TCM Schedule for Friday, December 12 -- Family Christmas

[Staph]

Today is full of Frank -- Sinatra, that is -- a combination of his early musicals and comedies. And tonight we return to the Christmas theme, with two of the best versions of Lousia May Alcott's Little Women, as well as The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942). Which is your favorite Little Women? I personally prefer the Katharine Hepburn version, but your mileage may vary. Enjoy!


4:55am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Bob's Busy Day (1934)
BW-11 mins

Bob Hope's very first movie!


5:15am -- Here Come The Girls (1953)
A chorus boy is used as bait to catch an attacker.
Cast: Bob Hope, Tony Martin, Arlene Dahl.
Dir: Claude Binyon.
C-78 mins, TV-G

Final film of Millard Mitchell, best remembered as R. F. Simpson, the studio chief in Singing In The Rain (1952).


6:45am -- Higher And Higher (1944)
Servants pass off one of their own as an heiress in hopes of winning her a wealthy husband.
Cast: Michele Morgan, Jack Haley, Frank Sinatra.
Dir: Tim Whelan.
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy McHugh (music) and Harold Adamson (lyrics) for the song "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- C. Bakaleinikoff

RKO purchased the rights to the play for $15,000, specifically to star Frank Sinatra, and the four songs he sings by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson were written to accommodate his singing style. He was billed third because the contracts with Michèle Morgan's and Jack Haley's prevented higher billing.


8:30am -- Step Lively (1944)
Fly-by-night producers dodge bill collectors while trying for one big hit.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, George Murphy, Gloria DeHaven.
Dir: Tim Whelan.
BW-88 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Albert S. D'Agostino, Carroll Clark, Darrell Silvera, and Claude E. Carpenter

Gloria De Haven's long career began in the Charlie Chaplin mostly silent film Modern Times (1936), and continued at least until a 2000 episode of Touched By An Angel.


10:15am -- The Kissing Bandit (1948)
A timid young man is forced to follow in his father's footsteps as a notorious masked bandit.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, J. Carrol Naish.
Dir: Laslo Benedek.
C-100 mins, TV-G

The fiesta specialty dancers are Ricardo Montalban, Ann Miller and Cyd Charisse -- not a shabby cast for minor roles!


12:00pm -- Double Dynamite (1951)
A bank teller reaps the rewards of saving a gangster's life, but can't reveal where he got the money.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Jane Russell, Groucho Marx.
Dir: Irving Cummings.
BW-81 mins, TV-G

The title "Double Dynamite" is a reference to Jane Russell's breasts, which are actually well covered throughout the movie.


1:30pm -- The Tender Trap (1955)
A swinging bachelor finds love when he meets a girl immune to his line.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Celeste Holm.
Dir: Charles Walters.
C-111 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "(Love Is) The Tender Trap"


3:30pm -- Meet Me In Las Vegas (1956)
A ballerina becomes a gambler's lucky charm.
Cast: Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Agnes Moorehead.
Dir: Roy Rowland.
C-112 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- George E. Stoll and Johnny Green


5:45pm -- Never So Few (1959)
A U.S. military troop takes command of a band of Burmese guerillas during World War II.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Steve McQueen.
Dir: John Sturges.
C-125 mins, TV-PG

Steve McQueen's role was originally going to be played by Sammy Davis Jr.. A feud had broken out between Davis and Frank Sinatra after Davis had claimed in a radio interview that he was a greater singer than Sinatra. Sinatra demanded he be dropped from the cast, and McQueen got the part.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: FAMILY CHRISTMAS


8:00pm -- Little Women (1933)
The four March sisters fight to keep their family together and find love while their father is off fighting the Civil War.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas.
Dir: George Cukor.
BW-116 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- George Cukor, and Best Picture

Joan Bennett was pregnant at the time she played Amy.


10:00pm -- Little Women (1949)
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
Cast: June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Lawford.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy.
C-122 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis, and Jack D. Moore

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert H. Planck and Charles Edgar Schoenbaum

The basket that Margaret O'Brien carries around in this movie is the same basket that Judy Garland carried in The Wizard of Oz (1939).


