TCM Schedule for Friday, March 11, 2016 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month - Merle Oberon

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is apparently having a Staph film festival, showing many of my favorite films, including Now, Voyager (1942), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Designing Woman (1957), and Sabrina (1954), as well as the Scarlett Pimpernel (1935) in the wee hours, as a part of the films of Star of the Month Merle Oberon. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Now, Voyager (1942)
A repressed spinster is transformed by psychiatry and her love for a married man.
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
BW-118 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gladys Cooper

The facilities and philosophy of Cascade, the "sanatorium" where Charlotte is treated in the book and movie, are based on the real-life Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA, where author Olive Higgins Prouty had once sought treatment. The Riggs Center was notable at the time for its focus on physical activity, occupational therapy, daily talk therapy sessions, and eschewing lobotomies and other drastic medical treatments of the time.


8:00 AM -- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Tabloid reporters crash a society marriage.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
BW-112 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Donald Ogden Stewart

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ruth Hussey, Best Director -- George Cukor, and Best Picture

Playwright Philip Barry based the character of Tracy on Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, a Main Line Philadelphia socialite famous for throwing lavish parties at her family's 800-acre estate in Radnor, PA. The studio reportedly intended to shoot the film at Ardrossan (the name of the family's estate), but decided against it after seeing the size and scale of the main house and the expansiveness of the estate. The producers reportedly thought that no one would believe that anyone could actually live like that, particularly in America in the 1940s.


10:00 AM -- Designing Woman (1957)
A sportswriter and a fashion designer have a lot of adjusting to do when they marry in haste.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Gray
C-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- George Wells

James Stewart and Grace Kelly were intended to be the co-stars of this movie, but when Kelly became betrothed to Prince Rainier of Monaco, Stewart decided not to do it (a decision he later said he regretted), and the leading roles went to Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall.


12:00 PM -- Jane Eyre (1944)
A governess at a remote estate falls in love with her brooding employer.
Dir: Robert Stevenson
Cast: Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien
BW-96 mins, CC,

Ethel Griffies also played Grace Poole in Jane Eyre (1934), starring Colin Clive and Virginia Bruce.


1:45 PM -- Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Illicit lovers fight to stay together during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay
C-200 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, Terence Marsh and Dario Simoni, Best Costume Design, Color -- Phyllis Dalton, and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Courtenay, Best Director -- David Lean, Best Sound -- A.W. Watkins (M-G-M British SSD) and Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), Best Film Editing -- Norman Savage, and Best Picture

The film was shot in Spain during the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. While the scene with the crowd chanting the Marxist theme was being filmed (at 3:00 in the morning), police showed up at the set thinking that a real revolution was taking place and insisted on staying until the scene was finished. Apparently, people who lived near where filming was taking place had awoken to the sound of revolutionary singing and had mistakenly believed that Franco had been overthrown. As the extras sang the revolutionary Internationale for a protest scene, the secret police surveyed the crowd, making many of the extras pretend that they didn't know the words.


5:15 PM -- Sabrina (1954)
Two wealthy brothers fall for the chauffeur's daughter.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden
BW-114 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Edith Head

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Audrey Hepburn, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Charles Lang, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Sam Comer and Ray Moyer

This was the second film in a row where Audrey Hepburn gets her hair cut as a symbol of maturity. The first was in Roman Holiday (1953). It is also the first of four films in a row where she'd play a character romantically linked with a man old enough to be her father.


7:17 PM -- Know Your Ally: Britain (1944)
Documentary cameras capture the British character and reveal how they got involved in World War II.
Cast: Walter Huston,
BW-42 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: MERLE OBERON



8:00 PM -- The Lodger (1944)
The inhabitants of a boarding house fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
Dir: John Brahm
Cast: Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Laird Cregar
BW-84 mins, CC,

Merle Oberon fell in love with the film's cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, and they married the following year. Because of facial scars Oberon sustained in a car accident, Ballard developed a unique light for her that washed out any signs of her blemishes. The device is known to this day as the Obie (not to be confused with the Off-Broadway award).


9:30 PM -- Wuthering Heights (1939)
A married noblewoman fights her lifelong attraction to a charismatic gypsy.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven
BW-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Best Art Direction -- James Basevi, Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

Gregg Toland rejected the typical Hollywood soft-focus, one-plane depth and strove for razor-sharp black-and-white images. To achieve the maximum contrast between shadow and light on this film, he used high-powered Technicolor arc lamps and a film stock four times faster than customary without an appreciable increase in graininess. He achieved the mood Wyler wanted for the picture by using candle-like effects, keeping the characters partially in darkness before coming fully into the light at climactic moments, and shooting from a low angle to capture the ceilings of the sets, emphasizing the confining loneliness of Wuthering Heights.


11:30 PM -- The Cowboy And The Lady (1938)
A socialite posing as her own maid falls for a rodeo rider.
Dir: H. C. Potter
Cast: Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Patsy Kelly
BW-92 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (United Artists SSD)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Lionel Newman (music) and Arthur Quenzer (lyrics) for the song "The Cowboy and the Lady", and Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman

The original writer, Leo McCarey, declined Samuel Goldwyn's offer to direct. William Wyler began as director of this movie, but walked off the picture after an argument with Samuel Goldwyn about extensive retakes he wanted. Goldwyn suspended Wyler, who did not return as director. However, he and Goldwyn settled their differences, and he did direct Goldwyn's next picture, Wuthering Heights (1939). H.C. Potter was brought in to replace Wyler. Production and script problems resulted in the film going way over schedule, and Potter had to leave before the film was finished due to his commitment to start The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). Editor Stuart Heisler was brought into finish directing the picture.


1:15 AM -- The Divorce Of Lady X (1938)
In need of a hotel room woman poses as a scandalous divorcee.
Dir: Tim Whelan
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, Binnie Barnes
C-91 mins,

Merle Oberon and Alex Korda started a beautiful friendship on this film, which often meant starting to rehearse by 12:30 in the afternoon followed quickly by lunch which lasted until 3:30pm which meant filming finishing by 10 or 11 at night! She and Korda married on June 3, 1939, and divorced on June 4, 1945.


3:00 AM -- The Lion Has Wings (1939)
Britishers of every class band together to repel the German Blitz.
Dir: Michael Powell
Cast: Merle Oberon, Ralph Richardson, June Duprez
BW-76 mins,

Because it was started and completed so soon after the declaration of war and was seen to show how useful films could be in wartime, this film is considered to have done a lot towards allowing the British film industry to remain active throughout WWII, unlike in WWI when all cinemas were closed and filming effectively stopped for the duration.


4:21 AM -- Candid Cameramaniacs (1937)
This short film takes a humorous look at photography.
Dir: Hal Yates
Cast: Harry Semels, Ferris Taylor, Leonid Kinskey
BW-9 mins,


4:30 AM -- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935)
A British aristocrat's effete facade masks a swashbuckling hero rescuing victims of the French revolution.
Dir: Harold Young
Cast: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey
BW-98 mins,

When Sir Percy recites his poem, it contains the word "demmed" which, in the US in 1934, would have been construed as profanity and would not have been allowed. This film was produced in England, however, where it was.

The poem:
They seek him here, they seek him there.
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in (hell -- Sir Percy smirks and points down)?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel!

[longship]

1. I love the Scarlet Pimpernel!

Haven't seen it in years, but it is a real gem of a flick. Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon! Raymond Massey as the baddie, of course.