June 4, 11, 18, 25 | 13 Movies
"More stars than there are in heaven" was the slogan of MGM, where actors like Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Ronald Colman, Jean Harlow and Jeanette MacDonald brought glamour to the showmanship of the studio's signature films. Movie stars were what drew audiences into theaters, and every studio had a stable of headliners that defined their pictures. Warner Bros. leaned on tough, smart-talking cookies like James Cagney, Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart for films that tended to more working-class stories and streetwise characters staking their claim in the big city. In the 1930s, 20th Century-Fox made Americana its specialty, films seeped in nostalgia for a bygone, rural way of life.
Every Tuesday evening in June, TCM is presenting a night of films that celebrates the stars of 20th Century-Fox studio, spanning the 1930s into the 1950s. Fox had two of the top stars of the 1930s to carry their stories: Will Rogers, whose folksy charm drove Fox's biggest hits of the early 1930s until his death in 1935; and Shirley Temple, who, at the age of seven, took the title of Hollywood's biggest box-office draw from Rogers.
Rogers headlined the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway as a witty, straight-talking cowboy amidst dazzling production numbers and glamourous showgirls. When sound came to the movies, Rogers made the leap from stage to screen star. He had a knack for celebrating the virtues of rural life while wryly commenting on hypocrisy posing as piety. In the homespun State Fair (1933), airing June 25, he brings those virtues along with his family to the "big city," where his guileless teenage children yearn for experiences beyond their small-town lives. Janet Gaynor, who headlined some of Fox studio's greatest silent films (among them Seventh Heaven and Sunrise [both 1927]), plays the daughter who falls for a worldly young newspaper reporter. Director Henry King, who specialized in dramas of rural life, brings dignity to all of his characters.
June 4: Temple made her screen debut at the age of four. In just a couple of years, she would lift the spirits of Depression-era Americans as the adorable moppet star of dozens of Fox studio films. In Bright Eyes (1934), she plays another of the plucky orphans in which she specialized, singing and dancing her way into the hearts of all but the most cynical of adults. The film also takes Temple into the modern world of air travel when she stows aboard an airplane. "On the Good Ship Lollipop," which became one of her signature songs, is in fact an ode to an airship!
If Temple was the studio's little princess, Alice Faye was the "Queen of Fox," headlining both Fox's most prestigious productions and lightweight musicals that she elevated with her warm voice and down-to-earth grace. She's the grounded center of the Technicolor lark The Gang's All Here (1943), one of her last and most memorable films. It's got romance, comedy, "Brazilian Bombshell" Carmen Miranda dancing under an absurdly outsized tutti-frutti hat and some wonderfully surreal Busby Berkeley musical numbers that have to be seen to be believed.
Betty Grable toiled away in supporting roles at RKO and Paramount for years before she replaced Faye in Down Argentine Way (1940). It was a hit, and she reteamed with costar Don Ameche for Moon Over Miami (1941), which gave Grable plenty of opportunity to showcase her figure and the long, lithe limbs that earned her the nickname "Million Dollar Legs." She became Fox studio's next big thing, the top pin-up girl for American G.I.s during the War, and in 1943, the top box-office draw in the world.
Olympic ice-skating champion Sonja Henie became perhaps Fox's most surprising musical star thanks to a series of hits built around big skating numbers. But you can only shoehorn so many into a single film, so Sun Valley Serenade (1941) gives her a veritable variety show of supporting players, including Milton Berle, Dorothy Dandridge, the Nicholas Brothers, and Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performing "In the Mood" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo."
June 11: The camera loved Tyrone Power, who vaulted to the top ranks of Hollywood stars thanks to his matinée idol looks and screen charisma. He was at the peak of his stardom when he took the lead in Fox’s Blood and Sand (1941), a Technicolor remake of the Rudolph Valentino bullfighting epic. Power was paired with Linda Darnell as the devoted girl left behind in his rise to glory. They were Fox's most glamorous screen couple—it was their fourth film together—and filmmaker Rouben Mamoulian set their romantic odyssey against a lavish backdrop inspired in part by the paintings of El Greco, Goya and Diego Velázquez.
