TCM Schedule for Friday, May 16, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Australian Cinema

In the daylight hours, we've got a series of movies about love and marriage, all made in 1940. In prime time, TCM is continuing this month's Friday night look at Australian cinema, with films directed by Gillian Armstrong and Jane Campion. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Always a Bride (1940)
A society girl pushes her working class boyfriend into politics.
Dir: Noel M. Smith
Cast: Rosemary Lane, George Reeves, John Eldredge
BW-58 mins,

Based on the play "Applesauce", which originally opened in New York on 28 September 1925.


7:00 AM -- Cross Country Romance (1940)
A runaway heiress hides in a doctor's trailer for a rollicking trip to San Francisco.
Dir: Frank Woodruff
Cast: Gene Raymond, Wendy Barrie, Hedda Hopper
BW-69 mins,

Lucille Ball and James Ellison were initially announced for the roles eventually played by Wendy Barrie and Gene Raymond.


8:15 AM -- I Take This Woman (1940)
A tenement doctor's marriage to a European refugee threatens his practice.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Verree Teasdale
BW-98 mins, CC,

Production of the film started in October 1938 and had a troubled history. Director Josef von Sternberg quit because of artistic differences. Director Frank Borzage took over, but the production was shelved in early January 1939 for more than 10 months, when W.S. Van Dyke took over and practically re-shot the whole film, with many different cast members. One contemporary reviewer quipped the film should have been called "I Re-Take This Woman".


10:00 AM -- It's A Date (1940)
Mother-and-daughter singers vie for the same man and the same stage part.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon
BW-104 mins, CC,

S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall's American film debut.


12:00 PM -- Keeping Company (1940)
A young man's engagement is jeopardized by the return of an old girlfriend.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Frank Morgan, Ann Rutherford, John Shelton
BW-80 mins,

The AFI Catalog lists (with character names) Cy Kendall (Arnold), Bert Roach (Bert Crouch) and Joe Yule (Mr. Alberts) in the cast, but they were not seen in the movie. The Motion Picture Guide (by Nash and Ross, Cinebooks, Inc., Chicago 1985) also lists Henry O'Neill as a cast member, but he was not seen in the film either.


1:30 PM -- Lucky Partners (1940)
Two strangers who share a sweepstakes ticket take it on the lam.
Dir: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Ronald Colman, Ginger Rogers, Jack Carson
BW-99 mins, CC,

Ginger Rogers turned down the role of Hildy Johnson (eventually played by Rosalind Russell) in the Howard Hawks comedy His Girl Friday (1940) so she could co-star with Ronald Colman in this movie.


3:15 PM -- Married and in Love (1940)
Illicit lovers plot to desert their spouses and marry each other.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Alan Marshal, Barbara Read, Patric Knowles
BW-60 mins, CC,

S. K. Lauren's play originally opened in London on 4 October 1937.


4:30 PM -- My Love Came Back (1940)
A millionaire helps a pretty lady violinist with her career.
Dir: Kurt Bernhardt
Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert
BW-85 mins, CC,

Although Jane Wyman had no trouble faking the fingering of a dummy violin, Olivia de Havilland had to have someone do it for her. In all her close-ups, the arm doing the fingering belonged to a professional hidden from view, or the fingers were hidden from view. She controlled only the bow.


6:00 PM -- 'Til We Meet Again (1940)
A dying woman shares a shipboard romance with a criminal on his way to the gallows.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Merle Oberon, George Brent, Pat O'Brien
BW-100 mins, CC,

Geraldine Fitzgerald was pregnant with her son Michael Lindsay-Hogg during the filming, which is why she has so many close-ups in the beginning but seems to disappear in the second half of the movie.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: AUSTRALIAN CINEMA



8:00 PM -- My Brilliant Career (1979)
A proud young woman in early 20th century Australia must choose between marriage and independence.
Dir: Gillian Armstrong
Cast: Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Wendy Hughes
C-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design -- Anna Senior

Because of the literary controversy that surrounded the publication of the novel 'My Brilliant Career', authoress Miles Franklin, whose family and friends had become upset over this, would not allow the book to be republished until ten years after her death. As such, the novel could not be re-published until 1965. Franklin died on 19 September 1954. As such, in 1965, the book became available again to a new generation and this is when producer Margaret Fink, who was a designer in Sydney at the time, first saw it.


10:00 PM -- Starstruck (1982)
A woman attempts to become a big singer with the help of her friends.
Dir: Gillian Armstrong
Cast: Jo Kennedy, Ross O'Donovan, Pat Evison
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The New Year's Eve concert scenes were actually filmed at The Seymour Centre (a theatre adjacent to The University of Sydney in Camperdown), not at the Sydney Opera House. Filming took three days, and the concert crowd were groups of school kids from various Sydney schools. The scene where Angus is kissing the usherette were filmed later, in one of the foyers at the Sydney Opera House.


12:00 AM -- An Angel At My Table (1990)
An account of the dramatic childhood and early adulthood of New Zealand writer Janet Frame.
Dir: Jane Campion
Cast: Kerry Fox, Karen Fergusson, Alexia Keogh
C-158 mins, Letterbox Format

Kerry Fox gained two stone (28 pounds!) for her role as Janet Frame. She managed this by drinking liters of Coca-Cola, eating packets of chocolate biscuits and going on the pill.


2:45 AM -- Sweetie (1989)
A young woman's life is torn apart by the sudden intrusion of her mentally disturbed sister.
Dir: Jane Campion
Cast: Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, Tom Lycos
C-100 mins, Letterbox Format

This picture was one of fifty Australian films selected for preservation as part of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Kodak / Atlab Cinema Collection Restoration Project.


4:30 AM -- The Story of Film: An Odyssey: 1990s - The First Days of Digital: Reality Losing its Realness in America and Australia? (2011)
The fourteenth episode in this 15-part history of cinema talks Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and of film in the English-speaking world in the 1990s.
C-64 mins, CC, Letterbox Format


5:45 AM -- Jimmy The Gent (1934)
An unscrupulous detective makes a killing locating missing heirs.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: James Cagney, Bette Davis, Allen Jenkins
BW-68 mins, CC,

Based on the story The Heir Chaser by Laird Doyle and Ray Nazarro.