TCM Schedule for Friday, February 20, 2015 -- 31 Days of Oscar - 1968-1969

[Staph]

Today's daytime schedule features prison films. The prime time films are from 1968 and 1969, but not including 1968s nominees Funny Girl (already shown on Thursday, February 12), The Lion in Winter (to be shown on Friday, February 27), and Romeo and Juliet; and 1969s winner Midnight Cowboy, and nominees Anne of the Thousand Days, Hello, Dolly!, and Z (to be shown on Thursday, February 26). Enjoy!



6:49 AM -- Audioscopiks (1935)
In this short film, the audience is instructed how to use 3-D glasses and a demonstration of three-dimensional film is presented.
Dir: Jacob Leventhal
BW-8 mins,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Novelty -- Pete Smith

I'm curious to see how this film will work without glasses and on a 2D TV.


7:00 AM -- Weary River (1929)
A jailed criminal's life turns around when he fronts the prison band.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, Louis Natheaux
BW-89 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Director -- Frank Lloyd (No official nominees had been announced this year.)

When it came time for Richard Barthelmess to sing the title song (not once but four times in the course of the film), the Vitaphone technicians performed a bit of audio-visual sleight-of-hand. While Barthelmess moves his lips, the voice we hear is that of Johnny Murray. A Photoplay article of July 1929 reported that Murray had also been retained to provide Barthelmess' voice in the future, in the event that he starred in any other musicals.


8:30 AM -- The Big House (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone
BW-87 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

In Frances Marion's original script, the characters played by Leila Hyams and Robert Montgomery were husband and wife. After the film flopped in a preview screening, MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg decided that the problem was that audiences, especially women, didn't want to see the Chester Morris character have an affair with a married woman. So the script was rewritten to make Montgomery and Hyams brother and sister. Scenes were reshot and the film, in its modified form, became a major hit.


10:00 AM -- I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
A World War I veteran faces inhuman conditions when he's sentenced to hard labor.
Dir: Mervyn Le Roy
Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson
BW-93 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Muni, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director), and Best Picture

At the time of filming, America had essentially turned its back on its First World War veterans who came back to a country who could offer them no jobs or homes due to the Depression. The film entered production just a month after President Herbert Hoover had ordered an attack on 8000 veterans marching in protest at how they were being treated. The result left two police officers and two veterans dead.


11:30 AM -- White Heat (1949)
A government agent infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien
BW-113 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Virginia Kellogg

If the surprise expressed by James Cagney's fellow inmates during "the telephone game" scene in the prison dining room appears real, it's because it is. Director Raoul Walsh didn't tell the rest of the cast what was about to happen, so Cagney's outburst caught them by surprise. In fact, Walsh himself didn't know what Cagney had planned; the scene as written wasn't working, and Cagney had an idea. He told Walsh to put the two biggest extras playing cons in the mess-hall next to him on the bench (he used their shoulders to boost himself onto the table) and to keep the cameras rolling no matter what. (Surprise cameo -- Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe is one of the cons in this scene.)


1:30 PM -- Caged (1950)
A young innocent fights to survive the harsh life in a women's prison.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby
BW-97 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Eleanor Parker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Hope Emerson, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld

In order to do research for the film, Virginia Kellogg pulled some strings to incarcerate herself in a woman's prison. What she wrote once she was out was not so much a screenplay, but a kind of almanac of everything she witnessed while in prison. Warner Bros. then got their screenwriters to make a screenplay out of it.


3:15 PM -- Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
True story of Robert Stroud, the prison lifer who became an expert on birds.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter
BW-149 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Burt Lancaster, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Telly Savalas, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Thelma Ritter, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey

Robert Stroud was actually imprisoned in cell #42 located in the D Block. According to Frank Heaney, a former prison guard (1948-51), Stroud was anything but the sympathetic character as portrayed by Burt Lancaster. He was an extremely difficult and demented inmate who, though highly intelligent, was a vicious killer and a psychopath.


