TCM Schedule for Thursday, February 3 -- 31 Days of Oscar -- 1929-1930

The morning begins with a trio of films starring real-life husbands and wives, including Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (okay, that last pair was not legally married, but they were a true couple in every other way). This evening's theme is an interesting one -- Oscar-nominated and -winning films from the very earliest years of the award, 1929 and 1930. Enjoy!



6:00am -- Witness For The Prosecution (1957)
A British lawyer gets caught up in a couple's tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder.
Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester
Dir: Billy Wilder
BW-116 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Elsa Lanchester, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell, Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), and Best Picture

Unsure if he could play a man with a heart condition, Charles Laughton (Sir Wilfrid) staged a heart attack in the pool one day at home. His wife, Elsa Lanchester (Miss Plimsoll), and a house guest panicked and pulled him from the water, at which point he explained his trick. Elsa's reaction has not been recorded.


8:00am -- Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
An academic couple reveal their deepest secret to a pair of newcomers during an all-night booze fest.
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
Dir: Mike Nichols
BW-131 mins, TV-MA

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor was not present at the awards ceremony. Anne Bancroft accepted the award on her behalf.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Sandy Dennis (Sandy Dennis was unable to attend the Academy Awards presentations, because she was working on a new film, Sweet November (1968), being shot in New York.), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Sylbert and George James Hopkins, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Haskell Wexler, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Irene Sharaff

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Richard Burton, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Segal, Best Director -- Mike Nichols, Best Film Editing -- Sam O'Steen, Best Music, Original Music Score -- Alex North, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ernest Lehman, and Best Picture

According a 2005 interview with Edward Albee, the original writer of the play which the film is based, producer Ernest Lehman hired himself to write the screenplay for $250,000. Also, Albee says that when director Mike Nichols and stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor read the script, they hated it so much that, unknown to Lehman, they changed all of the dialog back to Albee's play save two lines: "Hey, let's go to the roadhouse!" and "Hey, let's come back from the roadhouse!" Albee said, "Two lines for $250,000, $125,000 a piece. That's pretty good."


10:30am -- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
An aging couple's liberal principles are tested when their daughter announces her engagement to a black doctor.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Dir: Stanley Kramer
C-108 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn (Katharine Hepburn was not present at the awards ceremony. George Cukor accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Rose

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (Posthumously), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Cecil Kellaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beah Richards, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Robert Clatworthy and Frank Tuttle, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones, Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank De Vol, and Best Picture

According to the time the movie was made (in the 60s) and the place where the couple have met (Hawaii), 'Sydney Poitier''s line: "you daughter is optimistic, she thinks our child will be President of the United States" (as well as Spencer Tracy's answer) has gained a greater importance since Obama's election.


12:30pm -- Johnny Belinda (1948)
A small-town doctor helps a deaf-mute farm girl learn to communicate.
Cast: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead
Dir: Jean Negulesco
BW-102 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jane Wyman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Lew Ayres, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Bickford, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead. Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Robert M. Haas and William Wallace, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ted D. McCord, Best Director -- Jean Negulesco, Best Film Editing -- David Weisbart, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner, Best Sound, Recording -- (Warner Bros. Sound Dept.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Irma von Cube and Allen Vincent, and Best Picture

Jane Wyman's Oscar acceptance speech is reportedly the shortest on record for Best Actress: "I won this award by keeping my mouth shut and I think I'll do it again."


2:30pm -- For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943)
A U.S. mercenary and an army of peasants fight for Spain.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova
Dir: Sam Wood
C-156 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Katina Paxinou

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gary Cooper, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Akim Tamiroff, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Hans Dreier, Haldane Douglas and Bertram C. Granger, Best Cinematography, Color -- Ray Rennahan, Best Film Editing -- Sherman Todd and John F. Link Sr., Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Victor Young, and Best Picture

This film saved the famous love song "As Time Goes By" from being removed from Casablanca (1942). Ingrid Bergman began filming this movie immediately after completing "Casablanca". For this role, her hair was cut short. Meanwhile, for "Casablanca", Warner Brothers wanted to substitute another song for "As Time Goes By" and re-shoot some scenes with Bergman. However, since her hair had been cut, there would be a problem with continuity (even if Bergman wore a wig), so the idea was dropped.


