TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 1, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Pioneers - First Women Filmmakers

[Staph]

This evening, and next Thursday during the day, TCM is taking a look at the women who were pioneers in the the film industry. From the TCM website:

WOMEN FILM PIONEERS - NOV. 1 & 8

In the early days of cinema, women directors were fairly common and even helped shape the language of film. However, as time progressed and the power structure of Hollywood shifted, women became greatly overlooked in positions of leadership and power. TCM honors the women who served as pioneers in directing silent movies, influencing generations of filmmakers in the face of the limitations imposed upon them.

TCM also salutes their successors, the women directors of later decades who managed to break through the "celluloid ceiling" when opportunities for females were even rarer. We look at Women Film Pioneers during primetime on the first two Thursdays in November, then at Female Directors as a daytime theme on Wednesday, November 7.

Our first night of female silent-film directors features three films by French-born Alice Guy-Blaché: Falling Leaves (1912), A House Divided (1913) and The Ocean Waif (1916). It has been said that, during the period 1896-1906, Guy-Blaché was "probably the only woman film director in the world."

Dorothy Davenport Reid, whose feature Linda (1929) is also in our lineup, came from the prominent theatrical family the Davenports. She was an actress as well as writer, producer and director. She was married to actor Wallace Reid, and it was a sign of the time that, on Linda and some of the other films she directed, she was billed as "Mrs. Wallace Reid."

Three short films in this tribute are TCM premieres, including Lois Weber's Suspense (1913), a 10-minute thriller about a mother and her baby threatened in their home by a burglar. Weber, who has been called "America's First Female Filmmaker," co-directed the movie, wrote the scenario and stars as the threatened mother.

Mabel's Blunder (1914) is a 13-minute comedy produced by Mack Sennett and written and directed by its star, Mabel Norman, the most successful comedienne of the early silent screen. Her Defiance (1916) is a 20-minute feminist melodrama co-directed by Cleo Madison, who stars as a woman abandoned by her lover.

Other Women Film Pioneers include Julia Crawford Ivers, Marian E. Wong, Ruth Ann Baldwin, Ida May Park, Elsie Jane Wilson, Nell Shipman, Grace Cunard, Lita Lawrence and Alla Nazimova, the flamboyant Russian star who wrote, produced and/or co-directed several of her film vehicles.

Female Directors from later decades include Dorothy Arzner, the only woman directing films for Hollywood studios during the 1930s. She was the first female to direct a sound film and the first to join the Directors Guild of America. She was noted for her technical innovations, such as inventing a boom mic, and also for directing such female superstars as Katharine Hepburn (Christopher Strong, 1933) and Joan Crawford (The Bride Wore Red, 1937).

Jacqueline Audry was the first Frenchwoman to become a successful film director in her country in the years following World War II. She directed the first film adaptation of the famous Colette story Gigi (1949), before American screenwriter Anita Loos adapted it for the stage. In the U.S., starring actress Ida Lupino staked her claim as the only woman director working within the Hollywood studio system in the 1950s, on such films asHard, Fast and Beautiful (1951). She also co-wrote some of her socially-conscious melodramas including Outrage and produced others. Along with her acting career, she continued directing for television into the 1960s.

Claudia Weill, who has also directed for theatre and television, is best remembered for her feature film Girlfriends (1978), which she also produced. The movie examines the troubled yet supportive relationship of two New Yorkers (played by Melanie Mayron and Anita Skinner). The film brought Weill a David di Donatello award from the Venice Film Festival for best "first work as a director."

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Showmen try to exploit a giant ape raised by an orphan.
Dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Cast: Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong
C-94 mins

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects

This was the first feature film to which Ray Harryhausen contributed stop-motion animation effects.


7:45 AM -- The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Cowboys discover a lost world populated by dinosaurs.
Dir: Jim O'Connolly
Cast: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson
C-95 mins, CC

When this film was first conceived it was supposed to have been a follow-up to King Kong (1933), but was never made. However, an early B&W version of the "cowboys in Africa" footage was shot, and wound up being used in Mighty Joe Young (1949).


