TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 18, 2020 -- TCM Classic Film Festival -- The Home Version

[Staph]

It's day three of the TCM Classic Film Festival in your own living room. Tell us more, Roger!

The 11th TCM Classic Film Festival, originally scheduled for this month, was canceled due to growing concerns around public health that is currently affecting the world. But the Festival spirit continues, and the show must go on! This month, we invite you to celebrate at home with four days of film screenings and special coverage from previous years of our Festival, along with some that had been scheduled to screen at this year's 2020 event. Below are a few highlights.

April 18:
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Otto Preminger's drama about drug addiction starring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker and Kim Novak, played at the 2011 Festival. Preminger's daughter Victoria was in attendance, along with Sinatra's daughters Nancy and Tina.

Sergeant York (1941), a film biography of highly decorated World War I soldier Alvin C. York, played at the 2019 Festival with an introduction by York's son Andrew Jackson York and his grandson, Gerald York. Gary Cooper won a Best Actor Oscar for the film, which became the highest grossing of its year.

Safety Last! (1923), a silent comedy starring Harold Lloyd, played at the 2010 Festival with a live orchestra playing music composed and conducted by Robert Israel. Suzanne Lloyd, Harold's granddaughter, introduced the film. The sight of Lloyd clutching the hands of a clock as he dangles from a skyscraper in Safety Last! became one of the most iconic images of silent film.

. . .

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1956)
A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak
BW-119 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Frank Sinatra, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Elmer Bernstein

The Motion Picture Association of America originally refused to issue a seal for this movie because it shows drug addiction. The next year the production code was changed to allow movies to deal with drugs, kidnapping, abortion, and prostitution. The film was eventually assigned certificate no. 17011.


8:00 AM -- MAD LOVE (1935)
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists.
Dir: Karl Freund
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive
BW-68 mins, CC,

You may recognize the voice of Edward Brophy, who plays convicted killer Rollo. In addition to supporting roles and character parts in dozens of well-known films, Brophy also was the voice of Timothy, the circus mouse who befriended and mentored the flying baby elephant in Walt Disney's Dumbo.


9:15 AM -- DOUBLE HARNESS (1933)
After tricking a playboy into marriage, a woman sets out to win his love honestly.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Ann Harding, William Powell, Lucile Browne
BW-69 mins, CC,

This film hadn't been shown for decades and was found in a Merian C. Cooper collection that had been used for television. A 2-1/2-minute sequence that had been cut from the print was located in a French negative discovered in the National Center for Cinematography in France and restored to the print. The brief segment had been cut for television because it indicated that the characters of "Joan Colby" and "John Fletcher" were having pre-marital sex.


10:30 AM -- LAMBCHOPS (1929)
In this short film, George Burns and Gracie Allen perform a comic routine along with the musical number, "Do You Believe in Me? I Do." Cast: George Burns, Gracie Allen,
BW-8 mins,

George Burns wore a hat because his toupee was in his luggage, which was delayed during the last-minute trip to Astoria to film this short.


10:30 AM -- BABY ROSE MARIE THE CHILD WONDER (1929)
The incredibly talented Baby Rose Marie sings her heart out in this delightful short. Vitaphone Release 809.
Dir: Bryan Foy
BW-9 mins,

Yes, this Rose Marie is the Rose Marie most of us know from the Dick Van Dyke show, where she played writer Sally Rogers. Rose Marie was a legend of show business, with a career stretching 90 years, since her debut as her self in a Vitaphone musical short that appeared on the bill with The Jazz Singer (1927) at its premiere in 1927. According to Rose Marie, when she approached Al Jolson at The Wintergarden Theater in New York on the night of the premiere that made movie history and told him, "You were wonderful, Mr. Jolson!", his reply was, "Get away, you little brat!" "He didn't like kids," Rose Marie explained.


