TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 1 -- TCM Spotlight -- Teen Movies

[Staph]

Leslie Caron is our July Star of the Month, and we're begining to view her films today, her 79th birthday. It's also the birthday of the last remaining star of Gone With The Wind (1939), Olivia de Havilland, who today celebrates her 94th. To celebrate we have four of her films, including her two Oscar-winning roles, in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). And tonight we have a selection of teen movies from the 1950s, starring some actors who were far from teens, including 24 year old James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause (1955), 28 year old Sidney Poitier and 26 year old Vic Morrow in The Blackboard Jungle (1955), 26 year old Tom Laughlin in The Delinquents (1957) Enjoy!


4:00am -- To the Ends of the Earth (1948)
A treasury agent becomes obsessed with exposing an international drug ring.
Cast: Dick Powell, Signe Hasso, Maylia, Ludwig Donath
Dir: Sidney Buchman
BW-108 mins, TV-PG

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 23, 1949 with Dick Powell and Signe Hasso reprising their film roles.


6:00am -- Glory Alley (1952)
A boxer's drinking problem threatens his career and his love life.
Cast: Ralph Meeker, Leslie Caron, Kurt Kaszner, Gilbert Roland
Dir: Raoul Walsh
BW-79 mins, TV-G

This was the only black-and-white film in which Leslie Caron sang and danced.


7:30am -- The Glass Slipper (1955)
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Cast: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn, Estelle Winwood
Dir: Charles Walters
C-94 mins, TV-G

Watch for Miss Kitty of Gunsmoke -- Amanda Blake -- as one of the wicked stepsisters.


9:30am -- Private Screenings: Leslie Caron (1999)
Robert Osborne hosts this TCM original series featuring an intimate interview with the exquisite actress Leslie Caron.
Cast: Robert Osborne, Leslie Caron
Dir: Tony Barbon
C-47 mins, TV-G

Leslie Caron: "Even now I feel furious with myself because whenever there's a camera pointed towards me my MGM training makes me smile. I don't like it. You can see it on all the people who came from that era because there was no question of them not smiling for the camera. Even Katharine Hepburn -- and God knows she was a dramatic actress -- if the camera is on her she smiles."


10:30am -- Lili (1953)
A French orphan gets a job with a carnival puppet show.
Cast: Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer, Jean Pierre Aumont, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Dir: Charles Walters
C-81 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Bronislau Kaper

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Leslie Caron, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Arthur Krams, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert H. Planck, Best Director -- Charles Walters, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Helen Deutsch

The earliest known appearance of the "smiley" emoticon, : - ), was in an ad for this film in the New York Herald Tribune on 10 March 1953, page 20, columns 4-6. The film opened nationwide, and this ad possibly ran in many newspapers. It read: Today You'll laugh : - ) You'll cry : - ( You'll love < 3 'Lili'. This should not be confused with the graphical yellow "smiley face", which was first drawn by Harvey Ball some 10 years later.


12:00pm -- Devotion (1946)
The Bronte sisters and their brother fight personal demons to realize their artistic ambitions.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Olivia de Havilland, Sydney Greenstreet
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
BW-107 mins, TV-G

Filmed between November 11, 1942 and mid-February 1943, the movie premiered on April 5, 1946 at the Strand Theater in Manhattan. The release had been delayed while Olivia de Havilland, after completing Government Girl (1943) on loan to RKO, successfully sued Warner Bros. to terminate her contract without providing the studio an extra six months to make up for her time on suspension.


2:00pm -- Dodge City (1939)
A soldier of fortune takes on the corrupt boss of a Western town.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot
Dir: Michael Curtiz
C-104 mins, TV-PG

Country rock band Pure Prairie League, who had a mid '70s hit called "Amie" and later employed future country star Vince Gill as lead singer for hits like "Let Me Love You Tonight" and "I'm Almost Ready," took their name from a temperance union portrayed in this film.


3:45pm -- To Each His Own (1946)
A single mother gives up her son, then fights to remain a part of his life.
Cast: Olivia deHavilland, Mary Anderson, Roland Culver, Phillip Terry
Dir: Mitchell Leisen
BW-122 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Olivia de Havilland

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Charles Brackett

Ginger Rogers wrote that Leland Hayward first offered her the role of Josephine Norris. Rogers read the script and asked herself if she wanted to play the mother of a twenty-year-old man who is preparing to go off to war. She turned down the role and later regretted it when Olivia de Havilland won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Rogers also turned down The Snake Pit (1948), which Olivia also accepted and was nominated for another Oscar. Rogers wrote: "It seemed Olivia knew a good thing when she saw it. Perhaps Olivia should thank me for such poor judgment".


