TCM Schedule for Saturday, September 6, 2014 -- The Essentials - Singer Biopics

Tonight's Essentials are biographical films of three interesting singers, Loretta Lynn, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- How To Murder Your Wife (1965)
After marrying while drunk, a cartoonist puts his murderous fantasies into his work.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Virna Lisi, Terry-Thomas
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

During a taping of "The Tonight Show", 'Jack Lemmon' told this story. Prior to filming How to Murder Your Wife (1965), co-star Virna Lisi's husband made her promise that she would not be talked into doing a nude scene in her first American film. She assured him that she would not, signed the contract and traveled to Hollywood. While filming the 'revelation' scene, where Lemmon awakes to discover in horror that he got married at the bachelor party, Virna had to disrobe and lay in the bed nude but discreetly covered with a bedsheet. However, it was this day that her husband, an architect, arrived unannounced at the set to surprise his wife. When he walked into the scene, he became very upset. He focused his anger toward her co-star. Lemmon, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, exited the set at full run with Virna's husband in tow. Running past several sound stages on the MGM lot, he quickly found a garbage dumpster, jumped in and closed the cover. He waited there until security officers found him.


8:00 AM -- The Apartment (1960)
An aspiring executive lets his bosses use his apartment for assignations, only to fall for the big chief's mistress.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
BW-125 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle, Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Jack Lemmon, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Shirley MacLaine, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Kruschen, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph LaShelle, and Best Sound -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)

Billy Wilder originally thought of the idea for the film after seeing Brief Encounter (1945) and wondering about the plight of a character unseen in that film. Shirley MacLaine was only given forty pages of the script because Wilder didn't want her to know how the story would turn out. She thought it was because the script wasn't finished.


10:15 AM -- Carson on TCM: Jack Lemmon (1/3/79) (2013)
TCM presents an interview from The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, with Jack Lemmon from 1/3/79.
C-10 mins, CC,


10:30 AM -- Young Dr. Kildare (1938)
A medical school graduate must choose between a small-town practice and a big-city internship.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Lew Ayres, Lynne Carver
BW-82 mins, CC,

Feature directorial debut of Harold S. Bucquet, who went on to direct many of the Dr. Kildare films.


12:00 PM -- Wild Horse Stampede (1943)
Two cowboys try to protect railroad workers from rampaging Indians.
Dir: Alan James
Cast: Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Betty Miles
BW-59 mins,

A print of this film survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archives.


1:15 PM -- Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
A scheming seductress plots to make herself queen of Egypt.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin
C-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The movie was Howard Hawks's first commercial failure. It caused Hawks to take a break from directing and travel through Europe for a number of years. He made his next movie, Rio Bravo (1959), four years later - the longest break between two movies in his career.


3:15 PM -- Clash Of The Titans (1981)
A Greek hero fights a series of monsters, including the dreaded gorgon, to win the woman he loves.
Dir: Desmond Davis
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Claire Bloom
C-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The sea monster seen at the start of the film that destroys the city of Argos was derived from Norwegian mythology. In Greek, the sea monster that threatened Andromeda's people was called Cetus (whale). The Norwegian/Swedish name Kraken is now used as a synonym for the giant squid.


5:18 PM -- On Location With: Fame (1980)
This promotional short offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Fame" (1980).
Dir: Mark Schneider
C-12 mins,


5:45 PM -- Rollercoaster (1977)
A terrorist spreads a climate of fear by attacking amusement parks across the U.S.
Dir: James Goldstone
Cast: George Segal, Richard Widmark, Timothy Bottoms
C-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Debut feature film of actors Helen Hunt, Craig Wasson and Steve Guttenberg. Hunt was thirteen years old.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: SINGER BIOPICS



8:00 PM -- Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
Musical autobiography of Loretta Lynn, who fought poverty and pills to become a country western star.
Dir: Michael Apted
Cast: Sissy Spacek, Beverly D'Angelo, Levon Helm
C-124 mins, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Sissy Spacek

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Thomas Rickman, Best Cinematography -- Ralf D. Bode, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- John W. Corso and John M. Dwyer, Best Sound -- Richard Portman, Roger Heman Jr. and James R. Alexander, Best Film Editing -- Arthur Schmidt, and Best Picture

Sissy Spacek's Best Actress Oscar win for playing singer Loretta Lynn created a rarity in the Academy's history in that the real-life Loretta Lynn was in the audience witnessing the victory. That same evening (March 31, 1981) boxer Jake LaMotta was in the pavilion audience when Robert De Niro won the Best Actor statuette for his portrayal of LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), making the event even more rare.


10:15 PM -- Bound For Glory (1976)
True story of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who rose to the top while fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers.
Dir: Hal Ashby
Cast: David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon
C-148 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Haskell Wexler, and Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score -- Leonard Rosenman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Getchell, Best Costume Design -- William Ware Theiss, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones and Pembroke J. Herring, and Best Picture

The pivotal Steadicam sequence that first captivated industry insiders involved David Carradine's amble through a migrant camp. The Steadicam operator, Garrett Brown, descends into the scene on a Chapman crane and follows Woody Guthrie (Carradine) as he gets off a pickup truck and walks past some 900 extras. The sequence, which looks quite simple on film, posed a challenge to operator and crew in that, just as Brown stepped off the crane platform laden with his weighty armature, grips had to simultaneously counterbalance the crane arm to prevent it from becoming a human catapult.


12:52 AM -- From Paris - Your Reporter Richard Crenna (1966)
This promotional short film takes a look at the outfits designed for the motion picture, "Made in Paris" (1966).
C-7 mins,


1:00 AM -- Your Cheatin' Heart (1964)
Legendary country-western singer Hank Williams uses alcohol to deal with the pressures of fame.
Dir: Gene Nelson
Cast: George Hamilton, Susan Oliver, Red Buttons
BW-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Elvis Presley was considered for the role of Hank Williams, but Wiliams' widow Audrey Williams vetoed the idea, as she felt that Elvis would become the focus of the movie.


2:45 AM -- House of Women (1962)
A young woman is wrongly implicated in a crime and sent to prison for five years.
Dir: Walter Doniger
Cast: Shirley Knight, Andrew Duggan, Constance Ford
BW-85 mins, Letterbox Format

Produced by Bryan Foy, of the original Seven Little Foys, two of his sisters, Mary Foy and Madeline Foy also appear in the film in uncredited roles as inmates.


4:15 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
BW-97 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars 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.