TCM Schedule for Saturday, February 25, 2017 -- 31 Days of Oscar: Oscar A to Z Day 25

[Staph]

Day twenty-five of 31 Days of Oscar takes us from 1961's Splendor in the Grass (the Swinging Sixties' look at the Roaring Twenties) to 1955's The Tender Trap (Debbie Reynolds in a Fifties sex comedy). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961)
Sexual repression drives a small-town Kansas girl mad during the roaring twenties.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle
C-124 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Inge

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Natalie Wood

Film neophyte Warren Beatty looked at Elia Kazan as a teacher and sought to learn as much as possible from him. Kazan taught him how to think about acting, where to put the camera, how to break down a script - all valuable lessons for Beatty, who later went on to direct and produce himself.


8:15 AM -- STAGE DOOR (1937)
Women at a theatrical boarding house try to make their big break happen.
Dir: Gregory LaCava
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou
BW-92 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Andrea Leeds, Best Director -- Gregory La Cava, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller, and Best Picture

Incredibly, Ann Miller was only 14 years old when she appeared in this film. She had lied about her age and procured a fake birth certificate, but the precocious Miller was so tall and beautiful at age 14 that she pulled it off. With this knowledge, today it is quite impressive to see her holding her own while dancing with Ginger Rogers, by then an international star as the dance partner of Fred Astaire.


10:00 AM -- STAGECOACH (1939)
A group of disparate passengers battle personal demons and each other while racing through Indian country.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine
BW-96 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Thomas Mitchell, and Best Music, Scoring -- Richard Hageman, W. Franke Harling, John Leipold and Leo Shuken

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- John Ford, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Bert Glennon, Best Art Direction -- Alexander Toluboff, Best Film Editing -- Otho Lovering and Dorothy Spencer, and Best Picture

John Ford declined to use John Wayne in any of his 1930s films, despite their close friendship, telling Wayne to wait until he was "ready" as an actor. Ford successfully sought to use this film to make Wayne a big movie star. The early scene where Ringo stops the stagecoach for a ride and twirls his Winchester rifle while the camera zooms in on his face is the exclamation mark on that effort.


12:00 PM -- A STAR IS BORN (1937)
A fading matinee idol marries the young beginner he's shepherded to stardom.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou
C-111 mins, CC,

Won an Honorary Academy Award for W. Howard Greene for the color photography of A Star Is Born. (plaque) This award was recommended by a committee of leading cinematographers after viewing all the color pictures made during the year.

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- William A. Wellman and Robert Carson

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Fredric March, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Janet Gaynor, Best Director -- William A. Wellman, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Alan Campbell, Robert Carson and Dorothy Parker, and Best Assistant Director -- Eric Stacey

The character of Norman Maine was based on several real actors, including John Barrymore, John Gilbert, and John Bowers, who drowned off Malibu during the film's production. It has been speculated (though never confirmed) since the time of the movie's release that the story was inspired by the real-life marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and her first husband, Frank Fay. The funeral scene was inspired by the funeral of Irving Thalberg, where fans swarmed around his widow Norma Shearer outside the church.


2:00 PM -- THE STORY OF G.I. JOE (1945)
War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins an Army platoon during World War II to learn what battle is really about.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Freddie Steele
BW-109 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Mitchum, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Leopold Atlas, Guy Endore and Philip Stevenson, Best Music, Original Song -- Ann Ronell for the song "Linda", and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Louis Applebaum and Ann Ronell

The extras in the film were real American GIs, in the process of being transferred from the war in Europe to the Pacific. Many of them were killed in the fighting on Okinawa - the same battle in which Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese machine gunner - never having seen the movie in which they appeared.