6:00pm -- The Heiress (1949)
A plain young woman's money makes her prey to fortune hunters.
Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins
Dir: William Wyler
BW-115 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Olivia de Havilland, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Meehan, Harry Horner and Emile Kuri, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Edith Head and Gile Steele, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Aaron Copland

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Ralph Richardson, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Leo Tover, Best Director -- William Wyler, and Best Picture

Olivia de Havilland wisely chose William Wyler as her director, considering that such a meticulous director would be able to coax a strong performance from her. As it turned out, Wyler became a staunch supporter of his leading actress, particularly in regard to the sneering attitude that Montgomery Clift displayed toward her (he didn't value her talents as an actress) and Ralph Richardson taking every opportunity to steal scenes from under her nose with his improvisations.


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: TEEN MOVIES


8:00pm -- Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
An alienated teenager tries to handle life's troubles and an apron-wearing dad.
Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Dir: Nicholas Ray
C-111 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sal Mineo, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Natalie Wood, and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Nicholas Ray

In his article "Dangerous Talents," published in Vanity Fair Magazine in March 2005, Sam Kashner writes that director Nicholas Ray, screenwriter Stewart Stern, costar James Dean, and Sal Mineo himself all intended for Mineo's character Plato to be subtly but definitely understood as gay. Kashner says that although the Production Code was still very much in force and forbade any mention of homosexuality, Ray, Dean, Mineo, and Stern all worked together to insert restrained references to Plato's homosexuality and attraction to Jim, including the pinup photo of Alan Ladd on Plato's locker door, Plato's adoring looks at Jim, his loaded talk with Jim in the old mansion, and even the name "Plato," which is a reference to the Classical Greek philosopher. For that mansion scene, Dean suggested to Mineo that Plato should "look at me the way I look at Natalie."


10:00pm -- Blackboard Jungle (1955)
An idealistic teacher confronts the realities of juvenile delinquency.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Margaret Hayes
Dir: Richard Brooks
BW-101 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell, Edwin B. Willis and Henry Grace, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Russell Harlan, Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Brooks

The original novel was based on author Evan Hunter's own experiences as a teacher in South Bronx. Hunter, who found fame as crime writer Ed McBain, said "I thought I was going to give these kids who want to be motor mechanics Shakespeare and they were going to appreciate it and they weren't buying it. I went home in tears night after night".


12:00am -- The Delinquents (1957)
When he's separated from the girl he loves, a teen turns to crime.
Cast: Tom Laughlin, Peter Miller, Richard Bakalyan, Rosemary Howard
Dir: Robert Altman
BW-72 mins, TV-PG

For the party scene in the mansion, director Robert Altman rented an old house in Kansas City, MO. Once all extras were assembled in the house, Altman instructed them to act like they were having the wildest party of their lives, while he moved the camera from room to room. The extras didn't know when the camera was going, they were just having a wild party.


1:30am -- Crime in the Streets (1956)
A social worker tries to end juvenile crime by getting involved with a street gang.
Cast: James Whitmore, Sal Mineo, Mark Rydell, Virginia Gregg
Dir: Don Siegel
BW-91 mins, TV-14

Preparing to open a play in Los Angeles in 1976, Sal Mineo returned home from rehearsal the evening of February 12th when he was attacked and stabbed to death by a stranger. A drifter named Lionel Ray Williams was arrested for the crime and, after trial in 1979, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder. Many bizarre rumors floated around about his murder, but when Willliams was caught, he turned out to be a drug-addled 17-year-old who had no idea who Mineo was and was only interested in the money he had on him.


3:15am -- Hot Rods to Hell (1967)
A family traveling through the desert is set up by a teen gang.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Jeanne Crain, Mimsy Farmer, Laurie Mock
Dir: John Brahm
C-100 mins, TV-PG

Originally made for television in 1966, but released first in theaters and drive-ins instead.

