TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 5, 2018 -- TCM Spotlight: Victorian Era in Film

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating the birth of Ruth Elizabeth Davis (aka Bette!), born on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Then in prime time, TCM is showing the films about the Victorian era every Thursday this month. Take it away, Roger!

The Victorian Era, with its pomp and circumstance and underlying struggles involving poverty, sickness and the subjugation of women, has been a rich subject in movies over the decades. The era is generally considered to cover the reign of Queen Victoria in the British Isles from 1837 to 1899. No author portrayed the difference between the privileged and the deprived during this period better than Charles Dickens. He is represented in our month-long programming by Great Expectations (1946), director David Lean's definitive version of Dickens' 1861 classic about the life and times of an orphan named Pip.

Our films are divided into categories beginning with Victorian Crime. These range from Gaslight (1944), George Cukor's thriller about a Victorian gent (Charles Boyer) scheming to drive his new wife (Ingrid Bergman) insane; to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982), a TV adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim stage musical about a murderous couple (Angela Lansbury and George Hearn) who find a novel use for their victims' remains.

Another outstanding crime drama is The Lodger (1944), in which a couple in Victorian London come to fear that the man they have rented a room to may be Jack the Ripper, the era's most famous killer. Other titles in the Crime category include So Evil My Love (1948) and The Hour of 13 (1952).

...

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



6:30 AM -- THE NANNY (1965)
A disturbed young man tries to prove his nanny is out to kill him.
Dir: Seth Holt
Cast: Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, Jill Bennett
BW-93 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The role of the Nanny was originally intended for Greer Garson who first accepted then declined, saying the script would not be good for her career. Jimmy Sangster who wrote and produced the film later said, "I went to Santa Fe and met with Greer, and she said she liked the script, and everything was fine. When I got back to London, we had a message from L.A. saying that Greer Garson didn't think the script would do her career much good. I didn't like to say she didn't have a career in those days."


8:15 AM -- DEAD RINGER (1964)
A woman murders her rich twin and tries to take her place.
Dir: Paul Henreid
Cast: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford
BW-116 mins, CC,

For Bette Davis, this film was a reunion not only with Paul Henreid but also George Chandler; they were both contract players at Warners in the 1930s. This was their first picture together since Front Page Woman (1935) 29 years earlier.


10:15 AM -- THE STAR (1953)
A faded film star fights to hold on to her past glamour despite failing finances.
Dir: Stuart Heisler
Cast: Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden, Natalie Wood
BW-90 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis

Bette Davis reported that she modeled her performance as the aging, has been, drunken 'star' actress in the film after Joan Crawford, a real actress who was Bette Davis' contemporary, competition, and a lifelong enemy which she publicly ridiculed throughout both their careers; to what extent this is true could be argued, but there's no question about her wearing the famous Crawford ankle strap shoes when she views her disastrous screen test.


12:00 PM -- A STOLEN LIFE (1946)
A twin takes her deceased sister's place as wife of the man they both love.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark
BW-107 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- William C. McGann (visual) and Nathan Levinson (audible)

Because of her constant insistence for better productions to work on, and an overall better atmosphere on set, Jack L. Warner asked Bette Davis to produce the film. It would be the first and only time she would be able to do this. Reportedly, she was so overworked and also intrigued by this job that she started a relationship with the director of this film to iron out her mind.


2:00 PM -- DARK VICTORY (1939)
A flighty heiress discovers inner strength when she develops a brain tumor.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart
BW-104 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

During the filming of the emotionally-charged scene when Bette Davis's character needs to find her way upstairs to her room after the brain tumor has caused her blindness, the cast and crew and several visitors were watching as Davis grasped the banister and began to feel her way up the steps, one by one. Halfway to the top of the staircase Davis paused, stopped the scene, briskly walked back downstairs and addressed director Edmund Goulding. "Ed," Davis said, "is Max Steiner going to be composing the music score to this picture?" Goulding, surprised by the question, replied that he didn't know, and asked Davis why the matter was important enough to stop the filming of the scene. "Well, either I'm going to climb those stairs or Max Steiner is going to climb those stairs," Davis responded, "but I'll be God-DAMNED if Max Steiner and I are going to climb those stairs together!"


