June 19 Charles Coburn

Happy Birthday Charles Coburn and Moe Howard

TCM showed a marathon of films for Charles Coburn last month. The More the Merrier with Jean Arthur is probably my favorite, which he won an Academy Award. I watched Unexpected Uncle. In Florida he is walking down the street and sees a young woman, Anne Shirley crying in a store. He goes in to cheer her up. She was fired due to a big shot businessman, James Craig pinching her and kissing her on the nose. He yells at the manager and gets her reinstated and the afternoon off. They walk for a bit and James comes back with a band and baskets of flowers to apologize. He asks her to lunch and she goes. Charles goes to his trailer home. He exchanges cigars with a policeman on horseback for horse shoes. Charles is an expert horse shoe thrower. James invites her and her “uncle” to his club that night for cocktails. She goes to see Charles to get his opinion of what she should do. He makes the case for going out with him and never seeing him again. He says that he will pick her up and they will go to the club. James plays as hard as he works. He has many different women. His hotel room is filled with pictures. I cannot tell if they are different women.

Charles goes home early and Anne and James dance and drink. James is drunk and Anne convinces James to let her drive. She drives to her apartment. James then drives the car and has an accident. He is hurt. She takes him to her apartment. The landlady kicks her out and she goes to Charles at the trailer park. James wakes up and sneaks out as the landlady calls the police. The police find the abandoned car and think he is kidnapped. The police go to the trailer park where Charles sleeping outside is awaken by a friend who helps Anne and Charles get away. They go to the club where James is getting a shave. He has contacted the police and the papers clearing up the situation, but Anne is very upset with him and wants to go home. Charles agrees but ends up taking her to the airport where James is getting ready to go back home for business. He convinces her to make peace with James. They get into the plane. While they are talking the plane takes off. A scheme that is cooked up by James’ butler and Charles, they don’t say that, but the look they give each other tells it all.

On the plane ride Anne and James get engaged. When they land it is a much colder climate. James rushes off to the factory and Anne and Charles go to his home. They wait for him, but the butler states it will be after midnight and later before he comes home. Charles is wearing a blanket and states he has pneumonia. A week or so passes and James is very seldom home before 2 AM. It is the butler’s birthday and Anne decides to have a party for him. James comes home and has business associates with him. He blows up. Anne decides she can’t take it anymore and decides to go back to Florida, Charles trailer home. When James finally finishes his meeting, he goes to Anne’s room and she is not there. He goes to Charles room and wakes him up stating that he was just in Anne’s room and she was not there and wants to know where she is. Charles focus is on propriety and gets upset with that. James becomes very upset and Charles convinces him to take a drink. James states “I don’t drink at home.” After they empty several bottles they play horse shoes with them.

Charles tells James who he really is. He is a president of a steel works owner who walked away from his job and forty million dollars. Charles states that he has been hiding for 10 years and the company is still going without him. He left because he was the only person who wasn’t allowed to leave at 6 to “smoke his slippers, read his dinner and eat his pipe”. He is so drunk he aims the horse shoes at large vases, which he hits and breaks. When James asks him again where she went he replies “she didn’t ask me and I didn’t tell her”. They decide to go back to Florida. Anne is unhappy. When she gets to the trailer she hears the sound of horse shoes. Anne and Charles hug and he states that James in in the trailer. She hears a record being played and tries to get away. Charles grabs her shoulders and pushes her towards the trailer. Once she goes in, he gives the butler in the car the high sign and he drives the car that is attached to the trailer.