TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 24 -- Employee Picks

[Staph]

It's still TCM employees' choice month. Their employees have impeccable taste in films. One of them had the uncanny prescience to choose Elizabeth Taylor's second Oscar-winning film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
When his girl commits murder, a hardened criminal takes the rap to protect her honor.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Lyle Talbot.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-78 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

Writer Lewis E. Lawes was still warden of Sing Sing prison during filming and allowed the crew to film inside and outside the prison, including mob scenes.


7:30 AM -- The Cat and the Fiddle (1934)
A struggling composer courts a singing star.
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Novarro, Charles Butterworth.
Dir: William K. Howard.
BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

This movie was rejected for re-release certification because the leading characters were in an illicit sexual relationship without any compensating moral values.


9:00 AM -- Broadway Gondolier (1935)
A taxi driver travels to Venice and poses as a gondolier to land a radio singing job.
Cast: Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Joan Blondell.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon.
BW-99 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

The only film to feature both excerpts from Rigoletto and the Harry Warren/Al Dubin song Flagenheim's Odorless Cheese.


10:45 AM -- The Perfect Gentleman (1935)
A retired military man helps an actress make a comeback.
Cast: Frank Morgan, Cicely Courtneidge, Heather Angel.
Dir: Tim Whelan.
BW-72 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

Edward Childs Carpenter's play was written specifically as a stage show for Frank Morgan but was never produced. It was copyrighted 28 January 1929.


12:00 PM -- There Goes The Groom (1937)
A young man strikes it rich in the Alaskan gold mines, then faces romantic complications when he returns home.
Cast: Ann Sothern, Burgess Meredith, Mary Boland.
Dir: Joseph Santley.
BW-65 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on a story by David Garth, who went on to have a long acting career, primarily in television (including an appearance as a Time Lord in Doctor Who, with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor).


1:15 PM -- Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938)
A millionaire courts a working-class woman.
Cast: Lew Ayres, Ruth Hussey, Robert Young.
Dir: Reinhold Schunzel.
BW-72 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

This was an adaptation of a Broadway play titled "White Collars" by Edith Ellis. The original stage production opened at the Cort Theatre in New York on Feb. 23, 1925 and ran for 104 performances. There was an earlier film adaptation called The Idle Rich (1929) starring Conrad Nagel, Bessie Love, Leila Hyams and Robert Ober.


2:30 PM -- Honolulu (1939)
A movie star trades places with a Hawaiian plantation owner.
Cast: Robert Young, George Burns, Gracie Allen.
Dir: Edward Buzzell.
BW-84 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Final film appearance of George Burns and Gracie Allen together.


4:00 PM -- Kitty Foyle (1940)
A girl from the wrong side of the tracks endures scandal and heartbreak when she falls for a high-society boy.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, Gladys Cooper.
Dir: Sam Wood.
BW-108 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ginger Rogers

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg(RKO Radio SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Dalton Trumbo, and Best Picture

After Ginger Rogers' Oscar win for this film, she returned to RKO and was greeted by staffers and actors in top hats and tails.


6:00 PM -- Strange Cargo (1940)
Devil's Island escapees are changed forever by a prisoner who thinks he's Jesus.
Cast: Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Ian Hunter.
Dir: Frank Borzage.
BW-113 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

Joan Crawford and Clark Gable shot a scene where they are running through the marshlands. At one point, they pass a snake hanging in a tree. After they shot the scene once, Joan suddenly realized that the snake was real. "That son-of-a-b**th is alive!". When informed that the snake's mouth had been tied shut with a rubber band, she said "And what happens if the f**king rubber band snaps!" and refused to shoot the scene again.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: EMPLOYEE PICKS



8:00 PM -- On the Waterfront (1954) {Mira J. Koplovsky, Legal}
A young stevedore takes on the mobster who rules the docks.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger.
Dir: Elia Kazan.
BW-108 mins, TV-PG,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eva Marie Saint, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Boris Kaufman, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Film Editing -- Gene Milford, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Budd Schulberg, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee J. Cobb, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Rod Steiger, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Leonard Bernstein

In his biography of Elia Kazan, Richard Schickel describes how Kazan used a ploy to entice Marlon Brando to do the movie. He had Karl Malden direct a scene from the film with an up-and-coming fellow actor from the Actors Studio playing the Terry Malloy lead role. They figured the competitive Brando would not be eager to see such a major role handed to some new screen heartthrob. The ploy worked, especially since the competition had come in the form of a guy named Paul Newman.


10:00 PM -- Ninotchka (1939) {Dennis Camlek, Turner Media Group}
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch.
BW-111 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

The tagline "Garbo laughs!" came before the screenplay was written; the film was built around that single, now legendary, slogan.


12:00 AM -- Waterloo Bridge (1940) {Gary Freedman, TCM Studio Production}
A ballerina turns to prostitution when her fiance is reported killed in World War I.
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, Lucile Watson.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy.
BW-109 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and
Best Music, Original Score -- Herbert Stothart

Of all the classic Hollywood films ever made, this somewhat obscure title happens to be one of the most popular in China, especially among college students. There are even audio guides for students to practice their English by reciting dialogue from this film. The reason for why this particular film has become so endeared among the Chinese is anyone's guess. One possibility is that the popularity of Gone with the Wind (1939) in China led many to seek other movies starring Vivien Leigh.


2:00 AM -- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) {Emily Boyd, Turner Media Group}
An academic couple reveal their deepest secret to a pair of newcomers during an all-night booze fest.
Cast: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis.
Dir: Mike Nichols.
BW-131 mins, TV-MA,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor was not present at the awards ceremony. Anne Bancroft accepted the award on her behalf.), Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Sandy Dennis (Sandy Dennis was unable to attend the Academy Awards presentations, because she was working on a new film, Sweet November (1968), being shot in New York.), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Sylbert and George James Hopkins, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Haskell Wexler, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Irene Sharaff

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Richard Burton, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Segal, Best Director -- Mike Nichols, Best Film Editing -- Sam O'Steen, Best Music, Original Music Score -- Alex North, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Ernest Lehman, and Best Picture

The MPAA insisted on the removal of the term "screw you" from the film where it was replaced with the term "God damn you" but allowed the terms "screw" and "hump the hostess" to remain in the film.


4:30 AM -- Synanon (1965)
Inmates at an innovative drug treatment center fight to kick heroin.
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Alex Cord, Stella Stevens.
Dir: Richard Quine.
C-104 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format