The raven-haired Darnell went redhead to play the title role in the costume drama Forever Amber (1947), playing a courtesan in 17th-century London opposite rising star Cornell Wilde. Based on a bestselling novel by Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber was considered by many to be unfilmable due to its licentious content. It became Fox's most expensive production at the time, and it suffered expensive setbacks when its original young star, Peggy Cummins, was replaced by Darnell and Otto Preminger stepped in to replace John M. Stahl. Despite budget overages and condemnation from the Catholic Legion of Decency, which forced the studio to make even more cuts before opening the film, Forever Amber was a hit with audiences becoming one of the top box-office releases of 1947.
Another of Fox's newly minted matinée idols of the 1950s, Robert Wagner, took his most serious role to date in Broken Lance (1954). He plays the son of a ruthless cattle baron (played by Fox star Spencer Tracy) in a kind of sagebrush King Lear, costarring with Richard Widmark and Jean Peters, a serious young actress who resisted the studio's efforts to remake her as a sex symbol. Though Broken Lance gave her the kind of part she preferred, she plays the strong-willed daughter of a bigoted rancher, it was one of her last big screen roles. She retired from pictures after marrying Howard Hughes in 1957.
June 18: Where Darnell was spirited under her dark, sultry beauty, Gene Tierney was coolly elegant with the grace of a fashion model and the poise of an aristocrat. The daughter of wealthy society parents, Tierney carried her social poise and sophistication to her screen roles, most famously in Otto Preminger's Laura (1944). She is the dream girl opposite the gruff, street-smart police detective played by Dana Andrews, an actor adept at suggesting a darkness under his broad shoulders and good looks. Clifton Webb, who played the third corner of the film's warped romantic triangle, was a Broadway veteran who hadn't appeared in movies since the silent era when Preminger cast him as the acidic Waldo Lydecker. The stage veteran's mix of arrogance and venomous wit earned him an Academy Award nomination and a contract at Fox where, at the age of 55, he became an unlikely movie star.
A new generation of stars came to the screen a few years later, but none had the enduring appeal and allure of Marilyn Monroe. As a contract player, she was carefully groomed by studio head Darryl F. Zanuck in a series of supporting roles, among them as an aspiring starlet in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's backstage drama All About Eve (1950). It's a small role in a major film carried by stars Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. With its caustic wit and mature story, the film took home six Academy Awards and remains a classic of American cinema.
Monroe's star continued to rise until she exploded in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), where, as gold-digging nightclub entertainer Lorelei Lee, she coos the iconic "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." One of the most glamorous—and campy—musical numbers of the decade, the song is so iconic that it inspired the showstopping live performance of "I'm Just Ken" at the 2024 Academy Awards. Though second-billed to Jane Russell, who professionally and personally supported Monroe, the film catapulted Monroe to stardom. It was only fitting that she symbolically took the torch from Betty Grable as Fox's new blonde bombshell later that year in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).
June 25: While Laura stands as the most elegant example of the crime dramas and thrillers later branded film noir, Fox brought a new kind of realism to the genre, incorporating ideas and techniques from newsreels into "ripped from the headlines" stories. Kiss of Death (1947) gave the studio's resident beefcake, leading man Victor Mature, one of his best roles as an ex-con trying to go straight. However, it was costar Richard Widmark who earned an Oscar nomination for his unforgettable performance as a smiling psychopath. The film was Widmark's feature debut, and it launched him on a career playing complicated protagonists—along with a few choice villains—at Fox.
The pretty Jeanne Crain brought an innocent, girl-next-door quality to the screen in films like Margie (1946) and Cheaper by the Dozen (1950). The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) gave her an opportunity to play a worldly young woman, the sophisticated but disillusioned fashion model essentially adopted by Thelma Ritter's matchmaker.
