TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 19, 2018 -- TCM Spotlight: Victorian Era in Film

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing 1960s films about singing teens, played by twenty- and thirty-somethings. The stars range from Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon to the Beatles and Herman's Hermits. Then in prime time, TCM is showing the films about the Victorian era every Thursday this month. Take it away, Roger!

...

Victorian Romance includes not only Great Expectations but also such other fine film adaptations of Victorian novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), based on the book by Thomas Hardy, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Julie Christie and Peter Finch; and A Room With a View (1985), based on the E.M. Forster novel, directed by James Ivory and starring Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter and Judi Dench. Other romances include On Approval (1944) and The Go-Between (1971).

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- BEACH PARTY (1963)
An anthropologist studies the dating habits of the teens hanging out on a nearby beach.
Dir: William Asher
Cast: Bob Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Although "old fogey" Professor Sutwell knew nothing about beach life, actor Robert Cummings was a competent surfer himself, as documented in personal home movies shot in Hawaii by Hollywood's television host and author Ken Murray.


7:45 AM -- MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (1963)
The beach gang goes head-to-head with the bodybuilders of a new gym that's interfering with their strip on the sand.
Dir: William Asher
Cast: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Luciana Paluzzi
C-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This is the debut of music prodigy "Little" Stevie Wonder, who receives an "introducing" credit.


9:30 AM -- BEACH BLANKET BINGO (1965)
The surfing gang rescues a beautiful singer from evil bikers.
Dir: William Asher
Cast: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley
C-97 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nancy Sinatra was the original choice to play Sugar Kane. However, she backed out just before production was supposed to begin because a few months earlier her brother Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped and when she found out that part of the plot involved a kidnapping she decided to back out. Interestingly, it would have been her motion picture debut.


11:15 AM -- THE CATALINA CAPER (1967)
A group of teens try to foil a group of crooks searching for a stolen scroll.
Dir: Lee Sholem
Cast: Tommy Kirk, Del Moore, Peter Duryea
C-82 mins,

Tommy Kirk was best known as an actor from the Disney studios. Specifically, the Spin & Marty serials of the original Mickey Mouse Club, and The Shaggy Dog.


12:45 PM -- WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960)
College coeds go looking for love during spring break in Fort Lauderdale.
Dir: Henry Levin
Cast: Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, Barbara Nichols
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Dolores Hart left Hollywood shortly after this movie and became a Benedictine nun, and has been a Mother Superior for many years.


2:30 PM -- HAVING A WILD WEEKEND (1965)
Advertising executives turn a model's romance with a stunt man into a publicity stunt.
Dir: John Boorman
Cast: Dave Clark, Barbara Ferris, Lenny Davidson
BW-91 mins, CC,

Filming was interrupted on location when leading man Dave Clark complained about the film's costumes to Alexander Jacobs, who was the assistant to the film's producer, David Deutsch. Jacobs was married to the costume designer and reacted to Clark's remarks by punching him in the face. Clark's nose became, for a short time, extremely swollen and he could not be photographed, but he responded well to emergency medical treatment and shooting eventually continued.


4:15 PM -- KEEP OFF THE GRASS (1969)
The dangers of marijuana are outlined in this educational short film.
Dir: Ib Melchior
Cast: J. Edward McKinley,
C-21 mins,

Al Pacino's film debut.


4:45 PM -- A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)
A typical day in the life of the Beatles.
Dir: Richard Lester
Cast: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison
BW-87 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Alun Owen, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- George Martin

Writer Alun Owen put together the plot of the movie while following The Beatles around on their tour of France before they went to America. From observing them, he created their "stereotypes": John Lennon is a smart-ass, Paul McCartney is "cute" and sensible, George Harrison is quiet and shy and Ringo Starr is dim-witted and sad. He also picked up their manners of speech, and their daily routines, with which he created the plot. Despite the comic elements, it really was a "day-in-the-life" look at The Beatles.


6:15 PM -- R.F.D. GREENWICH VILLAGE (1969)
A couple tours around New York in this promotional short for corduroy clothing.
C-11 mins,


6:30 PM -- HOLD ON! (1966)
Rocket scientists consider naming a space ship after Herman's Hermits.
Dir: Arthur Lubin
Cast: Peter Noone, Karl Green, Keith Hopwood
C-86 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Filmed in part at Pacific Ocean Park, POP, Pay One Price. I remember going there as a kid, in 1961!



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPECIAL THEME: VICTORIAN ERA IN FILM



8:00 PM -- GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)
A mysterious benefactor finances a young boy's education.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: John Mills, Bernard Miles, Valerie Hobson
BW-119 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Guy Green, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Bryan and Wilfred Shingleton

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- David Lean, Best Writing, Screenplay -- David Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan, and Best Picture

David Lean wanted his film to have a feeling of heightened realism. Working closely in conjunction with art director John Bryan and cinematographer Guy Green, he employed several tricks, such as forced perspective, to achieve this effect. The famous opening shot in the graveyard, for instance, features a brooding church in the background which in reality was only 3 meters high.


10:15 PM -- FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967)
A romantic English lass can't choose among three very different suitors.
Dir: John Schlesinger
Cast: Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch
C-170 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Music Score -- Richard Rodney Bennett

George Cukor seriously considered adapting the novel for the screen during the 1940s with Vivien Leigh or Olivia DeHavilland.


1:15 AM -- A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1986)
An Englishwoman visiting Florence is torn between her straitlaced fiance and a young Bohemian.
Dir: James Ivory
Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith
C-117 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was not present at the awards ceremony. James Ivory accepted the award on her behalf.), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Gianni Quaranta, Brian Ackland-Snow, Brian Savegar and Elio Altamura, and Best Costume Design -- Jenny Beavan and John Bright

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Denholm Elliott, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maggie Smith, Best Director -- James Ivory, Best Cinematography -- Tony Pierce-Roberts, and Best Picture

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985) both opened in New York on the same day, March 7, 1986. Both movies featured Daniel Day-Lewis in prominent and very different roles: in A Room with a View, he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in Laundrette, he played a lower-class gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London. When American critics saw Day-Lewis, who was then virtually unknown in the US, in two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.


3:30 AM -- THE GO-BETWEEN (1971)
A young man carries letters between an aristocratic young woman and the groundskeeper he idolizes.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard
C-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Margaret Leighton

Regarding the filming in Norfolk, director Joseph Losey said in an interview, "Norfolk helped me a lot because Norfolk hasn't changed. Most of the costumes were genuine; we made very few others. And we all lived in the house. They wore the costumes all the time and ate as well as acted in their costumes . . . once you've got the exact house, accessories, costumes, something then springs to life."


5:45 AM -- ON APPROVAL (1944)
Two wealthy Victorian widows are courted tentatively by two impoverished British aristocrats.
Dir: Clive Brook
Cast: Googie Withers, Clive Brook, Beatrice Lillie
BW-80 mins, CC,

Stage sensation Beatrice Lillie plays Maria. She made only six feature films between 1926 and 1967.