TCM Schedule for Friday, November 29, 2013 -- Friday Night Spotlight: Screwball Comedies

[Staph]

It's the last evening of screwball comedies, including three by the great director Preston Sturges. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The Great Race (1965)
A bumbling villain plots to win an early 20th-century auto race.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood
C-160 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Treg Brown

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Russell Harlan, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, and Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "The Sweetheart Tree"

The Great Race was the inspiration for the Saturday morning cartoon show, Wacky Races. Natalie Wood (playing Maggie DuBois) became Penelope Pitstop (even wearing the same pink racing outfit). Dick Dastardley was based on Jack Lemmon's character Professor Fate and Dastardley's sidekick Muttley was loosely based on Peter Falk's Max Meen.


8:41 AM -- Auto Antics (1939)
In this short film, a gang of kids join a soap box race hoping to win so that they can take the prize money and get their dog back from the dog-catcher.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Baldwin Cooke, Darla Hood, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer
BW-10 mins,

Final Our Gang appearance by Eugene 'Porky' Lee, whose role as the tag-along kid was taken over by Mickey Guibitosi (aka Robert Blake), who had just taken over for Gary Jasgar as the toddler of the group.


9:00 AM -- Jason And The Argonauts (1963)
The legendary hero enlists the help of the gods to steal the golden fleece.
Dir: Don Chaffey
Cast: Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack, Gary Raymond
C-104 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

While filming footage of the Argo off the coast of Italy, shooting was interrupted when a replica of the Golden Hind sailed into view. The British television series Sir Francis Drake (1961) happened to be filming in the same location. Producer Charles H. Schneer shouted, "Get that ship out of here. You're in the wrong century!" at the British crew, dispelling any tensions that arose from both shots being lost.


11:00 AM -- Hang 'Em High (1968)
A mysterious drifter survives a lynching then goes back for revenge.
Dir: Ted Post
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley
C-115 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Reportedly, producer Leonard Freeman clashed with director Ted Post during production. One day Freeman showed up on the set, issuing orders and taking charge. Post wanted to confront him, but Clint Eastwood intervened. Eastwood spoke to Freeman, and Freeman left the set and didn't return. What he said was, "If you show up on this set again, there won't be a set ... won't be a cast, won't be a crew."


1:00 PM -- Zorba The Greek (1964)
An amoral Greek peasant teaches a British student the meaning of life.
Dir: Michael Cacoyannis
Cast: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas
BW-142 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lila Kedrova, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Walter Lassally, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Vassilis Photopoulos

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Anthony Quinn, Best Director -- Mihalis Kakogiannis, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Mihalis Kakogiannis, and Best Picture

Anthony Quinn had a broken foot during filming, and thus couldn't perform the dance on the beach as scripted, which called for much leaping around. Instead, he did a slow shuffle. Director Mihalis Kakogiannis asked Anthony Quinn what the dance was, and Anthony Quinn made up a name and claimed it was traditional.


3:30 PM -- Lover Come Back (1961)
An ad exec in disguise courts his pretty female competitor.
Dir: Delbert Mann
Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall
C-107 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning

Jack Oakie's final movie appearance.


5:30 PM -- Hello, Dolly! (1969)
A widowed matchmaker sets her sights on a wealthy man looking for a rich, young wife.
Dir: Gene Kelly
Cast: Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, Michael Crawford
C-148 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith, Herman A. Blumenthal, Walter M. Scott, George James Hopkins and Raphael Bretton, Best Sound -- Jack Solomon and Murray Spivack, and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Lennie Hayton and Lionel Newman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design -- Irene Sharaff, Best Film Editing -- William Reynolds, and Best Picture

When director George Roy Hill heard about the turn-of-the-century New York set constructed for the film, he wanted to use the set to film a brief sequence in which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Etta Place visit the Big Apple. The producers were proprietary about the set, and didn't want it to appear in another movie. 20th Century Fox, however, allowed Hill to take still photographs of his stars Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross on the set, surrounded by the extras (who appear in the old-time, tinted photos as city crowds) which were used in a montage sequence that served as a transition between the U.S. West and Bolivia sections of the movie.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: SCREWBALL COMEDIES



8:00 PM -- The Lady Eve (1941)
A lady cardsharp tries to con an eccentric scientist only to fall for him.
Dir: Preston Sturges
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn
BW-94 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Monckton Hoffe

Edith Head's first in a long line of costume designing for Stanwyck. Stanwyck's Edith Head-designed wedding gown caused a fashion sensation. So much so that it was copied for brides and called, "the Lady Eve dress."


9:45 PM -- Christmas In July (1940)
An unemployed dreamer thinks he's won a big radio contest.
Dir: Preston Sturges
Cast: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn
BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC,

This film was based on a play called "A Cup of Coffee" which Preston Sturges wrote in the summer of 1931. The play also features a character named Jimmy MacDonald who works for a coffee company and enters a contest for a rival company with the slogan "If you can't sleep at night it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk." Much of the play's plot and supporting characters were changed for the film, but the dialogue between Jimmy and his girlfriend about his slogan is repeated almost verbatim. "A Cup of Coffee" was never produced in Sturges' lifetime, but it was eventually staged by the New York theater company Soho Rep in a production that opened in March of 1988, fifty-seven years after the play was written and twenty-nine years after Sturges' death.


11:00 PM -- The Palm Beach Story (1942)
To finance her husband's career, a married woman courts an eccentric millionaire.
Dir: Preston Sturges
Cast: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor
BW-88 mins, TV-G, CC,

In the long dolly shot of Joel McCrea and Mary Astor strolling on the pier from Rudy Vallee's yacht, the director Preston Sturges makes a rare Hitchcock-style appearance as the chubby, mustachioed leader of the crew toting Claudette Colbert's luggage.


12:45 AM -- Four's A Crowd (1938)
A publicist falls for his most difficult client's daughter.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell
BW-92 mins, TV-G, CC,

The fourth of nine movies made together by Warner Brothers' romantic couple Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn.


2:30 AM -- Topper (1937)
A fun-loving couple returns from the dead to help a henpecked husband.
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
Cast: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young
BW-98 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Roland Young, and Best Sound, Recording -- Elmer Raguse (Hal Roach SSD)

Arthur Lake the elevator boy/bell hop went on to star as Dagwood Bumstead in the "Blondie" movies and TV series.


4:15 AM -- Turnabout (1940)
Battling spouses accidentally switch bodies.
Dir: Hal Roach
Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard
BW-83 mins, TV-G, CC,

Polly Ann Young, who plays Miss Twill is the older sister of film star Loretta Young.


5:39 AM -- Okay Toots! (1935)
In this comedic short, a husband and wife manage to switch bodies with the assistance of a psychic.
Dir: Charley Chase
Cast: Bess Flowers, Bea Nigro, Charley Chase
BW-16 mins,

[CBHagman]

1. Trailer for "Hello, Dolly!"

It's a bit long, but not as long as Tommy Tune's legs!