TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 1 -- Life During the Great Depression

[Staph]

We're remembering the Great Depression this month on TCM. From their introduction:

"Throughout the Great Depression, Americans flocked to the movies as an affordable form of entertainment and social interaction. For a quarter or so, customers could forget their troubles with glitzy musicals (Gold Diggers of 1933) or screwy comedies (My Man Godfrey, 1936), while rubbing elbows with others who were temporarily escaping harsh realities. Still today, movies are considered a recession-proof industry; the tougher the times, the greater the need for escapism.

"Yet many Hollywood movies of the 1930s were more than mere entertainment, offering an examination of hot-button topics of the day including socialism (Our Daily Bread, 1934), vagrancy (Wild Boys of the Road, 1933) and the role of financial institutions in the country’s woes (American Madness, 1932). To mark the 80th anniversary of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, our festival includes The Crash (1932), in which a wealthy couple struggles to survive its losses.

"The Depression left such a deep mark on the country that filmmakers over the decades have continued to examine this turbulent time. With his screen version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940), John Ford dramatizes the plight of Dust Bowl migrants. Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) looks at the grueling dance marathons of the period, while Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory (1976) tells the story of Depression-era troubadour Woody Guthrie. In a lighter vein, Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) blurs the line between reality and film fantasy as a movie hero of the ’30s steps out of the screen to romance a lonely young woman. Joel and Ethan Cohen’s boisterous O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), proudly presented in its TCM premiere, follows the misadventures of three escaped convicts in the Deep South of the Depression." (Films in bold will be featured on TCM this month.)

During the day, we have a series of films about women who rebel against society, or who succeed after starting on the wrong side of the tracks. Enjoy!


5:00am -- Private Screenings: Mitchum/Russell (1996)
Co-stars and lifelong friends Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell recall their careers with host Robert Osborne.
Cast: Robert Osborne, Jane Russell, Robert Mitchum
Dir: Tony Barbon
BW-31 mins, TV-G

Includes clips from The Outlaw (1943), Undercurrent (1946), Desire Me (1947), Out of the Past (1947), His Kind of Woman (1951), Macao (1952), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and Ryan's Daughter (1970).


6:00am -- Anna Karenina (1947)
Adaptation of Tolstoy's classic tale of a woman who deserts her family for an illicit love.
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore, Hugh Dempster
Dir: Julien Duvivier
BW-113 mins, TV-14

One of 25 different versions of the Tolstoy novel. Other films featured Anna Karenina played by Greta Garbo, Alla Tarasova, Claire Bloom, Nicola Pagett, Jacqueline Bisset, Sophie Marceau, and Helen McCrory.


8:00am -- Nora Prentiss (1947)
An ambitious singer ruins a doctor's life.
Cast: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett, Robert Alda
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-112 mins, TV-PG

Ann Sheridan was Frank Capra 's first choice for the role of Ann Mitchell in Meet John Doe (1941) but she was vetoed by Warner Bros. in a contract dispute. Barbara Stanwyck got the part.


10:00am -- Mrs. Soffel (1984)
A prison warden's wife is seduced into helping a notorious killer escape.
Cast: Diane Keaton, Mel Gibson, Matthew Modine, Edward Herrmann
Dir: Gillian Armstrong
C-112 mins, TV-14

The jail used in the movie is the actual Allegheny County Jail that figures in the story. Designed by noted architect Henry Hobson Richardson, built between 1884-1888, it served as a jail until 1995 and is now used by the juvenile and family sections of the Common Pleas Court.


12:00pm -- Sister Kenny (1946)
True story of the Australian nurse who fought to gain acceptance for her polio-treatment methods.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Alexander Knox, Dean Jagger, Philip Merivale
Dir: Dudley Nichols
BW-116 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Rosalind Russell

While addressing a forum of doctors, Sister Kenny is asked whether she remembers the final paragraph of the oath she took to become a registered nurse, and she recounts that paragraph. The real Sister Kenny received no formal nursing training and was not a registered nurse. She enlisted as a nurse in the army in WW1 backed by a letter from a doctor stating she had experience working in a bush hospital and was given the title Sister by the army.


2:00pm -- Lady L (1965)
A beautiful laundress rises through European society.
Cast: Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, David Niven, Cecil Parker
Dir: Peter Ustinov
C-109 mins, TV-PG

The film was originally intended as a comedy vehicle for Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sir Ralph Richardson with George Cukor as its director.


