TCM Schedule for Friday, October 8 -- TCM Prime Time Feature -- Hammer Horror Festival

[Staph]

Happy birthday to director Rouben Mamoulian, who was born on this day in 1897. We've got five of his films today, including Queen Christina (1933), with Greta Garbo's amazing final scene, as Christina sails away from Sweden after abdicating her throne. And this evening we continue this month's Hammer Horror Festival. Enjoy!


6:00am -- The Criminal Code (1931)
A convict trying to reform is torn between conflicting loyalties when he witnesses a murder behind bars.
Cast: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-96 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo Jr.

Boris Karloff had previously played the role of Galloway in a stage production.


7:45am -- Barbary Coast (1935)
A vice king's girlfriend falls for a young miner.
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, Joel McCrea, Walter Brennan
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Ray June

Even though Howard Hawks was one of the most prolific directors of his generation, having directed 5 actors to Oscar nominations, he himself has only been nominated for an Academy Award once.


9:30am -- Come And Get It (1936)
Years after deserting his true love, a lumber tycoon vies with his son for her daughter's hand.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Joel McCrea, Frances Farmer, Walter Brennan
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-99 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Brennan

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Edward Curtiss

Walter Brennan won the very first Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Swan Bostrom. In the span of four years (1936-40), Brennan won a then-unprecedented three acting Oscars, also for "Kentucky" (1938) and "The Westerner" (1940), a feat unmatched until Katharine Hepburn won her third Best Actress award for 1968's "The Lion in Winter". Brennan's Oscar success was seen as largely due in part to the fact that the Screen Extras Guild consistently voted for him, as Brennan had been an extra for many years until his breakout success as one of Hollywood's most respected character actors.


11:30am -- Queen Christina (1933)
Romantic tale of the 17th-century Swedish queen and her romance with a Spanish diplomat.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
BW-99 mins, TV-G

For the famous closing shot of Greta Garbo at the prow of the ship, director Rouben Mamoulian had wanted the camera to begin with a long shot, and then, in one unbroken take, gradually dolly in on a two-thirds close-up of Garbo's face, holding on her at the end of the shot. Unfortunately, with the camera's 48mm lens that close to the human face, pores tend to resemble craters on the surface of the moon. Borrowing on aspects of the magic lantern, Mamoulian devised a large, ruler-shaped, glass filter strip that was clear at one end, becoming increasingly more diffused along its length. With this glass filter mounted in front of the lens, as the camera moved in on Garbo, the glass strip was gradually drawn through the filter holder, beginning with the clear end, and ending with the diffused end (close-up), softening Garbo's facial features with more flattering results


1:15pm -- We Live Again (1934)
A Russian nobleman discovers the peasant girl he once seduced has turned to crime.
Cast: Anna Sten, Fredric March, Jane Baxter, C. Aubrey Smith
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
BW-82 mins, TV-PG

Based on Leo Tolstoy's novel Resurrection.


2:45pm -- The Gay Desperado (1936)
A Mexican bandit kidnaps a singing cowboy star to learn American ways.
Cast: Nino Martini, Ida Lupino, Leo Carrillo, Harold Huber
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Nino Martini was an Italian operatic tenor who split his time between Hollywood films and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.


4:15pm -- Golden Boy (1939)
A crooked promoter lures a young violinist to give up music for boxing.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, William Holden, Lee J. Cobb
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
BW-99 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score -- Victor Young

Lee J. Cobb, playing 20-year-old William Holden's middle-aged father, was actually only 27.


6:00pm -- Silk Stockings (1957)
A straitlaced Soviet agent is seduced by Paris and a high-stepping film producer.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
C-118 mins, TV-G

Cyd Charisse's striptease to the title number was met with a least a couple of raised eyebrows from the Hays film censors. For one 2-second instance, she is seen at length in a silk camisole exposing her legendary legs. This was considered too risqué by the Hays office, and a high-back chair was quickly integrated into the dance for her to run behind. When she next emerges from behind the chair she has quickly slipped on a swirling petticoat, but it is transparent and gives quick glimpses of her legs anyway, which by now were what most viewers wanted to see anyway.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: HAMMER HORROR FESTIVAL


8:00pm -- The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
A small town noble uses zombies to work his tin mine and kill his enemies.
Cast: Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams, Jacqueline Pearce
Dir: John Gilling
C-90 mins, TV-14

Filmed back-to-back with The Reptile (1966), using many of the same sets, most noticeably the main village set on the back lot at Bray Studios.


9:45pm -- The Devil's Bride (1968)
Small town Satanists lure an innocent brother and sister into their coven.
Cast: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi, Leon Greene
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-96 mins, TV-14

The movie's US title was changed from "The Devil Rides Out" to "The Devil's Bride" because its original title made it sound much too much like a Western.


11:30pm -- The Reptile (1966)
Indian snake worshippers turn an explorer's daughter into a hideous monster.
Cast: Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Ray Barrett, Jacqueline Pearce
Dir: John Gilling
C-90 mins, TV-PG

Roy Ashton's makeup for the creature included appliances created from a mold taken of real snakeskin.


