TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 28, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Spotlight: It's About Time

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating Lionel Barrymore, born Lionel Herbert Blythe on April 28, 1878, in Philadelphia. From his mini-bio on IMDB:

The legendary Lionel Barrymore, one of the great cinema character actors, was the oldest of the three Barrymmore siblings. Along with Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore, he shares a prominent place in American acting in the first half of the 20th Century. In addition to winning a Best Actor Academy Award (for A Free Soul (1931)), Lionel also was an Oscar-nominated director (for Madame X (1929)) and a prolific composer of songs as well as an accomplished graphic artist. He now is best known for his portrayal of the evil banker Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), though he once was renowned for playing Ebeneezer Scrooge each year on the radio broadcast of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" as well as appearing as the irascible Doctor Gillespie in the Doctor Kildare movie series.

Lionel never developed the heightened reputation as a stage actor enjoyed by his siblings John (who still reigns as the definitive American Hamlet) and sister Ethel. As a screen actor, he was ranked among the best. (Ethel, like Lionel, would win an Oscar. John, despite his reputation as the greatest actor of his generation, was never even nominated, handicapped in those days by being a freelance actor with no ties to a studio, which practiced block voting for Oscars.)

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In addition to acting at Biograph, Lionel also tried his hand at directing. At Metro Pictures, he helmed many pictures, including directing his sister Ethel in Life's Whirlpool (1917) (1917). That was his last silent picture as director; he would not sit in the director's chair again until the advent of the talkies. His success as a movie actor was assured when he joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1926, two years after the studio's formation, having already developed a strong relationship with Louis B. Mayer at Metro Pictures. He would remain a contract player with MGM until his death 30 years later, though he occasionally was loaned out.

At MGM, he became a star in the talkies and continued as a stalwart character lead and supporting player for parts of four decades, appearing opposite the studio's biggest stars, including John Gilbert, Lon Chaney (for whom he served as a pallbearer at his funeral), Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy. In non-MGM films, he appeared with Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson (1928) and was reunited with D.W. Griffith in the director's Drums of Love (1928). He also was loaned out to director Frank Capra for You Can't Take It with You (1938) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and to producer David O. Selznick for the Technicolor Western potboiler Duel in the Sun (1946).

With the arrival of the talkies, Lionel's stage-trained, mellifluous voice proved to be a great asset, though initially the studio assigned him to directing assignments. He directed Gilbert in His Glorious Night (1929) and guided Ruth Chatterton to consideration for an Oscar in Madame X (1929), for which he garnered his own Oscar nod as Best director. He returned to acting full-time in 1931, giving the performance that won him a Best Actor Oscar in A Free Soul (1931) with Shearer and Gable. He was memorable as Rasputin the 1932 film Rasputin and the Empress (1932), in which he co-starred with John and Ethel. He also appeared with John in the classics Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933), although in the latter film, they had no scenes together.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the aging Barrymore played grouchy old men, for MGM and on loan-out (including John Huston's Key Largo (1948) with Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson at Warner Bros.). He was well-known for playing Doctor Gillespie in the Doctor Kildare movies of the 1930s and 1940s. By the time of Doctor Kildare, Barrymore was disabled, having broken his hip twice, with his deteriorating condition exacerbated by arthritis. After 1938's _Captains Courageous (1938)_, he was never filmed standing again, playing his roles in a wheelchair. (He appeared in Frank Capra's 1938 Best Picture Academy Award winning You Can't Take It with You (1938) on crutches, which caused him a great deal of pain.) His last movie was the musical comedy Main Street to Broadway (1953), in which he appeared with his sister Ethel. (John had passed away from the deleterious effects of alcoholism in 1942.) He died the following year, on November 15, 1954 at the age of 76 after suffering a heart attack.

Then in prime time, it's the last of the TCM Spotlight on Time. My favorite of tonight's films is Orlando (1992). The costumes are fabulous!

There’s love and music in the air the final Thursday of the series, starting with A Matter of Life and Death (1946) by the key British film partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus, 1947; The Red Shoes, 1948). David Niven plays an RAF pilot who goes down in his bomber over the English Channel. The guide sent to escort him up the grand staircase to the Other World (giving the film its initial U.S. release title Stairway to Heaven) misses the pilot in the thick fog, and Niven finds himself alive against all laws and logic of the universe. To complicate matters, he meets and falls in love with June (Kim Hunter, cast on the suggestion of Alfred Hitchcock) and must prepare a defense for an appeal before a celestial court. In the end, according to a line near the movie’s conclusion, “nothing is stronger than the law in the universe, but on Earth nothing is stronger than love.”

