TCM Schedule for Friday, November 28, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Road Movies

[Staph]

TCM is giving us a day full of Alfred Hitchcock - a perfect way to counterprogram against all of the football and shopping. In prime time, we're still on the road, with some of the great classic road pictures, including Hope and Cosby's Road To Utopia (1945), Sullivan's Travels (1942), and It Happened One Night (1934). Enjoy!



7:11 AM -- Spills For Thrills (1940)
This short film pays tribute to Hollywood's stunt men and women with clips of difficult stunts on land and in the air. Vitaphone Release 9793-9794.
Dir: De Leon Anthony
Cast: John Ridgely,
BW-19 mins,


7:30 AM -- Saboteur (1942)
A young man accused of sabotage goes on the lam to prove his innocence.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger
BW-109 mins, CC,

Alfred Hitchcock's original director's cameo was cut by order of the censors. He and his secretary played deaf-mute pedestrians. When Hitch's character made an apparently indecent proposal to her in sign language, she slapped his face. A more conventional cameo in front of a drugstore was substituted.


9:30 AM -- Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey
BW-108 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Gordon McDonell

In his interview with François Truffaut on "Shadow" (first published in 1967), Alfred Hitchcock said the dense, black smoke belching from the train that brings Charles Oakley to Santa Rosa was a deliberate symbol of imminent evil.


11:30 AM -- Dial M For Murder (1954)
A straying husband frames his wife for the murder of the man he'd hired to kill her.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings
C-105 mins, CC,

Alfred Hitchcock had chosen a very expensive robe for Grace Kelly to wear when she answered the phone. The actress balked and said that no woman would put a robe on to answer the phone when she was sleeping alone but would answer it in her slip. Hitchcock agreed to do it her way and liked the way the rushes turned out. The director agreed to allow the actress to make all costume decisions for herself in their subsequent films together.


1:22 PM -- White Peril (1956)
This short film shows members of a "snow patrol" at work in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state.
Dir: Don Horter
BW-8 mins,


1:30 PM -- Marnie (1964)
A rich man marries a compulsive thief and tries to unlock the secrets of her mind.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker
C-130 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

After rehearsing just a few scenes with co-star Sean Connery, Tippi Hedren asked Alfred Hitchcock, "Marnie is supposed to be frigid - have you seen him?" referring to the young Connery. Hitchcock's reply was reportedly, "Yes, my dear, it's called acting."


3:45 PM -- The Birds (1963)
In a California coastal area, flocks of birds unaccountably make deadly attacks on humans.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Ub Iwerks

Alfred Hitchcock briefly considered Cary Grant for the role of Mitch Brenner, but decided against using the hugely expensive actor because he felt the birds and the Hitchcock name were the big attractions.


5:50 PM -- Kingdom Of The Saguenay (1963)
This short film takes the viewer down the Saguenay River, located in Quebec.
Dir: Douglas Sinclair
C-9 mins,


6:00 PM -- Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin
BW-109 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Janet Leigh, Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John L. Russell, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph Hurley, Robert Clatworthy and George Milo

Alfred Hitchcock ran a deliciously droll and terse radio ad in the summer of 1960. In an era when sponsors used "Brand X" to describe their competitors' products, Hitch's voice said he wanted to compare his new movie with "Brand X". Then, the sound of a horse neighing and horse clippity-clop sounds. Hitch's voice said simply "Brand X is a western." "Now for my picture", followed by a loud scream. End of commercial!


7:50 PM -- New Roadways (1939)
This short film focuses on various projects carried out by research laboratories in the United States.
Dir: Basil Wrangell
Cast: Phillip Terry, Richard Cramer, Tom Quinn
BW-10 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: ROAD MOVIES



8:00 PM -- Road to Utopia (1945)
Two song-and-dance men on the run masquerade as killers during the Alaskan gold rush.
Dir: Hal Walker
Cast: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour
BW-90 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Norman Panama and Melvin Frank

Writers Panama and Frank were having trouble getting the script approved by the 3 main stars, all of whom were prestigious in their own right and wanted the most screen presence. When these group script negotiations broke down, Panama and Frank held individual conferences with each of the stars, explaining how the script would highlight that star (the one being met with at the time) more than the others. This approach worked, and the script was finally approved for filming.


9:45 PM -- Sullivan's Travels (1942)
A filmmaker masquerades as a hobo to get in touch with the little people.
Dir: Preston Sturges
Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick
BW-91 mins, CC,

Not only was Veronica Lake pregnant during the making of this movie, she was between six and eight months pregnant. Production took place from June 12 to July 22 1941, and her daughter Elaine Detlie was born on August 21, 1941. The only other people involved in the production who knew of her condition were the costume designer, Edith Head, and Louise Sturges, wife of Preston. Miss Head designed costumes to hide the condition. Miss Lake was afraid that she would not be allowed to make the movie if her advanced state of pregnancy was revealed, owing to the physical demands of the role.


11:30 PM -- It Happened One Night (1934)
A newspaperman tracks a runaway heiress on a madcap cross-country tour.
Dir: Frank Capra
Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly
BW-105 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable (In 1996, Steven Spielberg anonymously purchased Clark Gable's Oscar to protect it from further commercial exploitation, gave it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, commenting that he could think of "no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy".), Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Claudette Colbert (Claudette Colbert was so convinced that she would lose the Oscar to write-in nominee Bette Davis that she didn't attended the ceremony originally. She was summoned from a train station to pick up her Academy Award.), Best Director -- Frank Capra, Best Writing, Adaptation -- Robert Riskin, and Best Picture

While shooting the scene where he undresses, Clark Gable had trouble removing his undershirt while keeping his humorous flow going and took too long. As a result the undershirt was abandoned altogether. It then became cool to not wear an undershirt which resulted in a large drop in undershirt sales around the country. Legend has it that in response, some underwear manufacturers tried to sue Columbia.


1:30 AM -- Il Sorpasso (1961)
A shy law student meets a bon vivant who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscan countryside.
Dir: Dino Risi
Cast: Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Spaak
BW-105 mins, Letterbox Format

In 2008, the film was selected to enter the list of the 100 Italian films to be saved (100 film italiani da salvare). The list was created with the aim to report "100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978". The project was established by the Venice Days ("Giornate degli Autori&quot in the Venice Film Festival, in collaboration with Cinecittà Holding and with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage.


3:30 AM -- The Happy Road (1957)
Two single parents join forces when their children run away from a French boarding school.
Dir: Gene Kelly
Cast: Gene Kelly, Barbara Laage, Bobby Clark
BW-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The company that coproduced is called Kerry, after Gene Kelly's daughter.


5:15 AM -- The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
Life on the road isn't what it's cracked up to be when a honeymooning couple invests in an oversized motor home.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main
C-96 mins, CC,

The New Moon trailers, produced by The Redman Trailer Co. (as per original sales brochures & in viewing the actual 1953 models), didn't come with a "sunken living room" as was highlighted in the film. This was done to add a reason for Desi Arnaz's character to take his pratfall when first entering the trailer. You can see that the floor of the kitchen is flat with the living room floor if you look closely when he opens the door for the first time at the trailer show, as this was simply a regular production coach in the shot. The interior shots had a "dropped" section in the living room area and you can see that the vent windows are much further from the ceiling than they would be as seen from the exterior. New Moon trailers also had a furnace in the corner between the front door and the kitchen cabinet. It is assumed this was removed from the interior mock up for aesthetic reasons.