1:15am -- The Gorgon (1964)
A mythical monster turns men to stone in a remote European village.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-83 mins, TV-PG

Actress Barbara Shelley, who played the possessed heroine, Carla Hoffmann, wanted to play the part of the gorgon as well for continuity, and suggested to producer Anthony Nelson Keys that she use a special wig with live green garden snakes woven into it for a more realistic effect. Her idea was rejected by Keys due to budget and time considerations. When Keys saw the abysmal gorgon effects in the finished film, he told Shelley that he should have listened to her suggestion. As Christopher Lee quips, "The only thing wrong with "The Gorgon" is the gorgon!"


2:45am -- Let's Kill Uncle (1966)
When his orphaned nephew inherits a fortune, a former spy plots to kill him.
Cast: Nigel Green, Mary Badham, Pat Cardi, Robert Pickering
Dir: William Castle
C-88 mins

Mary Badham received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her very first acting job, as Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962).


4:30am -- Thirteen Frightened Girls (1963)
A diplomat's daughter gets mixed up in international intrigue and murder.
Cast: Murray Hamilton, Kathy Dunn, Lynne Sue Moon, Joyce Taylor
Dir: William Castle
C-88 mins, TV-PG

During the making of the film (under the title "The Candy Web"), William Castle held a contest in 13 different countries. The winner in each country would have an opportunity to appear in the film as a Teenage Diplomat (and credited as so), representing their country. One of the perks of winning the contest would be appearing in a part exclusive to the country that winner was from, which would be the sequence of them driving the bus at the beginning of the film. Therefore, the winner from England would be shown driving the bus in prints released in England, the winner from Germany in prints for Germany, and so on. The winner from each country would also introduce the trailer from the film in their country.

[Staph]

1. Rouben Mamoulian

Born: 1897-10-08
Birth place: Russia
Death: 1987-12-04
Death cause: natural causes
Nationality: Armenia
Profession: author, director, teacher


Rouben Mamoulian, director of numerous theatrical productions and sixteen films, was known especially for his innovative use of the camera, sound and color. Mamoulian's work was guided by his creative instinct, informed intelligence and staunch independence, and emphasized stylization over naturalism.

Born in Russia to cultured Armenian parents, Mamoulian obtained a degree in criminal law from Moscow University but studied at night at the Moscow Art Theatre under Eugene Vakhtangov, a disciple of Stanislavsky. He founded a drama studio in Tiflis in 1918 and later toured England with the Russian Repertory Theatre. Mamoulian directed a hit play in London, "The Beating on the Door," which led George Eastman to invite him to Rochester, New York, in 1923 to organize and direct the new American Opera Company. In 1926 he began teaching and directing at the Theatre Guild. Mamoulian's first Broadway show was the highly successful "Porgy" in 1927, a vivid production with an all-black cast; he would later use the play's inventive opening "symphony" of street noises in his film "Love Me Tonight" (1932).

Paramount invited Mamoulian to direct the film "Applause" at its Astoria, New York, studio in 1929. In the very early, awkward days of sound films, Mamoulian managed to liberate the camera from its sound-proof booth and also introduce the use of dual mikes and soundtracks, techniques which elevated this cliched story of a fading burlesque queen (Helen Morgan) and her innocent daughter. In the gangster film, "City Streets" (1931), starring Gary Cooper, Mamoulian explored tracking shots and subjective sound. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1932) was striking in its use of subjective camera--the mystifying transformation of Fredric March was shown in one continuous shot--and its emphasis on psychological tension. The witty and inventive musical "Love Me Tonight," featuring Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and the music of Rodgers and Hart, was deliberately stylized, conceived in rhythmic terms.

Mamoulian next directed Marlene Dietrich in "Song of Songs" (1933) and Greta Garbo in "Queen Christina" (1933), the latter film particularly notable for its final, sustained close-up, where Garbo was instructed to remain expressionless so that each viewer could project onto her face whatever emotion he or she was feeling. Mamoulian's inventiveness took a new turn with his direction of the spirited Miriam Hopkins in the first three-color Technicolor feature, "Becky Sharp" (1935), in which he used color for dramatic rather than decorative effect. In "Blood and Sand" (1941), Mamoulian again used color in an original way, with images styled after paintings by the Spanish masters.

Mamoulian continued to make interesting films, but his independent nature did not always mix well with the restrictive Hollywood studio system; he was removed from several films, notably "Laura" (1944); "Porgy and Bess" (1959); and "Cleopatra" (1963). His final films included "Summer Holiday" (1948), a musical version of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" starring Mickey Rooney, and "Silk Stockings" (1957), a lesser but fairly stylish musical remake of "Ninotchka" featuring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.

In addition to his film work, Mamoulian also continued his distinguished career as a Broadway director, with such productions as "Porgy and Bess," Gershwin's 1935 musical adaptation of "Porgy;" the immensely successful "Oklahoma!" (1943), a landmark musical in extending the use of song and dance to advance or enrich the plot; "Carousel" (1945); and "Lost in the Stars" (1949). In his later years, Mamoulian occupied himself with writing; he adapted several plays, wrote a children's book, "Abigayil" (1964), and a drama textbook, "Hamlet Revised and Interpreted" (1965).

Rediscovery and new appreciation of Mamoulian's innovative work has been spurred by several retrospectives of his films, beginning in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as the 1984 restoration of "Becky Sharp."