TCM Schedule for Thursday, September 6, 2018 -- AAFCA Presents: The Black Experience on Film

This evening, TCM continues their theme of the Black Experience on Film. From the TCM website:

Since Hollywood's earliest beginnings, images of minorities on screen were often presented through a filtered lens of stereotypes and one-dimensional characters. This representation rarely showcased the nuanced differences in experience among racial groups in America, or the connective similarities. African-Americans in particular were largely seen as service workers and background characters with few lines and little complexity.

However, that's not the whole of Hollywood's history of depicting black characters and themes. During cinema's first century, films were made that highlighted the diversity of African-American lives. TCM has partnered with the African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) to present a month-long study of these movies. On each night of our Spotlight, 13 different members of the collective will sit in pairs to discuss a variety of films and their attempts to portray the Black Experience.

...

(Tonight's theme -- )Hollywood Confronts Racism includes A Raisin in the Sun (1961), the original film version of Lorraine Hansberry's play about a black Chicago family searching for a better life. Daniel Petrie directs a cast headed by Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil. A Soldier's Story (1984), adapted by Oscar-nominated Charles Fuller from his play, was directed by Norman Jewison and tells the story of a murder of a black U.S. Army sergeant in Louisiana during World War II. Other Oscar nominations came for Best Picture and Supporting Actor (Adolph Caesar).

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



7:45 AM -- I TAKE THIS WOMAN (1940)
A tenement doctor's marriage to a European refugee threatens his practice.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Verree Teasdale
BW-98 mins, CC,

Production of the film started in October 1938 and had a troubled history. Director Josef von Sternberg quit because of artistic differences. Director Frank Borzage took over, but the production was shelved in early January 1939 for more than 10 months, when W.S. Van Dyke took over and practically re-shot the whole film, with many different cast members. One contemporary reviewer quipped the film should have been called "I Re-Take This Woman". Spencer Tracy Tracy jokingly referred to the title as "Won't Somebody Take This Woman?"


9:30 AM -- MEN IN WHITE (1934)
A young doctor has to choose between his studies and his marriage to a society girl.
Dir: Richard Boleslavsky
Cast: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt
BW-74 mins, CC,

Because of the suggested illicit romance and the suggested abortion in the movie, it was frequently cut. The Legion of Decency cited the movie as unfit for public exhibition.


11:00 AM -- KNOCKOUT (1941)
A prizefighter's swelled head endangers his marriage.
Dir: William Clemens
Cast: Arthur Kennedy, Olympe Bradna, Virginia Field
BW-73 mins,

Arthur Kennedy and Anthony Quinn both appeared in " Lawrence of Arabia " some 20 years after this picture was made.


12:30 PM -- THE WORLD CHANGES (1933)
When a farmer strikes it rich in business, success goes to his head.
Dir: Mervyn Le Roy
Cast: Paul Muni, Aline MacMahon, Mary Astor
BW-90 mins,

The story begins in 1856, at which time Anna Nordholm (Alice MacMahon) appears to be at least 30 years old. By the time the story wraps up, in the early 1930s, this would put her well past 100, a bit of a stretch considering the life expectancy of that era.


2:15 PM -- OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA (1935)
An American oil company representative almost sacrifices his marriage for his career.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Josephine Hutchinson, Jean Muir
BW-97 mins, CC,

Suey Long Wong took two weeks off from his day job as Laird Doyle's live-in cook to appear in this film.


4:00 PM -- AN AMERICAN ROMANCE (1944)
A European immigrant becomes a master of industry but almost loses his family.
Dir: King Vidor
Cast: Brian Donlevy, Ann Richards, Walter Abel
C-121 mins,

During World War II, there were no passenger car assembly lines in operation. As a result, Vidor had to borrow cars from Chrysler, take them apart, and reassemble them in a simulated assembly line. What we see emerging from the factory are 1942 Plymouths with a Danton insignia and hubcaps. These were the last passenger cars manufactured by Chrysler before the World War II shutdown.


6:15 PM -- THE POWER AND THE PRIZE (1956)
An ambitious executive jeopardizes his career to marry a European refugee.
Dir: Henry Koster
Cast: Robert Taylor, Elisabeth Mueller, Burl Ives
BW-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on the novel by Howard Swigett.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: AAFCA PRESENTS: THE BLACK EXPERIENCE ON FILM



8:00 PM -- A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961)
A black woman uses her late husband's life insurance to build a better world for her children.
Dir: Daniel Petrie
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee
BW-128 mins, CC,

There was a tense and antagonistic relationship between Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil during the making of this film. The tension between the actor and actress had first developed when they played these parts in the play on Broadway. McNeil felt that film should adopt her character's point-of-view, a stance supported by the Playwright Lorraine Hansberry, while Poitier believed his character's struggles should be the focal point of the film. The actor and actress' distaste for one another never quite diminished, and Poitier wrote many years later that he believed that McNeil hated him.


10:30 PM -- TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
A young girl grows up fast when her lawyer father defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.
Dir: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Gregory Peck, Frank Overton, John Megna
BW-129 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gregory Peck, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Horton Foote (Horton Foote was not present at the awards ceremony. Alan J. Pakula, the film's producer, accepted the award on his behalf.), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead and Oliver Emert

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mary Badham, Best Director -- Robert Mulligan, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Russell Harlan, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Elmer Bernstein, and Best Picture

Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson in the film, delivered Gregory Peck's eulogy on the date of his funeral and burial, Monday, June 16, 2003.


1:00 AM -- A SOLDIER'S STORY (1984)
During World War II, an African-American officer investigates a murder that may have been racially motivated.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Howard E Rollins, Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington
C-101 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Adolph Caesar, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Charles Fuller, and Best Picture

Director Norman Jewison said of Denzel Washington in his autobiography titled 'This Terrible Business Has Been Good To Me', "The camera loved Washington, he was intelligent, rebellious, totally confident, and spectacularly talented. He was so confident, he often thought he knew more than the director, but he watched and learned. He never believed the film was going to work, until after he saw it finished. He didn't stop being above it all, until he saw the film with an audience, and realized it worked".


3:00 AM -- INTRUDER IN THE DUST (1949)
Only a young boy and an old woman stand between an innocent black man and a lynch mob.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez
BW-87 mins, CC,

The film is generally considered as breaking new ground in its depiction of blacks on screen. In 1949, it was certainly highly progressive in the way it portrayed African-Americans.


4:45 AM -- ROUGHSHOD (1949)
A rancher tries to save his fellow stagecoach passengers from a murderous enemy.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Robert Sterling, Gloria Grahame, Claude Jarman Jr.
BW-88 mins, CC,

Martha Hyer was stricken with appendicitis while on location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and had to be rushed to a hospital.