TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 10, 2017 -- Summer Under The Stars - Sidney Poitier

[Staph]

From the TCM website:
REAL NAME: Sidney Poitier
LIFE SPAN: Born February 20, 1927, Miami, FL; now 90 years old
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Dignified presence, earnest acting.
NOTABLE ROLES: Noah Cullen, The Defiant Ones (1958); Virgil Tibbs, In The Heat Of The Night (1967); Mark Thackeray, To Sir, With Love (1967)
HOLLYWOOD BEST FRIENDS: Richard Widmark, Ossie Davis

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- BROTHER JOHN (1971)
A man returns to Earth as an angel to intervene in a small-town labor strike.
Dir: James Goldstone
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Will Geer, Bradford Dillman
C-96 mins, CC,

Columbia Pictures was denied the use of the name Kane for this picture by a 3-man industry panel on Apr. 24, 1970. RKO claimed the moniker would be detrimental to the movie Citizen Kane (1941) which was still in reissue. Variety, May 20, 1970.


7:49 AM -- PORTRAIT OF AN ACTOR (1971)
This promotional short film for "The Last Run" (1971) offers a look at the life of actor George C. Scott.
Dir: Chuck Workman
C-10 mins,


8:00 AM -- A WARM DECEMBER (1972)
A doctor visiting London falls for a mysterious woman.
Dir: Sidney Poitier
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Yvette Curtis, Esther Anderson
C-101 mins, CC,

T.P. McKenna was cast in the role of Dr.Henry Barlow by Sidney Poitier who directed as well as starred. However, after the scenes were filmed, Poitier decided to recast George Baker and the relevant scenes were re-shot.


9:43 AM -- MOSCOW IN MADRID (1965)
This short promotional film focuses on the casting and on-location filming of "Dr. Zhivago" (1965).
C-4 mins,


10:00 AM -- 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.


11:37 AM -- I NEVER FORGET A FACE (1956)
This short film takes a look at various "famous faces" through history, from political figures to inventors. Vitaphone Release 2603A.
BW-11 mins,


12:00 PM -- EDGE OF THE CITY (1957)
An army deserter and a black dock worker join forces against a corrupt union official.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden
BW-85 mins, CC,

Expanded from the 1955 hour-long live TV play "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall," broadcast on "Philco Television Playhouse (1948)," also with Sidney Poitier in the role of Tommy.


1:37 PM -- ALASKA LIFEBOAT (1956)
This short film focuses on a medical services ship that stops in the native village of Haines, Alaska.
Dir: Herbert Morgan
BW-21 mins,


2:00 PM -- SOMETHING OF VALUE (1957)
Childhood friends end up on opposite sides of a bloody African uprising.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, Wendy Hiller
BW-113 mins, CC,

Rock Hudson himself drove the film crew round the Nairobi National Park, with the stand-in for his co-star next to him. The crew and game warden were in the back of the semi-open Land Rover. Although all the animals in the park were wild they were used to vehicles. Many shots of various animals were taken, including baboons. For the latter Hudson threw peanuts onto the front of the vehicle. One half-grown male, seeing the actual source of this food, jumped through the half-door onto Hudson's lap, stole some extra peanuts and even snatched a lipstick from the hand of the stand-in. Hudson grabbed the baboon by the scruff of the neck, calmly took back the lipstick and threw the animal out.


4:00 PM -- BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972)
A con man helps a group of former slaves survive the perils of the wild West in their search for the promised land.
Dir: Sidney Poitier
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee
C-103 mins, CC,

First time director Sidney Poitier took over the job from Joseph Sargent when he became dissatisfied with the film's point of view.


5:51 PM -- A CINDERELLA NAMED ELIZABETH (1965)
This promotional short film looks at how Elizabeth Hartman was chosen for the part of Selina in "A Patch of Blue" (1965).
BW-7 mins,


6:00 PM -- A PATCH OF BLUE (1965)
A blind white girl falls in love with a black man.
Dir: Guy Green
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman
BW-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Shelley Winters

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Hartman, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Burks,
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- George W. Davis, Urie McCleary, Henry Grace and Charles S. Thompson, and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Jerry Goldsmith

Scenes of Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman kissing were excised from the film when it was shown in theaters in the American South, where many states still had laws against what they called "race-mixing".


