TCM Schedule for Saturday, August 19, 2017 -- Summer Under the Stars - Angela Lansbury

[Staph]

From the TCM website:
REAL NAME: Angela Brigid Lansbury
LIFE SPAN: Born October 16, 1925, Regent's Park, London, England; now 91
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Solid singing voice and good looks, impressive acting chops
NOTABLE ROLES: Nancy, Gaslight (1944); Eleanor Shaw Iselin, The Manchuran Candidate (1962); Annabell Willart, All Fall Down (1962)
HOLLYWOOD BEST FRIENDS: Bea Arthur, Bob Hope

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- IF WINTER COMES (1948)
Scandal results when a well-meaning man takes in a pregnant girl.
Dir: Victor Saville
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, Angela Lansbury
BW-97 mins, CC,

Angela Lansbury, then twenty-two, wanted the sympathetic role of the waif-like village girl Effie but was forced to play Mabel the thirty-five year old shrewish wife of fifty year old Walter Pidgeon. This brought home to Lansbury that she would never be a star player at MGM. The role of Effie went to Janet Leigh who would be Lansbury's co-star in The Manchurian Candidate where Lansbury would again play an older unsympathetic woman although this role - Mrs. Iselin - would be cited by Lansbury as her favorite film role.


7:48 AM -- SO YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HAIR (1946)
In this comedic short, Joe McDoakes searches for any cure that will halt his disappearing hairline. Vitaphone Release 1484A.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Jack Mower, Buster Brodie
BW-11 mins,


8:00 AM -- THE HOODLUM SAINT (1946)
After finding religion, a cynical newspaperman tries to help young hoods.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: William Powell, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury
BW-92 mins, CC,

Angela Lansbury, who could sing, resented that in this and her other MGM films the studio insisted on giving her a voice double. Years later she had stage hits on Broadway in two singing roles, "Mame" and "Sweeney Todd."


9:47 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,


10:00 AM -- 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,

Eva Marie Saint's character (Echo O'Brien) is the "old maid daughter" of the best friend of Angela Lansbury's character (Annabell Willart), when in fact Eva Marie Saint was a year older than Angela Lansbury.


12:00 PM -- THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964)
Two poor little rich girls dog the steps of a womanizing pianist.
Dir: George Roy Hill
Cast: Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Tippy Walker
C-107 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The pianist's unusual surname - Orient - was inspired by real-life concert pianist Oscar Levant. The word "levant" means orient in French. Nora Johnson, who wrote the novel on which the movie was based (and co-wrote the screenplay with her father, Nunally Johnson), said that she and a friend had a crush on Levant when they were schoolgirls.


2:00 PM -- KIND LADY (1951)
A con artist and his criminal cohorts hold an old lady hostage in her own home.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Ethel Barrymore, Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury
BW-78 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Walter Plunkett and Gile Steele

Moyna MacGill (Mrs. Harkley) is Angela Lansbury's mother in real life.


3:34 PM -- THE CAPITAL CITY WASHINGTON, D.C. (1940)
This short film focuses on Washington, D.C.'s famous buildings and monuments.
C-9 mins,


3:45 PM -- STATE OF THE UNION (1948)
A presidential candidate fights to keep his integrity and his wife during a grueling campaign.
Dir: Frank Capra
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Van Johnson
BW-123 mins, CC,

Adolphe Menjou was an ultra-right-wing political conservative who had eagerly co-operated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), named names of persons he considered to be Communists and was a strong proponent of "blacklisting" those whose political beliefs he didn't share. Katharine Hepburn was decidedly more liberal and had been an outspoken critic of the blacklist. Menjou had made several comments accusing Hepburn of being a Communist sympathizer, and possibly a Communist herself, which angered Hepburn and her co-star/romantic partner Spencer Tracy. Frank Capra was so concerned about the tension that he closed the set to the press.


6:00 PM -- THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946)
Straitlaced waitresses battle saloon girls to win the West for domesticity.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger
C-101 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Harry Warren (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe"

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Lennie Hayton

Virginia O'Brien was pregnant with daughter Terri during the filming, but delays caused by Judy Garland made her condition harder and harder to conceal, which is why her character seems to disappear in the second half of the film.


7:52 PM -- THE RELEASE OF PSYCHO (1960)
BW-8 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: ANGELA LANSBURY



8:00 PM -- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
A Korean War hero doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill by the enemy.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh
BW-127 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, and Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

Angela Lansbury was thirty-six at the time of filming, only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son.


10:30 PM -- GASLIGHT (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

Angela Lansbury was only 17 when she made this, her film debut. She had been working at Bullocks Department Store in Los Angeles and when she told her boss that she was leaving, he offered to match the pay at her new job. Expecting it to be in the region of her Bullocks salary of the equivalent of $27 a week, he was somewhat taken aback when she told him she would be earning $500 a week.


12:30 AM -- THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI (1947)
A man rises through Parisian society by using the women he romances.
Dir: Albert Lewin
Cast: George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak
BW-112 mins, CC,

The producers held a contest for artists to create a painting about the temptation of Saint Anthony for use in the film. The artists were paid $500 each and got to keep their paintings after the pictures toured the US and Britain during 1946 & 1947. Although Max Ernst won the contest (receiving an extra $2,500) and got his painting on screen, Salvador Dalí's contribution (featuring a parade of spider-legged elephants tormenting the saint) became better known. The other artists who submitted paintings are Leonora Carrington, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Stanley Spencer, Eugene Berman, Paul Delvaux, Louis Guglielmi, Horace Pippin and Abraham Rattner. Artist Leonor Fini was also invited to contribute but she never produced a painting.


2:30 AM -- SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1982)
A father returns to London after being deported to find out what happened to his wife and child.
Dir: Terry Hughes
Cast: George Hearn, Angela Lansbury, Cris Groenendall
C-141 mins,

Though Angela Lansbury won the 1979 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett on Broadway, this production is the national tour, filmed while in Los Angeles.


5:00 AM -- SCREEN DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE: CLAIRE (1956)
A doctor's bride is haunted by guilt over the death of his first wife.
Dir: Frank Tuttle
Cast: George Montgomery, Angela Lansbury, Jean Willes
BW-26 mins,

Normally hairy-chested George Montgomery once again submits himself to the razor and appears buffed and hairless in the swimming sequence.


5:40 AM -- GEM-JAMS (1943)
In this short film, a man's wife suspects him of cheating so she hires a private detective and finds the results surprising.
Dir: Lambert Hillyer
Cast: Leon Errol, Dorothy Christy, Al Hill
BW-18 mins,

[JDC]

1. What, no Long Hot Summer?

[Staph]

2. I'd like to see

The Court Jester!