Irene Dunne.
Irene Dunne movies on TCM: 5-time Oscar nominee starred in now lesser-known originals of popular remakes
For over a decade a couple of dozen Irene Dunne movies have been available in decent (or better) prints on Turner Classic Movies, whose parent company Time Warner owns the RKO movie library. Dunne was an RKO contract player from about 1930 to 1939; during that period, she received two Best Actress Academy Award nominations for her work in RKO releases: Wesley Ruggles’ epic Western Cimarron (1931), with Richard Dix, and Leo McCarey’s romantic comedy-drama Love Affair (1939), opposite Charles Boyer. In addition, Dunne earned two more Oscar nods for the Columbia screwball comedies Theodora Goes Wild (1936), directed by Richard Boleslawski and costarring Melvyn Douglas, and The Awful Truth (1937), also directed by McCarey and costarring Cary Grant.
I should add that Rouben Mamoulian’s musical High, Wide and Handsome, costarring Randolph Scott and Dorothy Lamour, was restored in the 1990s – unfortunately, it’s hardly one of Irene Dunne’s best films or performances. And bear in mind that the very Catholic, very Republican Dunne’s private life was considerably more complex than Callahan’s article implies. Once again: my few qualms notwithstanding, Callahan’s six-year-old Irene Dunne piece is a must-read.
Best Irene Dunne movies and performances
Irene Dunne – lively, pretty, hilarious in comedies, achingly sincere in dramas – was one of the best, most versatile Hollywood actresses of the 1930s and 1940s. Curiously, Dunne made the transition from stage to film in her early 30s, an age when many Hollywood actresses back in those days were being pushed into retirement. (Admittedly, Dunne and/or RKO did lie about her age. Her birthdate was variously listed as 1907, 1904, or, more recently, 1901. She was actually born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky.)
Recommended Irene Dunne movies include John M. Stahl’s Back Street (1932), with Dunne suffering as The Other Woman in love with married man John Boles; James Whale’s musical Show Boat (1936), with Dunne suffering and singing as the Woman Left Behind by Allan Jones; John Cromwell’s Anna and the King of Siam (1946), with Dunne’s Anna quietly stealing the show from Rex Harrison’s mannered Siamese King; Michael Curtiz’s period family comedy Life with Father (1947), with Dunne’s Mother living with and trying to convince Father William Powell to get himself baptized; and George Stevens’ nostalgic immigration/family drama I Remember Mama (1948), with Dunne as the Academy Award-nominated titular Mama – her well-deserved fifth (and final) Oscar nod.
Irene Dunne movie remakes
Irene Dunne movies later remade with other actresses include Cimarron (Maria Schell, 1960), Back Street (Margaret Sullavan, 1941; Susan Hayward, 1961), The Age of Innocence (Michelle Pfeiffer in Martin Scorsese’s 1993 version), Roberta (Kathryn Grayson in Lovely to Look At, 1952), Magnificent Obsession (Jane Wyman, 1954), Show Boat (Kathryn Grayson, 1951), and The Awful Truth (Jane Wyman in Let’s Do It Again, 1953).
Here are a few more titles: Love Affair (Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember, 1957; Annette Bening in Love Affair, 1994), My Favorite Wife (Doris Day in Move Over Darling, 1963; Marilyn Monroe in the unfinished Something’s Got to Give, 1962), A Guy Named Joe (Holly Hunter in Steven Spielberg’s Always, 1989), and Anna and the King of Siam (Deborah Kerr in The King and I, 1956; Jodie Foster in Anna and the King, 1999).
Later years
Irene Dunne’s last movie was Arthur Lubin’s box office disappointment It Grows on Trees (1952), a comedy featuring Dean Jagger. Later in the decade, Dunne was one of president Dwight Eisenhower’s appointed U.S. delegates to the United Nations. Throughout her life a supporter of various Catholic, Republican, and charitable causes and institutions, she founded the Irene Dunne Guild at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. According to their website, “the Irene Dunne Guild is instrumental in raising funds to support programs and services” at St. John’s.
Dunne was married to Dr. Francis Griffin from 1928 to his death on Oct. 15, 1965. The couple, however, lived apart for long stretches. After years in ill health, during which time she underwent painful treatments, Irene Dunne died on September 4, 1990, at her home in Los Angeles’ posh Holmby Hills district.
More widely available movies
A number of Irene Dunne movies have become more widely available in recent years. The Awful Truth has been restored and a pristine print can now be found on DVD. Dunne’s Universal release Show Boat has been shown on Turner Classic Movies, along with her Columbia movies (Theodora Goes Wild, Together Again), while Dunne’s version of Magnificent Obsession has been available on DVD for some time. Co-starring Richard Dix, Stingaree (1934), unseen for decades, has been restored and presented on TCM.
And finally, Love Affair looks like it has been upgraded as well. According to film historian Joseph Yranski, who was friends with Irene Dunne, she had an excellent print of Love Affair in her private movie collection.