TCM Schedule for Thursday, February 14, 2019 -- 31 Days of Oscar - Favorite Movie Wedding

[Staph]

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2019, 10:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Get your hankies out - today's 31 Days of Oscar themes are: daylight - A Good Cry (1938's Dark Victory wipes me out every time!), prime time - Favorite Movie Wedding (1940's The Philadelphia Story vs 1950's Father of the Bride), and night time - Favorite Movie Divorce (1979's Kramer vs. Kramer vs. 1936's Dodsworth). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- LOVE AFFAIR (1939)
Near-tragic misunderstandings threaten a shipboard romance.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya
BW-88 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maria Ouspenskaya, Best Writing, Original Story -- Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey, Best Art Direction -- Van Nest Polglase and Alfred Herman, Best Music, Original Song -- Buddy G. DeSylva for the song "Wishing", and Best Picture

In 1957, director Leo McCarey remade the movie as An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne had previously co-starred in The Awful Truth (1937), which was also directed by McCarey.) The movie was remade a second time as Love Affair (1994), starring Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, and Katharine Hepburn, directed by Glenn Gordon Caron.


7:45 AM -- RANDOM HARVEST (1942)
A woman's happiness is threatened when she discovers her husband has been suffering from amnesia.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn
BW-126 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ronald Colman, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Susan Peters, Best Director -- Mervyn LeRoy, Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Froeschel, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell, Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Herbert Stothart, and Best Picture

Ronald Colman had first-hand experience of shell shock - he had fought in the British army at the Battle of Ypres in World War I, during which he was also gassed.


10:00 AM -- WATERLOO BRIDGE (1940)
A ballerina turns to prostitution when her fiance is reported killed in World War I.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson
BW-109 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Music, Original Score -- Herbert Stothart

The scene in which Myra and Roy dance to "Auld Lang Syne" was supposed to have dialogue, but nobody could come up with the right words. At about 3:00 in the morning before shooting the scene was to take place, Mervyn LeRoy, a veteran of silent films, realized that there shouldn't be any lines and that the images should speak for themselves. The result is the most celebrated scene of the film.


12:00 PM -- DARK VICTORY (1939)
A flighty heiress discovers inner strength when she develops a brain tumor.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart
BW-104 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

During the filming of the emotionally-charged scene when Bette Davis's character needs to find her way upstairs to her room after the brain tumor has caused her blindness, the cast and crew and several visitors were watching as Davis grasped the banister and began to feel her way up the steps, one by one. Halfway to the top of the staircase Davis paused, stopped the scene, briskly walked back downstairs and addressed director Edmund Goulding. "Ed," Davis said, "is Max Steiner going to be composing the music score to this picture?" Goulding, surprised by the question, replied that he didn't know, and asked Davis why the matter was important enough to stop the filming of the scene. "Well, either I'm going to climb those stairs or Max Steiner is going to climb those stairs," Davis responded, "but I'll be God-DAMNED if Max Steiner and I are going to climb those stairs together!"


1:45 PM -- SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961)
Sexual repression drives a small-town Kansas girl mad during the roaring twenties.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle
C-124 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Inge

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Natalie Wood

For the scene in which Deanie tries to drown herself in the lake, Natalie Wood asked Elia Kazan if she could do it in a controlled studio tank because she had a great fear of water - particularly dark water. "I assured her it was a very shallow lake and that her feet would always be close to the bottom," said Kazan. "She said that even if her feet were on the bottom, she'd be in a panic of fear about it. So I asked my assistant, Charlie Maguire, to get into the water with her, just out of camera range, while she played the scene of struggling to save herself. This didn't entirely reassure her, but she did the scene and did it well - then clutched Charlie. 'Cut!' I cried. On dry land she continued to shake with fear, then laughed hysterically, with relief."


4:00 PM -- ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO (1940)
A French nobleman falls in love with his children's governess.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn
BW-143 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Barbara O'Neil, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Picture

Barbara O'Neil was extremely unhappy with how her character was portrayed on screen; she felt that the Duchesse should be less glamorous and much older looking so that it would make more sense that her character would have more reason to be jealous of the much younger Henriette.


