Classic Films

Staph

(6,353 posts) Thu Feb 7, 2019, 02:35 AM Feb 2019

TCM Schedule for Thursday, February 7, 2019: What's On Tonight: 31 Days of Oscar - Joseph Mankiewicz

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2019, 10:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Today's 31 Days of Oscar themes are: daylight - Prison Movies (mostly from the 1930s, including The Big House (1930) and I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)), prime time - Favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz Double Win (Writing & Directing) (what a duo - All About Eve (1950) and A Letter To Three Wives (1948), and Mankiewicz is the only one to win back to back writing and directing Oscars!), and night time - Favorite Swashbuckler (Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940) vs Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)). Enjoy!

6:15 AM -- WEARY RIVER (1929)
A jailed criminal's life turns around when he fronts the prison band.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, Louis Natheaux
BW- 89 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Director -- Frank Lloyd (No official nominees had been announced this year.)

The film is part silent, with intertitles, and part sound, which was important to feature the main character's talent as a singer, although the title song Weary River was nevertheless dubbed by a professional singer. One scene near the end features an orchestra playing on-screen on set that is a radio studio, while traditional silent movie sound is substituted for real sound. Then the scene technology audibly changes to sound recorded on film, with the same orchestra appearing to play for real (possibly dubbed) as the main character begins to sing (although he is listed as dubbed) in a radio performance that prompts his sweetheart to call the radio studio. The scene is an unusual mix of technologies during a period of transition from silents to sound.

7:48 AM -- SO YOU THINK YOU'RE NOT GUILTY (1950)
In this comedic short, a simple traffic violation turns into a 10-year jail sentence for Joe McDoakes. Vitaphone Release 1876A.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: Charles Sullivan, Douglas Fowley, Willard Waterman
BW- 11 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-reel -- Gordon Hollingshead

A rare entry in the Joe McDoakes series because there is no narrator.

8:00 AM -- THE BIG HOUSE (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone
BW- 87 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

This movie relaunched Wallace Beery's career. Before the coming of sound, he had been a top supporting player in silent films but had been dropped by his studio when sound came in. With this film being a huge hit, and Beery earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, he was back in favor, and within two years was the world's highest paid actor.

9:45 AM -- THE CRIMINAL CODE (1931)
A convict trying to reform is torn between conflicting loyalties when he witnesses a murder behind bars.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings
BW- 96 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo Jr.

The prison yard sequence was shot at M-G-M, using the set originally built for "The Big House" (1930).

11:30 AM -- I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932)
A World War I veteran faces inhuman conditions when he's sentenced to hard labor.
Dir: Mervyn Le Roy
Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson
BW- 93 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Muni, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director), and Best Picture

The film was based on the true story of Robert E. Burns. It sticks basically to the facts except for two instances: Burns actually did steal the $5.29 in order to eat, and he finally succeeded in evading the Georgia legal system with the help of three New Jersey governors. Burns actually slipped into Hollywood and worked for a few weeks on the film, but ultimately the stress and risk were too much, and he fled back to the safety of New Jersey. The book and film helped bring about the collapse of the brutal chain gang system in Georgia. Warner Bros. took a big chance on the film, as social commentary was not normally done in Hollywood pictures. However, this film was a critical and financial success and helped establish Warners as the studio with a social conscience - it also helped save the financially ailing company. Even though Georgia was never specifically named in the film, numerous lawsuits were filed against the studio, the film was banned in Georgia, and the studio's head and the film's director were told that should they ever find themselves in Georgia they would be treated to a dose of the "social evil" they so roundly denounced.

1:05 PM -- THEY'RE ALWAYS CAUGHT (1938)
This short film shows the role a crime laboratory plays in the solving of criminal investigations.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Stanley Ridges, John Eldredge, Louis Jean Heydt
BW- 22 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel

The eighteenth in the Crime Does Not Pay series from MGM.

1:30 PM -- CAGED (1950)
A young innocent fights to survive the harsh life in a women's prison.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby
BW- 97 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Eleanor Parker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Hope Emerson, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld

Eleanor Parker actually allowed her head to be shaved for the sake of reality in the scene where the two prison matrons, played brilliantly by Hope Emerson and Frances Morris, tie her up and shave her head.

3:15 PM -- I WANT TO LIVE! (1958)
True story of the small-time lady crook who fought to escape the gas chamber.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent
BW- 121 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Susan Hayward

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Wise, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Lionel Lindon, Best Sound -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), and Best Film Editing -- William Hornbeck

Barbara's actual response to the guard advising her to "take a deep breath, it's easier" was supposedly "How. The hell. Would you know?". Apparently it had to be cleaned up for the 1958 audience, which is ironic given the rather graphic nature of the scene.

