TCM Schedule for Friday, February 12, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Romantic Weekend Getaway

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM says the theme is Leading Ladies. It looks like they are featuring films of Myrna Loy, Lana Turner, and Cyd Charisse. Then in prime time, it's the beginning of A Romantic Weekend Getaway, running through Sunday evening, February 14 -- Valentine's Day! Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Rear Window (1954)
1h 52m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Burks, and Best Sound, Recording -- Loren L. Ryder (Paramount)

The pale green suit that Grace Kelly wears when she and James Stewart are discussing Mrs. Thorwald's purse and jewelry is strikingly similar to the "nile green" suit worn by Tippi Hedren throughout Sir Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 hit The Birds (1963). The costumes for both films were designed by Edith Head.

James Stewart kisses Grace Kelly ...


8:15 AM -- High Society (1956)
1h 47m | Musical | TV-PG
In this musical version of The Philadelphia Story, tabloid reporters invade a society wedding.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra

Nominee for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Cole Porter for the song "True Love", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin

The song True Love, written by Cole Porter especially for the movie, was a million seller and both Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby were awarded platinum records for the song. This is the only platinum record ever given to sitting royalty as Grace Kelly had become Princess Grace by the time it was awarded.

Grace Kelly kisses Frank Sinatra ... stay tuned next Thursday night to find out who Frank kisses!


10:15 AM -- The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)
1h 42m | Romance | TV-G
A boxing champion falls for a gangster's moll.
Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Primo Carnera

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Frances Marion

Film debuts of Max Baer and Primo Carnera. Baer was the main contender at the time for the Heavyweight Champion of the World title, which was held by Carnera. In an interview, Myrna Loy stated that Max Baer carefully watched Primo Carnera's boxing style during the filming and used this information to beat him in their real-life match for the title in March, 1934.


12:15 PM -- Two Girls on Broadway (1940)
1h 11m | Romance | TV-G
A sister act splits up over love.
Director: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Lana Turner, Joan Blondell, George Murphy

The film is a remake of The Broadway Melody (1929), starring Bessie Love and Anita Page as the Mahoney sisters and Charlie King as Eddie. This film is the earliest remake of a Best Picture Oscar winner.


1:45 PM -- Bachelor in Paradise (1961)
1h 49m | Comedy | TV-PG
A writer moves into a housing development to study married couples.
Director: Jack Arnold
Cast: Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Janis Paige

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Mack David (lyrics) for the song "Bachelor in Paradise"

Bob Hope's first film for MGM.


3:45 PM -- Silk Stockings (1957)
1h 57m | Musical | TV-G
A straitlaced Soviet agent is seduced by the charm of Paris and a high-stepping film producer.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige

Cyd Charisse's striptease to the title number was met with a least a couple of raised eyebrows from the Hays film censors. For one 2-second instance, she is seen at length in a silk camisole exposing her legendary legs. This was considered too risqué by the Hays office, and a high-back chair was quickly integrated into the dance for her to run behind. When she next emerges from behind the chair she has quickly slipped on a swirling petticoat, but it is transparent and gives quick glimpses of her legs anyway, which by now were what most viewers wanted to see anyway.


6:00 PM -- Party Girl (1958)
1h 39m | Crime | TV-PG
A showgirl and a crooked lawyer try to break with a powerful mob boss.
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb

Director Nicholas Ray was certainly impressed with Robert Taylor's commitment. "He worked for me like a true Method actor," said Ray, who remembered Taylor going to an osteologist, poring over X-rays and asking probing questions so that he would have an understanding of where in his body the pain would be from his character's crippled leg.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- ROMANTIC WEEKEND GETAWAY



8:00 PM -- Casablanca (1942)
1h 42m | Romance | TV-PG
An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Arthur Edeson, Best Film Editing -- Owen Marks, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

Due to its strong anti-Nazi themes, the film was not released in then-Western Germany until 1952, after the war was over. It was shown in a heavily censored version with all references to Naziism taken out; this version runs about 25 minutes shorter and characters are re-written via dubbing: Resistance fighter Victor Laszlo became a Norwegian atomic physicist who discovers mysterious delta rays and is on the run from Interpol, and several famous sequences, including the "La Marseillaise" sequence, were deleted. A re-dubbing and re-release in 1975 allowed German audiences to finally see the film in its original integrity.


10:00 PM -- West Side Story (1961)
2h 35m | Musical | TV-PG
A young couple from dueling street gangs falls in love.
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Chakiris, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Rita Moreno, Best Director -- Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (For the first time a directing award is being shared.), Best Cinematography, Color -- Daniel L. Fapp, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Boris Leven and Victor A. Gangelin, Best Costume Design, Color -- Irene Sharaff, Best Sound -- Fred Hynes (Todd-AO SSD) and Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Film Editing -- Thomas Stanford, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and Best Picture

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ernest Lehman

Before his death in 2011, Arthur Laurents revealed that Disney studios had once proposed an animated version of "West Side Story" and even produced a 7-minute sample reel in which "white cats and black cats" were the rival gang members and that the Puerto Rican "Maria cat came down the rope of a steamer [ship] illegally into the country"...and that her lover, "the Tony cat got run over. You can't believe how terrible it was."


12:45 AM -- Marty (1955)
1h 31m | Romance
A lonely butcher finds love despite the opposition of his friends and family.
Director: Delbert Mann, Paul Helmick
Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ernest Borgnine, Best Director -- Delbert Mann, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Paddy Chayefsky, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Joe Mantell, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Betsy Blair, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph LaShelle, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Ted Haworth, Walter M. Simonds and Robert Priestley

Betsy Blair, who portrayed Clara, was almost not permitted to do the film by Hecht-Lancaster Productions and United Artists due to the 1950s Hollywood Blacklist. However, Gene Kelly, her husband at the time, basically blackmailed United Artists and Hecht-Lancaster into casting her, at the last minute, by threatening not to direct or star in any of UA's or Hecht Lancaster's productions if she was not cast for the role.


2:30 AM -- Crossing Delancey (1988)
1h 37m | Romance | TV-PG
An aging woman hires a matchmaker to find her independent granddaughter a man.
Director: Joan Micklin Silver
Cast: Amy Irving, Peter Riegert, Jeroen Krabbe

Suzzy Roche (who plays Marilyn Cohen) is also a singer in The Roches, the group that performs much of the background music.


4:30 AM -- Brief Encounter (1945)
1h 26m | Romance | TV-PG
Two married strangers meet in a train station and fall in love.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway

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

This movie had an unexpected, profound impact on a young twenty-one-year old Robert Altman. Kathryn Altman, wife of the famed director, said, "One day, years and years ago, just after the war, (Robert) had nothing to do and he went to a theater in the middle of the afternoon to see a movie. Not a Hollywood movie: a British movie. He said the main character was not glamorous, not a babe. And at first he wondered why he was even watching it. But twenty minutes later he was in tears, and had fallen in love with her. And it made him feel that it wasn't just a movie." The movie was this one.

[elleng]

1. GOOD, 2 goodies!

10:00 PM -- West Side Story (1961)
2h 35m | Musical | TV-PG
A young couple from dueling street gangs falls in love.
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn


2:30 AM -- Crossing Delancey (1988)
1h 37m | Romance | TV-PG
An aging woman hires a matchmaker to find her independent granddaughter a man.