TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 9, 2017 -- What's On Tonight - Starring Richard Burton

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating the birth of director S. Sylvan Simon, botn on March 9, 1910, in Chicago. He started as a drama coach and radio exec before going to work for Warner Bros. and later MGM as a director. He died unexpectedly in 1951 of a heart attack. And in prime time, there's more of Richard Burton, with five films Burton made with his twice wife Elizabeth Taylor. Enjoy!


7:00 AM -- TWO GIRLS ON BROADWAY (1940)
A sister act splits up over love.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Lana Turner, Joan Blondell, George Murphy
BW-73 mins, CC,

The song "Maybe It's the Moon" by Bob Wright and Chet Forrest was written for the picture but not used.


8:15 AM -- TISH (1942)
Three small-town spinsters adopt a baby.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Marjorie Main, ZaSu Pitts, Aline MacMahon
BW-85 mins, CC,

As the credits say, "founded in part on stories by Mary Roberts Rinehart".


9:45 AM -- SON OF LASSIE (1945)
The beloved collie goes to war to help the resistance in occupied Norway.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp, June Lockhart
C-100 mins, CC,

This was the only Lassie movie in which June Lockhart appeared. However, 13 years later, she would appear in her first of 207 episodes of the Lassie (1954) television series.


11:30 AM -- BAD BASCOMB (1946)
A western bandit is reformed by his love for a little girl.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Wallace Beery, Margaret O'Brien, Marjorie Main
BW-110 mins, CC,

According to page 70 of "Notes For A Memoir", Janet Jeppson, second wife of Isaac Asimov, describes how she was acting as an extra in this movie on August 14, 1945, when Wallace Beery came out of his trailer to tell everyone on-site that World War II had been declared over.


1:30 PM -- THE COCKEYED MIRACLE (1946)
Father and son ghosts sort out their family's problems.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Frank Morgan, Keenan Wynn, Cecil Kellaway
BW-82 mins,

Based on the play But Not Goodbye by George Seaton.


3:00 PM -- HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS (1947)
An ad man fights off his wife's attempts to help him market an embalming fluid that doubles as a hair remover.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Lucille Ball, Franchot Tone, Edward Everett Horton
BW-85 mins, CC,

"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30-minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 22, 1949 with Lucille Ball reprising her film role.


4:30 PM -- THE FULLER BRUSH MAN (1948)
A bumbling salesman gets mixed up in murder.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Red Skelton, Janet Blair, Don McGuire
BW-92 mins, CC,

A major part of the movie involves a murder and a disappearing dagger. Red Skelton's character discovers someone has made the dagger by soaking the handle of one of his brushes in hot water and reshaping it. When the handle is put back into hot water it returns to its original shape. After trying numerous ways to make this look realistic with special effects the producers finally went to a plastics company and had them actually develop a "memory plastic". It was such a big story that it was in an article covered in "Life" magazine.


6:15 PM -- LUST FOR GOLD (1949)
A German immigrant braves the wild West in search of gold and a woman to love.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Ida Lupino, Glenn Ford, Gig Young
BW-90 mins, CC,

The real Jacob Walz (Glenn Ford's character), who claimed that he had discovered the Lost Dutchman mine, died of pneumonia after severe flooding on his Arizona ranch in 1891. He was nursed by Julia Thomas, the same name as the character portrayed by Ida Lupino in this film and reputed to have been a quadroon. She claimed Walz had told her the mine's location on his deathbed and even sold shares in a Lost Dutchman mining company, but nothing ever came of it.


7:47 PM -- JOHANNESBURG "CITY OF GOLD" (1953)
This short film provides a glimpse at the South African gold mining industry as well as local cultures, music and dance.
C-8 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: RICHARD BURTON



8:00 PM -- WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)
An academic couple reveal their deepest secret to a pair of newcomers during an all-night booze fest.
Dir: Mike Nichols
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal
BW-131 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor was not present at the awards ceremony. Anne Bancroft accepted the award on her behalf.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Sandy Dennis (Sandy Dennis was unable to attend the Academy Awards presentations, because she was working on a new film, Sweet November (1968), being shot in New York. Mike Nichols accepted the award on her behalf.), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Haskell Wexler, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Sylbert and George James Hopkins, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Irene Sharaff

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Richard Burton, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Segal, Best Director -- Mike Nichols, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ernest Lehman, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Film Editing -- Sam O'Steen, Best Music, Original Music Score -- Alex North, and Best Picture

While Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were forces to be reckoned with while they were working, it was a challenge to actually get them in front of the camera every day. They both had it in their contracts that they didn't have to be on the set until 10:00 A.M., even though most other productions began at dawn. After they arrived on set, it would take two hours of makeup, hair and wardrobe to get them ready for shooting, and by the time they were camera ready, it was lunch time. They would often go off for lengthy cocktail-filled lunches, often with friends, and then return late in the afternoon to finally begin shooting. "When they finally came back late," recalled Sam O'Steen, "they'd just ignore it all, be real nice. 'Hey, Mike, old buddy, sorry we're late. Okay, let's shoot!'...Sometimes they wouldn't come back 'til five o'clock and they had in their contract that they couldn't work past six o'clock."


10:30 PM -- THE V.I.P.S (1963)
Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Margaret Rutherford (Margaret Rutherford was not present at the awards ceremony.Peter Ustinov accepted the award on her behalf.)

Based on a true story, the movie was a thinly disguised account of screenwriter Terence Rattigan's real-life friend Vivien Leigh and her attempt to leave her husband Laurence Olivier for Australian actor Peter Finch . Leigh and Finch made it to the London airport, but their plane was delayed by incoming fog giving Olivier time to confront the two and bring Leigh home. Leigh abandoned the plan after hours of fog delay.


12:45 AM -- THE SANDPIPER (1965)
An Episcopal priest falls for a free-living artist.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Eva Marie Saint
C-117 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Johnny Mandel (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for the song "The Shadow of Your Smile"

Vincente Minnelli originally wanted But Lancaster and Deborah Kerr to repeat their "From Here to Eternity" chemistry before offering it to the Burtons.


2:47 AM -- THE BIG SUR (1965)
This promotional short provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "The Sandpiper" (1965).
Narrator: Richard Burton
C-9 mins,


3:00 AM -- THE COMEDIANS (1967)
American and British tourists get caught up in political unrest in Haiti.
Dir: Peter Glenville
Cast: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness
C-152 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This is the first film where Richard Burton was paid more than his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Burton got $750,000 while Taylor, the first actor to receive a $1 million fee for a single picture, settled for a mere half-a-million.


5:45 AM -- CARSON ON TCM: ELIZABETH TAYLOR (2/21/92) (2013)
TCM presents an interview from The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, with Elizabeth Taylor from 2/21/92.
C-10 mins, CC,