TCM Schedule for Friday, August 8, 2014 -- Summer Under The Stars - Jeanne Moreau

Today's Star of the Summer is Jeanne Moreau, born January 23, 1928, in Paris. She's not just an international sex symbol, she is also a successful singer with a substantial recording career, she directed her first film in 1976, her first stage play in 2000, and her first opera in 2001. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The 400 Blows (1959)
A 12-year-old boy turns to crime to escape family problems.
Dir: François Truffaut
Cast: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Guy Decomble, Claire Maurier
BW-100 mins, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- François Truffaut and Marcel Moussy

The English title of the movie "400 Blows" is a gross misinterpretation of the original title. The Finnish and Swedish translations of the title, roughly translatable to "400 practical jokes" are closer to the original meaning, albeit not perfect. The Swedish title: "De 400 slagen" means "The 400 blows" and make no sense. The original title stems from the French expression "Faire les quatre cents coups", meaning "to live a wild life", as the main character does. Literal translation of the expression would be "to do the 400 dirty tricks".


7:45 AM -- La Notte (1961)
A successful writer and his wife face the meaninglessness of their relationship during a night of wild partying.
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti
BW-115 mins, Letterbox Format

Second part of the unofficial "Incomunicability Trilogy" also including L'Avventura (1960) and L'Eclisse (1962).


10:00 AM -- The Fire Within (1963)
A recovering alcoholic fights to rebuild his life.
Dir: Louis Malle
Cast: Maurice Ronet, Lena Skerla, Yvonne Clech
BW-108 mins, Letterbox Format

For the first two days, filming was done in color. However, director Louis Malle realized that this was a distraction from the story, so he decided to film in black-and-white.


12:00 PM -- Bay of Angels (1964)
A bank clerk becomes involved in a rollercoaster love affair with a compulsive gambler.
Dir: Jacques Demy
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Claude Mann, Paul Guers
BW-84 mins,

Original title - La baie des anges.


2:00 PM -- The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
A classic car changes the lives of three sets of owners.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Edmund Purdom
C-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The Rolls-Royce used in the film was a pale blue 1930 Phantom II Sedanca de Ville, which M-G-M technicians covered with 20 coats of yellow paint; a few coats of black were added to the top of the hood, the roof, and the wings.


4:30 PM -- The Immortal Story (1968)
A sailor bets he can seduce a wealthy man's wife, not knowing the man has hired a woman to play the role.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio
C-62 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Orson Welles originally planned for this film to be made as part of an anthology of adaptations of stories by Karen Blixen. Originally made for French TV, it was later released in theaters. This movie is available on DVD from The Criterion Collection.


6:00 PM -- Great Catherine (1968)
The legendary Russian ruler falls hard for a military man in love with someone else.
Dir: Gordon Flemyng
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Zero Mostel, Jeanne Moreau
C-98 mins,

The last line of the the end credits reads: "With Scobie As The Ambassador's Dog". Scobie, the English bulldog, was actor Peter O'Toole's own dog.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: JEANNE MOREAU



8:00 PM -- The Trial (1963)
In this adaptation of Kafka's classic, a man in a nameless country stands trial for an unnamed crime.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider
BW-120 mins, CC,

Orson Welles called this his best film.


10:15 PM -- Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
A businessman kills his boss to cover up his affair with the man's wife.
Dir: Louis Malle
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly
BW-91 mins, Letterbox Format

Louis Malle shot his lead actress Jeanne Moreau in close-up and natural light and often without make-up. Moreau, an icon of French film, had never been seen like this before, to the extent that lab technicians, reportedly appalled at how unflatteringly she was photographed, refused to process the film. Once they were persuaded to, however, it soon began clear that Malle had captured every nuance of Moreau's performance.


12:00 AM -- Jules And Jim (1962)
A tempestuous beauty comes between college friends.
Dir: François Truffaut
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre
BW-106 mins, Letterbox Format

One of the earliest foreign films to be distributed in the US by two Harvard students, Cyrus Harvey and Brian Halliday, under their newly formed company, Janus Films. Janus went on to distribute all sorts of classic foreign films and is now owned by Criterion.


2:00 AM -- The Lovers (1958)
A married woman bored with her life decides to escape.
Dir: Louis Malle
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Alain Cuny, Jean-Marc Bory
BW-91 mins, Letterbox Format

After screening this film, Nico Jacobellis, manager of the Heights Art Theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was charged with and convicted of possessing and exhibiting an obscene film. He appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions, ruling that the film was not obscene. In a concurring opinion, Justice Potter Stewart made his famous pronouncement concerning what was pornography: "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring).


3:45 AM -- Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
A chambermaid takes a job in the country with a strange family.
Dir: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Michel Piccoli
BW-98 mins, Letterbox Format

The demonstrating fascists shout "Vive Chiappe", a homage to the chief of the Parisian police who prohibited showing director Luis Buñuel's earlier film L'Age d'Or (1930) after fascists destroyed the cinema where it was being shown.