TCM Schedule for Friday, May 12, 2017 -- What's on Tonight: 1967

[Staph]

Doctor, doctor, give me the news! In the daylight hours today, TCM is all about the docs, from the creepy silent The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) to Doctor Zhivago (1965). Then in prime time, we've got five films from 1967, all Oscar winners. I've always thought of 1939 as Hollywood's Golden Year, but tonight's films should convince you that 1967 is a contender. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- CALLING DR. GILLESPIE (1942)
A wheelchair-bound doctor fights off a homicidal maniac.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed
BW-84 mins, CC,

The movie initially was called "Born to Be Bad" with Lew Ayres again starring as Dr.Kildare. After principal shooting had been completed, Ayres announced he was a conscientious objector to world war II in which America was then involved. Fearing adverse publicity, MGM scrapped his footage, replaced him with Philip Dorn, and changed the title.


7:30 AM -- THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920)
A carnival performer uses a hypnotized sleepwalker to murder his enemies.
Dir: Robert Wiene
Cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher
BW-77 mins,

Writer Hans Janowitz claims to have gotten the idea for the film when he was at a carnival one day. He saw a strange man lurking in the shadows. The next day, he heard that a girl was brutally murdered there. He went to the funeral, and saw the same strange man lurking around. He had no proof that the strange man was the murderer, but he fleshed the whole idea out into his film.


9:00 AM -- DR. SOCRATES (1935)
A small-town doctor gets mixed up with gangsters.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Barton MacLane
BW-70 mins, CC,

At one point Muni's character is seen buying a second hand book titled "The Life of Pasteur", the role he would play in his next film, which premiered a month after Dr. Socrates opened.


10:15 AM -- DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932)
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a scientist who unleashes the beast within.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart
BW-96 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Fredric March (Tied with Wallace Beery for The Champ (1931).)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein, and Best Cinematography -- Karl Struss

The remarkable Jekyll-to-Hyde transition scenes in this film were accomplished by manipulating a series of variously colored filters in front of the camera lens. Fredric March's Hyde makeup was in various colors, and the way his appearance registered on the film depended on which color filter was being shot through. During the first transformation scene, the accompanying noises on the soundtrack included portions of Bach, a gong being played backwards, and, reportedly, a recording of director Rouben Mamoulian's own heart. Only in the late 1960's did Mamoulian reveal how they were done.


12:00 PM -- DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
Illicit lovers fight to stay together during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay
C-200 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, Terence Marsh and Dario Simoni, Best Costume Design, Color -- Phyllis Dalton, and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Courtenay, Best Director -- David Lean, Best Sound -- A.W. Watkins (M-G-M British SSD) and Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), Best Film Editing -- Norman Savage, and Best Picture

The film was torn apart by critics when first released. Newsweek, in particular, made comments about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography." David Lean was so deeply affected by these criticisms (despite the popularity of the film with the general public) that he swore he would never make another film. Thanks in part to MGM's extreme marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, Doctor Zhivago (1965) became an spectacular success at the box office and the second highest grossing film of 1965, behind The Sound of Music (1965). It went on to receive ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Director), before eventually taking home five awards. This gave Lean the utmost confidence to continue making films. His next film, however, Ryan's Daughter (1970), received a poisonous reception from film critics and, in stark contrast to Zhivago, bombed very badly at the box office. This finally prompted Lean to retire from filmmaking for over fourteen years, until the release of A Passage to India (1984); his last film before his death in 1991.


3:30 PM -- THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE (1938)
A doctor plots crimes so he can study criminal psychology.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart
BW-87 mins, CC,

Humphrey Bogart disparagingly referred to this movie as "The Amazing Doctor Clitoris".


5:15 PM -- DR. KILDARE GOES HOME (1940)
A young doctor gives up big-city success to help his father set up a small-town clinic.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day
BW-79 mins, CC,

The fifth of nine films starring Lew Ayres as Doctor Kildare. The first Doctor Kildare film starred Joel McCrea. And, of course, Richard Chamberlain played the good doctor in more than 190 episodes of the television series Dr. Kildare (1961-1966). Swoon!


6:45 PM -- THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)
A murderer returns from the grave with a thirst for blood.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Wayne Morris
BW-63 mins, CC,

Humphrey Bogart said of this film: "This is one of the pictures that made me march in to (Warner Bros. studio chief) Jack L. Warner and ask for more money again. You can't believe what this one was like. I had a part that somebody like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff should have played. I was this doctor, brought back to life, and the only thing that nourished this poor bastard was blood. If it had been Jack Warner's blood or Harry Warner's or Sam Warner's maybe I wouldn't have minded as much. The trouble was, they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 1967



8:00 PM -- THE GRADUATE (1967)
A recent college graduate has an affair with his neighbor's wife, then falls for their daughter.
Dir: Mike Nichols
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Director -- Mike Nichols

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dustin Hoffman, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Bancroft, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Katharine Ross, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, Best Cinematography -- Robert Surtees, and Best Picture

During rehearsals of Dustin Hoffman's and Anne Bancroft's first encounter in the hotel room, Bancroft did not know that Hoffman was going to grab her breast. Hoffman decided to do it because it reminded him of schoolboys trying to nonchalantly grab girls' breasts in the hall by pretending to put their jackets on. When Hoffman did it, director Mike Nichols began laughing loudly. Hoffman began to laugh as well, so rather than stop the scene, he turned away and walked to the wall. Hoffman banged his head on the wall, trying to stop laughing, and Nichols thought it was so funny, it stayed in the finished film.


