I just realized it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I posted an update on the progress of the Ann Dvorak biography. Right after I wrote the last report in October, I found out I was pregnant with my first child. While I was spared the horrors of morning sickness, I was unable to stay awake past 7:30pm on most days during the first trimester, and had to put Ann-D on hold. During the remainder of the pregnancy, I did manage to write a couple more chapters.  I have finally gotten into Ann’s tenure at Warner Bros. which means I have lots of movies to watch to refresh my memory.

In recent  months, I have discovered more about the career of Ann’s father in the early 1920s, and spent an afternoon at USC accessing primary documents from her M-G-M days. I now need to go back and add this info into previous chapters. In the waning days of my pregnancy, I finally made the trek to Norwalk to visit the Registrar Recorder and discovered some new information about Miss D via real estate records. I’ve been with Ann for almost 13 years, and the research is never ending!

My daughter, Gable, was born in early June and has proven to be two full time jobs. I still have another month of maternity leave, and now that I am getting the hang of this mother thing, I hope to get a couple more chapters in before I go back to work, but that could be a supremely naive statement.

Thanks to everyone who has sent kind words of encouragement. It’s always great to know there are fans out there who are interested in reading a full length biography on Ann Dvorak. I appreciate everyone’s patience as I slowly work my way through Ann’s story. No one wants this book to be done more than me, but life has a way of altering the best laid plans. In this case it has been a good thing!

The Warner Archive continues its monthly release of uncredited Ann Dvorak M-G-M films by offering This Modern Age, a 1931 feature starring Joan Crawford and Neil Hamilton.

By 1931, the musicals that had become so popular with the advent of sound films were officially out of vogue. M-G-M no longer had much use for Ann’s talents as a chorus girl/choreographer and for some reason, speaking roles were out of the question, so Ann found herself getting cast as an extra in various films. She can be seen at a political rally in Politics, dining at a restaurant in Just a Gigolo, fawning over Robert Montgomery in Our Blushing Brides,  and crashing a party in This Modern Age.

She’s actually fairly prominent in the parting crashing sequence and she can also been seen early on in the film, dancing with a gent in another party scene. Joan Crawford was good friends with Ann during this time period and persuade the studio to do more with her, but to no avail. A few short months after appearing in This Modern Age, Ann would put her chorus days behind her by being cast in Scarface.

The Warner Archive continues its monthly drain on my bank account by releasing three more films with Ann-D in them.

First up are Lord Byron of Broadway and Chasing Rainbows, two films from Ann’s days as an M-G-M chorus girl. Unlike last month’s release, Love in the Rough, where Ann’s one scene was cut out, I know at least some of her musical numbers are intact in both of these. However, I believe Chasing Rainbows may be missing some two-color Technicolor scenes that Ann appeared in. This now brings the Warner Archive’s total to seven of Ann’s twenty or so uncredited films at M-G-M. I would love to see them release a collection of shorts, since she’s in at least eight of those.

Next up is Midnight Alibi, a 1934 Warner Bros/First National release starring Richard Barthelmess. I commented on this film in a previous post a while back. Midnight Alibi is  typical of the thankless roles Ann was playing in the mid-1930s, but it’s one that I have been able to sit through a few times, which is not the case with many of  her Warner films. This is the second of Ann’s 1930s titles to be released through the Warner Archive, along with The Strange Love of Molly Louvain. My one gripe is that Helen Chandler is featured on the decorative box art with Barthelmess instead of Ann.

Between these DVD releases and the increased Ann sightings on Turner Classic Movies, 2010 has already been a solid year for the Divine Miz-D.

I finally got around to watching Love in Rough (M-G-M, 1930) last night, which I ordered from the Warner Archive a couple of weeks back. When I say “watched it,” I actually mean I fast-forwarded through the film looking for scenes with an uncredited Ann Dvorak in the background. Much to my disappointment, she was no where to be found.

I have a few stills from the movie confirming she was indeed on set, but it looks like she didn’t make the final cut, at least not in the print available through the Warner Archive.

