TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 11

[Staph]

It's a day full of award winners, with movies directed by Michael Curtiz and John Huston, and a Western-filled evening with Star of the Month Henry Fonda. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- MGM Parade Show #32 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon introduces clips from "The Swan" and Part One of "The Pirate" featuring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.
BW-26 mins, TV-G

The Swan was one of Grace Kelly's last movies before becoming Princess Grace - she plays a minor European princess in the early 20th century whose mother is trying to unhappily marry her to a crown prince, played by Alec Guinness. Filmed at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.


6:30 AM -- The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)
Two brothers love the same woman at a perilous Indian outpost.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, David Niven.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-116 mins, TV-G, CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Score -- Leo F. Forbstein (head of department), Score by Max Steiner, and Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD)

Won an Oscar for Best Assistant Director -- Jack Sullivan

During filming, director Michael Curtiz exclaimed "Bring on the empty horses!", meaning "riderless horses". David Niven would later use this phrase as the title of his autobiography.


8:30 AM -- Mildred Pierce (1945)
A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-111 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eve Arden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ann Blyth, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ranald MacDougall, and Best Picture

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford was not present at the awards ceremony and feigned illness that night. Meanwhile she listened to the show on the radio. When she won, she ushered the press into her bedroom, where she finally accepted her Oscar.


10:30 AM -- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Three prospectors fight off bandits and each other after striking-it-rich in the Mexican mountains.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt.
Dir: John Huston.
BW-126 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Huston, Best Director -- John Huston, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston

And when Angelica Huston won her Oscar in 1985 for Prizzi's Honor, the Huston's became the first family to win Oscars in three generations.


12:45 PM -- The Fountainhead (1949)
An idealistic architect battles corrupt business interests and his love for a married woman.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey.
Dir: King Vidor.
BW-113 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Hoping this film would make her a star, Warner Bros cast a relative unknown, 22-year-old Patricia Neal, after considering and then rejecting Bette Davis, Ida Lupino and Barbara Stanwyck for the female lead.


2:39 PM -- Short Film: So You'Re Going To Be A Father (1947)
One of a series of more than 60 how-to movies, starting with So You Want To Give Up Smoking (1942) and ending with So Your Wife Wants To Work (1956).
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Art Gilmore (narrator).
Dir: Richard L. Bare
BW-11 mins

It's 1947, so Joe and his wife have twin beds and she has the flattest belly of any pregnant woman ever, but a funny short.


3:00 PM -- The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
A gang of small time crooks plots an elaborate jewel heist.
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Marilyn Monroe.
Dir: John Huston.
BW-112 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sam Jaffe, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harold Rosson, Best Director -- John Huston, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Maddow and John Huston


5:00 PM -- The Red Badge Of Courage (1951)
A young Union soldier fights to atone for a moment of cowardice during the Civil War.
Cast: Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin, Royal Dano.
Dir: John Huston.
BW-69 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Director John Huston lost control of this picture when, over his objections, his bosses at MGM recut it, editing out over 20 minutes. Whole scenes, including one featuring Royal Dano, were discarded. Huston did not waste any time fighting over it, as he was focused on the pre-production of his next picture, The African Queen (1951). Lillian Ross wrote about the trials of producing "The Red Badge of Courage" in her book "Picture".


6:15 PM -- The Time Machine (1960)
A turn-of-the-century inventor sends himself into the future to save humanity.
Cast: Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Alan Young.
Dir: George Pal.
C-103 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Gene Warren and Tim Baar

Director George Pal was a close friend of fellow animator Walter Lantz, ever since Lantz did some cut-rate Woody Woodpecker work for Pal's Destination Moon (1950). As tribute, Pal tried to include Woody Woodpecker references in all his subsequent films. In the scenes where the Eloi are having a good time, every so often you can distinctly hear the "Woody Woodpecker" laugh.


What's On Tonight: STAR OF THE MONTH: HENRY FONDA


8:00 PM -- The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
A loner gets caught up in a posse's drive to find and hang three suspected rustlers.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn.
Dir: William A. Wellman.
BW-76 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Best Picture -- This was the last movie ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture which received no other Academy Award nominations.


9:30 PM -- My Name Is Nobody (1974)
An aging gunfighter's dreams of retirement are thwarted by a hero-worshipping young man.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Terence Hill, Leo Gordon.
Dir: Tonino Valerii.
C-111 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

This was Henry Fonda's last western.


11:30 PM -- Welcome To Hard Times (1967)
A broken-down sheriff tries to help his town stand against a mysterious outlaw.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Janice Rule, Keenan Wynn.
Dir: Burt Kennedy.
C-103 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

Originally made for television in 1966, but released to theaters instead, before being shown on TV.


1:15 AM -- The Rounders (1965)
Two ne'er-do-well cowpokes look for sex and easy money in the modern West.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Sue Ane Langdon.
Dir: Burt Kennedy.
C-85 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

I haven't seen this movie in decades, but I remember it as gently funny, with Fonda and Ford as two not-too-bright, down-on-their-luck cowpokes, just looking to earn a little money and find a couple of easy women.


