Kirk Douglas is a Man Without a Star

Kirk Douglas as Dempsey.

Borden Chase penned some of the most important Westerns in film history, to include: Howard Hawks' Red River plus the Anthony Mann-James Stewart collaborations Winchester '73, Bend of the River, and The Far Country. He co-wrote the screenplay for Man Without a Star (1955), an engrossing Western that may not rank with the aforementioned films, but still remains a compelling "adult Western."

Kirk Douglas plays Dempsey Rae, a cowhand that keeps drifting further north as large ranches with their fences begin to dominate the Western landscapes. While stowing away on a train, he meets a young greenhorn (William Campbell), whom he later dubs the Texas Kid. After Dempsey rescues Texas from a probable hanging, the young man clings to the veteran cowboy. Dempsey eventually takes Texas under his wing and gets both of them a job at the Triangle Ranch.

Jeanne Crain as the new owner.

They settle in nicely until two events trigger a series of conflicts. First, one of the smaller ranchers decides to use barbed wire to preserve fresh grass for his herd. The mention of "barbed wire" gets Dempsey fired up (we learn why later) and he decides it's time to move on. His plans change, though, when he meets the Triangle's new owner: the beautiful Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain).

Although Man Without a Star was based on a 1952 novel by Dee Linford, it shares many similarities with Borden Chase's other Westerns. As in The Far Country, there are two strong female characters: Crain as the ambitious rancher and Claire Trevor as a brothel madam. However, the film's central relationship is between two men: Dempsey and Texas. That's a recurring element in all of the previously-mentioned Borden Chase Westerns (e.g., John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River, James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy in Bend of the River, James Stewart and Walter Brennan in The Far Country, etc.).

Richard Boone, as a baddie, with Crain.

Indeed, one of the challenges in Man Without a Star is its brief 89 minute length leaves little time to explore relationships and themes. For example, once Reed Bowman shows up, the Texas Kid vanishes into the background for a large chunk of the film. Similarly, Reed is nowhere to be found in the film's closing scenes. Thematically, Chase and his fellow writers use the barbed wire fences as an analogy for the impending civilization of the West (much as Sergio Leone would later use trains in Once Upon a Time in the West). However, again, there is insufficient running time to explore this theme in any depth.

Claire Trevor and Kirk Douglas.

Screen veteran King Vidor directs with a sure hand and adds some nice humorous touches. My favorite is when Dempsey and the Triangle's foreman (Jay C. Flippen) are engaging in a pleasant breakfast conversation as Texas fights another ranch hand outside the bunkhouse. The camera never leaves the breakfast table as we hear the punches and grunts from the fisticuffs. Another funny scene is when Dempsey asks to see the new bathroom installed in the ranch house...imagine that...a bathroom in the house!

Man Without a Star was remade just 13 years later as A Man Called Gannon with Tony Franciosa in the Kirk Douglas role and Michael Sarrazin as his protege. It's a respectable Western, but lacks the verve and cast that makes Man Without a Star required viewing despite its limitations. It also doesn't have a catchy title song sung by Frankie Laine!

The Mount Rushmore of Film Directors

Hitchcock on Mount Rushmore--from
the North By Northwest poster.

If there was a Mount Rushmore of great American directors, who would you put on it? I pondered this question recently and then posed it to three other classic movie bloggers whom I admire. I gave them two criteria: (1) They could only pick four directors...because it's Mount Rushmore; (2) Their decisions had to be based on the directors' American-made films (after all, we're talking about an American monument here). Thus, directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang could be considered--but not international greats like Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, and Akira Kurosawa. (And, yes, when I say "American," I am referring to the   U.S.--not all of North and South America.)

The Master of Suspense.

