TCM Schedule for Friday, September 11 -- Million Dollar Comedies

[Staph]

We're celebrating the life and works of Donna Reed today. Now don't make that face -- Donna Reed is not the goody-two-shoes that you expect. Despite her association with the squeaky-clean and conservative 1950s, Reed became an anti-nuclear activist and anti-Vietnam protester. She also founded the group Another Mother for Peace. And this evening, we have a selection of comedies about big bucks. Enjoy!


4:45am -- 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, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine
Dir: John Farrow
BW-75 mins, TV-PG

Budgeted at a mere $225,000, which was extremely low even by RKO standards, this picture netted a relatively amazing $262,000 in profits.


6:15am -- Shadow Of The Thin Man (1941)
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed
Dir: Major W. S. Van Dyke II
BW-97 mins, TV-G

The fourth of six "Thin Man" movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy.


8:00am -- Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
A wheelchair-bound doctor fights off a homicidal maniac.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed, Phil Brown
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
BW-84 mins, TV-G

The movie initially was called "Born to Be Bad" with Lew Ayres again starring as Dr.Kildare. After principal shooting had been completed, Ayres announced he was a conscientious objector to world war II in which America was then involved. Fearing adverse publicity, MGM scrapped his footage, replaced him with Philip Dorn, and changed the title.


9:30am -- Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case (1943)
A wheelchair-bound doctor tries to prove a convicted killer's innocence.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Keye Luke, Alma Kruger
Dir: Willis Goldbeck
BW-89 mins, TV-PG

One subplot appears to be MGM's slap at Lew Ayres (Dr. Kildare) for declaring himself a conscientious objector which caused such an uproar and led to MGM dropping him. A veteran who has lost his legs in the bombing of Pearl Harbor is being fitted for new ones. He is extremely depressed and tells Dr. Gillespie that he never wants to walk again. Dr. Gillespie goes out of his way to help the vet, providing him with the best of everything, though he has little money. Dr. Gillespie gives a patriotic speech against the Japanese, even quoting the Bible. Though no reference is made to Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres)by name, it is obvious why this subplot was inserted.


11:04am -- Short Film: Seeing Hands (1943)
This serious entry in Pete Smith Specialty series encourages industry to hire people with disabilities to help with the war effort.
Narrator: Pete Smith
Dir: Gunther von Fritsch
BW-11 mins

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-reel -- Pete Smith

Watch for George 'Spanky' McFarland in one of his last roles as a child actor.


11:15am -- Eyes In The Night (1942)
Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed, Horace McNally
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
BW-80 mins, TV-G

Followed by a sequel, The Hidden Eye (1945).


12:45pm -- The Man From Down Under (1943)
A World War I veteran sneaks two orphans back to his native Australia.
Cast: Charles Laughton, Binnie Barnes, Richard Carlson, Donna Reed
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
BW-103 mins, TV-PG

Filmed in Hollywood, with a primarily non-Australian cast.


2:30pm -- Gentle Annie (1944)
A frontierswoman turns her family into a band of bank robbers.
Cast: James Craig, Donna Reed, Marjorie Main, Henry Morgan
Dir: Andrew Marton
BW-80 mins, TV-G

Production of the movie actually began in October 1942 with W.S. Van Dyke as director and Robert Taylor, Susan Peters, Spring Byington, Charley Grapewin, Van Johnson, Morris Ankrum and James Craig. The production was halted and finally shelved when Van Dyke became ill after 4 weeks of shooting, and when it was revived in 1944, only Ankrum and Craig remained in the cast, but in different roles.


4:00pm -- Green Dolphin Street (1947)
In 19th-century New Zealand, two sisters compete for the same man against a backdrop of political unrest and natural disaster.
Cast: Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, Richard Hart
Dir: Victor Saville
BW-141 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (visual), Warren Newcombe (visual), Douglas Shearer (audible) and Michael Steinore (audible)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- George J. Folsey, Best Film Editing -- George White, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD)

Lana Turner let her hair go back to its natural color, brown, for this role.


