#Ernest Truex

[letterboxd-loggd]

Island of Lost Men (1939) Kurt Neumann

March 31st 2024

#island of lost men #1939 #kurt neumann #anna may wong #j. carrol naish #eric blore #broderick crawford #anthony quinn #rudolf forster #ernest truex #king of the river #north of singapore

[character-actor-tournament]

Round 2, match 25

Ernest Truex vs Edward Arnold

#old hollywood #character actors #ernest truex #edward arnold

[gatutor]

Gale Sondergaard-Ernest Truex "Noche en el paraiso" (NIght in paradise) 1946, de Arthur Lubin.

#Gale Sondergaard #Ernest Truex #Arthur Lubin

[outoftowninac]

READY TO OCCUPY / NO MORE BLONDES

1919

Ready to Occupy (later No More Blondes), is a three act farce by Otto Harbach, based on a story by Edgar Franklin. It was originally produced by A.H. Wood, staged by Bertram Harrison, starring Ernest Truex. 

Among other pre-production titles was Oh George, Forgive Me!  In June 1919, screen star Doris Kenyon was attached to the project. Rehearsals began in early December without Kenyon.  

The play takes place at Harper's Real Estate office, and James Powell's home in New York City.

The plot revolves about the adventures of a newly married couple from Cohoes NY who have come to the big town and are estranged. The bride is bundled off to the Martha Washington Hotel and a real estate friend of the husband's puts him In a house owned by another newly married couple that is supposedly vacant. The Cohoes man is told to be rough to the servants, and he is. He tells the butler he is ‘cheap’ but through the rest of the play the butler proves most expensive. The husband goes to bed and white he sleeps the wife of the owner returns unexpectedly. Later her giant brother comes in, the owner of the house arrives, also the little wife from Cohoes. And each fresh arrival presents a new set of complications.

The play premiered at Parsons’ Theatre in Hartford CT on December 22, 1919. 

Ready to Occupy opened at Atlantic City’s Globe Theatre on December 23, 1919. After AC NJ, the show moved to the Grand Theatre in Trenton, the state capitol. 

On December 30th it was announced that the play would occupy Broadway’s Maxine Elliott’s Theatre starting on January 7, 1920, which is what came to pass... 

...except under a new title: No More Blondes. Coincidentally, on the day that the play premiered on Broadway, the Emir of Afghanistan issued a similar edict, banning blondes in his kingdom! 

“There is at least a suggestion of the influence of Detroit in the manner in which the farce is assembled. All the parts are standardized. It is built of time-tested and well weathered material, but if an axle or a crankshaft should break suddenly, there ought not to be the slightest difficulty in sending around the corner or up the street to some other farce where the missing part could be duplicated perfectly. Like most of the sound and stable farces of its school, it is not quite able to complete the journey on one winding. It gets under way quickly and works up to a good speed, but then begins to weaken and is coughing a little at the end of the journey.” ~ HEYWOOD BRAUN

“There is amusement for those who do not bother to discriminate.” ~ NY DAILY HERALD

"'No More Blondes' is a second-rate farce comedy. Now this is not nearly so bad a criticism as at first it seems to be. When you realize that almost every play of this kind in New York is tenth-rate, this particular play-goes up in the scale.” ~ ARNOLD W. ROSENTHAL

“An awful blow to the peroxide market.” ~ HOUSTON POST

As a publicity stunt, Woods presented a free performance for natural blondes! 

The play closed on Broadway on January 31st after just 29 performances. Truex and company immediately traveled to Washington DC to continue performances. From there it bounced back to Teller’s Shubert in Brooklyn. 

#No More Blondes #Ernest Truex #Ready To Occupy #A.H. Woods #Maxine Elliott's Theatre #Globe Theatre #Atlantic City #Broadway #broadway play #theatre #farce #1919 #1920 #Otto Harbach

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

Our Town - NBC - September 19, 1955

A presentation of "Producers' Showcase" Season 2 Episode 1

Musical

Running Time: 90 minutes

Stars:

Frank Sinatra as The Stage Manager

Eva Marie Saint as Emily Webb

Paul Newman as George Gibbs

Ernest Truex as Dr. Gibbs

Sylvia Field as Mrs. Gibbs

Paul Hartman as Mr. Webb

Peg Hillias as Mrs. Webb

Anthony Sydes as Joe Crowell

Shelley Fabares as Rebecca Gibbs

David Saber as Wally Webb

Carol Veazie as Mrs. Soames

Charlotte Knight as Mrs. Slocumb

Harvey B. Dunn as Mr. McCarthy

#Our Town #TV #Producers Showcase #Musical #NBC #1955 #1950's #Frank Sinatra #Eva Marie Saint #Paul Newman

[byneddiedingo]

Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)

Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, Ernest Truex, Cliff Edwards, Clarence Kolb, Roscoe Karns, John Qualen, Helen Mack, Billy Gilbert. Screenplay: Charles Lederer, based on a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Cinematography: Joseph Walker. Art direction: Lionel Banks. Film editing: Gene Havlick. Music: Sidney Cutner, Felix Mills.

