TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 26 -- LAZSLO KOVACS

[lavenderdiva]

26 Saturday



6:00 AM The Search (1948)
An American soldier in post-war Europe becomes attached to a homeless child. Cast: Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon. Dir: Fred Zinnemann. BW-104 mins, TV-PG, CC

7:45 AM Short Film: In The Valley Of The Rhine (1953)
C-8 mins,

8:00 AM Casey's Shadow (1978)
A young boy from a racing family tries to turn his pet horse into a champion. Cast: Walter Matthau, Alexis Smith, Robert Webber. Dir: Martin Ritt. C-117 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

10:00 AM Yanks Ahoy (1943)
Feuding sergeants wreak havoc on the Navy. Cast: William Tracy, Joe Sawyer, Marjorie Woodworth. Dir: Kurt Neumann. BW-58 mins, TV-G

11:00 AM Here Comes Trouble (1948)
A newspaper publisher and his ace reporter try to solve the murder of a blackmailing stripper. Cast: Bill Tracy, Joe Sawyer, Betty Compson. Dir: Fred Guiol. BW-54 mins, TV-G

12:00 PM Hondo (1954)
An Army man takes a widow and her son under his wing in Apache territory. Cast: John Wayne, Geraldine Page, Ward Bond. Dir: John Farrow. C-84 mins, TV-PG, CC

1:30 PM Wake Of The Red Witch (1949)
A captain fights a Dutch shipping magnate for a treasure and the heart of a beautiful woman. Cast: John Wayne, Gail Russell, Gig Young. Dir: Edward Ludwig. BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC

3:30 PM Brannigan (1975)
A Chicago police detective has to bring a crook home from London. Cast: John Wayne, Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson. Dir: Douglas Hickox. C-111 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

5:30 PM The Natural (1984)
An overaged baseball player comes out of nowhere to save his team. Cast: Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger. Dir: Barry Levinson. C-138 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

What's On Tonight: THE ESSENTIALS: LAZSLO KOVACS

8:00 PM Paper Moon (1973)
A fraudulent bible salesman reluctantly adopts a tough little girl who could be his daughter. Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn. Dir: Peter Bogdanovich. BW-102 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

10:00 PM Huckleberry Finn (1974)
Mark Twain's famed tale of a Missouri bad boy who helps a runaway slave escape to the North. Cast: Jeff East, Paul Winfield, David Wayne. Dir: J. Lee-Thompson. C-114 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

12:15 AM New York, New York (1977)
A jazz musician and a singer fight and love their way through the show biz world of the late forties. Cast: Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, Lionel Stander. Dir: Martin Scorsese. C-163 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

3:00 AM Scorsese on Scorsese (2004)
Director Martin Scorsese discusses his career and film clips in an interview. BW-86 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

4:30 AM Boxcar Bertha (1972)
A union leader enlists his girlfriend in a plot to get back at the railroad's evil management. Cast: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus. Dir: Martin Scorsese. C-88 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

[lavenderdiva]

1. Why 'Paper Moon' is Essential:

Why PAPER MOON is Essential

Based on the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown, Paper Moon was Peter Bogdanovich's last popular success before a string of flops like Daisy Miller (1974), At Long Last Love (1975), and Nickelodeon (1976) made him box-office poison in the mid-seventies. It's hard to say why he went off the tracks on those subsequent productions but Paper Moon is a winner all the way, from its evocative black and white cinematography that perfectly captures the Midwest during the Depression to the vintage soundtrack which includes tunes performed by Ozzie Nelson, Hoagy Carmichael, and Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.

Bogdanovich, who was a film critic before he became a filmmaker, was heavily influenced by the work of Howard Hawks and John Ford and you can see their influence throughout this film; the humor has the sharpness of Hawks' best comedies while the characters and settings recall the work of Ford and his affection for rural America. In fact, there is a homage to Ford in the scene where Moses and Addie are in a diner and across the street, the movie house is playing Ford's Steamboat 'Round the Bend (1935).

Originally, Paul Newman and his daughter, Nell Potts, were to star in Paper Moon with John Huston as the director but the project fell through. Luckily, the assignment fell to Peter Bogdanovich who cast Ryan O'Neal and his daughter Tatum. It was Tatum's first film role and, from most reports, she was difficult on the set. Bogdanovich said later that working with Tatum O'Neal was "one of the most miserable experiences of my life." Nevertheless, the end result won Tatum the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, making her the youngest actress to ever win that award. The other Academy Award nominations for Paper Moon were for Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress Madeline Kahn who almost steals the movie with her sad-funny portrayal of Trixie Delight, a pathetic carnival stripper.

By Jeff Stafford


Trivia for Paper Moon (1973)

- Originally starred Paul Newman and daughter Nell Potts, but this changed when original director John Huston bowed out and was replaced by Peter Bogdanovich.

- The character of Addie is one of only two Oscar-winning roles played by two Oscar-winning performers: Tatum O'Neal in the theatrical film and Jodie Foster in the Paramount/ABC TV series. The other such role is Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and Robert De Niro in Godfather: Part II, The (1974).

- When Addie is going to meet Moses and a businessman on the corner (near the end of the film) she walks out of the hotel and does a little skip before hitting the street. According to Bogdanovich, Tatum O'Neal was very proud of this little skip - she thought of it on her own.

- Bogdanovich has said that the long, one-take sequence where Addie and Moze fight in the car about running out of Bibles took 2 days and 39 takes to get right. It was shot on a one-mile stretch of road just before hitting a very modern portion of the town, so each time a line was flubbed, they would have to turn everything around and drive back.

[CBHagman]

2. Paper Moon.

I have rather fond memories of going to see that on my own. I think it was the first time in my life I'd seen a movie without family or friends.

And it would be wrong to have a discussion of Paper Moon without mentioning Madeline Kahn's brief but winning comic performance.

[lavenderdiva]

3. you are SO right, CBH

about Madeleine Kahn's performance. I didn't realize until I posted the background on the film, that both Tatum O'Neal and Madeline Kahn were nominated that year for Best Supporting Actress. Personally, I think her performance should have won!

[CBHagman]

4. Love that quotation, lavenderdiva.

And where do you keep getting all these great retro images?

[lavenderdiva]

5. Thanks, CBH-

I was looking for something reminiscent of a crescent moon to pay homage to 'Paper Moon'. I googled images of crescent moons and eventually found this great graphic! Google images has some great graphics hidden waaayyyy back after the first few pages....

I loved the quote too! :hi: