TCM Schedule for Friday, May 14 -- TCM Primetime Feature -- So You Want To Be Famous

Happy birthday to Joseph Cotten, born tomorrow, May 15, 105 years ago, and to James Mason, born 101 years ago tomorrow. And this evening, we have a selection of films about people who want to be famous. Enjoy!


4:45am -- White Comanche (1968)
Twin half-breeds clash when one sides with settlers and the other with the Indians.
Cast: William Shatner, Joseph Cotten, Jose Bastida, Ian Castelli
Dir: Jose Briz
C-95 mins, TV-PG

This film is listed among The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.


6:30am -- Rachel And The Stranger (1948)
A mail-order bride finds herself attracted to a handsome drifter.
Cast: Loretta Young, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Gary Gray
Dir: Norman Foster
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

Loretta Young was famous for placing a "swear jar" on the sets of all of her films, charging anyone in the cast or crew who used foul language 25 cents for doing so, then giving the funds to one of her favorite charities. While making this film with her, Robert Mitchum reputedly held his tongue about his pious co-star until shooting was completed. As he exited the set on the final day of production, Mitchum smiled, dropped a $20 bill into the jar, and said, "This should just about cover everything I've been wanting to say to Loretta."


8:00am -- Duel In The Sun (1946)
A fiery half-breed comes between a rancher's good and evil sons.
Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore
Dir: William Dieterle
C-144 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jennifer Jones, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lillian Gish

David O. Selznick had originally intended this property as his artistic follow-up to Gone with the Wind (1939). He envisioned a lavish production with no expense spared, and ultimately, he got his wish. Constant production delays, many caused by Selznick's meddling and the hiring and firing of as many as seven directors (including Selznick himself), as well as an extended editing period to cut the film from it's original 26-hour running time, caused the budget to balloon to a then-horrifying sum of $6 million, plus an additional $2 million in marketing costs. Though the film eventually did turn a profit, it effectively marked the end of Sleznick's career, some might say. However, he went on to produce prestige films such as The Paradine Case, Portrait of Jennie, The Third Man and A Farewell to Arms.


10:30am -- Gaslight (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty
Dir: George Cukor
BW-114 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, and Best Picture

New scenes not in the original play were added to this version of "Gaslight", and the names of most of the characters were changed. The character that Joseph Cotten plays in this version was changed from a stout, humorously sardonic elderly man to a young, handsome one in order to serve as a potential love interest for Ingrid Bergman in the film, and in order to appeal more to the audience.


12:30pm -- Thunder Rock (1942)
A disillusioned writer moves into a lighthouse where some ghostly visitors restore his faith.
Cast: Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason, Lilli Palmer
Dir: Roy Boulting
BW-107 mins, TV-G

Remade for television twice in the UK, in 1946 and 1985.


2:30pm -- North By Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
C-136 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace and Frank R. McKelvy, Best Film Editing -- George Tomasini, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ernest Lehman

It was journalist Otis L. Guernsey Jr. who suggested to Alfred Hitchcock the premise of a man mistaken for a nonexistent secret agent. He was inspired, he said, by a real-life case during WW II, known as Operation Mincemeat, in which British intelligence hoped to lure Italian and German forces away from Sicily, a planned invasion site. A cadaver was selected and given an identity and phony papers referring to invasions of Sardinia and Greece. A British film, The Man Who Never Was (1956), recounted the operation.


5:00pm -- Lolita (1962)
Vladimir Nabokov's racy classic focuses on an aging intellectual in love with a teenager.
Cast: James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
BW-153 mins, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Vladimir Nabokov

The famous heart-shaped sunglasses that Lolita wears appear only in publicity photos taken by Bert Stern; Lolita wears cat eye sunglasses in the movie.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: SO YOU WANT TO BE FAMOUS?


8:00pm -- Red, Hot And Blue (1949)
An actress's rising career is threatened when she finds a dead gangster in her apartment.
Cast: Betty Hutton, Victor Mature, William Demarest, June Havoc
Dir: John Farrow
C-84 mins, TV-G

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 6, 1950 with Betty Hutton reprising her film role.


