TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 8 -- What's On Tonight: EW'S All Time Greatest Movies

[Staph]

It's a day of superb action-adventure films, and an evening of Entertainment Weekly's All Time Greatest Movies. Enjoy!


7:30 AM -- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Classic adventure about the sadistic Captain Bligh, who drove his men to revolt during a South Seas expedition.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone
BW-133 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Franchot Tone, Best Director -- Frank Lloyd, Best Film Editing -- Margaret Booth, Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of departmment) and Score by Herbert Stothart, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings and Carey Wilson

Irving Thalberg cast Clark Gable and Charles Laughton together in the hope that they would hate each other, making their on screen sparring more lifelike. He knew that Gable, a notorious homophobe, would not care for Laughton's overt homosexuality and would feel inferior to the RADA-trained Shakespearean actor. Relations between the two stars broke down completely after Laughton brought his muscular boyfriend to the island as his personal masseur. They were an obviously devoted couple and would go everywhere together, while Gable would turn away in disgust. In addition, Laughton felt that he should have won the Best Actor Oscar for The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the event, he was not even nominated and the award went to Gable for It Happened One Night.


9:45 AM -- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Three prospectors fight off bandits and each other after striking-it-rich in the Mexican mountains.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt
BW-126 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Huston, Best Director -- John Huston, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

John Huston played one of his infamous practical jokes on Bruce Bennett in the campfire scene in which he eats a plate of stew. Bennett knew that his character was starving so he wolfed down the food as quickly as possible. Huston then demanded another take. And another. In both extra takes the rapidly filling-up Bennett again had to eat a large plate of stew. Unbeknownst to him, Huston had been happy with the first take. The cameras weren't even rolling for the second and the third. He just wanted to see how much food Bennett could lower before he became too stuffed. As soon as the joke was revealed, Huston added insult to injury by calling for a lunch break.


12:00 PM -- Moonfleet (1955)
A British buccaneer is torn between three seductive women.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Joan Greenwood
C-87 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

This film was simultaneously produced in two different versions. A CinemaScope version which has an aspect ratio of 2.55:1, and a spherical (non-CinemaScope) version intended to be matted during projection to a 1.75:1 aspect ratio.


1:45 PM -- Captain Blood (1935)
After being unjustly sentenced to prison, a doctor escapes and becomes a notorious pirate.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill
BW-119 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz (This was a write-in candidate, who came in second on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Music, Score -- Leo F. Forbstein (head of department -- Warner Bros.-First National Studio Music Department) and Score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director -- Warner Bros.-First National SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Casey Robinson (This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), and Best Picture

Robert Donat was cast in the title role, but couldn't complete it because of chronic health health issues. 'Leslie Howard' (v) was second choice but was either unavailable or uninterested. Fredric March, Ronald Colman and Clark Gable were also considered by supervisor Harry Joe Brown. After George Brent, Brian Aherne and Errol Flynn were tested, Warners decided to take a gamble on the unknown Australian.


4:00 PM -- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935)
A British aristocrat's effete facade masks a swashbuckling hero rescuing victims of the French revolution.
Dir: Harold Young
Cast: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey
BW-98 mins, TV-G, CC,

The original play opened in London on 5 January 1905, three years before it was novelized.


6:00 PM -- The Prisoner Of Zenda (1952)
An Englishman who resembles the king of a small European nation gets mixed up in palace intrigue when his look-alike is kidnapped.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Louis Calhern
C-101 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The film used the same basic script that was written for the 1937 David O. Selznick film version, The Prisoner of Zenda, with Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll. Although many scenes and camera set-ups are exactly the same, there are notable differences. This version's music score is an adaptation of the one composed by Alfred Newman for the 1937 version.


TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: EW'S ALL TIME GREATEST MOVIES


8:00 PM -- Breathless (1960)
A small-time hood hides out from the cops with his American girlfriend.
Dir: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Liliane David
BW-90 mins, TV-14,

According to Jean-Pierre Melville, Godard asked him for consultation during the post-production stage because the first edit was too long for distribution. Melville suggested Godard remove all scenes that slowed down the action (his own turn as novelist Parvulesco included). But instead of excluding entire scenes, Godard cut little bits from here and there. This led to the "jump cut" technique this movie introduced. Melville declared the result to be excellent.


9:45 PM -- Top Hat (1935)
A woman thinks the man who loves her is her best friend's husband.
Dir: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton
BW-100 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Carroll Clark and Van Nest Polglase, Best Dance Direction -- Hermes Pan for "Piccolino" and "Top Hat", Best Music, Original Song -- Irving Berlin for the song "Cheek to Cheek", and Best Picture

For the "Cheek to Cheek" number, Ginger Rogers wanted to wear an elaborate blue dress heavily decked out with ostrich feathers. When director Mark Sandrich and Fred Astaire saw the dress, they knew it would be impractical for the dance. Sandrich suggested that Rogers wear the white gown she had worn performing "Night and Day" in The Gay Divorcee. Rogers walked off the set, finally returning when Sandrich agreed to let her wear the offending blue dress. As there was no time for rehearsals, Ginger Rogers wore the blue feathered dress for the first time during filming, and as Astaire and Sandrich had feared, feathers started coming off the dress. Astaire later claimed it was like "a chicken being attacked by a coyote". In the final film, some stray feathers can be seen drifting off it. To patch up the rift between them, Astaire presented Rogers with a locket of a gold feather. This was the origin of Rogers' nickname "Feathers". The shedding feathers episode was recreated to hilarious results in a scene from Easter Parade in which Fred Astaire danced with a clumsy, comical dancer played by Judy Garland.


11:45 PM -- Network (1976)
Television programmers turn a deranged news anchor into 'the mad prophet of the airwaves.'
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, William Holden
BW-121 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter Finch (Nomination and award were posthumous. Finch became the first posthumous winner in an acting category. His widow Eletha Finch and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Faye Dunaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beatrice Straight, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Paddy Chayefsky

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- William Holden, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Ned Beatty, Best Cinematography -- Owen Roizman, Best Director -- Sidney Lumet, Best Film Editing -- Alan Heim, and Best Picture (Network becomes the second film to win three awards for acting, following A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Director Sidney Lumet said that he shot the film using a specific lighting scheme. He said in the film's opening scenes, he shot with as little light as possible, shooting the film almost like a documentary. As the film progressed, he added more light and more camera moves and by the end of the film, it was as brightly lit and "slick" as he could make it.


2:00 AM -- Sunrise (1927)
In this silent film, a farmer's affair with a city woman almost destroys his life.
Dir: F. W. Murnau
Cast: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston
BW-94 mins, TV-PG,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Janet Gaynor (Also for 7th Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928)), Best Cinematography -- Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, and Best Picture

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Rochus Gliese

Many of the superimpositions throughout the film were created "in the camera". The camera would shoot one image at the side of the frame, blacking out the rest of the shot, then expose the film. They would put the exposed film back into the camera and shoot again, blocking out the area that already had an image on it.


3:45 AM -- Diner (1982)
A group of friends who hang out in a Baltimore diner face the problems of growing up.
Dir: Barry Levinson
Cast: Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke
C-110 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson had the main actors arrive in Baltimore a week before filming began to get to know each other and build rapport. Predictably, the young male actors went out on the town to clubs and tried to pick up women. Sometimes they would use bogus stories about what they were doing in Baltimore. Tim Daly says he came up with the most popular one, that they were engineers working on a rotating rooftop restaurant.

[CBHagman]

1. The "Top Hat" story still entertains.

"Like a chicken being attacked by a coyote."

[Auggie]

3. The best of the Astaire/Rogers films, IMO

[Graybeard]

2. Great line-up.

Last edited Fri Nov 9, 2012, 05:47 PM - Edit history (1)

For once I agree with an EW list.

In Network the role that won actress Beatice Straight her Oscar consists of one scene lasting 5 min and 40 seconds.