TCM Schedule for Friday, November 2, 2018 -- What's On Tonight -- Dan O'Herlihy

[Staph]

In prime time, TCM is featuring Irish-born actor Dan O'Herlihy. From the TCM website:

Character actor and idiosyncratic leading man who performed with the Gate Theatre and the Abbey Players in Dublin before immigrating to the USA, O'Herlihy filled up the screen with a long resume of grand performances in Hollywood films from the 40s to the 90s. An architecture student who turned to acting to earn money for college--He appeared in more than 70 plays on the Dublin stage and played the lead in the original production of Sean O'Casey's "Red Roses for Me"--O'Herlihy wound up working with notables including Orson Welles, Gregory Peck and John Huston after being discovered by British director Carol Reed and cast opposite James Mason in the 1947 thriller "Odd Man Out." O'Herlihy joined Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and played MacDuff opposite Welles' "Macbeth" in both the stage and (1948) screen version of the play. On the U.S. stage he also appeared in John Houseman's "Measure for Measure" in Los Angeles, "King Lear" at the Houston Shakespeare Festival and "Mass Appeal" at the Drury Lane Theatre, while on-screen he appeared with his 'Macbeth' co-star Roddy McDowall in a low-budget adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped."

He became best known for his title role in Luis Bunuel's "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1954)--he beat out Welles for the role, which earned O'Herlihy an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. O'Herlihy had a long and varied career as a versatile player, he was seen in Douglas Sirk's melodrama "Imitation of Life" (1959), in Sidney Lumet's Cold War drama "Fail-Safe" (1964), as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposite Peck in "MacArthur" (1977), as a homicidal toymaker in "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" (1982), in full makeup as a lizardlike alien in "The Last Starfighter" (1984), the lead character Mr. Browne in John Huston's film version of the James Joyce story "The Dead" (1987) and as the villainous Old Man, the CEO of Omni Consumer Products, in "RoboCop" (1987) and its 1990 sequel--the latter films made O'Herily a favorite of sci-fi and fantasy genre fans. His final role had him playing Kennedy family patriarch Joe Kennedy in the HBO telepic "The Rat Pack" in 1998.

O'Herilhy's scores of TV credits included Doc McPheeters in "The Travels of Jamie McPheeters" (1963), town boss Will Varner in the series version of "The Long Hot Summer" (1965), The Director in 'A Man Called Sloane' (1979), intelligence agent Carson Marsh in "Whiz Kids" (1984) and as Alexander Packard in the David Lynch-created cult favorite "Twin Peaks" (1990).

The actor's brother was the Emmy-nominated television and film director Michael O'Herlihy. One of O'Herily's sons, Gavan, was the Irish National Tennis Champion and followed his father's footsteps into acting, playing lost brother Chuck Cunningham in the first season of the sitcom "Happy Days."

Enjoy!



6:15 AM -- La Jetée (1962)
In the aftermath of WWIII, a man is sent back and forth through time to find a solution to the world's fate in this experimental short film.
Dir: Chris Marker
Cast: Helene Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Andre Heinrich
BW-28 mins

This short film was the inspiration for the Terry Gilliam film Twelve Monkeys (1995).


6:45 AM -- Rashomon (1950)
In medieval Japan, four people offer conflicting accounts of a rape and murder.
Dir: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura
BW-89 mins

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Takashi Matsuyama and H. Motsumoto

During shooting, the cast approached Kurosawa en masse with the script and asked him, "What does it mean?" The answer Akira Kurosawa gave at that time and also in his biography is that Rashomon (1950) is a reflection of life, and life does not always have clear meanings.


8:15 AM -- Wuthering Heights (1939)
A married noblewoman fights her lifelong attraction to a charismatic gypsy.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven
BW-104 mins

Winner of an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Best Art Direction -- James Basevi, Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

Laurence Olivier found himself becoming increasingly annoyed with William Wyler's exhausting style of film-making. After yet another take, he is said to have exclaimed, "For God's sake, I did it sitting down. I did it with a smile. I did it with a smirk. I did it scratching my ear. I did it with my back to the camera. How do you want me to do it?" Wyler's retort was, "I want it better." However, Olivier later said these multiple takes helped him learn to succeed as a film actor.


10:15 AM -- Stage Fright (1950)
An acting student goes undercover to prove a singing star killed her husband.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding
BW-110 mins, CC

In an extraordinary move for the normally controlling director, Alfred Hitchcock provided Marlene Dietrich an exceptional amount of creative control for the film, particularly in how she chose to light her scenes. Hitchcock knew that Dietrich had learned a great deal of the art of cinematography from Josef von Sternberg and Günther Rittau, and allowed her to work with this film's cinematographer, Wilkie Cooper, to light and set her scenes the way that she wished.


