TCM Schedule for Saturday, August 27, 2016 -- Summer Under The Stars - James Garner

Today's Star is James Garner. Fun fact -- he smoked marijuana for most of his adult life. "I started smoking it in my late teens, I drank to get drunk but ultimately didn't like the effect. Not so with grass. It had the opposite effect from alcohol: it made me more tolerant and forgiving. I did a little bit of cocaine in the Eighties, courtesy of John Belushi, but fortunately I didn't like it. But I smoked marijuana for 50 years and I don't know where I'd be without it. It opened my mind and now it eases my arthritis. After decades of research I've concluded that marijuana should be legal and alcohol illegal." Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- MISTER BUDDWING (1966)
A man suffering from amnesia confronts a series of women in his search for his memory.
Dir: Delbert Mann
Cast: James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette
BW-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- George W. Davis, Paul Groesse, Henry Grace and Hugh Hunt, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose

In his memoirs "The Garner Files" (2011), James Garner rates this as his worst movie. His comment about it: "I'd summarize the plot, but to this day, I have no clue what it is. Worst picture I ever made. What where they thinking? What was I thinking?"


8:00 AM -- HOW SWEET IT IS (1968)
A married couple's working vacation in Paris turns into a battle to stay faithful.
Dir: Jerry Paris
Cast: James Garner, Debbie Reynolds, Maurice Ronet
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Hit songwriter Jimmy Webb composed two songs for the soundtrack of this film, the title track, "How Sweet It Is," and "Montage," which appears at the midway point, when both Penny Marshall and Heather Menzies make their appearances below a portrait of the Mona Lisa. Both songs were performed by The Picardy Singers, neither became a hit.


10:00 AM -- THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964)
A British war widow falls for an opportunistic American sailor during World War II.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: James Garner, Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas
BW-115 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Philip H. Lathrop, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- George W. Davis, Hans Peters, Elliot Scott, Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton

The role of Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison was originally offered to William Holden, while James Garner was considered for the part of "Bus" Cummings (eventually played by James Coburn).


12:00 PM -- THE THRILL OF IT ALL (1963)
A doctor tries to cope with his wife's newfound stardom as an advertising pitch woman.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Doris Day, James Garner, Arlene Francis
C-108 mins, CC,

Producer Ross Hunter unsuccessfully tried to reunite Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy to play the roles eventually played by Arlene Francis and Edward Andrews. Before Francis was cast, Kitty Carlisle was also mentioned for the part.


2:00 PM -- 36 HOURS (1964)
Nazis kidnap a key American intelligence officer and try to convince him that World War II is over.
Dir: George Seaton
Cast: James Garner, Rod Taylor, Eva Marie Saint
BW-115 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The phony 1950 newspapers given to Major Pike depict "President Wallace". Henry Wallace was Vice President of the United States in 1944, when the film actually takes place. He was not slated on the Democratic ticket later that year and was succeeded as Vice President by Harry S. Truman.


4:15 PM -- HOUR OF THE GUN (1967)
Wyatt Earp tracks down the survivors of the Clanton Gang after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: James Garner, Jason Robards Jr., Robert Ryan
C-101 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Prior to production, United Artists had made it quite clear to director John Sturges that none of the primary roles were to be filled by the actors who played the same characters in Sturges' previous Wyatt Earp film, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Wanting to distinguish this film from the previous one, they demanded different actors be cast in the roles. However, Sturges believed that the roles of Virgil and Morgan Earp from the previous film were small enough that the same actors who played them could do it again without harming the film's uniqueness. The studio agreed and allowed Sturges to cast John Hudson (Virgil Earp) and DeForest Kelley (Morgan Earp). Unfortunately, Hudson had retired from acting in the early '60s and was unwilling to do the role. Kelley, on the other hand, was currently working on the TV series Star Trek (1966) and was unable to break away to play Morgan Earp. Thus, both Earp brothers were recast. (Kelley's Star Trek later paid homage to this movie in Star Trek: Spectre of the Gun (1968).)


6:15 PM -- SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF! (1969)
A cowboy drifts into a lawless town and brings things back together.
Dir: Burt Kennedy
Cast: James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan
C-93 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film's title is a parody of a bumper sticker popular around the time it was made, "Support Your Local Police" part of the "law-and-order" movement led by such politicians as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Wallace.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: JAMES GARNER



8:00 PM -- THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)
Thrown together by the Germans, a group of captive Allied troublemakers plot a daring escape.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Robert Graf, Nigel Stock, Angus Lennie
C-172 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

After viewing the rushes, Steve McQueen decided his part was minor and undeveloped. He was particularly upset that his character virtually disappears from the film for about 30 minutes in the middle so he walked out demanding rewrites. John Sturges admitted the half-hour gap was likely a problem, but with the production already behind schedule due to the heavy rain, he felt he couldn't take time out to do rewrites and rescheduling. James Garner said he and James Coburn got together with McQueen to determine what his specific gripes were. Garner later said it was apparent McQueen wanted to be the hero but didn't want to be seen doing anything overtly heroic that contradicted his character's cool detachment and sardonic demeanor. At the same time, McQueen never really liked his character's calm acquiescence to his time in the cooler or the famous bit with the catcher's mitt and ball. Sturges considered writing the character out of the story altogether, but United Artists informed him they considered McQueen indispensable to the picture's success and would spring for the extra money to hire another writer, Ivan J. Moffitt, to deal with the star's demands. McQueen returned to work.


11:00 PM -- GRAND PRIX (1966)
Auto racers find danger and romance at the legendary European road race.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand
C-176 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (MGM SSD), Best Film Editing -- Fredric Steinkamp, Henry Berman, Stu Linder and Frank Santillo, and Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Gordon Daniel

James Garner did all his own driving. During breaks in filming there were several mini races in which Garner either tied or bettered the professional drivers hired for filming.


2:15 AM -- SKIN GAME (1971)
Two western con artists team with a lady card shark to take on slavers.
Dir: Paul Bogart
Cast: James Garner, Lou Gossett, Susan Clark
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film is based on Richard Alan Simmons' original story "Skin Game".The screenplay was written by Peter Stone who did not receive screen credit and requested that his name be taken off the credits because his screenplay was rewritten by a second writer, thereby altering the theme, the plot and, most important, the characters.


4:15 AM -- MARLOWE (1969)
Detective Philip Marlowe probes the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in search of a woman's missing sister.
Dir: Paul Bogart
Cast: James Garner, Gayle Hunnicutt, Carroll O'Connor
C-96 mins, CC,

In the nightclub scene, Marlowe (James Garner) takes a sip of wine and smirking, judges it "impertinent. . .even baroque." These were the exact words that a character in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (published a year earlier) had used to describe Garner's butt in an excerpt from an obtuse film journal that appeared in the novel. Obviously, an inside joke and from Garner's smarmy delivery of what was otherwise a pointless remark, he was very much in on the gag.