TCM Schedule for Friday, November 19 -- TCM Prime Time Feature: Directed by Peter Weir

[Staph]

Tonight's feature is a trio of films by Australian director Peter Weir. I wonder what he's been up to lately. He has a new film, The Way Back, being released at the end of this year, but his last directing job was Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). He's too good to rest on his laurels! Enjoy!


5:00am -- The Hucksters (1947)
A war veteran fights for honesty in the advertising game.
Cast: Clark Gable, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou
Dir: Jack Conway
BW-116 mins, TV-PG

In director Michael Powell's autobiography, 'A Life in Film', he says he received a letter from Deborah Kerr while she was filming 'The Hucksters'. It said the movie included a newcomer named Ava Gardner who almost stole the show from her - "but not quite."


7:00am -- She Went To The Races (1945)
A pretty scientist with a system for horse-race betting falls in love with a trainer.
Cast: James Craig, Frances Gifford, Ava Gardner, Edmund Gwenn
Dir: Willis Goldbeck
BW-86 mins, TV-G

Watch for Buster Keaton in an uncredited role as a bellboy.


8:30am -- Two Girls And A Sailor (1944)
Singing sisters create a World War II canteen and become rivals for the same man.
Cast: June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven, Van Johnson, Tom Drake
Dir: Richard Thorpe
BW-124 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman

First of six movies that paired June Allyson and Van Johnson.


10:45am -- Three Men In White (1944)
Young doctors compete for a prestigious position as Dr. Gillespie's assistant.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Marilyn Maxwell, Keye Luke
Dir: Willis Goldbeck
BW-85 mins, TV-G

The Dr. Gillespie character started as the wise mentor to young Dr. Kildare, played by Lew Ayres in ten films. But when Ayres announced in 1942 that he was a conscientious objector in WWII, he was dropped from the series and the focus was changed to Dr. Gillespie.


12:15pm -- Music For Millions (1944)
A pregnant musician awaits her husband's return from World War II.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, José Iturbi, June Allyson, Jimmy Durante
Dir: Henry Koster
BW-118 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Myles Connolly

During the Second World War when this film was made on the MGM lot in 1944, other than harpists there were very few women in major world symphony orchestras. In order to justify the cast of women instrumentalists who are June Alyson's roommates in the story, the on-screen orchestra has an unusual proportion of females, among them the dumb blonde Marie Windsor ("My Friend Irma") on classical clarinet! Even today when there are numerous women in all major orchestras, it is still unusual to see as many women in the brass section as those who are pictured in this film.


2:15pm -- Maisie Goes To Reno (1944)
On a trip to Reno, a Brooklyn showgirl tries to stop a soldier and his wife from divorcing.
Cast: Ann Sothern, John Hodiak, Tom Drake, Marta Linden
Dir: Harry Beaumont
BW-90 mins, TV-G

The eighth of ten movies starring Ann Sothern as the heroine Maisie Ravier.


4:00pm -- The Great Sinner (1949)
A young man succumbs to gambling fever.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston
Dir: Robert Siodmak
BW-110 mins, TV-PG

Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler.


6:00pm -- East Side, West Side (1949)
A chic New York couple is torn apart by a seductive model.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Van Heflin, Ava Gardner
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
BW-108 mins, TV-G

Based on the novel by Marcia Davenport.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: DIRECTED BY PETER WEIR


8:00pm -- The Last Wave (1977)
Cast: Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, David Gulpilil, Frederick Parslow
Dir: Peter Weir

Prior to the casting of Richard Chamberlain in the lead role, two Australian actors were considered. One was rejected and the other wasn't available. A short-list was made of six actors who had international recognition. Chamberlain was sent the script which he thought interesting but was at first cautious about making a film in a foreign country and with a director he was unfamiliar with. Peter Weir visited Chamberlain at the Broadway Theatre where he was starring in Night of the Iguana and the two clicked. Chamberlain was then screened Weir's previous film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) where the film had yet to be shown at all in the USA. Chamberlain liked this film and at some time soon after this, Chamberlain was signed.


