Tweet Whale's ONE MORE RIVER on TCM

On January 27th, TCM will be running four films by James Whale: FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE GREAT GARRICK, and ONE MORE RIVER. The latter title is one of the director's most rarely seen productions, and is making its TCM debut.

On January 27th, TCM will be running four films by James Whale: FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE GREAT GARRICK, and ONE MORE RIVER. The latter title is one of the director's most rarely seen productions, and is making its TCM debut.

I waited many years to see One More River, then found it disappointing. But it is a Whale film, so worth the time spent.

Anything TCM or any other entity can blast out of the vaults at Universal is cause for celebration.

I'd love to see Journey's End on TCM, if they're doing Whale's films.

Hoping they run a good print. I recall when they finally extracted Whale's KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR sometime back they ran what appeared to be a 16mm print.

It is true if you got on TCM homepage they got January schedule already on what they going to show

On January 27th, TCM will be running four films by James Whale: FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE GREAT GARRICK, and ONE MORE RIVER. The latter title is one of the director's most rarely seen productions, and is making its TCM debut.

TCM has ONE MORE RIVER scheduled again on April 23, 2012.

Found ONE MORE RIVER a bit disappointing in the story department but the lighting and cinematography was beautiful and distinctively Whale. The print was simply gorgeous. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN should look this good.

Found ONE MORE RIVER a bit disappointing in the story department but the lighting and cinematography was beautiful and distinctively Whale. The print was simply gorgeous. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN should look this good.

I agree, dull but gorgeous.

Found ONE MORE RIVER a bit disappointing in the story department but the lighting and cinematography was beautiful and distinctively Whale. The print was simply gorgeous. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN should look this good.

I agree, dull but gorgeous.

That's how I felt the only other time I saw it back in the 70's. It was the bottom half of a Whale double feature (w/ Bride of Frankenstein -with Elsa Lanchester in attendance!) The film started and I promptly fell asleep. It took until now for me to confirm the title as I remembered the opening shots on the boat and nothing else.

I saw this a long time ago at PFA and remembered only that it had something to do with a car and a trial, and thought it rather pedestrian. But i watched it again last night and enjoyed it quite a bit more the second time around. It was great seeing Mrs. Campbell in relatively juicy part, and the rest of the cast was great. And i really liked Diana Wynard's honest, sensible character, though her reluctance to badmouth her husband seemed inexplicable. Anyway, i'm glad i saw it again.

greta

At the start of “One More River,” on TCM January 27, there is a scene of a passenger liner pulling into an English dock. Thanks to the great print TCM had of this movie, the image of the scene looked luminous, no small task AFAIK when filming an object in the water (refer to the “Waterworld” budget over runs). The IMDB listing “One More River” shows that the movie’s director of photography, John Mescall, worked on movies for Universal through 1937’s “The Road Back,” another movie produced and directed by James Whale. Then Mescall’s career as a DP a Universal comes to an abrupt halt, along with that of Universal’s star director James Whale. (I am waiting for someone here to claim the footage used at the start of “One More River” was done by a second unit using another London-based DP).

From information at wikipedia, it turns out that Mescall is a part of Hollywood history you don’t hear about much these days. The Laemmle family, controlling owners of Universal, borrowed $750,000 from Standard Capital Corporation to finance the production of the 1936 movie “Showboat.” When that note came due without payment in full by Universal, Standard Capital’s boss, John Cheever Cowdin, exercised a clause in the loan agreement that allowed him to buy all of Universal Studio, lock, stock and barrel, for the bargain basement price of $5,500,000. Cowdin appointed himself as President of Universal. Remind you anything going on now, with the European Central Bank appointing the presidents of Greece and Italy in return for loans to those cash-strapped countries?

