Happy Birthday, Ann Blyth!!

Dear Ann,  

Having five children must have prepared you well for a long life.  Hope the day is spent  filled with the love of your family.  You may be Ann to your family, but you will also be remembered as "Killer" by the fans of Robert Montgomery and Once More My Darling (1949).  Have a great day!!

 

To My Darling Wife, Julie

I rather enjoy watching Night Flight (1933).  For me, the few short scenes featuring Montgomery are such a pleasure that I'm still grinning through the rest of the movie.  The script can be a snore, poor Helen Hayes gets to wade through much of the melodramatic morass.  The disappointment of Night Flight (1933) is not having the stars appear together.  Helen and Clark Gable are married, but their screen time together is comprised of Helen looking longingly at an 8x10 of flyer Clark.  Gable's appearance is limited to sitting in his plane's cockpit looking brave.  Myrna Loy has a scene with hubby pilot William Gargan (who?).  Bob's scenes are with Lionel Barrymore.  I mean, it's too evident that this movie was filmed around the filming schedules of the stars.  It was filmed March to July of 1933.  In this five month period, Bob did his scenes for Night Flight, filmed When Ladies Meet and Another Language, and left town for his summer vacation in New York. 

 

But the entrance Auguste Pellerin (Montgomery) makes is choice.   Love it.  TCM is showing Night Flight today at 3:00 p.m. EST.  Or better yet, pickup the DVD on eBay with the super nifty cover. 

Audrey Gets Her Message Across

 These photos are from an article in the March 4, 1947 french magazine Cinevogue.  Love the series of Audrey Totter flirting with the camera, or should I say with Bob as Philip Marlowe in Lady in the Lake (1946).  Audrey did such a really good job in the movie, considering the trying circumstances.  Film actors were taught to never, ever look directly into the camera lens.  Overcoming that was difficult for an old pro like Lloyd Nolan. 

 

Future director Dick Powell stops by to say hi to new director Bob.  It's also one Philip Marlowe handing over the reigns to a new one.  Dick played the character in 1944's Murder My Sweet.  Nifty.

 

Bob directs Lloyd Nolan as Lt. DeGarmot. 

 

Bob wears his favorite hat from the post-WWII period ... perhaps not PC these days, but definitely snazzy in 1946. 

 

He Saw, She Saw, They Did

I love the casting in The Man in Possession (1931).  Bob (Dabney) and Irene (Crystal) clicked both onstage and offstage (as friends!)  C. Aubrey Smith and Beryl Mercer, as Dabney's parents, portray the gruff father and meek, sweet mother with ease, as they have played the parts so many times.  Reginald Owen is great whatever the role is, this time it is as Dabney's pompous and flustered brother Claude.  And Charlotte Greenwood is just perfection as Clara, Crystal's maid, friend and watchdog who doesn't think Dabney is good enough for her. 

I just love the smiles on the lovers' faces.  Too good.

Irene was born August 7, 1896 in Whiting, Indiana and died July 9, 1972 in Racine, Wisconsin.  The two cities are only 94 miles apart.  Happy Birthday to Ms. Purcell.  And Happy Birthday to Ann Harding, also born on August 7th.  It'll be Ann's turn next year...all right, Ladies?

Belated Birthday Salutations to Ms. Loy

Sorry, Myrna.  Your birthday is the 2nd, of course.  I had you scheduled for Thursday, really I did.  Life just doesn't always work out the way you had planned it to.  I like this photo of you and Bob Montgomery, such a beautiful couple.  You gave such a good performance in Petticoat Fever (1936).  The movie is still such a delight to watch after all these years.  Thank you. 

Getting down to the basics of the photo ... a great head shot.