TCM Schedule for Saturday, March 22, 2014 -- The Essentials - Peter Sellers

[Staph]

Tonight's edition of The Essentials features the amazing Peter Sellers. Enjoy!



6:30 AM -- Your Cheatin' Heart (1964)
Legendary country-western singer Hank Williams uses alcohol to deal with the pressures of fame.
Dir: Gene Nelson
Cast: George Hamilton, Susan Oliver, Red Buttons
BW-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Elvis Presley was considered for the role of Hank Williams, but Wiliams' widow Audrey Williams vetoed the idea, as she felt that Elvis would become the focus of the movie.


8:12 AM -- Echo Mountain (1936)
In this musical short, a guide leads several tourists up a beautiful mountain in Switzerland.
Dir: Ralph Staub
Cast: Lee Kohlmar, Roy Atwell, Herbert Evans
C-18 mins,


8:30 AM -- Swing Time (1936)
To prove himself worthy of his fiancee, a dancer tries to make it big, only to fall for his dancing partner.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore
BW-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jerome Kern (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) for the song "The Way You Look Tonight"

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Hermes Pan for "Bojangles of Harlem"

Fred Astaire always insisted that his dance routines be filmed in one continuous camera shot, showing the dancer(s) from head to foot. However, in the "Never Gonna Dance" number, there is an obvious moment when Astaire and Rogers reach the tops of their respective winding staircases that the camera shot changes quickly to reflect the fact that the filming camera had to be brought upstairs to shoot the close-up finale of the dance number.


10:15 AM -- Carson on TCM: Fred Astaire (12/21/79) (2013)
TCM presents an interview from The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, with Fred Astaire from 12/21/79.
C-8 mins, CC,


10:30 AM -- Forty Naughty Girls (1938)
A schoolteacher turns detective to solve a theatrical murder.
Dir: Edward Cline
Cast: James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Marjorie Lord
BW-63 mins,

The opening stock footage of Broadway obviously belongs to an earlier era than 1937, when this film is set. "The Whole Town's Talking" and "Black Fury" are shown as playing first run theaters, both of which were released in 1935. There is also marquee advertising "Scarface," a 1932 film later re-released in 1936.


11:34 AM -- Somewhat Secret (1939)
In this short film, the student body at a girls finishing school struggle to satisfy their craving for swing music when it is banned by an oppressive dean.
Dir: Sammy Lee
Cast: Billy Wayne, Phillip Terry, Mary Howard
BW-21 mins,


12:00 PM -- Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
The future president considers a political career while practicing law.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver
BW-100 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Lamar Trotti

Henry Fonda originally turned down the role of Lincoln, saying he didn't think he could play such a great man. He changed his mind after John Ford asked him to do a screen test in full makeup. After viewing himself as Lincoln in the test footage, Fonda liked what he saw, and accepted the part. He later told an interviewer, "I felt as if I were portraying Christ himself on film."


1:45 PM -- Sergeant York (1941)
True story of the farm boy who made the transition from religious pacifist to World War I hero.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie
BW-134 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gary Cooper, and Best Film Editing -- William Holmes

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Brennan, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Margaret Wycherly, Best Director -- Howard Hawks, Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, John Huston and Howard Koch, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sol Polito, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Hughes and Fred M. MacLean, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

The film turned out to be a highly accurate representation of history, mainly because of the studio's fear of lawsuits. Alvin C. York and several of the townsmen in Tennessee, including the pastor who counseled him, refused to sign releases unless the film was portrayed accurately.


4:03 PM -- Lest We Forget (1937)
This short film honors the late Will Rogers, with clips from his films and stars paying tribute.
Dir: Frank Whitbeck
BW-10 mins,


4:15 PM -- Imitation General (1958)
A sergeant impersonates a slain general at a key moment during World War II.
Dir: George Marshall
Cast: Glenn Ford, Red Buttons, Taina Elg
BW-88 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

NBC originally scheduled this film for broadcast on November 23, 1963. However it was canceled due to coverage of the death of President John F. Kennedy, and it wasn't broadcast until January 11, 1964.


