TCM Schedule for Friday, February 1, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: 31 Days of Oscar - Janet Gaynor

[Staph]

Last edited Wed Jan 30, 2019, 08:09 PM - Edit history (1)

It's that most wonderful time of the year -- TCM's 31 Days of Oscar. This year's themes are set up in an interesting way -- the daylight hours of each day have one theme, the first two films of the evening have a second theme, and the late night's films have a third.

Today's themes -- daylight - American Literary Adapations, prime time - Janet Gaynor, who won a single Best Actress Oscar for two different films, and late night - Grittiest Streets of New York (The French Connection (1971) vs. Taxi Driver (1976)). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Alice Adams (1935)
A small-town girl with social ambitions falls in love with a local playboy.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone
BW-99 mins

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, and Best Picture

Based on the novel by Booth Tarkington.

There was a disagreement among Katharine Hepburn and George Stevens about the post-party scene. The script called for Hepburn to fall onto the bed and break into sobs, but Stevens wanted her to walk to the window and cry, with the rain falling outside. Hepburn could not produce the tears required, so she asked Stevens if she could do the scene as scripted. Stevens yelled furiously at Hepburn, which did the trick and the scene was filmed Stevens' way, and Hepburn's tears are real.


8:00 AM -- Little Women (1949)
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien
C-122 mins, CC

Winner of an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert H. Planck and Charles Edgar Schoenbaum

Based on Louisa May Alcott's two novels, Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868), and Good Wives (1869). The two books were issued as a single novel in 1880.

In the novel, Amy is the youngest sister, but in order to use Margaret O'Brien, as Beth, Beth was made the youngest.


10:15 AM -- Billy Budd (1962)
The classic tale of a ship's captain caught between an innocent young sailor and an evil officer.
Dir: Peter Ustinov
Cast: Terence Stamp, Peter Ustinov, Robert Ryan
BW-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Terence Stamp

Based on Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, Sailor.

Herman Melville had been writing poetry for thirty years when he returned to fiction with "Billy Budd" in late 1888. Still unfinished when he died in 1891, it was forgotten. Melville's biographer accidentally stumbled upon it when going through a trunk of Melville's papers in his granddaughter's New Jersey house in 1919. Melville's widow worked to help complete it, and it was finally published in 1924. Over the years, other unsatisfactory versions were published, but it wasn't until Melville's original notes were found that the definitive version was ultimately published in 1962. Coincidentally, Sir Peter Ustinov's movie version was released the same year.


12:30 PM -- The Old Man and the Sea (1958)
A Cuban fisherman believes his long dry spell will end when he catches a legendary fish.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Felipe Pazos Jr., Harry Bellaver, Spencer Tracy
C-87 mins, CC

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, and Best Cinematography, Color -- James Wong Howe

This was the last major work of fiction by Ernest Hemingway that was published during his lifetime.

Mary Hemingway, who was Ernest Hemingway's fourth wife and widow, plays the blonde tourist at the end of the film. She crosses the street and takes a seat in the café. She has no lines. Ernest Hemingway can be seen sitting in the cafe in the final scene. He his wearing a tan baseball cap is talking to other fishermen. This was his movie debut.


2:00 PM -- Show Boat (1951)
Riverboat entertainers find love, laughs and hardships as they sail along "Old Man River."
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel
C-108 mins, CC

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Charles Rosher, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch and Conrad Salinger

Based on the 1927 Broadway musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which was in turn based on the 1926 novel by Edna Ferber.

Director George Sidney was forced to leave for a few days because of illness, so uncredited associate producer Roger Edens directed the beautifully shot, fog-enshrouded "departure" sequence, including the performance by William Warfield of "Ol' Man River." It is the one scene in the film that has been praised even by critics who detest this version of "Show Boat."


4:00 PM -- The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968)
A deaf mute changes the lives of all he meets.
Dir: Robert Ellis Miller
Cast: Alan Arkin, Chuck McCann, Peter Mamakos
C-124 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee
Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role
Alan Arkin
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Sondra Locke

Based on the first novel of Carson McCullers, published in 1940.