4:00 PM -- THE GOLDEN ARROW (1936)
A flighty heiress and a down-to-earth reporter get stuck in a marriage of convenience.
Dir: Alfred E. Green
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Eugene Pallette
BW-69 mins, CC,

After being called back for retakes with George Brent in which they both had black eyes for comedic effect, Davis broke her contract and fled to England where she was sued by Warner Bros. for breach of contract.


5:15 PM -- THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936)
An escaped convict holds the customers at a remote desert cantina hostage.
Dir: Archie L. Mayo
Cast: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Genevieve Tobin
BW-82 mins, CC,

Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart had played the same roles in the stage version. Warner Bros. wanted to put Howard in the film but replace Bogart with Edward G. Robinson. Howard insisted on Bogart, sending a telegram to Jack L. Warner which read "Insist Bogart play Mantee; no Bogart, no deal." Bogart would later name his second child with Lauren Bacall Leslie, in honor of Howard, the man who gave him his first big break.


6:45 PM -- BETTE DAVIS: THE BENEVOLENT VOLCANO (1984)
A documentary depicting the life and career of one of America's premiere actresses.
Cast: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald
C-60 mins, CC,

The title comes from a quote from Olivia de Havilland, "Bette Davis is a basically benevolent volcano".


7:46 PM -- HIT PARADE OF THE GAY NINETIES (1943)
This short film focuses on popular music of the 1890s.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
BW-10 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPECIAL THEME: VICTORIAN ERA IN FILM



8:00 PM -- THE LODGER (1944)
The inhabitants of a boarding house fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
Dir: John Brahm
Cast: Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Laird Cregar
BW-84 mins, CC,

[iMerle Oberon fell in love with the film's cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, and they married the following year. Because of facial scars Oberon sustained in a car accident, Ballard developed a unique light for her that washed out any signs of her blemishes. The device is known to this day as the Obie (not to be confused with the Off-Broadway award).]


9:33 PM -- THE FABULOUS FRAUD (1948)
This short film focuses on Dr. Anton Mesmer, the man who discovered hypnotism.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: John Baragrey, Morris Ankrum, Marcia Mae Jones
BW-11 mins,


9:45 PM -- GASLIGHT (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

The scene in which Angela Lansbury lights a cigarette in contradiction of Ingrid Bergman's wishes had to be postponed until toward the end of production. Lansbury was only seventeen when filming began and because she was a minor she had to be monitored by a social worker. The social worker refused to allow Lansbury to smoke while she was a minor, so the scene had to be postponed until her eighteenth birthday. When Lansbury walked on set on her birthday, Bergman and the crew had organized a party for her, and the cigarette scene was shot immediately after they celebrated her birthday.


11:48 PM -- THE AMAZING MR. NORDILL (1947)
This short film focuses on Everett Nordill, a mastermind behind a counterfeiting ring in the mid-nineteenth century.
Dir: Joseph Newman
Cast: Clinton Sundberg, Paul Maxey, Leon Ames
BW-11 mins,

Nordill and his career were the basis for the feature film Mister 880 (1950), starring Edmund Gwenn as the character based on Mr. Nordill, and Burt Lancaster as the treasury agent after him.


12:00 AM -- SO EVIL MY LOVE (1948)
A con artist seduces a missionary's widow into joining his crooked schemes.
Dir: Lewis Allen
Cast: Ray Milland, Ann Todd, Geraldine Fitzgerald
BW-109 mins, CC,

Elements of the plot are based on the mysterious death of barrister Charles Bravo in 1876.


2:00 AM -- THE HOUR OF 13 (1952)
A gentleman thief in Victorian England tries to reform and do one good deed.
Dir: Harold French
Cast: Peter Lawford, Dawn Addams, Roland Culver
BW-80 mins, CC,

Based on the novel "X v. Rex - Mystery of the Dead Police" by Philip MacDonald.


3:34 AM -- THE GREAT AMERICAN MUG (1945)
This short film takes a look at the typical American barbershop.
Dir: Cy Endfield
Cast: Walter Soderling, Arthur Space, Pat McKee
BW-10 mins,


3:45 AM -- SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1982)
A father returns to London after being deported to find out what happened to his wife and child.
Dir: Terry Hughes
Cast: George Hearn, Angela Lansbury, Cris Groenendall
C-140 mins, CC,

Though Angela Lansbury won the 1979 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett on Broadway, this production is the national tour, filmed while in Los Angeles.