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Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...

Turner Classic Movies' look at Arabs in Hollywood movies continues this evening with six movies. Why exactly Gabriel Pascal's film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) is one of the six, I don't know. Caesar was a Roman-born emperor; Cleopatra, a descendant of Greek royalty, was an Egyptian queen long before the Arab conquest of Egypt. Now, I may be puzzled about its inclusion, but Caesar and Cleopatra is very much worth watching chiefly thanks to Claude Rains' brilliant performance as the first half of the title role and Vivien Leigh's highly theatrical but enjoyable star turn as the second half of the title role. Kismet (1944) would have been more enjoyable had it been directed by Henry Hathaway, Michael Curtiz, Frank Lloyd, or even Lloyd Bacon. William Dieterle, best known for several ponderous Warner Bros. biopics of the '30s, had a heavy hand...