TCM Schedule for Wednesday, October 15 -- 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF RKO STUDIOS

[Longhorn]

4:15am Harvey (1950)
A wealthy eccentric prefers the company of an invisible six-foot rabbit to his family.
Cast: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Cecil Kellaway. Dir: Henry Koster. BW-104 mins, TV-G

6:00am Shall We Dance (1937)
A ballet dancer and a showgirl fake a marriage for publicity purposes, then fall in love.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton. Dir: Mark Sandrich. BW-109 mins, TV-G

8:00am Stage Door (1937)
Women at a theatrical boarding house try to make their big break happen.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou. Dir: Gregory La Cava. BW-92 mins, TV-G

9:45am Vivacious Lady (1937)
After a whirlwind courtship, a nightclub singer has to adjust to her professor husband's conservative family.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, James Stewart, Charles Coburn. Dir: George Stevens. BW-90 mins, TV-G

11:21am Short Film: One Reel Wonders: All Girl Revue (1940)
Women are put in charge of all city positions for a day. June Allyson plays the mayor who must welcome an opera singer at the train station. Musical/comedy revue-style short filled with songs and dances.
Cast: June Allyson BW-8 mins

11:30am Carefree (1938)
A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be nudging into marriage with someone else.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy. Dir: Mark Sandrich. BW-83 mins, TV-G

1:00pm Room Service (1938)
Three zany producers try to extend their hotel credit until they can get a play mounted.
Cast: The Marx Bros., Lucille Ball, Ann Miller. Dir: William A. Seiter. BW-79 mins, TV-G

2:30pm Man to Remember, A (1938)
A small-town doctor fights crooked politicians during a polio epidemic.
Cast: Anne Shirley, Edward Ellis, Lee Bowman. Dir: Garson Kanin. BW-78 mins, TV-G

4:00pm Love Affair (1939)
Near-tragic misunderstandings threaten a shipboard romance.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Irene Dunne, Maria Ouspenskaya. Dir: Leo McCarey. BW-86 mins, TV-G

5:38pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Rooftops Of Manhattan (1935)
BW-22 mins

6:00pm Swing Time (1936)
To prove himself worthy of his fiancee, a dancer tries to make it big, only to fall for his dancing partner.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore. Dir: George Stevens. BW-104 mins, TV-G

What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF RKO STUDIOS

7:45pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Swing Cat'S Jamboree (1933)
BW-9 mins

8:00pm Bringing Up Baby (1938)
A madcap heiress upsets the staid existence of a straitlaced scientist.
Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Ruggles. Dir: Howard Hawks. BW-102 mins, TV-G

10:00pm Mad Miss Manton, The (1938)
A daffy socialite gets her friends mixed up in a murder investigation.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Sam Levene. Dir: Leigh Jason. BW-80 mins, TV-G

11:30pm Gunga Din (1939)
Three British soldiers seek treasure during an uprising in India.
Cast: Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Victor McLaglen. Dir: George Stevens. BW-117 mins, TV-PG

1:30am Five Came Back (1939)
Survivors of a jungle plane crash realize that their repaired airplane can only carry five passengers.
Cast: Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, C. Aubrey Smith. Dir: John Farrow. BW-75 mins, TV-PG

3:00am Bachelor Mother (1939)
A fun-loving shop girl is mistaken for the mother of a foundling.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn. Dir: Garson Kanin. BW-82 mins, TV-G

4:30am My Favorite Wife (1940)
A shipwrecked woman is rescued just in time for her husband's re-marriage.
Cast: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott. Dir: Garson Kanin. BW-88 mins, TV-G

[Longhorn]

1. Man to Remember, A (1938)

The critically acclaimed Garson Kanin/Dalton Trumbo collaboration A Man to Remember, a remake of One Man's Journey (1933), is one of six RKO films of the 1930s previously thought "lost" but rediscovered and restored by TCM. The films were sold out of the RKO library to producer Merian C. Cooper in 1946 and until now have not been part of the Turner collection. Extensive legal negotiations and a thorough search of the world’s film archives allowed TCM to claim the films and create new, fine-grain 35mm prints in association with the Library of Congress and the BYU Motion Picture Archive.

