TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 4 -- 2009 Honorary Oscar Winners

Happy birthday, John Garfield! He was born on this date in 1913, and sadly, passed away in 1952.

The theme for this evening is 2009 Honorary Oscar winners, with films representing Lauren Bacall, B-movie king Roger Corman, and "Godfather" cinematographer Gordon Willis, as well as producer John Calley, who is to be awarded the Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award for career accomplishments.

Enjoy!


4:00am -- Diner (1982)
A group of friends who hang out in a Baltimore diner face the problems of growing up.
Cast: Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon
Dir: Barry Levinson
C-110 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Barry Levinson

All of the scenes in the diner were filmed last after the cast got to know each other. The dialog in those scenes is a combination of scripted and improvisational.


6:00am -- Four Daughters (1938)
A small-town family's peaceful life is shattered when one daughter falls for a rebellious musician.
Cast: Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, John Garfield, Frank McHugh
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Garfield, Best Director -- Michael Curtiz, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Lenore J. Coffee and Julius J. Epstein, and Best Picture

John Garfield's first film and first Oscar nomination.


7:30am -- They Made Me A Criminal (1939)
A young boxer flees to farming country when he thinks he's killed an opponent in the ring.
Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, May Robson
Dir: Busby Berkeley
BW-92 mins, TV-PG

Claude Rains at first turned down the part, feeling he would be miscast and look ridiculous as a tough New York City cop. Only after being threatened by the studio with suspension did he reluctantly accept it, but he always considered this one of his least favorite pictures.


9:15am -- Flowing Gold (1940)
A fugitive from justice tries to get work in a western oil field.
Cast: John Garfield, Frances Farmer, Pat O'Brien, Raymond Walburn
Dir: Alfred E. Green
BW-81 mins, TV-G

When Garfield turned down the chance to play the male lead on Broadway in "A Streetcar Named Desire," the part written originally by Tennessee Williams for an Italian-American was rewritten for a Polish-American to accommodate the blonde looks of the then unknown Marlon Brando. Brando's performance made him a star.


10:45am -- Saturday's Children (1940)
A young inventor's new marriage is jeopardized by financial problems.
Cast: John Garfield, Anne Shirley, Claude Rains, Roscoe Karns
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-102 mins, TV-PG

James Stewart was to play "Rims Rosson" but was replaced by John Garfield. Jane Bryan was to play "Boby Halevy", but she retired to get married and was replaced by Olivia de Havilland, who was suspended when she refused the part. Una Merkel had the role of "Florrie Sands" but was replaced by Lee Patrick when she became ill.


12:30pm -- Out Of The Fog (1941)
A racketeer terrorizes a small fishing community until he falls in love with a fisherman's daughter.
Cast: John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert
Dir: Anatole Litvak
BW-85 mins, TV-PG

Humphrey Bogart was originally chosen to play Harold Goff. However, Ida Lupino had just finished shooting They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941) with Bogart, and they had not gotten along. Lupino protested, and because she'd had a bigger name than Bogart at the time, she got her way, forcing an angry Bogart to shoot off a telegram to Jack L. Warner asking, "When did Ida Lupino start casting films at your studio?"


2:00pm -- The Sea Wolf (1941)
Shipwrecked fugitives try to escape a brutal sea captain who's losing his mind.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Alexander Knox
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-87 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Byron Haskin (photographic) and Nathan Levinson (sound)

The first movie to have its world premiere on a ship: the luxury liner "America" during a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles.


3:30pm -- Between Two Worlds (1944)
Passengers on a luxury liner realize they are en route to the afterlife.
Cast: John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker
Dir: Edward A. Blatt
BW-112 mins, TV-G

The play "Outward Bound" opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 7 January 1924 and closed in May 1924 after 144 performances. The opening night cast included Dudley Digges, Leslie Howard, J.M. Kerrigan, Alfred Lunt and Beryl Mercer. There was one Broadway revival in 1938, directed by Otto Preminger.


5:30pm -- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Illicit lovers plot to kill the woman's older husband.
Cast: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Dir: Tay Garnett
BW-113 mins, TV-PG

This caused a stir amongst 1940s audiences who were shocked when it seemed clear to them that John Garfield uses his tongue in one of his kissing scenes with Lana Turner.


7:30pm -- Now Playing March (2010)

TCM's preview of their film selections for the month of March.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: 2009 HONORARY OSCAR WINNERS


8:00pm -- Private Screenings: Lauren Bacall (2005)
Lauren Bacall discusses her life and career with host Robert Osborne.
BW-50 mins, TV-PG

With late husband Humphrey Bogart, Bacall has a kind of vocal disorder named after her. "Bogart-Bacall syndrome"' (or BBS) is a form of muscle tension dysphonia most common in professional voice users (actors, singers, TV/radio presenters, etc) who habitually use a very low speaking pitch. BBS is more common among women than men and has been blamed on "social pressure on professional women to compete with men in the business arena".


9:00pm -- To Have And Have Not (1944)
A skipper-for-hire's romance with a beautiful drifter is complicated by his growing involvement with the French resistance.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Moran
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-100 mins, TV-G

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love during production. Director Howard Hawks afterward said that it was actually Bacall's character Marie that Bogart had fallen for, "so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." However, it has also been said that Hawks - who was something of a womanizer, and who had a fling with Dolores Moran during the shooting of the film - was jealous and frustrated that Bacall had fallen for Bogart and not for Hawks himself.