9:30 AM -- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Classic sci-fi epic about a mysterious monolith that seems to play a key role in human evolution.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
C-149 mins, CC, Letterbox

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Kubrick was not present at the awards ceremony. Presenters Diahann Carroll and Burt Lancaster accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Stanley Kubrick, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer

According to Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick wanted to get an insurance policy from Lloyds of London to protect himself against losses in the event that extraterrestrial intelligence were discovered before the movie was released. Lloyds refused. Carl Sagan commented, "In the mid-1960s, there was no search being performed for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the chances of accidentally stumbling on extraterrestrial intelligence in a few years' period was extremely small. Lloyds of London missed a good bet."


12:15 PM -- One Million Years B.C. (1966)
A rebellious caveman leaves his tribe in search of a better life.
Dir: Don Chaffey
Cast: Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Percy Herbert
C-100 mins, CC

Ray Harryhausen used his "Dynamation" effects technique in this film, but because producer Charles H. Schneer owned the brand name, Hammer could not use it in their marketing. However, producer Michael Carreras wanted to come-up with a similar-sounding name for the process. After originally planning on shooting the movie in Panavision (which Harryhausen objected to, as he, director Don Chaffey and cameraman Wilkie Cooper preferred the regular spherical process favored by Ray), Carreras, Hammer and 20th Century-Fox attempted an amalgamation of the Panavision and Dynamation brand names into a new one, "Giant Panamation". However, the "Giant Panamation" name was dropped when the Panavision company objected to it. Some early press material did, however, use the name.


2:00 PM -- Invitation to the Dance (1956)
Three stories told in dance: a circus clown loves a trapeze artist; a bracelet passes from one lover to another; a sailor enters an animated Arabian Nights fantasy.
Dir: Gene Kelly
Cast: Gene Kelly, Igor Youskevitch, Claire Sombert
C-93 mins, CC

Production on the film continued into mid-June 1954, with animation for the "Sinbad the Sailor" segment under the guidance of William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Fred Quimby. During the live-action shooting, Carol Haney had "stood in" for the animated Scheherazade.


3:45 PM -- Brainstorm (1983)
A scientist battles the military for control of a machine that records sensory experiences-including death.
Dir: Douglas Trumbull
Cast: Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox

The shots of "Heaven" were done by poking a hole in a piece of sheet steel, putting a quartz bulb behind it, and a piece of very scratched plastic in front of it. The rivers of "angels" were made with high-speed, backlit footage of a dancer wearing a long costume which was twirled about on two poles.


5:45 PM -- Clash of the Titans (1981)
A Greek hero fights a series of monsters, including the dreaded gorgon, to win the woman he loves.
Dir: Desmond Davis
Cast: Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith
C-118 mins, CC

The original script called for Perseus to cut off Medusa's head simply by throwing his shield at her, in an attempt to appease UK Standards and Practices censors (as the producers felt that the hero decapitating someone would not be appropriate for children in the audience). Harry Hamlin was apparently resistant to the idea from the beginning, as it wasn't in keeping with the actual Greek Mythology. When the day came to film the scene and it still hadn't been changed, he threatened to quit the film and fly home. He remained in his trailer, much to the producer, director, and Ray Harryhausen's annoyance. In the process of trying to coax him out, he was gradually able to get some of the other crew members on his side, which resulted in the scene being rewritten accordingly.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PIONEERS: FIRST WOMEN FILMMAKERS



8:00 PM -- A House Divided (1913)
A jealous married couple decide to live together as if they were single.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blaché
Cast: Marian Swayne, Fraunie Fraunholtz, Billy Quirk
BW-13 mins, CC

Turner Classic Movies shows a version with a piano score on the soundtrack, and running 13 minutes.


8:00 PM -- The Ocean Waif (1916)
In this silent film, an abused young woman finds safety and eventually love in the arms of a famous novelist.
Dir: Alice Blaché
Cast: Carlyle Blackwell, Doris Kenyon, William Morse
BW-36 mins

Original story by Eustace Hale Ball appeared in "The Photo-Play Journal" (May 1916-April 1917)


8:00 PM -- Falling Leaves (1912)
A young woman tries to save her ill sister.
Dir: Alice Guy-Blaché
Cast: Mace Greenleaf, Blanche Cornwall, Marian Swayne
BW-16 mins

Filmed at Solax Studio, Fort Lee, New Jersey.


