H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941).

H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941). Directed by King Vidor and based on a novel by John P. Marquand. Vidor co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor. Cast: Robert Young, Hedy Lamarr, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, and Van Heflin. There is also an early uncredited appearance by Ava Gardner.

Harry Moulton Pulham Jr. is a middle-aged Boston businessman, who has a wife, Kay, with whom he has settled into a too comfortable marriage, but.. it did not start out that way.

Harry finds himself in charge of organizing a twenty-five-year college reunion, he thinks back to after the end of World War I. His friend Bill King, helps him get a job for a New York City advertising company, where he falls in love with, Marvin Miles. She does not want to be a traditional wife and he cannot imagine living anywhere other than Boston. So they break off their relationship. Harry,  marries a woman with the same ideas about marriage as he has.

Many years later, Marvin, who has also married arranges to meet Harry again where sparks begins to fly and Harry is tempted to have an affair, but they both realize that it would not be a good idea.



Harry, begs his wife to go away with him on a romantic vacation, to rekindle their love. At first, she says "no", but.. will she change her mind and agree to go away with him?

This was Hedy Lamarr's favorite film and she delivered the best dramatic performance of her career. Here she is not the mysterious seductive woman, as in her other films. She is loving and kind, in her role as a career girl who falls in love with her boss. Robert was not the first choice for the role. Both Gary Cooper and James Stewart turned the role down, leading Vidor to offer the role to Robert Young.

Ruth Hussey, was encouraged by a friend to try out for acting roles at the Providence Playhouse. The theater director there turned her down, saying the roles were cast only out of New York City. Later that week she traveled to New York City and on her first day there she signed-up with a talent agent who booked her for a role in a play starting the next day back at the Providence Playhouse.

In New York City she also worked as a model with the world-famous Powers agency. She then landed a role in the film,, Dead End and toured the country in 1937 and at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles where she was spotted by talent scout Billy Grady. MGM signed her to a players contract and she made her film debut in 1937. She quickly became a leading lady in MGM's "B" unit. For a 1940 "A" picture role she was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Elizabeth Imbrie, the magazine photographer and girlfriend of Jimmy Stewart's character in the film, The Philadelphia Story.

Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in, Flight Command (1940), Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson (1942), Ray Milland in The Uninvited (1944) and Alan Ladd in The Great Gatsby (1949). In 1946 she starred on Broadway in State Of The Union the Pulitzer Prize play. In 1960 she co-starred in the film, The Facts of Life with Bob Hope.

Happy Birthday: Heddy Lamarr!

Hedy Lamarr(November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000). Was best known for her film career as a major star of MGM's "Golden Age", she also co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications, a key to many forms of wireless communication. To learn more about Lamarr, please click here.

Tortilla Flat (1942)

Tortilla Flat (1942). Cast: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, Frank Morgan, Akim Tamiroff, and Sheldon Leonard based on the novel by John Steinbeck. It was directed by Victor Fleming.

In Monterrey, California, Danny Alvarez inherits a gold watch and two houses in the area known as Tortilla Flat from his grandfather. One of his friends by the name of, Pirate, is saving money which Pilon makes plans to steal, until he learns that he is saving to buy a golden candlestick, which he plans to burn for St. Francis.

One of the houses burns down, so Danny allows his friends to move into the other house with him. Things are fine at first until Danny's love for a girl causes him to look for work at the cannery. A misunderstanding causes Danny to become drunk and almost dies in an accident. He then marries his sweetheart with the promise that he will become a fisherman now that Pilon has the money to buy a boat.

This is a wonderful movie, with strong performances from: Spencer Tracy, Frank Morgan, who is very memorable as a hermit dog lover. Hedy Lamarr, who gives a wonderful performance as a poor Portuguese girl. She went on to make only five more films.

Frank Morgan, is best known for his performance of the title character in the film, The Wizard of OZ (1939). . His first film was in, The Suspect (1916). Morgan's career continued as talkies began, he was usually typecast in roles of a befuddled but good-hearted middle-aged man. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in, The Affairs of Cellini(1934), where he played the, Duke of Florence and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in, Tortilla Flat(1942), where he played a Hispanic man.

Other well known movies: The Great Ziegfeld, The Shop Around the Corner, The Human Comedy, The Mortal Storm, The White Cliffs of Dover and his last movie, Key to the City.

Like most character actors of the studio era, Frank Morgan had numerous roles in many motion pictures. One of his last roles was in, The Stratton Story, a true story about a ballplayer who makes a comeback after losing a leg in a hunting accident.

Come Live With Me(1941).

Come Live With Me(1941). A romantic comedy film starring James Stewart and Hedy Lamarr.

