As is turns out, Turner Classic Movies is not the only channel airing Ann Dvorak flicks these days. Last week, the Bachelor’s Daughters was shown on something called Golden Eagle Broadcasting (GEB) (sorry, I found out about this airing too late to post it here). Now this week, the Fox Movie Channel is airing 1951′s Secret of Convict Lake.

This dark western about a group of escaped convicts who impose their will on an outpost of woman whose husbands are away, stars and impressive ensemble cast, including Glen Ford, Gene Tierney, Ethel Barrymore, Zachary Scott, Ruth Donnelly, and of course, Ann Dvorak. As with most of Ann’s films toward the end of her career, the role is not large but she delivers big. The scenes between Ann and a smarmy Zachary Scott are some of the most memorable in the film.

While Ann would briefly continue with some television work, Secret of Convict Lake capped off film career that spanned over 35 years.

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!

Today would have been the 99th birthday of Ann Dvorak who was born in New York City on August 2, 1911.  Happy B-Day Ann-D!

In July 1932, Ann Dvorak walked out on Warner Bros to go honeymooning abroad with hubby Leslie Fenton. While she was gone, the studio started producing Depression Era feel-good films featuring over-the-top musical numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Given Dvorak’s background as a chorus girl, there is a good chance she may have appeared in films such as 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, or Gold Diggers of 1933. When she finally came back to work, she did feel as though she had missed out on the opportunity to show off her dancing skills, causing her to successfully  lobby for a role in the musical Sweet Music.

In 1935, she finally got the opportunity to work with Busby Berkeley with a lead role in Bright Lights starring Joe E Brown. Dvorak had previously worked with Berkeley who choreographed a quicky routine for Sky Devils, but this time around he was the film’s director. This tale of a married vaudeville couple whose marriage is put to the test when the husband goes on Broadway does not contain any of Berkeley’s signature dance numbers, but does let Dvorak show off a step or two. Bright Lights isn’t the most memorable film and Joe E. Brown can wear a bit thin at times, but overall it’s enjoyable enough.  Dvorak and Brown have great chemistry and the movie is strongest when they are on screen together.

For those of you interested in Los Angeles history, some parts of Bright Lights, where filmed inside Child’s Opera House on Main Street shortly before the theater was demolished.

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1934 was the most prolific year of Ann Dvorak’s film career, in quantity if not always in quality. In the nine films released that year by Warner Bros, Ann mainly found herself in supporting roles and frequently as the devoted leading lady to the star of the film. Murder in the Clouds is just that with Ann playing faithful to Lyle Talbot, though at least in this film she gets to be a kidnap victim and uses her wiles to get rescued.

This hour long aviation drama with a Dore Schary story credit is not as strong as other 1934 offerings like Massacre and Heat Lightning, but is still more watchable than titles like I Sell Anything and Gentlemen Are Born. For some reason, it was the only 1934 Dvorak title readily available on DVD, until the Warner Archive recently released Midnight Alibi.

Images Courtesty of Heritage Auction Galleries

On a side note, the one-sheet for Murder in the Clouds is the most expensive Ann Dvorak poster I own. I can only guess that an airplane fanatic tried to outbid me on this one, unless there’s a Lyle Talbot devotee out there who’s passion matches mine for Ann-D.

Enjoy!

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.

I hope no Ann Dvorak fans actually rely on me to alert them when her movies are airing, because they would have missed yesterday’s screening of A Life of Her Own on Turner Classic Movies. In my defense, I am six months pregnant and seem to be forgetting a lot of things lately, though eve I am surprised that Ann-D could slip my mind.

I have discusses this film on a couple of different posts:

www.anndvorak.com/cms/?p=359

www.anndvorak.com/cms/?p=242

It’s worth pointing out once again that this small role (I think she has less than ten minutes of screen time) is one of her most memorable, and I stand by my belief that this is the one film she should have gotten an Oscar nomination for.

I am deeply embarrassed to have dropped the ball on this one, and have already put safeguards in place for when Murder in the Clouds airs in May.

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.

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