Ronald Colman

[JackFavell]

And Byron Foulger!

[Rita Hayworth]

Turner Classic Movies

Prisoner of Zenda - May 18th ... 6pm Eastern Standard Time

I just can't wait to watch it again on Turner Classic Movies ...

[moira finnie]

"It's a far, far better thing" all day tomorrow on TCM as they tip their hat to Ronald Colman with some faves (the always welcome A Tale of Two Cities, Random Harvest, Prisoner of Zenda, Lost Horizon) and some rareties, including silents such as The White Sister (1924), Kiki (1926) and Her Night of Romance (1924).

I am looking forward to the early talkie The Unholy Garden (1931), allegedly one of Colman's least favorite films, since it came at a time when Samuel Goldwyn was casting him in indifferent films, and intimating to the press that his great star, the consummate English gentleman, was a better, more relaxed actor when he drank, (this comment eventually led to a lawsuit and the end of their professional collaboration). The Unholy Garden was reportedly based on a Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur script absentmindedly derived from an idea the writers thought of while going up in the elevator to discuss their fee with Goldwyn. It was penned for a princely sum while they were doing three or four other scripts. The film, according to Goldwyn biographer A. Scott Berg, "

The Unholy Garden would forever stand as the worst blot on the records of everyone involved with it. Pare Lorentz, reviewing the film in the New York Journal, was completely bewildered at Hecht and MacArthur's even putting their names to such a hash. John Cohen in the New York Sun, said it was Colman's worst performance, his first 'really mediocre picture.' Years after its worldwide release, the film was still some $200,000 in the hole, the largest deficit on Goldwyn's books.

Producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr., observed that Colman became even more remote toward his employer than usual; but, professional that he was, Colman 'entered into the filming in his precise, organized manner--always on time at the studio, always in command of the entire script on the first day. He continued to look casually immaculate and was never anything but polite to cast and crew. Inside, however, he was fuming.

According to co-star Fay Wray 'It was the talk of the studio that Ronnie was not speaking to Goldwyn, and there was something admirable in the air he had, the fact that he could be doing pictures for Sam and still not tolerate any communication.'

4 Thursday (All Times are EDT)
6:00 AM
Lucky Partners (1940)
Two strangers who share a sweepstakes ticket take it on the lam.
Dir: Lewis Milestone Cast: Ronald Colman , Ginger Rogers , Jack Carson .
BW-99 mins, TV-G, CC,

7:45 AM
My Life With Caroline (1941)
A man thinks his high-spirited wife is cheating on him.
Dir: Lewis Milestone Cast: Ronald Colman , Anna Lee , Charles Winninger . A certain Gilbert Roland is also around as a dashing playboy type!
BW-81 mins, TV-PG,

9:15 AM
White Sister, The (1923)
Thinking her lover was killed in the war, a young woman becomes a nun.
Dir: Henry King Cast: Lillian Gish , Ronald Colman , Gail Kane .
BW-135 mins, TV-G,

11:30 AM
Kiki (1926) [A TCM Premiere?]
A Parisian dancer vies with a glamorous actress for a producer's heart.
Dir: Clarence Brown Cast: Norma Talmadge , Ronald Colman , Gertrude Astor .
BW-97 mins, TV-G,

1:30 PM
Raffles (1930)
A distinguished British gentleman hides his true identity as a notorious jewel thief.
Dir: Harry d'Abbadie D'Arrast Cast: Ronald Colman , Kay Francis , Bramwell Fletcher .
BW-71 mins, TV-G,

2:45 PM
Unholy Garden, The (1931)
A gentleman thief falls for the daughter of the man he's trying to rob.
Dir: Geo. Fitzmaurice Cast: Fay Wray , Estelle Taylor , Warren Hymer .
BW-75 mins,

4:15 PM
Arrowsmith (1931)
A crusading doctor fights his way through tragedy to find his true calling.
Dir: John Ford Cast: Ronald Colman , Helen Hayes , Richard Bennett .
BW-99 mins, TV-PG, CC,

