TCM Schedule for Friday, March 30, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Diana Dors

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing a selection of films about opera behind the scenes. Oh, the drama!!! Then in prime time, ... well, I'll let the TCM website explain....

In the 1950s, Diana Dors was England's entry into the ranks of blonde bombshells inspired by the popularity of Marilyn Monroe, as well as such Hollywood pinups as Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren and Sheree North. In addition to her notoriety as a "party girl," Dors won recognition as a capable actress and a witty, provocative television personality. Her career encompassed 30-plus years and some 100 credits, most of them in British films and TV.

Dors was born Diana Mary Fluck in 1931 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. After studying at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts, she entered movies while still in her teens and had a small role in the celebrated 1948 Oliver Twist. At her voluptuous peak in the '50s, she was featured in films with such provocative titles as Man Bait (1952) and Young and Willing (1954).

Dors made a few films in Hollywood including the film noir The Unholy Wife (1957), opposite Rod Steiger, and the comedy I Married a Woman (1958), costarring George Gobel. She moved into supporting roles in the 1960s and '70s in such films as Danger Route (1967), Joan Crawford's Berserk! (1967) and There's a Girl in My Soup (1970). Her final film was Steaming (1985), released the year after her death from cancer.

Here are the films in our tribute to Diana Dors, all released in the 1950s:
Lady Godiva Rides Again (1952), known in the U.S. as Bikini Baby, is an English comedy with Pauline Stroud in the leading role as a small-town girl who plays Lady Godiva in a pageant after winning a beauty contest. Dors has a smaller role as another beauty queen, but the film's advertising concentrated on her, awarding her star billing since she was rising to fame. A number of other soon-to-be-famous actresses also appear, including Joan Collins, Kay Kendall, Dana Wynter and Anne Heywood.

Yield to the Night (1956), also known as Blonde Sinner, is a British crime drama that was considered one of Dors' best starring vehicles, with an attention-getting script plus direction by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone). Dors stars as a woman who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. The story has some resemblance to the case of Ruth Ellis, a model who was convicted of murdering her boyfriend and became the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom. Coincidentally, Ellis had a small role in Lady Godiva Rides Again.

The Long Haul (1957) is an English film noir with American star Victor Mature playing an ex-serviceman who settles in Liverpool with his British wife (Gene Anderson). He takes a job as a trucker, then begins a relationship with a racketeer's moll (Dors). The movie was written and directed by Ken Hughes and is another of Dors' more well-received efforts. DVD Talk describes it as a "completely satisfying British B-noir...handled with cold professional skill," adding that "The performers are perfectly cast."

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- THAT GIRL FROM PARIS (1936)
A French opera star in hiding hooks up with a swing band.
Dir: Leigh Jason
Cast: Lily Pons, Jack Oakie, Gene Raymond
BW-104 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD)

In the beginning of the film, Pons' character escapes her wedding in a non-supercharged 1936 Cord Phaeton. The Indiana-made car, which cost about $3,700 was rare even when new and exotic enough to look like it belonged in the movie which begins set in France.


7:48 AM -- THE HAPPY HOTTENTOTS (1930)
In this short film, two desperate singers take a job as the singing act in a movie theater between shows, but soon regret their decision.
Dir: Bryan Foy
Cast: Gus Leonard, Billy Gilbert, Bobby Callahan
BW-11 mins,


8:00 AM -- MUSIC FOR MADAME (1937)
An opera star trying to make it big in Hollywood gets mixed up with jewel thieves.
Dir: John Blystone
Cast: Nino Martini, Joan Fontaine, Alan Mowbray
BW-81 mins,

Alan Mowbray's character and performance was a take-off on famed conductor Leopold Stokowski.


9:30 AM -- THE TOAST OF NEW ORLEANS (1950)
A New Orleans fisherman fights snobbery to become an opera star.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Mario Lanza, David Niven
C-97 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Nicholas Brodszky (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Be My Love"

Although they had previously appeared together in That Midnight Kiss (1949), Kathryn Grayson and Mario Lanza did not get along while making this film. While shooting the love duet scene from "Madame Butterfly," Grayson recalled that Lanza kept trying to French kiss her, which was made even more unpleasant by the fact that he kept eating garlic before shooting. To counter this, Grayson had costume designer Helen Rose sew pieces of brass inside her glove. Each time Lanza attempted to French kiss her, Grayson would smack him in the face with her brass-loaded glove. One of these smacks was included in the movie.


11:15 AM -- FOR THE FIRST TIME (1959)
While vacationing in disguise, an opera star falls in love with a deaf girl.
Dir: Rudolph Maté
Cast: Mario Lanza, Johanna von Koczian, Kurt Krasznar
C-97 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Last film of Mario Lanza, who died of a heart attack about six weeks after the film's premiere, at the age of 38.


1:00 PM -- SONG OF FREEDOM (1936)
A black dock-worker becomes an opera star, then discovers his African roots.
Dir: J Edgar Willis
Cast: Paul Robeson, Elizabeth Welch,
BW-77 mins,

In the film, Paul Robeson performs a scene from Louis Gruenberg's operatic version of "The Emperor Jones". He had earlier starred in Eugene O'Neill's original play on Broadway (1923) and in the film version of the play (The Emperor Jones (1933)).


