Miscellaneous Thoughts for Thursday

When I began spending good chunks of my day on the computer reading about movies and stars of the 30s and 40s, I ran across a website that sparked my interest in Mr. Montgomery.  I mean, I knew who he was and have always been fascinated by him, but this website provided the framework for my pursuit of everything Bob.  The Earl of Hollywood was set up by R. E. Lee, and is an absolute treasure.  Or should I say was ... last week I tried to pull it up to verify a Bob factoid, and The Earl was missing, not there, kaput.  Those darn fates screwing things up for me once again!  Drats!

I shared my sad discovery with Carrie who, as is often the case, saved my day.  She introduced me to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, which enables one to access the archived version of the site.  (Go to https://archive.org/web/ and search for earlofhollywood.com.)  Thank goodness.  And my sincerest thanks to Mr. Lee for his efforts to set up such a great site.

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In 1936 Howard Hawks, then at RKO, tried to make Gunga Din.  MGM agreed to loan out Robert Montgomery and Spencer Tracy to play two of the three soldiers, but they would not agree to loaning out Clark Gable to be the third lead.  The project was shelved and eventually made in 1939 by George Stevens, with stars Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks and Victor McLaglen.  If you're wondering which role Bob would have had, the picture below should be a good clue.

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Dialogue from The War Nurse (1930): 

     Wally:  "Ah, come on and say yes, it saves a lot of time."
     Babs:  No response
     Wally:  "It's my birthday."
     Babs:  "Yeah, well I'm no present."