A native of Vienna, Austria Johnny Jones, is having an affair with married man named, Barton Kendrick. An officer from the Department of Immigration, tells her that she will be deported because her passport expired, but if she can get married within a week, she can stay.

Down-on-his-luck writer, Bill Smith runs into Jones in a diner, where she explains to him that she needs to marry an American citizen within a week and she would pay him $17.80 each week. Two months later, Smith begins writing a book about their marriage.

Kendrick tells Jones, that he is leaving his wife and wants to marry her. She tells Bill she wants a divorce, which he agrees to. Smith, finishes his book and sends it to Kendrick's publishing company, where Kendrick's wife Diane, shows the book to Kendrick and he realizes that Smith is Jones' husband.

After seeing Kendrick's reaction to the book, his wife realizes that the book is real and he has been having an affair. Mrs. Kendrick wants to see if Jones' is really in love with her husband.

Smith buys a new car and wants Jones to go on a trip with him before he signs the divorce papers. They fall in love while on their trip.

This is a wonderful romantic and sentimental movie. Jimmy Stewart's grandma in the movie is priceless.

Verree Teasdale (March 15, 1903 – February 17, 1987), trained as a stage actress at the New York School of Expression. She first appeared on Broadway in 1924-1932.

After co-starring in the play, The Constant Wife with Ethel Barrymore in 1926-27, she was offered a film contract, and her first film, Syncopation(1929). Teasdale appeared older than she was, which allowed her to play bored society wives, scheming other women and second leads in comedies such as, Roman Scandals (1933).

In 1935 she married actor Adolphe Menjou, and they remained together until his death in 1963. Teasdale and Menjou performed together in two films: The Milky Way (1936) and Turnabout(1940), and they were also co-hosts of a syndicated radio program in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Boom Town (1940). A wonderful movie about romance, friendship.

Boom Town (1940) Adventure/ drama. Cast: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr, and Frank Morgan. A story written by James Edward Grant in Cosmopolitan magazine titled "A Lady Comes to Burkburnett" was the inspiration for the film.

John McMasters and John Sand, are having no luck on their own in the oil business . So they decide to become partners. Without enough money, they steal drilling equipment from Luther Aldrich. Their well is a bust and Aldrich shows up with the sheriff, to pick up his equipment. To get Luther Aldrich, to back them for a second time, they cut him in for a percentage of the well. This time, they strike it rich.

On the day the partners wildcat well comes in, Betsy arrives to see John Sand, and meets John McMasters. It is love at first sight for Betsy and John Mc Masters, and they marry. When they inform John Sands, of their marriage he is heartbroken. When John McMasters begins to take his wife for granted, John Sand's becomes angry. They get into an argument which they solve by tossing a coin for ownership of the well. John Sand wins and John McMasters and Betsy, pack up for Oklahoma, where John McMasters, becomes a oil baron. John McMasters meets Harry Compton and Karen Vanmeer, and decides to expand his investments to the oil refineries back East. In New York, John McMasters, spends most of his time with Karen and less time with his wife and son Jack. To help Betsy, John Sand joins with Compton, in a business deal, which gets John McMasters into trouble with the government, and he is charged with violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Which goes to trial. Will John McMasters, be vindicated and reunite his wife.



I love this movie! love the cast! For me, it is It a wonderful movie about romance, friendship.

Marion Martin (June 7, 1909 - August 13, 1985). She made her film debut in She's My Lillie, I'm Her Willie and played minor roles, often as showgirls. Several of her early roles were in musicals.

She had played leading female roles in several "B" pictures, playing one of her most best known roles in, Sinners in Paradise (1938). She was cast in minor role in the film, His Girl Friday (1940), Boomtown (1940) in which she played a dance hall singer who is briefly romanced by Clark Gable, The Big Store, Gildersleeves Ghost. Her more substantial roles included Alice Angel, a dizzy showgirl, in the murder mystery Lady of Burlesque with Barbara Stanwyck and Angel on My Shoulder. She also appeared in The Big Street with Lucille Ball.

By the late 1940s, her roles were often minor. Three Stooges fans will remember her as western cowgirl Gladys in, Merry Mavericks.

Comrade X (1940)

Comrade X is a 1940 lighthearted spy movie, starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr and directed by King Vidor. Recommended by Paul.

Newspaper reporter McKinley B. Thompson, wants to hide his identity as Comrade X, the reporter who is writing stories about Russia for the big newspapers. Vanya, the valet in his Moscow hotel, has found out who he is and demands that the he take his daughter out of the country before she is shot as a Communist. Thompson agrees to meet Vanya's daughter, a streetcar conductor who uses the name Theodore. Thompson tries to convince the girl to go to America with him, but she wants to investigate him first.



