TCM Schedule for Friday, October 22 -- TCM Prime Time Feature -- Hammer Horror Festival

[Staph]

Happy birthday to Constance Bennett, born on this day in 1904. The evening concludes with a continuation of the Hammer Horror Festival. Enjoy!


6:00am -- Lady With A Past (1932)
A good girl raises her popularity when she pretends to be bad.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Ben Lyon, David Manners, Don Alvarado
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
BW-80 mins, TV-G

Based on the novel of the same name by Harriet Henry.


7:30am -- Rockabye (1932)
A Broadway star tries to hold onto an adopted child and a younger man.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Lukas, Jobyna Howland
Dir: George Cukor
BW-68 mins, TV-G

RKO bought the rights of the play from Gloria Swanson. Director George Fitzmaurice was borrowed from MGM and Phillips Holmes (in the role later played by Joel McCrea) from Paramount. The finished film was considered so bad that George Cukor was summoned by Selznick to direct two weeks of retakes, with McCrea taking over Holmes' role.


8:45am -- What Price Hollywood? (1932)
A drunken director whose career is fading helps a waitress become a Hollywood star.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff
Dir: George Cukor
BW-88 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Adela Rogers St. Johns and Jane Murfin

Max Carey was modelled after Lowell Sherman himself, who was known to be an alcoholic, as well as silent film director Marshall Neilan and actor John Barrymore (who was Sherman's brother-in-law at the time).


10:15am -- Outcast Lady (1934)
A spoiled rich girl sacrifices her reputation to preserve her dead husband's memory.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Herbert Marshall, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Hugh Williams
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
BW-77 mins, TV-G

Based on a novel by Michael Arlen. Arlen's claim to fame in the world of crime fiction rests on one short story, "Gay Falcon" (1940), in which he introduced gentleman sleuth Gay Stanhope Falcon. Renamed Gay Lawrence and nicknamed the Falcon, the character was taken up by Hollywood in 1941 and expanded into a series of mystery films with George Sanders in the title role. When Sanders left the role, he was succeeded by his brother Tom Conway, who played Gay Lawrence's brother Tom and also used the nickname the Falcon.


11:45am -- Topper (1937)
A fun-loving couple returns from the dead to help a henpecked husband.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
BW-98 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Roland Young, and Best Sound, Recording -- Elmer Raguse (Hal Roach SSD)

The fancy finned-back car driven by the Kerbys was custom built by the Bohman & Schwartz Co. using a 1936 Buick Roadmaster chassis. Originally the producers had in mind to use a coffin-nosed Cord, but it wasn't large enough. In the custom-made Buick there were special compartments for camera equipment, etc. The Buick resembles a Cord, but the supercharger pipes on the side were just decorations (a Cord comes with an actual supercharger). After filming the Buick was bought by the Gilmore Oil Co. and was used for promotional purposes for many years. It was updated in 1954 with a Chrysler Imperial chassis and drive train. The car driven by Cosmo Topper is a 1936 Lincoln Model K.


1:30pm -- Topper Takes a Trip (1939)
A glamorous ghost helps a henpecked husband save his wife from gold-digging friends.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
BW-80 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Roy Seawright (photographic)

The dog Mr. Atlas is played by Skippy, who is best remembered as Asta, Nick and Nora Charles' dog in the Thin Man series.


3:00pm -- Merrily We Live (1938)
A society matron's habit of hiring ex-cons and hobos as servants leads to romance for her daughter.
Cast: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Billie Burke.
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod.
BW-95 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Billie Burke, Best Art Direction -- Charles D. Hall, Best Cinematography -- Norbert Brodine, Best Music, Original Song -- Phil Charig (music) and Arthur Quenzer (lyrics) for the song "Merrily We Live", and Best Sound, Recording -- Elmer Raguse (Hal Roach SSD)

Although not credited onscreen or noted by reviewers or the SAB, this film is so similar to What a Man (1930) (same plot and even many of the same character names) that the source of the screenplay must surely be the same for both films. Both the 1924 novel "The Dark Chapter; a Comedy of Class Distinctions" by E.J. Rath and the play "They All Want Something" has been added to the writers section on the IMDB entry for this film. The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 12 October 1926 and closed in December 1926 after 62 performances.


4:45pm -- The Unsuspected (1947)
The producer of a radio crime series commits the perfect crime, then has to put the case on the air.
Cast: Joan Caulfield, Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-103 mins, TV-PG

Debut of character actor Fred Clark. He appeared as the grumpy guy-you-love-to-hate in virtually every 1950's and 1960's television series, but I remember him best as the lawyer who must deal with Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame (1958).


6:30pm -- It Should Happen To You (1954)
A dizzy model in love with fame rents a billboard and puts her name on it.
Cast: Judy Holliday, Peter Lawford, Jack Lemmon, Michael O'Shea
Dir: George Cukor
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis

This story was conceived when Garson Kanin, trying to cheer up his wife Ruth Gordon, was driving by Columbus Circle. He told her he was going to put her name on "that billboard there" in the biggest letters. He didn't. He wrote a screenplay instead. Gordon suggested that the lead should be Judy Holliday. Kanin had originally considered a male lead, Danny Kaye. When he finished the screenplay, the lead had been written for Holliday.


