TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 11 -- Charles Coburn

During the day we have the best of Fred Astaire and star of the month Ginger Rogers, followed a quartet of dog stories. Then tonight, we've got a lovely collection of the films of Charles Coburn. Enjoy!


4:00am -- Follow The Fleet (1936)
Two sailors on leave romance a dance-hall hostess and her prim sister.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard
Dir: Mark Sandrich
BW-110 mins, TV-G

During the final dance sequence on the boat it is possible to see Fred Astaire hit in the face by Rogers' beaded sleeve. The sequence was shot again 23 times in the hope of capturing the magic of that take without the accident, but it wasn't to be, and this original take was used.


6:00am -- Shall We Dance (1937)
A ballet dancer and a showgirl fake a marriage for publicity purposes, then fall in love.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore
Dir: Mark Sandrich
BW-109 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- George Gershwin (music) and Ira Gershwin (lyrics) for the song "They Can't Take That Away from Me"

The scene where Fred and Ginger dance on roller skates took about 150 takes, according to one of the VHS versions of the film.


8:00am -- Carefree (1938)
A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be nudging into marriage with someone else.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear
Dir: Mark Sandrich
BW-83 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Van Nest Polglase, Best Music, Original Song -- Irving Berlin for the song "Change Partners and Dance with Me", and Best Music, Scoring -- Victor Baravalle

Fred Astaire refused to sing the Irving Berlin song "The Yam" because he thought it was silly, so Ginger Rogers got a rare chance to sing it alone. Later Fred joined in the dance after Ginger was finished singing.


9:30am -- The Story Of Vernon And Irene Castle (1939)
True story of the dancing team who taught the world to two-step.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, Walter Brennan
Dir: H. C. Potter
BW-94 mins, TV-G

Last Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film for 10 years, until The Barkleys of Broadway (1949).


11:15am -- The Barkleys Of Broadway (1949)
A married musical team splits up so the wife can become a serious actress.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant, Billie Burke
Dir: Charles Walters
C-109 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr.

This was the last film to co-star Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; also their first in ten years, since The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939); also their only film together in color.


1:15pm -- Flying Down To Rio (1933)
A dance-band leader finds love and success in Brazil.
Cast: Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Ginger Rogers
Dir: Thornton Freeland
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Vincent Youmans (music), Edward Eliscu (lyrics) and Gus Kahn (lyrics) for the song "Carioca".

Originally conceived by RKO as a vehicle for Dolores del Rio, this film is most notable for its star-making pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The two relative unknowns smoked up the screen in a dance number called "The Carioca" that generated such a positive response form critics and fans that they were eventually reunited in nine subsequent films.


2:45pm -- The Voice Of Bugle Ann (1936)
A Missouri farmer's love for his hunting dog triggers a feud that divides the county.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Eric Linden, Dudley Digges
Dir: Richard Thorpe
BW-72 mins, TV-G

Lux Radio Theatre version starring Lionel Barrymore, Anne Shirley, and Porter Hall aired July 6, 1936.


4:00pm -- A Dog Of Flanders (1935)
A Belgian boy nurses a stray dog back to health.
Cast: Frankie Thomas, O. P. Heggie, Helen Parrish, DeWitt Jennings
Dir: Edward Sloman
BW-72 mins, TV-G

One of six film versions of the novel by Ouida (born Maria Louise Ramé in England in 1839), including two animated versions from Japan.


5:15pm -- The Police Dog Story (1961)
After exhaustive training, a police dog joins an arson investigation.
Cast: James Brown, Merry Anders, Barry Kelley, Milton Frome
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
BW-63 mins, TV-PG

Watch for Joe Flynn in a small role -- you may remember better from countless Disney live-action films of the 1960s and 1970s, and his unforgettable role as ever suffering Captain Wallace B. Binghamton in McHale's Navy (1962-1966).


6:30pm -- It's A Dog's Life (1955)
A bull terrier rises from rags to riches.
Cast: Edmund Gwenn, Jeff Richards, Dean Jagger.
Dir: Herman Hoffman.
C-87 mins, TV-G

There were actually two dogs used to play the lead. Wildfire was used for close-ups and non-action shots, and a double was used to perform the tricks.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: CHARLES COBURN


8:00pm -- The Lady Eve (1941)
A lady cardsharp tries to con an eccentric scientist only to fall for him.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette
Dir: Preston Sturges
BW-94 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Monckton Hoffe

At the beginning Henry Fonda makes references to the help of a "Professor Marsdit". Raymond L. Ditmars of the AMNH at the time was the best-known reptile expert in the country, the kind of popularizer that Carl Sagan later became.


