TCM Schedule for Sunday, August 22 --- ESSENTIALS, JR. : JOHN MILLS

[lavenderdiva]

22 Sunday



6:00 AM Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
A cold-hearted teacher becomes the school favorite when he's thawed by a beautiful young woman. Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Paul Henreid. Dir: Sam Wood. BW-114 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

8:00 AM Hobson's Choice (1954)
A widower father fights to control the lives of his three strong-willed daughters. Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda De Banzie. Dir: David Lean. BW-108 mins, TV-G

10:00 AM Dunkirk (1958)
True story of the Allied evacuation of occupied France at the start of World War II. Cast: John Mills, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee. Dir: Leslie Norman. BW-135 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

12:30 PM The Way to the Stars (1945)
A young flyer deals with the strains of wartime service and survivors' guilt during World War II. Cast: Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John. Dir: Anthony Asquith. BW-109 mins, TV-PG

2:30 PM Operation Crossbow (1965)
Allied agents go behind enemy lines to destroy a German missile base. Cast: George Peppard, Sophia Loren, Trevor Howard. Dir: Michael Anderson. C-116 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

4:30 PM Gandhi (1982)
The legendary Indian leader uses peaceful means to free his homeland from British rule. Cast: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud. Dir: Richard Attenborough. C-191 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format


What's On Tonight: ESSENTIALS, JR. : JOHN MILLS

8:00 PM Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
Stranded on a deserted island, a close-knit family creates a tropical paradise. Cast: John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, James MacArthur. Dir: Ken Annakin. C-126 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

10:15 PM The Rocking Horse Winner (1949)
A young boy's talent for picking winning race horses threatens his life. Cast: Valerie Hobson, John Howard Davies, John Mills. Dir: Anthony Pelissier. BW-92 mins, TV-PG

12:03 AM Short Film: Double Talk (1937)
BW-11 mins,

12:15 AM I Was Monty's Double (1958)
British intelligence hires a man to impersonate General Montgomery during World War II. Cast: John Mills, M.E. Clifton-James, Cecil Parker. Dir: John Guillerman. BW-101 mins, TV-PG

2:08 AM Short Film: Ryan'S Daughter Featurette (1970)
C-6 mins,

2:15 AM Ryan's Daughter (1970)
An Irish lass is branded a traitor when she falls for a British soldier. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard. Dir: David Lean. C-206 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

[lavenderdiva]

1. What a lovely surprise for my Birthday!

Sunday is my birthday, and somehow it feels like TCM knew just what to get me: two of my very favorite films, both starring John Mills, Hobson's Choice and Ryan's Daughter. Here is a bit of background on each:

Hobson's Choice:

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=78157&category=Articles (the following snipped from this link)

A "Hobson's choice" is a 17th century expression that means the illusion of choice where there really is no alternative. It's made for an apt title for Harold Brighouse's 1915 play, a domestic comedy set in the north of England in the late Victorian era, though it's not apparent until the story winds its way to its third act.

Charles Laughton stars as the blustery Henry Hobson, a widower with a thriving business in boots and shoes and three daughters who work his shop without wages. Alice (Daphne Anderson) and Vicky (Prunella Scales) are young, pretty, empty-headed things with flirtatious natures who are actively courted by the sons of local businessmen. Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), the eldest, runs the shop and the home with hardheaded practicality. When Hobson dismisses Maggie's desire for a husband, branding her an old maid (at the age of thirty) and sentencing her to a life looking after him and running his shop, she rebels against his blithe tyranny and takes her future into her own hands. She sets out to remake her life and embark on her own business, one in direct competition to her father's boot shop. She also lets no man dissuade her otherwise, neither her father or the timorous Willie Mossop (John Mills), the shop's brilliant boot-maker and partner in her plan, whether he knows it or not. "My brains and your talent will make a working partnership," she promises, and proceeds to build his confidence, draw out his potential, and inspire his ambition. Along the way, she finds his way into his affections and reveals her own, and in the final act, offers Henry Hobson the "Hobson choice" that gives the film its title.