6:00 PM -- Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
A marine and a nun are shipwrecked on a Pacific Island.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Akira Ohno
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Deborah Kerr, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- John Lee Mahin and John Huston

The script called for several Japanese-speaking officers and a company of Japanese troops to be on the island. There were no Japanese men on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, where the film was shot. A half-dozen who spoke the language were finally found in a Japanese emigrant community in Brazil and flown to the location to play the officers. For the non-speaking roles of Japanese troops, the company hired 50 Chinese who worked in the island's restaurants and laundries. This caused friction with the local islanders, who found it difficult if not impossible to get their clothes cleaned or to get a meal in a restaurant because most of the employees were working on the film.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: PETER SELLERS



8:00 PM -- The Pink Panther (1964)
In the first Inspector Clouseau film, the bumbling French police detective tries to stop a notorious jewel thief from nabbing a princess' diamond.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Capucine
C-115 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Substantially Original Score -- Henry Mancini

The Pink Panther diamond is named not only for its color, but also for a tiny pink flaw shaped like a panther. The overall pink however would make the Panther a very rare Type-IIa diamond, in which some colors are absorbed not by impurities as in most other colored stones but by a misalignment of crystal structure at the molecular level caused by tectonic pressure during formation ('plastic deformation'). Though there are about a dozen large pink diamonds of name in the world, there has never been an actual "Pink Panther".


10:00 PM -- The Mouse That Roared (1959)
An impoverished nation declares war on the U.S. hoping to lose and score foreign aid.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Cast: Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell
C-83 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Peter Sellers made this film in part as a means of emulating his hero, Alec Guinness, by playing multiple roles in one movie. Sellers plays the Grand Duchess Gloriana XII, Prime Minister Count Rupert of Mountjoy, and Tully Bascombe


11:30 PM -- I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968)
A henpecked L.A. lawyer escapes into the world of hippies and free love.
Dir: Hy Averback
Cast: Peter Sellers, Jo Van Fleet, Leigh Taylor-Young
C-94 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film's title is a tribute to Gertrude Stein's lifelong partner, Alice B. Toklas, who published a cookbook in 1954 that contained the first printed recipe for hash fudge. In one of the movie's most famous scene Harold Fine unknowingly serves some marijuana-laced brownies baked by Nancy to his parents and fiancée.


1:08 AM -- Lawrence Weingarten Tribute (1970)
This short tribute reel, created for the Academy Awards presentation of The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award given to Lawrence Weingarten, presents various clips from the celebrated producer's films,
BW-41 mins,


2:00 AM -- Zardoz (1974)
In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.
Dir: John Boorman
Cast: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

According to John Boorman, Sean Connery found it incredibly difficult to get work when he abandoned the James Bond role a second time after Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Thus, Boorman was able to hire Connery very cheaply for this project. To help keep the movie cost down, Sean Connery used his own car and drove himself during the production. John Boorman then gave him half the money that had been budgeted to hire him a car and driver. The idea was Connery's, according to Boorman.


3:45 AM -- The Green Slime (1969)
A mysterious fungus invades a space station and turns the inhabitants into monsters.
Dir: Kinji Fukasaku
Cast: Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel, Luciana Paluzzi
C-90 mins, Letterbox Format

This was the first film ever to be featured on the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000. An edited version of the film appeared on the show's never-aired pilot episode.


5:15 AM -- Perversion For Profit (1965)
This anti-porn short film shows a floodtide of filth engulfing the country in the form of newsstand obscenity.
Cast: Damian O'Flynn,
C-31 mins

[Auggie]

1. No Strangelove?

That would the quintessential Sellers line-up … The Pink Panther, The Mouse That Roared, and Dr. Strangelove.

[Staph]

2. I would love that line-up!

Dr. Strangelove gives Sellers another chance to play a lot of roles.

I suppose that it goes shown more often than the other films. It's been years since I have seen The Mouse That Roared.

[CBHagman]

3. TCM likes to keep mixing things up.

That's as it should be. Look at all the credits Peter Sellers has -- I'm All Right Jack, Lolita, Being There, etc.



I recently saw The Smallest Show on Earth (alternate title: Big-Time Operators), which featured another classic Sellers performance. I wish TCM would think to run that, because it's an odd little gem of a movie.

IMDB listing for Peter Sellers:

[url]http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000634/[/url]