I can never make a list of my ten favorite movies because once I get started I keep remembering the ones that absolutely have to be on the list. But His Girl Friday always claims a place somewhere, higher or lower. It's a movie without which life would be just a little poorer. The play on which it's based, The Front Page, was no slouch to start with. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur crafted the single best portrait of what it might have been like -- according to the accounts of others -- to be a newspaper reporter in the first half of the twentieth century, when there was neither television nor the internet to make one's profession obsolescent. We don't have to believe that it was always like that, but just that occasionally reporters in the big cities had moments like the ones shown in the movie. And then Charles Lederer, with uncredited help from Hecht, Howard Hawks, Morrie Ryskind, and a cast skilled at ad libbing, turned it into a romantic screwball comedy by changing the sex of one of the leads, Hildy Johnson, from male to female. And after lots of actresses who would have been just fine in the part (Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur) turned it down, Hawks cast Rosalind Russell in probably her greatest role. Is there a better matched team than Russell's Hildy and Cary Grant's Walter Burns? We can see both why they got divorced and why they could never be separated. And adding Ralph Bellamy as the patsy was a masterstroke, even though it's essentially the same role he had played three years earlier in The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937): the stuffy guy who loses out to Grant, perhaps because, as Burns observes, "He looks like that guy in the movies, you know ... Ralph Bellamy." The whole thing moves so brilliantly fast that you don't have time to reflect on the film's flaws, which include a racist gag about "pickaninnies" and a deep confusion about whether it's satirizing or valorizing its characters' callous indifference to other human beings -- notably the moment when Hildy sardonically refers to her fellow reporters as "Gentlemen of the press" after their harassment of Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack), but then immediately reverts to get-the-story-at-any-price behavior. What keeps it all skimming swiftly above reality is the astonishing skill of the leads (notice how long some of the takes are to realize how great their timing and command of dialogue was) and a gallery of great character players: Gene Lockhart, Roscoe Karns, John Qualen, and especially the hilarious Billy Gilbert as Joe Pettibone: If you can tear your eyes away from him long enough, watch how hard Grant and Russell are working to keep from cracking up at his performance. Oh, hell, stop whatever you're doing and just go watch it.  

#His Girl Friday #Howard Hawks #Rosalind Russell #Cary Grant

[lastchancevillagegreen]

The Twilight Zone Season 3 Episode 21: Kick The Can

Ernest Truex (Last seen as the man who always knew what you needed in Season 1 Episode 12, What You Need.  He would have known instinctively I did not need that stupid Chicago album.) 

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have His Girl Friday 1940

#His Girl Friday #Cary Grant #Rosalind Russell #Ralph Bellamy #Gene Lockhart #Porter Hall #Ernest Truex #Cliff Edwards #Clarence Kolb #Roscoe Karns #Frank Jenks #Regis Toomey #Abner Biberman #Frank Orth #John Qualen #Helen Mack #Alma Kruger #Billy Gilbert #Pat West #Edwin Maxwell #Irving Bacon #Wade Boteler #Harry C. Bradley #Wheaton Chambers #Edmund Cobb #Ann Doran #Ralph Dunn #Earl Dwire #Pat Flaherty #Jack Gardner

[twilightzonecloseup]

3.21 Kick the Can

Director: Lamont Johnson

Director of Photography: George T. Clemens

“Maybe the fountain of youth isn't a fountain at all. Maybe it's a way of looking at things--a way of thinking.”

#Twilight Zone #the twilight zone #season 3 #Kick the Can #1960s #1962 #lamont johnson #george t clemens #Rod Serling #George Clayton Johnson #richard p. mcdonagh #Ernest Truex #Russell Collins #Burt Mustin #retro tv #tv #Classic TV #classic television #scifi #fantasy #speculative fiction #cinematography #close up #close-up #screencap #caps #my screencaps

[badgaymovies]

Dance Girl Dance (1940)

Dance Girl Dance (1940)

DOROTHY ARZNER Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBBB USA, 1940. RKO Radio Pictures. Screenplay by Tess Slesinger, Frank Davis, from a story by Vicki Baum. Cinematography by Russell Metty. Produced by Erich Pommer. Music by Edward Ward. Production Design by Van Nest Polglase. Costume Design by Edward Stevenson. Film Editing by Robert Wise. For many this is the masterpiece in Dorothy Arzner’s filmography,…

View On WordPress

#Chester Clute #Criterion Collection #Dorothy Arzner #Edward Brophy #Edward Stevenson #Edward Ward #Emma Dunn #Erich Pommer #Ernö Verebes #Ernest Truex #Frank Davis #Harold Huber #Katharine Alexander #Lola Jensen #Lorraine Krueger #Louis Hayward #Lucille Ball #Ludwig Stössel #Maria Ouspenskaya #Mary Carlisle #Maureen O&039;Hara #Ralph Bellamy #RKO Radio Pictures #Robert Wise #Russell Metty #Sidney Blackmer #Tess Slesinger #Van Nest Polglase #Vicki Baum #Virginia Field