10:00pm -- The More the Merrier (1943)
The World War II housing shortage brings three people together for an unlikely romance.
Cast: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines
Dir: George Stevens
BW-104 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jean Arthur, Best Director -- George Stevens, Best Writing, Original Story -- Frank Ross and Robert Russell, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster, Frank Ross and Robert Russell, and Best Picture

This film was remade in 1966, and set in Tokyo during the 1964 Summer Olympics. Cary Grant had his last feature film role, in the Charles Coburn role, with Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton as the young couple who share an apartment with Grant and fall in love.


12:00am -- Over 21 (1945)
When a newspaper editor enlists during World War II service, his wife has to run interference with his boss.
Cast: Irene Dunne, Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, Jeff Donnell
Dir: Charles Vidor
BW-105 mins, TV-PG

Ruth Gordon got the inspiration for her play when her husband Garson Kanin joined the army and she joined up with him.


2:00am -- Road to Singapore (1940)
A runaway tycoon and his sailor buddy try to con their way through the South Seas.
Cast: Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope, Charles Coburn
Dir: Victor Schertzinger
BW-85 mins, TV-G

After Fred MacMurray and George Burns turned down the chance to make this film, producer Harlan Thompson offered it to 'Bob Hope' and Bing Crosby, whom he'd seen clowning on the Paramount lot and who it seemed to him got along well. This became the first of their seven "Road" pictures.


3:30am -- The Doctor And The Girl (1950)
A doctor leaves his wealthy family to work in the slums.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Charles Coburn, Gloria De Haven, Janet Leigh
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
BW-98 mins, TV-PG

The second film and first speaking role for Nancy Davis, aka Nancy Reagan.


5:30am -- MGM Parade Show #17 (1955)
Cyd Charisse and Ann Miller perform in a clip from "The Kissing Bandit"; George Murphy introduces a clip from "Diane."
Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins, TV-G

The role of Prince Henri (in Diane) was intended for Edmund Purdom but he was turned down by Lana Turner.

An Oscar®-winning character actor from Hollywood's Golden Age, Charles Coburn was as well-recognized as the stars whom he supported, and from whom he often stole the show. At times, in a distinction unusual for a character player, he was given star billing. Specializing in hardened businessmen with a soft heart, the cigar-smoking, monocled actor did not enter movies until he was in his mid-50s, but still enjoyed a film career that lasted almost 30 years.

Born June 17, 1877, in Savannah, Georgia, Coburn was full of Southern charm -- and so well spoken that he was sometimes mistaken by audiences as being British. He had begun in theater as a "program boy" and by age 17 was manager of a Savannah theater in 1901. He made his Broadway debut in 1901 and, five years later, organized the Coburn Shakespeare Players with his first wife, Ivah Wills. Coburn made his movie debut in the title role of Boss Tweed (1933) but did not sign a Hollywood contract until after his wife's death in 1937.

Coburn had another lead in The Captain Is a Lady (1940), the touching story of an aging sea captain who poses as a female so he can live with his wife (Beulah Bondi) in a poor house for old women. The fortunes of the couple change after the captain helps rescue a shipwrecked schooner. One of Coburn's best-remembered roles came in the Preston Sturges screwball comedy The Lady Eve (1941), in which he plays Barbara Stanwyck's card-sharp father and helps her fleece naive millionaire Henry Fonda.

For another of his roles that year, that of the world's richest man in The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Coburn received his first Oscar® nomination as Best Supporting Actor. The third-billed Coburn thoroughly dominates Unexpected Uncle (1941), playing a retired tycoon who poses as the uncle of a lingerie saleswoman (Anne Shirley) to help her land a millionaire. Coburn is again a wealthy uncle, and something of a fraud, in George Washington Slept Here (1942), the Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman Broadway hit as adapted for the talents of Jack Benny. Coburn won his Oscar® for The More the Merrier (1943), in which he plays a volatile yet lovable business executive forced by the wartime housing shortage to share a Washington D.C. apartment with Jean Arthur.

Oscar®-nominated yet again for The Green Years (1946), Coburn continued his film career energetically through the 1950s, memorably playing Marilyn Monroe's sugar daddy in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and making his final screen appearance as a guest star in Pepe (1960). He also remained active in television and on the stage, giving his final performance in a stock production of You Can't Take It With You in Indianapolis only a week before his death in 1961.

by Roger Fristoe

* Films in Bold Type air on TCM

The Lady Eve and The More the Merrier are not to be missed -- great casts at the top of their game, great material.


The Lady Eve


The More the Merrier