Cowdin was also chairman of Ideal Chemicals, a company that had to have done considerable business with pre-World War Two German chemical companies like I.G. Farben. So when Universal received threats of retaliation from Nazi Germany if the studio released “The Road Back,” Cowdin took those threats seriously. The Nazis had banned Erich Maria Renarque’s novel because of its anti-militarist and anti-Nazi message. Universal studio production chief Charles R. Rogers gets the blame for using a hatchet to cut out any potential anti-Nazi content in the movie and ordering re-shoots after Whale finished the movie, all to appease the Nazis, who were threatening to ban the distribution of any Universal movies in Germany. Rogers lasted 2 years at Universal, cost cutting and green lighting flops, before being kicked off the studio lot in 1938. So far as I can see, there is no mention of Cowdin’s role in okaying the extra costs to bowdlerize “The Road Back.”

Rogers was just following Cowdin’s orders. Cowdin’s reign at Universal lasted until 1946, a ten year period where Universal is known for Technicolor Arabian Nights movies and Deanna Durbin.

From 1933 to 1936, DP Mescall was part of the production team that producer/director James Whale used in making movies at Univeral. Starting with 1933’s “By Candlelight” and ending with “The Road Back” in 1937, Mescall made 5 movies with Whale, including Whale’s super hit, “Showboat.”

“One More River” is a technically great movie, from production design to photography to casting. The rear projection shots in cabs are not done very well, but that is the exception. James Whale made a drama about the English upper class far better in Hollywood than any done in Great Britain. The subject matter in the movie involving spousal physical cruelty, divorce laws and finding a job in a down economy has dated but still has some relevance today. Within two years of the Laemmles making “One More River,” they were out at Universal and Production Code Administrator Joe Breen was effectively blocking Hollywood studios from making adult themed movies like “One More River.” “Hitler of Hollywood” Breen did not like movies to deal with divorce and adultery.

Thanks to TCM, we get a chance to see the long unseen on TV “One More River,” complete with closed captions. Now if only Universal studio, celebrating its 100th birthday, could search its archives for the original work print of “The Road Back.”

Got to catch this again (and Great Garrick - which I had never seen before.)

One More River was pretty much as I remembered it. When Mrs. Patrick Campbell was on the screen, the film was a delight. When she was offscreen, it was a pretty pedestrian affair. And Colin Clive was certainly unpleasant, but I never thought he was particularly effective a wife-beater.

But any film that contains the line "I didn't know whether it was flatulence or the hand of God" must be experienced by all.


The Great Garrick was an odd little film too - essentially a musical comedy without any musical numbers. Why someone never adapted this for the stage is beyond me.

The Great Garrick was an odd little film too - essentially a musical comedy without any musical numbers. Why someone never adapted this for the stage is beyond me.

Allegedly, THE GREAT GARRICK is based upon a play, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Ernest Vajda. But I cannot find any proof that the play was ever performed or published.

In the opening credits for "The Great Garrick," one of the credits identifies the movie as "A James Whale Production" but the last credit is "Personally Supervised by Mervyn LeRoy." That last credit is the sort of snub to James Whale that you would expect from Jack Warner, miserableness personified. I reviewed the dialog in "The Great Garrick" by extracting the closed captions for this airing and converting that info into subtitles. The dialog for "The Great Garrick" shows this movie to be pretty much about nothing, a weak story with uninteresting palaver about things theatrical.

For those criticizing "One More River" as pedestrian, watch "The Great Garrick" to see real boring onscreen activities. You can see what others in Hollywood thought of "One More River" when you look back on the behavior of the High Court judge during the trial. The judge's collegial and sometimes snippy attitude was a template for judges followed by other directors that you see in later movies like "Anatomy Of A Murder." 100% all talking pictures had not been around for that long when Whale made "Across The River" in 1934. Whale's movies for Universal set a high standard for creativity that others in Hollywood copied, the sincerest form of flattery.

Got to catch this again (and Great Garrick - which I had never seen before.)

The Great Garrick was an odd little film too - essentially a musical comedy without any musical numbers. Why someone never adapted this for the stage is beyond me.

I kept thinking, "was this a play? and if not -- why not?" I had been trying to see it for years and I was not disappointed. I thought it was hilarious. Must get a copy ASAP.