Personally, I had little trouble in coming up with three of my four choices. I consider Alfred Hitchcock to be the greatest film director...period...based on his storytelling skills, the complexity of his film's themes, and the body of his work. I don't think another director will ever be able to replicate the astounding number of superb films he made between 1940 and 1964--a period that included Rebecca, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and Marnie. My second choice is Billy Wilder, possibly the most versatile of all filmmakers. He made classic film noirs (Double Indemnity), sophisticated comedies (Some Like It Hot), screwball comedies (One, Two, Three), and courtroom dramas (Witness for the Prosecution). His best films integrated drama and comedy so expertly that they created something uniquely Wilder (e.g., The Apartment, Stalag 17). That brings me to my third choice, a director whose films gave rise to a now common adjective "Capraesque," which one online dictionary defined as "of or evocative of the movies of Frank Capra, often promoting the positive social effects of individual acts of courage." Capra's film's restored faith in human nature when America needed it most--during the Great Depression and after World War II. He also helped make stars out of Gary Cooper and James Stewart. That brings me to my final spot and I struggled mightily here. I considered Richard Brooks, Samuel Fuller, Michael Curtiz, Robert Wise, and Otto Preminger. In the end, though, I went with Anthony Mann. A versatile director like Wilder, Mann helped define film noir in the 1940s with tough, dark films like Raw Deal and T-Men. In the 1950s, he reinvigorated the Western genre with five superb films starring James Stewart. Mann's protagonists were cynical men with violent pasts who found redemption, often by becoming part of a forgiving community (The Far Country, Bend of the River). In many ways, Mann's protagonists paved the way for the flawed "heroes" that dominated American cinema in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ernst Lubitsch.

The Lady Eve, Lady Eve's Reel Life: If not Mount Rushmore, these four filmmakers at least deserve to have their faces carved in stone on the hillside under the Hollywood sign. Here’s why: Alfred Hitchcock was a master of the art of what he called “pure cinema”-- visual storytelling (consider the famed crane shot in Notorious that zooms in on the key in Ingrid Bergman’s hand). And no one has surpassed his ability to draw the viewer so completely into a film or, at times, to identify with the villain (Robert Walker retrieving his lighter in Strangers on a Train, Anthony Perkins sinking a car into a swamp in Psycho). Long touted “the master of suspense,” Hitchcock was, more than anything, a cinematic genius (see also Rear Window and Vertigo). The comedies of Ernst Lubitsch literally sparkle (even the screen itself seems luminous). Brimming with charm and sophistication, his films offer a knowing yet sympathetic glimpse into human yearnings and foibles. His best work (the likes of Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be) has rightly been likened to the soufflé, a deceptively lighter than air concoction that is also deliciously rich and deeply satisfying. "Screwball" comedy existed before Preston Sturges started writing and directing his own films, but he took the concept into another realm. Original and decidedly eccentric, his best films neatly weave sly commentary on social values into byzantine plots involving cockeyed characters who rattle off snappy/smart dialogue at a mile a minute. Unique barely describes The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, Unfaithfully Yours.... Billy Wilder, like Hitchcock, was a top filmmaker from the ‘40s to the ‘60s. But Wilder began his career as a journalist and so, naturally, his films are marked by strong screenwriting and fine-tuned dialogue. His cynical world view made him a natural for noir, and Double Indemnity stands as a pillar of the genre. But Wilder wasn’t one to be pigeon-holed, as his wild, satirical romp Some Like It Hot would prove. Noir, farce, drama or “dramedy,” Wilder had as much range as he had skill.

Frank Capra.

Annmarie Gatti, Classic Movie Hub Blog:  If I could put four American directors on Mount Rushmore, who would they be???  Well, that's a really tough question...and one that will probably have me second guessing myself for quite some time--but, that said, after much "agony" and deliberation, my picks would be Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Here's why:  Frank Capra--for creating some of the most beloved 'feel-good' films of all time that champion the common man and the basic goodness of human nature. Billy Wilder -for his use of script to drive the story (vs elaborate cinematography) and his ability to push the boundaries of mainstream entertainment by expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. Alfred Hitchcock--for his belief in the superiority of suspense over surprise, and his cinematic approach to filmmaking that communicates via images and editing to maximize fear and anxiety. And, last but not least, John Ford--for his sweeping visuals and dramatic vistas, master storytelling, and iconic portrayals of heroes and anti-heroes of the American West. 

D.W. Griffith.

