Cinéma Inhabituel for August 16-31

A Guide to the Interesting and Unusual on TCM 

By Ed Garea

We are dedicating this column to two extraordinary actors who will each have a day dedicated to them: Ann Harding (August 21) and Simone Signoret (August 25).

Both tend to be overlooked today, one because the vast majority of her work was in the Pre-Code era and was unavailable on television for decades, and the other because she didn’t work for long in Hollywood.

ANN HARDING was born Dorothy Walton Gatley on August 7, 1902, at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of a career army officer. She grew up in East Orange, N.J., and graduated from East Orange High School and Bryn Mawr College. 

She began her acting career on the stage and made her Broadway debut in 1921. While appearing in Pittsburgh with the Nixon Players she married fellow actor Harry Bannister in 1926. They had one child, a daughter named Jane, before divorcing in 1932.

Harding made her movie debut in Paris Bound for Pathe (1929), co-starring Frederic March. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Linda Seton in the 1930 version of Holiday (Her performance completely blows away that of Katharine Hepburn). After Pathe was absorbed by RKO, Harding was promoted as the studio’s answer to MGM’s Norma Shearer., starring in the studio’s prestige productions. 

Her second film, Her Private Affair (1929), portraying a wife of questionable morality, was a huge success, both critically and commercially. During this period, she was regarded as one of cinema's most beautiful women, noted for her waist-length blonde hair. She was also considered as one of the major stars in the Hollywood firmament.

Tired of being typecast by the studio as the innocent, self-sacrificing young woman, and with her films diminishing in both box office and quality (a loan-out to MGM didn’t help), she retired from the screen after marrying conductor Werner Janssen in 1937 (divorced 1962). She returned in 1942 for MGM’s Eyes in the Night with Edward Arnold, and went on to work until 1956, with her last film being Strange Intruder for Allied Artists, with Edmund Purdom and Ida Lupino. She then segued to television, appearing as a guest star in various productions until 1965.

Harding died on September 1, 1981, at the age of 79 in Sherman Oaks, California. Her ashes are interned at Forest Lawn.

Films in bold blue are especially recommended.

6:00 am - Her Private Affair (1929). 7:30 am - Condemned (UA/Goldwyn) 9:00 am - The Conquerers (RKO, 1932). 10:30 am - The Life of Vergie Winters (RKO, 1932). Noon - The Lady Consents (RKO, 1936). 1:30 pm - The Witness Chair (RKO, 1936). 2:45 pm - Janie (WB, 1944).4:30 pm - Eyes in the Night (MGM, 1942). 6:00 pm - It Happened on 5th Avenue (Monogram, 1947). 8:00 pm - Biography of a Bachelor Girl(MGM, 1935). 9:30 pm - The Animal Kingdom (RKO, 1932, read our essay here). 11:15 pm - When Ladies Meet (MGM, 1933). 1:00 am - The Flame Within (MGM,1935). 2:30 am - Double Harness (RKO, 1933). 4:00 am - The Magnificent Yankee (MGM, 1950).

SIMOME SIGNORET was born Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker on March 25, 1921, in Wiesbaden, Germany, the eldest of three children (two brothers). Her father, Andre, was a French-born army officer from a Polish Jewish family. He was one of the first interpreters for the League of Nations. Her mother, Georgette, was a French Catholic. When she was young her father moved the family to Neuilly-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris, where Simone grew up.

During the German Occupation of France, Simone turned to acting in films to support her mother and two brothers, as her father fled to London to join General De Gaulle. She took her mother’s maiden name to hide her Jewish identity from the Nazis. Her sensual and earthy looks led her to be often cast in roles as a prostitute. It was in this role, as Leocadie, that she first gained fame in Marcel Ophuls’ Le Ronde, in 1950. 