Later, Theodore shows up on Thompson's doorstep and announces that they will be married because that is the only way they can leave the country. After returning from their wedding he is questioned about the camera of Comrade X that was found in Vanya's room. Sentenced to death, Thompson offers to expose the head of the counter-revolution in exchange for his life and those of Vanya and Theodore.

Taken to the commissar's office, Thompson is shocked to find not Vasiliev but Michael Bastakoff, the new commissar and the former leader. Tricking Bastakoff by offering to turn over his evidence, Thompson escapes with Vanya and Theodore. The threesome steal a Russian tank with the general inside and followed by the Soviet army. Will they cross over the Romanian border in time?

The second and final film Hedy Lamarr and Clark Gable made together. It's a fun comedy and Hedy Lamarr is just adorable in all her interesting outfits. Clark Gable's humor works perfectly in this movie.

Eve Arden (April 30, 1908 – November 12, 1990). Her 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in the films Grease and Grease 2.

At age 16, she left Tamalpais High School and joined a stock theater company. She made her film debut, in the backstage musical, Song of Love (1929). She played a wisecracking showgirl who becomes a rival to the film's star, singer Belle Baker.

Her film career began in 1937, when she performed in the films: Oh Doctor and Stage Door. Her Stage Door performance as the witty supporting character, was to be a template for many of Arden's future roles.

Her many memorable screen roles include: Mildred Pierce (1945) for which she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and James Stewart's wistful secretary in, Anatomy of a Murder (1959). (One of her co-stars in that film was husband Brooks West.) She also performed some acrobatics while trying to steal a wallet from Groucho Marx in the film, At the Circus (1939).

Hedy Lamarr

By the time Hedy Lamarr was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and become an actress. Her first performance was a small part in, Money on the Street (1930). It was her fifth film, Ecstasy(1932), that brought her worldwide fame. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The film was banned by the US government. Although, the film brought her to the attention of MGM's Louis B. Mayer, who signed her on against his better judgment, but the money he knew she would bring in to the studio overrode any "moral" concerns he had. He insisted she change her name and she was to make wholesome films. Hedy made her first American film in, Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). Next she performed in the film, White Cargo (1942). After World War II, MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately, for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942). She did perform as Delilah opposite Victor Matures Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic, Samson and Delilah (1949). The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to help her financial problems. She was to make only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy Lamarr Official Website.
FUN FACTS:

Was co-inventor with composer George Antheil, of the earliest known form of the telecommunications method known as "frequency hopping", which used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or to jam. The method received U.S. patent number 2,292,387 on Aug. 11, 1942, under the name "Secret Communications System". Frequency hopping is now widely used in cellular phones and other modern technology. However neither she nor Antheil profited from this fact, because their patents were allowed to expire decades before the modern wireless boom. She received an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997 for her work pioneering work in spread-spectrum technology. Info from: Wikipedia.

The mansion used in The Sound of Music (1965) belonged to her at the time.

Lady of the Tropics(1939). Is a very sly woman.

Lady of the Tropics (1939). Drama/romance. Director: Jack Conway. Cast: Hedy Lamarr and Robert Taylor.

Bill Carey, arrives in Saigon by yacht owned by Alfred Z. Harrison, whose daughter Dolly, he plans to marry until he meets exotic Manon. Bill falls madly in love when they meet in a bar and look into each other eyes. Back on the yacht, Bill can not live without her and decides to jump ship so they can be reunited. In the past Manon, has been denied a passport because of her heritage. She sees Bill as her way out of Saigon, but she falls in love with Bill and wants to give up a planned marriage with a Asian nobleman.

Delaroch, who lives a very shady life, also wants Manon for himself and causes problems for Bill and Manon. His political power insures that he gets what he wants. To buy time Manon promises to marry him, even though she is going to marry Bill at the Mission, later that afternoon. Father Antione warns Bill about marring her, but Bill ignores his warnings about her being a very sly woman and marries her anyway.

Angry, Delaroch prevents Manon from leaving the country by ordering the governor to refuse her a passport. Soon they find themselves destitute, Manon arranges a job for her husband at one of Delaroch's rubber companies, in exchange for her company. On his way home, Bill learns the price that his wife has paid, when he reads an item from a society column, which mentions that Manon and Delaroch, had been seen at the opera together. At first Bill does not believe the society column, until Manon tells him that she has recieved her passport, he becomes enraged and promises to kill Delaroch. Will Manon and Bill have their revenge?



This is one of those black and white movies I wish were in color, the scenery was amazing. Hedy Lamarr, performance was wonderful as well as Robert Taylor's performance.. There is plenty of romance and plenty of drama in this film..