6:30pm -- Three Hours to Kill (1954)
After escaping a lynch mob, an innocent man returns to find out who framed him for murder.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Dianne Foster, Stephen Elliot
Dir: Alfred Werker
BW-77 mins, TV-PG

Tagline -- The Man With The Rope Scar ON HIS NECK!


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: MILLION DOLLAR COMEDIES


8:00pm -- Million Dollar Baby (1941)
A young innocent's surprise inheritance causes problems with her poor but proud boyfriend.
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Ronald Reagan, May Robson
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
BW-101 mins, TV-G

Not the Clint Eastwood movie. One hundred and eighty degrees from the Clint Eastwood movie.


9:45pm -- Brewster's Millions (1945)
A veteran has to spend $1 million in two months to inherit a fortune.
Cast: Dennis O'Keefe, Helen Walker, June Havoc, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
Dir: Allan Dwan
BW-79 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Louis Forbes

The fifth of seven versions of the novel by George Barr McCutcheon, with another planned for 2012. Other Brewsters include Edward Abeles (1914), Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (1921), Bebe Daniels (as Polly Brewster in 1926), Jack Buchanan (1935), Jack Watling (1961), and Richard Pryor (1985).


11:15pm -- Man With A Million (1954)
On a bet, a man tries to see how much he can get without breaking a million-pound bank note.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Ronald Squire, Joyce Grenfell, A. E. Matthews
Dir: Ronald Neame
C-89 mins, TV-G

Known in Britain as The Million Pound Note. The prop £1,000,000 note was larger in both size (about 7 x 9 inches) and value than any real note produced by the Bank of England up to that time, even notes for internal use. However, the bank still imposed strict regulations, which were violated when posters advertising the movie showed a reproduction of the note. This had to be covered over before the posters were allowed to be used.


1:00am -- Always Together (1947)
A dying millionaire gives his fortune to a working girl, then recovers and tries to get it back.
Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton, Cecil Kellaway, Ernest Truex
Dir: Frederick de Cordova
BW-79 mins, TV-G

Director Frederick de Cordova is much better known as Freddie de Cordova, the long time producer of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.



2:30am -- Sonny Boy (1990)
A small-town crook and his cross-dressing "wife" abuse their adopted son to make him the perfect criminal accomplice.
Cast: David Carradine, Paul L. Smith, Brad Dourif, Conrad Janis
Dir: Robert Martin Carroll
C-97 mins, TV-MA

David Carradine once called the movie a cross between Bonnie and Clyde, Bringing Up Baby, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.



4:15am -- Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-109 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Janet Leigh, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph Hurley, Robert Clatworthy and George Milo, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John L. Russell, and Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock ran a deliciously droll and terse radio ad in the summer of 1960. In an era when sponsors used "Brand X" to describe their competitors' products, Hitch's voice said he wanted to compare his new movie with "Brand X". Then, the sound of a horse neighing and horse clippity-clop sounds. Hitch's voice said simply "Brand X is a western." "Now for my picture", followed by a loud scream. End of commercial!

[Staph]

1. Green Dolphin Street (1947)

In 1947, MGM released Green Dolphin Street, an extravagant period piece that the studio promoted as their next blockbuster. Starring Lana Turner, the production boasted spectacular special effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, a sweeping romance, and a distinguished cast of supporting actors. Gillespie, a former art director turned special effects supervisor, had already been nominated for a Best Special Effects Oscar seven times when he went to work on Green Dolphin Street (He had previously won for his work on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944). And Green Dolphin Street proved to be Gillespie's most ambitious film to date; it featured an earthquake, a tidal wave, and a shipwreck scene that was eventually cut from the final release. Such costly scenes helped to account for the $4 million price tag. But sometimes you get what you pay for: Gillespie won the Oscar again for Best Special Effects at the 1948 award ceremony and he would ultimately go on to capture additional Oscars for his work on Plymouth Adventure (1952) and Ben-Hur (1959).

