TCM Schedule for Thursday, December 5 -- What's on Tonight: Fighting Prejudice

[Staph]

It's a happy birthday for director / producer / ocassional actor Otto Preminger, born Otto Ludwig Preminger on December 5, 1905, in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (now Wyschnyzja, Ukraine)). And in prime time, TCM is fighting prejudice. Enjoy!


7:15 AM -- The Sky's The Limit (1943)
A pilot on leave falls for a pretty news photographer.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Fred Astaire, Joan Leslie, Robert Benchley
BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "My Shining Hour", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Leigh Harline

The character played by Fred Astaire refers to Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth, Astaire's former co-stars.


9:00 AM -- Angel Face (1953)
An unscrupulous woman murders her loved ones for profit.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman
BW-91 mins, TV-G, CC,

When Robert Mitchum got fed up with repeated re-takes in which the director Otto Preminger ordered him to slap Jean Simmons across the face, he turned around and slapped Preminger, asking whether it was this way he wanted it. Preminger immediately demanded of Howard Hughes for Mitchum to be replaced. Hughes refused.


10:45 AM -- The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)
A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak
BW-119 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Frank Sinatra, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Elmer Bernstein

The Motion Picture Association of America originally refused to issue a seal for this movie because it shows drug addiction. The next year the production code was changed to allow movies to deal with drugs, kidnapping, abortion and prostitution. The film was eventually assigned certificate no. 17011.


12:45 PM -- Anatomy Of A Murder (1959)
A small-town lawyer gets the case of a lifetime when a military man avenges an attack on his wife.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara
BW-161 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur O'Connell, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George C. Scott, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Wendell Mayes, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sam Leavitt, Best Film Editing -- Louis R. Loeffler, and Best Picture

The part of the judge was offered to both Spencer Tracy and Burl Ives, but instead went to Joseph N. Welch who was a lawyer in real life who had represented the U.S. Army in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. Mrs. Joseph N. Welch, real-life wife of the judge, is a member of the jury. It is reported that Judge Welch accepted his part in the movie if his wife could be on the jury.


3:30 PM -- Advise & Consent (1962)
A controversial presidential nomination threatens the careers of several prominent politicians.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray
BW-138 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Director Otto Preminger offered the role of a Southern senator to Martin Luther King Jr., believing that the casting could have a positive impact (despite the fact that there were no black senators at the time). King declined after serious consideration, as he felt playing the role could cause hostility and hurt the civil rights movement.


6:00 PM -- Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
A distraught mother searches for her seemingly non-existent daughter, bringing her sanity into question.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Keir Dullea, Carol Lynley, Lucie Mannheim
BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Columbia Pictures wanted Otto Preminger to cast Jane Fonda as Ann Lake, who was eager to play the role, but Preminger insisted upon using Carol Lynley.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FIGHTING PREJUDICE



8:00 PM -- The Defiant Ones (1958)
Two convicts, a white racist and an angry black, escape while chained to each other.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel
BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith (Nedrick Young had been blacklisted at the time and the Oscar went to his pseudonym 'Nathan E. Douglas'. In 1993 AMPAS restored Young's credit upon the request of his widow and recommendation of the Academy's writers branch.), and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sam Leavitt

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Tony Curtis, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Sidney Poitier. Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Theodore Bikel, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Cara Williams, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Picture

Robert Mitchum turned down the Tony Curtis' role. Mitchum, a real-life veteran of a Southern chain gang, said that he didn't believe the premise that a black and white man would be chained together, as such a thing would never happen in the very strictly segregated South. Over the years, this reason was corrupted to the point where many people now believe Mitchum turned down the role because he didn't want to be chained to a black man, an absolute falsehood. Curtis repeated the inaccurate story in his autobiography, but since has recanted after it was explained to him.


9:45 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, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

The Broadway production of "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York on March 11, 1959, ran for 530 performances and was nominated for the 1960 Tony award (New York City) for the Best Play. Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, Louis Gossett Jr. and John Fiedler recreated their stage roles in the movie version. A 1960 Tony award for Best Actress in a Play nomination went to Claudia McNeil.


12:00 AM -- In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
A black police detective from the North forces a bigoted Southern sheriff to accept his help with a murder investigation.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
C-110 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rod Steiger, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Stirling Silliphant, Best Sound, Best Film Editing -- Hal Ashby, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Jewison, and Best Effects, Sound Effects -- James Richard

When Norman Jewison and his editor Hal Ashby attended a sneak preview for the film, they found that the young audience was laughing uproariously at the dialogue. Although Jewison was upset that his dramatic film was not being taken seriously, Ashby assured him that the audience was laughing in approval of the southern sheriff being put in his place by the confident and urbane Det. Virgil Tibbs. Jewison did not agree until the film got to the famous slapping scene; when the white audience was stunned at seeing an African American man physically fight back against a white man for the first time in a modern mainstream American film, Jewison was convinced the film was effective as drama.


2:00 AM -- Glory (1989)
A green officer is assigned to lead an all-black unit in the Civil War.
Dir: Edward Zwick
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman
C-122 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Denzel Washington, Best Cinematography -- Freddie Francis, and Best Sound -- Donald O. Mitchell, Gregg Rudloff, Elliot Tyson and Russell Williams II

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Norman Garwood and Garrett Lewis, and Best Film Editing -- Steven Rosenblum

The scenes for the party were filmed in Jim Williams' house in Savannah. This house and its owner were the basis for the film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).


4:15 AM -- Intruder In The Dust (1950)
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, TV-G,

Based on the novel by William Faulkner, the film was shot on location in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.