Thursday, January 7, 2021

TCM Star of the Month January 2021: Miriam Hopkins

Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in a famous scene from Old Acquaintance (Jan. 14, 9:45 PM)

Now that we're in the first full week of a new month, it's time for a new Star of the Month on TCM. This time around, it's Miriam Hopkins, who was a leading lady in the 1930s and a supporting actress later in her career. Her movies will appear on TCM every Thursday in prime time, 17 of them in all. This first Thursday will feature four pre-Codes as well as 1936's Men Are Not Gods.

Later in the month, on the 21st, we'll get Hopkins in the excellent These Three, co-starring Merle Oberon and Joel McCrea and telling the story of a private school where a malicious student (Bonita Granville) makes up a story about the two female teachers and one's boyfriend. That movie was remade in the early 1960s as The Children's Hour. Hopkins was too old to play one of the teachers in that one, so instead she's the grandmother of the nasty girl. The Children's Hour will be on TCM on Jan. 28.

Among the Hopkins movies unfortunately not appearing this month are Becky Sharp, the first three-strip Technicolor feature; and The Mating Season, where Hopkins plays mother to bride Gene Tierney and hilariously has to deal with in-laws John Lund and Thelma Ritter.

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