TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 27, 2018 -- The Essentials: Edmund O'Brien

[Staph]

Tonight's Essentials features films starring respected character Edmund O'Brien (born Redmond O'Brien!). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #5 (1955)
Tony Martin performs in a clip from "Till the Clouds Roll By"; John Hodiak introduces a clip from "Trial." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins,


6:45 AM -- ANNIE OAKLEY (1935)
The famed female sharpshooter learns that you can't get a man with a gun when she falls for a rival marksman.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Melvyn Douglas
BW-90 mins, CC,

Released less than 10 years after the death of the real Annie Oakley.


8:30 AM -- VARSITY SHOW (1937)
A Broadway producer puts on a show at his alma mater.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Dick Powell, Fred Waring, Ted Healy
BW-80 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Busby Berkeley for "The Finale"

When Fred Waring was approached to play a starring role in this film, he brought his famous glee club, The Pennsylvanians, to the shoot and planned on using the college glee club from Pomona College for additional singers. When he arrived at the campus he found the Glee Club conductor was ill but his replacement was a young, energetic man named Robert Shaw. After the movie was finished, Shaw followed Waring to New York, where he founded the Collegiate Chorale and the Robert Shaw Chorale. Robert Shaw went on to be one of the most important personalities in American choral music in the 20th century.


10:00 AM -- BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
A madcap heiress upsets the staid existence of a straitlaced scientist.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles
BW-102 mins, CC,

Howard Hawks said that he failed at making a good comedy here because of the characters were too "madcap", with no straight men/women to ground it. This comment may have resulted from his disappointment at the film's commercial failure at the time of its release, although many now consider it Hawks' best film.


12:00 PM -- LIBELED LADY (1936)
When an heiress sues a newspaper, the editor hires a reporter to compromise her.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy
BW-98 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Some of the cast and crew travelled to the California mountains during production in order to shoot exteriors of the bucolic scenes. They spent nearly a week living cosily in small cabins, according to Myrna Loy, and enjoying the rustic scenery far from the bright lights of Hollywood. This was where William Powell filmed his bit of slapstick in which he must pretend to be an expert angler in order to impress Connie's father. "It's a hysterical piece of work," praised Loy, "but then Bill was a very gifted man, able to do great comedy and tragedy, everything."


2:00 PM -- GIDGET (1959)
A young girl dreams of winning acceptance from a gang of surfers.
Dir: Paul Wendkos
Cast: Sandra Dee, James Darren, Cliff Robertson
C-95 mins, CC,

James Darren was originally not selected to play Moondoggie because the role required two songs to sing and Darren was not well established as a singer. On his own, he cut a single with the studio's recording subsidiary Colpix Records which charted. Columbia changed their minds and gave him the role despite the fact that he couldn't surf and was a weak swimmer. He became a huge teen idol and subsequently repeated the Moondoggie role in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), with two other Gidgets: Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol.


4:00 PM -- THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS (1968)
A psychiatrist's mental health is tested when his daughter starts dating.
Dir: Michael Gordon
Cast: David Niven, Lola Albright, Chad Everett
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Christina Ferrare, who played the daughter, was a co-host on Hallmark Channels Home & Family (2012-2016).


6:00 PM -- MRS. BROWN, YOU'VE GOT A LOVELY DAUGHTER (1968)
Herman's Hermits travel to England for a high-stakes greyhound race.
Dir: Saul Swimmer
Cast: Peter Noone, Karl Green, Keith Hopwood
C-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Morton DaCosta was the original director of this film. Producer Allen Klein replaced him during filming with Saul Swimmer.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: EDMUND O'BRIEN



8:00 PM -- WHITE HEAT (1949)
A government agent infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien
BW-113 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Virginia Kellogg

Edmond O'Brien was rather in awe of James Cagney. He found out how generous an actor and gentle a person Cagney could be. In a close-up the two were playing together, O'Brien felt Cagney standing with increasing pressure on the top of O'Brien's right foot, forcing the younger actor to move in that direction. O'Brien realized if he had not done so, he would have been out of frame and Cagney would have had the scene to himself. When the cameras were rolling, Cagney would look like "an angry tiger," but as soon as Raoul Walsh yelled cut, the star would quietly go up to O'Brien with a poem he had written and ask him in a whisper, "Would you mind telling me what you think of this?" When it came time to return to work, Cagney would plead, "Please, don't tell anyone about it."


10:15 PM -- D.O.A. (1950)
The victim of a slow-acting poison tracks down his own killer.
Dir: Rudolph Maté
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler
BW-84 mins, CC,

The scene in which Bigelow runs in panic through the streets after learning he has been poisoned was a stolen shot. The pedestrians had no idea a movie was being made and no warning that Edmond O'Brien would be plowing through them.


11:45 PM -- THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
A group of aging cowboys look for one last score in a corrupt border town.
Dir: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan
C-145 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Walon Green (screenplay/story), Roy N. Sickner (story) and Sam Peckinpah (screenplay), and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Jerry Fielding

Robert Ryan's incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to "punish" Ryan. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden's and Ernest Borgnine's faces while listing them, Peckinpah froze the scene on several horses' rear ends as Ryan was listed.


2:30 AM -- RAZORBACK (1984)
A vicious wild boar terrorizes the Australian outback.
Dir: Russell Mulcahy
Cast: Gregory Harrison, Bill Kerr, Arkie Whiteley
BW-95 mins, CC,

This film is considered an "Ozploitation" (Australian exploitation) picture.


4:15 AM -- TENTACLES (1977)
A giant octopus attacks a seaside resort.
Dir: Ovidio G Assonitis
Cast: Shelley Winters, Henry Fonda, Bo Hopkins
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Henry Fonda filmed his scenes in one day. All his scenes are fairly static ones, largely involving him talking on a telephone. The reason for this is that Fonda had just had a pacemaker fitted and couldn't do anything too strenuous.

[longship]

1. D.O.A.!!!!!

I absolutely love Edmond O'Brien's work.

This film is iconic film noir. It's dark, very dark. Smoky bar scenes. A twisty plot. And My Favorite Martian's landlady, a younger Pamela Britton, as O'Brien's love interest. The heavies in this film are cartoonishly heavy.

A great flick!