11:00pm -- All The President's Men (1976)
Two Washington Post reporters investigate the Watergate break-in that ended Nixon's presidency.
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jason Robards Jr., Jack Warden
Dir: Alan J. Pakula
C-138 mins, TV-MA

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jason Robards, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- George Jenkins and George Gaines, Best Sound -- Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Rick Alexander (as Dick Alexander) and James E. Webb, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- William Goldman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Alexander, Best Director -- Alan J. Pakula, Best Film Editing -- Robert L. Wolfe, and Best Picture

One scene involving Robert Redford on the phone is done in a continuous six-minute single take with the camera tracking in slowly. Towards the end Redford makes a mistake - he calls the phone caller by the wrong name - but as he stays in character it simply appears genuine and this was the take used in the final cut.


1:30am -- The Loved One (1965)
An Englishman in Hollywood moves into the funeral business.
Cast: Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger
Dir: Tony Richardson
BW-121 mins, TV-PG

After WWII, Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood to work on a movie adaptation of his novel "Brideshead Revisited". While in Hollywood he went to a funeral at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Waugh was offended by the pretense of both the American film industry and the American funeral industry, and wove the two together into the novel on which this film was based.


4:00am -- Dementia 13 (1963)
Members of an Irish family are being killed off by one of their own who wishes to inherit the family fortune.
Cast: William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell
Dir: Francis Coppola
BW-75 mins, TV-14

Francis Ford Coppola was assisting Roger Corman on the set of The Young Racers (1963) in Ireland. Corman allowed Coppola to use the same set, crew and actors Luana Anders, William Campbell and Patrick Magee for this film if he could shoot around the shooting schedule of Corman's film.

Actors claim that the term "overnight star" is a publicist's fantasy, that most who are given that title have labored long and hard in obscurity for the "sudden" recognition.

Then there's Lauren Bacall.

Oh, she wanted to be an actress all right. But in 1943, at age18, Betty Bacall had barely set foot on a stage, and never on a soundstage. She was working as a fashion model in New York when the chic wife of director Howard Hawks saw her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, and pointed her out to Hawks. Hawks sent for Bacall, cringed at her nasal voice, told her to lower it, and changed her first name. Then, for her first film, To Have and Have Not (1944), he teamed her with Humphrey Bogart, the tough-guy newly-turned romantic hero on the heels of Casablanca's success. Fireworks flew, on-screen and off. Gushy reviews, like this one from the usually cool and judicious James Agee: "Lauren Bacall has cinema personality to burn...a javelinlike vitality, a born dancer's eloquence in movement, a fierce female shrewdness and a special sweet-sourness..."

But then, Hawks was a gambler. Bacall wasn't the only one making her film debut in To Have and Have Not. Hawks met songwriter Hoagy Carmichael at a party, and had a hunch he'd make a good actor. As Cricket, the saloon pianist, Carmichael did. The film was the result of Hawks' bet with his good friend, novelist Ernest Hemingway, whom Hawks was unsuccessfully trying to convince to write for the screen. Hawks bet that he could make a movie out of Hemingway's worst book -- To Have and Have Not. The film version, as several critics pointed out, owed more to Casablanca than to Hemingway, but Hawks won his bet.

So like all Hollywood fantasies, this one had a happy ending. To Have and Have Not was a hit, Bacall became an instant star, and found the love of her life. She and Bogart married in 1945, and stayed married until his death in 1957. She remains a star to this day.

Director: Howard Hawks
Producer: Howard Hawks, Jack L. Warner (executive)
Screenplay: Jules Furthman, William Faulkner, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Cinematography: Sid Hickox
Editor: Christian Nyby
Art Direction: Charles Novi
Music: Franz Waxman (uncredited), Hoagy Carmichael (song)
Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Harry Morgan), Walter Brennan (Eddie), Lauren Bacall (Slim), Dolores Moran (Mme. Hellen de Bursac), Hoagy Carmichael (Cricket).
BW-101m. Close captioning. Descriptive video.

By Margarita Landazuri

He was such a good actor, and his death was tragic. Friends blamed the strain of his persecution by HUAC for his
heart attack, and I imagine that's a fair assumption. Hildegarde Knef (remember her?) wrote at some length about
him in her autobiography, and she was very bitter about what HUAC did to him.

If you go through his biog on IMDb, he was often the first choice for films that he ultimately didn't do, for
whatever reason, and you think "yes, I can see him doing that". Even when you liked the performance of the actor
who ultimately appeared, e.g. Brando in "Streetcar", it's still an interesting proposition to think what Garfield
might have done.

I think his performance and that of Sidney Greenstreet in "Between Two Worlds" really held the film together. With
lesser actors it could have been a bit silly, as you can see from some of the lesser performances. It's a strange
little film; I watch it mainly for Garfield and Greenstreet (and credit to Sara Allgood, always good value; and I
never mind watching Paul Henreid).

Similarly "Four Daughters" - it would be just a bit of fluff if it wasn't for John Garfield and Claude Rains. Even
in dubious films, there can be pleasure from watching good professionals at work.