TCM Schedule for Friday, December 27 -- Friday Night Spotlight: The Hollywood Costume

[Staph]

In prime time, TCM finishes this month's Friday Night Spotlight, the Hollywood Costume. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)
Classic biography of the Italian explorer and his journeys to China.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Gary Cooper, Sigrid Gurie, Basil Rathbone
BW-104 mins, TV-G,

Lana Turner later recalled in a Gary Cooper biography that her "fancy black oriental wig" had been glued around her face with spirit gum, while she felt extremely uncomfortable in her costumes, and worse yet, had her eyebrows shaved off, at the insistence of Samuel Goldwyn himself, and replaced them with false slanting black ones.


7:45 AM -- Movies Are Adventure (1949)
This short film takes a look at the "magic" of going to the movies.
Cast: Verna Kornman, Wayne A Farlow, Edmund Cobb
BW-10 mins,


8:00 AM -- Stagecoach (1939)
A group of disparate passengers battle personal demons and each other while racing through Indian country.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine
BW-96 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Thomas Mitchell, and Best Music, Scoring -- Richard Hageman, W. Franke Harling, John Leipold and Leo Shuken

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- John Ford, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Bert Glennon, Best Art Direction -- Alexander Toluboff, Best Film Editing -- Otho Lovering and Dorothy Spencer, and Best Picture

In 1939 there was no paved road through Monument Valley, hence the reason why it hadn't been used as a movie location before (it wasn't paved until the 1950s). Harry Goulding, who ran a trading post there, had heard that John Ford was planning a big-budget Western so he traveled to Hollywood, armed with over 100 photographs, and threatened to camp out on Ford's doorstep until the director saw him. Ford saw him almost immediately and was instantly sold on the location, particularly when he realized that its remoteness would free him from studio interference.


9:45 AM -- The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
Oklahoma farmers dispossessed during the Depression fight for better lives in California.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine
BW-129 mins, TV-PG, CC,

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 Writing, Screenplay -- Nunnally Johnson, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Film Editing -- Robert L. Simpson, and Best Picture

Banks and the large farming corporations that controlled most California farms were not keen on the original novel (it was banned in some states and in several counties in California, and the book was not carried in the municipal library of author John Steinbeck's home town of Salinas, California, until the 1990s) and were even less thrilled that a film was being made of it. The Associated Farmers of California called for a boycott of all 20th Century-Fox films, and Steinbeck himself received death threats.


12:00 PM -- How Green Was My Valley (1941)
A Welsch mining family faces the struggles of life together.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee
BW-119 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Donald Crisp, Best Director -- John Ford, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Arthur C. Miller, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day, Nathan Juran and Thomas Little, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Sara Allgood, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Philip Dunne, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Film Editing -- James B. Clark, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Alfred Newman

Roddy McDowall had only been in America for two weeks before being cast in the leading role of Huw. He had been evacuated from Great Britain with his mother and sister to keep out of harm's way of Hitler's bombardment of the country.


2:00 PM -- Across The Pacific (1942)
An American agent tries to keep Axis spies from blowing up the Panama Canal.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet
C-96 mins, TV-G, CC,

Director Vincent Sherman met with John Huston just before Huston left the project to join the Army Signal Corps and shoot documentaries for the war effort. The two directors conferred just before they were about to shoot the scene in which Leland is trapped in the movie theatre and three assassins are trying to kill him. "How does he get out?" Sherman asked. Huston replied, "That's your problem! I'm off to the war!"


4:00 PM -- Three Strangers (1946)
Three people who share a sweepstakes ticket travel a tangled road to collect their winnings.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre
BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC,

According to Robert Osborne of TCM, this film was at one point intended to be a sequel to "The Maltese Falcon." Following the success of that film, Warner Bros. wanted to make a sequel. Falcon write/director John Huston said he'd previously written an un-filmed scrip for Warner Bros. that would be appropriate and would only required the character names to be changed to the Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor characters. However, Warner Bros. discovered they did not own the rights to the characters except for their appearance in "The Maltese Falcon."