6:30 PM -- BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945)
Two married strangers meet in a train station and fall in love.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
BW-87 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Celia Johnson, Best Director -- David Lean, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean and Ronald Neame

This was David Lean's first film to use trains and train stations, which would become a trademark of his work, appearing in such films as Summertime (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965).



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: FAVORITE MOVIE WEDDING



8:00 PM -- THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Tabloid reporters crash a society marriage.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
BW-112 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Donald Ogden Stewart

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ruth Hussey, Best Director -- George Cukor, and Best Picture

The necklace that Dinah says "stinks" -- and later wears to entertain the reporters -- is a copy of the necklace from Marie Antoinette's "The Affair of the Necklace". You can see it in Norma Shearer's Marie Antoinette (1938), as well.


10:00 PM -- FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950)
A doting father faces mountains of bills and endless trials when his daughter marries.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor
BW-93 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, and Best Picture

In the film, one of the gifts Kay gets as a present is a Venus de Milo statue with a clock in the stomach, which Spencer Tracy refers to as a "stinker". This same gift makes its way into the 1991 re-make (Father of the Bride (1991)) among the presents, and is still not received well.


12:00 AM -- KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979)
When his wife leaves him, an ad exec gets a crash course in parenting.
Dir: Robert Benton
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dustin Hoffman, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Meryl Streep, Best Director -- Robert Benton, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Benton, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Justin Henry (At age 8 years, 10 months and 20 days, Henry is (to date) the youngest nominee for any competitive honor in Academy Award history.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Alexander, Best Cinematography -- Néstor Almendros, and Best Film Editing -- Gerald B. Greenberg

The strength of the performances of the two leads can be at least partly attributed to what was going on in their private lives at the time. Dustin Hoffman was in the midst of a messy divorce, while Meryl Streep was still recovering from the death of her lover, John Cazale.


2:00 AM -- DODSWORTH (1936)
A husband whose wife left him looks for new love in Europe.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas
BW-101 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Richard Day

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Walter Huston, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maria Ouspenskaya, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Howard, Best Sound, Recording -- Oscar Lagerstrom (United Artists SSD), and Best Picture

William Wyler thought the characterization of Mrs. Dodsworth was too black and white and insisted on some subtleties to the performance. Ruth Chatterton vigorously disagreed with this interpretation and the two would often argue fiercely on the subject. At one point Chatterton slapped Wyler across the face and retreated to her dressing room. In her memoirs, Mary Astor observed that Chatterton's character "was that of a woman trying to hang onto her youth--which was exactly what Ruth herself was doing. It touched a nerve."


4:00 AM -- THE WINDOW (1949)
A boy who always lies witnesses a murder but can't get anyone but the killer to believe him.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff
Cast: Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart
BW-73 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson

This film was shot in the latter part of 1947 but shelved by RKO boss Howard Hughes and released in 1949. When Bobby Driscoll got his juvenile Oscar in 1950 he was 13 years old.


5:30 AM -- THE GREEN YEARS (1946)
An orphaned Irish boy is taken in by his mother's Scottish relations.
Dir: Victor Saville
Cast: Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler
BW-125 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- George J. Folsey

Not only was Jessica Tandy two years older than Hume Croyon, who played her father, they had been married for four years (from 1942 to her death in 1994). Their second child Tandy Croyon was born 26th November, 1945, so Jessica Tandy would have been carrying her during filming.

[jodymarie aimee]

1. Random Harvest

is magnificent...

[Matilda]

2. Brief Encounter

was screened some months ago at my local cinema. I'd never seen it on the big screen, so booked tickets for Mr Matilda and myself to go along on the Sunday afternoon.

The screening was preceded by a concert by well-known Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi, who played Gershwin (his speciality), Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, etc.

Two women seated next to me had obviously come along to see and hear Tedeschi, and were debating whether to stay for the film, which they didn't know. I leaned over and said to them, "It's the most romantic film I've ever seen". We chatted for a while, and they decided to stay.

At the end, the woman next to me turned and said, "I'm so glad you persuaded us to stay. But I didn't want it to end like that!" But I took some satisfaction that I'd gained two new admirers for the film, and went home feeling very pleased with myself.