Helen Chandler with Novarro.
Tomorrow, July 21st, Daybreak (1931) will be shown at 7:15AM EDT on TCM. Directed by Jacques Feyder (Carnival in Flanders), this is one of the few talkies that Novarro seemed to feel was better than most of the vehicles he appeared in during his waning years at MGM. Some people think it is his best mature role--after Ben Hur, of course. According to Leonard Maltin's description below it features a heckuva good cast (I also have a weakness for Helen Chandler, along with Karen Morley and Douglass Montgomery):
The studio (and Mayer) apparently were unsympathetic to the tragic element of the Schnitzler story, and insisted on many retakes but this movie earned the actor a few good reviews, with the actor blending worldliness with sensitivity. It may be worth a look.Ramon Novarro, Helen Chandler, Karen Morley, Jean Hersholt, C. Aubrey Smith, Kent Douglass (Douglass Montgomery), William Bakewell, Glenn Tryon. Poignant love story detailing the romance between Austrian lieutenant Novarro and innocent piano teacher Chandler, who becomes the mistress of gambler Hersholt. Polished adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's novel is glowingly photographed by Merritt B. Gerstad and given a touch of European sophistication by the underrated Feyder
On Friday, July 22, The Night Is Young (1935), Novarro's last MGM film is on at 7:30 AM EDT.
Novarro with Evelyn Laye in The Night Is Young.
Despite Mr. Maltin and others' dislike of this movie, the lack of critical success that this movie earned then and now, (there had been one too many of these films about the prince and the show girl), I think it might deserve a look, if only to hear that title song sung well and to here When I Grow Too Old to Dream in something close to the original form. I happened to see this movie last winter. Aside from Charlie Butterworth's very annoying shtick, it was Novarro and Laye (who was a very big star on stage in Britain in musicals) who endeared themselves to me. They were both in good voice, and there is a tenderness in their scenes together that is likable--especially when it comes time to part. Having loathed Evelyn Laye in her heavy-handed debut, One Heavenly Night (1931) with John Boles, it was a shock to see her appear to charming effect in this movie.D: Dudley Murphy. Ramon Novarro, Evelyn Laye, Charles Butterworth, Una Merkel, Edward Everett Horton, Donald Cook, Rosalind Russell, Henry Stephenson, Herman Bing. Novarro, wretchedly miscast and mugging mercilessly, brings his 10-year MGM career to a pitiful end playing a Viennese archduke who spurns his royal fiancee for a fling with ballerina Laye (who bolted back to England after this disaster). Oscar Hammerstein and Sigmund Romberg score, including "When I Grow Too Old to Dream,'' is an insufficient saving grace.