5:46 PM -- A Really Important Person (1947)
In this short film, a policeman's son searches for a suitable subject for an essay about an important person.
Dir: Basil Wrangell
Cast: Clancy Cooper, Connie Gilchrist, Dean Stockwell
BW-11 mins,


6:00 PM -- Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
A marine and a nun are shipwrecked on a Pacific Island.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Akira Ohno
C-106 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Deborah Kerr, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- John Lee Mahin and John Huston

Originally when filming began on Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), her co-star Robert Mitchum worried that Deborah Kerr would be like the prim characters she frequently played. However, after she swore at director John Huston during one take, Mitchum, who was in the water, almost drowned laughing. The two stars went on to have an enduring friendship which lasted until Mitchum's death in 1997.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: THE HOLLYWOOD COSTUME



8:00 PM -- The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
A possessive son's efforts to keep his mother from remarrying threaten to destroy his family.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
BW-88 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Stanley Cortez, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, and Best Picture

After a disastrous preview, it was clear to the suits at RKO that the film was too long, too dense and too sombre. Welles, however, had decamped to Brazil where he was in the midst of working on a film called "It's All True" (which was never completed). Welles had been shipped out there under the auspices of Nelson Rockefeller, one of the chief shareholders in RKO, to make a film boosting US-South American wartime relations. With him out of the way, however, the onus of re-cutting and trimming the film fell on editor Robert Wise.

Edward Stevenson -- designer: ladies' wardrobe


9:45 PM -- Out of the Past (1947)
A private eye becomes the dupe of a homicidal moll.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
BW-97 mins, TV-PG, CC,

After Humphrey Bogart refused the lead it was offered to John Garfield and then Dick Powell, both of whom turned it down. Robert Mitchum was fourth choice.

Costume Design by Edward Stevenson


11:30 PM -- Silkwood (1983)
A laborer at a nuclear power plant risks her life to report unsafe practices.
Dir: Mike Nichols
Cast: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher
C-131 mins, TV-MA, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Meryl Streep, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Cher, Best Director -- Mike Nichols, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, and Best Film Editing -- Sam O'Steen

The scene where Karen sets off the radiation alarms actually happened. Her level of contamination was forty times the safe limit.
Costume Design by Ann Roth


2:00 AM -- Klute (1971)
A small-town detective searches for a missing man linked to a high-priced prostitute.
Dir: Alan J. Pakula
Cast: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi
C-114 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jane Fonda

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Andy Lewis and David E. Lewis

Bree's apartment was built on a sound stage at a New York film studio where Jane Fonda could spend the night. The director even had a working toilet installed in the bathroom of the set. Jane contributed to decorating the apartment by deciding Bree would be a romance reader and have a cat. Jane remembered an actress from Lee Strasberg's private class that occasionally serviced John F. Kennedy, so she decided Bree had done this as well. A signed photo of Kennedy appears on the fridge in Bree's apartment.

Costume Design by Ann Roth


4:05 AM -- Just What I Needed (1955)
This short film provides a humorous look at "unwanted" gifts.
Dir: Dave O'Brien
Cast: Leon Tyler, Dave O'Brien,
BW-9 mins,


4:15 AM -- The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
An unscrupulous movie producer uses everyone around him in his climb to the top.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Elaine Stewart, Sammy White, Leo G. Carroll
BW-118 mins, TV-PG, CC

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gloria Grahame, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Schnee, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Edward C. Carfagno, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Kirk Douglas

The character of Shields is regarded as a mixture of David O. Selznick, Orson Welles, and Val Lewton. Georgia, the alcoholic daughter of an iconic actor, is very clearly based on Diana Barrymore. Bartlow, the college professor turned bestselling author turned screenwriter, is thought to be based on Paul Green, a UNC professor who followed a similar career track. Gilbert Roland appearance as "Gaucho" is seen as a self-parody; the Mexican-born actor, once a star in silent dramas, had just appeared as "The Cisco Kid" in a string of B-westerns.

[longship]

1. Some real gems here.

1. The Magnificent Ambersons. I have never liked "Citizen Kane". But I like this film a lot. It's been a while since I've viewed it, but it is a good one.

2. Out of the Past. Late forties noir. Mitchum and Jane Greer, with William Bendix. A minor, but entertaining noir. On the whole well done. A minor gem.

3. Silkwood. Damn! Streep is good here. And then there's Kurt Russell.

Sounds like a good evening.