TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 12, 2017 -- What's On Tonight: George Pal

In the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films that take place in a variety of hotels, including the granddaddy of all all-star pictures, Grand Hotel (1932). And in prime time, we have the second part of a selection of films from producer/director/writer/animator George Pal. Enjoy!


7:00 AM -- HOTEL BERLIN (1945)
During World War II's final days, people with a variety of problems converge on a Berlin hotel.
Dir: Peter Godfrey
Cast: Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey
BW-98 mins, CC,

Andrea King was originally to have top billing, but when Faye Emerson married President Roosevelt's son Elliott, the studio swapped their billing positions to take advantage of the situation. It is said that King took the change gracefully.


8:45 AM -- WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF (1945)
In this remake of Grand Hotel, guests at a New York hotel fight to survive personal tragedy.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon
BW-130 mins, CC,

Some interior and exterior scenes were shot on location at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, but the majority of the film was produced at the MGM studios - where the lobby, Starlight Roof Garden, and about sixty other sets were created.


11:00 AM -- HOTEL RESERVE (1946)
An Austrian refugee tries to figure out which guest at a French resort is a spy.
Dir: Victor Hanbury
Cast: James Mason, Lucie Mannheim, Raymond Lovell
BW-79 mins, CC,

Clare Hamilton, who plays Mary Skelton, was the sister of Maureen O' Hara. This would be her one and only screen appearance.


12:30 PM -- HOTEL PARADISO (1966)
Chaos results when a mild mannered man tries to have an affair with his neighbor's wife.
Dir: Peter Glenville
Cast: Gina Lollobrigida, Alec Guinness, Robert Morley
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on the play by Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallières.


2:15 PM -- KEY LARGO (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
BW-100 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

In a classic case of a director being emotionally manipulative, John Huston informed Claire Trevor that they were to film her song that very day. Trevor was not a trained singer, and had not even rehearsed the song yet. She also felt very intimidated by the A-list actors seated directly in front of her. The result was a hesitant, nervous, uncomfortable rendition, exactly the feeling Huston was hoping to get.


4:00 PM -- THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964)
A defrocked priest surrenders to the sins of the flesh in a Mexican hotel.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr
BW-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Dorothy Jeakins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Grayson Hall, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gabriel Figueroa, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Stephen B. Grimes

Prior to shooting, in order to defuse the tensions of the isolated location they were working in, John Huston made each lead actor a gold-encrusted pistol with bullets -- each bullet engraved with one of the other actors' names. This way, when the actors wanted to kill one another, they could use the designated bullet. This amused everyone, and proved successful. No problems arose among the cast.


6:00 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.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: GEORGE PAL



8:00 PM -- TOM THUMB (1958)
A six-inch-tall boy takes on a pair of comical crooks.
Dir: George Pal
Cast: Russ Tamblyn, Alan Young, June Thorburn
C-92 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Tom Howard

This marked the first time that producer George Pal directed a feature film. It was so successful that he directed his next four projects.


10:00 PM -- THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM (1962)
Fanciful biography of the German fairy-tale collectors, with reenactments of three of their stories.
Dir: Henry Levin
Cast: Laurence Harvey, Karl Boehm, Claire Bloom
C-136 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Mary Wills

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Paul Vogel, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, Edward C. Carfagno, Henry Grace and Richard Pefferle, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Leigh Harline

One of only two movies (the other being How the West Was Won (1962)) filmed in the true three-screen Cinerama process. (Other Cinerama films, such as "This Is Cinerama" and "Cinerama Holiday," were more documentary-style in nature; "Brothers Grimm" and "West" told fictional stories.) Other movies such as "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" were touted as Cinerama, but were actually filmed in a one-camera widescreen process, such as Ultra Panavision 70, and projected on a curved Cinerama screen.


12:30 AM -- 7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964)
A Chinese showman uses his magical powers to save a Western town from itself.
Dir: George Pal
Cast: Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Arthur O'Connell
BW-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Honorary Oscar Award for William Tuttle for his outstanding make-up achievement for 7 Faces of Dr. Lao

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Jim Danforth

Tony Randall shaved his head for the role of Dr. Lao. It also made it easier to apply the make-up for the different characters he played. The studio publicity department wanted to photograph Randall getting his head shaved but arrived at the barber too late. They had the make-up artist glue hair back on Randall's head so Randall could pose for photos while getting the hair cut off again.


2:30 AM -- DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE (1975)
Doc and his team battle Captain Seas for control of a fabulous resource.
Dir: Michael Anderson
Cast: Ron Ely, Paul Gleason, William Lucking
C-100 mins, CC,

Popular "sci-fi" author and pulp fiction fan Philip Jose Farmer wrote a book entitled "Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life", a biography of "the man of bronze". In it, he theorized that Clark Savage, Sr. (the father of Doc Savage) was James Clarke Wildman, who appeared in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Priory School". This was an element of the "Wold Newton" theory, a work of fan genealogy that organized characters from many popular works of fiction into interrelated family trees.

Farmer wrote an unused script for a sequel to "Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze" entitled "Doc Savage: Archenemy of Evil", in which Holmes himself made an appearance, commenting on Savage as the greatest student of deduction he ever had and referencing his encounter with Savage's father. It remains unknown whom Farmer wanted for this role.

Farmer wrote another Wold Newton book exploring Tarzan's family connections. Tarzan was the other role for which Ron Ely was best known.


4:30 AM -- THE PUPPETOON MOVIE (1987)
Animated characters introduce a compilation of their short films from the 1930s and 1940s.
Dir: Arnold Leibovit
Cast: Paul Frees, Dal McKennon, Art Clokey
C-79 mins,

Features clips from George Pal shorts Philips Cavalcade (1934), The Sleeping Beauty (1935), Philips Broadcast of 1938 (1938), Hoola Boola (1941), Tulips Shall Grow (1942), The Little Broadcast (1943), Together in the Weather (1946), John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946), Jasper in a Jam (1946), and Tubby the Tuba (1947), as well as a reference to Pal's most famous stop-motion character, King Kong (1933).