11:00 AM -- SERGEANT YORK (1941)
True story of the farm boy who made the transition from religious pacifist to World War I hero.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie
BW-134 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gary Cooper, and Best Film Editing -- William Holmes

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Brennan, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Margaret Wycherly, Best Director -- Howard Hawks, Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, John Huston and Howard Koch, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sol Polito, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Hughes and Fred M. MacLean, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

Alvin C. York had been approached by producer Jesse Lasky several times, beginning in 1919, to allow a movie to be made of his life, but had refused, believing that "This uniform ain't for sale." Lasky convinced York that, with war threatening in Europe, it was his patriotic duty to allow the film to proceed. York finally agreed - but only on three conditions. First, York's share of the profits would be contributed to a Bible School York wanted constructed. Second, no cigarette smoking actress could be chosen to play his wife. Third, that only Gary Cooper, could recreate his life on screen. Cooper at first turned down the role, but when York himself contacted the star with a personal plea, Cooper agreed to do the picture.


1:30 PM -- SAFETY LAST! (1923)
In this silent film, a small-town boy out to impress his girlfriend scales a skyscraper in the big city.
Dir: Fred Newmeyer
Cast: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother
BW-74 mins,

In 1919 Harold Lloyd was handed what he thought was a prop bomb, which he lit with his cigarette. It turned out to be real and exploded, blowing off Lloyd's right thumb and index finger, and putting him in the hospital for months. When he recovered, he went back to making movies, wearing a white glove while on screen to hide his damaged right hand. He did his stunts in this film and Feet First (1930), dangling from ledges, clocks and windows, using only eight fingers.


3:00 PM -- THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1949)
After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva
BW-95 mins, CC,

Robert Mitchum lobbied unsuccessfully for the role of Chicamaw. He told Nicholas Ray that he was very familiar with bank robbers and chain gangs, and even cut and dyed his hair black (in the original treatment Chicamaw was an Indian). He was rejected because he had recently been nominated for an Oscar, and a supporting role was considered unworthy for a rising star.


4:45 PM -- LIVE FROM THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL: FAYE DUNAWAY (2017)
During the 2016 TCM Classic Film Festival, Academy Award-winning actress Faye Dunaway sits down with host Ben Mankiewicz for a discussion of her life and career.
Dir: Anne McGill Wilson
Cast: Ben Mankiewicz, Faye Dunaway
BW-57 mins, CC,

Features clips from and discussion of Hurry Sundown (1967), The Happening (1967), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), A Place for Lovers (1968), The Arrangement (1969), Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), Little Big Man (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), Chinatown (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Network (1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), The First Deadly Sin (1980), Barfly (1987), Columbo: It's All in the Game (1993) (TV Episode), and Don Juan DeMarco (1994).


5:45 PM -- NETWORK (1976)
Television programmers turn a deranged news anchor into 'the mad prophet of the airwaves.'
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch
BW-121 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter Finch (Nomination and award were posthumous. Finch became the first posthumous winner in an acting category. His widow Eletha Finch and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Faye Dunaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beatrice Straight, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Paddy Chayefsky

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- William Holden, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Ned Beatty, Best Director -- Sidney Lumet, Best Cinematography -- Owen Roizman, Best Film Editing -- Alan Heim, and Best Picture

Sidney Lumet said that he shot the film using a specific lighting scheme. He said in the film's opening scenes, he shot with as little light as possible, shooting the film almost like a documentary. As the film progressed, he added more light and more camera moves and by the end of the film, it was as brightly lit and "slick" as he could make it. The idea was to visually convey the theme of media manipulation.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL--THE HOME VERSION



8:00 PM -- CASABLANCA (1942)
An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid
BW-103 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Arthur Edeson, Best Film Editing -- Owen Marks, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

In the 1980s this film's script was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, "Everybody Comes to Rick's". Some readers recognized the script but most did not. Many complained that the script was "not good enough" to make a decent movie. Others gave such complaints as "too dated", "too much dialog" and "not enough sex".


10:00 PM -- THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942)
A possessive son's efforts to keep his mother from remarrying threaten to destroy his family.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
BW-88 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Stanley Cortez, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, and Best Picture

RKO chopped 50 minutes of the film and added a happy ending while Orson Welles was out of the country. The footage was subsequently destroyed; the only record of the removed scenes is the cutting continuity transcript. The consensus of opinion according to nearly everyone who saw the original conclusion--which included a tour of the decaying Amberson mansion--was that it was much more powerful than the tacked-on "happy" ending.


