TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 2, 2024: Theodore Bikel Tribute / Director Frank Borzage (Part 1)

[Auggie]

Theodore Bikel (May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist, and political activist.

He appeared in films, including The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Kidnappers (1953), The Enemy Below (1957), I Want to Live! (1958), My Fair Lady (1964), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and 200 Motels (1971).

For his portrayal of Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones (1958--airing today), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He made his stage debut in Tevye the Milkman in Tel Aviv, British Mandatory Palestine, when he was in his teens. He later studied acting at Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made his London stage debut in 1948 and in New York in 1955.

He was also a widely recognized and recorded folk singer and guitarist. In 1959, he co-founded the Newport Folk Festival, and created the role of Captain von Trapp opposite Mary Martin as Maria in the original Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music.

In 1969, Bikel began acting and singing on stage as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, a role he performed more often than any other actor to date. The production won nine Tony Awards, and was one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Bikel




Frank Borzage (April 23, 1894 – June 19, 1962) was an American film director and actor. He was the first to win the Academy Award for Best Director for his film 7th Heaven (1927) at the 1st Academy Awards. In 1931 he was awarded a second Oscar for directing Bad Girl (1934).

Born to European immigrant parents in Salt Lake City, Borzage began his career as a teenager performing with traveling theater groups throughout the western United States before finding employment in Hollywood in 1912. He began directing and acting in short films before transitioning to feature films.

Borzage's other directorial feature credits include Street Angel (1928), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Man's Castle (1933), History Is Made at Night (1937), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Moonrise (1948).

His directorial career spans 48 years, from 1913 to 1961, and totals roughly 108 known films, over half of which were made during the silent era.

TCM's tribute to Borzage will continue on the evenings of May 9th and May 16th.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Borzage



Borzage and Marlene Dietrich on the set of "Desire" (1936 -- airing tonight).


----------- MORNING & AFTERNOON (EST) -----------

6:30 AM | The Angry Hills (1959)
A World War II correspondent fights to get strategic information out of occupied Greece.
Dir: Robert Aldrich | Cast: Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Elisabeth Mueller, Theodore Bikel

8:30 AM | The Pride and the Passion (1957)
A British naval officer helps Spanish peasants haul a large cannon cross-country to battle Napoleon.
Dir: Stanley Kramer | Cast: Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Theodore Bikel

11:00 AM | Sweet November (1968)
A woman refuses to let her romances last longer than one month.
Dir: Robert Ellis Miller | Cast: Anthony Newley, Sandy Dennis, Theodore Bikel

1:00 PM | My Fair Lady (1964)
A phonetics instructor bets that he can pass a street urchin off as a lady.
Dir: George Cukor | Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Theodore Bikel

4:00 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, Theodore Bikel

6:15 PM | The Defiant Ones (1958)
Two convicts, a white racist and an angry black, escape while chained to each other.
Dir: Stanley Kramer | Cast: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel

----------- PRIME TIME & LATE NIGHT -----------

8:00 PM | No Greater Glory (1934)
A frail boy fights to win acceptance from the leader of a street gang.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Frankie Darro, George P. Breakston, Jimmy Butler

9:30 PM | Man's Castle (1933)
An unemployed man turns to crime when he gets his girlfriend pregnant.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young, Marjorie Rambeau

11:00 PM | Secrets (1933)
A New England society girl braves the West to help her husband build his fortune.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard, C. Aubrey Smith

12:30 AM | A Farewell to Arms (1932)
An American soldier falls in love with a British nurse after being wounded at the front.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou

2:15 AM | Stranded (1935)
A Traveler's Aid worker who delights in solving people's problems gets mixed up with gangsters.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Patricia Ellis

3:30 AM | Desire (1936)
An automotive engineer bound for a holiday in Spain meets a sultry jewel thief.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, John Halliday

5:15 AM | The Circle (1925)
A wife on the verge of leaving her husband for another man meets the mother who deserted him years earlier.
Dir: Frank Borzage | Cast: Eleanor Boardman, Malcolm McGregor, Alec Francis

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Sweet November

Co-starring with Sandy Dennis and Anthony Newley. Not exactly a commercial success, but a really sweet movie.