TCM Schedule for Friday, December 25 -- Merry Christmas!

[Staph]

TCM is wrapping up their month-long celebration of Christmas Classics by repeating some of the best today. Then, if you have overdosed on candycanes or Christmas dinner, we've got a palate-cleansing evening of Sherlock Holmes, including two starring the Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone. Did you know that Billy Wilder directed a Holmesian film? Enjoy!


4:44am -- One Reel Wonders: Silent Night: Judy Garland (1937)
Cast: Judy Garland, St. Luke's Episcopal Church Choristers
BW-2 mins

The day that Judy Garland died, there was a tornado in Kansas.


4:51am -- One Reel Wonders: Beautiful Budapest (1938)
In this "Traveltalk," we learn about the landmarks, people and culture of Budapest.
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins

The first settlement on the territory of Budapest was Ak-Ink (English: Abundant Water) built by Celts before 1 AD.


5:00am -- The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Feuding co-workers don't realize they're secret romantic pen pals.
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
BW-99 mins, TV-G

While directing this movie, Ernst Lubitsch drew upon his extensive experiences working in his father's Berlin shop as a young lad. At the film's January 25, 1940 premiere at Radio City Music Hall, Lubitsch remarked, "I have known just such a little shop in Budapest...The feeling between the boss and those who work for him is pretty much the same the world over, it seems to me. Everyone is afraid of losing his job and everyone knows how little human worries can affect his job. If the boss has a touch of dyspepsia, better be careful not to step on his toes; when things have gone well with him, the whole staff reflects his good humor.


5:40am -- One Reel Wonders: The Christmas Party (1931)
Jackie wants to throw a Christmas party for his friends on his football team, but doesn't know how to go about it.
Cast: Jackie Cooper, Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore
Dir: Charles Reisner
BW-9 mins

The soundtrack includes Happy Days Are Here Again, one year before FDR used it for his 1932 Presidential campaign.


7:00am -- 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, Edna May Oliver
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

Katharine Hepburn asked costume designer Walter Plunkett to copy a dress her maternal grandmother wore in a tintype photograph.


9:00am -- A Christmas Carol (1938)
In this adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale, an elderly miser learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve.
Cast: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
BW-69 mins, TV-G

This was the only film in which Gene Lockhart (Bob Cratchit) appeared with his wife Kathleen Lockhart (Mrs. Cratchit) and their daughter June Lockhart (Belinda Cratchit).


10:15am -- 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, Richard Travis
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.


12:09pm -- One Reel Wonders: Present With A Future: Bette Davis Christmas War Bonds Trailer (1943)
In a short scene a mother explains to her children why they received war bonds as Christmas presents.
Cast: Bette Davis, Patti Hale, Billy Gray
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-2 mins

Billy Gray later gained fame as Bud Anderson in Father Knows Best (1954-1960).


12:15pm -- Christmas In Connecticut (1945)
A homemaking specialist who can't boil water is forced to provide a family holiday for a war hero.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner
Dir: Peter Godfrey
BW-102 mins, TV-G

The character of Elizabeth Lane was loosely based on the then popular Family Circle Magazine columnist Gladys Taber, who lived on Stillmeadow Farm in Connecticut.


2:01pm -- One Reel Wonders: Let's Talk Turkey (1939)
It's turkey 101 in this Pete Smith Specialty showing the do's and don'ts of turkey carving.
Cast: Pete Smith, William Newell, Sally Payne
Dir: Felix E. Feist
BW-10 mins

Sally Payne left film in the early 1940's to marry Arthur F. Kelly, who was president of Western Airlines in the 1970's. His claim to fame is in creating "Wally"...the "Only Way to Fly" bird!


2:15pm -- Little Women (1949)
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor
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 an Oscar 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).


4:30pm -- Holiday Affair (1950)
A young widow is torn between a boring businessman and a romantic ne'er-do-well.
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey, Gordon Gebert
Dir: Don Hartman
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Gordon Gebert, who played Janet Leigh's son, retired from acting in 1960, and is now a professor at New York City College School of Architecture.