Based on a novel by Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street is a story about, as one critic phrased it, "a slip of the pen." A fugitive sailor, hiding out in New Zealand, writes to his faraway sweetheart and asks her to be his bride. The problem is, he's drunk while writing the letter and addresses it to the wrong woman, the sister of his intended, played by Lana Turner. The MGM starlet was riding high after the previous year's smash hit, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and was given top billing. Nicknamed the "sweater girl" by the studio's publicity department, the typically platinum Turner appears as a brunette in Green Dolphin Street but still projects the natural sensuality that defined her celebrity. Supposedly discovered by a talent scout at a drugstore soda fountain (Leonard Maltin claimed it was at Currie's Ice Cream Parlor), Turner quickly transformed from a nubile teenager to the pin-up girl of WWII, through a series of war-themed movies for MGM.

The Postman Always Rings Twice was her breakthrough film, effectively guaranteeing her A-level movie rank. Her off-screen activity, however, made her a popular gossip column item. Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner was married eight times (twice to the same guy), including a 7-month stint with Artie Shaw. Her life was self-described as "a series of emergencies", and no more so than in 1958, when her lover Johnny Stompanato was stabbed to death by Cheryl Crane, Turner's 15-year old daughter. Crane, apparently responding to a violent threat Stompanato made to her mother, was acquitted and the court ruled the death as justifiable homicide. Despite the controversy surrounding the case, the scandal ultimately benefited the actress's career by coming on the heels of her latest release - Peyton Place (1957) - considered by some to be her best work. The film proved to be wildly popular and garnered her an Oscar® nomination for Best Actress.

But even as early as Green Dolphin Street, Turner was embroiled in an off screen drama. During filming, she carried on a steamy affair with Tyrone Power, still married at the time. Power would ultimately end up leaving Lana for Linda Christian, who plays Lana's maid in the film!

As for Turner's other co-stars in Green Dolphin Street, Donna Reed was cast as her sister, Marguerite, and newcomer Richard Hart played the man of their affections. Reed, having earned acclaim for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), would go on to win an Oscar for her performance as an ambitious prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1953). She is best remembered, however, for her self-titled television show, reinforcing her image as "the perfect housewife," a stereotype she was powerless to shake. Green Dolphin Street was Hart's second film and, ultimately, his second to last; hailed as an up and coming leading man, his career fizzled out early and he died of a heart attack at 35. Rounding out the supporting cast were Van Heflin, cast as Hart's companion, Edmund Gwenn, Frank Morgan, and Dame May Whitty. Heflin had previously been featured with Lana Turner in Johnny Eager (1942), a movie in which his work earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Edmund Gwenn, as the sisters' father, would also receive Oscar glory, as Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Frank Morgan, best remembered as the title character in The Wizard of Oz (1939), did so much character actor work for MGM that it was said he had a "lifetime contract" with the studio. By the way, Morgan, nee Francis Phillip Wuppermann, has a curious connection to the world of bartending: his family was and remains the sole North American distributors for Angostura Aromatic Bitters! Dame Whitty, once a pin-up girl like Turner, albeit during WWI, established her acting reputation with dignified British dowager roles in films like Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938) and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).

Yet, despite the impressive qualifications of its cast, Green Dolphin Street did not score any acting nominations at Oscar time although it was the top audience draw of 1947. Instead, the kudos were reserved for the special effects, which remain visually impressive today.

Producer: Carey Wilson
Director: Victor Saville
Screenplay: Elizabeth Goudge (novel), Samson Raphaelson
Production Design: Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Costume Design: Walter Plunkett, Valles
Film Editing: George White
Original Music: Bronislau Kaper
Principal Cast: Lana Turner (Marianne Patourel), Van Heflin (Timothy Haslam), Donna Reed (Marguerite Patourel), Richard Hart (William Ozanne), Frank Morgan (Dr. Edmund Ozanne).
BW-142m. Closed captioning.

by Eleanor Quin