,
9 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
NY TV debut 1/14/54 at 11:15 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Listed as ARIZONA THUNDERBOLT, James Hogan's 1936 remake of lost silent STAIRS OF SAND (1929) with Wallace Beery and Jean Arthur had already been retitled for 1951 reissue, which demoted comic Cook to fifth billing. 
1/14/59 on WNEW's "10 O'Clock Movie'' until 11:30 am. Columbia picked up Douglas' seven-year option after LaCava's 1935 comedy. NY TV debut 10/9/56 on WCBS' "The Late Show,'' via Screen Gems.
NY TV debut 1/14/64 at 11:20 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Channel 2's viewers were not able to see James Hogan's 1937 R.L. Stevenson adaptation in its lovely three-strip Technicolor glory during its black-and-white premiere.
11/14/64 at 12:30 pm on WOR. Columbia borrowed Withers from Fox, where she starred in a series of modestly budgeted vehicles from 1935 to 1942.
11/14/74 at 10 am on WPIX. Irving Cummings' 1937 musical was retitled VOGUES for its TV showings, which began 5/13/50 when it was broadcast in black-and-white on WCBS' "Premiere Playhouse. Part of package of films formerly owned by UA, several of them produced by Wanger.
Even more confusingly, Hogan directed another 1936 film in the series with Crabbe originally titled ARIZONA RAIDERS, re-released and syndicated to TV as BAD MEN OF ARIZONA. Copyright expired 1964. Grey's son licensed underlying rights for DVD release.
The series, which ran from 1932 to 1940 (a couple of earlier Paramount talkies based on Grey novels were included in the TV package) were almost all remakes of standalone silents. Henry Hathaway, an assistant director on some of the silents, began his directing career with series
Some of the Greys were remade yet again in a second series of eight film at RKO in the '40s with Mitchum, James Warren and Tim Holt in the leads. These titles apparently fell out of the RKO library not long after arrival on TV in 1956 and seem to be in the public domain.
I had a brief phone interview with Grey's son Loren, a retired college professor of psychology, not long before he died at the age of 91 in 2007. He expressed exasperation about trying to police the rights underlying the dozens of films derived from his father's works.
