TCM Schedule for Thursday, June 24 -- 60th Anniversary of the Korean Conflict

[Staph]

Tonight and throughout the day tomorrow we have 15 films about the Korean War, but not including M*A*S*H (1972). However, Battle Circus (1953), starring Humphrey Bogart, takes place at a MASH unit. Enjoy!


4:00am -- Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977)
The stories of 26 gay men and lesbians create a mosaic of gay life in the U.S.
Cast: John Burnside, Sally Gearhart, Elsa Gidlow, Harry Hay
Dir: Andrew Brown
C-132 mins

An interesting moment in time -- a view of gay men and lesbians early in the movement for gay rights.


6:15am -- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
An invalid poetess defies her father's wishes to marry a dashing young poet.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan
Dir: Sidney Franklin
BW-109 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Norma Shearer, and Best Picture

Remade literally word-for-word and scene-for-scene by the very same director, Sidney Franklin, and by the same studio, MGM, in 1957, starring Jennifer Jones, Bill Travers and John Gielgud.


8:15am -- Small Town Girl (1936)
After marrying a drunken playboy, a young girl tries to capture his heart while he's sober.
Cast: Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, Binnie Barnes, Andy Devine
Dir: William A. Wellman
BW-106 mins, TV-G

Was originally set to star Jean Harlow as Kay and Robert Montgomery as Bob.


10:15am -- Daughters Courageous (1939)
A father returns to the family he left years earlier and tries to solve their problems.
Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, Fay Bainter
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-107 mins, TV-G

Because John Garfield was playing a Mexican general in Juarez (1939) when the Epstein brothers were writing the screenplay to this movie, they made his character Hispanic as a joke.


12:15pm -- Four Wives (1939)
Three married women play matchmaker for their widowed sister.
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-99 mins, TV-G

Max Steiner's "Symphonie Moderne", written for the movie, was later expanded and published in 1941.


2:15pm -- Susan And God (1940)
A flighty socialite neglects her family to promote a new religious group.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Fredric March, Ruth Hussey, John Carroll
Dir: George Cukor
BW-117 mins, TV-PG

The play originally opened on 10 April 1937 in Princeton, New Jersey, and moved to New York City, New York on 7 October 1937 where it ran for 288 performances. Gertrude Lawrence played the role of Susan.


4:15pm -- When Ladies Meet (1941)
A female novelist doesn't realize her new friend is the wife whose husband she's trying to steal.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Greer Garson, Herbert Marshall
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
BW-105 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell and Edwin B. Willis

Cedric Gibbons was nominated for the Art Direction Academy Award for this picture. He had also been nominated in the same category for When Ladies Meet (1933).


6:15pm -- Dream Wife (1953)
For state reasons, a diplomat fakes an engagement to a Middle Eastern princess.
Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Walter Pidgeon, Betta St. John
Dir: Sidney Sheldon
BW-99 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose and Herschel McCoy

First of three movies that paired Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. The others were An Affair To Remember (1957) and The Grass Is Greener (1960), though Deborah Kerr dubbed the voice for Suzy Parker in Kiss Them For Me (1957).


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KOREAN CONFLICT


8:00pm -- Men In War (1957)
Two enemies join forces to save their men during a retreat from the North Koreans.
Cast: Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Robert Keith, Phillip Pine
Dir: Anthony Mann
BW-98 mins, TV-PG

Robert Ryan served as a Marine drill sergeant from 1944 to 1947, and Aldo Ray was a Navy frogman in WWII, and fought on Iwo Jima.


10:00pm -- This Is Korea (1951)
Archival footage documents the North Korean aggression that started the Korean War.
Cast: John Ireland, Irving Pichel, Allan Dwan, Ward Bond
Dir: John Ford.
C-50 mins, TV-PG

Features footage of serving officers and enlisted, including Douglas MacArthur, O.P. Smith and Lewis "Chesty" Puller.


11:00pm -- The Steel Helmet (1951)
Americans trapped behind enemy lines fight off Communists during the Korean War.
Cast: Robert Hutton, Steve Brodie, James Edwards, Richard Loo
Dir: Samuel Fuller
BW-84 mins, TV-14

One scene in the picture shows an American officer killing an unarmed prisoner, and another has a Japanese-American soldier talking about how his parents were separated and sent to different "relocation" camps during World War II because they were Japanese. These two incidents, coming at the height of the McCarthy-led "Red hysteria" that was sweeping the country at the time, led to calls for writer/director Samuel Fuller to be arrested for treason and for writing anti-American/pro-Communist "propaganda" for giving "the Reds" ammunition to attack the US, and he later learned that he was in fact investigated by the FBI because of that film.


12:30am -- Men Of The Fighting Lady (1954)
Men on a U.S. aircraft carrier fight to survive the Korean War.
Cast: Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Louis Calhern, Dewey Martin
Dir: Andrew Marton
C-80 mins, TV-PG

F9F Panther jets from US Navy squadron VF-192 were also used to film The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954). After the filming of these two movies, the squadron name was changed from "Golden Dragons" to "World Famous Golden Dragons".


