Classic Films

Staph

(6,251 posts) Tue Oct 24, 2017, 11:45 PM Oct 2017

TCM Schedule for Saturday, October 28, 2017 -- The Essentials - Howard da Silva

Tonight's Essentials feature films starring Howard da Silva -- at least, I think so. TCM hasn't specified who or what this week's subject is, but as da Silva is in all three prime time films, I'm guessing he's our subject. I must admit that I've seen few of his films, aside from 1776 (1972), probably because he was one of those folks who was blacklisted in the 1950s. Enjoy!

6:15 AM -- MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)
Vampires seem to be connected to an unsolved murder.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allen, Lionel Atwill
BW-60 mins, CC,

Throughout the film, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) has an unexplained bullet wound on his temple. In the original script Mora was supposed to have had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Luna, and to have committed suicide. After filming began, however, MGM deleted references to the crime (and any remaining references may have been deleted when 20 minutes of footage was removed after the film's preview). Because director Tod Browning's previous film, Freaks (1932), had been a box-office disaster, he was unable to object to any changes made by the studio.

7:30 AM -- THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936)
A Devil's Island escapee shrinks murderous slaves and sells them to his victims as dolls.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton
BW-78 mins, CC,

Madame Mandilip's special dolls are costumed as members of vicious street gangs known as the Apache (pronounced ah-PAHSH), who were involved in theft, prostitution, and the occasional murder in pre-World War I Paris. The dolls even perform the Apache dance popularized by the gangs, in which extremely close steps alternate with seemingly brutal punches, kicks, hair-pulling, spins, and throws; it was usually danced to the Valse des rayons (aka Valse chaloupée) composed by Jacques Offenbach. In the 1930s and 1940s, this dance was still performed by professional dancers and can be seen in several films and even cartoons of the period.

9:00 AM -- WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962)
A crazed, aging star torments her sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
BW-134 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Norma Koch

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Victor Buono, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Sound -- Joseph D. Kelly (Seven Arts-Warner Bros. Glen Glenn Sound Department)

Early on, Bette Davis made the decision to create her own makeup for Jane. "What I had in mind no professional makeup man would have dared to put on me," said Davis. "One told me he was afraid that if he did what I wanted, he might never work again. Jane looked like many women one sees on Hollywood Boulevard. In fact author Henry Farrell patterned the character of Jane after these women. One would presume by the way they looked that they once were actresses, and were now unemployed. I felt Jane never washed her face, just added another layer of makeup each day." Davis' garish makeup made her look something akin to a grotesque version of an ageing Mary Pickford gone to seed, and she loved it. She took pride when Farrell visited the set one day and exclaimed, "My God, you look just exactly as I pictured Baby Jane." The outrageousness of Davis' appearance caused some concern for Aldrich and the producers who feared it might be too over-the-top. However, as time went on, they came to see that Davis' instincts for the character were right.

11:30 AM -- LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)
A clumsy young man nurtures a bloodthirsty plant that forces him to kill to feed it.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles
BW-72 mins, CC,

When asked where Seymour got the plant, he replies that the seeds were obtained by a Japanese gardener who found the bulb in a "plantation next to a cranberry farm." This joke is lost on modern audiences. In 1959, it was announced that cranberry crops were tainted with traces of the herbicide aminotriazole, and as a result, cranberry sales plummeted.

1:00 PM -- VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1961)
After a mysterious blackout, the inhabitants of a British village give birth to emotionless, super-powered offspring.
Dir: Wolf Rilla
Cast: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens
BW-77 mins, CC,

Originally begun in 1957 as an American picture to star Ronald Colman, MGM shelved the project, because it was deemed potentially inflammatory and controversial, specifically due to its sinister depiction of virgin birth. Colman had passed away by the time this film was slated for production in 1959; in an odd twist, his replacement was George Sanders, who had recently married Benita Hume, Colman's widow.