5:30 PM -- KING RAT (1965)
A U.S. officer in a World War II Japanese POW camp tries to raise money to buy his fellow prisoners' freedom.
Dir: Bryan Forbes
Cast: George Segal, Patrick O'Neal, Todd Armstrong
BW- 135 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Robert Emmet Smith and Frank Tuttle

Some of the actors had been P.O.W.s in World War II. Denholm Elliott, while serving in the Royal Air Force, had been shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans.

7:47 PM -- A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (1937)
In this comedic short, a man and wife suffer through a night together at the movies.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Robert Benchley, King Baggot, Hal K. Dawson
BW- 10 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-reel

Inside Joke: Just after Robert Benchley buys his tickets from the cashier (played by Gwen Lee), he walks past a poster advertising the film My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937), which featured Lee.

TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ

8:00 PM -- ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
An ambitious young actress tries to take over a star's career and love life.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
BW- 138 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Sanders, Best Director -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Edith Head and Charles Le Maire, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Baxter, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Celeste Holm, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Thelma Ritter, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Milton R. Krasner, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lyle R. Wheeler, George W. Davis, Thomas Little and Walter M. Scott, Best Film Editing -- Barbara McLean, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alfred Newman

Upon learning that he had cast Bette Davis, one of her former directors, Edmund Goulding, rang up Joseph L. Mankiewicz and warned him that she would grind him down into a fine powder. This was a reference to her on-set behavior, not the least of which was rewriting her dialogue. The warning proved to be unnecessary, however, since Davis knew better than to mess with Mankiewicz's finely tuned screenplay. In fact, Mankiewicz found her to be one of the most professional and agreeable actresses he'd ever worked with.

10:30 PM -- A LETTER TO THREE WIVES (1948)
A small-town seductress notifies her three best friends that she has run off with one of their husbands.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern
BW- 103 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture

In the novel by John Klempner, there are five, not three wives. Two wives were eventually cut from the movie. Martha (Anne Baxter's character) and her husband locked horns over child-rearing issues while Geraldine (fifth wife) was devoting excessive time and money to her singing career with few results.

12:30 AM -- THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940)
A Spanish nobleman becomes a masked outlaw by night to battle a local tyrant.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone
BW- 94 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman

The famous duel was staged by Hollywood fencing master Fred Cavens. Cavens specialized in staging duels that relied more on actual swordplay rather than the jumping on furniture and leaping from balconies that many film "duels" consisted of up until that point. Cavens' son, Albert Cavens, doubled for Tyrone Power in the fancier parts of the duel (mostly with his back to camera), such as the extended exchange with Esteban ending with Don Diego's sword smashing into the bookcase. Basil Rathbone, a champion fencer in real life, did not care for the saber (the weapon of choice in this film), but nevertheless did all of his own fencing. Fast fencing shots were undercranked to 18 or 20 frames per second (as opposed to the standard 24fps) and all the sound effects were post-synchronized.

2:15 AM -- THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)
The bandit king of Sherwood Forest leads his Merry Men in a battle against the corrupt Prince John.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Basil Rathbone
C- 102 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Carl Jules Weyl, Best Film Editing -- Ralph Dawson, and Best Music, Original Score -- Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture

Swordmaster Fred Cavens, who staged the duels in Captain Blood (1935), was assigned to make the fight scenes exciting. Cavens believed the duels should be magnified and exaggerated for effect. His approach was to create a routine that was choreographed like a dance, with counts and phrases. Basil Rathbone was already an impressive fencer, so Errol Flynn trained with Cavens, though many sources say Flynn was less than dedicated to the task and relied more on his innate athletic ability. In this area, liberties were also taken with history. Although broadswords that would have been typical for the era were used (but designed as lighter and more manageable replicas), the fight scenes incorporated fencing techniques that would not be developed until decades later. Medieval swordplay involved a lot more hacking than finessed lunges and parries.

4:00 AM -- HOW TO SLEEP (1935)
In this comedy short, Robert Benchley tries to teach the audience how to sleep and how to fall asleep.
Dir: Nick Grinde
Cast: Robert Benchley,
BW- 11 mins,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Comedy -- Jack Chertok

4:15 AM -- THE FRONT PAGE (1931)
A crusading newspaper editor tricks his retiring star reporter into covering one last case.
Dir: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Adolph Menjou, Pat O'Brien, Mary Brian
BW- 101 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Adolphe Menjou, Best Director -- Lewis Milestone, and Best Picture

The last line of the play had to be partly obliterated by the sound of a typewriter being accidentally struck because the censors (even of that day) wouldn't allow the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" to be used in a film. But if you look closely on the walls of the newspaper room, you'll see topless photographs of female models. Before the Production Code kicked in a few years later, films were able to get away with casual nudity like this.