TCM Schedule for Friday, January 9 -- Chemistry

[Staph]

We've got a bunch of Oscar® nominated/winning films today, including an afternoon of some of Bogart's best. Then this evening features cinema about chemistry -- just trust me -- they're an amusing trio. Enjoy!


5:30am -- The Loved One (1965)
An Englishman in Hollywood moves into the funeral business.
Cast: Anjanette Comer, John Gielgud, Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters
Dir: Tony Richardson
BW-121 mins, TV-PG

After WWII, Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood to work on a movie adaptation of his novel "Brideshead Revisited". While in Hollywood he went to a funeral at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Waugh was offended by the pretense of both the American film industry and the American funeral industry, and wove the two together into the novel on which this film was based.


7:45am -- The Big Sky (1952)
Trappers lead an expedition against river pirates and Indians along the Missouri River.
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Arthur Hunnicutt, Dewey Martin
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-138 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars® for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur Hunnicutt, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Russell Harlan

This film was chosen by Jonathan Rosenbaum for his alternative list of the Top 100 American Films.


10:15am -- Cimarron (1960)
A pioneer couple plays a major role in the settling of Oklahoma.
Cast: Anne Baxter, Lili Darvas, Glenn Ford, Maria Schell
Dir: Anthony Mann
C-148 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars® for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, Addison Hehr, Henry Grace, Hugh Hunt and Otto Siegel, and Best Sound -- Franklin Milton

The Edna Ferber novel was first filmed in 1931 starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne (and it won three Oscars® including Best Picture), and will be remade for release in 2010.


12:45pm -- Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Lavish remake of the classic tale of the villainous Captain Bligh who drives his crew to revolt during a South Seas expedition.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Hugh Griffith, Trevor Howard
Dir: Lewis Milestone
C-185 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars® for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, J. McMillan Johnson, Henry Grace and Hugh Hunt, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Surtees, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (visual) and Milo B. Lory (audible), Best Film Editing -- John McSweeney Jr., Best Music, Original Song -- Bronislau Kaper (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for the song "Love Song from Mutiny on the Bounty (Follow Me)", Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Bronislau Kaper, and Best Picture

MGM commissioned a replica of Bounty for their 1962 film, named the Bounty II. This vessel was built to the original plans and in the traditional manner in a shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. However, all the dimensions were increased by approximately one third to accommodate the large 70 mm cameras used. Though the ship was scheduled to be burned at the end of the film, Marlon Brando threatened to walk off the set, so MGM kept this vessel in service. When Ted Turner bought MGM he used this vessel for entertaining. Eventually MGM donated the vessel to a charity.


4:00pm -- The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Naval officers begin to suspect their captain of insanity.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
C-125 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars® for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Tully, Best Film Editing -- William A. Lyon and Henry Batista, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Stanley Roberts, and Best Picture

The scars seen on Van Johnson's face in this film are real, not makeup. Johnson was in an accident and was thrown through the windshield of a car in the late 40s. The plastic surgery of the day could not totally remove his scars. In all his later films he wore heavy makeup to hide them but felt that, in this film, they added to his character's appearance.


6:15pm -- Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Cast: Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson
Dir: John Huston
BW-101 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar® for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

The character of Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor) was based on real-life moll Gay Orlova (gangster Lucky Luciano's girlfriend), allegedly executed by a German firing squad.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: CHEMISTRY


8:00pm -- It Happens Every Spring (1949)
A scientist invents a baseball that can't be hit.
Cast: Ray Milland, Jean Peters, Paul Douglas
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar® for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Shirley W. Smith and Valentine Davies

Stock footage from Wrigley Field in Chicago, and a brief shot of Yankee Stadium (with a sign that reads St. Louis Stadium!)


9:30pm -- The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
A college professor fights off corrupt businessmen to market his new anti-gravity invention.
Cast: Leon Ames, Tommy Kirk, Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn
BW-96 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars® for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Carroll Clark, Emile Kuri and Hal Gausman, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Edward Colman, and Best Effects, Special Effects -- Robert A. Mattey and Eustace Lycett

At the height of the film's popularity, Time Magazine printed the Disney Special Effects Department's recipe for Flubber, as used in the movie. It read as follows: "To one pound of salt water taffy add one heaping tablespoon polyurethane foam, one cake crumbled yeast. Mix till smooth, allow to rise. Then pour into saucepan over one cup cracked rice with one cup water. Add topping of molasses. Boil till lid lifts and says 'Qurlp'." It is not recorded whether this also carried the standard warning "do not try this at home".