Cliff Aliperti, Immortal Ephemera:  My Mount Rushmore of American directors? Difficult. I approached my selections thinking not necessarily of my favorites, but of the four I'd consider most iconic in their representation of America and the American film industry, while being among my favorites. Faces I'd carve in stone and be happy to leave there forever. That has to start with D.W. Griffith. For all of the issues over the content of The Birth of a Nation (1915), at least the movie is strong enough to warrant our talking about it a hundred years later, fighting over the same issues that incensed a hundred years ago. Griffith's early features that follow Birth are reliably accessible, well-told stories that at least perfect technique if not actually innovating it. If there were no Griffith, silent film would have been a much tougher sell for me during my formative movie-watching years, so Griffith gets the first nod just for all that he’s responsible for exposing me to. It gets more difficult from there because I've seen so many more films in the decades that follow, but two directors whose work I think of as intrinsically American are King Vidor, whose stories are so wonderfully visual while being grounded by the American Dream, and Frank Capra, who relied more on situation and dialogue to show the everyman overcoming bigger challenges. If Vidor had only done his war, wheat, and steel trilogy—The Big Parade (1925), Our Daily Bread (1934), and An American Romance (1944)—he'd have done enough, but that doesn't even include his best film, The Crowd (1928). Capra kept telling the same story by the time of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Meet John Doe (1941), with his underdogs fighting for their place in so many of his other films as well. If Griffith led me to enjoy more silent films then it was Capra, even earlier in my film watching years with titles like Mr. Smith and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), who allowed me to accept “old” black and white movies as if they were no different from last week’s release. A similar underdog spirit goes to the fourth face on my Rushmore, William Wellman, who could masterfully handle topics from any genre no matter the size of the movie and always seemed to have a great time doing it. A working-class director in that he reveled in the work, Wellman's characters could be as light as his subject matter was heavy. Out of his Great War experiences, he was dedicated to portraying male camaraderie, but I think he had an even keener insight into female characters, especially during the Depression years.

Barbara Stanwyck Is Stellar in Stella Dallas

Throughout her storied career Barbara Stanwyck played every female character produced by Hollywood: ingénue, seductress, bad girl, gangster moll, heroine, entertainer, con woman, socialite, etc. While she carried every role off like a true professional, it was the working class girl who wanted to make good role that she most excelled at.  This most probably had to do with her meager, but colorful, upbringing. Orphaned at the age of four, she spent time in foster homes, but was primarily raised by her showgirl sister, Mildred. It was on the vaudeville circuit with Mildred that Stanwyck learned what it took to get ahead in life: strength, determination, and ambition. These, of course, are the same characteristics that many of Stanwyck’s working class roles required—especially Stella Dallas.

Considered one of the best female character roles of all time, Stella Dallas earned Stanwyck the first of her four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. The daughter of a mill worker, Stella schemes to marry her father’s boss, Stephen (John Boles).  Although they are from two very different backgrounds—he is reserved and refined, while she is loud and crass—they find themselves married and raising a daughter. As Stella finds herself bored with Stephen’s ways, she begins to revert to her tacky ways.  Eventually Stephen leaves her, but leaves their daughter Lollie (Anne Shirley) with Stella because he knows that she is a good mother. As time passes, Stephen finds a much more suitable (and wealthy) woman (Barbara O’Neil) to marry, but Stella doesn’t want to give him a divorce because she’s afraid she’ll lose Lollie. In the end, when she realizes that she cannot give Lollie the life she wants her to have, she makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Of all her roles, and there were many to choose from, this was Stanwyck’s favorite. What’s interesting about this is that Samuel Goldwyn didn’t want to give her the part. He thought she lacked the necessary sex appeal for Stella and wanted Ruth Chatterton for the role. All I can say is: Really? Thankfully director King Vidor and hunky Zeppo Marx (her agent—yes, really) finally convinced Goldwyn that Stanwyck was the right woman for the role.

