TCM Schedule for Friday, March 31, 2017 -- What's On Tonight - Dan Duryea

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is giving us Joan Crawford, and in prime time, it's Dan Duryea.

For those not familiar with Duryea, here's what IMDB has to say:

Dan Duryea was definitely the man you went to the movies for and loved to hate. His sniveling, deliberately taunting demeanor and snarling flat, nasal tones set the actor apart from other similar slimeballs of the 1940s and 1950s. From his very first picture, the highly acclaimed The Little Foxes (1941), in which he portrayed the snotty, avaricious nephew Leo Hubbard who would easily sell his own mother down the river for spare change, the tall, lean and mean Duryea became a particularly guilty pleasure, particularly in film noir, melodramas and westerns.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- RAIN (1932)
A missionary tries to reform a streetwalker trapped on a Pacific island.
Dir: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Frederic Howard, Ben Hendricks, William Gargan
BW-94 mins,

Joan Crawford's marriage to her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was on the rocks during filming, leading her to withdraw from the cast and crew when they were filming on Catalina Island, making them think she was aloof. Fairbanks sailed out to accompany his wife on one occasion but was coolly received. The marriage ended seven months later.


7:45 AM -- GRAND HOTEL (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford
BW-113 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Depite them not having any scenes together, Joan Crawford often tried to talk to Greta Garbo, and would say "Hello, Miss Garbo" whenever the two would pass each other in the hall. Garbo never responded, so Crawford gave up and stopped saying anything. This led to Garbo stopping Crawford as she walked silently past her, and asking, "Aren't you going to say something to me?"


9:45 AM -- THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY (1937)
A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks.
Dir: Richard Boleslawski
Cast: Joan Crawford, William Powell, Robert Montgomery
BW-98 mins, CC,

Myrna Loy was originally cast as Fay Cheyney, while Joan Crawford was cast in Parnell (1937). Because Crawford did not like her role in that film, she switched roles and films with Loy.


11:30 AM -- THE WOMEN (1939)
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell
BW-133 mins, CC,

After Sylvia (Rosalind Russell) bites Miriam (Paulette Goddard) on the leg, Miriam's line, "Yeah, gotta be careful of hydrophobia!" is her veiled way of calling Sylvia a bitch (hydrophobia is a synonym for rabies, referring to a late stage of the disease, in which the victim has difficulty swallowing, even liquids, and simultaneously becomes very thirsty, while panicking at the idea of trying to drink water). Also, near the end a second allusion to the word "bitch" is used when Crystal (Joan Crawford) says, "There's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society . . . outside a kennel."


1:45 PM -- A WOMAN'S FACE (1941)
Plastic surgery gives a scarred female criminal a new outlook on life.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt
BW-107 mins, CC,

Director Cukor wanted Anna's recital of her life story to be done in a tired, mechanical fashion, so he had Crawford repeat the multiplication tables over and over until he got the monotonous tone he was looking for. Then, he rolled the cameras.


3:45 PM -- HUMORESQUE (1946)
A classical musician from the slums is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy neurotic.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant
BW-124 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Franz Waxman

For the scene where Helen falls off the horse, Joan Crawford performed the stunt herself. Relieved that it had gone well, she nevertheless was forced to the stunt again when it was decided that Paul (John Garfield)'s rushing over and laying on top of her was too racy. It was reshot, and instead, Helen lies on top of Paul. Crawford later remarked: "I couldn't really understand what was the difference, him on top of me or me on top of him. Well, the difference was I had to fall off the horse again. I did, and I lived to tell the tale."


6:00 PM -- POSSESSED (1947)
A married woman's passion for a former love drives her mad.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey
BW-108 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford

Star Joan Crawford and director Curtis Bernhardt spent time in real psychiatric wards in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara and Pasadena, observing mental patients as research for the film. On one of these visits, Crawford and Bernhardt witnessed, without asking permission, a woman undergoing electro convulsive shock therapy. Warner Bros. was later forced to pay substantial damages to the woman, who claimed their presence was an invasion of privacy.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAN DURYEA



8:00 PM -- WINCHESTER '73 (1950)
A man combs the West in search of his stolen rifle.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea
C-92 mins, CC,

James Stewart, Anthony Mann and screenwriter Borden Chase seemed very conscious of the fact that Stewart's character Lin McAdam was a clear break from the sort of hero the actor was previously associated with. Chase, in fact, narrowed down the transition to the moment that McAdam confronts Dan Duryea's character in a saloon, smashing his face down onto the bar. As Chase was quoted in Donald Dewey's James Stewart, "When the picture was given a sneak preview, there had even been some titters in the audience at seeing Stewart's name in the opening titles of a western. ...But once he smashed Duryea in that bar, there would be no more snickering." In his book Horizons West, Jim Kitses later echoed this observation when he wrote, "Lin's destruction of Waco is consequently a key moment since it both satisfies our moral expectations and disturbs them, our identification with the hero jarred by the naked violence with which he sets about the villain."


9:45 PM -- THE UNDERWORLD STORY (1950)
A corrupt newspaperman, blacklisted from his big-city paper, becomes involved with a murder case for a small town paper.
Dir: Cyril Endfield
Cast: Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm
BW-91 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Craig Rice (born Georgianna Randolph Craig).


11:30 PM -- ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST (1948)
A father and son's rivalry shakes the family business.
Dir: Michael Gordon
Cast: Fredric March, Dan Duryea, Edmond O'Brien
BW-107 mins,

Follows The Little Foxes (1941). Dan Duryea plays Oscar Hubbard in this film, eight years after he had played Oscar's son Leo in The Little Foxes.


1:30 AM -- SCARLET STREET (1945)
A middle aged wouldbe painter falls into the clutches of an unscrupulous woman.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea
BW-102 mins, CC,

This is the first of two remakes Fritz Lang made of Jean Renoir's films. While La Chienne (1931) inspired "Scarlet Street" (1945), La Bête Humaine (1938) inspired Human Desire (1954). Notoriously, Renoir disliked both.


3:30 AM -- THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942)
Baseball legend Lou Gehrig faces a crippling disease at the height of his success.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth
BW-129 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Gary Cooper, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Teresa Wright, Best Writing, Original Story -- Paul Gallico, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Herman J. Mankiewicz and Jo Swerling, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Rudolph Maté, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Perry Ferguson and Howard Bristol, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Effects, Special Effects -- Jack Cosgrove (photographic), Ray Binger (photographic) and Thomas T. Moulton (sound), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Leigh Harline, and Best Picture

Gary Cooper was born in 1901, and Lou Gehrig in 1903, so when this movie was released Cooper was barely two years older than the real Gehrig would have been.