4:00pm -- Rose-Marie (1936)
An opera singer goes undercover in the Canadian wilderness to hunt for her criminal brother.
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Reginald Owen, Allan Jones
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
BW-111 mins, TV-G

MGM's original intention was to film in Technicolor and to star Grace Moore. If these plans had gone through, this would have been MGM's first feature length Technicolor film. However, Moore decided to pass on the film, Jeanette MacDonald was cast, photography switched to black-and-white, and this film became one of the biggest musical successes in MGM's history.


6:00pm -- Kitty Foyle (1940)
A girl from the wrong side of the tracks endures scandal and heartbreak when she falls for a high-society boy.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Eduardo Ciannelli
Dir: Sam Wood
BW-108 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ginger Rogers

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Dalton Trumbo, and Best Picture

Ginger Rogers was initially reluctant to take on the lead role, as the novel the film was based on contained explicit sexuality and Kitty has an abortion in it. Rogers' mother advised her to wait until she sees a screenplay before making up her mind, pointing out that the production code wouldn't allow most of the material Rogers found objectionable to be seen in films anyway. Sure enough, the adapted screenplay was "clean" enough for Rogers.


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: LIFE DURING THE DEPRESSION


8:00pm -- Bound For Glory (1976)
True story of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who rose to the top while fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers.
Cast: David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon, Gail Strickland
Dir: Hal Ashby
C-148 mins, TV-14

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Haskell Wexler, and Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score -- Leonard Rosenman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- William Ware Theiss, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones and Pembroke J. Herring, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Getchell, and Best Picture

Singer Tim Buckley was cast as Woody Guthrie, but died of a heroin overdose before shooting took place.


10:45pm -- Our Daily Bread (1934)
When he inherits a small farm, a Depression-weary man turns it into a collective operation.
Cast: Karen Morley, Tom Keene, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards
Dir: King Vidor
BW-74 mins, TV-G

After the film's premiere at the "Century of Progress" exhibition in Chicago, Illinois, the film was cut by more than 10 minutes for its national release. Many of the cast from the original showing are missing in the prints available today.


12:15am -- Heroes For Sale (1933)
A veteran fights drug addiction to make his way in the business world.
Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young, Gordon Westcott
Dir: William A. Wellman
BW-72 mins, TV-G

Director William A. Wellman used real hoboes for the fight scene and real laundry workers for the laundry scenes.



1:30am -- The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
Oklahoma farmers dispossessed during the Depression fight for better lives in California.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Dir: John Ford
BW-129 mins, TV-G

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Darwell, and Best Director -- John Ford

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Henry Fonda, Best Film Editing -- Robert L. Simpson, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Nunnally Johnson, and Best Picture

Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.


3:45am -- The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)
Documentary cameras delve into the causes of the Depression's dust bowl.
Narrator: Thomas Chalmers
Dir: Pare Lorentz
BW-25 mins, TV-G

Three of the four cameramen (all but Paul Ivano) who worked on this film were fired by director/writer Pare Lorentz. Basically, they considered him too verbally script-oriented and not sufficiently visually oriented. One of these cameramen was Paul Strand, who went on to become one of America's most honored still photographers.


4:15am -- Three Faces West (1940)
A refugee must choose between the man she loves and the man who helped her father escape the Third Reich.
Cast: John Wayne, Sigrid Gurie, Charles Coburn, Spencer Charters
Dir: Bernard Vorhaus
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

An unusual film, with a political agenda that seems to be part pro New Deal, it is part anti-fascist and part pro good old American community values. It sometimes comes across a more conservative answer to The Grapes of Wrath.

[Staph]

1. The Grapes of Wrath

SYNOPSIS: Economic and natural disasters have turned the farmlands of the American plains into the Dust Bowl forcing thousands of families out of their homes and onto the road West to seek any means of survival in California. One such family is the Joads, a proud but destitute lot who, against all odds, make it to the "promised land" only to find no work, no place to stay, and much prejudice, resentment, and violence against them and their fellow migrants. As they move from place to place, members of the family die off or leave, but Ma Joad struggles to hold them together with hope and determination, while her son Tom begins to perceive a new vision for humanity.