To conceal her age - ostensibly in a bid to muddy the backwaters of her early life - Sondra Locke changed her birth year more times than such notorieties as Joan Crawford, Mae West or Zsa Zsa Gabor. When Heart was being made in 1967, the actress (born Sandra Smith in May 1944) was 23 years old, but an international press release said she was 17. Nashville newspaper The Tennessean called her out on the lie almost right away, but it took decades for syndicated publications to catch on. At the time of the movie's 1968 premiere, Locke claimed to be 21 but was in fact 24. While promoting The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) eight years later, the then 32-year-old gave her age as 20. Various news outlets wrongly reported Locke as being 29 in 1978 (when she was 34); 26 in 1979 (35 then); and 30 in 1980 (actually 36). Her real age was finally confirmed by her maternal half-brother, Donald Locke, in an exclusive interview with The Tennessean in 1989. Sondra Locke was 45 in 1989, but her publicist claimed 42. Locke never came clean about her age, even lying about it in her autobiography. In a 2015 podcast interview, the 71-year-old former star said that she "was just graduating high school" when she started work on this film. Locke graduated high school in May 1962 at age 18 - more than five years before she was cast in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.


6:15 PM -- Tom Sawyer (1973)
The classic American bad boy sails the Mississippi with his friend Huck Finn after their supposed deaths.
Dir: Don Taylor
Cast: Celeste Holm, Jodie Foster, Johnnie Whitaker
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- Donfeld, Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation -- Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman and John Williams, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Philip M. Jefferies and Robert De Vestel

Based, of course, on Mark Twain's 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman started working on this musical adaptation of the Mark Twain classic in 1968.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: JANET GAYNOR



8:00 PM -- Sunrise (1927)
In this silent film, a farmer's affair with a city woman almost destroys his life.
Dir: F. W. Murnau
Cast: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston
BW-94 mins, CC

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Janet Gaynor (For 7th Heaven and Street Angel), Best Cinematography -- Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, and Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Rochus Gliese

F.W. Murnau hated using title cards in his films. Thus, in Sunrise (1927), the title cards become more and more infrequent as the film progresses and virtually non-existent by the end.


10:00 PM -- Street Angel (1928)
A pretty escaped convict hides out in a circus and finds love.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Alberto Rabagliati
BW-101 mins, CC

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Janet Gaynor (For 7th Heaven and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Ernest Palmer (No official nominees had been announced this year.), and Best Art Direction -- Harry Oliver (No official nominees had been announced this year.)

The covered wagon in this film was at one point housed in The Crocker Museum in Hollywood, the first museum dedicated to props and other artifacts from American films. The museum was started by actor Harry Crocker, circa 1928.


12:00 AM -- The French Connection (1971)
Two New York narcotics cops set out to bust a French drug smuggling ring.
Dir: William Friedkin
Cast: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider
C-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gene Hackman, Best Director -- William Friedkin, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ernest Tidyman, Best Film Editing -- Gerald B. Greenberg, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Roy Scheider, Best Cinematography -- Owen Roizman, and Best Sound -- Theodore Soderberg and Christopher Newman

The car chase was filmed without obtaining the proper permits from the city. Members of the NYPD's tactical force helped control traffic. But most of the control was achieved by the assistant directors with the help of off-duty NYPD officers, many of whom had been involved in the actual case. The assistant directors, under the supervision of Terence A. Donnelly, cleared traffic for approximately five blocks in each direction. Permission was given to literally control the traffic signals on those streets where they ran the chase car. Even so, in many instances, they illegally continued the chase into sections with no traffic control, where they actually had to evade real traffic and pedestrians. Many of the (near) collisions in the movie were therefore real and not planned (with the exception of the near-miss of the lady with the baby carriage, which was carefully rehearsed). A flashing police light was placed on top of the car to warn bystanders. A camera was mounted on the car's bumper for the shots from the car's point-of-view. Hackman did some of the driving but the extremely dangerous stunts were performed by Bill Hickman, with Friedkin filming from the backseat. Friedkin operated the camera himself because the other camera operators were married with children and he was not.


2:00 AM -- Taxi Driver (1976)
A loner becomes fixated on a teen prostitute.
Dir: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks
C-114 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert De Niro, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jodie Foster, Best Music, Original Score -- Bernard Herrmann (Posthumously.), and Best Picture

The scene where Travis Bickle is talking to himself in the mirror was completely ad-libbed by Robert De Niro. The screenplay details just said, "Travis looks in the mirror." Martin Scorsese claims that he got the inspiration for the scene from Marlon Brando mouthing words in front of a mirror in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967).


4:15 AM -- Night Must Fall (1937)
A charming young man worms his way into a wealthy woman's household, then reveals a deadly secret.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Merle Tottenham, Kathleen Harrison, Dame May Whitty
BW-116 mins, CC

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Montgomery (the Patron Saint of the Classic Film Group of DU!)

and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- May Whitty

MGM didn't want Montgomery to do the film, and at its premiere at Grauman's Chinese screened a trailer disclaiming the film and warning the audience about the film's "spurious content." Despite this, the film was well-received by audiences and critics.