9:30pm -- It Should Happen To You (1954)
A dizzy model in love with fame rents a billboard and puts her name on it.
Cast: Judy Holliday, Peter Lawford, Jack Lemmon, Michael O'Shea
Dir: George Cukor
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis

This story was conceived when Garson Kanin, trying to cheer up his wife Ruth Gordon, was driving by Columbus Circle. He told her he was going to put her name on "that billboard there" in the biggest letters. He didn't. He wrote a screenplay instead. Gordon suggested that the lead should be Judy Holliday. Kanin had originally considered a male lead, Danny Kaye. When he finished the screenplay, the lead had been written for Holliday.


11:00pm -- Chatterbox (1936)
A country girl tries to talk her way into a stage career.
Cast: Anne Shirley, Phillips Holmes, Edward Ellis, Erik Rhodes
Dir: George Nicholls Jr.
BW-68 mins, TV-G

Anne Shirley's real name was Dawn Paris. She used several stage names before settling on Anne Shirley, the name of her character in the movie version of Anne of Green Gables (1934).


12:15am -- What Price Hollywood? (1932)
A drunken director whose career is fading helps a waitress become a Hollywood star.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff
Dir: George Cukor
BW-88 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Adela Rogers St. Johns and Jane Murfin

Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson's first movie.


2:00am -- Putney Swope (1969)
An unexpected member of the executive board of an advertising firm is accidentally put in charge.
Cast: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell
Dir: Robert Downey
BW-85 mins, TV-MA

Robert Downey Sr. redubbed all of Arnold Johnson's lines. According to Downey, he did this because Johnson had trouble remembering his lines and often flubbed them during filming.


3:30am -- Greaser's Palace (1972)
A parable based on the life of Christ that takes place in a Western setting.
Cast: Albert Henderson, Michael Sullivan, Luana Anders, Woody Chambliss
Dir: Robert Downey
C-90 mins, TV-MA

This ain't your father's Bible story, full of references about the destruction of the world through massive constipation and a New Mexican setting.


5:30am -- Short Film: Match Your Mood (1968)
Westinghouse shows women how to improve their lives by decorating their refrigerators.
C-6 mins, TV-G


5:45am -- Short Film: The Corvair In Action (1960)
Technicians herald the arrival of a new car that "delivers the goods as no other compact car can."
C-6 mins, TV-G

As topical now as when it first appeared in 1954, It Should Happen to You addresses a common daydream of the movie-going public - to become famous and idolized by millions. With a proliferation of television reality shows transforming unknowns into instant celebrities, the idea of someone becoming famous without possessing real talent or performing some remarkable deed is so commonplace today that George Cukor's satire looks prophetic in retrospect. In the starring role, Judy Holliday plays Gladys Glover, an out of work model from a small town who came to the Big Apple with unrealistic career expectations. Obsessed with becoming famous, she spends the last of her money on the rental of a billboard in Columbus Circle which displays her name and nothing else in big letters. Gladys's enigmatic stunt becomes the talk of the town and she suddenly finds herself in demand on TV talk shows and other venues. She also finds herself pursued by soap company executive Evan Adams III (Peter Lawford) who, despite his romantic overtures, has designs on her billboard for his own product promotion. None of this sits well with Glady's boyfriend Pete (Jack Lemmon), an aspiring documentary filmmaker, who wonders what we all wonder - what does Gladys really want?

In some ways, It Should Happen to You shares a link with Cukor's previous Judy Holliday film, The Marrying Kind (1952), which was also set in New York City, and cast the comedic actress as a naive newlywed with an idealistic view of marriage. Like that character, Gladys Glover is someone whose sense of reality and personal happiness have been distorted by the media through commercials, glamour magazines and Hollywood movies - all of which become satiric targets in It Should Happen to You and are the real point of the film. "The idea of becoming a great celebrity without being able to do anything is a very important notion," Cukor stated in an interview with author Gavin Lambert. "Publicity can really do it, too. Today it makes Presidents. It's really the name of the game."