David Lean had Roger Livesey in mind for the showcase role of Henry Hobson. Spencer pushed for Charles Laughton. Korda, who had worked with Laughton on The Private Life of Henry VIII (1934) and Rembrandt (1936), as well as the ill-fated and never completed I, Claudius, knew that Laughton could be difficult and obsessive, but realized he would be perfect for the outsized character and told the actor that the part had been written for him. Laughton got on famously with Lean, often socializing with the director after hours, and he has cited the role of Hobson as one of his favorite screen performances, but he was otherwise unhappy during the production. Robert Donat was originally cast in the role of boot-maker Willie Mossop but was in ill health and forced to drop out. Laughton threw a fit, claiming he had only agreed to the film to work with his old friend and that the production was thus in breach of contract. Korda countered by threatening Laughton with a scandal, which could reveal the actor's well-concealed private life (he was homosexual, which was illegal in England). Laughton returned to the set but remained frustrated. He didn’t like his accommodations, was unhappy with playing so many drunk scenes and he loathed his co-star, Brenda De Banzie, a stage actress with only a few films to her credit.

She proved to be a difficult actress in her own right, tangling with the director on the set, and Laughton complained to Lean that: "She doesn't understand the part in the least." On the other hand, David Lean biographer Gene D. Philips suggests that Laughton's dislike was, at least in part, a result of her sharp performance.

John Mills, so marvelous in Lean's Great Expectations eight years earlier, was the last-minute replacement for Donat in the role of Willie. The 45-year-old Mills, whose career had shifted from romantic leads to heroic leaders, was initially uncertain about taking the role of a shy, passive, working class bloke, but delivers a marvelously attenuated comic performance as the timorous Willie, a man who has aged into a sense of inferiority that Maggie has to literally drive out of him.

Hobson's Choice is a crisply directed comedy of lively and quirky characters in a vivid world of social snobbery and working-class life, but for all the deftly-played humor, it's Lean's warmth that makes the film so satisfying. A hit in England and a modest box-office success in the United States, the film went on to win the Golden Bear at the 1954 Berlin Film Festival and BAFTA for Best British Film.


And even though Ryan's Daughter, the epic that it is, deserves more than this scant nod, I will include just the following, and hope that you do me the favor of including it at least once in your viewing repertoire. It is one of the last great epic films of David Lean, and the photography alone is wondrous, not to mention Mill's Oscar-winning performance in it.

Ryan's Daughter:

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=3584&category=Articles (the following snipped from this link)

Many now believe that Ryan’s Daughter was underrated in its day, falling prey to overly high expectations fed by the huge popularity of Lean’s three previous pictures (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago) and by the participation of screenwriter Bolt, who had written the latter two. Cast against type, Mitchum gives an intelligently nuanced performance as Charles the schoolteacher. Miles is appealing and persuasive as the story’s only significant female, and Jones has the right moody look as the battle-scarred lover. Howard hollers and harangues too much as the good-hearted priest, but Mills, in the last of his five movies with Lean, comes close to stealing every scene he’s in as the unfortunate Michael, hiding his movie-star looks behind ugly makeup, raggedy clothes, crooked movements, and misshapen poses worthy of a grotesque tramp in a Luis Buñuel movie. It’s bravura acting in every way, more than worthy of the Oscar® that rewarded it.

[CBHagman]

2. Happy birthday!

Cupcakes for everybody!

And films for everybody, too, starring the versatile John Mills.



Hobson's Choice, which I first saw back at university, is one of my favorites, and I'm gobsmacked to learn that Lean considered Roger Livesey for Henry Hobson and Robert Donat for William Mossop. It's almost impossible for me to imagine anyone but Charles Laughton and John Mills in those roles, and of course I loved Brenda de Banzie. She and Mills have some wonderful scenes together.



As for Mills's Oscar-winning turn in Ryan's Daughter, I'll never forget how he turned up in his daughter's TV show, Nanny and the Professor, not long afterwards, in a guest role that was some considerable distance from the crippled Michael in Lean's film.

[lavenderdiva]

3. YUMMY!!!!!

Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much CBH!!! What a lovely birthday cake and cupcakes to boot!! They're almost too pretty to eat!

I love your post on John Mills! Isn't he just wonderful? Like you, I can't imagine ANYONE else in those roles in Hobson's Choice, other than Charles Laughton and John Mills. They were perfection!!

Hugs to you!!!! :hug: :hug: :hug:

[CBHagman]

4. Hugs back at you.

:hug:

Yes, I'm definitely a John Mills fan. I think he deserves a bit more attention than he gets nowadays, but then it's always hard for an actor who doesn't fit neatly into the iconic mold to get a bit more attention (Barbara Stanwyck comes to mind -- great actress, versatile, but not invoked in popular culture, for the most part).

John Mills certainly went for the longevity. As I recall, he was still taking small parts into his 90s.