Based on the Olive Higgins Prouty’s popular novel of the same name, Stella Dallas is considered one of the greatest tearjerkers ever produced. It is a melodramatic film, but it isn’t schmaltzy. This, of course, has to do with Stanwyck’s multifaceted performance. At times, she plays her character as a conniving shrew and you just want to slap some sense of decency into her. Then, she plays Stella as a loving and devoted mother and you just want to wrap your arms around her and give her a hug.  I suppose the scene where she convinces Lollie that she wants to get rid of her so she can run off to South America with her salesman boyfriend is my favorite because Stanwyck plays it with such raw emotion.  Knowing that the only way she can get Lollie to leave her is to convince her that she doesn’t want or need her, Stella is almost ruthless in the act she puts on for Lollie. Not every actress could pull this off, but Stanwyck does a wonderful job of having the audience both hate and admire her at the same time in this scene. It is difficult to watch this, but at least the final scene in the film heals some of the hurt that the audience has endured by Stella’s sacrifice.

This is a film ruled by women---the men are totally forgettable.  Besides Stanwyck’s great performance, the audience is treated to two standout offerings by Shirley and O’Neil. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Shirley does a nice job of playing a young woman who loves her mother but is conflicted by her desire to live a more respectable life.  This may have been the finest performance of her career (I do like her in Murder, My Sweet though), but sometimes it is difficult for me to suspend my belief that Stanwyck was old enough to play her mother (they were only eleven years apart in age). That said, she does give a touching performance. An interesting aside about the Stanwyck/Shirley connection is that Shirley played Stanwyck’s younger self in So Big (1932). In addition to Stanwyck and Shirley, O’Neil also does a fine turn as Stella’s polar opposite. I enjoyed watching her scene with Stanwyck.  It was one of those only another mother could understand moments that pull at your heartstrings.

In the end, Stella Dallas is a film you don’t want to watch without a box of tissues.  It is a prime piece of evidence that Stanwyck was one of the greatest actresses to grace the silver screen.

About John Gilbert...an interview with Leatrice Gilbert Fountain

Today Turner Classic Movies will showcase the films of silent screen star John Gilbert as part of its "Summer Under the Stars" line up. Viewers will have a chance to see eight silents, a mix of Gilbert's most celebrated films and lesser-known gems, as well as six sound pictures, most rarely seen.

If this daylong tribute marks a high point in the resurgence of John Gilbert, it is also a triumph for his daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain, who has worked tirelessly for nearly 40 years to restore her father's reputation.

I spoke with Leatrice after the "Summer Under the Stars" schedule was announced.

"Speechless and surprised," was Leatrice's reaction to the all-day honor, "and it's so satisfying."

Leatrice was born just as her parents, John Gilbert and silent film star Leatrice Joy, were divorcing in the mid-1920s. Raised by her mother (the two are pictured at right), she yearned to know her father. She recalls, "My nurse told my mother that I kept asking when my daddy was coming home." But the marriage was finished and Leatrice had little contact with her illustrious dad.

Time passed, and then came a summer Leatrice and her mother spent in Malibu - where, it turned out, her father was also staying. She had been trying but hadn't managed to run into him yet when one day, as she was rolling in the surf, the victim of a rogue wave, strong hands snatched her from the sea. Leatrice looked up to see that her rescuer was her handsome father.

A while later Leatrice sent him a letter; she asked for his picture and enclosed one of herself. This ignited what Leatrice calls "a brief, intense relationship" that spanned the last year of John Gilbert's life.

"He appeared, we clicked and the future looked bright," she remembers. He was the only adult in her life that didn't talk down to her, he spoke to her as an adult and asked her grown-up questions. "I was a news junkie even then," she says, and her father talked with her about various topics of the day, from President Roosevelt to the repeal of prohibition. In that short period, Leatrice achieved a bond with her father that she didn't have with her mother ("a sweet fluff-head") or stepfather.

"My father lived on a Hollywood hillside in a Spanish-style home near a water tower. In my mind he lived in the tower of a castle at the top of a hill." Gilbert had the aura of a storybook prince for his daughter and when he died suddenly of a heart attack in January 1936 at age 38, Leatrice was devastated. Her longed-for connection with him had completely engaged her and then he was gone - "I felt a great emptiness...I don't think I ever got over the loss."

As years passed, John Gilbert, a top MGM star at the height of the silent era, was reduced to a Hollywood footnote. What most people knew about him, if they knew anything, were oft-repeated (and reprinted) tales of an inadequate voice that didn't translate to sound, a broken romance with Greta Garbo, questionable acting ability and a drinking problem that killed him.