The British Film Institute awarded her a BAFTA as Best Foreign Actress for her role as the prostitute Marie in Jacques Becker’s Casque d’or (Golden Helmet, 1951). Other notable films during this period include Therese Raquin (1953), Les Diaboliques (Diabolique, or The Devils, 1954) for Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Les Sorcières de Salem (The Crucible, 1956), based on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

In 1958 her performance as Alice Aisgill in the British film Room at the Top won her the Best Actress Award at Cannes, the Best Actress BAFTA and the Best Actress Oscar, becoming the first French actor to win those awards in the same year and the only French actress to receive an Oscar until Juliette Binoche (Supporting Actress) in 1997 and Marion Cotillard (Best Actress) in 2008. She worked in Hollywood from 1965 to 1969 (earning a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Ship of Fools, in 1965) before returning to France for the remainder of her career.

Signoret was married twice, first to filmmaker Yves Allegret (1944-49, with whom she had a daughter, actress Catherine Allegret), and the Italian-born French actor Yves Montand (1953 until her death). Signoret died on September 30, 1985, at age 64 from pancreatic cancer. She was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Husband Yves Montand was later buried next to her.

Films in bold blue are especially recommended.

6:00 am - La Ronde (Commercial Pictures, 1954). 8:00 am - Casque d’or (Paris Film, 1952). 10:00 am - Against the Wind (Ealing, 1948). Noon - Gunman in the Streets (UA, 1950). 1:30 pm - The Deadly Affair (Columbia, 1967). 3:30 pm - Ship of Fools (Columbia, 1965). 6:00 pm - Term of Trial (Romulus/WB, 1962). 8:00 pm - Room at the Top (Romulus/Continental Dist., 1959). 10:00 pm - Diabolique (Filmsonor/Cenedis, 1955). 12:30 am - The Confession (Valoria Films, 1970). 3:15 am - Police Python .357 (Les Films de la Boetie, 1976). 

OUT OF THE ORDINARY

August 17: Check out Rosalind Russell in the original Craig’s Wife (Columbia, 1936), later remade with Joan Crawford as Harriet Craig in 1950.

August 27: It’s Leslie Caron, Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant in the arty but delightful, An American in Paris (1951, 1:30 pm).

PRE-CODE

August 26: James Cagney’s day is celebrated with Blonde Crazy (1931, 6:00 am), The Crowd Roars (1932, 7:30 am), Jimmy the Gent (1934, 8:45 am), and The Mayor of Hell (1933, 4:30 am).

August 29: A good Pre-Code haul can be had on a day dedicated to Marion Davies. Civil War drama Operator 13 (1934) with Gary Cooper airs at 7:30 am. At 1:30 pm its Five and Ten (1931) with Leslie Howard, followed by Peg O’ My Heart (1933, 3:15 pm)  The Floradora Girl (1930, 5:00 pm), Marianne (1929, Midnight), and Blondie of the Follies (1932, 2:00 am), with Robert Montgomery.

PSYCHOTRONICA AND THE B-HIVE

August 16: The day is dedicated to Elvis Presley, who died on this date in 1977. Of the films shown the best is 1957’s Jailhouse Rock at 6:00 pm.

August 17: Rosalind Russell and Clark Gable are competing jewel thieves in 1941’s They Met in Bombay (1:30 pm).

August 18: Rod Taylor fights Morlocks in The Time Machine (1960, Noon) and our feathered friends in The Birds (1962, 8:00 pm)

August 19: Angela Lansbury appears with Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate (1962, 8:00 pm), followed by Gaslight (1944, 10:00 pm) with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Berman, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982, 2:30 am)

August 23: Slim Pickens is celebrated with Blazing Saddles (1974, 10:00 pm).

August 31: George Sanders stars in five psychotronic classics, beginning with Village of the Damned (1961) at 10:00 am. Then The Saint Strikes Back (1939) at 11:30 am, The Gay Falcon (1942) at 12:45 pm, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) at 2:00 pm, and finally, Lured (1947), with Lucille Ball at 2:00 am.