TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 12 -- SHELLEY WINTERS

[lavenderdiva]

12 Saturday



6:00 AM Eve Knew Her Apples (1945)
A radio star tries to escape the limelight in the car trunk of a reporter who is eager for a story. Cast: Ann Miller, William Wright, Ray Walker. Dir: Will Jason. BW-64 mins, TV-G

7:08 AM Short Film: So You Think You'Re Not Guilty (1949)
A simple traffic violation turns into a 10-year jail sentence for Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon). Cast: George O'Hanlon, Ralph Sanford Dir: Richard L. Bare BW-11 mins,

7:26 AM Short Film: Presenting The Queen Of Taps Eleanor Power (2000)
BW-2 mins,

7:30 AM Reveille With Beverly (1943)
A tap-dancing lady disc jockey finds herself torn between a wealthy man and his former chauffeur. Cast: Ann Miller, William Wright, Dick Purcell. Dir: Charles Barton. BW-78 mins, TV-G

9:00 AM Private Screenings: Ann Miller (1997)
The screen's fastest-tapping lady dancer shares memories of her career. Hosted by Robert Osborne. Cast: Robert Osborne C-48 mins, TV-G, CC

10:00 AM Tanks a Million (1941)
A military man promoted to sergeant because of his photographic memory fights to prove his worth. Cast: William Tracy, James Gleason, Noah Beery, Jr. Dir: Fred Guiol. BW-50 mins, TV-G

11:00 AM Hay Foot (1942)
An Army colonel mistakenly thinks his assistant is a crack shot. Cast: William Tracy, Joe Sawyer, James Gleason. Dir: Fred Guiol. BW-47 mins, TV-G

11:55 AM Short Film: Janet Gaynor Bio (1962)
BW-4 mins,

12:00 PM Tarzan, The Ape Man (1932)
A British lord raised by apes kidnaps a beautiful noblewoman exploring Africa with her father. Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith. Dir: W.S. Van Dyke II. BW-100 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

1:48 PM Short Film: Willie And The Mouse (1941)
BW-11 mins,

2:00 PM The Buccaneer (1938)
French pirate Jean Lafitte tries to redeem his name helping the U.S. in the War of 1812. Cast: Fredric March, Franciska Gaal, Akim Tamiroff. Dir: Cecil B. De Mille. BW-126 mins, TV-G, CC

4:15 PM Clash Of The Titans (1981)
A Greek hero fights a series of monsters, including the dreaded gorgon, to win the woman he loves. Cast: Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Harry Hamlin. Dir: Desmond Davis. C-118 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

6:17 PM Short Film: A Word For The Greeks (1951)
In this "Traveltalk," we learn about the history, culture, and people of Greece. Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick C-8 mins,

6:30 PM Plunder of the Sun (1953)
Mexican Aztec ruins hold the secret of a long-buried treasure. Cast: Glenn Ford, Diana Lynn, Patricia Medina. Dir: John Farrow. BW-82 mins, TV-PG


What's On Tonight: THE ESSENTIALS: SHELLEY WINTERS

8:00 PM The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
A bogus preacher marries an outlaw's widow in search of the man's hidden loot. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. Dir: Charles Laughton. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

9:43 PM Short Film: The Woman In The House (1942)
BW-11 mins,

10:00 PM He Ran All the Way (1951)
A crook on the run hides out in an innocent girl's apartment. Cast: John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford. Dir: John Berry. BW-78 mins, TV-PG

11:30 PM Lolita (1962)
Vladimir Nabokov's racy classic focuses on an aging intellectual in love with a teenager. Cast: James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers. Dir: Stanley Kubrick. BW-154 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS

2:15 AM Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Desperate losers plan a bank robbery with unexpected results. Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame. Dir: Robert Wise. BW-96 mins, TV-PG

4:00 AM Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960)
Residents of a Chicago tenement join forces to save a troubled teen from a life of crime. Cast: Burl Ives, Shelley Winters, James Darren. Dir: Phillip Leacock. BW-106 mins, TV-G

[lavenderdiva]

1. Night Of The Hunter

Behind the Camera on THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

It was Robert Mitchum who originally suggested to Laughton that they film The Night of the Hunter in authentic Appalachian locations but the director couldn't afford the budget to do on-location shooting. Besides, he wanted to create the film's unique look on Hollywood sound stages and found what he was looking for at Pathe, Republic studios and the Rowland V. Lee ranch in the San Fernando Valley. Terry and Denis Sanders were dispatched to Ohio to film some second-unit material along the Ohio River.