In his book The Fondas (Citadel, 1973), John Springer made a bold claim for The Grapes of Wrath: "The Great American Novel made one of the few enduring Great American Motion Pictures." Even accounting for film journalism hyperbole and divergent opinions about the original book and its screen adaptation, which was not always favorable, few would argue the essential truth of what he wrote. Hollywood abounds with mediocre films made from acclaimed books and wonderful films adapted from minor works of prose. Yet in The Grapes of Wrath we have that rare thing: an ideologically charged literary work of outrage and compassion, one that had tremendous public impact and was brought to the screen by a major Hollywood studio with some of the top industry talents working at their peak. The film, like the novel, also had its detractors; some argued that the movie was occasionally sentimental in treatment with its downward spiral of despair transformed into a trajectory of hope. Still, almost everyone agreed that the movie was faithful to its original source in spirit and attitude.

John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has received its share of critical drubbing in the years since. It may well not be the Great American Novel after all, yet whatever its flaws, it remains one of the most read, taught, discussed, and valued works by an American writer and an important historical document. Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Twentieth Century-Fox, recognized that at the time and made it his personal mission to document the social tragedy of the Dust Bowl on the screen. Part of his decision may also have been motivated by the book's controversy which was always good for generating advance publicity and interest. For starters, he enlisted John Ford, one of the most respected directors in the industry, top technicians, and a cast of mostly non-stars, character actors carefully chosen for a degree of authenticity. The one true "name" in the cast was Henry Fonda, who gave arguably the finest performance of his career, certainly one of his most iconic, emerging not only as a highly respected actor but, along with his previous film for Ford, Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), as a defining American persona. Jane Darwell as Ma Joad may have been too warm and nurturing for the author's conception of the tough, wiry woman of the plains. Still, the actress gave a memorable performance and one scene in particular has become one of the movie's defining moments - the one where she bids farewell to her house and the life she is leaving behind. Silently reliving then discarding her memories alone in her bedroom, she forever captured the fear, heartbreak and ultimate strength of the American family in peril.

Henry Fonda had high praise for Ford at this early point in their long professional association (the tensions and strain would come much later). The actor called him "a giant as a director" and noted how Ford preferred only one take and little or no rehearsal to catch the most spontaneous moment. For the key climactic final scene between Tom and Ma, Ford didn't even watch the rehearsal. When the time came to shoot, Ford led Fonda and Darwell through the silent action of the scene, preventing them from starting their lines until the two actors were completely in the moment. It was done in a single take and Fonda said on screen it was "brilliant."In this crucial scene between Tom and Ma, Fonda had to strike a match whose light would illuminate Darwell's sleeping face. Toland rigged a tiny light in Fonda's palm to achieve the effect. For all the bitter social outrage and damning leftist politics that fueled the book, it is surprising, considering the time and the circumstances, how much of that remained intact in the film. Yet, it is the Joad family that is true heart and soul of the story and even more so in the film. This was firmly Ford's intention. Emphasizing the human factor, showing ordinary people pitted against the sweep of history and the sometimes overwhelming landscape (thanks in no small part to cinematographer Gregg Toland's masterful visual approach), he created a film that, as critic Andrew Sarris has written, "was to single-handedly transform him from a storyteller of the screen to America's cinematic poet laureate." It's an important film in Ford's canon, but even more essential is its example of the collaborative process of the studio system at its best - screenwriter, director, cast and crew, and a very involved and committed producer in the service of a literary work's words and insights. Whatever case may be made against calling it “great,” there’s no doubt about “enduring.”

The Grapes of Wrath won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell) and Best Director (John Ford); it was nominated for Best Picture, Actor (Henry Fonda), Film Editing, Sound Recording, and Screenplay. Fonda was the odds-on favorite to win that year, but the Academy gave the award to his close friend James Stewart, who was one of the names proposed for a supporting role in the picture (as brother Al). Stewart, who won for The Philadelphia Story (1940) told the press before the awards were announced that he had voted for Fonda. (Many have speculated that Stewart won the Oscar®: that year as compensation for being passed over for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in 1939).

Director: John Ford
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson, based on the novel by John Steinbeck
Cinematography: Gregg Toland
Editing: Robert Simpson
Art Direction: Richard Day, Mark-Lee Kirk
Music Director: Alfred Newman
Cast: Henry Fonda (Tom Joad), Jane Darwell (Ma Joad), John Carradine (Casy), Charley Grapewin (Grandpa), Dorris Bowdon (Rosasharn), Russell Simpson (Pa Joad).
BW-129m.

by Rob Nixon