TCM Schedule for Friday, January 22, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: 1979 Family Dramas

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is all about femmes fatales. Then in prime time, we've got a trio of family dramas from 1979, The Champ, Kramer vs. Kramer, and The Great Santini, all three Oscar winners or nominees. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Narrow Margin (1952)
1h 11m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's moll on a tense train ride.
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard

According to director Richard Fleischer, RKO Pictures owner Howard Hughes loved the finished film but thought he could improve it by removing all the scenes with Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor and reshooting them with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. However, Hughes sold his interest in RKO Pictures and left the movie business before he could carry out this plan. This is why the film sat on the shelf for two years before it was finally released in 1952, without any changes.


7:15 AM -- The Unholy Wife (1957)
1h 34m | Crime | TV-PG
An ambitious beauty marries a vintner, then falls for one of his workers.
Director: John Farrow
Cast: Diana Dors, Rod Steiger, Tom Tryon

American film debut of Diana Dors. This was the second of a three-film contract she had with RKO. The first film she made, I Married a Woman (1958) wasn't released until 1958 and the third picture was not made due to RKO going out of business.


9:00 AM -- Any Number Can Play (1949)
1h 52m | War | TV-PG
The owner of a gambling casino tries to win back his estranged wife and child.
Director: Mervyn Leroy
Cast: Clark Gable, Alexis Smith, Wendell Corey

Writer Richard Brooks was originally penciled in to direct but was taken off the picture after Clark Gable was cast. He recalls he was told, "Well, now it's a Gable picture, and you can't expect to direct Gable.


11:00 AM -- The Unsuspected (1947)
1h 43m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
The producer of a radio crime series commits the perfect crime, then has to put the case on the air.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Caulfield, Claude Rains, Audrey Totter

There is an apparent in-joke when Hurd Hatfield compares Joan Caulfield's Mathilda character to her portrait, saying that she hasn't changed, but her portrait has. This is a clear reference to his signature film, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).


1:00 PM -- Lady in the Lake (1947)
1h 43m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Philip Marlowe searches for a missing woman in this mystery shot entirely from the detective's viewpoint.
Director: Robert Montgomery
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan

The entire movie plot unfolds from lead Robert Montgomery's point of view, thus creating a rarity in film: the principal character is only seen on-screen as a reflection in mirrors and windows, and as the narrator speaking directly to the audience.

(And for those who don't know, director/actor Robert Montgomery is the patron saint of the Classic Films Group!




3:00 PM -- High Wall (1947)
1h 39m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Psychiatry provides the key to proving a veteran flyer innocent of his wife's murder.
Director: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall

Both Audrey Totter and Robert Taylor relished making this film - Totter, because she got to play a professional woman as she did in Lady in the Lake (1946), and Taylor, because he got to act and not just be a "pretty boy".


4:45 PM -- Tension (1950)
1h 35m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A man who had planned to murder his wife's lover becomes the prime suspect when somebody beats him to it.
Director: John Berry
Cast: Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse

When Richard Basehart's character of Quimby decides to create another identity for himself, he gets the idea for the name Sothern when he sees a movie fan magazine with Ann Sothern on the cover. "Tension" producer Robert Sisk was then in the process of prepping Shadow on the Wall (1950) to star Miss Sothern in the last film of her long-term MGM contract.


6:30 PM -- The Sellout (1951)
1h 23m | Crime | TV-PG
A small-town newspaper editor risks everything to expose a corrupt sheriff.
Director: Gerald Mayer
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Audrey Totter

Final film of Richard Cramer, whose career started back in the days of silent films.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- 1979 FAMILY DRAMAS



8:00 PM -- The Champ (1979)
2h 2m | Drama | TV-14
A washed-up prizefighter fights to keep his son.
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Cast: Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, Ricky Schroder

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score -- Dave Grusin

According to a July 21, 2011 article by Richard Chin published on "The Smithsonian" website, "The Champ (1979) has been used in experiments to see if depressed people are more likely to cry than non-depressed people (they aren't). It has helped determine whether people are more likely to spend money when they are sad (they are) and whether older people are more sensitive to grief than younger people (older people did report more sadness when they watched the scene). Dutch scientists used the scene when they studied the effect of sadness on people with binge eating disorders (sadness didn't increase eating)".


10:15 PM -- Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979)
1h 45m | Drama | TV-MA
When his wife leaves him, an ad exec gets a crash course in parenting.
Director: Robert Benton
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dustin Hoffman, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Meryl Streep, Best Director -- Robert Benton, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Benton, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Justin Henry (At age 8 years, 10 months and 20 days, Henry is (to date) the youngest nominee for any competitive honor in Academy Award history.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Alexander, Best Cinematography -- Néstor Almendros, and Best Film Editing -- Gerald B. Greenberg

The strength of the performances of the two leads can be at least partly attributed to what was going on in their private lives at the time. Dustin Hoffman was in the midst of a messy divorce, while Meryl Streep was still recovering from the death of her lover, John Cazale.


12:15 AM -- Great Santini (1979)
1h 55m | Drama | TV-MA
A marine has problems adjusting to domestic life during peacetime.
Director: Lewis John Carlino
Cast: Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Duvall, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael O'Keefe

According to Pat Conroy, Lieutenant Colonel "Bull" Meecham is based entirely on his own father, Donald Conroy, a Marine fighter pilot who referred to himself in the third person as "The Great Santini". Donald Conroy took the nickname from a magician he'd seen as a child. Pat and Donald Conroy were on the set on the day that Robert Duvall and Michael O'Keefe filmed the scene where Bull Meecham bullies and taunts Ben after losing to him in a basketball game. A woman on the set asked Donald Conroy if he and Pat had really played games like that. Donald Conroy replied, "Every day, madam. Every single day." However, the book and movie gave Donald Conroy an opportunity to mend fences with his children, especially Pat. After the novel was published, Donald Conroy would often accompany his son to book signings, and would sign his son's novels with the signature, "Donald Conroy - The Great Santini".


2:30 AM -- Bobbie Jo And The Outlaw (1976)
1h 28m | Action
A carhop/country singer and a small-time crook go on the road and get involved with various types of theft, violence, and murder.
Director: Mark L. Lester
Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Lynda Carter, Jesse Vint

It is the film debut of Lynda Carter. It premiered a month prior to the beginning of Lynda's career as the titular Amazonian superheroine in television series Wonder Woman (1975). It only lasted for three seasons.


4:00 AM -- Stunts (1977)
1h 30m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A stuntman is killed on set, so his brother takes over the job to investigate.
Director: Mark L. Lester
Cast: Robert Forster, Fiona Lewis, Joanna Cassidy

During the "burning house" stunt scene for the movie-within-the-movie, there is a close-up of a crew member's hand, holding a stopwatch, resting on the script. The script is actually the script for the movie Stunts.