12:15am -- The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942)
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in with a midwestern family.
Cast: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley.
Dir: William Keighley.
BW-113 mins, TV-G

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, authors of the play from which this film was adapted, were good friends with Alexander Woollcott, a famous critic, radio personality, and lecturer at the time. Woollcott requested that they write a play FOR him, but they never came up with a plot. One day Woollcott came to visit Hart unexpectedly and turned his house upside down, taking over the master bedroom, ordering Hart's staff around and making a general nuisance of himself. When Moss Hart told George S. Kaufman of the visit, he asked, "Imagine what would have happened if he broken his leg and had to stay?" They looked at each other and knew they had a play.


2:15am -- Beyond The Fog (1972)
A secluded island lighthouse proves to be a magnet for evil.
Cast: Bryant Haliday, Jill Haworth, Mark Edwards.
Dir: Jim O'Connolly.
C-90 mins, TV-MA

Also known as Tower of Evil, Horror on Snape Island, and Horror of Snape Island.


3:45am -- Horror House (1969)
A wild teenage party turns deadly when someone starts killing the guests.
Cast: Frankie Avalon, Jill Haworth, Dennis Price.
Dir: Michael Armstrong.
C-92 mins

Michael Armstrong's original script was much more psychedelic and envisaged David Bowie in the role of Richard, but he was overruled by AIP as it was considered that Bowie would clash with Frankie Avalon. He was replaced by Noel Janus but objections by Equity led to him being replaced with Julian Barnes (who had originally been cast as Henry). Can you imagine a film starring both David Bowie and Frankie Avalon?

[Staph]

1. The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942)

Wit ruled in the New York of the '20s and '30s. And nowhere was it more evident than among the writers and artists who regularly met for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel, a group popularly known as The Algonquin Round Table. Playwrights Robert E. Sherwood and James MacArthur, comic Harpo Marx, novelist Edna Ferber and poet Dorothy Parker kept gossip columns humming with their caustic comments. And no one dipped his pen in more venom than gossip columnist and radio star Alexander Woollcott.

Woollcott was a study in contradictions. His wit punctured pretensions while he helped put James Hilton's sentimental novels Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips on the best-seller lists. And he raised more than a few eyebrows with his habit of hosting dinner parties in full drag. His negative side inspired the acerbic critic played by Clifton Webb in the 1944 film noir, Laura. By contrast, comic playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart painted a more affectionate portrait of Woollcot (minus the cross-dressing) in the character of Sheridan Whiteside, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941). And as a bonus, they threw in sketches of Harpo Marx, stage diva Gertrude Lawrence and all-around wit Noel Coward. The result was one of the theatre's most wickedly funny plays - and one of Hollywood's most uproarious films.

It was Bette Davis who pushed Warner Bros. to pick up the film rights - not that they needed much pushing; the play was a huge hit. She had long wanted a chance to work with the legendary John Barrymore and saw this as the perfect vehicle even though it would give him the flashier role. But when the studio tested Barrymore, his memory had been so affected by a lifetime of hard drinking, that studio head Jack Warner decided not to take the chance. They considered major stars like Orson Welles, Cary Grant and Fredric March for the role, but with Davis supplying box-office insurance as Whiteside's secretary, they decided to go with the play's Broadway star, Monty Woolley. The former Yale professor, who had become an actor at the urging of friend Cole Porter, had played some minor roles in Hollywood in the '30s, but would finally become a film star in The Man Who Came to Dinner at the age of 54.

Davis, of course, was heartbroken that Barrymore hadn't gotten the role, and during the first days of shooting, she and Woolley did not get along. Surprisingly, she had no problems with co-star Ann Sheridan, even though Sheridan had the flashier role as stage star Lorraine Sheldon. Sheridan was never one for temperament and won Davis over by agreeing with her on everything and by asking her advice. And Sheridan didn't have much time to make trouble. When she wasn't shooting scenes as the sophisticated stage star in The Man Who Came to Dinner, she was on another set playing a simple, small-town girl in Kings Row (1942). The versatility she displayed in these two roles won Sheridan the best reviews of her career.

Director: William Keighley
Producer: San Harris, Jack Saper, Jerry Wald, Hal B. Wallis (executive), Jack L. Warner
Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman
Cinematography: Tony Gaudio
Editor: Jack Killifer
Art Direction: Robert M. Haas
Music: Frederick Hollander
Cast: Bette Davis (Maggie Cutler), Ann Sheridan (Lorraine Sheldon), Monty Woolley (Sheridan Whiteside), Richard Travis (Bert Jefferson), Jimmy Durante (Banjo).
BW-113m. Close captioning. Descriptive video.

By Frank Miller