2:30 PM -- CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1963)
Space invaders impregnate six women with super-powered offspring.
Dir: Anton M. Leader
Cast: Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris
BW-90 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Follow-up to Village Of The Damned (1961).

4:15 PM -- HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970)
A vampire seeks a cure so he can wed the reincarnation of his lost love.
Dir: Dan Curtis
Cast: Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, Grayson Hall
C-97 mins, CC,

This film was shot concurrently with the original Dark Shadows (1966) series. During the time of filming, the television program was in the middle of its 1970 parallel time story-arc. Major characters appearing in the film were written out of the TV series so that they would be available to shoot the movie.

6:00 PM -- NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS (1971)
Newlyweds try to survive life at a haunted family estate.
Dir: Dan Curtis
Cast: David Selby, Grayson Hall, Kate Jackson
C-94 mins, CC,

This was originally intended to to be a sequel to House of Dark Shadows (1970), and was to star Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid). Frid however turned down the role as he feared being typecast as Barnabas, so "Dark Shadows" creators Dan Curtis and Sam Hall made a new story which starred Quentin Collins and was based on the "Parallel Time" saga of the show (an alternate version of the story).

TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: HOWARD da SILVA

8:00 PM -- THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)
A writer fights to overcome his addiction to liquor.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry
BW-101 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ray Milland, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John F. Seitz, Best Film Editing -- Doane Harrison, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa

Ray Milland actually checked himself into Bellevue Hospital with the help of resident doctors, in order to experience the horror of a drunk ward. Milland was given an iron bed and he was locked inside the "booze tank." That night, a new arrival came into the ward screaming, an entrance which ignited the whole ward into hysteria. With the ward falling into bedlam, a robed and barefooted Milland escaped while the door was ajar and slipped out onto 34th Street where he tried to hail a cab. When a suspicious cop spotted him, Milland tried to explain, but the cop didn't believe him, especially after he noticed the Bellevue insignia on his robe. The actor was dragged back to Bellevue where it took him a half-hour to explain his situation to the authorities before he was finally released.

10:00 PM -- THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1949)
After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva
BW-95 mins, CC,

Robert Mitchum lobbied unsuccessfully for the role of Chicamaw (eventually played by Howard da Silva). He told Nicholas Ray that he was very familiar with bank robbers and chain gangs, and even cut and dyed his hair black (in the original treatment Chicamaw was an Indian). He was rejected because he had recently been nominated for an Oscar, and a supporting role was considered unworthy for a rising star.

12:00 AM -- M (1951)
When the police hunt for a child killer cramps their style, the criminal underworld tries to track him down.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: David Wayne, Howard Da Silva, Luther Adler
BW-88 mins,

Before signing Joseph Losey as director, producer Seymour Nebenzal approached fellow German expatriate Douglas Sirk and offered him the job. Sirk said he would do the film only if he could scrap the original story and write a new one about a psychopathic murderer of children. When Nebenzal approached Losey, he too wanted to scrap the original story and do a new one about a child-murderer, and Nebenzal told him that the Production Code Administration (PCA) had agreed to allow him to make the film only if the original story and script were kept. The PCA had approved "M" as a remake of an acknowledged classic, but if the story were changed, their approval would be withdrawn.

2:00 AM -- THE BROOD (1979)
A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders.
Dir: David Cronenberg
Cast: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle
BW-92 mins, CC,

David Cronenberg wrote the film following the tumultuous divorce and child-custody battle he waged against Margaret Hindson. Cronenberg also said that Samantha Eggar's character, Nola Carveth, possessed some of the characteristics of his ex-wife.

3:45 AM -- REPULSION (1965)
Strange dreams haunt a beautiful young woman left alone in her apartment.
Dir: Roman Polanski
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
BW-105 mins, CC,

This film, along with Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), forms a loose trilogy by Roman Polanski about the horrors of apartment/city dwelling.

5:45 AM -- THE CORVAIR IN ACTION! (1960)
Technicians herald the arrival of a new car that "delivers the goods as no other compact car can" in this short advertisement.
C-6 mins,