The film opens up on a six typists in a department store office who can be seen at the top of  the above photo. They chant something in unison, which seems to be the opening of a musical number and then the camera starts to pan down. On the Warner Archive print, there is a weird cut and we find Robert Montgomery and Benny Rubin standing in the room depicted in these photos. They are not surrounded by young ladies, but instead are alone and commenting on how they should get back to work, which seems to indicate they have just finished up the missing musical.

I am not sure if Ann’s scene is something that had been excised from the film upon its initial release, or if it just disappeared from this print somewhere along the line. It’s quite possible I am the only person who ordered this film for the express purpose of seeing Ann Dvorak, but just in case there are any other nuts like me out there, consider yourself alerted.

So This is College on the other hand, also released through the Warner Archive last month, features plenty of front and center Ann who was only 17 when this starting shooting in April of 1929. She doesn’t appear to be wearing much make-up, is a bit awkward, and a far-cry from the beauty she would emerge as a couple of years later.

The Warner Archive has now released five of the films from Ann’s pre-credit M-G-M days. Let’s hope more releases are around the corner.

This week, the Warner Archive releases two more films from Ann Dvorak’s chorus days at M-G-M: So This is College and Love in the Rough, both starring Robert Montgomery, a personal favorite of mine. I have not seen either one of these, so I cannot really comment on them, but judging from still photos, Ann is fairly prominent in the scenes she appears in.

A couple of months back, the Warner Archive released Politics, co-starring Marie Dressler and Polly Moran. I wanted to confirm that Ann was actually in the film before including it here, and even though it’s not a musical, the Divine Ms. D does appear in the crowd of a political rally and is easy to pick out. Politics is actually an early pro-feminist feature and was much more enjoyable than I expected. Marie Dressler is fabulous, as always.

Just a reminder that There’s a Future in It, was released last week through Amazon UK on the Home Front Britain set. My copy should be arriving any day now, and I’ll have a full report after the grand premiere at my place.

That’s all the Ann-D news for now.

Here’s some good news to start off the New Year. There’s a Future in It, a little known film starring Ann Dvorak and directed by husband Leslie Fenton is going to be available on DVD in February, courtesy of the Discovery Channel UK and the British Film Institute (BFI).

This film was included in a series entitled “Home Front Britain” which aired on Discovery UK this past September. The series focused on WWII propaganda  films produced to support the British war effort and boost moral. As far as I can tell, all the films included are from the BFI’s archives and are shown in their entirety. An article about the series with a mention of the Dvorak film can be viewed here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/britains-world-war-ii-films-were-more-than-just-propaganda-1780730.html

Ann Dvorak left the U.S. for London in December 1940 in order to be near  Fenton, a British citizen by birth, who has enlisted in the Royal Navy. She was in the UK until mid-1943 and supported the effort by writing articles for a London-based periodical, driving an ambulance, performing for and visiting troops with Bebe Daniels, and planting victory gardens. While she favored the journalist endeavors, she was first and foremost a film actress, and was inevitably enlisted to go before the cameras.

Dvorak appeared in three feature length films during the War, starting with This Was Paris, produced by former nemesis Warner Bros and filmed at their Teddington Studios. She also made two films costarring Eric Portman which were distributed by RKO. Interestingly, both Squadron Leader X and Escape to Danger are now considered “lost” films. Dvorak’s last war-time title, There’s a Future in It, is actually a short film running around 36 minutes in length. Co-starring Berry Morse and sponsored by the Ministry of Information, the film was produced by the Strand Film Company and distributed by Paramount Pictures, though it does not appear that the film was circulated in the U.S.

There’s a Future in It is so obscure that as of this writing, it doesn’t even have an IMDb entry. Hats off to Discovery UK and the BFI for making this rare piece of Ann Dvorak and British film history available for those in the UK (or with region free DVD players). Home Front Britain can be pre-ordered here:

www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Front-Britain-Jim-Carter/dp/B002XLI9LG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262665422&sr=8-1

Happy New Year!

