Our Very Own is going to air on Turner Classic movies on Sunday, September 27th at 10:00pm EST.

Ann Dvorak’s post-war career consisted mainly of supporting parts, and while her name may have not been above the title, these lesser parts were often more interesting than her previous leading roles.  Our Very Own is a prime example of how Ann Dvorak could take a few minutes of screen time and become the most memorable part of a film.

Our Very Own is a 1950 melodrama centering on a suburban family thrown into turmoil when the oldest daughter (Ann Blyth) discovers she is adopted. Dvorak plays Blyth’s low-class birth mother who is equally affected when her daughter re-enters her life.  Though she only has a couple of scenes, Ann-D is heartbreaking as the low-rent but well meaning Gert who wants to be reunited with her daughter but needs to keep her past hidden from her husband. Donning a disheveled blond wig and padding to plump up her svelte figure, Ann is trashy, tragic, and touching.

Jane Wyatt, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Donald Cook, and a precocious Natalie Wood round out the cast, and are all quite capable, but it’s Ann Dvorak’s melancholy presence that lingers when the credits have stopped rolling.

The Long Night is going to air on Turner Classic movies on Saturday, September 19th at 10:00am EST.

Click here to see previous comments on The Long Night.

The Long Night is going to air on Turner Classic movies on Sunday, August 2 at 4:00am EST.

Click here to see previous comments on The Long Night.

A Life of Her Own is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Tuesday, July 7 at 3:30pm EST

If there was ever a film Ann Dvorak deserved an Oscar nomination for, it’s A Life of Her Own. This George Cukor melodrama, starring Lana Turner as an aspiring fasion model facing the hurdles of her chosen profession is drawn out and hard to get through, but contains one of Ann’s most memorable performances.

As Mary Aslon, a washed up model in the process of crashing and burning, Ann has very little screen time (a friend once clocked all her scenes as coming in at under ten minutes total), but her presence resonates throughout the entire film. Turner may have been the star of this movie, but Ann Dvorak walks off with it. Her wiry thin frame and elegant posture make it easy to believe she could have once been a top model, but her desperate drunken pathos lets us know right away that she is not long for this world. When she does make the big plunge out of a high rise window (shades of Three on a Match), we are still shocked by this abrupt demise and spend the rest of the film wishing she had survived the fall.

By the time Ann Dvorak was cast in this M-G-M production, she was almost forty and had been making movies for over twenty years. This is the performance of a seasoned professional at the end of her career, but it leaves me wishing she would have stuck around a few years longer.

Case of the Stuttering Bishop is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, July 1 at 4:30pm EST

‘G’ Men is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, July 1 at 11:00pm EST

Two Ann Dvorak movies airing on one day is a rare treat indeed, and Turner Classic Movies is doing just that to kick off the month of July. Since the films are on over seven hours apart, I am forced to admit the this Dvorak Double Feature (of sorts) is probably just a coincidence, but that should not diminish our excitement over a double dose of Dvorak.

First up is Case of the Stuttering Bishop, where Ann plays the loyal Della Street to Donald Wood’s Perry Mason. This was the last of six Perry Mason films Warner Bros (First National if you want to be technical) made in the 1930s. Warren William played Mason in the first four (Ricardo Cortez played Perry once as well), and after the way Ann treated him in Three on a Match, it would have been great to see them paired up again, playing radically different characters than before.  I have to admit that it has been years since I have seen this one, and I don’t remember much about it. I recall enjoying it well enough, thinking Ann did not have enough to do, and being pleased that there really is a stuttering bishop (who might turn out to be a fake, but I don’t quite remember). One other thing that stands out for me about this movie is that Ann wears a blond wig for about five minutes, yet the three lobby cards I have from this film are from that one scene.

