TCM Schedule for Friday, March 27, 2015 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Roadshow Musicals

[Staph]

Today's films are all on the theme of spring . . . and it's about time. Here in West Virginia, we may get some more wet snow Friday, and I can't wait for spring! Tonight's films finish this month's Friday theme of recreations of Broadway musicals, with a quartet of films from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Interestingly, most of these films star good actors with limited singing voices. I wonder how much that contributed to the death of the Hollywood musical. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Spring Fever (1927)
In this silent film, a shipping clerk pretends to be a champion golfer to win an heiress' heart.
Dir: Edward Sedgwick
Cast: William Haines, Joan Crawford, George K. Arthur
BW-78 mins,

Remade as Love in the Rough (1930), starring Robert Montgomery and Dorothy Jordan, and going from a silent film to a talkie with music.


7:30 AM -- Spring Is Here (1930)
A young woman is torn between the nice guy her father likes and the bad boy he doesn't.
Dir: John Francis Dillon
Cast: Lawrence Gray, Alexander Gray, Bernice Claire
BW-69 mins,

This production marked the first time that a musical work by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Harry Warren was used in a film.


8:45 AM -- Spring Madness (1938)
A Harvard man romances a coed from a nearby college.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Maureen O'Sullivan, Lew Ayres, Ruth Hussey
BW-67 mins,

Philip Barry's play, "Spring Dance", opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 25 August 1936 and had 24 performances. The opening night cast included José Ferrer (The Lippencott - Burgess Meredith in the film), Tom Neal (Doc Boyd - Dick Baldwin), Philip Ober (Walter Beckett - Truman Bradley) and Mary Wickes (Mildred - Renie Riano).


10:00 AM -- Violets in Spring (1936)
In this musical short film, a janitor at a carpet sweeping company gets a couple of employees to fall in love.
Dir: Kurt Neumann
Cast: Leonid Kinskey, Dale Van Sickel, George Murphy
BW-21 mins,

The son of singers in the Metropolitan Opera, Billy Gilbert began performing in vaudeville at age 12. He developed a drawn-out, explosive sneezing routine that became his trademark (he was the model for, and voice of, Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)).


10:30 AM -- Early Spring (1956)
A young salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.
Dir: Yasujiro Ozu
Cast: Ryo Ikebe, Keiko Kishi, Chikage Awashima
BW-145 mins,

Referenced in The Life and Works of Yasujiro Ozu (1983).


1:00 PM -- The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone (1961)
A fading stage star gets caught up in the decadent life of modern Rome when she hires a male companion.
Dir: José Quintero
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya
BW-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lotte Lenya

This was Tennessee Williams' personal favorite film adaptation of any of his works.


2:50 PM -- Pat Neal Is Back (1968)
This promotional short focuses on Patricia Neal's return to motion pictures with "The Subject Was Roses" (1968) after her near-fatal stroke.
Dir: Edward Beyer
C-8 mins,


3:00 PM -- A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
When her husband moves them to a small farming town, a woman falls in love with a married neighbor.
Dir: Guy Green
Cast: Anthony Quinn, Ingrid Bergman, Fritz Weaver
C-98 mins, Letterbox Format

Bruce Lee was fight choreographer for this film. Wow, Bruce Lee and Ingrid Bergman -- who knew?!?


4:49 PM -- The Car That Became A Star (1964)
This short documentary follows the story of the antique Rolls that appeared in the title role of MGM's "The Yellow Rolls Royce" (1964).
BW-10 mins,


5:00 PM -- Spring Reunion (1956)
An alumni reunion spells romance for former college lovers.
Dir: Robert Pirosh
Cast: Dana Andrews, Betty Hutton, Jean Hagen
BW-79 mins,

Betty Hutton's last film.


6:30 PM -- Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)
A teenage boy falls in love with his drama teacher.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker
BW-85 mins, CC,

The seventh of sixteen Andy Hardy films starring Mickey Rooney.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: ROADSHOW MUSICALS



8:00 PM -- Man of La Mancha (1972)
The aging Don Quixote follows his dream by traveling the countryside as a warrior knight.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, James Coco
C-129 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation -- Laurence Rosenthal

Peter O'Toole recorded his vocal tracks for the film, but realized that his own singing voice was not good enough for the requirements of the music, so he assisted in the search for a voice double. The man O'Toole picked sounded nothing like him, so a new search was begun, and eventually Simon Gilbert was selected as the singing voice of Don Quixote, because his singing voice sounded the most like O'Toole's speaking voice.

This was one of the last films to receive a limited-release, reserved-seat "roadshow" engagement prior to its general release. Lost Horizon (1973) was the last of the "big film musicals" to receive this kind of release during the time period.


10:30 PM -- Camelot (1967)
The romance between Guinevere and Lancelot destroys King Arthur's dream kingdom.
Dir: Joshua Logan
Cast: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero
C-180 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- John Truscott, Edward Carrere and John Brown, Best Costume Design -- John Truscott, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Alfred Newman and Ken Darby

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Richard H. Kline, and Best Sound

Jack L. Warner was ultimately unable to persuade director Joshua Logan to cast Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet in the leading roles, because Logan was belligerent to him on the casting, as he insisted on selecting Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero - a move that was one of the major contributions to the film's critical and commercial failure. Among the other factors was that Logan was able to manipulate Warner's ego to persuade him from cutting the screenplay's length, despite the fact that the studio executive had already agreed with the film's unofficial producer, Joel Freeman, that it was overlong.


1:45 AM -- Finian's Rainbow (1968)
A leprechaun follows the Irishman who stole his pot of gold to the U.S. South.
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele
C-145 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Ray Heindorf

Many, including Fred Astaire, blamed director Francis Ford Coppola for cutting off Astaire's feet during filming of his dancing scenes, but it was Warners who decided, after the filming had been completed in 35mm, to convert the film to the wider 70mm and promote it as a "reserved-ticket roadshow attraction." This was achieved by cropping off the tops and bottoms of the film frame, including some shots of Astaire's footwork.


4:30 AM -- Lost Horizon (1973)
Plane crash survivors travel to a mystical land where nobody ages.
Dir: Charles Jarrott
Cast: Sally Kellerman, Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann
C-138 mins, Letterbox Format

In a 1975 magazine interview with Rona Barrett, producer Ross Hunter acknowledged the failure of his film. "When we hired Bacharach and David to write the songs, we didn't know they were on the verge of dissolving their partnership. When they finally delivered the music, we were already deep into preproduction. We knew it was a bum score, but we couldn't do anything about it."