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Staph

(6,245 posts)
Fri Jan 9, 2015, 02:20 AM Jan 2015

TCM Schedule for Friday, January 9, 2015 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Neil Simon

In daylight, there's a selection of episodes from The Screen Director's Playhouse, a television series from the mid-1950s, followed by films directed by the same Screen Directors or starring some of the same actors. In prime time, TCM continues its month of Fridays spotlighting the wit and wisdom of Neil Simon. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- THE SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: SILENT PARTNER (1955)
A once-famous comedy star drowns his sorrows in a bar.
Dir: George Marshall
Cast: Buster Keaton, Zasu Pitts, Joe E. Brown
BW-26 mins, CC,

6:30 AM -- THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ (1968)
A German Olympic hopeful plots to polevault to freedom over the Berlin Wall.
Dir: George Marshall
Cast: Elke Sommer, Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer
C-113 mins, Letterbox Format

Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner, and Leon Askin were all starring together on Hogan's Heroes (1965) at the time this film was made.


8:30 AM -- SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: ONE AGAINST MANY (1956)
A scientist chooses between his ideals and public health.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Lew Ayres, Wallace Ford, Chick Chandler
BW-25 mins,


9:00 AM -- I'LL BE SEEING YOU (1944)
A soldier meets a woman on Christmas furlough from prison and they fall in love.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
BW-85 mins, CC,

The quote from Lincoln under his photograph in the YMCA room is from his Cooper Union Address: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it" (February 27, 1860).


10:30 AM -- SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: THE SWORD OF VILLON (1956)
The swashbuckling poet Francois Villon fights for love and liberty.
Dir: George Waggner
Cast: Errol Flynn, Hillary Brooke, Pamela Duncan
BW-25 mins, CC,


11:00 AM -- TOO MUCH, TOO SOON (1958)
The daughter of an iconic actor reunites with her father after a ten year estrangement.
Dir: Art Napoleon
Cast: Dorothy Malone, Errol Flynn, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
BW-121 mins, CC,

Warner Brothers purchased the book the film is based on with the intention of starring Carroll Baker (then under contract) in an adaptation. When she declined on the grounds that she did not want to play "a nymphomaniac", they refused to lend her to an outside company to appear in "The Devil's Disciple" opposite Sir Laurence Olivier.


1:15 PM -- A SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: TICKET FOR THADDEUS (1956)
A Polish immigrant tries to accept blame for an accident he didn't cause.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Raymond Bailey, Clem Bevans, Russ Conway
BW-25 mins,


1:45 PM -- SYNANON (1965)
Inmates at an innovative drug treatment center fight to kick heroin.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: Chuck Connors, Stella Stevens, Alex Cord
C-104 mins,

Original advertising art featured a sketch of Alex Cord's character plunging a syringe into his arm - but the needle was covered by a black censorship block when the image was distributed as newspaper ads, poster art and as cover art of the soundtrack album.


3:30 PM -- SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: PARTNERS (1956)
A rodeo star takes an orphan under his wing.
Dir: Tay Garnett
Cast: Casey Tibbs, Brandon De Wilde, Robert J. Wilke
BW-25 mins,


4:00 PM -- GOOD-BYE, MY LADY (1956)
A stray dog brings together a young boy and an old man in the Georgia swamps.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, Brandon de Wilde
BW-95 mins, CC,

According to Hedda Hopper's column of August 28, 1955, director William A. Wellman was planning to cast Vivian Vance and William Frawley (the Mertzes in I Love Lucy (1951)) to play a married couple in a single scene for this film.


5:45 PM -- ALL FALL DOWN (1962)
A young drifter's romance with an older woman is threatened by his possessive mother.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Eva Marie Saint, Warren Beatty, Karl Malden
BW-110 mins, CC,

One of the two 1962's releases directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Angela Lansbury in a supporting role, with the other film being The Manchurian Candidate (1962).


7:42 PM -- LOCATION: FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967)
This promotional short film offers a behind-the-scenes look at the location shooting for "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967).
Dir: Roland Saland
C-10 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: NEIL SIMON



8:00 PM -- MURDER BY DEATH (1976)
A criminal madman invites the world's greatest detectives for a night of dinner and murder.
Dir: Robert Moore
Cast: Peter Falk, Truman Capote, Alec Guinness
BW-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The screaming woman sound used as a doorbell is Fay Wray's screams from King Kong (1933).


9:45 PM -- THE CHEAP DETECTIVE (1978)
A private dick tackles two tough cases while trying to clear himself of a murder charge.
Dir: Robert Moore
Cast: Peter Falk, Ann-Margret, Eileen Brennan
C-92 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The movie was titled 'The Cheap Detective', according to writer Neil Simon, "Because the detective in those old films never got paid! Who paid Humphrey Bogart for finding all those crooks in The Maltese Falcon (1941)? He arrested Mary Astor and sent her and everyone else to gaol. Who paid him?... The character is always involved in danger not for the bucks but because it's his lifestyle".


11:30 PM -- PLAZA SUITE (1971)
A New York hotel room is the setting for three stories of romantic squabbles.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Walter Matthau, Lee Grant, Barbara Harris
C-114 mins, CC,

Maureen Stapleton recreated ONE of her three roles from the stage version. Like the male roles, Neil Simon wrote all three female roles to be played by one actress. George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton originate all of the roles in the play; Walter Matthau took over for Scott in all three roles - Stapleton kept her role from the first act; the other two roles went to Lee Grant and Barbara Harris.


1:30 AM -- CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978)
Four sets of guests at a posh hotel face personal crises.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby
C-103 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maggie Smith

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Neil Simon, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Albert Brenner and Marvin March

Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) says that she wishes David Niven could accept her award for her because he would be witty and charming. In the play on which the movie is based, she says Michael Caine, but it was changed when Caine was cast as her husband.



3:30 AM -- WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF (1945)
In this remake of Grand Hotel, guests at a New York hotel fight to survive personal tragedy.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon
BW-130 mins, CC,

Remake of the 1932 best picture Oscar-winner "Grand Hotel."


5:46 AM -- FIVE MINUTES FROM THE STATION (1930)
A man brings his boss home to dinner hoping it will get him a promotion in this short film. Vitaphone Release 1051-1052.
Dir: Arthur Hurley
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Lynne Overman, Berton Churchill
BW-13 mins,

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