2:00am -- I Want You (1951)
The draft and the Korean War threaten a small-town romance.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire, Farley Granger, Peggy Dow
Dir: Mark Robson
BW-102 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer (Goldwyn)

There are two scenes where the song "My Foolish Heart" is played in the background. Both Dana Andrews and Robert Keith were in the film titled My Foolish Heart (1949) several years earlier.


3:45am -- Battle Circus (1953)
A doctor fights for his life during the Korean War.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Keenan Wynn, Robert Keith
Dir: Richard Brooks
BW-90 mins, TV-PG

The film originally had a different title but the studio and the director thought that title would mislead audiences, so the title "Battle Circus" was instead chosen. The title that was rejected: "MASH".

[Staph]

1. The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

Rudolph Besier's play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1931), the love story of Victorian-era poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, was a Broadway hit starring Katharine Cornell as Barrett, Brian Aherne as Browning, and Cedric Hardwicke as Barrett's monstrously domineering father. After seeing the Los Angeles production of the play in 1932, MGM head of production Irving Thalberg bought the rights, with the intention of turning it into one of the studio's prestige productions, starring his wife, Norma Shearer. Ms. Shearer, who had been playing sleek, modern, sexually liberated women, wasn't convinced that the role was right for her and was hesitant to play a wan, neurotic woman who spends most of her time languishing on a sofa.

William Randolph Hearst, whose Cosmopolitan Pictures was headquartered at MGM, had no such hesitation. He thought his mistress Marion Davies would be perfect as Elizabeth. While he was at it, Hearst wanted another role for the actress that Thalberg had earmarked for Shearer, Marie Antoinette. Suddenly, Shearer began to show an intense interest in starring in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). And she took matters into her own hands, visiting Davies in the sumptuous bungalow that served as her dressing room on the lot. After some heart-to-heart girl talk, Davies, a gifted comedienne who had no illusions about her dramatic abilities and no interest in the part, agreed that Elizabeth was not for her. At the same time, MGM head Louis B. Mayer told Hearst that Davies would not be cast as either Elizabeth Barrett Browning nor Marie Antoinette. A furious Hearst took Davies, her bungalow, and Cosmopolitan Pictures to Warner Brothers, and refused to allow any of his newspapers to review The Barretts of Wimpole Street, or even to mention Norma Shearer for several years.

Sidney Franklin was chosen to direct The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Franklin was a director that Shearer was comfortable with, and this would be the last of five films they made together. (Franklin was the original director of 1938's Marie Antoinette, but Mayer replaced him with W.S. Van Dyke, to Shearer's dismay). MGM wanted Brian Aherne to recreate his stage performance as Robert Browning, but Aherne did not want to be tied to a long-term contract, and refused. Instead, Fredric March, who had co-starred with Shearer in Smilin' Through (1932) got the part. March later said that he was not happy with his performance, and didn't think he was right for the role. "I think Sidney Franklin paid more attention to Norma," he told critic Lawrence J. Quirk, "and maybe he let me get out of hand.... brought out the worst ham elements in me, and I feel I failed in the role." Most critics agreed.

Charles Laughton, fresh from his Oscar®-winning performance in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), was Thalberg's personal choice to play Barrett's overbearing father. Although Laughton was only three years older than Shearer, he was willing to age himself with white muttonchop whiskers. Those whiskers were a source of great merriment one day for Shearer and co-star Maureen O'Sullivan who couldn't stop laughing about them. Shooting was cancelled for the day, when Laughton stomped off the set in disgust. Laughton also agreed to lose 50 pounds, and during filming he got vicarious pleasure out of watching Shearer devour huge meals. He was less happy about toning down the hints of incest in the play as a concession to the censors. "But they can't censor the gleam in my eye," Laughton told Thalberg. A tormented and insecure man, Laughton could be extremely difficult to work with, but he and Shearer got along well and became good friends.

For her part, Shearer turned in an excellent performance in spite of her misgivings, once she found the key to her role. "Elizabeth Barrett was an invalid simply because she had no vitality," Shearer said in an interview. "She was not ill. I tried to make her vital only from the first moment she saw Robert Browning....He brought her warmth and life." The Barretts of Wimpole Street was one of Shearer's personal favorites. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, and the film was nominated for Best Picture. But that was the year that It Happened One Night (1934) swept the major awards. That same year, however, Shearer was voted favorite motion picture actress in a poll of British filmgoers.

In 1957, MGM remade The Barretts of Wimpole Street with Sidney Franklin again directing, starring Jennifer Jones, Bill Travers and John Gielgud. The film was shot in England, in color and Cinemascope, and with a predominantly British cast. It was well received, but many critics at the time remembered the 1934 version fondly and expressed their preference for it.

Director: Sidney Franklin
Producer: Irving Thalberg
Screenplay: Ernest Vajda, Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart, from the play by Rudolph Besier
Cinematography: William Daniels
Editor: Margaret Booth
Costume Design: Adrian
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Principal Cast: Norma Shearer (Elizabeth Barrett), Fredric March (Robert Browning), Charles Laughton (Edward Moulton Barrett), Maureen O'Sullivan (Henrietta Barrett), Katharine Alexander (Arabel Barrett), Una O'Connor (Wilson), Marion Clayton (Bella Hedley), Ralph Forbes (Captain Surtees Cook).
BW-110m. Closed captioning.

by Margarita Landazuri