5:45 PM -- Cool Hand Luke (1967)
A free-spirited convict refuses to conform to chain-gang life.
Dir: Stuart Rosenberg
Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J. D. Cannon
C-126 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Kennedy

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Newman, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, and Best Music, Original Music Score -- Lalo Schifrin

The opening scene, where Luke is cutting off the heads of parking meters, was filmed in Lodi, California. After the filming, the city did not replace the meters, and for many years afterward, you could go there and see a block long row of metal posts, sans meters.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: 1968-1969



8:00 PM -- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Two free-spirited bank robbers flee railroad detectives and head for Bolivia.
Dir: George Roy Hill
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross
C-110 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- William Goldman (William Goldman was not present at the awards ceremony. Katharine Ross accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Cinematography -- Conrad L. Hall, Best Music, Original Song -- Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) for the song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Burt Bacharach

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- George Roy Hill, Best Sound -- Bill Edmondson and David Dockendorf, and Best Picture

Lula Parker Betenson, sister of the real Butch Cassidy, often visited the set, and her presence was welcome to the cast and crew. During lulls in shooting she would tell stories about her famous brother's escapades, and was amazed at how accurately the script and Paul Newman portrayed him. Before the film was released, the studio found out about her visits and tried to convince her to endorse the movie in a series of ads to be shown in theatres across the country. She said that she would, but only if she saw the film first and truly stood behind it. The studio refused, saying that allowing her to see the film before its release could harm its reputation. Finally, at Robert Redford's suggestion, she agreed to do the endorsements - for a small "fee."


10:00 PM -- Planet of the Apes (1968)
An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species.
Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter
C-112 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Honorary Oscar Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement in the movie.

Nominated for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- Morton Haack, and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Jerry Goldsmith

Roddy McDowall, an experienced actor, recommended to his companions in makeup that they should frequently add tics, blinks and assorted facial gestures to add a sense of realism and keep the makeup from appearing "mask-like". McDowall reportedly became a merry prankster with the makeup, driving home with his make-up on, and shocking some of the other drivers on the freeway.


12:00 AM -- Easy Rider (1969)
A cross-country trip to sell drugs puts two hippie bikers on a collision course with small-town prejudices.
Dir: Dennis Hopper
Cast: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Antonio Mendoza
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Nicholson, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern

Peter Fonda wore the Captain America jacket and rode his chopper a week around Los Angeles before shooting began to give them a broken-in look and to get used to riding the radically designed bike. The American flag on the back of the jacket and on the gas tank of the bike caused him to be pulled over several times by the police.


1:45 AM -- Oliver! (1968)
Musical version of the Dickens classic about an orphan taken in by a band of boy thieves.
Dir: Carol Reed
Cast: Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed
C-154 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Honorary Oscar Award for Onna White for her outstanding choreography achievement for Oliver!.

Won Oscars for Best Director -- Carol Reed, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- John Box, Terence Marsh, Vernon Dixon and Ken Muggleston, Best Sound, Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Johnny Green, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ron Moody, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Wild, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Vernon Harris, Best Cinematography -- Oswald Morris, Best Costume Design -- Phyllis Dalton, and Best Film Editing -- Ralph Kemplen

While filming the scene where Oliver gets a peek at Fagin's treasure, director Carol Reed was not satisfied with the reaction on Mark Lester's face. Later, while re-shooting the scene, he hid a small white rabbit in his pocket and stood behind the camera. As Ron Moody opened the box of treasures, Reed pulled the rabbit out of his pocket. Lester's reaction to the sight of the rabbit was then used in the final film.


4:30 AM -- Rachel, Rachel (1968)
A small town teacher tries to overcome her shyness.
Dir: Paul Newman
Cast: Joanne Woodward, James Olson, Kate Harrington
C-101 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joanne Woodward, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Estelle Parsons, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Stewart Stern, and Best Picture

Nell Potts, who plays Rachel as a young girl, is actually Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman's real daughter.