CLAUDETTE COLBERT

[moira finnie]

Today marks the birthday of Claudette Colbert and TCM is showing a bushel of her movies, as seen below. Fernando found this great clip of a 70-something Claudette celebrating Frank Capra's career at the AFI and posted it on the SSO's Facebook page, so I am adding it here, since it is a fun and sentimental moment with the ever-stylish CC. Enjoy!

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Today's Colbert Movies on TCM (all times shown are ET):

6:15 AM
Secret Heart, The (1946)
A recent widow tries to help her emotionally disturbed stepdaughter.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard Cast: Claudette Colbert , Walter Pidgeon , June Allyson .
BW-97 mins, TV-PG, CC,

8:00 AM
It Happened One Night (1934)
A newspaperman tracks a runaway heiress on a madcap cross-country tour.
Dir: Frank Capra Cast: Clark Gable , Claudette Colbert , Walter Connolly .
BW-105 mins, TV-PG, CC,

10:00 AM
Parrish (1961)
When his mother marries into the tobacco business, a young man struggles to find himself.
Dir: Delmer Daves Cast: Troy Donahue , Claudette Colbert , Karl Malden .
C-138 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

12:30 PM
Cleopatra (1934)
The fabled queen of Egypt leads Julius Caesar and Marc Antony astray.
Dir: Cecil B. DeMille Cast: Claudette Colbert , Warren William , Henry Wilcoxon .
BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC,

2:30 PM
Without Reservations (1946)
A woman writer falls for a war hero who's a perfect match for the hero of her latest novel.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy Cast: Claudette Colbert , John Wayne , Don DeFore .
BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC,

4:30 PM
It's A Wonderful World (1939)
A runaway poetess helps a fugitive prove himself innocent of murder charges.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II Cast: Claudette Colbert , James Stewart , Guy Kibbee .
BW-86 mins, TV-G, CC,

6:00 PM
Palm Beach Story, The (1942)
To finance her husband's career, a married woman courts an eccentric millionaire.
Dir: Preston Sturges Cast: Claudette Colbert , Joel McCrea , Mary Astor .
BW-88 mins, TV-G, CC,

[RedRiver]

A fine, subtle actress who is probably all but forgotten by mainstream culture.

[mongoII]

I saw this earlier on Fernando's facebook and it is wonderful. Colbert is a delight.
While I watched it again on your thread, I peeked in on Barbara Stanwyck's AFI salute where she also praised Frank Capra. A double treat.

[feaito]

It´s indeed a great moment friends...and what impressed me the most is the huge professionalism of Ms. Colbert; she gave a fluent, articulate speech without using teleprompter or cards, which demonstrates her stature as a skilled and talented artist. She, Myrna Loy, Kate Hepburn, Stany, Lombard and Bette Davis, could be well hailed as the greatest all-time actresses of so called Classic American Star System.

[pvitari]

One of my favorite Claudette Colbert movies is 20th Century-Fox's Remember the Day, from 1941, directed by the great Henry King, a man who knew how to wring a tear without ever stooping to rank sentimentalism.

It's a movie told in flashback. Colbert plays an elderly retired teacher (in old age makeup) named Nora Trinell waiting to meet a presidential candidate whom she taught as a boy. The story flashes back to 1916, when Nora was a young woman, to her memories of the boy and also another teacher, played by John Payne. I don't want to spoil what happens, but just make sure to bring your hankies. This has shown up on TCM so keep an eye out. Colbert is just fantastic and Payne is every bit equal to her.

A truly great Fox weeper double-header -- both with Payne -- would be Remember the Day and Sentimental Journey (1946), the latter with Maureen O'Hara as leading lady.

I'd need a Marx Brothers and Mel Brooks marathon afterwards to recover. :)

Claudette Colbert may not be a household name like Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart or Katharine Hepburn, but she remains a glowing, unforgettable image to all classic film buffs. I just screened Midnight for a friend who loves old movies but hadn't heard of that one, and we had a grand time with this hilarious screwball comedy. Colbert was delicious as the American chorus girl stranded in Paris who wins the heart of a Hungarian expatriate taxi driver (the delightful Don Ameche) but finds love is complicated when money is lacking. John Barrymore is fall down funny. Oh, and Mary Astor as her uptight rival for Barrymore. ;)

Basically -- Colbert could do anything. :) Drama, melodrama, comedy -- you name it, she was great in it.