6:00pm -- Susan Slept Here (1954)
A Hollywood screenwriter takes in a runaway girl who's more woman than he can handle.
Cast: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Glenda Farrell
Dir: Frank Tashlin
C-98 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers for the song "Hold My Hand", and Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio)

Susan Slept Here (1954) was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency primarily for its' suggestive title. In a male dominated society George Washington Slept Here (1942) sounded no similar moral alarms. The ban hurt the movies receipts but did greater harm to the Legion who were taken less seriously after The Moon Is Blue (1953) ban a year earlier in shocked response to the word 'virgin' used outside the church!


7:42pm -- One Reel Wonders: Trader Hound (1931)
Trader Hound, a dog who walks upright, wears human clothes, and speaks English, is in Africa looking for adventure.
Cast: Billy Bletcher, Pete Smith
Dir: Zion Myers, Jules White
BW-15 mins

One of the Dogville comedy shorts from MGM from 1929-1931. Directors Myers and White later worked on the Three Stooges films.


What's On Tonight: TCM AFTERNOON MOVIE: MERRY CHRISTMAS!


8:00pm -- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Sherlock Holmes uncovers a plot to murder the heir to a country estate.
Cast: Richard Greene, Basil Rathbone, Wendy Barrie, Nigel Bruce
Dir: Sidney Lanfield
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

After being out of circulation for many years, partly because of the 1959 Hammer remake in Technicolor starring Peter Cushing, this film was restored and re-released to theaters in 1975 with great fanfare, to the point of having the national evening news do a story on it. The film was shown at its full 80-minute length, and newspaper and magazine articles commented on the fact that the line "Oh, Watson, the needle!", referring to Holmes' cocaine habit (and usually misquoted as "Quick, Watson, the needle!") was put back in after having been cut by the censors. As an added attraction, the studio added a rare sound film featurette which showed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books, talking about his creation.


9:30pm -- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
The famed sleuth tries to stop Professor Moriarty from stealing the Crown Jewels.
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshal
Dir: Alfred Werker
BW-82 mins, TV-G

The second of fourteen films based on Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson. The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first.


11:00pm -- The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
The legendary sleuth becomes involved with a mysterious French woman while investigating the Loch Ness monster.
Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Irene Handl, Stanley Holloway
Dir: Billy Wilder
C-125 mins, TV-14

With a 260-page script and a budget of $10 million, this was set to be a 165-minute Road Show picture with an intermission for comfort. It was to be the "Big One" for Billy Wilder. The shooting schedule ran for six months and resulted in a rough-cut that came in at three hours and 20 minutes. The film was originally structured as a series of very specifically structured linked episodes, each with a particular title and theme. The opening sequence was to feature Watson's grandson in London claiming his inherited dispatch box from Cox & Co. and there was also a flashback to Holmes' Oxford days to explain his distrust of women. All were shot, but deleted from the final print. So what happened? Well, it appears that United Artists suffered a number of major film flops in 1969 that pretty much scuppered the road show format for Wilder's massive project. Studio execs ordered the film to be cut to fill a regular theatrical running time, whittling it down to a 125-minute version. The episodic format made the pruning process relatively simple, so cut were the opening sequence, the Oxford flashback and two full episodes entitled "The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners" at 15 minutes and "The Curious Case of the Upside Down Room" at 30 minutes. We can only hope that the full footage can one day be restored, although a full print is not currently thought to exist.


1:15am -- Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931)
Sherlock Holmes tries to stop a string of crimes masterminded by Professor Moriarty.
Cast: Arthur Wontner, Ian Fleming, Minnie Raynor, Leslie Perrins
Dir: Leslie S. Hiscott
BW-81 mins, TV-G

This was thought to be a lost film until a print was discovered in the United States. BTW, the Ian Fleming who plays Dr. Watson in this film is not the Ian Fleming, just an Ian Fleming.


2:45am -- The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1959)
Sherlock Holmes investigates the haunting of an isolated British estate by a murderous canine.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Andre Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-87 mins, TV-PG

This film was planned to be the first in a series of many Sherlock Holmes films starring Peter Cushing, produced by Hammer Films. The audience disapproved of a Hammer film without any monsters and failed to turn up. The planned franchise was then dropped.


4:15am -- A Study in Terror (1965)
Sherlock Holmes tries to unmask Jack the Ripper.
Cast: John Neville, Donald Houston, John Fraser, Anthony Quayle
Dir: James Hill
C-95 mins

The closing Baker Street sequence alludes to Conan Doyle's 1892 short story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."