[Staph]

1. Leslie Caron Profile

Leslie Caron is completely unique in Hollywood film. Her looks, her personality and her voice with its French accent and rich tones are unlike anyone else. Her experience has been singular as well. How many actresses can say they danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev, co-starred with Cary Grant, dated Warren Beatty, been nominated for two Academy Awards and won an Emmy? Only Leslie Caron.

Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine France on July 1, 1931, Leslie Claire Margaret Caron was the daughter of American dancer Margaret Petit and French chemist Claude Caron. Petit's career took her as far as Broadway but like so many women of her time, she gave up her career after her marriage. However, she made sure her daughter could dance at a very early age. "My mother had been a ballet dancer and she always talked of Pavlova and Nijinsky and Diaghliev so I was very eager to start ballet and I was the one who insisted." Around the age of 12 she announced that she was going to be a professional dancer to her grandparents who were very conservative, remembering later, "I can still remember my grandfather screaming 'Margaret, you want your daughter to be a whore?'"

Despite the opposition, she became a professional as a young teen, dancing with the famous Roland Petit's ballet troupe, Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit. It was there that 15 year old Leslie Caron was seen by Gene Kelly and his wife Betsy Blair in 1946 when she was dancing in Orpheus . Kelly and Blair went backstage to speak with Caron, but she had already gone home. They would finally meet just a few years later.

Gene Kelly was not the only one to notice Leslie Caron. Her performances had garnered attention from the press, and she had already appeared on the cover of Vogue , as well as gone to England to make a screen test. Caron described herself as looking like a "drowning cat" and the test was not successful. "I was refused by everybody, thank God, but there was one American company who wanted me which was Hathaway which was about to do a film called The Black Rose (1950) which I think was <20th Century> Fox, I believe, who offered me a seven year contract. My mother read the script and said 'That's trash!...No, you won't do that."

Kelly returned to France to make An American in Paris (1951) and he wanted a French dancer as his co-star. He had come to test other dancers but had remembered Caron from his previous trip. Kelly contacted Caron asked her to do a test for him. He told her, "I could get fired for this, I'm not supposed to do a test with you, but I know you can dance, I don't know if you can photograph." The test was the scene in the film in which Kelly sings "Our Love is Here to Stay." The emotion of the scene was something the 17 year-old was not used to playing and she found it "beyond embarrassing." The test was shown to the producers at MGM who phoned and told her the part was hers and she had three days to leave for Hollywood.

She found Hollywood a disappointment and distinctly unglamourous. Compared to Paris, "Beverly Hills was just a bunch of shacks." Originally put up by the studio at an expensive hotel Caron and her mother soon realized they could not afford to remain there so they moved to a motel in Culver City behind "the electrical plant. This is where we lived and this is where I entered, through the workmen's entrance." When she watches An American in Paris now "All I can see is a shy girl trying to get off that silly smile that was sort of pinned on her face and I didn't know how to get off that smile because I had all that teeth!"

Caron recently described her life in Hollywood as "Extremely regimented. You were taught to be there at a certain time, everything was written in as you entered the gates. You were sent to "makeup," you were sent to "hair," you were sent to rehearsal, you were sent to "shooting," you were sent to different departments. It was extremely well-organized and put together." Not wanting to keep the stars who were on salary idle, the studio immediately put her into The Man in the Cloak (1951) with Barbara Stanwyck and Joseph Cotten, following production of An American in Paris . Cloak was a period drama and as far away from a musical as possible. After the film was over, Caron returned to dance in Sleeping Beauty with Roland Petit but she decided it was time to give up dancing and focus on acting.

Lili (1953) had her playing an adolescent role, although by then she was in her early twenties and married to meat packing heir George Hormel. People around the studio at MGM thought she was making a mistake doing the film, but she took it "very seriously. This represented, a little bit, the inner self I was then. I could put in that character everything I had lived through the war and the need for love and desperate loneliness of this little half-wit felt very close to me. When I was doing Lili , I was the laughing stock of the studio. One day Arthur Freed came on the set and said "I don't know what they're doing. They're ruining the image I worked so hard to create. I made you a star, I made you glamorous, and you look so pathetic in this grey dress and straight hair and no makeup, you look just pitiful, I've got to make another film to restore you to stardom. Any ideas?" She suggested Collette's story Gigi , having acted in the play in London and loved the story. It had been adapted into a dramatic film in France in 1949 with Danielle Delorme. The story of a girl being groomed to be a courtesan by her grandmother made Freed doubt making it as a straight drama would be acceptable to the American censors, so they "cleaned it up" and turned it into a musical. (In retrospect, Arthur Freed might have considered Lili a mistake, but Caron was well served by it, as the film earned her the first of two Academy Award nominations.)

