TCM Schedule for Friday, December 9, 2016 -- What's On Tonight - Star of the Month - Myrna Loy

[Staph]

Today, it's all Myrna Loy, all the time --- when an actress makes 139 film and television appearances, you can fill a lot of time during her turn as Star of the Month on TCM. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- BROADWAY BABIES (1929)
A chorus girl can't choose between a party animal and her stage manager.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Alice White, Charles Delaney, Fred Kohler
BW-86 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Jay Gelzer.


7:30 AM -- PLAYING AROUND (1930)
A tenement girl falls for a smooth con artist.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Alice White, Chester Morris, William Bakewell
BW-66 mins,

Filmed in 1929, but not released until January 1930.


8:45 AM -- THE WIDOW FROM CHICAGO (1930)
A woman infiltrates a criminal mob to avenge her brother's death.
Dir: Edward Cline
Cast: Alice White, Neil Hamilton, Edward G. Robinson
BW-62 mins,

This film is the first one made under Edward G. Robinson's 1930 contract with Warner Bros. that called for him to appear in four pictures at a flat $35,000 per picture.


10:00 AM -- THE NAUGHTY FLIRT (1931)
A flighty heiress goes to work as a secretary to win the straitlaced man she loves.
Dir: Edward Cline
Cast: Alice White, Paul Page, Myrna Loy
BW-56 mins,

Completed in mid-1930, reviewed in Photoplay Magazine October 1930 (on the newstands in September), and copyrighted in December 1930, release was delayed until January 1931.


11:00 AM -- THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (1932)
An intellectual publisher can't choose between his society wife and his free thinking former love.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy
BW-85 mins,

This film was considered lost for many years. In the early 1980's, film historian Ronald Haver was searching for missing material for the restoration of A STAR IS BORN (1954) when he came across a long forgotten print and negative in the Warner Bros. vaults. The studio had purchased the remake rights for THE ANIMAL KINGDOM from RKO sometime in the mid-1940's and due to unreliable book-keeping misplaced the print and negative in their vaults.


12:30 PM -- EMMA (1932)
A housekeeper faces unexpected snobbery when she marries her boss.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Marie Dressler, Richard Cromwell, Jean Hersholt
BW-72 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Marie Dressler

Myrna Loy's first film for MGM.


1:49 PM -- CLAUDE HOPKINS AND BAND IN "BARBER SHOP BLUES" (1933)
In this short film, a barber shop owner wins a sweepstake and hires an orchestra to play for his customers. Vitaphone Release 1551.
Dir: Joseph Henabery
Cast: Four Step Brothers, Claude Hopkins & Orchestra, Orlando Roberson
BW-10 mins,


2:00 PM -- THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932)
A Chinese warlord threatens explorers in search of the key to global power.
Dir: Charles Brabin
Cast: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley
BW-68 mins, CC,

According to the book "The Films of Myrna Loy" by Lawrence J. Quirk: "She recalls that she and Karloff decided between themselves that the only intelligent way that this movie could possibly be played was subtly tongue-in-cheek."


3:15 PM -- NEW MORALS FOR OLD (1932)
The generation gap almost tears apart a New York society family.
Dir: Charles Brabin
Cast: Robert Young, Margaret Perry, Lewis Stone
BW-75 mins, CC,

The play opened in London, England on 2 February 1930 with Madeleine Carroll in the role of Phyl. The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 3 November 1931, but had only 20 performances. Margaret Perry originated her movie role as Phyl in the opening night cast of that production, which also included Humphrey Bogart as Duff Wilson and Walter Kingsford as Mr. Thomas.


4:30 PM -- REBOUND (1932)
A woman takes back her straying husband when he's jilted.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Ina Claire, Robert Ames, Myrna Loy
BW-89 mins, CC,

The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 3 February 1930 and closed in May 1930 after 114 performances. The opening night cast included Walter Walker, Robert Williams and Pierre D'Ennery all of whom are also in the movie, and George MacQuarrie and playwright Donald Ogden Stewart.


6:00 PM -- THE WET PARADE (1932)
A crusading politician fights the evils of both drink and prohibition.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Dorothy Jordan, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton
BW-117 mins, CC,

Myrna Loy's character was based on Texas Guinan, she even utters Guinan's catchphrase "Give the little lady a big hand!" The original Texas Guinan was a vaudeville star, a movie actress, and the owner and emcee of a speakeasy called the 300 Club. Star Trek: The Next Generation's character Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg, is loosely based on Texas Guinan.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: MYRNA LOY



8:00 PM -- LOVE ME TONIGHT (1932)
A Parisian tailor falls in love with a princess.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles
BW-89 mins, CC,

According to her autobiography, Myrna Loy was originally going to wear white empire-style dress for the party sequence, but Jeanette MacDonald was jealous of how she looked insisted that she had to wear it herself instead. Loy surrendered the dress, but then went down the to the costume room and, with a friend's help, put together the black lace outfit she wears in the final film. She stole the scene.


9:45 PM -- THE PRIZEFIGHTER AND THE LADY (1933)
A boxing champion falls for a gangster's moll.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera
BW-102 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Frances Marion

The movie was banned by the Nazi government of Germany because Max Baer was Jewish. When asked about it, Baer joked, "They didn't ban me because I was Jewish. They banned me because I knocked out Max Schmeling in the ring."


11:30 PM -- NIGHT FLIGHT (1933)
An airline's owner runs his business with ruthless disregard for safety.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable
BW-85 mins, CC,

There was to have been a scene in which Clark Gable jumped out of a plane at an altitude of 25,000 feet. The stuntman Jim Unger, who was to double for Clark, passed out at 20,000 feet from lack of oxygen and the shot never got made.


1:00 AM -- THIRTEEN WOMEN (1932)
A mysterious Eurasian tries to murder the 12 boarding school roommates who treated her like an outsider.
Dir: George Archainbaud
Cast: Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond
C-60 mins, CC,

Peg Entwistle, who played Hazel Clay Cousins, committed suicide, two days after the film's American date of release, Friday, September 16th, 1932. She jumped off the "H" of the Hollywood sign, then "Hollywoodland.", on Sunday, September 18th, 1932. Thirteen Women was her only film.


2:15 AM -- SCARLET RIVER (1933)
During location shooting, a movie cowboy is called upon to act like the real thing.
Dir: Otto Brower
Cast: Tom Keene, Dorothy Wilson, Creighton Chaney
BW-54 mins,

Stuntman Yakima Canutt broke his shoulder while doubling for Tom Keene in a transfer from a horse to a wagon team.


3:15 AM -- PENTHOUSE (1933)
The mob frames a lawyer for murder, so he enlists a call girl's help in finding the real killer.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Charles Butterworth
BW-89 mins, CC,

The $200,000 "retainer" Crelliman offers Durant would be worth around $3,650,000 in 2016.


5:00 AM -- THE BARBARIAN (1933)
An Arab prince masquerades as a tour guide to court a beautiful American.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Myrna Loy, Reginald Denny
BW-84 mins,

Myrna Loy wrote in her autobiography that she was wearing a flesh-tinted body suit in the supposed nude scene.