9:15 PM -- Where Are My Children? (1916)
A District Attorney discovers his wife is part of a secret abortion ring.
Dir: Lois Weber
Cast: [Frederick] Tyrone Power, Helen Riaume, Marie Walcamp
BW-65 mins

The two children of Tyrone Power Sr. and co-star, real-life wife Helen Riaume, appear in this film: their newborn daughter Ann and two-year-old Tyrone Power (1914-1958), who became a matinee idol from the '30s to the '50s. He appears in the last minute and a half of the movie, as a "ghost child."


9:15 PM -- Suspense (1913)
A woman, alone at home, tries to survive an intruder until her husband can come to her rescue.
Dir: Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber
Cast: Lois Weber, Val Paul, Douglas Gerrard
BW-12 mins

Though not a direct adaptation, the premise of the story was strongly influenced by the play Au Téléphone (At the Telephone) by André de Lorde, first published in 1902 and a staple of the Theatre du Grand Guignol in Paris. A contemporary of Weber and Smalley, D.W. Griffith, adapted the play to film as The Lonely Villa (1909) and, taking even more liberties with the premise, in An Unseen Enemy (1912).


10:45 PM -- Mabel's Blunder (1914)
Mabel is engaged to Harry, the boss's son. The boss has an eye for Mabel too, in this gender-bending comedy of errors and mistaken identities.
Dir: Mabel Normand
Cast: Harry McCoy, Mabel Normand,
BW-17 mins

Mabel Normand directed 10 films, one in 1915 and the rest in 1914.


10:45 PM -- Caught In A Cabaret (1914)
Charlie is a clumsy waiter, who pretends to be an ambassador to impress a pretty girl.
Dir: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Mabel Normand
BW-24 mins

Also known as Charlie the Waiter.


11:45 PM -- The Call of the Cumberlands (1915)
The story of a family feud in Kentucky.
Dir: Julia Crawford Ivers
Cast: Dustin Farnum, Winifred Kingston, Herbert Standing
BW-64 mins

Based on the novel and play by Charles Neville Buck.


1:00 AM -- '49-'17 (1917)
A judge hires an acting troupe to re-create the gold rush.
Dir: Ruth Ann Baldwin
Cast: Joseph Girard, Leo Pierson, Mrs. Witting
BW-70 mins

The first Western to be directed by a woman.


2:15 AM -- Her Defiance (1916)
The story of a woman deserted by her wealthy lover.
Dir: Cleo Madison
Cast: Cleo Madison, Taylor Duncan,
BW-21 mins

Her Defiance was extremely notable for Madison's use of "matting," a process she desired to signify time and distance passing in the short silent film. The matte process is a very old technique, dating back to the late 1890s. It is used in photography and special effects filmmaking combining various images into a single image. Madison uses this in her final scene when Adeline and Frank are speaking. On one side Frank is confessing truths about his life and his behaviors, while on the other side Adeline is flash-backing to memories of the couple together in different events.


2:45 AM -- The Curse of Quon Gwon (1917)
The members of a Chinese family living in the US have a curse put upon them for becoming to "westernized".
Dir: Marion Wong
Cast: Violet Wong, Harvey Soo Hoo, Marion Wong
BW-36 mins

Writer/director/producer Marian E. Wong could not find a distributor who would take the film, so it was never released in the US. In fact, it was thought to be lost until 2004, when producer Arthur Dong found a print of it while doing research for his documentary Hollywood Chinese (2007).


3:30 AM -- The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
A missionary fights to bring Christianity and modern ways to China.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Curt Jurgens, Robert Donat
C-158 mins, Letterbox

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Director -- Mark Robson

Final film of Robert Donat. NOTE: He died during its making. In the scene where he is saying goodbye to Gladys as the elders prepare to take their leave of the city, he says as though he was prophesying his death, "I fear we shall never see each other again."