Sally Potter’s Orlando (1992), loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, follows an apparently immortal young nobleman through the centuries, from Elizabethan times to the 1990s, dabbling in art and poetry along the way and transforming into a woman who must fight for the estate bequeathed by the queen. Who else but Tilda Swinton could have played the androgynous title character? Potter had seen her in a play and was impressed with the “profound subtlety about the way she took on male body language and handled maleness and femaleness.” Although the story was deemed by industry executives to be “unmakeable, impossible, far too expensive and anyway not interesting,” the film received high praise from many critics, inspired a 2020 Costume Institute exhibit at New York’s Met museum and has been the subject of many queer theory studies and performance projects.

Time is a factor in two featured musicals based on Broadway plays. On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) is really more about reincarnation (a kind of spiritual time travel) as a therapist (Yves Montand) falls for a kooky patient (Barbra Streisand at the height of her early stardom) when he hypnotizes her and uncovers her past life as a glamorous social climber in Regency era England. Brigadoon (1954) is the name of a mysterious Scottish village that appears for just a day every 100 years. Two Americans (Gene Kelly and Van Johnson) stumble upon the magical town, and Kelly falls for one of the local lasses (Cyd Charisse). Economic restrictions set by MGM forced director Vincente Minnelli to film entirely on studio sets rather than on location and to use the less expensive one-strip Metrocolor process. The one Lerner and Loewe song to outlast the film’s disappointing initial run is “Almost Like Being in Love.”

Also showing: the romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time (1980). Christopher Reeve, fresh off his success in Superman (1978), wills himself back to the early 20th century to meet the actress (Jane Seymour) whose photograph has obsessed him. Although the film was not a box office success, the much-praised score by John Barry (Born Free, 1966; Out of Africa, 1985; most of the original James Bond movies) became a best-selling soundtrack album.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Gorgeous Hussy (1936)
1h 42m | Romance | TV-PG
President Andrew Jackson's friendship with an innkeeper's daughter spells trouble for them.
Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beulah Bondi, and Best Cinematography -- George J. Folsey

The movie was based on historical events, but was inaccurate on several major points: Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill and Bow Timberlake were married in 1818. They were married for 12 years (not three months, as depicted in the film), and had three children together, two of whom lived to adulthood. In 1828 Bow Timberlake died of pulmonary disease while serving on the U.S.S. Constitution. There were unsubstantiated rumors that he had committed suicide after hearing of an affair between Peggy and Tennessee Sen. John Eaton. In fact, Timberlake and Eaton were good friends and Timberlake had asked him to take care of Peggy and his children if anything happened to him. At Andrew Jackson's suggestion, Peggy Timberlake and John Eaton were married in January 1829, only a few months after Peggy learned of her first husband's death. The "Petticoat Scandal," as it was called, resulted from Peggy's violating social standards of the day by not spending a year "in mourning" for her husband before marrying again. When Jackson's entire cabinet resigned as a result of the scandal, Eaton resigned as well. He was appointed first as governor of the Florida territory and later as U.S. Ambassador to Spain by Jackson.


8:00 AM -- The Return of Peter Grimm (1936)
1h 23m | Drama | TV-PG
A strong-willed patriarch returns from the dead to amend the wrongs he did his family.
Director: George Nicholls Jr.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Helen Mack, Edward Ellis

The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 17 October 1911 and closed in May 1912 after 231 performances. The opening night cast included Thomas Meighan as James and John St. Polis as Frederik.


9:30 AM -- Young Dr. Kildare (1938)
1h 7m | Drama | TV-G
A medical school graduate must choose between a small-town practice and a big-city internship.
Director: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Lew Ayres, Lynne Carver

This was the first film in which Lionel Barrymore played gruff-voiced but soft-hearted Dr. Gillespie. One of MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer's favorite actors, the irascible Barrymore was cast in this role after he had played Judge Hardy in the first of the studio's Andy Hardy movies, A Family Affair. Mayer was determined that, as long as he lived, Barrymore would be employed by the studio and when Lionel's health confined him to a wheelchair, the part of Gillespie was re-written to accommodate Barrymore's condition. He would go on to play Gillespie in 14 more films.


11:00 AM -- Three Wise Fools (1946)
1h 30m | Comedy | TV-G
An orphan girl melts the hearts of three crusty old men.
Director: Edward Buzzell
Cast: Margaret O'brien, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone

Lux Radio Theater broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on September 1, 1947 with Margaret O'Brien and Lionel Barrymore reprising their film roles.


12:45 PM -- Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
2h 13m | Drama | TV-PG
True story of the mad monk who plotted to rule Russia.
Director: Richard Boleslavsky
Cast: John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Charles MacArthur

Annoyed that his brother John Barrymore was trying to show him up by placing his hand on him while he was finishing a scene (an ancient actor's technique for drawing attention to oneself), Lionel Barrymore excused himself from the set and went to the back lot to find a telephone. He then phoned the set and told director Richard Boleslawski that "he'd better advise Mr. John Barrymore to not place his hand on me at the close of this scene, lest I lay one on him!" By the time Lionel returned to the set, John has been advised to keep his hands to himself.


