TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 16, 2018 -- Summer Under The Stars -- Miriam Hopkins

[Staph]

Welcome to Day Sixteen of Summer Under The Stars. Today's star is Miriam Hopkins.

This highly talented blonde Broadway actress possessed an intriguing, husky voice and a brittle, sometimes twitchy yet sexy style. An off-beat combination of a vivacious Southern belle and an insecure yet superior modern woman, Hopkins signed as a leading lady with Paramount in 1930 and gained early stardom for her roles in productions including the delightful Ernst Lubitsch musical "The Smiling Lieutenant" (1931) and Rouben Mamoulian's striking "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1932). In Lubitsch's masterpiece, "Trouble in Paradise" (1932), she displayed a sharp talent for sly, sophisticated banter, and she won an Oscar nomination in the title role of Mamoulian's "Becky Sharp" (1935). The feisty, intelligent Hopkins gave what is probably her finest dramatic performance in William Wyler's sterling if significantly altered adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play "The Children's Hour," "These Three" (1936).

Known to be difficult on the set, Hopkins flitted from studio to studio. After her early tenure at Paramount, she was under contract to independent producer Samuel Goldwyn during the mid-30s and by the end of the decade had moved to Warner Brothers, where a rivalry with Bette Davis manifested itself in both the plotline and the actual filming of the touching soaper, "The Old Maid" (1939). Her stardom began to decline toward the end of the decade after several films ("The Woman I Love" 1937, "Lady with Red Hair" 1940) fizzled at the box office. For a time Hopkins had been a critics' darling; as her films became more routine and she became increasingly disenchanted with her opportunities in Hollywood, some of her performances became more mannered. After another competitive reteaming with Davis in the enjoyably catty "Old Acquaintance" (1943), which put her fidgety qualities to good use, Hopkins returned to Broadway and stage tours and bid farewell to Hollywood for six years.

Hopkins began playing occasional film character parts at the end of the 40s. She was especially good in her first major supporting role in films, that of the solicitous, romantic aunt in a fine reunion film with Wyler, "The Heiress" (1949). Hopkins made intermittent appearances through the mid-60s, including one in Wyler's 1962 remake, "The Children's Hour" (playing the aunt of the character she had played 26 years earlier). She also did occasional TV work, perhaps most memorably in an outlandish yet highly effective and even moving Norma Desmond-type turn as an overage flapper still living in her youthful past in "Don't Open Till Doomsday," an especially memorable installment of the cult classic anthology series, "The Outer Limits."

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- THE STRANGER'S RETURN (1933)
A divorcee visits her grandfather's farm to recover and discovers a life she never expected to love.
Dir: King Vidor
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Miriam Hopkins, Franchot Tone
BW-87 mins, CC,

MGM borrowed Miriam Hopkins from Paramount for this film.


7:30 AM -- THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD (1934)
To put off fortune-hunters, an heiress trades places with her secretary.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray
BW-76 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Norman Krasna

When Tony (Joel McCrea) arrives at the cabin in the Adirondacks during a wild rainstorm, he walks in saying "Ain't a fit night out for man or beast." This is a line popularized the year before by W.C. Fields in The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933).


9:00 AM -- SPLENDOR (1935)
A man disappoints his destitute family by marrying a poor girl.
Dir: Elliott Nugent
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Paul Cavanaugh
BW-77 mins,

The third of five films made by McCrea with Hopkins between 1934 and 1937.


10:30 AM -- MEN ARE NOT GODS (1936)
A secretary to an eccentric drama critic is persuaded to alter a ruinous review of a Shakespearean actor and falls in love with him.
Dir: Walter Reisch
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Gertrude Lawrence, Sebastian Shaw
BW-83 mins, CC,

Loosely inspired by Shakespeare's "Othello."


12:00 PM -- BARBARY COAST (1935)
A vice king's girlfriend falls for a young miner.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea
BW-90 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Ray June

There were constant struggles between Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson during the shooting of the movie. She constantly changed her lines and tried to upstage and unsettle Robinson's performance. After two weeks they had to shoot a scene where Robinson had to slap his co-star. He did just that, but put such force in it that she fell to the ground. After a pause the crew began to cheer, fed up as they were with Hopkins' antics.


1:45 PM -- VIRGINIA CITY (1940)
A rebel spy poses as a wild West dance hall girl.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott
BW-121 mins, CC,

When the film premiered in Virginia City, NV, in 1940, the townspeople were charged an exorbitant admission fee (for those days) of $1.10 per customer. This was owing to the fact that Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins and others from the cast had been scheduled to make a personal appearance on stage after the film's showing. However, when Flynn and the others failed to appear, enraged audience members stormed out of the theater and took the Warner Brothers entourage (including five busloads of studio personnel) hostage, demanding they get their money back. Eventually the theater's manager agreed to make up the difference by refunding the audience 70 cents apiece, thus reducing admission to its usual 40-cent fee.