[Staph]

1. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal detective Sherlock Holmes is easily one of the most widely known of all fictional characters, and of the many dozens of film incarnations that the intrepid sleuth has enjoyed, the 1939 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles is no doubt the best known. The Samuel Goldwyn production was an enormous hit with audiences, primarily because of the casting of the leading roles; even 70 years on, it is difficult for many fans to picture an actor better suited for the part of Holmes than Basil Rathbone, and Nigel Bruce as a somewhat befuddled Dr. Watson seemed the perfect counterpoint to Rathbone’s angular look and imposing manner. In their book The Films of Sherlock Holmes, authors Chris Steinbrunner and Norman Michaels point out another reason that the first Rathbone film was “strikingly original” - it was the first Sherlock Holmes film to be shot as a period piece. Prior to this, “…Holmes on the screen very much been a product of his time, moving into the twentieth century and adjusting handily to motor cars, telephones, the scientific apparatus of the thirties, even the motion picture itself.”

The screenplay for The Hound of the Baskervilles (by Ernest Pascal) adhered closely to the source novel, and opens on the misty moors of Dartmoor in Devonshire, England, as a man is being chased outside Baskerville Hall, seemingly chased by a large animal. At a subsequent inquest, Dr. James Mortimer (Lionel Atwill) testifies that Sir Charles Baskerville died of a heart attack, while Mr. Frankland (Barlowe Borland) claims he was murdered. The scene shifts to gaslit London and 221-B Baker Street, the residence of detective Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone). Holmes is engaged in an exercise in deduction with his friend Dr. Watson (Bruce); Dr. Mortimer has visited in their absence and left his walking stick, and Holmes quizzes Watson on what he can deduce about the man just from observing his cane. When Mortimer returns, he asks for Holmes’ help in protecting his friend, Sir Henry Baskerville (Richard Greene), who has inherited the family estate. Mortimer fears that a giant hound was set loose on Henry’s uncle and that now Henry will be a target of murder. Holmes soon foils an assassination attempt while trailing Mortimer and Sir Henry, and he assigns Watson to accompany Sir Henry to the Baskerville estate. After a long journey, the party is welcomed by Barryman (John Carradine), the mysterious butler of the Manor. The following day, while exploring the grounds, Watson and Sir Henry encounter neighboring residents Stapleton (Morton Lowry) and his step-sister Beryl (Wendy Barrie), who warn the curious hikers about the dangers of the moor, including wild animals and the Grimpen Mire, an innocent-looking patch of soft ground which can suck down any living thing that wanders in too far.

In his 1961 autobiography, In and Out of Character, Basil Rathbone wrote, “had I made but the one Holmes picture, my first, The Hound of the Baskervilles, I should probably not be as well known as I am today. But within myself, as an artist, I should have been well content. Of all the ‘adventures’ The Hound is my favorite story, and it was in this picture that I had the stimulating experience of creating, within my own limited framework, a character that has intrigued me as much as any I have ever played.” The genesis of this bit of casting couldn’t have been simpler; by one account Samuel Goldwyn ran into Rathbone at a Hollywood party and noted that he would make an excellent Holmes. The casting of Bruce was equally fortuitous; Rathbone and Bruce were already friends off the screen. Rathbone would later write, “there is no question in my mind that Nigel Bruce was the ideal Dr. Watson, not only of his time but possibly of and for all time. There was an endearing quality to his performance that to a very large extent, I believe, humanized the relationship between Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes. It has always seemed to me to be more than possible that our ‘adventures’ might have met with a less kindly public acceptance had they been recorded by a less lovable companion to Holmes than was Nigel’s Dr. Watson, and a less engaging friend to me than was ‘Willy’ Bruce.”

In addition to Rathbone and Bruce, The Hound of the Baskervilles features support from such colorful character actors as Lionel Atwill, E. E. Clive, and John Carradine. The romantic lead is provided by Fox contract star Richard Greene, who had made his film debut the previous year in the Zanuck-produced and John Ford-directed Four Men and a Prayer (1938). In fact, Greene was given top billing over Rathbone – the only time Sherlock Holmes would be second-billed in his own adventure. As the romantic interest for Baskerville, Fox brought in British actress Wendy Barrie after first considering an American, Anita Louise. (Barrie would also appear opposite George Sanders in entries of his two detective series as The Saint and The Falcon).

