TCM Remembers 2010

Every passing year brings the sad loss of prominent and often beloved figures in movie history.

2010 was no different, of course, and, among those lost, there were talented men and women whose careers began in the Cladrite era: Gloria Stuart, Tony Curtis, Patricia Neal, “Baby” Marie Osborne, Lena Horne, Doris Eaton and others.

As they do every year, the good folks at Turner Classic Movies have put together a video tribute to those departed movie professionals who touched our lives during their time with us. It’s nicely done, and well worth a look.

"The March of Time" marches on

Warm up your DVRs! Turner Classic Movies is showing four hours of “The March of Time” on Sunday, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

At its peak, The March of Time provided news on current events for over 20 million people per month in 9,000 theaters throughout the United States. Lasting from 1935 through 1951, the series experienced the most sustained success of any documentary-like programming before the age of television, and it was recognized with a special Academy Award in 1936 for “having revolutionized one of the most important branches of the industry—the newsreel.” Its format and approach to depicting news events became a major influence on news documentaries and public affairs programming.

Time-Life-Fortune, Inc., which was headed by Henry Luce, sponsored The March of Time under the watchful eye of Roy Larsen, but it was Louis de Rochemont who innovated the techniques and structure that defined the series. De Rochemont, who had a lifelong passion for true-life dramas, was the director of short films for Fox Movietone News when he brought the idea for what he termed “pictorial journalism” to Larsen. He based his proposal on a radio version of The March of Time, which he felt could be re-created on film. Larsen and de Rochemont began work in June 1934, and the first episode debuted at the Capitol Theatre in New York City on February 1, 1935.

The March of Time modernized and updated the newsreel, which had declined in craftsmanship and popularity after the coming of sound. Companies that made newsreels usually did so as a sideline, meaning they invested little money, effort, or personnel into their productions. They did not staff actual journalists to write scripts or to organize the footage, because they were looking to turn the most profit with the least amount of money. Newsreels were sold as part of a package deal to studios or distributors, and they consisted of film snippets of disasters, sporting events, beauty contests, or crazy fads. Producers stayed away from world events, especially those that generated controversy. In contrast, Larsen and de Rochemont wanted to produce a new film each month that dealt with the type of contemporary events and issues found in the pages of Time or Life magazine. Their approach was to turn a topical event or issue into a story with a beginning, middle, and end so that it could be easily understood to all audiences. Each episode cost between $25,000 and $75,000 in an era when the average newsreel was produced for $8,000 to $12,000.

The goal for The March of Time was to present an event or situation so effectively that viewers felt like they were experiencing the real thing. To accomplish that goal, de Rochemont combined archival footage, re-enactments, interviews, and dramatic voice-over by the deep-throated Westbrook Van Voorhis. He became so associated with the series that he was billed as the Voice of Time–and occasionally mocked as the Voice of God or Voice of Doom. His voice of authority was particularly memorable at the conclusion of each episode when he emphatically pronounced, “Time marches on!” … Read more

Here is the schedule of March of Time episodes to be aired on TCM on Sunday, September 5th, on TCM:

8:00 p.m.
Dogs for Sale – June 11, 1937
Dust Bowl – June 11, 1937
Poland and War – June 11, 1937
8:30 p.m.
Inside Nazi Germany – Jan. 18, 1938
9:00 p.m.
Show Business at War – May 1943
9:30 p.m.
Youth in Crisis – Nov. 1943
10:00 p.m.
Palestine Problem – Sept. 17, 1945
10:30 p.m.
American Beauty – Oct. 5, 1945
11:00 p.m.
Problem Drinkers – June 14, 1946
11:30 p.m.
Mid-Century-Half Way to Where? – Feb. 3, 1950

• “The March of Time” at HBO Archives
• “The March of Time” on Facebook

Big news!

We have some big news for you, straight from Cladrite Industries’ central office in the heart of New York City:

It’s with great pleasure that we announce that Cladrite Radio will now be featuring performances taken from rare Vitaphone shorts, via recordings generously provided by one of the driving forces behind the Vitaphone Project, Ron Hutchinson, corresponding secretary and editor of the organization’s newsletter, The Vitaphone News.

That’s right, listeners of Cladrite Radio will be able to enjoy recordings that date back eighty years and more and are not commercially available anywhere, including performances by such Cladrite favorites as Rudy Vallée, Ben Bernie and His Orchestra, Horace Heidt and His Calfornians, and Abe Lyman and His Band, just to name a few.

