TCM Schedule for Monday November 2 - TCM SPOTLIGHT: SAUL BASS

[rdmtimp]

The legendary title designer Saul Bass takes center stage this evening.

(all times Eastern)


6:00 AM Don't Go Near The Water (1957)
Navy office workers scheme to build a recreation hall on a remote Pacific island. Cast: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Fred Clark. Dir: Charles Walters. C-107 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

8:00 AM No Leave, No Love (1946)
During a whirlwind two-day pass in New York, a sailor falls in love with an Englishwoman. Cast: Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn, Pat Kirkwood. Dir: Charles Martin. C-118 mins, TV-G, CC

10:00 AM Born To Dance (1936)
A sailor on leave helps a young dancer make it to the top on Broadway. Cast: Eleanor Powell, James Stewart, Virginia Bruce. Dir: Roy Del Ruth. BW-106 mins, TV-G

11:47 AM Short Film: Presenting The Queen Of Taps Eleanor Power (2000)
A promotional short showcasing the talents of tap dancer Eleanor Powell. Cast: Eleanor Powell BW-2 mins,

12:00 PM Arsenic And Old Lace (1944)
A young man about to be married discovers the two aunts who raised him have been poisoning lonely old men. Cast: Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre. Dir: Frank Capra. BW-118 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

2:00 PM Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957)
A playboy finds love while managing a posh hotel in Rome. Cast: Dean Martin, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Paul Henreid. Dir: Richard Thorpe. C-114 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

4:00 PM Honeymoon Hotel (1964)
Two bachelors on the prowl accidentally book a vacation at a resort for newlyweds. Cast: Robert Goulet, Robert Morse, Jill St. John. Dir: Henry Levin. C-89 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

5:30 PM Rhapsody (1954)
A wealthy socialite is torn between the classical violinist who excites her and the pianist who needs her. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Vittorio Gassman, John Ericson. Dir: Charles Vidor. C-116 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

7:30 PM Short Film: Now Playing November (2009) (2009)
Features highlights of the month's programming on TCM, including festivals and stars. BW-16 mins, TV-PG, CC

8:00 PM Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he's been hired to tail. Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

10:15 PM North By Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase. Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-136 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS

12:45 AM Anatomy Of A Murder (1959)
A small-town lawyer gets the case of a lifetime when a military man avenges an attack on his wife. Cast: James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick. Dir: Otto Preminger. BW-161 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

3:30 AM Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
A distraught mother searches for her seemingly non-existent daughter, bringing her sanity into question. Cast: Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea, Laurence Olivier. Dir: Otto Preminger. BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

5:30 AM Short Film: Now Playing November (2009) (2009)
Features highlights of the month's programming on TCM, including festivals and stars. BW-16 mins, TV-PG, CC

[Staph]

1. Saul Bass

What an interesting guy!

From TCM:

Born: 1920-05-08
Birth place: New York City, New York, USA
Death: 1996-04-25
Death cause: non-Hodgkins lymphoma
Nationality: American
Profession: title designer, advertising executive, trailer director, director, corporate logo designer, animator

Almost certainly the finest and undeniably the most important artist in his own niche in the history of cinema, Saul Bass revolutionized the design of film title sequences. In most films made before the 1950s, credits were either strictly functional or had at most a clever gag or visual trope which got them started. The combination of the gradual breakup of the old studio system, changes in narrative styles and the use of spectacle and the post-WWII boom in advertising and graphic design meant, however, that an artist like Bass could emerge. In his highly imaginative hands, title sequences could at once stand as little experimental films on their own terms, and yet primarily served the film as prologue and/or epilogue, a shorthand for the film's visual style and thematic preoccupations.

Bass worked for years as a free-lance designer after his studies with New York's Art Students League and at Brooklyn College. In 1946, he founded Saul Bass & Associates in Los Angeles, and several years later began designing graphics for publicity for such films as Joseph L Mankiewicz's "No Way Out" (1950). He soon established his most important career collaboration with a director, and did his first work as a titles designer, on Otto Preminger's "Carmen Jones" (1954). His regular collaboration with Preminger would last for 25 years, until the director's last film, "The Human Factor" (1979), and included the likes of "Bonjour Tristesse" (1958), "Advise and Consent" (1962), "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (1965) and "Such Good Friends" (1971). Early highlights of their collaboration include the memorable use of stark drawings of fragmented bodies to suggest the drug addiction theme of "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955) and the homicide case of "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959). His work on the latter got Bass considerable press attention years later when the similarities to publicity for Spike Lee's "Clockers" (1995) were noted.

Bass pioneered the use of animation techniques to achieve a range of psychological and emotional effects unobtainable with conventional straight type. A splendid, seemingly simple and much-studied example was his use of intermeshing yet parallel lines, zooming in and out from every direction, to bring in and wipe out the credits for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), suggesting the lead character's mental imbalance by the final cracking of the pattern. Bass' collaboration with Hitchcock was much shorter than his with Preminger, but it yielded the striking introduction of "North by Northwest" (1959) and the unforgettably disturbing, appropriately voyeuristic examination of a woman's face in "Vertigo" (1958). Bass also deserves considerable credit for the storyboarding and actual execution of the brilliant shower murder sequence in "Psycho".

Through the mid-60s Bass continued working on films such as "West Side Story" (1961), "The Victors" (1963) and "Seconds" (1966); his use of a stalking cat for the steamy "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962) is particularly well-remembered. From the late 60s until the late 80s, Bass' feature film credits diminished and other projects took precedence. His range in design is highly impressive; in the mid-90s, Bass designed a series of gas stations in Japan. His only title sequences in this period included two for Preminger, and the especially delightful introduction of stars peopling the vintage clips comprising "That's Entertainment, Part 2" (1976). Greta Garbo's name, for example, appeared with a rose pressed between the pages of leather-bound antique book. Over the years, Bass has produced and directed several documentary shorts, winning an Oscar for "Why Man Creates" (1968). He also took his one stab at feature directing with the visually impressive, but murkily scripted and somewhat unexciting sci-fi flick, "Phase IV" (1974).

Bass resumed regular work on film titles when James L Brooks snagged him to do the credits for the satirical "Broadcast News" (1987). Shortly thereafter, a collaboration arose with another noted filmmaker, Martin Scorsese. Beginning with "GoodFellas" (1990), Bass has regularly helped introduce Scorsese's highly personal epics, with title sequences ranging from the lovely images of flowers for the highly structured, genteel and romantic world of "The Age of Innocence" (1993) to the use of hellish fires for the harsh vortex of "Casino" (1995).

[lavenderdiva]

2. what a great line-up!

tonight's offerings are spectacular! what a selection-

I also appreciated Staph's bio post of Saul Bass. I had no idea who he was prior to reading her post. I didn't realize that I had known Mr. Bass's work for so long, and hadn't appreciated how much he contributed to many of the movies I love! His concepts are pure genius!