The Hound of the Baskervilles went through a number of director assignments. Irving Cummings was initially set to helm the picture, but was moved to The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939) and William Seiter was next assigned to the Holmes film. Seiter was finally replaced by Sidney Lanfield, although Lanfield did not complete the shooting phase; Alfre Werker completed work on the movie, uncredited. The opulent-looking film was well-suited to a studio like Fox. As Steinbrunner and Michaels note, “Twentieth-Century Fox had an enormous, well-designed back lot with winding European streets ideally suited for London and the British villages detailed in the story.” The moor was an indoor set, built on a large soundstage spanning 300 by 200 feet and in such a way that different camera angles and slight redressing could trick the eye and create the impression of a vast expanse. Very helpful in this regard was a huge amount of fake fog pumped into the set; according to the studio publicity department, $93,000 of the production budget was spent on fog machines.

Writing in the New York Times, Frank S. Nugent said that “putting its straightest face upon the matter and being weird as all get-out, the film succeeds rather well in reproducing Sir Arthur’s macabre detective story along forthright cinema lines. The technicians have whipped up a moor at least twice as desolate as any ghost-story moor has need to be…” The critic writing for Variety had high praise for the lead role, saying “Rathbone gives a most effective characterization of Sherlock Holmes, which will be relished by mystery lovers.”

The critic for Time magazine turned in a flip notice, praising Rathbone and adding, “the only serious bit of miscasting in The Hound of the Baskervilles is in the title role. The proper selection, obviously, would have been a calf-sized Norwegian elkhound; equipped with fright wig and false fangs. Instead, Associate producer Gene Markey, perhaps in the delightful confusion attendant on his recent marriage to Hedy Lamarr, put his O.K. on a friendly old Great Dane named Chief, who, despite all his yelpings, cannot even make his bark seem worse than his bite.” Incidentally, the title character was actually played by a dog named “Blitzen” - the publicity department at Fox rechristened the pooch “Chief” since the former name sounded too Germanic in the volatile pre-WWII year of 1939.

Following the success of this first outing, Rathbone and Bruce starred in a follow-up for Fox, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). Ostensibly, this film was based on the William Gillette play instead of any of the Doyle novels, although the plot was altered to a great extent, making it more of an original screenplay. In 1939 Rathbone and Bruce also began appearing in a long-running Sherlock Holmes radio series on NBC. In 1941, Rathbone signed a long-term contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM loaned the actor out to Universal Pictures for their long-running Sherlock Holmes series, while Universal signed Bruce to his own contract to reprise the role of Watson. The pair made twelve films for Universal, while also continuing the radio series, moving to the Mutual network in 1943. Rathbone found the numerous subsequent entries in the series to be repetitive, and he later observed that “my first picture was, as it were, a negative from which I merely continued to produce endless positives of the same photograph.” In 1946, Rathbone walked away from the character, refusing to sign on for more films or radio programs as Sherlock Holmes. He had made fourteen movies and over 200 radio shows, and at first he suffered some backlash from his decision, writing, “…to all intents and purposes I might just as well have killed him. My friends excoriated me for my dastardly behavior, and for a while my long-time friendship with Nigel Bruce suffered severe and recurring shocks.”

Twentieth-Century Fox let the literary rights to The Hound of the Baskervilles lapse in the early 1960s, so the film was out of circulation for several years, unavailable for television syndication. In 1975 a distribution company called Film Specialties picked up the rights and The Hound of the Baskervilles was reissued to movie theaters, garnering quite a bit of publicity, since by then it had a long held reputation for being the best of the Rathbone series.

Executive Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Associate Producer: Gene Markey
Director: Sidney Lanfield
Screenplay: Ernest Pascal; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles")
Cinematography: Peverell Marley
Art Direction: Richard Day, Hans Peters
Music: David Buttolph, Charles Maxwell, Cyril J. Mockridge, David Raksin (all uncredited)
Film Editing: Robert Simpson
Cast: Richard Greene (Sir Henry Baskerville), Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes), Wendy Barrie (Beryl Stapleton), Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson), Lionel Atwill (James Mortimer, M.D.), John Carradine (Barryman), Barlowe Borland (Frankland), Beryl Mercer (Mrs. Jenifer Mortimer), Morton Lowry (John Stapleton), Ralph Forbes (Sir Hugo Baskerville)
BW-80m.

By John M. Miller