At the time of his death Gilbert's great silent pictures were no longer shown and his career was in flux, so Leatrice grew up not knowing enough about her father's life or career to actively dispute the mythology that had become accepted as truth.

By the early 1970s, Leatrice was a married woman with five children living on the East Coast. Though she didn't know it at the time, she was about to embark on one of her life's missions, the restoration of her father's name. New York's Museum of Modern Art invited her to a screening of one of John Gilbert's signature silent films, Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow (1925). Watching the film for the first time, Leatrice experienced a jolt; she realized her father was not simply a handsome face, but a gifted actor. She recalls, "A young fan came up to me and commented on the "wonderful film" and said he wanted to write a book about John Gilbert. It then became my cause...I knew I wanted to be the one to write the book."

Once committed, Leatrice began to seek out her father's other films. She traveled to Eastman House in Rochester, NY, where she told fabled film curator James Card, "I don't know anything about my father's work," and Mr. Card eagerly replied, "Come with me and I'll show you..." Between Eastman House, MOMA and the Library of Congress, she saw all of John Gilbert's available films.

Leatrice was a busy wife and mother when she began her research and so she worked "in bursts" over several years. In the course of her work she met with many people who knew or worked with her father. Today Leatrice looks back and realizes she began her undertaking in the nick of time; most of the people she interviewed were soon gone. She met with cameramen and other technicians, she met with directors like Clarence Brown, John Ford, Howard Hawks and King Vidor, and she met with stars like Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Lillian Gish and Norma Shearer.

According to Leatrice, some remembered John Gilbert from before he was a star, when he was affectionately looked upon as "an adopted kid on the MGM lot." All responded warmly to her and Leatrice discovered that they all had liked her father and respected his work. She stayed with King Vidor's daughter and was able to spend days talking with the man who had directed her father in two of his best silent films, The Big Parade (1925) and Bardelys the Magnificent (1926). Clarence Brown, who directed Gilbert and Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (1926), generously spent an entire afternoon with Leatrice sharing his memories.

Norma Shearer, whom Leatrice believes may have once had a fling with Gilbert, told her of his passing, "Some of the tears I shed while making Romeo and Juliet were for your father."

The transformation in industry and public perception of John Gilbert came slowly, but Leatrice recalls a moment when she knew attitudes were shifting. In the early '80s she was invited by esteemed silent film historian/author/documentary filmmaker Kevin Brownlow (co-producer of the distinguished Hollywood series for Thames Television) to introduce a screening of Flesh and the Devil in London. She remembers enthusiastic crowds of young and old lined up to see the film and that, "New writers and reviewers watched without bias and wrote about what they saw on the screen."

In 1985 St. Martin's Press published Dark Star: The Untold Story of the Meteoric Rise and Fall of the Legendary John Gilbert, Leatrice's biography of her father, written with John Maxim. Filled with Leatrice's detailed research, the book not only recounted the story of John Gilbert's life but also went a long way to set the record straight on the rumors about him.

Perhaps the most virulent myth debunked is the story that John Gilbert's "high voice" had caused the collapse of his career. Gilbert's first talking feature, a film Leatrice describes as "a romantic comedy that was mistaken by audiences and critics for a straight romance," was a resounding flop. The dialogue was laughable and laughed at. But some said it was Gilbert's voice that caused the tittering. The voice theory was not the consensus at the time but it was the story that stuck over time. Leatrice calls her father's voice "a light baritone similar to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s." Ultimately, a combination of factors plagued Gilbert's transition to sound: his disastrous relationship with MGM kingpin Louis B. Mayer, the quality of the early talkies to which he was assigned and, perhaps, a change in audience tastes from Victorian-era morality to pre-Code realism.

In her book Leatrice pointed out that John Gilbert continued to receive film offers till the end of his life. Marlene Dietrich, his final love, had persuaded him to co-star with her in Desire (1936), but he was forced to drop out after he suffered one in a series of three heart attacks, the last of which killed him. Leatrice is firm that, though her father did drink to excess, "he did not drink himself to death."

Regarding Gilbert's storied romance and rumored near-wedding with Greta Garbo, Leatrice comments,"I don't think she ever had any intention of marrying him."