Case of the Stuttering Bishop was the last film Ann Dvorak made at the Warner Bros studio. She had battled them in court for the first half of 1936, trying to get out of her contract for, what she deemed to be, an unwarranted suspension. She lost the case and was loaned out to RKO for a couple of films while Warners tried to figure out what to do with her. They ultimately decided she was not worth the effort, and after casting her in Midnight Court and Case of the Stuttering Bishop, let her out of her contract early. Filming on the Perry Mason film wrapped up in December of 1936 and her last paycheck was ready as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. Talk about not letting the door hit you on the way out.

‘G’ Men has aired a number of times on TCM and I have discussed it previously. Just a quick recap: Cagney and Ann are great together, but do not share enough screen time, her song and dance number is a lot of fun, and her death scene is magnificent.

Enjoy!

The Crowd Roars is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, June 14th at 4:30am EST.

I was taking a look on the Turner Classic Movies upcoming schedule of Ann Dvorak films and was surprised to see that between June and September they will be airing seven of Ann’s films.

The Crowd Roars – Jun 14, 04:30AM EST

G-Men – Jul 01, 11:00PM EST

The Case of the Stuttering Bishop – Jul 01, 04:30PM EST

A Life Of Her Own – Jul 07, 03:30PM EST

Blind Alley – Jul 09, 03:45AM EST

The Long Night – Aug 01, 04:00AM EST

The Long Night – Sep 19, 10:00AM EST

Our Very Own – Sep 27, 10:00PM EST

I am especially pleased to see The Case of the Stuttering Bishop and Our Very Own, which have not been aired in sometime, if ever. It’s been at least two years since A Life of Her Own aired which is great for the ten minutes or less that Ann is in it.

Click here to see my previous comments on the Crowd Roars which is airing tomorrow morning.

Happy watching!

The Crowd Roars is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Tuesday, May 19 at 6:15am EST

Click here to see previous comments on The Crowd Roars.

Racing Lady is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Friday, May 1st at 7:30am EST.

I have only seen Racing Lady once because my personal copy is like a 25th generation dupe, taped off of TN’T with bad commercial editing, and at one point the sound goes out for three minutes.

What I vaguely remember from the lone viewing (besides the horrible quality) is that Ann Dvorak never rides a horse in the film, she just owns and races them. Unless I am mistaken, she never rides a horse in any of her films which for some reason strikes me as very disappointing.  The other thing I remember from this film is Ann cheering on her horse as it practices by screaming “COME ON PEPPER MARY” with a little bit too mush gusto. No one can ever accuse Ann Dvorak of not giving 110% to every performance. One last recollection is the woodenness of Smith Ballew as he lays on the sweet romance.

Warner Bros and Ann had been battling each other in court for the first half of 1936 and once she came back from suspension,  they chose to loan her to RKO for Racing Lady and We Who Are About to Die. She would make only two more movies for Warner Bros before being released from her contract in December of 1939.

At this point, I realy don’t have much of an opinion on Racing Lady and am looking forward to viewing a copy that has sound throughout the entire film.

The Long Night is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Friday, March 20th at 8:00pm EST

By the late 1940s, Ann Dvorak had pretty much been relegated to supporting roles. While she generally no longer had the name above the title, these later films gave her the opportunity to play some colorful characters which resulted in memorable performances. In the Long Night she plays an assistant to the domineering magician Maximilian (Vincent Price). She has a soft spot for blue collar Joe (Henry Fonda) whose romance with a fragile girl (Barbara Bel Geddes) causes him to cross the temperamental magician.

Her character, Charlene, is hardened but sympathetic and Ann more than holds her own while sharing the screen with Price and Fonda. She was a naturally talented actress, but always benefited from working with strong directors (Howard Hawks, Mervyn LeRoy, George Cukor) and Anatole Litvak is no exception.

The Long Night is a gritty, but stylish noir thriller, and even though Ann Dvorak does not have a lot of screen time, it’s still worth watching.

College Coach is going to air on Turner Classic Movies on Friday,  January 29, at 9:30 EST.

Click here to see previous comments on College Coach.