12:15 PM -- Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
BW-108 mins, CC

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Barbara Stanwyck, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John F. Seitz, Best Sound, Recording -- Loren L. Ryder (Paramount SSD), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, and Best Picture

Initially, Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler had intended to retain as much of the book's original dialogue as possible. It was Chandler who first realized that the dialogue from the novella would not translate well to the screen. Wilder disagreed and was annoyed that Chandler was not putting more of it into the script. To settle it, Wilder hired a couple of contract players from the studio to read passages of James Cain's original dialogue aloud. To Wilder's astonishment, Chandler was right and, in the end, the movie's cynical and provocative dialogue was more Chandler and Wilder than it was Cain.


2:15 PM -- Brief Encounter (1945)
Two married strangers meet in a train station and fall in love.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
BW-87 mins, CC

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Celia Johnson, Best Director -- David Lean, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean and Ronald Neame

Originally the train station scenes were set for London, but with the threat of German rocket attacks during the last days of the war, the company was evacuated outside the city. The producers chose Carnforth Station in northwest England because it was one of the largest provincial stations and far enough from the coast that they would have time to turn off the lights in the event of an air raid and blackout warning.


4:00 PM -- Citizen Kane (1941)
The investigation of a publishing tycoon's dying words reveals conflicting stories about his scandalous life.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
BW-119 mins, CC

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles (On Friday, July 19th, 2003, Orson Welles' Oscar statuette went on sale at an auction at Christie's, New York, but was voluntarily withdrawn so the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences could buy it back for just 1 dollar. The statuette, included in a large selection of Welles-related material, was going to be sold by Beatrice Welles, the youngest of the filmmaker's three daughters and the sole heir of his estate and was expected to sell at over 300,000 dollars.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Orson Welles, Best Director -- Orson Welles, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Perry Ferguson, Van Nest Polglase, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD), Best Film Editing -- Robert Wise, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Bernard Herrmann, and Best Picture

On the night the movie opened in San Francisco, Orson Welles found himself alone with William Randolph Hearst in an elevator at the city's Fairmont Hotel. Aware that his father and Hearst were friends, Welles extended an invitation to the magnate to attend the film's premiere. Hearst turned down the offer and, as he was about to exit the elevator at his floor, Welles remarked, "Charles Foster Kane would have accepted."


6:15 PM -- The Locket (1946)
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
Dir: John Brahm
Cast: Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum
BW-85 mins, CC

The film is noted for a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. Assuming the film begins in the 'present' day and mentions in dialogue, the strands occur variously in 1946, 1938 and beyond, around 1935, childhood scenes around 1925 and back again. Needless to say, hairstyles and fashions pay no attention to this whatsoever.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAN O'HERLIHY



8:00 PM -- Robinson Crusoe (1954)
A shipwrecked Englishman fights to survive on a desert island.
Dir: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Daniel O'Herlihy, Jaime Fernández, Felipe de Alba
C-89 mins, CC

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dan O'Herlihy

Luis Buñuel's first all-English film; the script was also written in English, but according to Dan O'Herlihy Bunuel only directed him in Spanish.


9:45 PM -- Fail-Safe (1964)
A failure in the U.S. defense system threatens to start World War III.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau
BW-112 mins, CC

Columbia Pictures produced both this movie and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Director Stanley Kubrick insisted his movie be released first, and it was, in January 1964. When Fail-Safe (1964) was released, it garnered excellent reviews but audiences found it unintentionally funny because of "Strangelove", and stayed away. Henry Fonda later said he would never have made this movie if he had seen "Strangelove" first, because he would have laughed, too.


11:45 PM -- Home Before Dark (1958)
A woman struggles to adjust to her unhappy marriage after time in a mental institution.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Jean Simmons, Dan O'Herlihy, Rhonda Fleming
BW-137 mins, CC

The Danvers State Mental Hospital was in fact a real hospital, which used treatments such as the lobotomy, electroshock therapy and drug therapy. In the 21st century most of the building was destroyed and is now for sale as condo property. The film Session 9 was also shot at the hospital building. In the 1970's the outdated treatments were stopped and community-based mental health treatment replaced the former.


2:15 AM -- The Lawnmower Man (1992)
A simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.
Dir: Brett Leonard
Cast: Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright
BW-105 mins, CC

New Line Cinema had obtained the rights to the Stephen King short story "The Lawnmower Man", and the producers also had an unrelated script called "Cyber God". They simply placed King's title on the production of "Cyber God". King was furious at this abuse of his name, and he sued the studio to have his name and title removed from the film and promotion. They refused, until the studio was ordered to pay ten thousand dollars and full profits.


4:15 AM -- The Terminal Man (1974)
To end his violent seizures, a computer whiz has a microcomputer implanted in his brain.
Dir: Mike Hodges
Cast: George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart
C-104 mins

Michael Crichton was fired from writing the screenplay due to the fact that his script did not follow the novel (which he had written) closely enough.