Can you Identify?

OK movie and Robert Montgomery fans, I've got a mystery photo for you today - or at least it's a mystery to me. I'm trying to identify the two people sitting on either side of Bob. I picked up the photo with a set of other photos averaging from the 1930-31 time frame. The older woman on the right looks familiar, but I can't come up with a name. Have an idea? Drop me a comment!

Multiple Personalities - David & Ann Smith

You've all watched Hitchcock's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and listened to the radio presentation I posted here a bit back. I recently found three more presentations of the story:

Gulf Screen Guild Theater - February 8, 1942 (10 MB - MP3)
Errol Flynn and Lana Turner

The Lady Astor Screen Guild Theater - December 14, 1942 (14 MB - MP3)
Robert Young, Joan Bennett, and Ralph Bellamy

The Lady Astor Screen Guild Theater - January 2, 1945 (13.5 MB - MP3)
Preston Foster and Louise Allbritton


All three offer the same version of the Screen Guild Theater script, just with different players. Two of the three presentations offer a celebrity voice, which I will not mention here, but is fall-off-the-chair funny when you hear him.

I'm partial to the Robert Young version, for obvious reasons, plus Ralph Bellamy as Jeff Custer is a perfect match. Errol Flynn as David...nope, doesn't cut it.

You may not want to listen to all three in one sitting - you'll end up with odd dreams of David (or Ann).

Photo Friday - Airline Security

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Danger in the Air . . . Walter Pidgeon and Rita Johnson are the center of a series of hair-raising episodes incidental to the story of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "Nick Carter," an exciting melodrama based on the famous detective of fiction. Pidgeon plays Carter and Miss Johnson is an airplane stewardess, who figures not only in the thrills, but also in a romance with the super-sleuth. Jacques Tourneur is the director and Lucien Hubbard is producing.

AB on TCM

The Food Network's Alton Brown is one of my favorite TV guys. What does this have to do with movies? Well, he's scheduled to be a guest programmer on TCM in November.

No word on the movies he's showing, but I hope he has "taste" beyond Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The Case of the Floating Heads

A couple of victims of the newspaper/magazine editing world. I've never cared for the floating head fad of the 1930s.

Exhibit A: Danny, Night Must Fall

Exhibit B: Freddie, Ever Since Eve

Photo Friday - Geisha Roz

I didn't realize how "new" this photo was until I looked up the film title - A Majority of One, 1961.

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Oh Hell

A few highly valuable pages from a Hell's Angels movie program.

Ben Lyon

Howard Hughes

The Tale of Buddy Brugh

If you ever made it into Life Magazine, you were hot. Er, uhm, really - I mean popular. In the first issue of the photographic version of Life, November 23, 1936, Hollywood was well represented with an article on the young Robert Taylor.

Read the article (PDF, 5 MB)

I love this line from the story: "...he has appeared in two highly successful pictures (The Gorgeous Hussy, His Brother's Wife), lost one shoe to a mob of female admirers on Broadway, received more fan mail than anyone else in Hollywood."

Updates to ClassicMontgomery.com

Just a FYI, I've added 2 more movie pages to the Classic Montgomery web site: Trouble For Two and Three Loves Has Nancy.

Photo Friday - Twice As Young

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And It's Not done With Mirrors . . . Robert Young shakes hands with himself. This bit of trick photography was accomplished on the set of "Honolulu," starring Eleanor Powell, in which Young plays a dual role. The picture is a musical dance comedy, directed by Edward Buzzell and produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Jack Cummings.

More From Busman's Haunted Honeymoon

If you're unable to locate a copy of Haunted Honeymoon on DVD, head to your local bookstore instead. Haunted Honeymoon is based on Dorothy L. Sayer's 1937 book Busman's Honeymoon. I picked up my copy at a local Half Price Books store. And if you can't get enough of Lord Peter Wimsey, don't worry. I believe there's 11 Sayers' books revolving around him.