6:15 PM
Prisoner Of Zenda, The (1937)
An Englishman who resembles the king of a small European nation gets mixed up in palace intrigue when his look-alike is kidnapped.
Dir: John Cromwell Cast: Ronald Colman , Madeleine Carroll , C. Aubrey Smith .
BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC,

8:00 PM
Tale Of Two Cities, A (1935)
Charles Dickens' classic story of two men in love with the same woman during the French Revolution.
Dir: Jack Conway Cast: Ronald Colman , Elizabeth Allen , Edna May Oliver .
BW-126 mins, TV-PG, CC,

10:15 PM
Random Harvest (1942)
A woman's happiness is threatened when she discovers her husband has been suffering from amnesia.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy Cast: Ronald Colman , Greer Garson , Philip Dorn .
BW-127 mins, TV-G, CC,

12:30 AM
Her Night of Romance (1924)
An impoverished lord goes after an invalid's money only to fall in love.
Dir: Sidney A. Franklin Cast: Constance Talmadge , Ronald Colman , Jean Hersholt .
BW-85 mins, TV-G,

2:00 AM
Lost Horizon (1937)
Four fugitives from a Chinese revolution discover a lost world of peace and harmony.
Dir: Frank Capra Cast: Ronald Colman , Jane Wyatt , Edward Everett Horton .
BW-133 mins, TV-G, CC,

4:15 AM
Story Of Mankind, The (1957)
Satan and the spirit of mankind contend for the future of humanity.
Dir: Irwin Allen Cast: Ronald Colman , Hedy Lamarr , Groucho Marx .
C-100 mins, TV-PG,

[JackFavell]

I am so excited for tomorrow - there are a couple of films I have never seen before, including The Unholy Garden, and the first two on your list. Yippee!

[Gary J.]

The Unholy Garden was reportedly based on a Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur script absentmindedly derived from an idea the writers thought of while going up in the elevator to discuss their fee with Goldwyn.'

I love those Hollywood tales about writers dreaming up movie ideas at the last minute while riding an elevator up to the story conference, or pitching the same tale that was previously sold to the same producer two years earlier, or taking a famous novel and ad-libbing a few new wrinkles to it while selling it as an original idea. There are literally hundreds of similarly told antidotes that have entered Hollywood lore......

.....And all of those tales generally seem to involve Ben Hecht.

[Ann Harding]

The script for The Unholy Garden was apparently (partly) ghost-written by John Lee Mahin. Nice to see that TCM is programming all those Colman rarities. But avoid My Life with Caroline and The Story of Mankind. They are terrible turkeys especially the latter.

[JackFavell]

oops! Just recorded My Life with Caroline....

Lucky Partners started off well, but I only saw the first five minutes.

[Gary J.]

.....Then you've basically seen the entire gist of the film.

[JackFavell]

That's OK. I would watch Colman recite a phone book - it doesn't have to be great art or anything. It's just a thrill to see a couple of movies I had never had the chance to see before.

[pvitari]

Ya'll have listened to Colman's radio show The Halls of Ivy... co-star his delightful wife Benita Hume -- haven't you? ;) Colman played a university president and Benita was his understanding and patient wife. :) The radio show lasted for two years, 1951-52... and t hen a few years later became a TV show (also starring Colman and Hume) which only lasted one season (1954-55). William Cameron Menzies directed an episode! If those episodes exist, how I'd love someone to put that one season out in a box set.

I've seen all the Colman films on TV today but at last I will finally get a good version of The Unholy Garden, which I don't think is actually as bad as all that. ;)

Another title that would have been worth scheduling is The Masquerader (it's been on TCM before) in which Colman does an even earlier version than Zenda of playing two lookalike characters. He plays a drug-addicted, going-insane Member of Parliament, and the other character is the MP's entirely rational newspaper reporter cousin who secretly takes his place when the MP becomes incapacitated. Colman is magnificent, of course.

[JackFavell]

I haven't heard the radio shows.