5:30pm -- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
A fading southern belle tries to build a new life with her sister in New Orleans.
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
Dir: Elia Kazan
BW-125 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh (Vivien Leigh was not present at the awards ceremony. Greer Garson accepted on her behalf.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Kim Hunter (Kim Hunter was not present at the awards ceremony. Bette Davis accepted on her behalf.), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day and George James Hopkins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Lucinda Ballard, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alex North, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Tennessee Williams, and Best Picture

Mickey Kuhn plays the young sailor who helps Vivien Leigh onto the streetcar at the beginning of this film. He had previously appeared with her in Gone with the Wind (1939) as Beau Wilkes (the child of Olivia de Havilland's character Melanie) toward the end of that film when the character was age 5. When Mickey Kuhn mentioned this to someone else on the set of "A Streetcar Named Desire", word got back to her, and Miss Leigh called him into her dressing room for a half-hour chat. In an interview in his seventies, Kuhn stated that Leigh was extremely kind to him and "one of the loveliest ladies he had ever met."


8:00pm -- The Love Parade (1929)
A count finds his marriage to a queen less than satisfying.
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lupino Lane, Lillian Roth
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
BW-109 mins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Maurice Chevalier, Best Art Direction -- Hans Dreier, Best Cinematography -- Victor Milner, Best Director -- Ernst Lubitsch, Best Sound, Recording -- Franklin Hansen (sound director) (Paramount Famous Lasky Studio Sound Department), and Best Picture

This was director Ernst Lubitsch's first film with sound, the film debut of Jeanette MacDonald, and is considered by many to be the first musical film in which the songs were integrated with the story.


10:00pm -- All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)
Young German soldiers try to adjust to the horrors of World War I.
Cast: Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy
Dir: Lewis Milestone
BW-134 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Director -- Lewis Milestone, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Arthur Edeson, and Best Writing, Achievement -- George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson and Del Andrews

The first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. Before this there were two Best Picture-like awards given in 1929 at the 1st Annual Academy Awards. One for Best Picture, Production (Wings (1927)) and one for Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production (Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)).


12:30am -- The Big House (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery
Dir: George Hill
BW-87 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director, M-G-M Studio Sound Department), and Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

In Frances Marion's original script, the characters played by Leila Hyams and Robert Montgomery were husband and wife. After the film flopped in a preview screening, MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg decided that the problem was that audiences, especially women, didn't want to see the Chester Morris character have an affair with a married woman. So the script was rewritten to make Montgomery and Hyams brother and sister. Scenes were reshot and the film, in its modified form, became a major hit.


2:00am -- The Divorcee (1930)
The double standard destroys a liberal couple's marriage.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
BW-82 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Norma Shearer

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Writing, Achievement -- John Meehan, and Best Picture

Prior to this film, Norma Shearer had primarily played very "proper," ladylike roles. She was eager to change her image and do parts that were more sensuous, so she launched a campaign to get the part of Jerry. MGM producers were skeptical - none more so than Irving Thalberg, who was also Shearer's husband. To convince him that she could handle a more "sexy" role, Shearer did a photo shoot with her posing provocatively in lingerie, and after seeing the pictures, Thalberg agreed to cast her. The decision paid off, as Shearer won Best Actress at the Academy Awards that year.


3:30am -- Disraeli (1929)
The noted British statesman plays matchmaker for a pair of young lovers.
Cast: George Arliss, Joan Bennett, Florence Arliss, Anthony Bushell
Dir: Alfred E. Green
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- George Arliss

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Achievement -- Julien Josephson, and Best Picture

The film was re-released in 1933, at which time the title credits were re-done, Arliss given billing as "Mr. George Arliss," and an NRA (National Recovery Act) emblem added; this is the version which presently survives. Unfortunately, the remainder of the film is cropped off the left side, in order to accommodate the sound-on-film system track, which had, by then, replaced the now obsolete Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, and required a slightly narrower picture image as a result.