Geprge Arliss Day -- July 9, 2026

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Since I got out of the hospital, I have been watching a lot of movies on TCM. Wednesday was George Arliss day. I don't think I had seen any of these movies before. My wife was impressed with his comic touch. 

1:45pm PDT

A Successful Calamity (1932)

1 hr 15 mins|Comedy|TV-G

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A Successful Calamity was a fun movie, although I thought many people reacted too nicely to the news that Arliss had gone broke. Also, Mary Astor seemed rather young to be married to him. John G Adolfi directed.

3:00pm PDT

Central Park (1932)

1 hr|Comedy|TV-G

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I am always happy to see Joan Blondell, but I did not see a trace of George Arliss. Like most Warner Brothers/First National B movies, Central Park moved rapidly. The plot was screwy, but I enjoyed it. Guy Kibbee was a cop losing his vision. Wallace Ford was a homeless, jobless guy who was trying to get an even break. Henry B Walthall had a small but important part. The tiger cubs were cute. John G Adolfi directed this one too.

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4:00pm PDT

The King's Vacation (1933)

1 hr 30 mins|Drama|TV-G

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I did not get much out of The King's Vacation. It was a slow one. I did like the part where the exiled king refused to have anything to do with a coup to bring him back, because he agreed with the rebels. Another one directed by John G Adolfi. Maybe it was really John G Adolfi Day.

5:15pm PDT

The Working Man (1933)

1 hr 30 mins|Comedy|TV-G

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I enjoyed The Working Man. Bette Davis played a supporting role. I don't like the way Arliss is leering at her on the poster. The plot was preposterous, but it held my interest.  Guess who directed.

Perhaps Central Park was nestled among the George Arliss movies because it was directed by John G Adolfi.

DW Griffith's Abraham Lincoln -- February 12, 2016

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Happy 207th birthday to Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president.  DW Griffith's first all-talkie movie was DW Griffith's Abraham Lincoln, from a script by Stephen Vincent Benet and starring Walter Huston.  I grew up reading books that said it was terrible.  I finally got to see it when a San Francisco UHF station bought a package of old movies that had not been on the air for a long time.

I thought Walter Huston was very good.  There were other interesting actors like Jason Robards, Sr and Ian Keith, who played the coward Booth with a big mouthful of scenery.  Henry B Walthall, the Little Colonel in Griffith's Birth of a Nation, played a Colonel.  The movie didn't have a story.  It was more like series of tableaux. 

New Movie, November, 1930

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Picture of the Week will appear tomorrow.