[JackFavell]

I'm so happy to hear some praise for Colbert! She's a favorite of mine, always classy on screen, but warm as well. I just watched all of Without Reservations, and couldn't believe how good the chemistry was between the two stars... I never would have thought it could work. Chalk up another happy leading lady to fall for John Wayne's charm.

Even more impressive to me was Colbert as Cleopatra - probably my favorite DeMille opus, coming in neck and neck with Samson and Delilah. She had an incredibly beautiful figure, but the real joy was her voice and her mind, this is one film her Cleopatra was less mercurial than other Cleos, and smarter than Caesar and Marc Antony. Some of the film was absolute nonsense, but it was so spectacularly enjoyable, I didn't care. If she could make that movie work, and she did, she could do anything!

[Rita Hayworth]

Even more impressive to me was Colbert as Cleopatra - probably my favorite DeMille opus, coming in neck and neck with Samson and Delilah. She had an incredibly beautiful figure, but the real joy was her voice and her mind, this is one film her Cleopatra was less mercurial than other Cleos, and smarter than Caesar and Marc Antony. Some of the film was absolute nonsense, but it was so spectacularly enjoyable, I didn't care. If she could make that movie work, and she did, she could do anything!

I agree with you ... Colbert was incredible in Cleopatra ... one of my favorite Claudette's films and what she did in that film was impressive, her acting, charm, and grace made it believable. Her voice in that movie made it all great. I loved it.

[JackFavell]

kingme, I'd watch that movie for the headdresses alone!

[Rita Hayworth]

kingme, I'd watch that movie for the headdresses alone!

Of course .... I do too. JF :!:

[Sue Sue Applegate]

I first met Claudette Colbert when I was about six years old. My mother and I were staying at my grandparent's motel close to downtown Houston. We had moved to New Orleans, and had come back for a visit. Dad was away on a business trip, so I always got to sleep with Mom and stay up late on weekends when he was away. It was definitely late at night, and my mother kept telling me how wonderful, beautiful, and lovely Claudette Colbert was, and how exciting the story of Cleopatra would be. And I couldn't wait until the movie was going to come on while pointing my peepers at that old black and white set with the precarious rabbit ears. It was a lesson in history, geography, fashion, and the fallibility of human nature.

Claudette Colbert never looked lovelier to me than she did as Cleopatra in those Travis Banton fashions.

[charliechaplinfan]

Has anyone seen Tomorrow is Forever with Claudette and Orson Welles, on paper it sounds such a strange casting but it worked quite well in part because I think Claudette is such a natural screen actress, I haven't seen the movie she made with John Wayne but again it's a casting that makes one sit up but I know that Claudette can carry it off and make it utterly believable.

I caught Hedda Hopper in a movie today and it struck me that facially she would have been a perfect screen mother for Claudette.

[movieman1957]

I saw it years ago. I liked it even if it was a bit of a stretch. Don't remember having an issue with the casting. I just remember it a bit strange how old Welles looked later in the movie. But I should watch it again.

"Without Reservations" is fun. Not great but I think it shows Wayne off in a different light. He had only done one comedy that I remember and that was "A Lady Takes A Chance" with Jean Arthur. This gives him a chance to have some fun and blow off some steam.

[JackFavell]

If you come in on Without Reservations in the middle, it looks just awful. I stayed away for a long time but am glad I finally watched.

I love Tomorrow is Forever. More unexpected casting, both Welles and Colbert are tremendously moving even though the story seems as though it couldn't possibly work. Somehow it does, thanks to fine underplaying.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm sure that Orson was a maddening kind of guy for directors to work with but I just love him on film. He's great with Claudette.

[RedRiver]

Basically -- Colbert could do anything. Drama, melodrama, comedy

That's my feeling as well. She's pure and believable in IMITATION OF LIFE, the best telling of that oft-filmed story. She practically defines romantic comedy in the Capra classic. She's the picture of courage in MAID OF SALEM. And there's a POW story called THREE CAME HOME. Great movie? Maybe not. But here's some acting that will knock your socks off!

I had forgotten about the sensitive REMEMBER THE DAY, yet another Henry King drama well worth the trip.