I just watched The Unholy Garden and I'm glad I recorded it.... I had seen it, years and years ago! It's a cross between Raffles and Casablanca or Algiers. I like it a lot, though the story is pretty moldy and Colman is the only draw. It's definitely his picture, and he owns it, makes it seem better than it really is. Of the rest, only Warren Hymer escapes unscathed. The setting is nice, but terribly stagey. None of it really matters because Colman is at his romantic peak, he looks beautiful and moves well, and then there's that voice.

In fact, I love Colman here. If it were just that voice and he didn't have the charm to back it up, that would be one thing. But he's already learned how to toss off lines in a breezy way (especially the most silly ones), and it helps the picture come across as immense fun. His delivery makes the most of the ridiculous plot contrivances and odd gunshots in the background, making them seem purposefully humorous, and you can't help but like him. You'd never know that he hated it. It just goes to show you how good an actor he really was.

[moira finnie]

I wasn't expecting anything coherent or extraordinary in The Unholy Garden (1935), but simply enjoyed it for the lightness of touch that Colman brought to the threadbare material (which seemed to be composed of odd pieces of plot from Safe in Hell, Raffles, Seven Keys to Baldpate, and Morocco). The best thing about it was the end, when Ronnie veered away from the Production Code as his car sped away from the scene of the crime into the desert (did you notice that no one seemed to worry about running out of gas in the Sahara?).

It was fun seeing Lucille La Verne all cleaned up (well, sort of) as the proprietess of The Unholy Garden inn.

My Life with Caroline (1943) was fun for the first few minutes and when Colman broke the fourth wall, which was briefly exhilarating. It might have worked for the whole movie if the story had been more episodic, chronicling a series of Anna Lee's extracurricular "hobbies"--not just two of them (Gilbert Roland, longing to have Anna grill his dinner over an open fire on the pampas and Reginald Gardiner sculpting an art deco bust of Anna as a Grecian warrior). Maybe it might have worked if Preston Sturges or Mitchell Leisen were the directors, rather than Lewis Milestone, whose best movies seem to be his most serious.

The Masquerader (1933) was great fun, with two Ronnies--one exploring the lower depths of drug addicted depravity as well as the heights of parliamentary power (and with a great part for Halliwell Hobbes!). Btw, Christine/Ann Harding wrote a wonderful account of the film on her site accompanied by many fine screen caps. (The French text can be translated readily on the internet, though she writes so well, it translates easily). I hope that TCM runs The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (1935) some day--in part because of Colman but also because it was one of Colin Clive's later performances in his brief career. It has also been years since anyone has broadcast Against Two Flags (1939) and The Light That Failed (1939), though I'm not sure of the reasons. The Devil To Pay (1930) is a lovely little bauble of a movie, and it would be fun if TCM could run it again. I am excited that I'll finally get to see Kiki (1926) and Her Night of Romance (1924) when I have time to check out my recordings after today. I hear there is a certain American actor in the movie named Cooper too.

Can't get enough Ronald Colman? The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) is on Hulu for free right now.

[Gary J.]

I'm with Wendy and Moira, THE UNHOLY GARDEN is an unmitigated, rarely-seen, modern day classic (give or take 70 years....).

Hecht and MacArthur are geniuses. No expense was spared with on location shooting in North Africa. The casting was brilliant. Ronald Coleman as a suave thief??.....What an inspiration!!! Fay Wray as harem jail bait??....well, she was a little too old for the part but her years playing opposite Charley Chase allowed her the intelligence and wit to pull it off. And then there was the dazzling array of supporting players straight out of the Prussian Central Casting office....and they all play crooks running around looking for money at Rick's Place. It was an imaginative re-working of THE MALTESE FALCON IN ARABIA. To top it off, Warren Hymer is brought on board as a half-witted, sidekick to Coleman. How the Academy passed him up for Best Supporting Actor that year is beyond me. The by-play between the two is funny and touching throughout. And it is their chemistry that turns this into one of the most romantic films of the early talkie era. Don''t miss it!!!

Actually.......this was not as bad as advertised. I got a kick out of it.