TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 1, 2015 -- TCM Spotlight: Trailblazing Women

[Staph]

Last edited Thu Oct 1, 2015, 10:58 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating the birthday of Walter Matthau, born Walter John Matthow, on October 1, 1920, on the Lower East Side of New York City. In prime time, TCM is celebrating women behind the camera, in series of films on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tonight's feature is Women Film Pioneers. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Ensign Pulver (1964)
A young officer on a World War II supply ship battles his captain to keep the men happy.
Dir: Joshua Logan
Cast: Robert Walker Jr., Burl Ives, Walter Matthau
C-104 min, CC, widescreen

Jack Lemmon did not reprise his Oscar-winning breakthrough role from Mister Roberts (1955), however his future friend and frequent cast mate Walter Matthau does appear in this film. This was two years before their first film together, The Fortune Cookie (1966).


8:00 AM -- Onionhead (1958)
An irresponsible student enlists in the Navy expecting to sit out World War II.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Andy Griffith, Felicia Farr, Walter Matthau
BW-111 min, CC

The boot camp scenes were filmed at the Coast Guard Training Center Alameda, California.


10:00 AM -- A Face In The Crowd (1957)
A female television executive turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa
BW-126 min, CC, widescreen

Film debuts of Andy Griffith, Lee Remick, Lois Nettleton, and Charles Irving.


12:15 PM -- Island of Love (1963)
A con artist scams a gangster into financing his movie.
Dir: Morton DaCosta
Cast: Robert Preston, Tony Randall, Georgia Moll
C-101 min, widescreen

Based on a story by Leo Katcher.


2:15 PM -- Gangster Story (1960)
An ambitious gangster and his chief rival team for a daring heist.
Dir: Walter Matthau
Cast: Walter Matthau, Carol Grace, Bruce McFarlan
BW-68 min

When the film's producers asked him to come up with a title, Matthau joked, "Chopped Herring." Regarding the public, the producers said, "You have to let them know there are gangsters in the story." Matthau sarcastically replied, "You mean like 'Gangster Story?' To which they replied, "Great title!"


3:45 PM -- Charade (1963)
A beautiful widow tries to find her husband's lost fortune while eluding the killers who want it themselves.
Dir: Stanley Donen
Cast: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau
C-113 min, CC, widescreen

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "Charade"

Due to the suspense, the stars, and the frequent plot twists, many people believe that this is an Alfred Hitchcock film. He was not involved in the making of the film at all. This confusion has prompted fans of the film to call it "the best Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made".


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 min, CC

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, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Albert Brenner and Marvin March

Walter Matthau replaced Red Skelton whilst George Burns replaced Jack Benny.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: TRAILBLAZING WOMEN



8:00 PM -- Canned Harmony (1912)
A young man must convince his sweetheart's feather he is a concert pianist.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blache
Cast: Billy Quirk, Blanche Cornwall, Lee Beggs
BW-17 min




8:00 PM -- The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906)
The life of Christ in 25 scenes.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blache
BW-33 min

Originally titled La Vie du Christ.


8:00 PM -- A House Divided (1913)
A jealous married couple decide to live together as if they were single.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blache
Cast: Marian Swayne, Fraunie Fraunholtz, Billy Quirk
BW-14 min

Turner Classic Movies showed a version with a piano score on the soundtrack, and running 13 minutes.


8:00 PM -- Falling Leaves (1912)
A young woman tries to save her ill sister.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blache
Cast: Mace Greenleaf, Blanche Cornwall, Marian Swayne
BW-16 min

One of the 50 films in the 3-disk boxed DVD set called "More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931" (2004), compiled by the National Film Preservation Foundation from 5 American film archives. This film is preserved by the Library of Congress (from the Public Archives of Canada/Jerome House collection), has a running time of 12 minutes and an added piano music score.


9:30 PM -- The Ocean Waif (1916)
In this silent film, an abused young woman finds safety and eventually love in the arms of a famous novelist.
Dir: Alice Blaché
Cast: Carlyle Blackwell, Doris Kenyon, William Morse
BW-42 min

A surviving copy is held at the Library of Congress.


10:15 PM -- The Blot (1921)
Families from opposite ends of the economic scale are drawn together.
Dir: Lois Weber
Cast: Philip Hubbard, Margaret McWade, Claire Windsor
BW-91 min

College scenes were filmed at the University of California, Los Angeles, which was located at the time on Vermont Avenue in Hollywood, and later relocated to Westwood. The site on Vermont is now (2011) occupied by Los Angeles City College. None of the original buildings which appeared in this film have survived.


12:00 AM -- The Love Light (1921)
In this silent film, a girl fights between her love for a German spy and her sense of patriotism.
Dir: Frances Marion
Cast: Mary Pickford, Evelyn Dumo, Fred Thomson
BW-75 min

Assistant director Nat G. Deverich was almost killed during the scene showing the destruction of a ship at sea, which was filmed off the coast of Monterey, CA, and was not--as was reported in the press at the time--a miniature shot in a tank at the studio.


1:45 AM -- Without Lying Down - Frances Marion and the Powerful Women in Hollywood (2000)
A look at the women who helped build Hollywood by taking on such traditionally male jobs as directing, producing and writing.
Dir: Bridget Terry
Cast: Mary Lea Bandy, Cari Beauchamp, Kevin Brownlow
C-55 min

Based on the book by Cari Beauchamp.


2:45 AM -- The Red Kimona (1925)
In this silent film, a woman forced into prostitution dreams of finding true love.
Dir: Walter Lang
Cast: Priscilla Bonner, Theodore von Eltz, [Frederick] Tyrone Power
BW-78 min

The story was based on a true story and Gabrielle Darley was a real person, but producer Dorothy Davenport did not secure her permission to film the events in her life. When Darley, who had since moved on to marry and become an upstanding member of her community, found out that a film of her life had been made without her consent, she sued Davenport and financially ruined her. Matters of invasion of privacy by the media were not clear in 1925, and it's unlikely that Ms. Darley would have been able to win the case nowadays, since most details of the trial were a matter of public record.


4:15 AM -- The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927)
This silent silhouetted animation is based on the Arabian Nights' tales.
Dir: Lotte Reiniger
BW-67 min

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (originally titled and released as Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in Germany) is one of the earliest feature-length animated films (only two Argentinean films, both now lost, may predate it). Lotte Reiniger cut figures out of black cardboard with a pair of scissors, and joined movable parts with thread in order to animate them. In the years 1923-1926, about 250,000 frame-by-frame stills were made and 96,000 were used in the film. Her husband, Carl Koch, was responsible for the photography in all her films until his death in 1963.


5:30 AM -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Bill Murray (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-29 min

[cyberswede]

1. Looks terrific!

http://www.tcm.com/trailblazingwomen/

[Staph]

2. Thanks for including the link!

I should have done that myself (facepalm!).