TCM Schedule for Friday, April 14, 2017 -- TCM Spotlight - Post-War Melodrama

[Staph]

Fridays in April, TCM is showing Post-WWII Melodramas. Today's selection begins at noon, and includes the categories JOAN MELODRAMAS (starring Joan Crawford) -- Harriet Craig (1950) and Mildred Pierce (1945), DRIFTERS TRYING TO REDEEM THEMSELVES -- Baby, The Rain Must Fall (1965), and Picnic (1955), SIRK MELODRAMAS (directed by the incomporable Douglas Sirk) -- Imitation of Life (1959), Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and The Tarnished Angels (1958). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- OLD ACQUAINTANCE (1943)
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young
BW-110 mins, CC,

This is the film with the often shown, camp classic scene of Bette Davis calmly grabbing Miriam Hopkins by the shoulders, vigorously shaking her, throwing her down into a chair, and then calmly saying with a clipped, sarcastic edge: "Sorry". Bette Davis later admitted she immensely enjoyed playing that scene.


8:15 AM -- PILLOW TO POST (1945)
A girl pretends to be a war bride to get a hotel room in Washington.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Ida Lupino, Sydney Greenstreet, William Prince
BW-92 mins, CC,

This was William Conrad's acting debut.


10:00 AM -- GOODBYE, MY FANCY (1951)
When she returns to her alma mater to pick up an honorary degree, a congresswoman re-ignites an old flame.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Young, Frank Lovejoy
BW-108 mins, CC,

According to Ida Lupino biographer William Donati, director Vincent Sherman was summoned to the office of Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner--to whom he was under contract at the time--and accused of having an affair with Warners star Joan Crawford. Sherman, who had been at the studio since 1937, replied that what he did on his own tome was none of Warner's business. Warner ordered the director to stop making so many close-ups of the actress, an order Sherman disobeyed. Warners used that pretext to end its relationship with him. The director eventually found out that the studio exec had purposely provoked the confrontation with him because he thought Sherman was a Communist. When that turned out not to be true, Sherman was hired by the studio eight years later to do The Young Philadelphians (1959).


12:00 PM -- HARRIET CRAIG (1950)
A woman's devotion to her home drives away friends and family.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, Lucile Watson
BW-94 mins, CC,

In this film, Harriet recounts to several people her negative experiences working in a laundry in her youth. In her own life, Joan Crawford also had to work in a laundry because of her family's poverty, and hated it. Crawford's adopted daughter, Christina, theorized that this hatred led to the alleged "wire hangers" incident described by her in Mommie Dearest.


1:45 PM -- MILDRED PIERCE (1945)
A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott
BW-111 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford (Joan Crawford was not present at the awards ceremony and feigned ill that night. Meanwhile she listened to the show on the radio. When she won, she ushered the press into her bedroom, where she finally accepted her Oscar.)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eve Arden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ann Blyth, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ranald MacDougall, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Picture

Michael Curtiz was initially less than keen at working with "has-been" star Joan Crawford as she had a reputation for being difficult. Curtiz was soon won over by Crawford's dedication and hard work.


3:45 PM -- BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL (1965)
A parolee tries to launch a musical career and keep out of trouble.
Dir: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Lee Remick, Steve McQueen, Don Murray
BW-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Glenn Campbell is part of the band at the beginning of the movie.


5:45 PM -- PICNIC (1956)
A handsome drifter ignites passions at a small-town Labor Day picnic.
Dir: Joshua Logan
Cast: William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field
C-113 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William Flannery, Jo Mielziner and Robert Priestley, and Best Film Editing -- Charles Nelson and William A. Lyon

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur O'Connell, Best Director -- Joshua Logan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- George Duning, and Best Picture

Rosalind Russell remarked, "Bill Inge (author of the original play) has sisters who were schoolteachers. That helped him in writing Rosemary so perceptively." In fact, Inge's mother ran a boarding house that at one time was occupied by three women schoolteachers. In his own words: "I saw their attempts and, even as a child, I sensed every woman's failure. I began to sense the sorrow and the emptiness in their lives, and it touched me."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: POST-WAR MELODRAMA



8:00 PM -- IMITATION OF LIFE (1959)
Two mothers, one white, one black, face problems with their rebellious daughters.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee
C-124 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Susan Kohner, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Juanita Moore

This film, which focuses on the relationship struggles of mothers and daughters, was Lana Turner's first since a very public scandal involving Turner and her daughter Cheryl Crane. The previous year, the fourteen year old Crane had fatally stabbed Turner's boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato. Stompanato, part of Mickey Cohen's infamous gang, had been beating Turner, and the court ruled that Crane's actions were justifiable homicide. Nonetheless, the killing and subsequent scandal created a rift between Turner and her daughter, and seriously threatened to end Turner's film career. However, Turner channeled the pain from her experience Into this film. It proved financially and critically successful, and served as a comeback vehicle for the actress.


10:30 PM -- MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954)
A playboy becomes a doctor to right the wrong he's done to a sightless widow.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead
C-108 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jane Wyman

Jeff Chandler turned down the role of Bob Merrick because he thought the story was too "soppy".


12:45 AM -- ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955)
A lonely widow defies small-town gossip when she falls for a younger man.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead
C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

A major part of the movie revolves around the fact that Jane Wyman's character is supposed to be substantially older than Rock Hudson. In reality, Jane Wyman was only 38 and Rock Hudson was only 30 when they filmed this movie.


2:30 AM -- THE TARNISHED ANGELS (1958)
A newsman falls for the wife of a barnstorming pilot whose work he's covering.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone
BW-91 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

During the location shooting in San Diego of this film, Robert Stack's wife was about to have their first child. While filming the tense scene where Stack propositions his own wife (played by Dorothy Malone), suddenly a plane flew right by the cameras with letters tailing four feet tall proclaiming IT'S A GIRL! Rock Hudson had arranged to have the hospital call immediately when the news came and hired a stunt pilot to tow the message behind the plane. Stack was deeply moved by Hudson's generosity, saying in his autobiography, "It's a moment I've never forgotten. Anybody who tells me that Rock Hudson isn't a first-class gent had better put up his dukes."


4:15 AM -- CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)
A dying plantation owner tries to help his alcoholic son solve his problems.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives
C-108 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Newman, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor, Best Director -- Richard Brooks, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Richard Brooks and James Poe, Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Daniels, and Best Picture

This film was originally to be filmed in black and white, as was the standard practice with "artistic" films in the 1950s. (Virtually all film adaptations of the plays of Tennessee Williams had been in B&W up to that time.) However, once Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor were cast in the leads, director Richard Brooks insisted on shooting in color, in deference to the public's well known enthusiasm for Taylor's violet and Newman's strikingly blue eyes.