Jan. 13 is Kay Fwancis Day on TCM!

Cafe Society
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If you are not familiar with “the wavishing Kay Fwancis”—one of the best, most elegant actresses of the 1930s, damn her speech impediment—TCM is having an all-day Kay Fest on Tues. the 13th:

6:00 AM Transgression (1931) When her lover is killed, a straying wife tries to intercept the confession she mailed her husband. Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez, Paul Cavanagh. D: Herbert Brenon. BW 70m.

7:15 AM Street of Women (1932) Kay Francis, Roland Young, Alan Dinehart, Majorie Gateson D: Archie L. Mayo BW 59m.

8:30 AM Man Wanted (1932) A female executive falls in love with her male secretary. Kay Francis, David Manners, Una Merkel. D: William Dieterle. BW 62m.

9:45 AM Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) A woman doctor decides to have a baby without benefit of marriage. Kay Francis, Lyle Talbot, Glenda Farrell. D: Lloyd Bacon. BW 72m.

11:00 AM Storm At Daybreak (1933) Fictionalized account of the events leading up to Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination and the start of World War I. Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Nils Asther. D: Richard Boleslawski. BW 79m.

12:30 PM ** The Goose And The Gander** (1935) A divorcee can’t stop meddling in her ex-husband’s affairs. Kay Francis, George Brent, Genevieve Tobin. D: Alfred E. Green. BW 66m.

1:45 PM I Found Stella Parish (1935) An actress stops at nothing to protect her daughter from her shady past. Kay Francis, Paul Lukas, Ian Hunter. D: Mervyn LeRoy. BW 85m.

3:15 PM Secrets Of An Actress (1938) A leading lady falls for a married architect who’s invested in her play. Kay Francis, George Brent, Ian Hunter. D: William Keighley. BW 70m. CC

4:30 PM King Of The Underworld (1939) A lady doctor gets mixed up with a criminal gang. Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson. D: Lewis Seiler. BW 67m. CC

6:00 PM It’s A Date (1940) Mother-and-daughter singers vie for the same man and the same stage part. Deanna Durbin, Walter Pidgeon, Kay Francis. D: William A. Seiter. BW 104m. CC

—Bizarrely, they are not showing her two best films, One Way Passage and In Name Only . . .

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Any particular resaon why they are doing this?

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Oh, they have “performer” or “director” days [Kay Fwancis] weguwawy [/Kay Fwancis]. Maybe it’s her birthday.

Kay was always good, no matter what crap they put her into. Intelligent, understated, very “modern.”

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The fact that they’d give a day isn’t suprising, it’s the precise day that made me wonder.

How’s the “Pwincess”, either “Pwecious” or “Infatia”?

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Just checked the IMDB, and Jan. 13 is indeed Kay’s b’day. Here is a nice photo of her.

[The Pwincess was out today, as was neawly evewyone else]

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Ahh, now it all makes sense.

So, as long as no one else posts in this thread, shall we play chess, or checkers, or polo, or some other sport?

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I’ll be able to watch that marathon, as I’m out on break until the 26th.

(Feel free to envy me.)

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Kay Francis was the heiress in Trouble in Paradise right? Great film; I wonder why they didn’t include it.

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Ah, I’ve been a casual but devoted Kay Francis fan ever since, as a young sociopath, my sainted father forced me to watch many Marx Brothers films. She played the larcenous (and kinda trampy, if memory serves) femme fatale in “The Cocoanuts,” otherwise not my favorite Marx Brothers work. The gorgeous flapper caught my attention (and yes, before anyone jumps on me, I enjoyed the film, too, as I wound up enjoying just about everything the Old Man inflicted upon me).
Sigh… that actually tells you a lot about the media consumption of my youth: I was reduced to watching musical comedies from the late 1920s to check out the hot babes. The same thing happened with Vogue magazine; I started reading it to scope underwear ads, and then BAM, next thing you know, I’m a big fan of Jeffrey Steingarten.

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Not included in the marathon is The Feminine Touch, possibly because it was just on TMC. It’s one of Francis’ last roles, as she was getting too old (36) to play unmarried. She was fine in it but suffered - as almost everyone did - by comparison to the radiant Rosalind Russell.

The movie is a bizarre one for a screwball comedy, breaking free of most of the Hollywood stereotypes and clichés until the end when all the players take the “proper” attitudes of men and women. The dialog is, for the most part, as witty as any movie of the day. Line after line is just wonderful. Then you look at the credits: the magnificent Marxist George Oppenheimer; comedy hack Edmund L. Hartmann; - and Ogden Nash in one of his very, very few credited screenplays. Little wonder that the tone varies all over the place.

(Remade in the UK in 1957 by a bunch of people I’ve never heard of. Anyone ever see this version?)

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Better inform Pwincess Pwecious.

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I know what turns a man on . . . “Nancy Carroll . . Helen Kane . . . Winnie Lightner . . . Bebe . . . Daniels . . .”