Hooray for the Warner Archive who are releasing Ann Dvorak films on DVD faster than I can write about them.

This week’s offering includes the Strange Love of Molly Louvain, directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Lee Tracy, Richard Cromwell, and Dvorak’s soon-to-be  husband, Leslie Fenton. It’s standard pre-code dealings with Dvorak  bearing a child out of wedlock, hooking up with a thug, getting  mixed up in shady dealings, and going on the lamb incognito as a bleached blonde. While it’s not quite as riveting as Three on a Match, the Strange Love of Molly Louvain is one of the few films where Ann is the focus of the film and, as usual, she makes the most of it.

As I discussed previously, the film contains one of my all time favorite Ann Dvorak scenes where she gets to do a scat version of “Penthouse Serenade” and briefly performs one of her own compositions, “Gold Digger Baby.” Molly Louvain is also an important film in the annals of Ann Dvorak history because it’s where she hooked up with Leslie Fenton. The two had met a few weeks earlier on New Years Eve, but the sparks flew on the set of this film and the pair would soon elope to Arizona.

I need to give a quick note of credit to the blog All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing! who caught this DVD release before I did.

In light of this unexpected release, I am really looking forward to what other 1930s Warner Bros flicks the Warner Archive has in store for 2010.

Two films from Ann Dvorak’s days as a hoofer at M-G-M are now available on DVD, courtesy of the Warner Archive.

I’ve discussed Hollywood Revue of 1929 previously on this site, which is a star studded wreck of an early talkie, and yet oddly mesmerizing. For Ann Dvorak fans, this film is a must see as the 17-year-old smiles big and dances her heart out in many of the movie’s musical numbers. Plus, she gets two words of dialog and slaps Jack Benny.

I have never seen It’s a Great Life in it’s entirety, so I am excited about this one. The film stars vaudeville darlings Vivian and Rosetta Duncan, popularly known as the Duncan Sisters in what is their only sound film. Production on this one started a couple of days after Ann Dvorak’s 18th birthday, right around the time she was elevated to the position of  assistant choreographer to Sammy Lee. Ann is especially prominent in a number called “The Hoosier Hop,” a dance step she supposedly came up with, and she sure  does she beam with pride while  performing it.

I’ll be wishing myself a Merry X-Mas with these two, and look forward to more of Ann’s M-G-M’s flicks to be made available from the Warner Archive.

It’s been a few months since Progress Report #1 and I wish I could say I have a lot of progress to report, but I really don’t. In my defense, I was sidetracked by another ongoing project, and a promotion at work causes me to usually feel like a limp noodle by the time I get home.

I have gotten a tad bit more writing done, so without further ado…

Progress Report #2

I finally finished up Chapter 4, which takes us to mid-1931. Ann is still working at MGM, but is tired of extra-work and dance instruction and wants to actually act in films. The studio has no interest in doing anything else with her, and her pal Joan Crawford can’t even get her better parts. The chapter ends on the eve of Ann landing the role of Cesca in Scarface.

Even if the writing is slow going, the research never ends. As a result of the piece I wrote for Classic Images, a gal who interviewed Ann in New York when she was starring in the Respectful Prostitute contacted me. She didn’t have a tremendous amount of info, but supplied a couple of tidbits I found very interesting. I also got in touch with a lawyer who hung out with Ann and husband #3 in the early 1960s and gave me some great insight about their relationship and Ann’s attitude toward her career at that point.

My battle cry all along had been “once I get to her Warner Bros period, the words will fly off the keyboard!” Well, I am almost there and hope this proves to be true. Thanks to everyone who has been sending me words of encouragement and making it clear that there is a market for a full-length bio of the Divine Miz D.

-Christina

Just in case you could not get your hands on a copy of the July issue of Classic Images, it has now been posted online, including an article I wrote on how I came to be an Ann Dvorak collector and biographer.

My article accompanies Laura Wagner’s monthly BOOK POINTS column and can be found after her reviews under the heading BOOK TALK. Special thanks to Laura for inviting me to contribute this month.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE