lime in the 1959 television series “The Third Man”. Throughout his career, Rennie made numerous guest appearances on television, particularly on American programs. He completed what amounted to guest roles in two films, “The Power” and “The Devil’s Brigade”, both filmed in 1968, before moving to Switzerland in the latter part of that year. Rennie’s final seven feature films were filmed in Britain, Italy, Spain and, in the case of the film “Surabaya Conspiracy”, the Philippines.

Michael Rennie journeyed to his mother’s home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother. It was there that he died suddenly in June of 1971 of an aortic aneurysm almost two months before his 62nd birthday. After his cremation, Rennie’s ashes were interred in Harlow Hill Cemetery, Harrogate, England.

Calendar: June 2

A Year: Day to Day Men: 2nd of June

Truly Blessed

June 2, 1904 was the birthdate of the competition swimmer and actor, Johnny Weissmuller.

Johann Weissmuller was an ethnic German, the elder son of Peter and Elisabeth Weissmuller, immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island in New York. At the age of nine, young ‘Johnny’ Weissmuller contracted polio. At the suggestion of his doctor, he took up swimming and eventually earned a spot on the YMCA swim team. As a teen, while working at the Illinois Athletic Club, Weissmuller began training under swim coach William Bachrach. In August 1921, he won the national championships in the 50-yard and 220-yard distances.

Although foreign-born, Weissmuller gave his birthplace as Tanneryville, Pennsylvania, and his birth date as that of his younger brother, Peter Weissmuller. This was to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the United States Olympic team, and was a critical issue in being issued a United States passport. On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke the world record in the 100-meter freestyle. He won the title for that distance at the 1924 Summer Olympics, beating the current champion, Duke Kahanamoku, for the gold record.

Johnny Weissmuller, in his life’s swimming competitions, won five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal, fifty-two United States national championships, and set sixty-seven world records. He was the first man to swim the 100-meter freestyle under one minute and the 440-yard freestyle under five minutes. Weissmuller never lost a race and retired with an unbeaten amateur record.

Weissmuller’s acting career began when he signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In his first film, he played the role of Tarzan in the 1932 “Tarzan the Ape Man”. The movie was a huge success and Weissmuller became an overnight international sensation. The author of “Tarzan”, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was pleased with Weissmuller as his book’s hero, although Burroughs hated the studio’s depiction of a Tarzan who barely spoke English.  Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan movies for MGM with actress Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane and Cheeta the Chimpanzee. The last three also included Johnny Sheffield as Boy.

In 1942, Weissmuller went to RKO and starred in six more Tarzan movies with markedly reduced production values. Sheffield also appeared as Boy in the first five features for RKO. Brenda Joyce took over the role of Jane in Weissmuller’s last four Tarzan movies. In a total of 12 Tarzan films, Weissmuller earned an estimated two-million dollars and established himself as what many movie historians consider the definitive Tarzan. Although not the first Tarzan in movies, Weissmuller was the first to be associated with the now traditional ululating, yodeling Tarzan yell.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Johnny Weissmuller”, 1934, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Johnny Weissmuller”, circa 1930, Gelatin Silver Print

Calendar: June 1

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 1st of June

Jumping Rope

June 1, 1890  was the birthdate of the American character actor, Frank Morgan.

Frank Morgan was an American character actor whose career spanned four decades, most of it under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was born in New York City, the youngest of eleven children. His family earned its wealth h distributing Angostura bitters, allowing him to attend Cornell University. Both Frank and his brother Ralph Morgan went into show business, first on the Broadway stage and later into motion pictures.

After Morgan’s film debut in the 1916 “The Suspect”, he provided support to his friend John Barrymore in the 1917 “Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman”, an independent film produced in and about New York City. Morgan’s career expanded when talkies began, his most stereotypical role being that of a befuddled but good hearted middle-aged man. By the mid-1930s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, impressed by his performances, signed him to a lifetime contract.

Morgan’s best remembered film performances, playing six roles, are in the 1939 “The Wizard of Oz”: as the carnival huckster “Professor Marvel”, the gatekeeper at the Emerald City, the coachman of the carriage drawn by “The Horse of a Different Color”, the guard who initially refuses to let Dorothy and her friends in to see the Wizard, the Wizard’s scary face projection, and the Wizard himself. Morgan was cast in the role on September 22, 1938, after the studio tired of negotiating the salary of W.C. Field for his possible participation in the role.

An actor with a wide range, Morgan was equally effective playing comical, befuddled men such as Jesse Kiffmeyer in the 1937 “Saratoga” and Mr. Ferris in 1944’s “Casanova Brown”, as he was with more serious, troubled characters like Hugo Matuschek in “The Shop Around the Corner” and Professor Roth in “The Mortal Storm” released in 1940. A musical-comedy film centering on Frank Morgan was released by MGM in 1946 entitled “The Great Morgan”. The film is a compilation of unrelated short subjects and musical numbers built around the premise of Morgan trying to produce a movie.

Morgan died of a heart attack on September 18, 1949, while filming “Annie Get Your Gun”. He was replaced in the film by Louis Calhern. His death came before the 1956 premiere televised broadcast on CBS of “The Wizard of Oz”, which would make him the only major cast member from the film who would not live to see the film’s revived popularity and its becoming an annual American television institution.

Frank Morgan was nominated twice for Academy Awards: Best Actor for his role in the 1934 “The Affairs of Cellini” and Best Supporting Actor fo “Tortilla Flat” released in 1942. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for his work in radio and one for motion pictures. Both were dedicated in 1960.