10:00pm -- Gallipoli (1981)
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in World War I.
Cast: Mel Gibson, Diane Chamberlain, Saltbush Baldock, Sixteenth Air Defense Regiment (Sixteenth Air Defense Regiment)
Dir: Peter Weir
C-112 mins, TV-MA

One of the producers was media mogul Rupert Murdoch. His father, Keith, had been a journalist in World War I. He visited Gallipoli briefly in September 1915 and became an influential agitator against how the British top brass had conducted themselves during the battle.


12:00am -- Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
When a group of schoolgirls mysteriously disappear, the survivors find their lives changed forever.
Cast: Martin Vaughan, Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Vivean Gray
Dir: Peter Weir
C-107 mins, TV-14

Twelve of the schoolgirls were played by South Australians. Director Peter Weir wanted girls who were less influenced by the modern world to play the turn-of-the-century schoolgirls, and he found most of them from the more provincial Australian state of South Australia.


2:00am -- Daughter of Horror (1957)
This film, with no dialogue at all, follows a psychotic young woman's nightmarish experiences through one skid-row night.
Cast: Adrienne Barrett, Bruno VeSota, Ben Roseman
Dir: John Parker

The New York Board of Censorship had this movie banned from theaters for 3 years, and didn't release until 1958.


3:15am -- The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976)
A thirteen-year-old girl turns to murder after her father dies.
Cast: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman
Dir: Nicolas Gessner
C-92 mins, TV-MA

A significant role for Mort Shuman, who played Miglioriti. He is best known as half of the celebrated songwriting team of Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman. Their million seller hit list includes "Teenager In Love", "Save The Last Dance For Me", "This Magic Moment" and "Viva Las Vegas".


5:00am -- Time Out For Trouble (1961)
Filmmakers examine household accidents to determine their causes.
Cast: Bonnie Hammett, John Nesom, Stephen Bell.
Dir: David B. Glidden.
BW-19 mins, TV-PG

Produced under the direction of the Mental Hygiene Division of the Oklahoma State Department of Health.


5:30am -- Mental Hospital (1953)
A schizophrenic enters the Oklahoma State Hospital for treatment.
Dir: Layton Maybrey.
BW-20 mins

"Recognizable personages appearing in this film are not patients in a mental institution." (According to Dwight Swain, patients were played by producers, crew and friends, since actual patients weren't legally competent to sign talent releases.)

[Staph]

1. Gallipoli (1981)

"Gallipoli is the great Australian story," says Australian historian Bill Gammage. In 1915, a mere 14 years after the former British colony became an independent nation, an all-volunteer army of Australian and New Zealand citizens (ANZAC) joined the British to fight in Europe and were deployed in the invasion of Turkey by sea. It stalled before it had a chance to begin: troops were pinned down on the beaches and casualties were high as assaults failed in the face of difficult terrain, a tenacious enemy and poor coordination among the units. Anzac Day is still observed in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate the failed campaign.

Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981) recreates not just the battle but the culture patriotism and dreams of glory that inspired thousands of Australian men to enlist for a European war that otherwise had no effect on the island nation. It explores and challenges the mythology that has grown up around this defining event, celebrated in history books and song as a heroic display of courage in the face of overwhelming odds; Gallipoli was Australia's Alamo, where a kind of victory is found in military defeat. In the words of Weir scholar Marek Haltof, it was "for Australia, the baptism of fire and, consequently, the birth of a nation." That's an ambitious undertaking for Weir, coming off of acclaimed low-budget films like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977), and for the fledgling Australian film industry which was just beginning to find international success for its national cinema.