7:50 PM -- 100 YEARS AT THE MOVIES (1994)
This short documentary celebrates the centennial of American filmmaking through a montage of clips of influential motion pictures.
Dir: Chuck Workman
C-9 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: SIDNEY POITIER



8:00 PM -- TO SIR, WITH LOVE (1967)
A substitute teacher changes the lives of the slum children in his class.
Dir: James Clavell
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Sidney Poitier really IS "Sir." He was appointed an Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974. (He's a native of the Bahamas, part of the Commonwealth of British Nations.) This is not an honorary award. He is entitled to be known as Sir Sidney Poitier, but does not use it himself.


10:00 PM -- THE DEFIANT ONES (1958)
Two convicts, a white racist and an angry black, escape while chained to each other.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel
BW-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith (Nedrick Young had been blacklisted at the time and the Oscar went to his pseudonym 'Nathan E. Douglas'. In 1993 AMPAS restored Young's credit upon the request of his widow and recommendation of the Academy's writers branch.), and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sam Leavitt

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Tony Curtis, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Sidney Poitier, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Theodore Bikel, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Cara Williams, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Picture

Sidney Poitier came to the set with a great deal of respect and admiration for Stanley Kramer. He recalled - "Stanley was always a forerunner of terribly good things; He was the type of man who found it essential to put on the line the things that were important to him. People have short memories: in the days he started making films about important social issues, there were powerful Hollywood columnists who could break careers. He knew this, and he said to himself, 'What the hell', either I do it or I can't live with myself.' For that attitude, we're all in Stanley Kramer's debt. He's an example of the very best of a certain type of filmmaker."


11:50 PM -- PASTERNAK (1965)
A short biography of Boris Pasternak, Nobel prize winner and author of "Dr. Zhivago," the inspiration and basis of the 1965 movie.
C-9 mins,


12:00 AM -- IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)
A black police detective from the North forces a bigoted Southern sheriff to accept his help with a murder investigation.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
C-110 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rod Steiger, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Stirling Silliphant, Best Sound, Best Film Editing -- Hal Ashby, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Jewison, and Best Effects, Sound Effects -- James Richard

Sidney Poitier insisted that the movie be filmed in the north because an incident in which he and Harry Belafonte were almost killed by Ku Klux Klansman during a visit to Mississippi. Hence the selection of Sparta, Illinois for the location filming. Nevertheless, the filmmakers and actors did venture briefly into Tennessee for the outdoor scenes at the cotton plantation, because there was no similar cotton plantation in Illinois that could be used. Poitier slept with a gun under his pillow during production in Tennessee. Poitier did receive threats from local racist thugs so the shoot was cut short and production returned to Illinois.


2:00 AM -- THE BEDFORD INCIDENT (1965)
An American destroyer, with a journalist on board, pursues a Russian submarine during the Cold War.
Dir: James B. Harris
Cast: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, James MacArthur
BW-102 mins, CC,

Although by this point Sidney Poitier had been making films for 15 years, this was the first film he made in which his race was neither mentioned nor relevant.


4:00 AM -- CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY (1952)
A South African minister travels to Johannesburg to find his missing son.
Dir: Zoltan Korda
Cast: Canada Lee, Sidney Poitier, Charles Carson
BW-108 mins, CC,

The film was shot in South Africa. Since the country was ruled by strict apartheid (enforced racial separation) laws, stars Sidney Poitier and Canada Lee and producer/director Zoltan Korda cooked up a scheme where they told the South African immigration authorities that Poitier and Lee were not actors but were Korda's indentured servants; otherwise, the two black actors and the white director would not have been allowed to associate with each other while they were in the country.