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Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in ‘Mata Hari’: The wrath of the censors (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro in One of the Best Silent Movies.") George Fitzmaurice’s romantic spy melodrama Mata Hari (1931) was well received by critics and enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers. The Greta Garbo / Ramon Novarro combo — the first time Novarro took second billing since becoming a star — turned Mata Hari into a major worldwide blockbuster, with $2.22 million in worldwide rentals. The film became Garbo’s biggest international success to date, and Novarro’s highest-grossing picture after Ben-Hur. (Photo: Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in Mata Hari.) Among MGM’s 1932 releases — Mata Hari opened on December 31, 1931 — only W.S. Van Dyke’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, featuring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Edmund Goulding’s all-star Best Picture Academy Award winner Grand Hotel (also with Garbo, in addition to Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and...

Ramon Novarro: Silent movie star proves he can talk and sing (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Mexican-Born Actor Was First Latin American Hollywood Superstar.") On Ramon Novarro Day, Turner Classic Movies’ first Novarro movie is Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), a stately version of Edward Rose’s play, itself based on Anthony Hope’s 1897 novel: in the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, a traveling Englishman takes the place of the kidnapped local king-to-be-crowned. A pre-Judge Hardy Lewis Stone has the double role, while Novarro plays the scheming Rupert of Hentzau. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1922.) Despite his stage training, Stone is as interesting to watch as a beach pebble; Novarro, for his part, has a good time hamming it up in his first major break — courtesy of director Rex Ingram, then looking for a replacement for Rudolph Valentino, with whom he’d had a serious falling out...

Dorothy Janis (top); Ramon Novarro, Dorothy Janis, The Pagan clip (bottom) Dorothy Janis, aka Dorothy King, was one of the last living adult performers to have had at least one major role in silent feature films. Janis died on March 10 at the age of 98. I posted an obit on that date, explaining that Janis, the widow of bandleader Wayne King, was featured in a handful of movies right at the time when silent pictures were giving way to talkies. In fact, her one major silent-film appearance wasn’t exactly in a silent film, for W. S. Van Dyke’s MGM blockbuster The Pagan featured a music score and the popular ditty "Pagan Love Song." Ramon Novarro, one of [...]...

Ramon Novarro, Dorothy Janis in The Pagan Dorothy Janis, who made a few film appearances at the dawn of the sound era and was the widow of bandleader Wayne King, died Wednesday morning in the Phoenix suburb of Paradise Valley, according to musician Lew Williams, who received the news from Janis’ granddaughter. Janis, one of the last surviving performers to have played at least one major role in silent films, was either 98 or 100, depending on the source. A pretty, petite brunette with sensuous lips — according to (possibly made-up) reports from the period, she was half-Native American — Dorothy Janis was born in Dallas on Feb. 19, 1910 or 1912. Her most notable movie role was that of [...]...