2:45 AM -- Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)
A mail-order bride enlists an outlaw and a mystery man to help protect her land from a ruthless cattleman.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale.
Dir: Sergio Leone.
C-165 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Henry Fonda originally turned down a role in the picture. Director Sergio Leone flew to the United States and met with Fonda, who asked why he was wanted for the movie. Sergio replied, "Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera pans up to the gunman's face and... it's Henry Fonda."


5:31 AM -- Short Film: Trial By Trigger (1944)
California logger Bill Cardigan must save his stand of redwoods from being bought by unscrupulous Dan Fallon, a logging company owner from Michigan.
Cast: Robert Shayne, Cheryl Walker, Warner Anderson.
Dir: William C. McGann.
C-21 mins

The sixth episode in Warner Bros. Santa Fe Trail series of 2-reel Westerns.

[Staph]

1. The Ox-Bow Incident

Great Westerns, like all genre films worth their salt, are meticulously structured, and they feature a pretty short list of archetypal characters. It's accepted wisdom that "the lone gunman" and "the stranger with a secret" belong to the Old West, but such conceits are often co-opted to drive other kinds of pictures. Taxi Driver (1976) and Star Wars (1977), for instance, are direct descendants of John Ford's masterpiece, The Searchers (1956), and scores of tough-cop movies feature nothing more than gunslingers who prowl the town cleaning up corruption, just like the mustached sheriff did all those years ago. You can sense the frontier in them, even if it's sometimes drenched in neon. William Wellman's claustrophobic Western, The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), on the other hand, actually seems to have inspired Sidney Lumet's courtroom drama, 12 Angry Men (1957)!

Henry Fonda stars as a man who rides into an unfamiliar town and ends up witnessing an exceptionally ugly incident. When a rancher has apparently been murdered by a cattle rustler, a lynch mob sets out to seek "justice." When two suspects (Anthony Quinn and Dana Andrews) are gathered, the men swear that they're innocent. But mob rule, lead by a sadistic Army officer (Frank Conroy), prevails. A lynching does, in fact, take place, but the reading of a letter at the end of the film establishes whether or not the now-dead men were actually murderers. This story is played out in claustrophobic detail, with the various mob members coming to terms with their actions in such an intense situation...just as the conflicted jurors do in 12 Angry Men.

It takes a lot of chutzpa to shoot an almost completely inert Western, and Wellman had to do a lot of convincing to get The Ox-Bow Incident off the ground. The director had wanted to adapt Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel for the screen for years and he harangued Fox production head Darryl Zanuck until the mogul finally caved in. Wellman pointed out that he had successfully delivered social messages in the past, in such well-received films as The Public Enemy (1931) and A Star Is Born (1937). But Zanuck was concerned that the American public wasn't ready for a film that centered on lynching. Zanuck relented when Wellman happily agreed that he would also direct two far-less adventurous pictures for the producer- Thunder Birds (1942) and Buffalo Bill (1944).

Actually, Wellman had discussed making The Ox-Bow Incident in 1940, with producer Harold Hurley. But Hurley had a completely different sort of film in mind, one that would revolve around Mae West as a saloon hostess! When Hurley left Paramount, he sold Ox-bow's rights to Wellman for $6,500. "I bought the property from Harold Hurley," he later said, "after he had gotten into some sort of beef with the big boys and was relieved of his job...then I went to all the producers for whom I had worked and got turned down. Zanuck was the only one with the guts to do an out-of-the-ordinary story for the prestige, rather than the dough."

Some viewers had trouble with the fact that, although the last half of The Ox-Bow Incident is set outdoors, it obviously takes place on a soundstage. The mountains in the background, for instance, are clearly of the painted variety. Luckily, the intense performances ­ and Wellman's reliance on close-ups of his actors' faces ­ distract us from this obvious flaw, and the film remains a powerful viewing experience.

Directed by: William A. Wellman
Producer: Lamar Trotti
Screenplay: Lamar Trotti (based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark)
Cinematography: Arthur Miller
Editing: Allen McNeil
Set Design: Thomas Little and Frank E. Hughes
Costume Design: Earl Luick
Makeup: Guy Pearce
Cast: Henry Fonda (Gil Carter), Dana Andrews (Donald Martin), Mary Beth Hughes (Rose Mapen), Anthony Quinn (Juan Martinez), William Eythe (Gerald Tetley), Harry Morgan (Art Croft), Jane Darwell (Ma Grier), Matt Briggs (Judge Daniel Tyler), Harry Davenport (Arthur Davies), Frank Conroy (Maj. Tetley), Marc Lawrence (Farnley), Victor Kilian (Darby).
B&W-76m.

by Paul Tatara

[CBHagman]

2. Bumping for "The Ox-Bow Incident."

An utterly timeless film. I'd show it to high school students and members of Congress and anybody else I could round up.