10:00 PM -- IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)
A black police detective from the North forces a bigoted Southern sheriff to accept his help with a murder investigation.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
C-110 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rod Steiger, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Stirling Silliphant, Best Sound, Best Film Editing -- Hal Ashby, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Jewison, and Best Effects, Sound Effects -- James Richard

Sidney Poitier insisted that the movie be filmed in the north because an incident in which he and Harry Belafonte were almost killed by Ku Klux Klansman during a visit to Mississippi. Hence the selection of Sparta, Illinois for the location filming. Nevertheless, the filmmakers and actors did venture briefly into Tennessee for the outdoor scenes at the cotton plantation, because there was no similar cotton plantation in Illinois that could be used. Poitier slept with a gun under his pillow during production in Tennessee. Poitier did receive threats from local racist thugs so the shoot was cut short and production returned to Illinois.


12:00 AM -- GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
An aging couple's liberal principles are tested when their daughter announces her engagement to a black doctor.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn
C-108 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn (Katharine Hepburn was not present at the awards ceremony. George Cukor accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Rose

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (Posthumously.), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Cecil Kellaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beah Richards, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Robert Clatworthy and Frank Tuttle, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones, Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank De Vol, and Best Picture

In the scene near the end where Spencer Tracy gives his memorable soliloquy, Katharine Hepburn can be seen crying in the background. This was not acting: she knew how gravely ill her longtime lover was and was moved by his remarks about how true love endures through the years. Tracy died 17 days after filming was completed.


2:00 AM -- THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967)
A renegade officer trains a group of misfits for a crucial mission behind enemy lines.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson
C-150 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- John Poyner

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Cassavetes, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing -- Michael Luciano

"The Dirty Dozen" author E.M. Nathanson may have gotten the idea for the title (if not the plot) of his best-selling novel from a real-life group of World War II 101st Airborne Division paratroopers nicknamed "The Filthy Thirteen." These men, demolitionists in Headquarters Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st, supposedly earned their nickname by not bathing or shaving for a long period of time during training prior to the Normandy invasion. Members of The Filthy Thirteen can be seen in famous vintage film footage and still photos, their faces painted with Indian "war paint," before boarding their planes for the D-Day jump. Another idea source for Nathanson's book may have come from future director Russ Meyer, who was at the time a combat cameraman. He had shot some footage of a group of American soldiers--inmates at a military prison who were under death sentence for such crimes as murder, rape and mutiny--who were training at a secret location for the D-Day invasion, for which they would be parachuted behind German lines to commit acts of sabotage and assassinations. Prison authorities told Meyer that the men, who volunteered, were told that if they survived and returned their sentences would be set aside, their records expunged and they would be set free. Guards told him that the group was called "the dirty dozen" because they refused to bathe or shave. After the invasion Meyer made inquiries as to these men's fates, and was told that none of them came back. After the war he related this story to Nathanson, who was a friend of his.


4:45 AM -- THE PRODUCERS (1967)
A Broadway producer decides to get rich by creating the biggest flop of his career.
Dir: Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn
C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Mel Brooks

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder had previously starred alongside Anne Bancroft in a stage version of "Mother Courage". Wilder had become friendly through with Mel Brooks through their association with Bancroft, and Brooks realized that Wilder would make a great Leo Bloom.

In June 1963 Brooks invited Wilder to spend the weekend with him and Bancroft on Fire Island, where he gave him the first 30 pages of The Producers to read. He liked it immediately and Brooks offered him the part.

Three years passed without Wilder receiving a phone call or any contact with Brooks about the film. He assumed the project was dead. Then one night when he was performing in the play Luv, Brooks showed up in his dressing room out of the blue with producer Sidney Glazier in tow. It was as if not a day had passed. "We got the money, here's the script, you're Leo Bloom," said Brooks. Wilder couldn't believe it. There was just one obstacle: Zero Mostel didn't know Wilder and wanted to meet him first. If he passed muster with Mostel, he had the part.

Wilder was nervous about his first meeting with Mostel. "This huge, round, fantasy of a man came waltzing towards me," said Wilder in his 2005 autobiography Kiss Me Like a Stranger. "My heart was pounding so loud I thought he'd hear it. I stuck out my hand, politely, to shake his, but instead of shaking my hand, Zero pulled me into his body and gave me a giant kiss on the lips. All nervousness floated away...I gave a good reading and was cast."