TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 28, 2015 -- TCM Spotlight: William Cameron Menzies

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating director / writer / producer / actor Ernst Lubitsch, born January 29, 1892, in Berlin, Germany. In prime time, it's the last of the celebration of the films of art director / production designer / director William Cameron Menzies. Enjoy!


6:45 AM -- MGM Parade Show #18 (1955)
Greta Garbo and John Barrymore perform in a clip from "Grand Hotel"; Roger Moore introduces a clip from "Diane." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins,


7:15 AM -- The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
In this silent film young prince attending college falls for a barmaid below his station.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt
BW-106 mins,

Leading actress Norma Shearer married MGM Producer Irving Thalberg on September 29, 1927 - just a week after The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) had its premier. They had been dating for four years prior to getting married.


9:15 AM -- The Merry Widow (1934)
A prince from a small kingdom courts a wealthy widow to keep her money in the country.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton
BW-99 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons and Fredric Hope

Maurice Chevalier avoided any confrontations with Jeanette MacDonald and Ernst Lubitsch throughout production. He did, however, blow up at his assistant, Robert Spencer. Spencer had relayed the director and co-star's invitation to Chevalier to help them plan the wrap party and provide gifts for the crew. The actor handed the assignment to Spencer, but when Spencer presented him with the bill for the gifts, which came to about $1,000, the notoriously stingy actor screamed at him. After thinking about it, and realizing that the cost of the gifts was not out of line with current Hollywood custom, Chevalier apologized.


11:00 AM -- Ninotchka (1939)
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire
BW-110 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

Ernst Lubitsch only signed on as director after George Cukor decamped for Gone with the Wind (1939). As part of his deal for directing, MGM agreed to make The Shop Around the Corner (1940) for Lubitsch afterwards.


1:00 PM -- That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
A happily married woman sees a psychoanalyst and develops doubts about her husband.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith
BW-83 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Werner R. Heymann

Despite the indifferent reception That Uncertain Feeling received, the cast treasured its experience with the master director and the atmosphere he created on set. Meredith enjoyed working on the production and years later recalled, "I don't know when I had a better time in my whole career than during that period." Of Lubitsch, Meredith said, "He was very psychic. I'd fall down laughing because right away he'd improvise, in the middle of a scene he was doing for me, some very personal thing about my life, with his big cigar in his mouth, and he knew I'd come over and say, 'How did you know about that?' and he'd say, 'I have ways of knowing.' "


2:30 PM -- Heaven Can Wait (1943)
An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn
C-112 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Ernst Lubitsch, Best Cinematography, Color -- Edward Cronjager, and Best Picture

Gene Tierney recalled that during production, "Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.'

'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed.

'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it - but not enough.'

After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously." (From Gene Tierney's autobiography 'Self-Portrait'.)


4:30 PM -- The Love Parade (1929)
A count finds his marriage to a queen less than satisfying.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lupino Lane
BW-109 mins,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Maurice Chevalier, Best Director -- Ernst Lubitsch, Best Cinematography -- Victor Milner, Best Art Direction -- Hans Dreier, Best Sound, Recording -- Franklin Hansen (sound director), and Best Picture

Considered by many to be the first musical film in which the songs were integrated with the story.


6:30 PM -- The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
A misfired flirtation lands a young lieutenant married to a princess instead of the one he loves.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins
BW-89 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Long considered lost until a print was discovered in Denmark in the 1990s.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES



8:00 PM -- Ivy (1947)
To win a wealthy man British woman plots to kill her husband and pin it on her lover.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Patric Knowles, Herbert Marshall
BW-99 mins,

Based on the Marie Belloc Lowndes novel


9:45 PM -- The Black Book (1949)
Opponents plot to bring down Robespierre during the French Revolution.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Richard Hart
BW-89 mins, CC,

Shot on sets left over from Joan of Arc (1948). Also known as Reign of Terror.


11:30 PM -- The Whip Hand (1951)
A small-town reporter investigates a mysterious group holed up in a country lodge.
Dir: William Cameron Menzies
Cast: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier
BW-82 mins, CC,

This film was originally shot with the bad guys conducting the germ warfare experiments as Nazis (which is why many of the characters have German names). However, producer Howard Hughes had a change of heart and decided that Communists were more of a menace than crazed Nazi scientists (it was also the height of the McCarthy "Red Scare" era) and ordered extensive re-shooting, with the villains now becoming former Nazis but current Communists.


1:00 AM -- Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
A Victorian gentleman bets that he can beat the world's record for circling the globe.
Dir: Michael Anderson
Cast: Cantinflas, Finlay Currie, Robert Morley
C-182 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman, Best Cinematography, Color -- Lionel Lindon, Best Film Editing -- Gene Ruggiero and Paul Weatherwax, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Victor Young (Posthumously), and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Anderson, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- James W. Sullivan, Ken Adam and Ross Dowd, and Best Costume Design, Color -- Miles White

The role of Passepartout was greatly expanded from the novel to accommodate the presence of Mexican star Cantinflas. In the mid-50s, he was the wealthiest movie star in the world, and was given top billing in Latin countries.


4:03 AM -- Around The World Under The Sea (Longer Featurette) (1966)
This promotional short offers a look at the feature film "Around the World Under the Sea" (1966).
C-8 mins,


4:15 AM -- Deadline at Dawn (1946)
An aspiring actress risks her life to clear a sailor charged with murder.
Dir: Harold Clurman
Cast: Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams
BW-83 mins, CC,

The only film directed by legendary stage director Harold Clurman.


5:45 AM -- Mr. Lucky (1943)
A gambling-ship owner is out to fleece a beautiful society woman, but falls in love.
Dir: H. C. Potter
Cast: Cary Grant, Laraine Day, Charles Bickford
BW-100 mins, CC,

Writer Milton Holmes said that his story was inspired by a real 1936 event, where a nightclub owner staged a one-night gambling benefit at the Beverly Hills Hotel to raise $40,000 for a church. In his original story, the character of Joe dies at the end.