TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 16, 2014 -- Star of the Month - Joan Crawford

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, we've got films about horses. And in primetime and through out the day tomorrow, we've got the films of Star of the Month Joan Crawford. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Fanciful musical biography of wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern
C-107 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch and Roger Edens

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Charles Rosher, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Richard Pefferle, and Best Film Editing -- James E. Newcom

Writers Dorothy and Herbert Fields and Producers Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II had originally arranged for Jerome Kern to write the musical score. When Kern died suddenly, he was replaced by Irving Berlin. This was the first time that Irving Berlin wrote a score for a show with an existing plot. In his many musical plays and films the songs were written first, then the scripts were written for the situations suggested by the songs.


8:00 AM -- Blood On The Moon (1948)
A gunslinger hired to drive off a rancher falls in love with the man's daughter.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston
BW-88 mins, TV-G, CC,

Because director Robert Wise thought that it was unnatural that the winner of a Western brawl usually finished the fight vigorously, he made it a point that both fighters would be exhausted and worn out at the end of this one.


9:30 AM -- Gypsy Colt (1954)
In this trans-species remake of Lassie, Come Home, a faithful horse undertakes a perilous journey to return to the family it loves.
Dir: Andrew Marton
Cast: Donna Corcoran, Ward Bond, Frances Dee
C-72 mins, TV-G,

Star Donna Corcoran was one of the seven Corcoran children, all child actors including Noreen, Hugh, Kevin, Brian, Kerry, and Kelly. If you are of a certain age, you may remember Noreen as John Forsythe's daughter in Bachelor Father (1957-1962), and Kevin in a ton of Disney productions, including Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks With a Circus (1960), Pollyanna (1960), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).


10:45 AM -- Wine, Women And Horses (1937)
A reformed gambler risks his marriage when he returns to the betting table.
Dir: Louis King
Cast: Barton MacLane, Ann Sheridan, Dick Purcell
BW-64 mins, TV-G,

Remake of Dark Hazard (1934), starring Edward G. Robinson and Genevieve Tobin.


12:00 PM -- The Story Of Seabiscuit (1949)
Fictionalized account of the legendary racehorse's training and triumphs.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Shirley Temple, Barry Fitzgerald, Lon McCallister
C-93 mins, TV-G, CC,

In the close-ups, Seabiscuit was played by Sea Sovereign, his son.


1:36 PM -- Glimpses Of Kentucky (1941)
This short film takes the viewer to the state of Kentucky.
C-8 mins,

Man O' War plays himself.


1:45 PM -- Pride of the Bluegrass (1939)
A jockey trains a blind horse for the Grand National.
Dir: William McGann
Cast: Edith Fellows, James McCallion, Gantry The Blind Horse
BW-65 mins, TV-G,

Based on a true story.


3:00 PM -- Annie Oakley (1935)
The famed female sharpshooter learns that you can't get a man with a gun when she falls for a rival marksman.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Melvyn Douglas
BW-90 mins, TV-G, CC,

Barbara Stanwyck had become increasingly frustrated with the type of roles her studio, Warner Brothers, were providing for her and so had started freelancing. This was her first film for RKO.


4:30 PM -- Montana Belle (1952)
The Daltons force Belle Starr to help them on a dangerous raid.
Dir: Allan Dwan
Cast: Jane Russell, George Brent, Scott Brady
C-81 mins, TV-G, CC,

Shot between late October and late November 1948, this film was intended to be issued by Republic. In April 1949, Howard Welsch, who had produced the movie for his company, Fidelity Pictures, sold the negative to RKO for $875,000, about $225,000 above the picture's cost. Finally, this Western obtained a Manhattan debut at the Palace Theatre on November 7, 1952.


6:00 PM -- Westward The Women (1951)
A frontiersman leads a wagon train full of mail-order brides.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Beverly Dennis, Renata Vanni, John McIntire
BW-117 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Denise Darcel's French-language dialog includes a few words which prove that no one in the 1950's version of the Hays Office understood French. Some of the terms she used while angry at "Buck Wyatt" would never have gotten past the censors in English.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: JOAN CRAWFORD



8:00 PM -- The Women (1939)
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell
BW-133 mins, TV-PG, CC,

George Cukor was fired as director of Gone with the Wind (1939) only a month before The Women (1939) was scheduled to begin filming. Producer Hunt Stromberg enlisted Cukor's services immediately upon his sudden availability.


10:17 PM -- Hollywood Hobbies (1939)
In this short film, two young girls take a tour of Hollywood to see the private lives of celebrities.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: William 'Billy' Benedict, Joyce Compton, Sally Payne
BW-10 mins,


10:30 PM -- When Ladies Meet (1941)
A female novelist doesn't realize her new friend is the wife whose husband she's trying to steal.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Greer Garson
BW-105 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell and Edwin B. Willis

Remake of a 1933 film starring Ann Harding and Myrna Loy. Cedric Gibbons was nominated for an Art Direction Oscar for both films.


12:30 AM -- A Woman's Face (1941)
Plastic surgery gives a scarred female criminal a new outlook on life.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt
BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Director Cukor wanted Anna's recital of her life story to be done in a tired, mechanical fashion, so he had Crawford repeat the multiplication tables over and over until he got the monotonous tone he was looking for. Then, he rolled the cameras.


2:30 AM -- They All Kissed the Bride (1942)
A woman running a trucking company falls for the reporter out to expose her business practices.
Dir: Alexander Hall
Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Roland Young
BW-87 mins, TV-PG,

Joan Crawford was asked to take over Carole Lombard's role after she died in a air crash during a war bond tour. She then donated all of her salary to the Red Cross who found Lombard's body, and promptly fired her agent for taking his usual 10%.


4:00 AM -- Further Prophecies Of Nostradamus (1942)
The prophecies of Nostradamus are applied to the events of World War II in this short film.
Dir: David Miller
Cast: John Burton, Harold Miller,
BW-11 mins,


4:15 AM -- Mannequin (1937)
A small-time crook's wife falls for a shipping magnate.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Alan Curtis
BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Edward Ward (music), Chet Forrest (lyrics) and Bob Wright (lyrics) for the song "Always and Always"

Crawford's brother Hal and her future husband, Phillip Terry both appear in bit parts in this film.

[CBHagman]

1. "Westward the Women"

That one turned up on TCM only just a few years back, when a guest programmer from the TCM audience chose it for his evening of movies. It's an unusual western in that it does indeed showcase the female characters and doesn't judge them, either, despite a couple of plot points that might give the Hays Office fits.

[Staph]

2. I remember seeing this on local television as a child.

I loved it -- I was a big Western fan, but so few Westerns had such great role models for a little girl!