4:00 PM -- THE OLD MAID (1939)
An unmarried mother gives her illegitimate child to her cousin.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent
BW-95 mins, CC,

On her first day on the set, Hopkins wore an exact duplicate of the dress Davis had worn in Jezebel. Davis reflected on this time with Hopkins in her autobiography with the following observations "Miriam used and, I must give her credit, knew every trick in the book. I became fascinated watching them appear one by one. When she was supposed to be listening to me, her eyes would wander off into some other world in which she was the sweetest of them all. Her restless little spirit was impatiently awaiting her next line, her golden curls quivering with expectancy."


5:37 PM -- A GIRL'S BEST YEARS (1937)
A woman reporter is hired by an author-songwriter to help him avoid additional breach-of-promise suits in this comedic short.
Dir: Reginald LeBorg
Cast: Sheila Terry, Maurice Cass, Barnett Parker
BW-19 mins,


6:00 PM -- OLD ACQUAINTANCE (1943)
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young
BW-110 mins, CC,

This is the film with the often shown, camp classic scene of Bette Davis calmly grabbing Miriam Hopkins by the shoulders, vigorously shaking her, throwing her down into a chair, and then calmly saying with a clipped, sarcastic edge: "Sorry". Bette Davis later admitted she immensely enjoyed playing that scene.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: MIRIAM HOPKINS



8:00 PM -- TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932)
A love triangle ignites trouble between two jewel thieves and their intended victim.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall
BW-82 mins, CC,

This movie was popular both with critics and with audiences, but was made before the enforcement of the production code. After 1935, it was withdrawn from circulation and was not seen again, except at museums and archival institutions until it was sold to MCA and released for television in 1958. It became available on DVD in 2003.


9:30 PM -- THESE THREE (1936)
Scandal destroys the lives of two small-town schoolteachers.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCrea
BW-93 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Bonita Granville

The play was partly inspired by an actual case in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1810, "Miss Pirie and Miss Woods vs. Dame Cumming Gordon." Two school teachers, Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods, were falsely accused of having a lesbian affair by a pupil, Jane Gordon. Under the influence of Jane's grandmother, Dame Cumming Gordon, the school's students were removed by their parents and the school was shut down. Pirie and Woods filed a libel suit against Dame Cumming Gordon, and won the case, but given the destruction of their lives and standing in the community, it was considered a hollow victory.


11:08 PM -- HOLLYWOOD PARTY (1937)
In this short film, Elissa Landi and Charley Chase host an East Asian themed garden tea party in Hollywood.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Leon Errol,
C-21 mins,

This film was unseen for nearly 60 years until the Vitaphone Disk of the sound track was found in 2000.


11:30 PM -- THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE (1933)
A society girl gets mixed up with blackmail and murder after a vicious sexual assault.
Dir: Stephen Roberts
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, William Gargan, Jack La Rue
BW-71 mins, CC,

Was extremely controversial because of its content matter. It was banned in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and Production Code Administration head Joseph Breen ordered that the film never be re-released once the Production Code came into effect in mid-1934. The film did not resurface until the mid-1950s.


1:00 AM -- LADY WITH RED HAIR (1940)
An actress hopes to regain her lost son by making it to the top.
Dir: Kurt Bernhardt
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains, Richard Ainley
BW-78 mins, CC,

Louis Payne, the husband of Mrs. Leslie Carter in real life, coached Richard Ainley, who was playing him in the movie.


2:30 AM -- WISE GIRL (1937)
A rich girl plays poor to win over a Greenwich Village artist.
Dir: Leigh Jason
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland, Walter Abel
BW-70 mins, CC,

The only teaming of Miriam Hopkins and Ray Milland in a feature film.


3:42 AM -- PHIL SPITALNY AND ORCHESTRA IN "BIG CITY FANTASY" (1934)
In this short film, a singer comes to America to find Phil Spitalny and ends up searching New York when she loses his address. Vitaphone Release 1635.
Dir: Joseph Henabery
BW-10 mins,


4:00 AM -- DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932)
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a scientist who unleashes the beast within.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart
BW-96 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Fredric March (Tied with Wallace Beery for The Champ (1931).)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein, and Best Cinematography -- Karl Struss

The remarkable Jekyll-to-Hyde transition scenes in this film were accomplished by manipulating a series of variously colored filters in front of the camera lens. Fredric March's Hyde makeup was in various colors, and the way his appearance registered on the film depended on which color filter was being shot through. During the first transformation scene, the accompanying noises on the soundtrack included portions of Bach, a gong being played backwards, and, reportedly, a recording of director Rouben Mamoulian's own heart. Only in the late 1960's did Mamoulian reveal how they were done.


5:39 AM -- ROAST-BEEF AND MOVIES (1934)
A group of bumbling, incompetent Hollywood hopefuls try to sell a picture to a fictional film studio in this short film.
Dir: Sam Baerwitz
Cast: Warren Hymer, Dorothy Granger, Jerry Howard
C-16 mins,

When the studio head points to his stars photos on the wall, those pictured include Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Marion Davies, Marie Dressler, Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Greta Garbo, Helen Hayes, Ramon Navarro, and Joan Crawford, not coincidently all current MGM stars.