TCM Schedule for Friday, February 21, 2014 -- 31 Days of Oscar: 1944 Best Actor Nominees

[Staph]

It's a day of great actors, with prime time featuring the Best Actor nominees of 1944, including Charles Boyer, Barry Fitzgerald, Cary Grant, Alexander Knox, and winner Bing Crosby in Going My Way. Enjoy!



7:00 AM -- Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
In this musical remake, a conservative boys' school teacher falls in love with an actress.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark, Michael Redgrave
C-155 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Leslie Bricusse and John Williams

When the character of Ursula gushed over Chips, asking Katherine to let her have him when she was done with him, there was some truth in the line. Ursula, played by Siân Phillips, was in real life Mrs. Peter O'Toole.


9:40 AM -- Double Or Nothing (1939)
In this short film, a stunt double loses consciousness and imagines himself in a series of scenes with doubles for many other famous actors including Bing Crosby, Tyrone Power, and Greta Garbo.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Lee Dixon, John Elliott, Tom Herbert
BW-18 mins,


10:00 AM -- Othello (1965)
A famed general convinces himself that his wife is unfaithful.
Dir: Stuart Burge
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Frank Finlay, Maggie Smith
C-166 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Frank Finlay, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Joyce Redman, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maggie Smith

Derek Jacobi 's film debut.


1:00 PM -- The Mark (1961)
A reformed child abuser fights the stigma of his past when he falls for a single mother.
Dir: Guy Green
Cast: Maria Schell, Stuart Whitman, Rod Steiger
BW-127 mins, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Stuart Whitman

The lead role was originally intended for Richard Burton, who had to drop out because of a stage commitment.


3:08 PM -- The Luckiest Guy In The World (1946)
A man destroys his life through gambling debts and stealing company funds in this short film.
Dir: Joseph Newman
Cast: Eloise Hardt, Robert B. Williams, Harry Cheshire
BW-21 mins,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel -- Jerry Bresler

Released over a year after its predecessor, Purity Squad (1945), this was the final episode in the long and successful Crime Does Not Pay two-reel series.


3:30 PM -- Cool Hand Luke (1967)
A free-spirited convict refuses to conform to chain-gang life.
Dir: Stuart Rosenberg
Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J. D. Cannon
C-126 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Kennedy

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Newman, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, and Best Music, Original Music Score -- Lalo Schifrin

The movie's line "What we've got here is failure to communicate." was voted as the #11 movie quote by the American Film Institute. When Frank Pierson wrote that dialog to be delivered by a an uneducated, redneck prison guard, he worried that people wouldn't find it authentic. So he wrote a biography of the guard, explaining that in order to advance to a higher grade in the system, he had been required to take criminology courses, thus exposing him to the kind of academic vocabulary that would justify him using the 'communicate' phrase. But as it turned out, no one questioned the line or needed to read the fictional account.


5:37 PM -- They're Always Caught (1938)
This short film shows the role a crime laboratory plays in the solving of criminal investigations.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Claire McDowell, Arthur Stuart Hull, John Butler
BW-22 mins,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel


6:00 PM -- The Sunshine Boys (1975)
A feuding comedy team reunites for a television comeback.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Burns

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Walter Matthau, Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material -- Neil Simon, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Albert Brenner and Marvin March

Based on the lives and careers of vaudeville comics Joe Smith and Charles Dale (né Sultzer and Marks). Unlike the characters in the Broadway play and later film, Smith and Dale were almost inseparable friends. In fact, when Dale died in 1971, Smith commissioned a single tombstone to be prepared for them both, ordering that the inscription read "Smith and Dale."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: 1944 BEST ACTOR NOMINEES



8:00 PM -- Going My Way (1944)
A young priest revitalizes a failing parish and brings new life to the elder priest.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Frank McHugh
BW-127 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Bing Crosby, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Barry Fitzgerald, Best Director -- Leo McCarey, Best Writing, Original Story -- Leo McCarey, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Frank Butler and Frank Cavett, Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics) for the song "Swinging on a Star", and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Barry Fitzgerald, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Lionel Lindon, and Best Film Editing -- LeRoy Stone

Barry Fitzgerald was nominated by the Academy for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor awards for the same performance, the only time this has ever happened. He won the Oscar in the supporting category but lost in the lead category to co-star Bing Crosby (This is no longer possible under Academy guidelines.) Due to wartime metal shortages, Fitzgerald received a plaster Oscar (instead of a gold one) for his performance. A few weeks after he won, he broke the head off his plaster Oscar while practicing his golf swing.


10:15 PM -- Wilson (1944)
A chronicle of the political career of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Dir: Henry King
Cast: Charles Coburn, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell
C-154 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Lamar Trotti, Best Cinematography, Color -- Leon Shamroy, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Wiard Ihnen and Thomas Little, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), and Best Film Editing -- Barbara McLean

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Alexander Knox, Best Director -- Henry King, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Fred Sersen (photographic) and Roger Heman Sr. (sound), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

The film, a pet project and labor of love for producer Darryl F. Zanuck, was a notorious box-office flop in its day, despite good reviews and several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor, and despite the fact that when it played the Roxy in New York, it grossed more than any one movie had in a single theatre up to then. Zanuck was so heartbroken over the movie's failure that he forbade anyone who came into his presence to ever mention the film again.


1:00 AM -- Gaslight (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

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 Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

The first time Ingrid Bergman met Charles Boyer was the day they shot the scene where they meet at a train station and kiss passionately. Boyer was the same height as Bergman, and in order for him to seem taller, he had to stand on a box, which she kept inadvertently kicking as she ran into the scene. Boyer also wore shoes and boots with 2-inch heels throughout the movie.


3:00 AM -- None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
A young ne'er-do-well tries to get his life on track to help his ailing mother.
Dir: Clifford Odets
Cast: Cary Grant, Miss Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore
BW-113 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ethel Barrymore

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Cary Grant, Best Film Editing -- Roland Gross, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- C. Bakaleinikoff and Hanns Eisler

According to a 1947 "New York Times" article, Lela E. Rogers, the mother of Ginger Rogers, denounced the script at a committee hearing of HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities) as a "perfect example of the propaganda that Communists like to inject" and accused Clifford Odets of being a Communist. Rogers cited the line spoken by "Ernie" to his mother, "You're not going to get me to work here and squeeze pennies out of little people who are poorer than I am," as an example of Communist propaganda. Hanns Eisler, who was nominated for an Academy Award for composing the film's score, was also interrogated by HUAC and was designated as an unfriendly witness for his refusal to cooperate.


5:00 AM -- All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
A French nobleman falls in love with his children's governess.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn
BW-143 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Barbara O'Neil, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Picture

Upon their first meeting, the Duchesse de Praslin asks Henriette how old she is, revealing the answer to be 25-years-old; the Duchesse considers this "so young". Amusingly enough in real life, Barbara O'Neil was twenty-nine years old at the time of filming, while Bette Davis was two years older.