2:18 PM -- JIMMIE LUNCEFORD AND HIS DANCE ORCHESTRA (1937)
In this short, Jimmie Lunceford and his orchestra perform such musical classics as "Nagasaki" and "Rhythm Is Our Business." Vitaphone Release 2062.
Dir: Joseph Henabery
BW-10 mins,

The soundtrack includes Rhythm Coming to Life Again, Rhythm Is Our Business, You Can't Pull The Wool Over My Eyes, Moonlight On The Ganges, Nagasaki, and Jazznochracy.


2:30 PM -- HITTING A NEW HIGH (1937)
A crackpot press agent tries to pass off an aspiring opera singer as a jungle girl.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Lily Pons, Jack Oakie, John Howard
BW-85 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD)

The film lost considerable money at the box office. Lily Pons never made another non-concert film.


4:00 PM -- GROUNDS FOR MARRIAGE (1950)
An opera singer and her ex-husband find that their romance refuses to die with their marriage.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Van Johnson, Kathryn Grayson, Paula Raymond
C-90 mins, CC,

From an original story by the producer, Samuel Marx, titled 'Shake Well Before Using', this picture was Marx' last film for the studio and a relationship that began with Irving Thalberg in 1930.


5:34 PM -- SPREADIN' THE JAM (1945)
In this musical short, a young woman who is unable to pay her rent gets some unexpected help from her fellow tenants.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Helen Boyce, Ben Lessy, Les Brown
BW-10 mins,


5:45 PM -- MAYTIME (1937)
An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore
BW-132 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD), and Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of department) with score by Herbert Stothart

When filming began in 1936 (in color), the original opera finale was also recorded, staged and shot. This was to have been Act II of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca", one of the few operatic works with major roles for baritone (Scarpia) and soprano as equals (Tosca). It also allowed Jeanette MacDonald to sing the famous aria "Vissi D'arte". By the time shooting recommenced in black and white, this idea was scrapped and replaced with an elaborate fake Russian opera "Czaritza" created by Herbert Stothart to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, presumably to allow for a big Duet (in "Tosca", she murders Scarpia by stabbing him through the heart!). The rewritten story of "Maytime" presumably demanded it. Sadly, the Technicolor "Tosca" sequence does not appear to have survived, which is a pity as it would have been fascinating to see MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a major operatic sequence and in color.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DIANA DORS



8:00 PM -- YIELD TO THE NIGHT (1956)
A young woman finds love again only to find that she's been cheated on, which sends her into a murderous rage and eventually death row.
Dir: J. Lee Thompson
Cast: Diana Dors, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig
BW-99 mins, CC,

Director J. Lee Thompson was married to the writer of the book this film is based on, Joan Henry. They met whilst Thompson was filming Young and Willing (1954) which was also based on a novel by Joan Henry.


10:00 PM -- THE LONG HAUL (1957)
A veteran is lured into crime by his boss's sultry mistress.
Dir: Ken Hughes
Cast: Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Patrick Allen
BW-88 mins,

Columbia Pictures released this film on a double feature with The Hard Man (1957) with the tag line: "The Long Haul will DELIGHT You! The Hard Man Will EXCITE You!"


11:33 PM -- BEAUTY AND THE BULL (1954)
In this short film, a group of models attend a bullfight. Vitaphone Release 2454A.
Dir: Larry Lansburgh
Cast: Bette Ford,
C-17 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel -- Cedric Francis

The star is Bette Ford the model, not Betty Ford the FLOTUS.


12:00 AM -- LADY GODIVA RIDES AGAIN (1951)
A naïve and talentless girl wins a beauty contest by mistake only to find herself caught up in the troubles of show business.
Dir: Frank Launder
Cast: Dennis Price, John McCallum, Stanley Holloway
BW-90 mins,

One of the Beauty Queen contestants is a dark-haired Ruth Ellis, later to become infamous as the last woman hanged in Britain for murder and the subject of the movie Dance with a Stranger (1985).


1:50 AM -- GLIMPSES OF AUSTRALIA (1939)
This short film takes the viewer to Australia.
C-9 mins,


2:00 AM -- RAZORBACK (1984)
A man discovers that his wife was taken by a giant razorback gorilla while on assignment in Australia.
Dir: Russell Mulcahy
Cast: Gregory Harrison, Bill Kerr, Arkie Whiteley
C-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

After the release of the film Russell Mulcahy received a surprise phone call from Stephen Spielberg curious on how he achieved some of the effects in the dream sequence.


3:45 AM -- WALKABOUT (1971)
Two children are stranded in the Australian outback and are forced to cope on their own.
Dir: Nicolas Roeg
Cast: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gumpilil
C-100 mins, CC,

Jenny Agutter was embarrassed when doing the scene of her swimming naked in the lake, so as many as possible of the crew were sent away. When shooting was done they returned, stripped naked, and went for a swim.


5:30 AM -- DISTANT DRUMMER: THE FLOWERS OF DARKNESS (1972)
Filmmakers trace the history of opium and its role in today's drug trade in this short film.
Dir: William Templeton
C-22 mins,