TCM Schedule for Saturday, October 8, 2016 -- What's On Tonight - Feel Good Romances

[Staph]

Tonight's films are a lovely selection of romances, including one of my all time favorites, Murphy's Romance (1985), with James Garner and Sally Field. Enjoy!

(I'm not sure what is happening with The Essentials. I've searched the TCM website to no avail. The best I can guess from the comments on the TCM message boards is that Robert Osborne was ill in the spring, and that made it difficult to schedule time with Sally Field to record the wraparound segments for the Essentials. With luck, Robert Osborne will return for the 2017 season.)



6:30 AM -- THE UNKNOWN (1927)
In this silent film, an escaped killer pretends to be a sideshow's armless wonder.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford
BW-50 mins,

Joan Crawford always considered The Unknown (1927) a big turning point for her. She said it wasn't until working with Lon Chaney in this film that she learned the difference between standing in front of a camera and acting in front of a camera. She said that was all due to Lon Chaney and his intense concentration, and after that experience she said she worked much harder to become a better actress.


7:30 AM -- MAD LOVE (1935)
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists.
Dir: Karl Freund
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive
BW-68 mins, CC,

Peter Lorre's first American film.


9:00 AM -- ISLE OF THE DEAD (1945)
The inhabitants of a Balkans island under quarantine fear that one of their number is a vampire.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer
BW-72 mins, CC,

Filming began in July 1944, but was suspended when Boris Karloff required back surgery. It was completed in December 1944. After Karloff had recovered from surgery, but before the cast of Isle of the Dead (1945) could be reassembled, Val Lewton and Karloff made The Body Snatcher (1945), which was released first.


10:30 AM -- PARIS PLAYBOYS (1954)
When one of the Bowery Boys impersonates a missing French professor, the group ends up battling spies.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey
BW-62 mins, CC,

The 33rd of 48 Bowery Boys movies.


12:00 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.

The scene where Alvin becomes converted because of the bolt of lightning was an invention of the screenwriters. In reality Alvin C. York was converted from his hard-drinking, roustabout ways to a Sunday-school teacher by his wife, and it was a longer and less dramatic process, unsuitable for a film depiction.


2:30 PM -- PATHS OF GLORY (1958)
A military lawyer comes to question the status quo when he defends three men accused of cowardice.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Fred Bell, John Stein, Harold Benedict
BW-88 mins, CC,

Winston Churchill said that the film was a highly accurate depiction of trench warfare and the sometimes misguided workings of the military mind.


4:15 PM -- KIM (1951)
Rudyard Kipling's classic tale of an orphaned boy who helps the British Army against Indian rebels.
Dir: Victor Saville
Cast: Errol Flynn, Dean Stockwell, Paul Lukas
C-113 mins, CC,

Originally bought as a property for Freddie Bartholomew in 1938. Production was so far under way (including Bartholomew posing with Indian elephants for newsreel cameras), that the project was eventually abandoned to save costs. In 1942 it was revived as a property for Mickey Rooney but it too was abandoned at behest of the Office of War Information because of its imperialistic theme.


6:15 PM -- GOOD-BYE, MY LADY (1956)
A stray dog brings together a young boy and an old man in the Georgia swamps.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, Brandon de Wilde
BW-95 mins, CC,

According to Hedda Hopper's column of August 28, 1955, director William A. Wellman was planning to cast Vivian Vance and William Frawley (the Mertzes in I Love Lucy (1951)) to play a married couple in a single scene for this film.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FEEL GOOD ROMANCES



8:00 PM -- MURPHY'S ROMANCE (1985)
A divorced woman and her son move to small town to take on a horse ranch.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin
C-108 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Garner, and Best Cinematography -- William A. Fraker

The Columbia Pictures studio really wanted Marlon Brando for his "box office allure", despite the fact he was in an acting hiatus and hadn't been in a film since 1980. James Garner had more recently played the lead male role in the heavily Oscar nominated Blake Edwards movie Victor Victoria (1982) though Garner was not nominated unlike two of his co-stars. Director Martin Ritt and star Sally Field insisted on Garner being in Murphy's Romance (1985) which resulted in Garner's only ever Academy Award nomination. Dear God, this film would have been hideous with Brando in the lead!


10:00 PM -- CROSSING DELANCEY (1988)
An aging woman hires a matchmaker to find her independent granddaughter a man.
Dir: Joan Micklin Silver
Cast: Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, Reizl Bozyk
C-97 mins, CC,

Reizl Bozyk's only English-language film. She was a leading actress in Yiddish theater for many years. She plays Bubbie Kantor.


12:00 AM -- DEAR HEART (1964)
A middle-aged postmistress falls for an engaged man during a convention in New York.
Dir: Delbert Mann
Cast: Glenn Ford, Geraldine Page, Michael Anderson Jr.
BW-114 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music), Jay Livingston (lyrics) and Ray Evans for the song "Dear Heart"

During the opening credits, the scene in Pennsylvania Station behind director Delbert Mann's credit, is the same shot as the very last scene of the movie. If you look closely, you can even see Glenn Ford standing near the Information desk.


2:00 AM -- THE ZODIAC KILLER (1971)
San Francisco police try to track down a vicious serial killer.
Dir: Tom Hanson
Cast: Hal Reed, Bob Jones, Ray Lynch
C-86 mins, CC,

Director Tom Hanson rented the Golden Gate Theater in San Fransisco and premiered the film on April 7th, 1971 with the intention of luring the real Zodiac Killer to one of the screenings. Kawasaki sponsored the event, and offered a motorcycle as a prize to the audience member who wrote the best answer to "I believe the Zodiac kills because..." on yellow cards that were handed out at the door. Hanson set up a team of people to analyze each entry for handwriting that matched that of the killer, and planned to confront them in the lobby if a match was found.


3:30 AM -- THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1977)
A small Texas town is terrorized by a hooded serial killer.
Dir: Charles B Pierce
Cast: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells
C-90 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This movie is a semi-documentary based on the real-life string of mysterious killings that terrorized the people of Texarkana, Texas, in 1946. The murder spree became known as the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders" and ultimately would claim five lives and injure many others. The only description of the killer ever obtained was of a hooded man. To this day no one has been convicted and these murders remain unsolved.


5:00 AM -- ASK ME, DON'T TELL ME (1961)
In this short film, San Francisco gang members turn their lives around working on community service projects.
Dir: David Myers
Cast: Stanley Mosk ,
BW-22 mins,


5:00 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,

[TeamPooka]

1. Murphy's Romance and Crossing Delancy are near perfect films.