11:45 PM -- NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950)
A London hustler has ambitious plans that never work out.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers
BW-96 mins,

Director Jules Dassin made the film while in the process of being blacklisted. Daryll Zanuck told him it may be the last filmed he'd ever direct, so he should shoot the most expensive scenes first so the studio wouldn't be able to blacklist him until it was completed.


1:30 AM -- LIVE FROM THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL: NORMAN LLOYD (2016)
101-year-old Norman Lloyd is interviewed at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2016.
BW-51 mins, CC,

As of today, Lloyd is 105 years old, ready to celebrate his 106th on November 8. His last acting credit (on IMDB) was Trainwreck (2015).


2:30 AM -- THE LADY VANISHES (1938)
A young woman on vacation triggers an international incident when she tries to track an elderly friend who has disappeared.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas
BW-96 mins, CC,

In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Sir Alfred Hitchcock revealed that this movie was inspired by a legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880s, at the time of the Great Exposition: "The woman was taken sick and they sent the girl across Paris to get some medicine in a horse-vehicle, so it took about four hours. When she came back she asked, 'How's my mother?' 'What mother?' 'My mother. She's here, she's in her room. Room 22.' They go up there. Different room, different wallpaper, everything. And the payoff of the whole story is, so the legend goes, that the woman had bubonic plague and they dared not let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied." The urban legend, known as the Vanishing Hotel Room, also formed the basis of one segment of the German portmanteau movie Eerie Tales (1919), So Long at the Fair (1950) (in which the missing person was the young woman's brother as opposed to her mother) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) season one, episode five, "Into Thin Air", starring Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock.


4:15 AM -- THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1927)
In this silent film, Joan of Arc braves the threat of torture to stand fast for her beliefs.
Dir: Carl Th. Dreyer
Cast: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, Antonin Artaud
BW-81 mins,

After completing the original cut of the film, director Carl Theodor Dreyer learned that the entire master print had been accidentally destroyed. With no ability to re-shoot, Dreyer re-edited the entire film from footage he had originally rejected.

[Dem2theMax]

1. There it is. Casablanca!

I am finally going to watch it. I stayed spoiler-free until today. I was watching a repeat of Mad Men, and of all things, one of the characters mentioned the ending of Casablanca. As in, gave it away.

I was able to avoid knowing the ending of the movie since my birth. That's many many many many years.

And today, Mad Men ruins it for me?

I have to do this.
I swear I live in a Marx Brothers movie!

[Staph]

2. Post-viewing, you are now required

to post your impressions of the film! Knowing the ending does not in any way ruin this film, as there are so many wonderful and quotable moments throughout the film. Claude Rains comes close to stealing the show, so far as I'm concerned!

[Dem2theMax]

3. Okay. You've got a deal!

Keep in mind I'm not a very in-depth person. It sometimes takes me many viewings to catch on to what someone was trying to tell me in a movie or a book.

Mad Men? This is my seventh go round. Somehow I didn't catch the Casablanca reference in the six previous viewings. But every time I watch this show, I figure out the characters a bit more. Seven viewings of each episode to catch on?

Don't hold out a lot of hope for me to give a Siskel and Ebert worthy review.

[CBHagman]

4. Love Claude Rains.

Oh, that voice, that timing. Not an icon because he doesn't fit into any neat categories — the fate of so many of the greats of the Golden Age of Hollywood — and was in everything.

Truly I'm interested in your reactions to Casablanca. It really can be whatever you want it to be, not what pop culture suggests it is.

[Dem2theMax]

5. Oh my gosh! I have never seen that picture of him before.

I thought he was a marvelous actor. It didn't matter what role it was, I could never take my eyes off of him. He owned the roles that he played.

I promise I will come back here and report on Casablanca, (and all of the other wonderful films I have yet to see,) that they are showing in the next few days. I'm very much looking forward to it!