To bring it down to human terms, Weir and screenwriter David Williamson built their story around two men: Archy Hamilton, an 18-year-old star runner inspired to enlist through idealism and adventure, and Frank Dunne, older, more experienced and more cynical about the surge of patriotic sentiment. "It's not our bloody war," he argues. "It's an English war. It has nothing to do with us." But he signs on anyway, hoping to land a spot with Archy in the Light Horseman (despite the fact that he can't ride) and perhaps come home with a promotion and a career. They hop trains and hike across the outback of Western Australia to reach Perth and end up in another desert, training in the shadows of the great Pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt, before they are deployed on the fateful invasion. The invasion itself occupies the final, fatal act of Gallipoli.

Mel Gibson had starred in Mad Max (1979) but was not yet a star when he was cast in the central role of Frank, the wise-guy city boy who befriends country boy Archy. Mark Lee was essentially cast as Archy from a photo session that the producers put together to illustrate the vision for potential investors. Their easy friendship, born of mutual respect (both are amateur athletes) and shared trials on the journey through the Australian desert, centers the drama; they are just a couple of mates who head off for a grand adventure and lose their innocence in the brutal grinder of war. Bill Hunter delivers the film's most measured performance as Major Barton, commander of the Light Horseman brigade. Both tough and paternal, he sees how the British commanders dismiss the Australian brigades as "rude and undisciplined" and understands that his men have been sacrificed as cannon fodder to cover the offensive of the more valuable British troops. Still, he's also a loyal soldier who follows his orders, no matter how misguided.

Weir was initially inspired to make this film after visiting the Gallipoli Memorial in Turkey in 1976, but his research (which included letters and diaries from the soldiers as well as advice from historian Bill Gammage) found the true story more ambivalent than the myth he had grown up with. That guided his treatment of the story and his portrait of the battle as a senseless slaughter, and informs his contrast between the easy-going, affable Australian rubes and the proper British officers who prize discipline and obedience to orders, no matter what the reality is on the ground.

Gallipoli became the biggest homegrown Australian production to that time. Funding was secured via a partnership between music mogul Robert Stigwood and Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch (whose father was at Gallipoli). While the production traveled to Egypt to capture the scenes of the soldiers training and relaxing surrounded by the pyramids, most of the film was shot in Australia, with an isolated cliff-side beach in South Australia standing in for Gallipoli.

Gallipoli took home eight Australian Film Institute Awards in 1981, but more importantly to both the filmmakers and the Australian film industry, it was Weir's first film to receive wide distribution in the U.S. and it became an international hit. It helped carry director Peter Weir and actor Mel Gibson (who also made The Road Warrior in 1981) to international success and it showed that an Australian subject could have universal appeal. It also managed to celebrate the national myth of Gallipoli, which had romanticized the heroic tragedy of (in Weir's words) "the birth of our nation through a defeat." At the same time, it deflated the romantic notions of glory under fire to show the reality of Gallipoli and mourn the men who gave up their lives for a war they had no stake in.

Producers: Patricia Lovell, Robert Stigwood
Director: Peter Weir
Screenplay: David Williamson (screenplay); Peter Weir (story); Ernest Raymond (novel, uncredited)
Cinematography: Russell Boyd
Art Direction: Herbert Pinter
Music: Brian May
Film Editing: William Anderson
Cast: Mark Lee (Archy Hamilton), Bill Kerr (Jack), Harold Hopkins (Les McCann), Charles Yunupingu (Zac), Heath Harris (Stockman), Ron Graham (Wallace Hamilton), Gerda Nicolson (Rose Hamilton), Mel Gibson (Frank Dunne), Robert Grubb (Billy), Tim McKenzie (Barney).
C-112m. Letterboxed.

by Sean Axmaker

[CBHagman]

2. Wow. I didn't know about the Murdoch financing...

...to say nothing about his father's history. It humanizes Murdoch for me a bit.

When I was a university student a lot of the critically acclaimed Australian movies were playing the arthouses and the student union theater, and it was at the latter I saw Gallipoli -- something I'll never forget.