#spring byington

[citizenscreen]

Spring Byington, Gene Tierney, and Henry Fonda in RINGS ON HER FINGERS (1942), directed by Rouben Mamoulian

[historicalreusedcostumes]

This fur-trimmed gold dress is worn two times in The Batman, First worn on Spring Byington as J. Pauline Spaghetti in The Sandman Cometh (1966) and later worn on Glynis Johns as Lady Penelope Peasoup in The Bloody Tower (1967)

[avonlea71]

In The Good Old Summertime (1949).

[creepynostalgy]

Henry Hull in Werewolf Of London (1935)

[colorhollywood]

Leslie Howard, Olivia DeHavilland, Bette Davis, Spring Byington

Film: It's love I'm after (1937)

[thursdaymurderbub]

Silver Screen magazine, April 1938

[letterboxd-loggd]

Meet John Doe (1941) Frank Capra

November 28th 2023

[gatutor]

Henry Fonda-Spring Byington "Way down east" 1935, de Henry King.

[oldshowbiz]

1959.

The Beatnik episode of December Bride.

[screenshotingmonstercinema]

[roskirambles]

Horror Movie of the day: Werewolf of London (1935)

In the mountains of Tibet, botanist Wilfred Glendon is on an expedition. His objective? Find a rare flower called Mariphasa lumina lupina, who apparently only blooms under the moonlight. Just as he finds one, he's attacked by a strange, humanoid creature and ends up being bitten in the arm.

Back at London, Glendon has become quite the hermit to the dismay of his stranged wife Lisa. Just in time for her childhood sweetheart Paul to try and win her back, too. But the botanist has little time to worry about this rather unsubtle suitor, having met another botanist from abroad in Dr. Yogami. He seems a little too interested and knowledgeable in the Mariphasa, as it's the only cure for the werewolf condition. One contracted when bitten by another. And each night of moonlight, the creature must kill should it want to turn back to a human. With Scottland Yard on his tail after the murder of a woman he found on the streets, Glendon is in a race against time... as he yearns for the blood of Lisa.

Directed by Stuart Walker, this movie set the template of cinematic werewolf stories to come. Not unlike Nosferatu started the tradition of sunlight killing vampires, this movie started the idea of the full moon being the trigger to Lycanthropy once infected, and the themes of loss of self-control and human vs animal that have been synonym with the monster (No silver bullet yet, though). Henry Hull's performance as the tormented Glendon does paint the image of a conflicted if not always well meaning man; the creature makeup certianly heping to create this inbetween of man and animal, in spite of being rather subdued compared to other werewolf designs.

Being a movie this old it's representation of Asian cultures is... less than stellar with Yogami being portrayed by Warner Oland (a Swedish man). And you might see the tragedy coming a mile away, but it doesn't make the journey any less entertaining.

[citizenscreen]

Spring Byington (October 17, 1886 – September 7, 1971)

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

Series Premiere / Pilot

December Bride - Lily Ruskin Arrives - CBS - October 4, 1954

Sitcom

Running Time: 30 minutes

Written by Parke Levy and Phil Sharp

Produced by Frederick de Cordova

Directed by Jerry Thorpe

Stars:

Spring Byington as Lily Ruskin

Dean Miller as Matt Henshaw

Frances Rafferty as Ruth Henshaw

Harry Morgan as Pete Porter

Harry Cheshire as Gus

Moroni Olsen as Lt. Morgan

Sam McDaniel as Porter at train Station

[character-actor-tournament]

Round 7, match 1 (final match)

Conrad Veidt vs Spring Byington

[giraffe44]

When Ladies Meet, 1941, Is Playing on TCM on November 13 (USA)

When Ladies Meet, 1941, is playing on Turner Classic Movies on Monday, November 13 at 10 a.m. est. Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor and Greer Garson in “When Ladies Meet,” 1941. It is the story of a married couple, a lady author and a charming single journalist. Joan Crawford, the author, considers herself a “modern woman” freed from tiresome conventions and moral imperatives. Despite the movie’s…

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Dragonwyck

Alfred Newman’s blissfully thundering score, replacing the usual 20th Century-Fox fanfare, promises a much better film than Joseph L. Mankiewicz delivers with his first directing effort, DRAGONWYCK (1946, TCM, YouTube). It’s not that the film is bad. It has some strong moments and performances, and you can see hints of the wit and grace that would inform some of his later films. It just doesn’t live up to the promise of its first hour.

It opens in 1844 with Gene Tierney running into a farmhouse, and, to her and Mankiewicz’ s credit, she maintains that level of youthful exuberance through much of the film. She’s being raised by Walter Huston and Anne Revere (who are simply marvelous) in a strict religious farm family in Connecticut. When a wealthy distant relation (Vincent Price) requests they send one of their daughters as a companion for his, she convinces Huston to send her off. She’s soon swept up in the glamour of life on a wealthy landowner’s estate in the Hudson River Valley. She’s also charmed by Price’s urbanity and seeming generosity, particularly in a beautifully staged grand ball scene. When his wife dies suddenly, Price proposes, and then the film goes downhill.

Some of the problem is that Mankiewicz, who also wrote the screenplay, has condensed a 400+ page novel into a 103-minute movie. Characters keep telling us about things we should have seen, and the housekeeper, a wonderfully eccentric and surprisingly malicious Spring Byington, vanishes halfway through. A farmer (Henry Morgan) wrongly arrested for murder is suddenly free with no explanation. Along with those narrative lapses, 1940s values also start getting in the way. The scene in which the recently married Tierney finds out that Price is (<gasp><clutch pearls>) an atheist is almost ludicrous. DRAGONWYCK looks and sounds great, and most of the acting is at a high level. Tierney did very good work for Mankiewicz, and the scene in which she discovers what the film can only hint at, that her husband’s become an opium addict, proves that she really could move her face. Price’s performance feels like a successful tryout for his later Gothic hero-villains in the Roger Corman Poe films. And Jessica Tandy has a nice turn as a maid who can’t cook, iron or sew but is fiercely loyal to her mistress. With what Tierney goes through in the name of gothic suspense, she needs it.