Finally watched this and thought it excellent. Diana Wynyard was terrific, especially in the courtroom scenes.

Made me wonder, who was the first great Hollywood star to come from the British Isles?

Wynyard never quite made the front ranks, nor did Anna Lee, Margaret Lockwood, Anna Neagle, Jessie Matthews..... Greer Garson?

Finally watched this and thought it excellent. Diana Wynyard was terrific, especially in the courtroom scenes.

Made me wonder, who was the first great Hollywood star to come from the British Isles?

Charlie Chaplin.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

LOL.... I meant women in talkies but yes you're right!

LOL.... I meant women in talkies but yes you're right!

Well, as far as women in talkies were concerned, I would think you have to get to Madeline Carroll, Greer Garson, Maureen O'Hara(or does Ireland count as the British Isles? Don't want to start a fight over it.) or Merle Oberon before you're talking major female stars in America. There were certainly plenty of british actresses working over here in the early talkies, Dorothy Mackaill, Lillian Bond,Benita Hume, Elizabeth Allan, Valerie Hobson just off the top of my head, but I don't think they would count as MAJOR female stars.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

... does Ireland count as the British Isles? ...


RICHARD M ROBERTS

It most certainly does not, sir.

... does Ireland count as the British Isles? ...


RICHARD M ROBERTS

It most certainly does not, sir.

Yeah whatever, keep your petty local squabbles to yourself. You've all got bad teeth, drinking problems, and funny accents as far as we Americans are concerned, so you all get lumped together over here, along with the Australians.....

(The Europeans are about the last ethnic group we can make fun of these days, so grab the opportunity while you can. Then again, I guess we can pick on the Canadians, but technically they are considered part of the Americas too, except they can't make up their minds whether or not they're Brits or Frenchies).


RICHARD M ROBERTS (still trying to think up a rude name to call the Belgians)

Yeah whatever, keep your petty local squabbles to yourself.

Yeah whatever, get your geography right.

Madeleine Carroll or Merle Oberon (born in India) might do.

RICHARD M ROBERTS (still trying to think up a rude name to call the Belgians)

Isn't "belgians" rude enough?
(w/ apologies to Michael Palin)

[Mike Gebert]

You know, if it weren't for the fact that I'm the last one to see it, not the only one, One More River would be a candidate for Great Movies You've Never Seen. A very well made adult drama, which manages to do the stiff upper lip thing without letting its characters turn into stiffs, it clearly benefited from an English director who inserted lots of sharp little bits of social observation (like the drinkers who raise their hats to a passing motorcar if it has a lady in it). I thought the courtroom scene, far from being a bore as described by someone years ago on AMS, was was very incisive on the dilemma posed by a court demanding to know what should in decency be private, and the prickliness of attorneys versus witnesses. Diana Wynyard did nothing for me in Cavalcade or that movie predicting WWII, but here I thought she was quite affecting and emotionally precise; and a number of people (C. Aubrey Smith, Henry Stephenson) who are just familiar faces trotted out to do their thing in movies gave especially good, well-rounded performances.

Incidentally, I was amused to see this in the opening credits:

Robert Greig........Blore

Isn't that sort of like Lionel Atwill......Dumbrille, or Grady Sutton.......Pangborn?

Diana Wynyard did nothing for me in Cavalcade or that movie predicting WWII, but here I thought she was quite affecting and emotionally precise

Dull, dull, dull was what I thought of her before seeing this picture--but it made the scales fall from my eyes.

Diana Wynyard did nothing for me in Cavalcade or that movie predicting WWII, but here I thought she was quite affecting and emotionally precise

Dull, dull, dull was what I thought of her before seeing this picture--but it made the scales fall from my eyes.

I think Diana Wynyard also gives an excellent performance opposite John Barrymore in REUNION IN VIENNA.

I think Wynyard was terrific in all 3 films: One More River, Cavalcade, Reunion in Vienna

I love REUNION IN VIENNA. Fortunately, I taped it on Betamax back in the Showtime days. The picture has legal holds on it now.