TCM Schedule for Friday, February 10, 2017 -- 31 Days of Oscar: Oscar A to Z Day 10

It's day ten of 31 Days of Oscar, Alphabet Style. Today brings us 1947's Good News (thirty year old June Allyson sings her way through college) through 1936's The Great Zeigfeld (Hollywood does Broadway!). Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- GOOD NEWS (1947)
A football hero falls in love with his French tutor.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Patricia Marshall
C-93 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane and Roger Edens for the song "Pass That Peace Pipe"

Since Peter Lawford spoke French fluently and June Allyson did not, Lawford had to teach Allyson how to teach him to speak French in the French Lesson scene.


8:15 AM -- THE GOODBYE GIRL (1977)
A dancer discovers her runaway boyfriend has sublet her apartment to an aspiring actor.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings
C-111 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Richard Dreyfuss

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Marsha Mason, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Quinn Cummings, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Neil Simon, and Best Picture

Marsha Mason recalled a scene between her and Quinn Cummings in which Cummings was supposed to say her line and move to a chair and sit down. "I noticed that she did it exactly the same way every time. Acting that way shows good discipline, but the freshness can go away pretty quickly." Mason decided she wanted to try something different just to see how it might change the scene. "Quinn and I started the scene again and when it came time for her to move to the chair," said Mason, "I sat in it instead. Naturally, she was thrown by this and looked to Herb. He carefully and quietly explained to Quinn that in life we never know what another person is going to do and we don't always know how we are going to respond to someone or something. She listened intently, nodded her head, and said, 'I got it.' She was extraordinary in her ability to go with it. At nine!"


10:15 AM -- GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1969)
In this musical remake, a conservative boys' school teacher falls in love with an actress.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark, Michael Redgrave
C-155 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Leslie Bricusse and John Williams

Sherborne School, the filming location for most of the scenes set at Brookfield School, is an en eminent British Public School. Among the school's former pupils is Alan Turing, who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game (2014), which also used the school as one of its filming locations. Other notable alumni of Sherborne School are writer John le Carré, and the actors Jeremy Irons and Hugh Bonneville.


1:00 PM -- THE GORGEOUS HUSSY (1936)
President Andrew Jackson's friendship with an innkeeper's daughter spells trouble for them both.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore
BW-103 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beulah Bondi, and Best Cinematography -- George J. Folsey

Lionel Barrymore played U.S. President Andrew Jackson again in the 1952 Western, Lone Star (1952), his last film role. Beulah Bondi, who plays Rachel Jackson in this movie, is also in the later film in a different role.


2:45 PM -- GRAND HOTEL (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford
BW-113 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Originally conceived by MGM production chief as one of the first All-Star vehicles. Conventional wisdom of the time was that you put no more than one or two of your biggest stars in a picture so as to lower production cost and to maximize profits. Grand Hotel (1932) featured 5 of MGM's top tiered stars and was one of the highest grossing pictures in studio history.


4:45 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

Crowds can be difficult to manage simply because of the effort needed to maintain their concentration. During the filming of Grand Prix (1966) there was a scene where a flaming car is driven into the pits. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and the director, John Frankenheimer, was disgusted by the crowd's lack of reaction to the dramatic action during the rehearsals. They appeared to be more interested in their tea break. Frankenheimer called his special effects man over and told him to 'blow up the tea van' when given the signal. The unit went for a take. The flaming sports car came into the pits. The crowd looked on. The signal was given and the tea truck exploded. The crowd reacted and Frankenheimer got his shot' This is an extreme example of how to direct crowds. (from "Production Management for Film and Video" by Richard Gates)



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: DAY 10



8:00 PM -- THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
Oklahoma farmers dispossessed during the Depression fight for better lives in California.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine
BW-129 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Darwell, and Best Director -- John Ford

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Henry Fonda, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Nunnally Johnson, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Film Editing -- Robert L. Simpson, and Best Picture

Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.


10:30 PM -- THE GREAT MCGINTY (1940)
A hobo rises to town mayor when he hooks up with a crooked political boss.
Dir: Preston Sturges
Cast: Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff
BW-82 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Preston Sturges

On August 19, 1939, Paramount issued a check to contract writer Preston Sturges to buy the story and screenplay of this movie, in the amount of $10. Sturges promised to sell the script for that amount if he could direct. The studio took him up on it and the film was a hit and won an Academy Award for the screenplay, probably making it the cheapest Oscar-winning script in history.


12:00 AM -- THE GREAT SANTINI (1979)
A marine has problems adjusting to domestic life during peacetime.
Dir: Lewis John Carlino
Cast: Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe
C-115 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Duvall, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael O'Keefe

On the morning of the Academy Award nominations in 1981, when the movie got nods for actor and supporting actor, author Pat Conroy received a phone call from him father who told him "You and me got nominated for Academy Awards, your mother didn't get squat".


2:00 AM -- THE GREAT WALTZ (1938)
Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer.
Dir: Julien Duvivier
Cast: Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet, Miliza Korjus
BW-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Joseph Ruttenberg

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Miliza Korjus, and Best Film Editing -- Tom Held

Toscha Seidel, the Russian virtuoso violinist, was hired especially to dub the solos on the soundtrack for Johann Strauss (Fernand Gravey) and began a new career working as a concert master at MGM and other studios.


4:00 AM -- THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer
C-176 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer, Best Dance Direction -- Seymour Felix for "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody", and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Writing, Original Story -- William Anthony McGuire, Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons, Eddie Imazu and Edwin B. Willis, and Best Film Editing -- William S. Gray

The sequence "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" was filmed in two lengthy takes after several weeks of rehearsals and filming (a definite cut is made when moving to a close-up on the singer dressed as Pagliacci, presumably to effect a change of camera position, necessary to start the inexorable move up the huge staircase). It features 180 performers and cost $220,000; 4,300 yards of rayon silk were used for the curtains in the scene.