Dark Star was a great success and Leatrice traveled the talk show circuit, spoke to college audiences, appeared at silent film events and gave countless interviews. She still gives an occasional interview and has continued to frequent silent film festivals and screenings around the world, introducing her father's pictures and taking part in panel discussions. Her "swan song" on the road, she told me, might have been last year's annual Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy, the largest silent film festival in the world. At this writing, though, Leatrice is beginning to change her mind...she just might go to Pordenone again this year...I hope so.

She muses, "In his lifetime, my father did not believe his film work would last or be remembered and he said as much to his close friends."

Leatrice Gilbert Fountain's passionate campaign to restore her father's reputation has succeeded beyond anything she might once have imagined. Today she is happy to report that her children are able to "bask in the reflected glory of their grandfather." Like their mother, they attend screenings and introduce his films to new generations of appreciative fans.

John Gilbert on TCM, Aug. 24
(Times shown = Eastern/Pacific)

The Busher (1919) - silent with Colleen Moore - 6am/3am
He Who Gets Slapped (1924) - silent with Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer - 7am/4am
The Merry Widow (1925) - the silent film that made Gilbert a star - 8:30am/5:30am
The Show (1927) - silent directed by Tod Browning - 11am/8am
Desert Nights (1929) - Gilbert's last silent - 12:30pm/9:30am
Way for a Sailor (1930) - with Wallace Beery - 1:45pm/10:45am
Gentleman's Fate (1931) - directed by Mervyn LeRoy - 3:15pm/12:15pm
The Phantom of Paris (1931) - Gilbert took the title role followng Lon Chaney's death - 5pm/2pm
Downstairs (1932) - "a dark little masterpiece" - 6:30pm/3:30pmThe Big Parade (1925) - silent classic, perhaps Gilbert's best film - 8pm/5pm
Bardeleys the Magnificent (1926) - swashbuckling silent classic - 10:15pm/7:15pm
Flesh and the Devil (1926) - silent classic with Garbo - 12am/9pm
Queen Christina (1933) - Garbo and Gilbert's classic sound film - 2am/11pm
The Captain Hates the Sea (1934) - Gilbert's last film, with Victor McLaglen - 4am/1am

An Interview with Silent Screen Star John Gilbert's Daughter...coming soon

One Sunday night last January I turned on Turner Classic Movies and happened upon the documentary, Rediscovering John Gilbert. One of Gilbert's great silent classics, Bardelys the Magnificent (1926, directed by King Vidor), had aired earlier, and though I'd missed it, I watched the documentary beginning to end.

Prominently featured in the film on Gilbert was his daughter Leatrice who, I learned, had written a biography of her father in the mid-1980s: Dark Star: The Untold Story of the Meteoric Rise and Fall of the Legendary John Gilbert. Interested, I decided to pick up the book and tracked down a copy on Amazon.

In the course of all of this I also managed to make contact with Leatrice Gilbert Fountain and we began a friendly correspondence. For example, when I read in Dark Star that John Gilbert had attended Hitchcock Military Academy for a time and realized that the school had been located in the town where I live, I shared this with Leatrice (and later let her know that I'd found the spot where it once stood).

A blog that I posted here at the Cafe, "Blue Angel of Mercy? Another view of Marlene Dietrich," was inspired by a section in Dark Star on Dietrich's relationship with John Gilbert and about her relationship with young Leatrice following Gilbert's death. Both Leatrice and I were very happy when Movie FanFare asked to republish the blog.

And then last month I received TCM's schedule for August and discovered that John Gilbert was to be honored with his own day as part of the annual "Summer Under the Stars" showcase. I contacted Leatrice and we eventually decided to do a phone interview to be published here at the Cafe. Our conversation was a delight...and Leatrice is a jewel - intelligent, articulate, amusing and very warm and kind.

Leatrice Gilbert Fountain's interview will post here on August 23. My hope is that the blog does as much to pay tribute to Leatrice, who has devoted many years to restoring her father's reputation, as it does to promote viewing the films of John Gilbert on TCM, Tuesday, August 24, beginning 6am Eastern/3am Pacific.