Gigi (1958) with Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jordan had Caron transform from little girl to young lady. The same could be said for her career. By the 1960s, Caron was nearing 30, on her second marriage and the mother of two children. Her transition to adult roles was seamless in films like The Subterraneans (1960) and Fanny (1961), a remake of Marcel Pagnol's 1930s French film trilogy which gave her to chance to act with Charles Boyer who she adored. It was The L Shaped Room (1962) that changed her image for good. In it she played an unmarried pregnant woman living in London. The strength of her performance earned Caron an Academy nomination and won her a Golden Globe and British Academy Award for Best Actress. She said, "That was the biggest dramatic film of the year...and it was a very, very hard, very hard film for me, to do. I was in every scene, some of them were very dramatic. It was a wonderful experience, playing a dramatic part but very painful."

Father Goose (1965) was more enjoyable as she was co-starred with Cary Grant who wanted her for the role. "He was comfortable and relaxed in old clothes and a beard. For once he was not so spick-and-span..It wasn't the same style of film. We met at Universal , and I thought that maybe he would see me differently.. that he was mistaken. He was impeccably dressed, and yet he gave out a feeling of animal strength...almost like a jaguar ready to pounce. He was very compelling and had enormous energy about him. I've always been shy, so I was apprehensive about meeting hm. But he was just as he was in his films, only more so. His presence was very commanding, and his eyes were burning and alert. He was watching everything..watching me..thinking very fast. He was extremely alive." The film did not have the kind of success a Cary Grant film usually had. Caron thought "people wanted him to be fantastically sophisticated, so the film wasn't a big success. I think he was hoping to start on a new career, more like Spencer Tracy or Humphrey Bogart. I think he had some ambitions to play dramatic parts."

Caron never really enjoyed the Hollywood factory system where everything was drilled into a performer, including how to react to photographers, "Even now I feel furious with myself because whenever there's a camera pointed towards me my MGM training makes me smile. I don't like it. You can see it on all the people who came from that era because there was no question of them not smiling for the camera. Even Katharine Hepburn -- and God knows she was a dramatic actress -- if the camera is on her she smiles."

In the late 1960s she returned to France where she focused on making European films. In 1973 she starred in a French television production of Carola a telefilm written by the French director Jean Renoir. Renoir had been a good friend since the early 1950s, and Caron had starred with Louis Jouvet in Renoir's play Orvet in 1955 at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris.

Leslie Caron continued appearing in European film and television through the 1970s and 1980s, working for director Francois Truffaut in his The Man Who Loved Women (1977), and in the occasional American film like Valentino (1977) with Rudolph Nuryev. In 1992 Caron co-starred with Jeremy Irons in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Damage and her career has continued into the present decade with Chocolat (2000) with Juliet Binoche, and Le Divorce (2003) with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. By no means finished with her acting career. Last year, Leslie Caron won an Emmy Award as "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series" for an appearance on an episode of Law and Order: SVU .

Today, at the age of 79 (and looking decades younger), Caron has added another career to her list: innkeeper. Having a great love for architecture, she has spent the last decade restoring old buildings in France and turning them into inns. One of her bed and breakfasts, La Lucarne aux Chouettes (The Owl's Nest), 70 miles south of Paris, is described as being "renowned for great food and wine in the wine country par excellence. Your lunch and dinner under the trees and flowers lining the terrace, right on the river and sweet sleep follows under the canopy of antique beds, collected by Leslie herself with a passion for antiques." She has also been an author, publishing Vengance (1983), a collection of 12 short stories loosely based on her own experiences in boarding school, as a dancer, and in Hollywood, though she has yet to write her autobiography.

by Lorraine LoBianco

SOURCES:
The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties by Sam Kashner, Jennifer MacNair.
Evenings with Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best by Nancy Nelson.
Private Screenings: Leslie Caron Turner Classic Movies
Jean Renoir: Letters edited by Lorraine LoBianco and David Thompson
www.lesliecaron-auberge.com
The Internet Movie Database
Wikipedia.org