TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 19, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Stories of Wyatt Earp

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Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 06:35 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM is honoring war time nurses. Take it away, Roger!

Women have a long history of serving as nurses to soldiers during wartime, dating to the earliest days of American history when nurses were largely untrained. During World War I, the American Red Cross signed up more than 22,000 trained nurses, about half of whom served on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Because their authority was often unrecognized, an agreement was reached in 1920 to assign nurses ranking as lieutenants, captains and majors. World War II saw the service of more than 59,000 American nurses, many of them assigned to serve closer to battlefields than ever before.

When the Korean War began, about 22,000 women served in the U.S. military, and about 7,000 of these were medical professionals. Just as in WWII, these nurses served on the battlefield, tending to wounded soldiers. During the Vietnam War, many nurses of both sexes were deployed to all the major Army hospitals. Nurses faced even greater dangers than before due to the unconventional nature of the conflict, and some died in Vietnam.

This daytime of films on TCM salutes the brave women who worked so valiantly to save lives during both World Wars, in Korea and Vietnam; as well as those who continue to serve today.

Films set during World War I include War Nurse (1930), starring Anita Page and June Walker as nurses facing a tumultuous life after arriving for service in France, with Robert Montgomery as a fatalistic fighter pilot. Born to Love (1931) stars Constance Bennett as an American nurse working in London, with Joel McCrea and Paul Cavanagh as the other members of a stormy romantic triangle. A Farewell to Arms (1932), Ernest Hemingway's famous tale of tragic love, was given its first screen treatment with Gary Cooper as the American expatriate and Helen Hayes as the British nurse with whom he falls in love during the Italian campaign of WWI.

Among the movies with World War II forming the background is Cry 'Havoc' (1943), with Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell heading a largely female cast as nurses working in a field hospital during the Battle of Bataan. Homecoming (1948) stars Clark Gable as a surgeon seeing wartime service as a U.S. Army colonel in Europe and forming a romantic triangle with a beautiful nurse (Lana Turner) and his wife back home (Anne Baxter).

The Korean War is the setting for Battle Circus (1953), starring Humphrey Bogart as a surgeon and commander of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, with June Allyson as the newly arrived nurse with whom he falls in love. In a similar situation set during the Vietnam War, Purple Hearts (1984) stars Ken Wahl as a Navy surgeon who falls for nurse Cheryl Ladd.

by Roger Fristoe

Then in prime time, TCM is telling the story of the lawman who made his name at the OK Corrall. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- BROADMINDED (1931)
A rejected suitor leaves town and gets mixed up in an international chase.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ona Munson, William Collier Jr.
BW-72 mins, CC,

Bela's Pancho Arango drives an automobile but Bela Lugosi is never seen behind the wheel, only exiting. It has been reported that, in real life, Bela Lugosi never drove, it was his wife Lillian who drove him around. It is unclear whether he ever learned.


7:30 AM -- BORN TO LOVE (1932)
A World War I pilot thought dead turns up after the mother of his child has married.
Dir: Paul L. Stein
Cast: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Cavanagh
BW-81 mins, CC,

Although the story takes place during World War, 1917-1918, and the years immediately thereafter, all of Constance Bennett's clothing and hairstyles are strictly from 1931, as are also those of the women extras and passersby.


9:00 AM -- WAR NURSE (1930)
A nurse fights to survive when she's caught behind enemy lines during World War I.
Dir: Edgar Selwyn
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, June Walker
BW-79 mins,

Loretta Young was replaced by Anita Page midway through filming, which led to her scenes being deleted and re-shot. Young can briefly be seen in a long shot.


10:30 AM -- A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1932)
An American serving in World War I falls for a spirited nurse.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou
BW-89 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Charles Lang, and Best Sound, Recording -- Franklin Hansen (sound director)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson, and Best Picture

Censorship problems arose from early versions of the script, which included phases of Catherine's actual childbirth and references to labor pains, gas, her groaning and hemorrhaging. After these were removed, the MPPDA approved the script, and even issued a certificate for re-release in 1938 when the censorship rules were more strictly enforced. Still, the film was rejected in British Columbia and in Australia, where Hemingway's book was also banned.


12:00 PM -- CRY 'HAVOC' (1944)
A group of war nurses fights to survive the siege of Bataan.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell
BW-97 mins, CC,

The play originally opened in a small theater in Hollywood, CA, in late September 1942, with the title "Cry Havoc". It opened on Broadway in New York City on 25 December 1942 with the title "Proof Through the Night", but changed the title back to "Cry Havoc" on 30 December 1942, probably because of bad notices. However, it closed on 2 January 1943 after only 11 performances. The opening night cast included Carol Channing and Ann Shoemaker.


1:45 PM -- HOMECOMING (1948)
A married man's wartime love affair spells trouble when peace comes.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Anne Baxter
BW-113 mins, CC,

According to the AFI catalog entry for this film, for the battle scenes in Italy MGM constructed five 35-foot towers, a full-sized evacuation hospital, and more than 100 Army tents at the Lasky-Mesa movie ranch 35 miles outside of Hollywood. The set took three weeks to set up and the scenes used hundreds of extras, five cameras and six assistant directors.


