The Class of 1923

As a teen, Henry Montgomery, Jr. attended the Pawling School for Boys in Pawling, New York. The school still exists today as Trinity-Pawling School.

Now here's where I get confused. A couple of sources I'm looking at to write this post note he moved to New York City in 1922. Logic would say Class of 1923 meant he was still at the school until that graduating year. His father died in 1922.

Roughly in this 1922-24 time period, Bob also took on the famed "riches to rags" descent to become a worker on a Standard Oil tanker. In September of 1924, he would act in his first play, The Mask and the Face.

If I did my math correctly, Bob is around 19 in the below class photo. Can you pick him out?

Many thanks to "CM Staff Researcher" Tracy for digging this up. Of course, I have no real staff (or payroll for that matter), but the title sure looks good!

Calling All Writers

Interested in writing about classic films but don't have a blog or site?

Katie & co. over at Obscure Classics are now recruiting new team members. Check out the details over on the Obscure Classics site.

The Name's The Same - 1953

Thanks to the kindness of la peregrina, I was able to obtain a copy of the ever elusive episode of The Name's The Same with Robert Montgomery. If I knew what the heck I was doing with video, I'd post this on YouTube, but until then, it's screen caps.

Just to give you a 101 on The Name's The Same, it's similar to What's My Line, another famous TV game show of the 1950s. Name offers a contestant with the same name of a famous person, object, or action. A panel of three asks questions until they guess correctly or time out.

This episode, from February 10, 1953 offers two Bobs - the younger being a Boy Scout:

The panel has to guess the boy's name...

Bob with show host Robert Q. Lewis

Battle of the horn rimmed glasses

They just had to swap glasses. Of all things coming to mind, I'm wonder what color the glasses are. Yeah, probably black.

Name often included a segment with a celebrity - "I'd like to be." In this case, Bob wishes he could be...

Oliver J. Dragon of the kids show Kukla, Fran and Ollie

In the end, panelist Meredith Wilson guessed correctly. The other two panelists - well, they wrote out their checks for $25 to Bob, who donated the funds to young Bob's Boy Scout troop. In the meantime, I keep watching this darned addictive show and have found myself crying in laughter a few times as a result.

Hooked on Old Game Shows

What have I been doing these summer nights? Enjoying the warm weather and watching old TV game shows. Yep, picked up GSN about two weeks ago and have been watching too many of these. I'm also now hooked on Robert Q. Lewis.



And this episode of What's My Line is hilarious:


And...more to come regarding the episode of The Name's The Same with Robert Montgomery.

Petticoat Fever

IMO, the period of 1934 through the time of Robert Montgomery's war service produced some of the more entertaining films from his library. 1936's Petticoat Fever is just one of them:

Just an aside, it's interesting that they use "Bob" instead of "Robert" in the trailer.

Captain? Call Him Mister!

So much of what you read on Robert Montgomery covers his film career, it's refreshing to find any articles from his television or later days.

The below article is from the New York Journal American I believe, a column by Phyllis Battelle from 1960. Bob touches on his work with President Eisenhower, his beef with television (which could fill a book itself), and his direction of The Gallant Hours.

View article

Best _______

In preparation for their upcoming Robert Montgomery podcast, Obscure Classics is soliciting your input on a few quick questions relating to Bob's best films, etc. Go check it out & fill it out. OC also has a new overview of Three Loves Has Nancy up as well.

And the Consensus Is...

That the Game Show Network schedule for The Name's the Same may have been off (or we're all off) and Bob wasn't sighted. But do keep the eyes peeled. I hope to record the show when I get a new TV service provider this weekend and hopefully pick up the channel.

Sort of related, I've recently read that Bob was on an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I don't have the air date handy, but if you ever spot it, please drop me a note. Apparently NBC censored the interview based on some comments Bob had about the TV networks. Tame by today's standards I'm sure.

Closer to home, the TCM Bob schedule for August is pretty thin: Rage in Heaven on the 25th. Needless to say, no one will be spending the summer under their favorite star (ok, that came off sounding, er, odd . . . but you know what I mean).

Finally, I caught the last 30 minutes of Now, Voyager last night. Darn it, I'm going to have to watch the whole thing now.

Six & Twelve

Raquelle from Out of the Past blog has tagged me as part of a 12 Movies Meme started by Lazy Eye Theatre. I'm going to follow her pattern for my list: Six days of movies, each day having two films following a theme. Here goes nothing:

Monday
Theme: The Look, The Feel of Cotten
Films: Shadow of a Doubt, Since You Went Away
Reason: Joseph Cotten is way overlooked. Shadow is arguably Hitchcock's best thanks to him and Away, well, the uniform certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Tuesday
Theme: Your Pilot This Evening: John Wayne
Films: The High and the Mighty, Island in the Sky
Reason: These two films were released to DVD in the past few years after being stuck in the John Wayne family vaults. Mighty is beautiful in wide-screen color and is a fun representation of the yesteryears of airline travel. If you get the chance to see it on the big screen, do see it. Island in the Sky takes a look at survival in the arctic after a plane crash and also offers a great character from Andy Devine.

Wednesday
Theme: Flying With Cary
Films: Wings in the Dark, Only Angels Have Wings
Reason: Early Cary Grant is a fav. Early Cary with airplanes is even better. Dark features Myrna Loy who helps Cary's character return to the skies, sans vision. Angels offers a tougher Cary as the boss/pilot and Jean Arthur as the softer side.

Thursday
Theme: What a Dall
Films: Something in the Wind, The Corn is Green
Reason: What can I say, just giving some PR to another of my favorite actors: John Dall.

Friday
Theme: Keep Watching the Skies
Films: The Thing From Another World, The Day the Earth Stood Still
Reason: Everyone loves 50s sci-fi (or should). These films are arguably two of the better that came from that time frame. Klaatu Barata Nikto.

Saturday
Theme: Accent on Montgomery
Films: The Earl of Chicago, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Reason: Yeah, I had to sneak Bob in here somewhere. For this theme, Bob leaves the eastern, and sometimes British-sounding, accent at home and picks up more of a local flair.

Recent Sightings

I'm back from a few days of vacation and I need another vacation! Anyhow, spotted some things over on the Obscure Classics blog that may be of interest:

• A review of the film Hide-Out
• Three Roberts - Taylor, Young & Montgomery: Katie and I are on the same wavelength...