[ladybegood]

Elissa Landi and Ernest Truex in a publicity photo for The Warrior’s Husband (1933)

#Elissa Landi #Ernest Truex #The Warrior's Husband #vintage #old hollywood #ladybegoodscan

[letterboxd-loggd]

It’s a Wonderful World (1939) W.S. Van Dyke

May 14th 2023

#it's a wonderful world #1939 #w.s. van dyke #james stewart #claudette colbert #guy kibbee #nat pendleton #ernest truex #cecil cunningham #edgar kennedy #frances drake #sidney blackmer

[character-actor-tournament]

Round 1, Match 49

Richard Carle vs Ernest Truex

#Richard carle #ernest truex #character actors #old hollywood #tournament poll

[gatutor]

Joyce Reynolds-Ernest Truex "Always together" 1947, de Frederick de Cordova.

#Joyce Reynolds #Ernest Truex #Frederick de Cordova

[outoftowninac]

RITZY

1930

Ritzy is a three act comedy by Viva Tattersall and Sidney Toler. The original production was produced by L. Lawrence Weber and staged by Sidney Toler. The play was first known as Dress Parade. 

The play takes place at  the Georgian Hotel in New York City, in the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The stage setting depicted the entire apartment, including bathroom and kitchen. 

The story concerns Edgar Smith, insurance man, who learns that his wife Nancy has inherited $200,000. For a day they spend their new-found wealth and grow into snobs before learning it's all a mistake. Meanwhile Edgar has met rich friends and sold a million dollar policy, so the blow doesn't fall too hard. 

Sidney Toler (1874-1947) is probably best remembered as the actor who played Charlie Chan on screen in 22 films between 1938 and 1946. In 1930, he was married to Vivian Marston. A month after her death in 1943, he married divorcee Viva (nee Vera) Tattersall, a British-born actress and co-author of Ritzy. 

The original cast featured Ernest Truex (as Edgar Smith) and Miriam Hopkins (as his wife, Nancy). Truex later had a prolific film and television career. Hopkins would be nominated for an Oscar in 1936 for playing the title role in Becky Sharp.  The supporting cast includes Sydney Riggs, Josephine Evans, Katherine Renwick, Effie Afton, J.H. Brewer, and John Junior. 

The world premiere of Ritzy was on February 3, 1930 at Nixon’s Apollo Theatre on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Both the stars were recently acting on the London stage, and were welcomed back to the US by the press. The theatre advertised that “You Can Have Dinner at Home This Week” because of their 8:30pm curtain time. The show was billed as “A New Comedy About Swankomania”. 

RITZY & SWANKY

In 1930, the term Ritzy was seemingly everywhere due to Irving Berlin’s hit song “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.  The informal adjective ‘Rtzy’ implies luxury that's a little over the top. It was coined around 1910, inspired by the famously elegant Ritz Hotels that César Ritz opened starting internationally in the late 19th century. In the USA, the play was performed in just two cities: New York and Atlantic City, both of which had Ritz-Carlton Hotels. The New York hotel was demolished in 1951. The Atlantic City Ritz (built in 1921, above) still stands as a condominium. 

The definition of swanky is someone or something that is fancy and stylish and often very expensive. 1913, from the Germanic root ‘swank’ meaning "to swing, turn, toss". Perhaps the notion is of "swinging" the body ostentatiously, similar to swagger.  

The play opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on February 10, 1930 and ran for 32 performances.  

“As a study of how to spend 200,000 non-existent dollars, its trifling plot (which brewed busily but not so merrily for two hours) hardly needed the services of two players as competent as Mr. Truex and Miss Hopkins, though what it would have done without them is also something of a problem.” – NEW YORK TIMES

After the play closed, there was talk of a tour, but none materialized. Instead, the play was offered for regional production. 

The Broadway production of Ritzy introduced a new way to get theatre tickets: telephone!  No longer would patrons need to que up at the box office or deal with brokers. 

Miriam Hopkins returned to the Great Wooden Way in December - but on celluloid - in the motion picture Fast and Loose playing at the Steel Pier.

By July 1930, Sidney Toler was back at the Atlantic City Apollo, this time acting in David Belasco’s It’s A Wise Child. But that’s another blog!

#Sidney Toler #Ritzy #Viva Tattersall #Broadway #Broadway Play #Longacre Theatre #Nixon's Apollo Theatre #Miriam Hopkins #Ernest Truex #Boardwalk #L Lawrence Weber #Ritz #Swanky #1930

[missfilmnoir]

“S-Scissors? What is this? Some kind of gag?” “They’re what you need. They really are.”

The Twilight Zone Ep. 12 - What You Need

#the twilight zone #twilight zone #rod serling #what you need #steve cochran #ernest truex #1959 #1950s #gif