TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 17 -- TCM Spotlight: All Aboard!

[Staph]

It's a birthday celebration for Rock Hudson, born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925 in Winnetka, Illinois (exactly two years after my mother -- happy birthday, Mom!). We also get a trio of Sidney Poitier films. And in the evening, TCM continues this month's theme of life at sea. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Fighter Squadron (1948)
A dedicated flyer pushes himself and those around him during a perilous World War II campaign.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney.
C-95 min, TV-PG , CC

Film debuts for both Rock Hudson and Jack Larson.


7:45 AM -- Giant (1956)
A Texas ranching family fights to survive changing times.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean.
201 min, TV-PG , CC

Won an Oscar for Best Director -- George Stevens

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Dean (This was James Dean's second consecutive posthumous nomination.), Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rock Hudson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mercedes McCambridge, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Boris Leven and Ralph S. Hurst, Best Costume Design, Color -- Moss Mabry and Marjorie Best, Best Film Editing -- William Hornbeck, Philip W. Anderson and Fred Bohanan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat, and Best Picture

Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor went for get-to-know-you drinks one night at the very start of the production. They both got exceedingly drunk, finishing the evening at 3:00 am. Their call-time was 5:30 am. Fortunately the scene being shot that morning was a wedding scene with no dialog, so instead of talking, all they had to do was look lovingly at each other. The two actors were concentrating so hard on not being sick that they were quite surprised when some of the people on-set started to cry, so convinced were they of their supposed looks of adoration at each other.


11:15 AM -- Ice Station Zebra (1968)
A sub commander on a perilous mission must ferret out a Soviet agent on his ship.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan.
C-152 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Daniel L. Fapp, and Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Hal Millar and J. McMillan Johnson

Patrick McGoohan was filming his famous TV series The Prisoner at the time he appeared in this movie. In order to allow him to take time off from his TV series, the episode "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" was written in which McGoohan's character, Number Six, has his mind transferred into the body of another man. "The Girl Who Was Death" was also altered so that No 6 wore a Sherlock Holmes disguise, so that his double Frank Maher could film a lot of the scenes.


2:00 PM -- Something Of Value (1957)
Childhood friends end up on opposite sides of a bloody African uprising.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, Wendy Hiller.
114 min, TV-PG , CC

Rock Hudson himself drove the film crew round the Nairobi National Park, with the stand-in for his co-star next to him. The crew and game warden were in the back of the semi-open Land Rover. Although all the animals in the park were wild they were used to vehicles. Many shots of various animals were taken, including baboons. For the latter Hudson threw peanuts onto the front of the vehicle. One half-grown male, seeing the actual source of this food, jumped through the half-door onto Hudson's lap, stole some extra peanuts and even snatched a lipstick from the hand of the stand-in. Hudson grabbed the baboon by the scruff of the neck, calmly took back the lipstick and threw the animal out.


4:00 PM -- Edge of the City (1957)
An army deserter and a black dock worker join forces against a corrupt union official.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden.
86 min, TV-PG , CC

Expanded from the 1955 hour-long live TV play "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall," broadcast on "Philco Television Playhouse (1948)," also with Sidney Poitier in the role of Tommy.


5:30 PM -- Band Of Angels (1957)
A southern belle fights to survive slavery after learning her mother was black.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier.
C-127 min, TV-PG , CC

The film proved to be a complete failure on release, both critically and commercially. Clark Gable was annoyed by the comparisons with Gone with the Wind and instructed his agent, "If it doesn't suit an old geezer with false teeth, forget about it." He also decided to part company with Raoul Walsh, previously one of his favorite directors.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: ALL ABOARD



8:00 PM -- The Last Voyage (1960)
Passengers and crew fight to escape a sinking ocean liner.
Dir: Andrew L. Stone
Cast: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, George Sanders.
C-91 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Augie Lohman

The ship used by the filmmakers was the S.S. Ile de France, the famous French liner which cruised the Atlantic from 1926 to 1959. She was leased for $4,000 a day. After shooting completed, she was re-floated (having been partially sunk for the film) and was towed to the scrap yard. The SS Ile de France has a more heroic place in history, however. It was the SS Ile de France that played a major role in the rescue of the passengers from the Italian liner Andrea Dorea in 1956, after the latter ship collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The SS Ile de France was the first ship to arrive at the scene of the collision and immediately began taking onboard the Andrea Dorea's passengers.


9:45 PM -- Juggernaut (1974)
Two demolitions experts race the clock to find and disarm a set of bombs placed on an ocean liner at sea.
Dir: Richard Lester
Cast: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings.
110 min, TV-MA , CC

The film was shot mainly aboard a real ocean liner. The Hamburg had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union. Before the Soviets took delivery of the liner, they rented it to the film company. The liner was painted in the livery of a fictional shipping line, very similar to the livery used by the Soviet Morpasflot line, and renamed the Britannic. Advertisements were run in British papers, soliciting extras who would take a lengthy cruise in the North Sea for free, but with the knowledge that the ship would actually seek out the worst possible weather, as the story demanded seas too rough for the lifeboats to be lowered, trapping the passengers on board.


11:45 PM -- Rich and Strange (1932)
An unexpected inheritance proves less than a boon to a young married couple.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont.
83 min, TV-PG , CC

The title comes from Ariel's song in "The Tempest": "Full fathom five thy father lies, / Of his bones are coral made, / Those are pearls that were his eyes: / Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange."


1:15 AM -- Ship of Fools (1965)
Passengers on a steam ship in the '30s struggle with their tangled relations and the rise of Nazism.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Jose Ferrer.
150 min, TV-14 , CC

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Robert Clatworthy and Joseph Kish, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Laszlo

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Oskar Werner, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael Dunn, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Simone Signoret, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Bill Thomas and Jean Louis, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Abby Mann, and Best Picture

Vivien Leigh's last film.


3:45 AM -- Abandon Ship! (1957)
After a luxury liner sinks, the officer in charge of an over-crowded lifeboat has to decide who can stay on board.
Dir: Richard Sale
Cast: Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan.
97 min, TV-PG

The film has similarities to the real-life sinking of the American ship William Brown in 1841.


5:30 AM -- Seven Days Ashore (1944)
A sailor enlists his buddies to help with an excess of girlfriends.
Dir: John H. Auer
Cast: Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Marcy McGuire.
74 min, TV-G , CC

This movie gives you the rare chance to hear Dooley Wilson perform something other than As Time Goes By.