Robert Mitchum never had a single regret from the minute he agreed to do The Night of the Hunter; he frequently stated over the years it was his best performance and Laughton was his best director. The admiration was mutual. Laughton, who thought Mitchum was "one of the best actors in the world," wrote in Esquire of the private man he knew to be different than the public image: "All this tough talk is a blind, you know. He's a literate, gracious, kind man, with wonderful manners, and he speaks beautifully - when he wants to. He's a tender man and a very great gentleman. You know, he's really terribly shy." Laughton was usually ill at ease with very macho men yet very comfortable with his star. In turn, Mitchum gave a performance that is rather uncharacteristically delicate and seductive, so much so that Lillian Gish feared the director and actor might be undercutting the character's evil. Laughton explained to her, half joking, that he didn't want to ruin Mitchum's future career by pushing him to play total evil, although the touches of humor in the character actually serve to play up the preacher's essentially ludicrous and haywire psychology. And Mitchum's borderline buffoonery makes the children's escape and eventual triumph over him more plausible. Mitchum's performance was seen as a change of pace for the actor, but notoriously unwilling or unable to accept praise for his work, he countered, "I haven't changed anything but my underwear."

With Mitchum on board, the main parts to cast were the children, their mother, and Rachel, the fairy godmother character. For the latter, Laughton wanted and got Gish, one of the most enduring legends of the screen. A combination of delicate grace and steely resolve, Gish had an almost Victorian purity that was perfect for the part. Casting her also confirmed the connection to one of Laughton's main inspirations for the film, D.W. Griffith, in whose pictures Gish had so often starred as a young actress during the silent era. (Laughton repeatedly ran and studied Griffith's films preparing for this picture.) At their initial meeting, Gish asked him why he wanted her for the part; he replied, "When I first went to the movies, they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward. Now they slump down, with their heads back, and eat candy and popcorn. I want them to sit up straight again."

Shelley Winters started her film career being stereotyped as the blonde "babe," but her casting against type as the mousy factory girl in A Place in the Sun (1951) - and the resulting Supporting Actress Oscar nomination she received - convinced directors she had much more to offer. She had occasionally studied acting with Laughton and to Mitchum's considerable dismay, he cast her as the young widowed mother who falls under Harry's spell. "Shelley defeats herself a lot," Mitchum said years later on the Today show, commenting on her reputation for throwing tantrums on movie sets. "She's so self-conscious and so insecure that she visits it on other people, which is unfortunate for her....Shelley got what she deserved, lying there dead at the bottom of the river." Nevertheless, Mitchum was so trustful of Laughton that he put aside his differences with his co-star. As for Winters, she stated that this was "the most thoughtful and reserved performance I ever gave."

Mitchum's faith in the project also helped skirt another potential production problem: Laughton apparently loathed the child actors. Mitchum tried explaining to Billy Chapin (in the key role of John) that he needed to better understand his character and his relationship to the preacher. Chapin, who had a reputation for brattiness, replied, "That's probably why I just won the New York Critics Circle prize." Laughton bellowed, "Get that child away from me!" and from then on Mitchum patiently directed the boy in their scenes together.

According to writer Lee Server in his biography, Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care, Mitchum's "devotion to Laughton and the project had begun to fade by the final week of the thirty-six-day shoot. Gregory: "Laughton had a keen thing for Mitchum, and Mitchum said all this sh*t about how he loved Charles, but he was on drugs, drunk, and what have you, and there were times when Charles couldn't get him in front of the camera. He put us through a lot of hell on that. The picture went two hundred thousand dollars over budget." To Gregory, Mitchum at times seemed uncomfortably like the character he was playing. "He was a charmer. An evil son of a bitch with a lot of charm. Mitch sort of scared me, to tell you the truth. I was always on guard. He was often in a state, and you never knew what he would do next. He would be drunk or in a fight with this flunky he kept around, and kicking him all over the place. I came from the world of the theatre and I had never seen anyone quite like this."

Despite these occasional difficulties (Mitchum's drinking, Winters' tantrums, the children's lack of experience), the working atmosphere on The Night of the Hunter was, by all accounts, not only harmonious but inspiring. Laughton had chosen famed cinematographer Stanley Cortez to shoot the picture. Known for his advanced procedures in capturing images and mood, Cortez was happy to explain to the director, every Sunday for six weeks before shooting began, all the technical aspects of the trade. But soon, he said, the student became the instructor, "not in terms of knowing about the camera but in terms of what he had to say, his ideas for the camera." The two spurred each other on with a collaborative and often unconventional approach. Cortez often took his pictorial inspiration from music, and he suggested the valse triste to be played on the soundtrack for the scene when Harry murders Willa. He later said that apart from Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), the most exciting experience he had working in cinema was on The Night of the Hunter and that Laughton was the only other director besides Welles who understood his approach to capturing light on film.