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


8:00pm -- X The Unknown (1956)
A radioactive ooze terrorizes a remote Scottish village.
Cast: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley
Dir: Leslie Norman
BW-80 mins, TV-14

The movie began under the direction of Joseph Losey (working as Joseph Walton), exiled to England because of the Hollywood blacklist. However, when Dean Jagger arrived, he refused to work with a director he thought of as a Communist sympathizer, and Losey was replaced by Leslie Norman before shooting began. Losey's departure was publicly attributed to "illness".


9:30pm -- Five Million Years To Earth (1968)
Subway excavations unearth a deadly force from beyond space and time.
Cast: James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley, Julian Glover
Dir: Roy Ward Baker
C-98 mins, TV-PG

If you look closely at the London Underground station walls, you can see quite a few posters from other Hammer projects such as The Reptile (1966), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and The Devil's Own (1966), as well as My Fair Lady (1964) and Hotel (1967). An old, partially-ripped poster for Sex and the Single Girl (1964) can be seen on the wall opposite the entrance to Hobbs End station.


11:15pm -- These Are the Damned (1963)
Children bred to survive a nuclear holocaust escape from a top-secret military facility.
Cast: MacDonald Carey, Shirley Field, Viveca Lindfors, Alexander Knox
Dir: Joseph Losey
BW-95 mins, TV-PG

Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon," which is on the children's curriculum, is a poem about the lone surviving member of a family who has been martyred.


1:00am -- The Stranglers of Bombay (1960)
Interoffice politics complicate a British agent's fight to stop a murderous cult in India.
Cast: Guy Rolfe, Allan Cuthbertson, Andrew Cruickshank, George Pastell
Dir: Terence Fisher
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

Guy Rolfe's Captain Henry Lewis is partially based on William Henry Sleeman, who declared war on the Thugees in 1835 and with the hanging of thousands of its leaders and members was able to eradicate it by the 1870s.


2:30am -- The Boogens (1982)
Four vacationing college students unearth deadly creatures locked up in an abandoned mine.
Cast: Rebecca Balding, Fred McCarren, Anne-Marie Martin, Jeff Harlan
Dir: James L. Conway
C-95 mins

Some believe that "The Boogens" is an actual term once used by miners to describe the fear some would experience while spending too much time in deep mines. In fact, it was a word fabricated by screenwriter David O'Malley, using the word "boogeyman" as it's root.


4:15am -- Night Of The Lepus (1972)
Husband-and-wife scientists unwittingly unleash a horde of giant man-eating rabbits.
Cast: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley
Dir: William F. Claxton
C-89 mins, TV-14

In an interview with film historian Tom Weaver, star Janet Leigh said she took her role because it was shot near her home, and meant less time away from her family. She also said "I've forgotten as much as I could about that picture."

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1. Constance Bennett

Born: 1904-10-22
Birth place: New York City, New York, USA
Death: 1965-07-24
Death cause: cerebral hemorrhage
Nationality: United States
Profession: actor, businesswoman

Biography

Sleek, stylish blonde star with an intriguingly cool quality, one of Hollywood's highest-paid performers during the depths of the Depression in the early 1930s. Bennett entered films at age 17 and became a leading lady of Hollywood silents, perhaps the best-known of which is the story of three young women and their romantic travails, "Sally, Irene and Mary" (1925). Bennett's marriage to a well-heeled member of the international set resulted in a three-year absence from the screen, but she regained her star status with "This Thing Called Love" (1929) and went on to specialize in polished, witty comedies and romantic melodramas.

A fashion trendsetter in her heyday, Bennett brought both a glossy sophistication and a sometimes wisecracking approachability to her comedies of sin and seduction among society's upper crust (e.g. George Cukor's delightful "Our Betters" 1933). Her romantic melodramas, meanwhile, were of the "confession" sub-genre popular at the time, as her heroines suffered nobly after indulging in (or being thought guilty of) illicit affairs. One of her finest films from her peak glamour days at RKO was the early Cukor dry-run for "A Star Is Born", What Price Hollywood? (1932), with Bennett in the aspiring star role later essayed by Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.

Bennett's star status began to slip a bit in the mid-30s as the "confession" film declined and screwball comedies and other kinds of soap operas began to take their place. Free-lancing, Bennett rode high for a time in the lavish and enjoyable musical comedy, "Moulin Rouge" (1934), in which she did a surprisingly good job singing "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". She also paired well with emerging Hollywood king Clark Gable in "After Office Hours" (1935). "Ladies in Love" (1936), however, soft-pedalled her in favor of other actresses, but at least Bennett's best-remembered film, Topper (1937), in which she and Cary Grant shone as playful ghosts George and Marion Kerby, did briefly stem the tide of her declining stardom.

Bennett made her stage debut in Noel Coward's "Easy Virtue" in 1940 and continued playing leads ("Service de Luxe," 1938; "Madame Sin," 1942) in films of gradually declining importance until the mid-1940s. She also began playing colorful second leads and supporting roles, performing well in Michael Curtiz's noir mystery The Unsuspected (1947) and stealing scenes in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941) from the unhappily cast Greta Garbo. Bennett acted primarily in the theater from the early 1950s on, but also performed occasionally in live TV of that period. Her final film, "Madame X" (1966), with a stony Bennett offering a rather outrageous performance as Lana Turner's bitchy mother-in-law, was released after her death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Daughter of famed actors Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, and sister of film actresses Joan and Barbara Bennett, she was married to Hollywood "Latin lover" Gilbert Roland, her leading man in several films of the 30s, from 1941 to 1945.

* Titles in Bold Will Air on TCM on Friday, October 22