Classic Films

Staph

(6,251 posts) Tue Dec 31, 2013, 05:15 PM Dec 2013

TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 4, 2014 -- The Essentials - Walter Pidgeon

Tonight's Essentials feature a trio of films starring Walter Pidgeon, The Bad And The Beautiful (1952), Design For Scandal (1941), and That Forsyte Woman (1949)

6:30 AM -- Caged (1950)
A young innocent fights to survive the harsh life in a women's prison.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby
97 min, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Eleanor Parker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Hope Emerson, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld

In order to do research for the film, Virginia Kellogg pulled some strings to incarcerate herself in a woman's prison. What she wrote once she was out was not so much a screenplay, but a kind of almanac of everything she witnessed while in prison. Warner Bros. then got their screenwriters to make a screenplay out of it.

8:15 AM -- Act of Love (1953)
An American soldier romances a beautiful Parisian during the final days of World War II.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Dany Robin, Barbara Laage
106 min, TV-PG

Kirk Douglas met his German wife-to-be, Anne Douglas, when she applied for a job as his assistant on the French location shoot for this film.

10:15 AM -- Carson on TCM: Kirk Douglas (8/31/88) (2013)
TCM presents an interview from The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, with Kirk Douglas from 8/31/88.
C-10 min, TV-PG

10:30 AM -- Undercover Maisie (1947)
A stranded showgirl joins the police force and risks her life to expose a phony psychic.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Ann Sothern, Barry Nelson, Mark Daniels
90 min, TV-G

The last of MGM's 10 "Maisie" frolics released between 1939 and 1947, this film was the only installment which failed to net a contemporary New York Times review.

12:00 PM -- The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)
Twain moves from Mississippi riverboats to the Gold Rush to literary immortality.
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp
130 min, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Hughes and Fred M. MacLean, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Paul Detlefsen (photographic), John Crouse (photographic) and Nathan Levinson (sound), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

The scene where Clemens receives an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1907 was the recreation of an event that C. Aubrey Smith, who plays the Oxford Chancellor, actually witnessed.

2:15 PM -- Hang 'Em High (1968)
A mysterious drifter survives a lynching then goes back for revenge.
Dir: Ted Post
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley
C-115 min, TV-14

The first film produced by Clint Eastwood's Malpaso Company.

4:15 PM -- The Hindenburg (1975)
Sabotage causes the airship Hindenburg to crash on arrival at New York in this disaster film.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton
125 min, TV-14

Won Oscar Special Achievement Awards for Peter Berkos for sound effects, and for Albert Whitlock and Glen Robinson for visual effects.

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Edward C. Carfagno and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Sound -- Leonard Peterson, John A. Bolger Jr., John L. Mack and Don Sharpless

WLS radio announcer Herbert Morrison was present at the scene of the Hindenburg crash, along with his engineer Charlie Nehlsen, and recorded an eyewitness account of the unfolding tragedy. This audio clip can be heard at the end of the film. However, Nehlsen's recorder was running a bit slow, so that when the recording is played back at normal speed, the pitch of Morrison's real speaking voice is raised slightly. Also note that a slight cracking is audible at one point during the recording. This was caused by the shockwave of the explosion reaching the recorder just after Morrison shouts "It's burst into flames!"

6:30 PM -- The Thing From Another World (1951)
The crew of a remote Arctic base fights off a murderous monster from outer space.
Dir: Christian Nyby
Cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite
87 min, TV-PG

IMDB says that this was partly filmed in Glacier National Park and at a Los Angeles ice storage plant. But my father, who was raised in Cut Bank, Montana, and worked for a few years at the airport there, says that his buddies told him that it was filmed in part at the Cut Bank Airport, during a typical Montana winter.

TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: WALTER PIDGEON

8:00 PM -- The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
An unscrupulous movie producer uses everyone around him in his climb to the top.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Elaine Stewart, Sammy White, Leo G. Carroll
118 min, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gloria Grahame, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Schnee, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Edward C. Carfagno, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Kirk Douglas

The character of Shields is regarded as a mixture of David O. Selznick, Orson Welles, and Val Lewton. Georgia, the alcoholic daughter of an iconic actor, is very clearly based on Diana Barrymore. Bartlow, the college professor turned bestselling author turned screenwriter, is thought to be based on Paul Green, a UNC professor who followed a similar career track. Gilbert Roland appearance as "Gaucho" is seen as a self-parody; the Mexican-born actor, once a star in silent dramas, had just appeared as "The Cisco Kid" in a string of B-westerns.

10:15 PM -- Design For Scandal (1941)
A reporter is assigned to dig up dirt on a lady judge.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Walter Pidgeon, Edward Arnold
85 min, TV-PG

In the credits, Barbara Jo Allen is listed as "Barbara Jo Allen (Vera Vague)" in the opening credits. Vera Vague was the character name of the woman she played on the Bob Hope radio program.

11:49 PM -- Return From Nowhere (1944)
In this short film, a man recovers his lost memories when he is forced to relive events in his dreams.
Dir: Paul Burnford
Cast: Don DeFore, Kay Medford, Donald Curtis
10 min,

12:00 AM -- That Forsyte Woman (1949)
An unhappily married woman falls in love with her niece's fiance.
Dir: Compton Bennett
Cast: Errol Flynn, Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon
C-113 min, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Walter Plunkett and Valles

When Greer Garson flung her wardrobe open to change into a dress to accompany Soames to the art gallery, Errol Flynn jumped out of the wardrobe which caused her to scream and faint on set.

2:00 AM -- Shoot First, Die Later (1974)
The mafia tries to strong arm a crooked cop into stealing a police report.
Dir: Fernando Di Leo
Cast: Richard Conte,
C-94 min, TV-MA

Originally titled "Il poliziotto è marcio".

3:45 AM -- Hit Man (1972)
A racketeer tears up L.A.'s underworld searching for his brother's killer.
Dir: George Armitage
Cast: Bernie Casey, Pamela Grier, Lisa Moore
C-91 min, TV-14

A version of Get Carter (1971) and Get Carter (2000).

5:30 AM -- Now Playing January (2014)
26 min, TV-PG