11:15pm -- The Nutty Professor (1963)
A timid chemist discovers a potion that unleashes his sleazy side.
Cast: Kathleen Freeman, Jerry Lewis, Del Moore, Stella Stevens
Dir: Jerry Lewis
C-107 mins, TV-G

According to one of the trailers for this film, "We don't care if you blab about the beginning of this picture; nor do we care if you give away the ending; but we do care if you reveal the middle. In fact, Jerry Lewis urges you to see this picture from the beginning, on penalty of losing your popcorn privileges." This spoofs Alfred Hitchcock's dictum that Psycho (1960) had to be seen from the beginning and his insistence that no latecomers be seated ("not even the manager's brother").


1:15am -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Quentin Tarantino (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
Dir: Robert Trachtenberg
C-28 mins, TV-PG

Quentin Tarantino was named after the Burt Reynolds character Quint Asper from "Gunsmoke" (1955).


2:00am -- The Amityville Horror (1979)
Newlyweds discover their dream home is haunted.
Cast: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger
Dir: Stuart Rosenberg
C-119 mins

Nominated for an Oscar® for Best Music, Original Score -- Lalo Schifrin

James Brolin was hesitant when he was first offered the role of George Lutz. He was told that there was no script and that he must obtain a copy of Jay Anson's novel and read it as soon as possible. Brolin started the book one evening at seven o'clock and was still reading at two o'clock in the morning. He had hung a pair of his pants up in the room earlier and at a really "tense" part in the book, the pants fell down from wherever they had been hanging. Brolin jumped out of his chair, nearly crashing his head into the ceiling. It was then that Brolin said, "There's something to this story." He agreed to do the movie.


4:00am -- The Old Dark House (1932)
A storm strands travelers in a house full of dangerous eccentrics.
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
Dir: James Whale
BW-72 mins, TV-G

The father is played by Elspeth Dudgeon, an Englishwoman who was billed as John Dudgeon.

[Staph]

1. The Big Sky (1952)

Lanky American character actor Arthur Hunnicutt won his only Oscar® nomination for his supporting role in The Big Sky (1952), an unusual RKO Western directed by Howard Hawks and starring Kirk Douglas. Hunnicutt serves as narrator of this adventure as well as playing the grizzled uncle of Dewey Martin as one of two Kentucky frontiersmen (Douglas is the other) who attempt the first keelboat trip up the Missouri River in 1830. A specialist at playing "old codgers" far beyond his own years, Hunnicutt was only 41 when he played cantankerous old Uncle Zeb. In the opinion of some reviewers, his character is the film's central protagonist.

The story, based on a popular novel by A.B. Guthrie, Jr., has Douglas and Martin joining trapper Hunnicutt, fresh from prison, as he leads a French expedition to visit the friendly Blackfoot Indians to trade furs. Accompanying the expedition on its 2,000-mile journey is a beautiful Blackfoot princess (Elizabeth Threatt) with whom both younger men fall in love. The journey is complicated by interference from the powerful Fur Trade Organization and attacks by Crow Indians.

Also Oscar®-nominated was Russell Harlan's magnificent black and white cinematography, which captures the splendid scenery in a style suggestive of Ansel Adams photographs. The film was shot on location along the Snake River in Wyoming's Jackson Hole Valley and Grand Teton National Park. Hawks takes pains to show what early keel boat travel may have been like and utilizes real Frenchmen and authentic accents in the supporting roles.

Hunnicutt, a native of Gravelly, Arkansas, was a veteran of the stage, where his leading role in Tobacco Road set the tone for the film career that began in 1942. He appeared in close to 60 movies, almost always as a country bumpkin or Western sidekick. He won his Walter Brennan-like role in The Big Sky when Brennan himself proved unavailable. In 1956, although a couple of decades younger than costar Marjorie Main, Hunnicutt took on Percy Kilbride's old role of Pa Kettle in The Kettles in the Ozarks. Hunnicutt, who made his last feature film in 1975, also appeared in numerous television shows before his death from cancer in 1979.

Producer: Howard Hawks, Edward Lasker (Associate Producer)
Director: Howard Hawks
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Cinematography: Russell Harlan
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Editing: Christian Nyby
Art Director: Albert S. D'Agostino, Perry Ferguson
Costume Design: Dorothy Jeakins
Principal Cast: Kirk Douglas (Jim Deakins), Dewey Martin (Boone Cardell), Elizabeth Threatt (Teal Eye), Arthur Hunnicutt (Zeb Calloway/Narrator), Buddy Baer (Romaine), Steven Geray ("Frenchy" Jourdonnais), Jim Davis (Streak).
BW-139m. Closed captioning.

by Roger Fristoe