In the Lee Server biography of Robert Mitchum, the author described the creation of the famous underwater sequence with Willa's body at the bottom of the river: "To reveal the dead Shelley Winters seated in her car underwater, Laughton desired a bright, ethereal image, her hair floating like seaweed, and a slow, unbroken camera movement rising to the water's surface. Cortez went all over town trying to find a water tank that his lights could penetrate sufficiently, settling on the one owned by Republic Pictures. A platform suspended by a crane held eight blinding Titan sun arcs. Wind machines had to be carefully employed to blow the hair and weeds without making waves. The camera operator and an assistant worked underwater in scuba gear. The amazingly lifelike dead Shelley Winters was a wax dummy."

"Every day the marvelous team that made that picture would meet and discuss the next day's work," Cortez said. "It was designed from day to day in fullest detail, so that the details seemed fresh, fresher than if we had done the whole thing in advance." Gish echoed the sentiment: "I have to go back as far as Griffith to find a set so infused with purpose and harmony....There was never a moment's doubt as to what we were doing or how we were doing it. To please Charles Laughton was our aim. We believed in him and respected him. Totally."

It's all the more heartbreaking, then, that the picture failed so miserably at the box office and that Laughton was, as many people observed, destroyed by its poor reception. Gregory said the main problem during production was United Artists executive Bert Allenberg, who cast Mitchum in the higher-profile, big-budget picture Not as a Stranger (1955), knowing full well director Stanley Kramer planned to start shooting before The Night of the Hunter was finished. The action disrupted the filming, forcing Mitchum to return to Laughton's set on Sundays while they shot around him the rest of the week. Those involved have also said United Artists disrupted the film's chances at the box office by burying it while heavily promoting Not as a Stranger.

by Rob Nixon & Jeff Stafford

[CBHagman]

2. I've said it before, but it bears repeating.

I wish Charles Laughton had lived to see what a classic he made in The Night of the Hunter. What a beautiful piece of work.

[Longhorn]

3. I'm going to have to record this.

I don't think I've ever seen it! Thanks! :hi:

[lavenderdiva]

4. somehow I missed this one too-

I'm watching it now, much to Mr. ld's chagrin.

[CBHagman]

5. Well, at least he's there to help you lock all the windows/doors.

At least that's how I feel when watching The Night of the Hunter. I'm so glad I didn't see it when I was a kid. :scared:

[lavenderdiva]

6. I really enjoyed it-

I thought Charles Laughton's direction of the movie was absolutely superb. There were so many beautifully orchestrated shots throughout the movie, not to mention the storyline and the wonderfully acted characters! The shot of Shelley Winters in the car under the water, with the flowing grasses intermingling with her hair- The shot of the kids upstairs in the barn, and in the far distance the silhouetted Robert Mitchum on horseback... There are many, many others as well. Its a real shame that Laughton didn't direct any other movies after this-- its our loss. What a gifted man.

[CBHagman]

7. EVERYONE talks about the Shelley Winters shot.

I don't know if you heard Robert Osborne's chat with Rose McGowan after the movie, but that image of Shelley Winters was one of the key topics of conversation.

I just love Lillian Gish in this, too, because she keeps everything so grounded. That bizarre duet she does with Robert Mitchum (I think it's "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms") won't leave my mind any time soon, nor will the sound of Mitchum calling, "Chiiiildren."

[lavenderdiva]

8. that duet WAS bizarre!

I couldn't really figure out the meaning of it, other than to contrast her being a real Christian, and his perverse imitation of it. Yes, I did listen to the conversation of Rose McGowan and Robert Osborne, and I thought it interesting that Lillian Gish was the 2nd choice for Laughton for that part. I am so glad he changed his mind and went with Gish. Her being so slight and frail really added to the suspense. However, her strength of character was wonderful; I could tell you didn't want to tangle with her. In the scene where the children float up in front of her house, I loved the scene then because there was a mother duck leading her babies, and she looked just like that when she was leading the children to the bus station at the end. My question is: did she and the children get to keep the money that was in the doll, and was that how they were able to buy the bus tickets and/or the christmas presents??? just wondering....