3:00 PM -- Mark of the Vampire (1935)
1h 1m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Vampires seem to be connected to an unsolved murder.
Director: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allen, Lionel Atwill

Throughout the film, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) has an unexplained bullet wound on his temple. In the original script Mora was supposed to have had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Luna, and to have committed suicide. After filming began, however, MGM deleted references to the crime (and any remaining references may have been deleted when 20 minutes of footage was removed after the film's preview). Because director Tod Browning's previous film, Freaks (1932), had been a box-office disaster, he was unable to object to any changes made by the studio.


4:15 PM -- A Free Soul (1931)
1h 31m | Drama | TV-G
A hard-drinking lawyer's daughter falls for one of his underworld clients.
Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Lionel Barrymore

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Norma Shearer, and Best Director -- Clarence Brown

The role of Stephen Ashe won Lionel Barrymore his only Academy Award nomination for acting in his long film career (though he did garner a Best Director nomination for Madame X (1929)). His role in this film is actually the fourth lead, and would likely have been nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category had it existed in 1931. Thus, as an Oscar winner, Barrymore holds the record for a Best Actor win achieved with the least amount of screen time, and his portrayal is, to this day, the only supporting performance to win the Best Actor award.


6:00 PM -- Dinner at Eight (1933)
1h 53m | Comedy | TV-PG
A high-society dinner party masks a hotbed of scandal and intrigue.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery

As originally filmed, Carlotta's dog was named Mussolini. However, due to the changing world political climate of the 1930's, the dog's name was post-dubbed as "Tarzan", even though Marie Dressler's lips are clearly saying "Mussolini".



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- IT'S ABOUT TIME



8:00 PM -- A Matter of Life and Death (1947)
1h 44m | Romance | TV-PG
An injured aviator argues in celestial court for the chance to go on living.
Director: Michael Powell
Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote

The first scene shot was David Niven washing up on the beach. Originally planned to fade in from black, Michael Powell decided on the spot that the effect would be too cheesy. When Jack Cardiff told him to look through the camera, Cardiff then deliberately breathed right onto the lens, which fogged the glass for a few seconds until it evaporated. Powell loved the idea and had him use it for the shot.


10:00 PM -- Somewhere in Time (1980)
A young playwright is captivated by the portrait of a stage actress from the turn of the century.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design -- Jean-Pierre Dorléac

While Christopher Reeve was filming this movie, the local theater decided to show his latest hit Superman (1978). Many of the "Somewhere" cast joined the locals for the event. Early into the screening, the sound went out. Reeve, who was seated next to Jane Seymour, stood up in the audience and delivered all the lines.


12:00 AM -- Orlando (1992)
1h 33m | Epic | TV-MA
An immortal noble experiences four centuries of sexual politics.
Director: Sally Potter
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Quentin Crisp

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Ben van Os and Jan Roelfs, and Best Costume Design -- Sandy Powell

Orlando, both the film and the novel, was the main inspiration for both the 2020 spring exhibition of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 2020 Met Gala. The exhibition, entitled "About Time: Fashion and Duration", was specifically inspired by the "labyrinth" scene in Orlando, where Tilda Swinton runs through the labyrinth dressed in an 18th-century gown before she reappears dressed in mid-19th century garb. Using that scene as the initial inspiration, curator Andrew Bolton took "Orlando's concept of time and the manner in which she/he moves seamlessly through the centuries" to "trace more than a century and a half of fashion, illustrating how garments of the past influence the present."


1:45 AM -- Brigadoon (1954)
1h 48m | Musical | TV-G
Two American hunters in Scotland discover a mystical village that only materializes once every century.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, E. Preston Ames, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason, Best Costume Design, Color -- Irene Sharaff, and Best Sound, Recording -- Wesley C. Miller (M-G-M)

Actor Gene Kelly and director Vincente Minnelli both wanted to film Brigadoon (1954) on location in Scotland but, in a cost-saving move, the studio insisted that it be shot entirely within the studio's confines. Minnelli later admitted that this decision drained any enthusiasm he had for the project which led to a cursory, paint-by-numbers transcription of the Broadway show. Indeed, when it was released, critics noted the staged 'studio feel' of the movie. The same cost-cutting measures befell Stanley Donen's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) that same year, also forced to shoot indoors. But Donen believed so much in his project that he managed to overcome the obstacle, which Minnelli did not, despite having had double the budget of Donen's film.


4:00 AM -- Jubilee (1978)
1h 43m | Musical | TV-MA
An immortal noble experiences four centuries of sexual politics.
Director: Derek Jarman
Cast: Jenny Runacre, Nell Campbell (little Nell), Toyah ...

In her opening speech, Amyl Nitrate tells us that her favourite song is "Don't Dream It, Be It". That song was written for The Rocky Horror Show (filmed as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)) by co-star Richard O'Brien, who plays court magician John Dee.