4:00 PM -- STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951)
A man's joking suggestion that he and a chance acquaintance trade murders turns deadly.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
BW-101 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Burks

The relationship between Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock was not a happy one. The main bone of contention between the two men was that Chandler's writing paid more attention to character motivation while Hitchcock was more interested in the visual development and formal structure of the movie laid out in the treatment. In a letter to a studio executive, Chandler said he preferred to work with a director "who realizes that what is said and how it is said is more important than shooting it upside down through a glass of champagne." The two men also had different meeting styles. Hitchcock enjoyed long, rambling off-topic meetings where often the film would not even be mentioned for hours, while Chandler was strictly business and wanted to get out and get writing. He called the meetings "god-awful jabber sessions which seem to be an inevitable although painful part of the picture business." Chandler was also a hard drinker and a difficult person to get along with under the best of circumstances. Interpersonal relations deteriorated rapidly until finally Chandler became openly combative. When Hitchcock arrived at Chandler's home for a story meeting, Chandler hollered from his window, "Look at the fat bastard trying to get out of his car!" When his secretary warned that Hitchcock might be able to hear him, Chandler said he didn't care.


5:45 PM -- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
A fading southern belle tries to build a new life with her sister in New Orleans.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
BW-125 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh (Vivien Leigh was not present at the awards ceremony. Greer Garson accepted on her behalf.), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Kim Hunter (Kim Hunter was not present at the awards ceremony. Bette Davis accepted on her behalf.), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day and George James Hopkins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Tennessee Williams, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Lucinda Ballard, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros.), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alex North, and Best Picture

Mickey Kuhn, who plays the young sailor who helps Vivien Leigh onto the streetcar at the beginning of the film, had previously appeared with Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939) as Beau Wilkes (the child of Olivia de Havilland's character Melanie), toward the end of that film when the character was age 5. When Mickey Kuhn mentioned this to someone else on the set of "A Streetcar Named Desire," word got back to Leigh and she called him into her dressing room for a half-hour chat. In an interview in his seventies, Kuhn stated that Leigh was extremely kind to him and was "one of the loveliest ladies he had ever met."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: DAY 25



8:00 PM -- SUMMER OF '42 (1971)
A high school student falls in love, for the first time, with a World War II bride.
Dir: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Jennifer O'Neill, Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser
C-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score -- Michel Legrand

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Herman Raucher, Best Cinematography -- Robert Surtees, and Best Film Editing -- Folmar Blangsted

During an interview on The Mike Douglas Show (1961), Herman Raucher said that after the novel and movie were released, several women wrote letters to him claiming to be Dorothy. One of the letters was indeed from the real Dorothy, who wanted to know if she had psychologically damaged Raucher, and also informed him that had been happily remarried and was now a grandmother. It was the last time that Raucher, by that time married with children, heard from Dorothy.


10:00 PM -- THE SUNDOWNERS (1960)
An Australian sheepherder and his wife clash over their nomadic existence and their son's future.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov
C-133 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Deborah Kerr, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Glynis Johns, Best Director -- Fred Zinnemann, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Isobel Lennart, and Best Picture

Gary Cooper was originally cast in the lead role of Paddy Carmondy, but had to back out due to poor health. Errol Flynn replaced him, but he suddenly passed away before production began. Robert Mitchum stepped into the role for the chance to act with his good friend Deborah Kerr, whom he had previously co-starred with in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957). Mitchum agreed to give Kerr top billing, joking to the production team, "You can design a twenty-four foot sign of me bowing to her if you like."


12:30 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"

In "The Way You Look Tonight", Ginger Rogers is seen to be washing her hair. The crew tried various soaps, shampoos, and even egg white, but it always ran down her face too quickly. They achieved success with whipped cream.


2:30 AM -- A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935)
Charles Dickens' classic story of two men in love with the same woman during the French Revolution.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allen, Edna May Oliver
BW-126 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Film Editing -- Conrad A. Nervig, and Best Picture

Actor Ronald Colman agreed to play the role of Sydney Carton with the sole condition that he not also be required to play the role of Charles Darnay, as was usually expected in adaptations of the Dickens novel. The plot of 'A Tale of Two Cities' turns on the physical resemblance between the two characters. Colman had long wanted to play Sidney Carton, and was even willing to shave off his beloved mustache to play the part.


5:00 AM -- THE TENDER TRAP (1955)
A swinging bachelor finds love when he meets a girl immune to his line.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, David Wayne
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song &quot Love Is) The Tender Trap"

The original Broadway production of "The Tender Trap" by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith opened at the Longacre Theater on October 13, 1954 and ran for 102 performances. The original cast included Robert Preston and Kim Hunter.