A Man to Remember has not been seen since its original theatrical release in 1938. It was not part of the television package involving the other five "lost" RKO films that allowed them to be seen on television during the late 1950s. The only surviving copy of this film was a 35mm original nitrate, Dutch-subtitled, English-language print, which was preserved by the Netherlands Filmmuseum in 2000. The film was released in The Netherlands under the title De Plattelands Dokter (The Country Doctor, which had been its original working title in English).

The Dalton Trumbo script is told in flashbacks from the funeral of a small-town general practitioner, Dr. Abbott (Edward Ellis). Beginning in the World War I era, he selflessly tends the citizens of his town of Westport for decades, often accepting partial payments or sacks of potatoes and other goods in exchange for services. With precious little appreciation, he sacrifices career advancement and his own well-being for the welfare of his patients, fighting a deadly polio epidemic, adopting the baby of a mother who dies in childbirth and helping the town get a hospital. Meanwhile his son (Lee Bowman) is inspired to follow in his father's footsteps. In his final days, Dr. Abbott is at last recognized as a humanitarian and a genuine American hero.

The structure of Trumbo's script -- episodic flashbacks from the central character's funeral -- was his own creation and not used in the original screenplay for One Man's Journey. While this may not have been the first time such a device was used in cinema, it is significant in that it anticipates by three years the structure of Orson Welles' hugely influential Citizen Kane (1941), filmed at the same studio.

This is one of those rare remakes generally considered superior to the original. Although considered a "B" movie by its studio and shot, according to Kanin, in 15 days on a budget of only $84,000, A Man to Remember received extraordinary critical praise. The New York Times named it as one of the years ten best films. The newspaper's critic Frank S. Nugent (later to become a noted screenwriter) called it "a distinguished and unusual film, for the qualities which distinguish it are merely such elements as simplicity, honesty dignity and human warmth -- elements which properly should be found in every film drama, yet so rarely are."

A Man to Remember marked Kanin's debut as a film director; among his other directorial credits were They Knew What They Wanted (1940), My Favorite Wife (1940) and Bachelor Mother (1939). With wife Ruth Gordon, Kanin was Oscar®-nominated for the original screenplays of A Double Life (1947), Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952).

Trumbo began writing scripts for various Hollywood studios in 1936 and was Oscar®-nominated for Kitty Foyle (1940). In 1947, as one of the "Hollywood Ten," he was sentenced to a jail term for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Commission. Although blacklisted by the film industry, he continued to write scripts under "fronts," winning Oscar®s under other names for his screenplays for Roman Holiday (1953) and The Brave One (1957). Beginning with Spartacus (1960) Trumbo at last was again able to write under his own name.

Ellis, a performer since his childhood, was a character actor who enjoyed plum parts in such films as I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Winterset and Fury (both 1936). His claim to fame was playing the title role -- the man whose disappearance William Powell is investigating, not Powell himself -- in MGM's The Thin Man (1934). Ellis' rare star turn in A Man to Remember, was described by Nugent as "splendid." Also garnering praise were Granville Bates, Harlan Briggs, Frank M. Thomas and Anne Shirley, who received star billing for her role as the adopted baby grown up.

"A Man to Remember had gone out and garnered some fantastic reviews," Kanin said in an interview. "They pulled it back and looked at it at the studio -- they had never seen it –- and booked it into the enormous Rivoli Theater in New York -– astonishing!"

Producers: Lee S. Marcus (Executive Producer), Robert Sisk
Director: Garson Kanin
Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo, from screenplay by Lester Cohen, Arthur Kober, Samuel Ornitz, and story by Katharine Haviland-Taylor
Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt
Film Editing: Jack Hively
Original Music: Roy Webb
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase
Costume Design: Renié
Cast: Edward Ellis (John Abbott), Anne Shirley (Jean), Lee Bowman (Dick Abbott), William Henry (Howard Sykes), Granville Bates (George Sykes), Harlan Briggs (Homer Ramsey), Frank M. Thomas (Jode Harkness), Charles Halton (Perkins), John Wray (Johnson), Dickie Jones (Dick Abbott as a child).
BW-78m. Closed captioning.

by Roger Fristoe