3:45 PM -- BATTLE CIRCUS (1953)
A doctor fights for his life during the Korean War.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn
BW-90 mins, CC,

The film originally had a different title but the studio and the director thought that title would mislead audiences, so "Battle Circus" was instead chosen. The original title that was rejected was "MASH 66," which referred to the same Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit in the Korean War later made famous in both the film MASH (1970) and the TV series M*A*S*H (1972).


5:30 PM -- PURPLE HEARTS (1984)
In middle of the Vietnam War, a Navy surgeon and a nurse fall in love.
Dir: Sidney J. Furie
Cast: Ken Wahl, Cheryl Ladd, Stephen Lee
BW-115 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The second film in Sidney J. Furie's trilogy of Vietnam War pictures. The first was The Boys in Company C (1978), about infantry soldiers in basic training and combat. Purple Hearts (1984) was packaged with the promotional subtitle "A Vietnam Love Story". The third is Going Back (2001), the story of Vietnam veterans returning to the war torn country decades later with a television film crew. Furie's The Veteran (2006), re-used footage from Going Back with newly shot material. Furie only took the job on The Veteran because they were going to re-use his footage anyway, and he wanted control over it. Furie also directed a trilogy of military-themed pictures in the aughts: American Soldiers (2005), The Four Horsemen (2008), and Conduct Unbecoming (2011).


7:30 PM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #30 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon discusses Greta Garbo's early career; Irene Papas introduces behind-the-scenes footage from "Tribute to a Badman."
BW-25 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STORIES OF WYATT EARP



8:00 PM -- MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946)
When the Clantons steal his family's cattle and kill his brother, Wyatt Earp signs on as sheriff of Tombstone and vows to bring them in.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature
BW-97 mins, CC,

While the character of Clementine Carter was by and large a product of the movie's fiction, she did have a historical counterpart in Doc Holliday's first cousin named Martha Ann "Mattie" Holliday. Mattie was the eldest daughter of Robert Kennedy Holliday and Mary Anne Fitzgerald. Although romantic relationships and marriage between cousins were common in the Southern United States of the nineteenth century, Mattie's devout Catholic parents wholeheartedly disapproved. When Doc left Georgia in 1873, Mattie was distraught after separating from the only man she truly loved. His farewell to her surely was an emotional time and as a result she never married. There would be no other man for her after John. In 1883, unlike her cinematic counterpart, Mattie decided to enter the Sisters of Mercy Convent to become a Catholic nun. As Sister Mary Melanie she would become an elementary school teacher, exactly like her cinematic counterpart. Although Sister Mary never made a trip out west to bring Doc home, they corresponded via letters for the rest of his life. After Doc's death in 1887 her letters were among the possessions of his sent back to Georgia. Most of these letters were burned after Sister Mary's death in 1939 by her sister, who feared that the letters were tarnish the nun's reputation. What those letters revealed may never be known, but Sister Mary was reborn on screen as Clementine Carter. (And one more bit of cinematic trivia - Mattie Holliday was a distant cousin of Margaret Mitchell, who included the saintly figure in her novel, as Melanie Hamilton Wilkes!)


10:00 PM -- WICHITA (1955)
Wyatt Earp fights to straighten out a crooked cow town.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Joel McCrea, Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges
C-81 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Wyatt Earp was 26 when he came to Wichita. His romantic interest is portrayed by Vera Miles, who was also 26. Earp is played by Joel McCrea, who was 49 at the time of filming.


11:30 PM -- WINCHESTER '73 (1950)
A man combs the West in search of his stolen rifle.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea
C-92 mins, CC,

The filmmakers did not have the budget to pay James Stewart his requested fee of $200,000, so he suggested they take the then-unusual step of paying him a cut of the profits instead. This deal, the first of its kind since the advent of talkies, would soon become the norm and change the studio-agent-actor relationship, leading to the demise of the long-term contract and the studio system. Stewart is believed to have made around $600,000 from this film.


1:15 AM -- DOC (1971)
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday deal with personal problems while preparing for the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Dir: Frank Perry
Cast: Faye Dunaway, Harris Yulin, Mike Witney
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Stacy Keach portrays famous western figure Doc Holliday in this film. Less than a decade later, he would portray another legendary western figure, Frank James, in The Long Riders.


3:15 AM -- DODGE CITY (1939)
A soldier of fortune takes on the corrupt boss of a Western town.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Ann Sheridan
C-104 mins, CC,

Olivia de Havilland regarded the project as a career letdown. She was tired of the string of ingenue parts Warners steadily provided, and her preference for the saloon singer role that went to Ann Sheridan went unheeded. "It was a period in which she was given to constant fits of crying and long days spent at home in bed," declared Tony Thomas in "The Films of Olivia de Havilland" (Citadel Press). "She was bored with her work and while making 'Dodge City' she claims that she even had trouble remembering her lines."


5:00 AM -- BADMAN'S COUNTRY (1958)
Showdown in Abilene between lawmen Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Butch Cassidy's gang over a large shipment of money arriving by train.
Dir: Fred F. Sears
Cast: George Montgomery, Neville Brand, Buster Crabbe
BW-69 mins, CC,

Released after director Fred Sears' death.