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Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:47 pm
by Matt
On November 14, Universal will release 3 "Screen Legend" collections of films, one each for Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, and Rock Hudson. Each contains 5 films on 3 discs (similar to the Glamour Collections for Lombard, Dietrich, and Mae West).
Scoop is available at
DVD Times.
Bing Crosby set includes Waikiki Wedding, Double or Nothing, East Side of Heaven, If I Had My Way, and Here Come the Waves.
Cary Grant set includes Thirty Day Princess, Kiss and Make Up, Wings in the Dark, Big Brown Eyes, and Wedding Present.
Rock Hudson set includes Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, A Very Special Favor, The Golden Blade, The Last Sunset, and The Spiral Road.
Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:18 pm
by Narshty
matt wrote:Rock Hudson set includes Has Anybody Seen My Gal?...
That's as far as I read, then I clicked 'Order'. This was my film professor's favourite Sirk, so I'm there.
Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:20 pm
by tryavna
matt wrote:Cary Grant set includes Thirty Day Princess, Kiss and Make Up, Wings in the Dark, Big Brown Eyes, and Wedding Present.
Boy, these are extremely obscure Cary Grant movies! I've not seen a single one of them. Does anybody know anything about them? Two facts I've learned that makes a couple of them sound promising:
Big Brown Eyes was directed by Raoul Walsh, and
Thirty Day Princess co-stars Sylvia Sidney, whom I've always thought was one of the best actresses of the mid- to late-Thirties.
Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:09 pm
by Gregory
A couple of paragraphs from Graham McCann's biography of Grant that sheds a little light on the circumstances under which he did these films:
Professionally, the years 1934 and 1935 did not see Grant offered many movie roles by Paramount which provided him with much opportunity to exploit his new-found popularity. Thirty Day Princess, Born to be Bad, Kiss and Make Up, Ladies Should Listen (all 1934) were largely forgettable affairs. After making Wings in the Dark (1935), Grant was given six months off; Paramount had a backlog of Grant movies which had yet to be released. It seemed as though the studio was undecided as to how best it should utilise his talents, and his dissatisfaction with Paramount deepened: 'They had a lot of leading men at Paramount with dark hair and a set of teeth like mine, and they couldn't be buying stories for all of us.'...
...
Sylvia Scarlett or rather Grant's role within it, was his ticket to leave Paramount. His contract was about to run out, and the success of his portrayal of Jimmy Monkley, combined with the increasingly cavalier treatment he felt he was receiving from Paramount (vetoing his request to go on loan to MGM for Mutiny on the Bounty, putting him in a mystery called Big Brown Eyes, loaning him out again to MGM for a second lead in Suzy and then putting him in the insipid screwball comedy Wedding Present,) made up his mind for him. He would refuse to renew his contract. Not only would he break away from Paramount, he would, he resolved, from that point on, after twenty-one movies, refuse to commit himself exclusively to any one studio.
The author went on to explain how unprecedented this behavior was back then. The studio was anxious to keep him and made him an offer of $3,500 per week to stay, but he refused, saying "If I had stayed at Paramount I would have continued to take pictures that Gary Cooper, William Powell, or Clive Brook turned down."
Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:36 pm
by Matt
Narshty wrote:matt wrote:Rock Hudson set includes Has Anybody Seen My Gal?...
That's as far as I read, then I clicked 'Order'. This was my film professor's favourite Sirk, so I'm there.
It's a delight, but not very "Sirkian".
I don't think any of those Grant films were ever even released on video. They're virtually forgotten, which ought to make them interesting viewing for a fan like myself, at least.
Wings in the Dark Myrna Loy.
Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:38 am
by Rufus T. Firefly
tryavna wrote:matt wrote:Cary Grant set includes Thirty Day Princess, Kiss and Make Up, Wings in the Dark, Big Brown Eyes, and Wedding Present.
Boy, these are extremely obscure Cary Grant movies! I've not seen a single one of them. Does anybody know anything about them? Two facts I've learned that makes a couple of them sound promising:
Big Brown Eyes was directed by Raoul Walsh, and
Thirty Day Princess co-stars Sylvia Sidney, whom I've always thought was one of the best actresses of the mid- to late-Thirties.
I've recently seen all of these bar
Wings. The later ones are deservedly obscure.
Kiss and Make Up must have just scraped in before the Code was enforced and is therefore more interesting.
Thirty Day Princess is not bad - I had not noticed before that Sylvia was so, er, well-proportioned.
Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:00 am
by dx23
Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:21 am
by Brian Oblivious
I've seen Thirty Day Princess. Preston Sturges apparantly contributed to the script, but don't expect anything very special. Totally empty calories. Sylvia Sidney is good in a dual role though.
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:36 am
by Gregory
I'm not expecting to get any replies about this since it involves a film so few people care about (understandably) but here it goes anyway...
I watched Kiss and Make Up from the Cary Grant Collection and noticed that it only ran between 69 or 70 minutes. The runtime listed on the case says 78 minutes, and Universal's own online DVD store indicates 71 minutes. I checked the filmography in my Graham McCann book on Grant and it confirms the 78 minute runtime.
Anyone know what could have happened to those missing several minutes? If they were going to cut the film, they should have cut out Grant's singing performances!