It Should Happen to You is also significant for Jack Lemmon's film debut. At first, the actor, who had worked briefly in television, had a tendency to overact for the camera but Cukor soon convinced him that "less is more." The actor later remarked, "I've learned my craft from that advice. It's the hardest thing in the world to be simple, and the easiest thing in the world to act your brains out and make an ass of yourself." (From George Cukor by Gene D. Phillips). A perfect example of Cukor's approach to acting was demonstrated to Lemmon during a restaurant scene where Pete and Gladys argue. Cukor recalled, "They rehearsed it and did it very well, but I said, "I don't believe it, I don't believe one damn thing. Jack, what do you do when you get angry?" He said, "I get chills and cramps, I get sick to my stomach, but can't use that." "Oh," I said, "do that!" So in the height of fury he suddenly clutches his stomach, and it makes all the difference."

By the time she made It Should Happen to You Judy Holliday was already recognized as a unique comic presence in films having won the Best Actress Oscar for her hilarious portrayal of Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday (1950), a role she first played to great acclaim on the Broadway stage. Though attractive, Holliday was no glamour queen and constantly battled a weight problem. A few months prior to shooting It Should Happen to You the actress had given birth to a son, Jonathan, and was still "thirty pounds over what her camera weight should have been," requiring her to crash diet. Although sensitive about her weight, Holliday also had a sense of humor about it too, recalling a photo shoot in which she was to appear in some glamour shots for the Columbia publicity department. "Look sexy," the photographer said. She tried to oblige, but he kept demanding, "Sexy! Sexier!" In desperation, she asked him what he had been eating recently. He mentioned a thick, sizzling steak, an onion soup with croutons and lots of cheese, a cold pasta salad, strawberry shortcake. Judy's mouth began to water and her eyes became liquid. "That's the look I want!" the photographer shouted (from Judy Holliday by Gary Carey).

Gossip columnists reported that during the filming of It Should Happen to You, Holliday dated her co-star Peter Lawford. The actress was having marital problems at the time and did reportedly enjoy a romantic fling with Lawford (it only lasted until the production wrapped) which may be why their scenes together have a genuine spark. Their best scene is probably the attempted seduction on the couch where he starts nuzzling her. Cukor, however, had a problem with the mechanics of the scene, particularly Lawford's removal of one of Holliday's earrings. "It so happened we had a property man on the picture who'd worked with The Three Stooges," Cukor said (in Gavin Lambert: On Cukor)."He said, "I have an idea, may I help on this?" I said, "Please do," and he suggested, "Let her take the earring off herself, so he can nuzzle her ear." So we did, and it made a terribly funny moment. Later in the scene she had to pour champagne down Peter Lawford's neck. We only have four shirts for Peter Lawford, so we could only shoot four takes, and it was tricky for the camera. On the last take I said, "Judy if you laugh, I'll just kill you, I'll kill you dead." Well, she didn't laugh, but she giggled, and it was absolutely great. I asked if she'd done it deliberately, in spite of what I'd said, and she didn't really know. Sometimes you get these very human things on the set."

In the 1954 Oscar® race, It Should Happen to You was virtually ignored though it did receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Black and White Costume Design by Jean Louis (he lost to Edith Head for Sabrina). Regardless, most critical reviews were overwhelmingly positive with the majority of praise focused on Holliday's performance. Time magazine stated "Judy plays, for the fourth time in a row, essentially the same poor man's Pygmalion, that won her an Oscar® two years ago...Practice has made her almost perfect in the part. She seems an incarnation of the big-city blonde who is so dumb that she doesn't even know she's beautiful."

Other trivia of interest: Garson Kanin's screenplay for It Should Happen to You was originally titled A Name for Herself but in the early stages it was actually being developed as a script for Danny Kaye; The guests who appear on the TV panel show in the movie were real-life celebrities - Constance Bennett, Ilka Chase, Melville Cooper and Wendy Barrie; the song "Let's Fall in Love" which Holliday and Lemmon sing as a duet was written almost 20 years earlier by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler; Look for a brief cameo by up-and-coming actor John Saxon in the Central Park sequence.

Producer: Fred Kohlmar
Director: George Cukor
Screenplay: Garson Kanin
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Film Editing: Charles Nelson
Art Direction: John Meehan
Music: Frederick Hollander
Cast: Judy Holliday (Gladys Glover), Peter Lawford (Evan Adams III), Jack Lemmon (Pete Sheppard), Michael O'Shea (Brod Clinton), Vaughn Taylor (Entrikin), Connie Gilchrist (Mrs. Riker).
BW-88m. Letterboxed.

by Jeff Stafford