What are Vitaphone shorts and The Vitaphone Project?

Well, here’s a snippet from a 1926 short featuring an act called Witt & Berg (note: the restored shorts are much clearer than this online sample):

And here are a couple of the songs we’ll be featuring in our first batch Vitaphone recordings:

Grace Johnston and The Indiana Five — “Bashful Baby”

Tal Henry and His North Carolinians — “Milenberg Joys”

Anyone with a casual interest in classic movies knows that The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson, is considered the first “talkie” feature motion picture (even though that picture is arguably a silent movie with sound segments). (Incidentally, the recent three-disc DVD reissue of The Jazz Singer includes a disc that features several Vitaphone shorts.)

The same process used to create the sound for that ground-breaking picture was also used in literally hundreds of short subjects, dating back a year earlier to 1926.

The Vitaphone process depended on the use of a separate 16-inch record that was synchronized with the film, as opposed to the later practice of imprinting the sound on the edge of the film itself.
Read more

TCM remembers Ms. Horne

Beginning at 8 p.m. tonight, Turner Classic Movies pays tribute to the great Lena Horne by airing a trio of her pictures. Here’s the line-up:

8:00 p.m. — The Duke Is Tops (1938)
A producer’s romance with his star ends when the latter is offered a better job in New York. Cast: Ralph Cooper, Lena Horne, Lawrence Criner. Dir: William Nolte. BW-73 mins

9:30 p.m. — Cabin in the Sky (1943)
God and Satan battle for the soul of a wounded gambler. Cast: Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. BW-99 mins

11:15 p.m. — Panama Hattie (1942)
A nightclub owner in Panama takes on Nazi spies. Cast: Ann Sothern, Red Skelton, Lena Horne. Dir: Norman Z. McLeod. BW-80 mins

Remembering Ms. Reed

The lovely Donna Reed is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month in May, and it strikes us as an apt honor. They’ll be showing her movies every Wednesday this month, beginning at 8 p.m. and extending well into Thursday morning.

Reed is remembered today primarily for her early 1960s sitcom, The Donna Reed Show, and her work as Eleanor Ewing on TV’s Dallas. Some will recall her, too, in the odd movie role, such as Mary Hatch Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s wife in It’s a Wonderful Life or as prostitute Alma “Lorene” Burke in From Here to Eternity. But Reed’s career was long and varied one, and few women ever looked more beautiful on the silver screen than did the Iowa native, who was born Donna Belle Mullenger.

We intend to use these weekly airings to reacquaint ourselves with some of our favories among Reed’s movie roles and to experience some of her lesser-known performances, large and small, for the first time.

Here is tonight’s line-up:

8:00p.m. — Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed Dir: Major W. S. Van Dyke II BW-97 mins

9:45p.m. — The Courtship Of Andy Hardy (1942)
A teenager dates a girl whose parents’ divorce is being decided by his father.
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden Dir: George B. Seitz BW-95 mins

11:30p.m. — Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
A wheelchair-bound doctor fights off a homicidal maniac.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed, Phil Brown Dir: Harold S. Bucquet BW-84 mins

1:00a.m. — Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case (1943)
A wheelchair-bound doctor tries to prove a convicted killer’s innocence.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Keye Luke, Alma Kruger Dir: Willis Goldbeck BW-89 mins

2:45a.m. — Babes on Broadway (1941)
Show-biz hopefuls stage a benefit for an orphanage.
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Fay Bainter, Virginia Weidler, Donna Reed Dir: Busby Berkeley BW-118 mins

5:00a.m. — The Human Comedy (1943)
A small-town telegraph boy deals with the strains of growing up during World War II.
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig, Marsha Hunt Dir: Clarence Brown BW-117 mins

7:00a.m. — The Bugle Sounds (1942)
An old-time cavalry sergeant’s resistance to change could cost him his post.
Cast: Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, Lewis Stone, George Bancroft Dir: S. Sylvan Simon BW-102 mins

8:45a.m. — Apache Trail (1942)
An outlaw and his brother are on opposite sides of a stagecoach robbery.
Cast: Lloyd Nolan, Donna Reed, William Lundigan, Ann Ayars Dir: Richard Rosson BW-66 mins

10:00a.m. — Gentle Annie (1944)
A frontierswoman turns her family into a band of bank robbers.
Cast: James Craig, Donna Reed, Marjorie Main, Henry Morgan Dir: Andrew Marton BW-80 mins